persona || paige bueckers

Chapter 17 - Paige's POV

The first time Paige Bueckers met Kazzi Kovers, she thought the other utterly despised her.

Paige was confused, to say the least, wondering how she had offended someone she didn't even know. She chalked it up to basketball – maybe Kazzi supported a team she shamelessly destroyed in the past, or maybe Kazzi was part of a team she shamelessly destroyed in the past. That seemed like a pretty valid reason for all the hate.

Paige never bit back, priding herself in self-control. Kazzi's barbed words were never particularly harmful anyway, so Paige ignored her and hoped the other would stop bothering her. 

That was until one day, where her annoyance boiled over.

She was having an awful day. She woke up from a bad dream that left her shivering in bed, before remembering that she had forgotten to hand in an assignment yesterday night, meaning it was now overdue. Morning practice was grueling, her focus was all over the place – reflected in the shots she took. The missed balls only added to her frustration, and she walked into class at her wits end. She barely registered Kazzi's presence, trying to lull herself into a false sense of peace.

All it took was a couple words from Kazzi, and Paige blew up.

"Oh my gosh, can you shut the fuck up?" Paige snapped, turning her head to shoot Kazzi a heated glare. The other flinched, stiffening and jaw going slack. Paige thought Kazzi would fight back, maybe they were about to start an argument then and there in the middle of class, but Paige found that she didn't really care. She would take anything as an outlet for her anger right now.

What she didn't expect was Kazzi being stunned into blissful silence, her cheeks suspiciously red and eyes starstruck. Paige was thrown in for a loop, confused as to why this girl was staring like that.

It hit her all at once, and she thought, oh, this girl likes me. Kazzi's awed expression made a lot more sense now that the final puzzle piece clicked in place, and Paige resisted the urge to laugh. Kazzi was still looking at Paige like the blonde hung the stars, and she couldn't resist curling her lips into a smirk.

"Like what you see, Kovers?"

Okay, maybe she shouldn't flirt with someone she was explicitly interested in. But can you blame her? Kazzi spent months tormenting her and for what – her gay panic? Nevertheless, Paige was flattered she was someone's gay awakening, especially one violent enough to warrant consistently getting attacked, it did wonders for her ego.

Kazzi blushed furiously, mouth opening and closing before she managed to stammer out, "Fuck off."

Paige snorted, returning her attention to her book. Kazzi kept sneaking glances at her during class, and Paige pretended not to notice. She found it endlessly amusing that Kazzi had insulted her this whole time because she found her attractive, turning the idea in her head and pondering how to deal with this predicament in the future.

The answer was fire back, but flirtingly. It started off as a semi-joke, Paige wanted to see Kazzi flush angrily and try to fight her attraction, wanting to see when she would cave. It worked the first couple times, whenever Kazzi would start something, Paige gave as good as she took, leaving the other a blushing mess and in shambles. Paige liked the visible effect she had on her, and it was so painfully obvious that she found it endearing.

Kazzi unfortunately adapted, though, and it slowly got harder to reduce her to the previous state. Then Paige started noticing the little things, the way Kazzi's tongue curled around her last name – 'Bueckers' – the sound replaying in her dreams, the way Kazzi's eyes sparkled despite the rest of her face scowling – exposing her, the way Kazzi kept staring – it was addictive.

And when Paige purposefully searched for the girl just to start another argument? Well, she was mature enough to admit that she was – just slightly – attracted to Kovers.

To her utter disappointment, taking that girl out on a date was surprisingly harder than she thought. She didn't want to just straight up confess – she wasn't scared of being rejected, rather she was worried Kazzi hasn't exactly come to terms with being gay. If she was still bantering with Paige, it was likely Kazzi hadn't accepted her attraction, and Paige didn't want to scare her off.

She thought maybe shifting their relationship dynamic to a more friendly, flirty one would work, but that was really difficult when Kazzi didn't stop fighting, and Paige always ended up firing back. They were at a stalemate, and Paige had no idea how to go about this.

She was moping one day when she stumbled across a fan account. She read the tweet and laughed, liking it. She was about to move on when her eyes caught sight of the username, @ktalksazz, and her heart thumped. She wasted no time clicking onto the page, scrolling through hundreds of tweets – all about her – and wondered what if?

She wasn't exactly assuming, the username was very similar to a certain someone's name, but Paige had no way of telling. And if this was really Kazzi, then boy was she wrong about the other not coming into terms with her attraction. She was very in terms with her attraction, it seems.

Maybe Paige was projecting, but something compelled her to interact with this fanpage. To follow, to reply in hopes that this was the girl who sat two seats away from her and always came prepared to argue. She could see some similarities in the words she used, but the similarities ended there as the personalities were far too different for Paige to wrap her head around.

Much to Paige's disappointment, Kazzi didn't come confessing everything to her, which would allow them to kiss and run off into the sunset together. Paige really did wonder if everything was worth it if the girl was just so stubborn.

But as they entered the new pasta place, and Kazzi's companion introduced herself as "Lili", Paige's world spun to a halt.

She recalled someone by the name of "Lili Valdez" consistently replying to @ktalksazz's tweets, and she felt like the air had been punched out of her as she stared – wide eyed at Kazzi Kovers.

It was too much of a coincidence, and when Kazzi caught her eye, the other's face turning as white as a sheet – well, let's just say that from this incident alone, Kazzi successfully broke Paige Bueckers.