a sun that never sets

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO | MASTERMIND

"THIS IS AWKWARD," I murmured to Theo as we strolled down the corridor of a mall, trying our best not to touch each other or stare at each other. First date. It was meant to be a momentous occasion, but instead I'd told absolutely no one—not even my parents or my best friends—and pretended it was a gathering between friends to anyone who asked. Which was basically no one except my parents.

"Yeah," he snorted, "no kidding. Are you going to say anything useful?"

"You first."

He let out a sigh. "I should have seen that one coming, shouldn't I?"

"Most definitely, yes."

"Right." He cleared his throat. "How has your summer been?"

"Try again," I said, shaking my head. "That's an awful start. Let's try something more interesting and creative."

"Well. Where would you like to go for lunch?"

"Yeah, no. Just no. You're shit at this."

He let out a growl of frustration. "Well, I'm sorry. My strength is artefacts and magic, not fucking dates."

"Well, you better start learning now, then."

"Why don't you need to learn?"

"Because you're the one who got a crush on me first," I replied nonchalantly. "Thus, you should be the one making the effort right now. You do realise you're still in the testing period?"

He let his eyes flutter shut. I watched from the corner of my eyes, a small smile fluttering onto my face. Yes, he was rather easy to annoy, actually, once you knew what buttons to push. And after two years, I'd figured out which buttons to push.

Though, I had a feeling that my new status as his fucking girlfriend was aiding me on my mission to irritate him as much as possible.

Which didn't sound very girlfriend-like. But I also really didn't care.

"You're annoying."

"Yeah, well, too bad. You're stuck with me now."

He muttered something under his breath. I had a feeling that it wasn't a very pleasant word.

Not that it mattered to me, what exactly he'd said.

Our new status hadn't quite settled in yet. It almost felt like it was just another friendly gathering outside of school. We kept a clear distance away from each other, and there was a layer of awkward tension neither of us were interested in crossing in the time being.

Boundaries were important in every relationship, and most especially when you were only sixteen.

That, and I was pretty sure that both of us were just too awkward to do anything about it. I had a feeling it was more of the latter, and the former was just a subconscious thing. Because bloody hell, despite our jabs and snarky comments, this was awkward.

This was why I'd always been so hesitant to date. Because I knew this would be happening. What did you expect, when you put two sixteen year olds who had no experience and no idea at all what was meant to happen on a date together, alone?

Nothing but teenage angst and staring at each other before glancing away as if it never happened, that was it.

And clearly, not even Honoria Song and Theodore Yu could escape this fate.

"Okay," Theo huffed. "What are we actually meant to be doing here? We've been walking around like idiots for the past fifteen minutes. Should we find somewhere to sit? A cafe?"