Jax x Reader ~Enemies to Lovers~

Chapter Six: Are you okay?

My eyes fluttered open, finally grasping the world around me from the night of slumber I slowly started waking up from. Sitting up, I swung my legs over the bed, planting my feet firmly on the f/c carpeted ground. Standing up, I knew today was probably going to be another tiring day, certainly with Jax on my tail for who knows how long.

Though, last night was a bit concerning. I don't know why, but it made me feel uneasy. Though, knowing Jax, he was probably fine and was simply tired or some shit. So I tried not letting it concern me that much as my hand touched the doorknob, slowly turning the knob and pushing the door forward.

With a loud creaking noise, I stepped outside and into the hallway and closed the door softly behind me. Looking over across from me, Jax didn't seem to leave his room at the same time like he usually does. My heart started rapping in my chest as I felt conflicted. I wanted to go over there and see if he was just oversleeping or whatever, but my head decided against it.

Turning on my heels, I left the hallway and stepped into the main area of the tent, where all of the others were--excluding Jax. Once they saw me, Ragatha waved me over, making me jog over to the group.

"Hey Y/N! How did you sleep?" She questioned with her usual soft smile.

With a shrug, I replied. "It was fine. What about you?"

"It was good, thanks for asking!"

"Where's Jax?" Pomni wondered. "Isn't he usually with you?"

"Yeah, but he wasn't out of his room when I left at my usual time," I shrugged once again. "I decided to not question it though. Maybe he's oversleeping or something."

Zooble shakes their head. "That b*eep*tch never oversleeps. If he did, he would have working brain cells in that empty head of his."

Suddenly my heart twisted with hot pain, though I tried ignoring it as I agreed with their statement. "Yeah, true. Should I go and get him, or...?"

"Just leave him," Zooble sighed. "He isn't worth your time. None of our time."

"Yeah, you shouldn't worry," Gangle spoke while drawing on her little sketch pad. "We know him better than you do, and he's just fine. He's probably just trying to scare us." She looked up from her sketch pad for a moment just to flash me a brief yet reassuring smile.

I returned the smile with a small nod. "Yeah, you're right. I shouldn't worry so much."

Like it was on queue, Kinger suddenly yelled from his pillow fort. With a raised eyebrow, I spoke. "Uh, why did you just yell, Kinger?"

He peaked out of his fort. "Oh, nothing. I just remembered something that isn't important."

I glanced over at the others, who seemed unfazed. Besides Pomni, who seemed to be a bit confused, but she didn't question it out loud. Caine suddenly appeared out of nowhere, scaring the living hell out of me as I jumped backward, fortunately Ragatha caught me though, giving me a safe landing.

"Well, hello there my happy little hamburgers!"

"What happened to the 'Superstar' nickname?" I spoke, but my question was blatantly ignored by the ringmaster.

"Ready for your next--" He suddenly cut himself off as he looked around for a second with a puzzled expression. "Where's Jax? He should be here by now." Caine looked at all of us, and we simply shrugged.

"Who knows?" Zooble huffed. "Why should we care?"

"Because we can't do an adventure unless everybody's here!!" Caine yelled frantically, like he was genuinely panicked. His eyes scanned us individually until he slowly looked over in my direction. "Y/N! You're close enough to Jax. How about you get him out of his room for us?"

"Um--" My voice was caught in my throat. On one hand, I would prefer to just leave him if he was going to purposefully be difficult. On the other hand, I genuinely would feel bad if I didn't go and get him, definitely with how weird he started acting last night. It's the least I could do, right? Or am I just overthinking this like I usually do?

"Great!" Caine exclaimed, not waiting for my response. "Go over to Jax's room then, and we'll wait here for you to bring him over!"

With a sigh, knowing I was now obligated to go all the way back to the dorm hallway, my feet started walking to the bedrooms until I made it to Jax's room. Standing in front of it, my breath halted for a moment. Why was I so nervous? This is Jax we're talking about. He's probably fine and he might just be tired of these adventures, which I wouldn't blame him for.

Besides, Jax said it himself, he was fine. So I don't know why my nerves are suddenly acting up when I know I shouldn't give a fuck about what he thinks or his feelings when he's been nothing but cruel to me. But for some weird reason, there was something in my heart that was telling me to go through with Caine's request and go and get him--but actually check up on him too.

I exhaled through my teeth as my hand grasped the door knob tightly, feeling a bit of doubt swarm in my stomach. Swallowing down any remaining fears, my hand twisted the knob slowly, like I was trying to savor the cold metal hitting my digital hands. My eyelids closed as I inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to calm down the nerves that suddenly started swarming around my body.

This was now or never. So, with one final breath and opening my eyes, I pushed the door which was conveniently unlocked, which also struck me as odd. But once the door swung open, my eyes danced around the room that seemed to have a lot of purple. But one thing I also noticed was Jax--who seemed to be pacing back and forth in the center of his room, hands behind his back as he stared at the ground, like he was deep in thought about something.

He didn't even seem to notice me right away though, which means he must really be out of it or completely zoned out while pacing, which made my heart twist in a newfound guilt that I knew wasn't here yesterday. I cleared my throat, hoping that he would finally notice that I've been standing there.

His body halted and jumped a bit, like he didn't expect any sound to emit from this room. With widened eyes, he looked over at me. "Y/N? What are you doing here?" Even though his voice was his usual tone, there was a slight shake towards the last word in this sentence.

Fully stepping into the room, I closed the door behind me. I locked eye contact with him, trying to find anything behind his yellow and black eyes that could signal what he was feeling. Though, all I could understand through his body language was that he clearly looked panicked. Though, I didn't know whether he was panicked because I just barged in the room randomly, or if it was because of the thing he was pacing back and forth for.

With a deep breath, I knew I should probably be the bigger person here, since he seemed worried about something so I shouldn't just laugh in his face like he would probably do with me. Finally finding the courage, I spoke the words I spoke last night, but with more confidence than ever before. "Are you okay?"

~~~

Oh my God-- it's been forever since I've updated this book, hasn't it? Well, I'm trying my best to update as much as I can with my books now, and ever since episode 3 of TADC coming out, I'm back on my big TADC phase, along with Jax phase. So here I go, updating a book I haven't updated in a few months. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, since I think my writing has changed a bit since the book was updated last. Have a wonderful rest of your day! <3

-Sincerely, CB