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ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : I Never Knew You By She's Not Real
ᴠᴏʟᴜᴍᴇ : ▮▮▮▮▮▮▯▯▯ ↻◁ II ▷ ↺ --- [bruce's pov]
"what's with the cassette tape?" a familiar squeaky voice asked.
i looked up to see henry hu, a player on my baseball team. "what?" i asked. i hadn't heard what he asked, only hearing the words "cassette tape."
henry rolled his eyes, taking a seat on the small bench to my left. he was still in uniform, wearing the generic blue outfit plus a blue hat which he had on backwards, despite coach making it clear he wasn't aloud to wear it like that. his gaze fell from me, resting on the cassette tape covered with doodles of colorful stars and triangles and hearts.
he took the tape from me without asking, prying it from my hands. "hey!" i yelled, but he ignored me, reading the words wrote in sharpie.
"hey? why's it just called hey? did some girl give it to you!?" he yelled, causing a few of the other baseball members to turn to us.
i felt blood rush to my cheeks, my gaze flickering between the members whispering to each other and henry who was wearing a grinch-like smirk. "if i tell you, will you shut up?"
henry shrugged, passing me the tape without warning. i caught it with a groan, sighing and glancing at henry before my gaze fell on the tape in my hands. "i'm giving it to someone."
"holy shit, you do have a girlfriend!"
"shut up!" i yelled, glancing at my teammates who were now all messing around with a soccer ball in the distance. i sighed, turning back to henry. "i don't have a girlfriend, but i do like her."
"shit, you better tell me who it is! is it donna? it better not be, you know she's dating that one smartass. how about natalie? she's a real bitch bu-"
"do you ever shut up? no, it's none of them. it's..." i sighed, pausing for a few moments. "it's y/n."
"y/n l/n?" he mumbled, his eyes going wide when i nodded hesitantly. "oh."
"yeah."
"but she's- she's like, not your type. i thought you liked girls like donna and natalie and--"
"i know, i know. but she's, just, i don't know." i sighed. i truly had no idea how to explain my adoration for her.
"but she's annoying. she's an asshole and she's competitive. she's a jerk to me, too!"
"yeah, well, maybe if you weren't such a misogynist she would be nice to you," i said nonchalantly with slight hand gestures. "you don't know her like i do, henry. sure, she can be a little mean, but she means well."
"yeah, right. 'means well' my ass."
"seriously! she's kind-hearted, and she's self-aware. she helps old people cross the street and gets cats out of trees, for pete's sake," i said, "and she doesn't care what people think about her. i like her so much, man. and she knows so much about music, and she likes the coolest shit."
i glanced at henry, my eyes widening slightly at how surprised he looked. next thing i knew his eyebrows furrowed and his lips tugged into a smirk. "you're in love, man." he said.
my head fell slightly, my gaze falling back to my cassette tape. "yeah, i know."
"does she even know who you are?"
"yeah, she knows who i fuckin' am. you think i would know all that shit about her if i didn't know her?"
henry shrugged his shoulders, humming an i dunno. "i thought you were taking about me, to be honest."
"oh, fuck off."
"so you're giving her that tape?" henry wondered, gesturing to the small item in my hands.
"yeah, i guess so,"
he nodded, and i glanced at him once more before my gaze fell onto the scenery in front of us.
━━━━━━━❰✭❱━━━━━━━━
"bruce?" you called out for your friend, your combat boots crunching leaves of all sorts of colors as you wandered through the forest. you shivered, feeling as if eyes were all around you.
you heard a twig snap behind you, your head snapping towards the noise to reveal a small, orange fox. you sighed in relief, putting a gloved hand over you chest before turning back around.
"boo!" bruce giggled, appearing in front of you.
you fell back, landing on your ass. "jesus christ! you scared me half to death, you asshole!" you cackled.
bruce held his hand out in front of you, and you took the chance to pull his wrist down so he was beside you. you cackled loudly as you watched him tumble face-first onto the wet leaves.
he gave me you bird before sitting up, blowing a leaf off of his cheek.
"why did you even wanna come here?" you asked.
he shrugged, standing up, except this time he didn't offer me his hand. you stood up a few moments after he did, watching as he walked towards a picnic table that was surprisingly not covered in leaves in the distance.
he turned around for a few moments, smiling softly at you. "come on, loser," he said before turning around.
you scoffed and chuckled before jogging up to him, following him to the brown picnic table.
he took a seat, and you took one across from him. your gaze fell off of his dark eyes, falling onto a pair of headphones and a cassette tape labeled hey. "what's this?" you giggled, taking the tape and leaving the headphone on the table.
"it's a present for you, i guess."
you looked up at him, giving him a confused smirk before flipping the tape over, reading the song list.
"shit, these are like, awesome." you said loudly. "how'd you even know these existed? i thought you listened to new kids on the block and corny shit like that."
"i listen to one song by them and suddenly i'm insane!" he yelled vehemently.
you chuckled at him before taking the headphones, playing the tape. hey by pixies played, and you immediately understood what he was telling you.
you smiled softly at him, giving him a knowing look. you nodded, and he did the same.
