Lost (in Your Emerald Eyes)

E I G H T

Jughead woke up extremely early that Sunday. He took a full-body shower, brushed his teeth, and shaved. Before that, though, he had gone for a run on the river's edge, hoping to see the blonde girl before their date in a few hours. That mission failed; Betty hadn't been there.

Now, sitting on the small, crappy kitchen table, he was nervously chewing on an apple—his third. They never had much food at home, but when they did, it was usually bought by him, not his dad, and gone with a day. That's why Jughead preferred to eat at Pop's; he had the freedom to eat all of it and pay a small amount of money.

As Jughead heard his father's steps down the hall, he glanced at the clock on the wall and groaned, letting his head fall onto his nape. "Morning."

FP stopped on the small doorway, narrowing his eyes a bit. "Morning..." He made his way into the kitchen, opening the fridge and grabbing the last three eggs and the few slices of bacon they still had left. Then, cracking them on the oily, still cold pan, he asked, "What are you doing awake so early?"

Jughead rolled his eyes, taking another bite of his apple. "Why do you care?"

The man turned around, glaring at his son. "Boy," he warned.

"I'm going out," he just said.

"With Toni?"

Why today did he have to be so talkative? "Sure."

"You like that girl, don't you?"

Jughead rolled his eyes, stating, "Dad, we're friends."

"You sure about that?"

"Yes," Jughead groaned, sliding off the table. "I won't be back till later, probably, so yeah," he murmured after pulling on his leather jacket and grabbing the keys. After a brief moment of hesitation, he smirked and grabbed the helmet as well, shutting the trailer door behind himself.

When he checked the time, he still had a bit less than an hour until the time Betty and he had agreed on, but he attached the helmet to the bike and jumped on it, taking the direction towards the North of the town, 111 Elm Street.

He reached it in twenty minutes, stopping his bike in front of her neighbor's house as per requested by the girl the day before. He leaned on the motorcycle, fetching his phone out of his pocket, and chewing on a piece of gum. Quickly texting a short 'I'm here, take your time', he put it back into his jacket pocket, head flying up as the front door of the house opened.

Having momentarily thought it was Betty, he was disappointed to see a middle-aged man, sighing to himself. When he understood he was probably trespassing or looking weird parking in front of the guy's house though, basically in the driveway, he got careful and worried with a second.

"Hello?" the man asked loudly, standing on the wooden front porch.

"Uh, hey."

"You here for Archie?"

Jughead pushed himself normally onto his feet. "Betty, actually."

"Oh," the man looked taken aback for a moment, observing his leather jacket. Jug thanked God that he couldn't see the snake on his back. That would've probably made most Northsiders wary and hateful towards him. "Betty lives in that one," he said, pointing on the bigger white house next to his own.

"I know, but she asked me to wait here, if that's okay?"

"Oh, yeah, of course. Her parents aren't the... greatest."

Jughead wanted to throw back some joke about how the last name Cooper and the fact that they were from the Northside already told him that but decided to keep his mouth shut since the guy seemed to be quite nice.