Alphabet ≫ Jarchie

Balatron II

Dedicated to @GinnyClarkson

Balatron— The one where Archie hates the class clown and the class clown has unrequited feelings. Also see: Archie laughs when Jughead confesses.

☀︎☁︎☀︎

Archie rolled his eyes and slammed his pencil down on his desk. "Can you not?" He practically growled, shooting daggers at his table partner.

Jughead just laughed and shrugged as if he was innocent, continuing to play footsie with him underneath the desk. "I'm still winning," he teased, brushing his foot up against his again.

"Do I look like I care to play games?" Archie said with an attitude as always, kicking Jughead's foot and holding his head up high in pride as the boy next to him yelped in pain.

"You're always so mean to me," Jughead pouted, watching as the boy went back to his work.

"Just because you have a crush on me, doesn't mean I'm obligated to be any nicer to you," Archie pointed out dryly.

"Who said I still liked you huh? It's been a month since I told you," Jughead said quietly, his cheeks blooming a warm pink.

Archie didn't even need to look at him to reply. "Because you're blushing right now, you keep annoying me, and you're always staring at me with that dumb lovesick look in your eye," he said bluntly.

"Whatever," the raven haired beauty said sheepishly, deciding to go back to his work as well. The words on his page began to jumble up as usual, turning letters into a guessing game. He frowned, not wanting to stare at the paper for too long, and looked back at Archie. "It's not my fault that I can't stop liking you," he whispered.

"Try harder," Archie snorted.

"Why are you like this?" Jughead said in disbelief, laughing a bit.

"I think the bigger question is, why do you like me in the first place? I can't stand you. I don't get it," Archie said, turning towards Jughead. There was a hint of curiosity in his voice, different from his usual monotonous rants.

"Because you're really smart and gorgeous and your bitchiness is cute if not annoying sometimes," he rambled, deciding to focus his eyes on the board for once. "You dress really nice and you're really mysterious so you're intriguing but like. . . You're just really amazing that's all."

Archie didn't really know what to say to that. The first time Jughead confessed his feelings, he had a good laugh. He'd never laughed that hard in his entire life. He honestly thought the boy was joking. When Jughead confirmed that he wasn't joking, he somehow laughed even harder. It just didn't make much sense to him. Nobody really liked Archie as a person, let alone in a romantic way. The fact that it was Jughead of all people just made it more ironic.

"Stop talking to me and get your work done," he finally replied with a sigh, willing himself to get back to work again. Jughead and his weird feelings were beginning to become quite the distraction.

"Right," Jughead said, sounding kind of disappointed.

Archie wasn't sure what Jughead wanted him to say.

A week after their little conversation, Jughead started to become a little more mild with his teasing and bothering. Archie, thankful, decided to take this time to observe Jughead a little bit. At first, he didn't find anything that he didn't already know. Jughead never did his homework, he was never prepared for class, his worksheets were always left blank, he never paid attention, he dressed like a slob, and he said the dumbest things. That wasn't new.