Drabble Challenge

Day 3

"Person A has become a health food nut and this is driving Person B absolutely crazy."

"I'm home!" Peeta shouts from the other room, and I peel myself from my place on the couch.

I press a quick kiss to his lips as he struggles with the numerous grocery bags in his arms before finally dropping one or two of them to the ground. He huffs in annoyance.

"Need help?" I quirk an eyebrow as he closes the door with his foot.

Peeta laughs and unloads a few of the bags onto me. We carry them together to the kitchen, placing them on the counter with a collective thump. I dig through the bags in excitement; we haven't had new groceries in nearly two weeks.

As I rummage through Peeta's purchases (we've agreed to let him do the shopping because I hate it and I always end up getting purely junk food), my eyes widen and my hands slow as I take in the sight before me.

"Peeta, no," I breathe, realizing what these things mean.

"Katniss, please hear me out before you-"

"How many times have we been over this, Peeta? Would youplease stop with this shit?"

"It's called a juice cleanse," he continues as if I haven't spoken. "You drink nothing but fruit and vegetable smoothies, like, five times a day."

I pinch the bridge of my nose. Peeta blinks nervously.

"I just don't understand why," I begin softly. "You're already ridiculously healthy as it is. You've got absolutely nothing to be worried about." At this I smooth my hands over the hard planes of his chest.

Peeta sighs, probably as sick as I am of having this conversation. "Katniss, this isn't about losing weight, it's-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I cut in. "It 'cleanses' or whatever."

Peeta nods. "Hence 'juice cleanse'. Now, if you're going to do it with me, then awesome. If not, leave me alone."

I groan and swipe a hand over my face. "I think you probably figured this, but no, thank you. Did you get my shit, at least?"

He chuckles and rolls his eyes, then picks through the grocery bags. "This one," he says, gesturing to one, and I give a little cheer before plucking one of the boxes of treats out and holding it to my chest.

"Good luck with that," I tell him, then pat his chest and walk out of the room, junk food in hand.

The number of times Peeta has asked me to join him in his crazy dieting has by now heavily outweighed the number of times I actually agreed (which, by the way, is zero). Despite my constant efforts to get him to please stop, he is surprisingly stubborn in his position- which is saying something, considering most times Peeta makes it clear he'd do anything I asked of him. He can be just as strongheaded as me and I absolutely resent him for it.

Over the next week I make it clear to Peeta that his crazy schemes are getting out of hand. At first I just sigh and shake my head sadly whenever he walks into the room with one of his ridiculous fruit or vegetable juices. It has no effect; he smiles at me as though I've not said or done a single thing and plops himself on the couch next to me, ignoring my glares.

Then I take on the habit of biting into my cookie-slash-ho-ho-slash whatever junk is in my hand as soon as he walks in, moaning and closing my eyes in ecstasy as though I've just tasted Heaven itself. He just takes his straw into his mouth and surveys me with wide, innocent eyes.

I chew grumpily. He slurps his juice.

I decide to turn it up a notch one night when we're sitting side-by-side on our respective laptops. Entering a quick search into Google, I clear my throat to alert him. He raises his eyebrows at me in question.

"According to Cosmo," I say, "'weight you lose on a juice cleanse tends to be water weight from your muscles, not fat'."

"And according to this site," Peeta fires right back, "a juice cleanse can result in 'a regulated, nourished colon, increased energy and stamina, increased mental clarity, better sleep patterns, a radiant complexion, and healthy hair and nails'." He waggles his fingers at me mockingly.

I chew my lip, trying to find a witty reply and coming up devastatingly short.

"Besides, Katniss," he continues, less teasing this time, "I'vetold you, this isn't to lose weight."

I continue my Netflix binge silently, with a clenched jaw. He smirks at me over his screen.

By the end of the week I've indefinitely decided to deprive Peeta of all interaction with me. Before I can slink upstairs, though, he stands in front of me in my place on the couch.

I drag my eyes upward to his, leveling him with my indifferent stare.

"I'm done," he says. "With the juice cleanse, I mean. So you can stop pouting."

I roll my eyes and pull him down onto the couch with me.

The next week, however, when we're unloading the groceries and I come upon the bag containing dozens of jars of applesauce and other puréed produce, I simply lower them and cut my gaze to Peeta's scared blue one.

"Katniss, wait- hear me out," he starts. "It's called a baby food diet-"

I practically run out of the room.