Cupid (DNF + Karlnap)

Chapter 30: Pick Up

Karl POV.

My appearance left me feeling somewhat disheartened. I wasn’t one to usually dress as sloppily as I did now, with an untucked shirt, some scruffy pants, and my hair not kept in position with some gel and angelic magic. It was the goal though to not look nice, but there was a line between looking messy and looking like a slob.

“You look great.” Sapnap hummed, face brushing against the back of my neck in a loving nuzzle. “Like an angel.”
“I am an angel.” I reminded him. “But I don’t look great. This feels a little bit too far Sapnap, I mean actively looking like this.”

He sighed, knowing that I wasn’t going to say or do anything other than that. “You know you look incredible my loving dove, regardless of how sloppy you believe that you are.” We turned and embraced without exchanging any other words. We only let go of one another when there was a knock on the door.

Before he hid himself, my soulmate took a moment to brush down my shirt. “Enjoy your date.” He spoke smugly, yet there was also a lot of care under the surface. “Make sure George is grossed out enough that he won’t ask for a second date.”

“I’ll try.” I nodded, my lips pressed into a straight line while we looked into each other’s eyes. A second knock, shocking me as it felt as though it had only been a second. “Sorry George, I’m on my way.” I called out to him quickly, having one last lingering look at my boyfriend

When I opened the door George was standing there looking anxious and eager. “Hey.” He greeted, lowering his gaze and refusing to make eye contact with me. I felt my brows furrow as I saw him, sensing a disheartened emotion running through him. While he was looking away I glanced back, seeing Sapnap standing and watching us.

“Are you okay?” I asked him, surprisingly shocking the brunette who hadn’t realised that he was acting like this. He cleared his throat and took a few moments before nodding.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He reassured. He moved his hand after giving me the answer and offered out a bouquet of flowers, with me getting cautious when I saw they were roses.

“Oh George.” I let out a slight gasp, guilt continuing to build up. After getting a gift that was so important and had such significance when it came to romance. Even though I was planning on turning him down and making him feel repulsed by me (speaking of which he hadn’t made a comment about my outfit yet), I swooned at the comment.

“Anyway, I found a restaurant that serves food from my home country that I hope that you will enjoy.” He began explaining, leading me away from my room and down the stairs. The house felt empty, as though Dream and Techno had both left the house at some point during the day, although I knew that they hadn’t.

Then I thought back to his statement. “But… aren’t you British?” I remembered that bit of information we had been given before we met them. From what I knew of the human world from my experiences, there usually weren’t many British restaurants around, instead with them being much more focused on other European food styles.

“How did you know I was British?” He asked, answering the question that I had with another question which was admittedly a reasonable one.
“Your accent.” I gave a shrug, despite the fact he was not looking at me.
“Fair enough.” He nodded.

He continued to walk, leading me to the garage before pausing with his brows furrowing. “Do you… know how to drive?” The brunette looked over at me awkwardly. Seeing that made the emotions inside of me muddle themselves up. He had asked me on a date and now he was wanting me to drive us to a date.

“Yes I know how to drive.” Any angel who went to the human world was trained in all sorts of skills back in our Utopia, with one of them being driving. Still it felt bad that I was having to drive myself to a date that had been organised for me, when I already had a soulmate that was waiting for me in my room.

Cautiously I took the keys that he handed me and got myself in the driver's seat. I decided to start the ‘acting cold’ persona, gripping onto the wheel tightly and refusing to look towards him as I reversed out of the garage and drove out of the house. The only time I acknowledged him was when taking directions.

The mood was already tense and we’d only been interacting for ten minutes at most, it was so bad that at this point I was considering turning the car around and going back home. This just felt like a bad idea, it reeked of future failure and I was unsure how I had allowed my soulmate to talk me into this.

“Karl?” I glanced over at the sound of my name, my lips pressing into a line and fear running through me that perhaps George had somehow heard my thoughts and knew that I was second-guessing this date and all of the planning we had done would be ruined.
“Yes George?” My voice was almost a pathetic squeak when I spoke.

“You… um missed a turn.” He informed me, motioning to the left where I was supposed to go. I muttered out a grumble at my stupidity before apologising to him. “It’s fine.” George smiled awkwardly. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes, I am feeling perfectly fine.” I gave a nod, continuing to fear that perhaps he was looking right through me. As though I was made of nothing but glass.
“Okay, just checking.” He then hesitated. “You seemed to be thinking about something, as though you were annoyed.”

“I am annoyed.” I answered honestly. About this whole thing. About the fact that Sapnap and I decided to take this job when we had worked case after case without a break for the last decade at least. About the fact that we decided to pretend we weren’t dating so we had something in common with George and Clay. About the fact George had a crush on me for no clear reason.

“...because you are terrible at giving directions.” I added on, covering all of my thought vomit.
“I’m sorry.” George spoke warily, his gaze going down to the phone in his hand. “You just need to take another left up here… it’ll just take an extra minute for us to arrive.”
“All good.” I nodded briefly.
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1136 words

Messy hair on a date is too mean in Karl's opinion. Do you agree?