A Different Way : Reylo Fanfic (Rey X Kylo Ren)

Seven.

"Ren!" Rey shouted, pounding on her master's door. She was up bright and early. The few passerby that were unlucky enough to be up at this time of the day gave her strange looks and began discussing her tactics with each other after they passed the scene, but the girl did not care. "Ren, wake up! It's time to train!"

She continued to rap on the door until it slid open and revealed yet again a very sleep-deprived and agitated Kylo Ren. After the door opened, Rey moved her hand over to the door frame and continued to knock, seemingly absentmindedly. With one swift movement, Ren grabbed her wrist and glared at her. "Since you seem so enthusiastic about knocking on things, why don't you 'knock it off?'"

Rey pulled her wrist free and smiled haughtily at him, proud of herself for effectively annoying him. "Good morning to you too, sunshine."

Since his apology some days ago, Rey observed that Ren had become increasingly cold to her whenever she was around. Instead of taking offense to it, she merely found new ways to push his buttons. Still, she was curious about the sudden change in his behavior and was intent on finding out what had caused it.

Ren groaned. "Whose bright idea was it to have a training session this early, again? There are many more important things I could be doing, like sleeping."

"It's not my fault that you stay up so late. You know my lessons start early in the morning," Rey replied. She glanced down towards her feet before she mumbled, "And it was your idea in the first place, anyway."

"How many times do I have to tell you that no matter how low you say something, the Force will allow anyone with the ability to manipulate it to sense those thoughts unless you shield them correctly."

The girl shot a look in his direction, and proceeded to dramatically proclaim, "Oh, woe is me! How will I ever learn to shield my thoughts properly? Oh, that's right, I have a teacher!" Rey faked happiness and threw her hands up in the air, and then suddenly pulled them back down. She glanced at the man in front of her again and locked gazes with him this time. "But wait! He doesn't teach me because he's a whiny little brat!"

Ren cocked an eyebrow at the girl as he stared her down. "Excuse me?" He emphasized.

She smirked and knew that she was about to get a rise out of him. She decided to continue further. "That's right, you heard what I said." Rey raised her voice even more until she was certain that everyone who was passing them in the corridor could hear her say, "Kylo Ren is a childish, temper-tantrum-throwing brat who thinks of no one but himself and the things that will benefit him!"

With that, the scavenger turned around and zoomed down to the training room, rushed inside, and used the force to slide the door closed and locked behind her. She hurriedly attempted to slow her breathing down, a task that had become much easier for her with the help of the Force.

A thud came from the other side of the door, and an exasperated sigh followed shortly after. "Rey, I'm not in the mood for this. You're lucky enough that I haven't dragged you off this ship after what you pulled back there. Open the door."

The girl contemplated this for a moment. "No. If you're the big shot that everyone makes you out to be, then you'll have little to no problem opening the door on your own." She already knew that he could do it with ease, and didn't even need proof of this. For some reason though, she wanted him to move it instead of her.

This time, it was the man that mumbled. "This is exactly why I make it a point not to teach children."

Rey scoffed at his remark. "I am not a child!"

Without her realizing, she had released her concentration on her hold on the door, and it slid open. Ren stalked through the doorway and looked around the room until his eyes rested on her. "Really? Because your previous actions seem to prove otherwise."

"Well, maybe I wouldn't be acting like such a 'child' if you stopped treating me like one!" Rey shouted indignantly. "I don't know if you know how recruiting works, but usually nicer tactics are good for advertisement, not the ones you use like talking down to people! If you wanted to order people around, you could've just as well have used one of your Storm Trooper lackeys! I didn't come here to be talked to like a droid, I came here to get control of my powers!"

Wherever her newfound protests came from, Rey did not know. She didn't usually talk like that to her teacher, mostly for the fact that she didn't know what would happen. She took the opportunity of the silent room to calm her breathing which had quickened due to her change in emotions and waited for a reaction from the man.

Exasperated, Ren strode over to a wall adjacent to his position and slumped against it, crossing his arms in front of him. He averted his piercing gaze from her and instead looked at the ground, surprised at himself that he wasn't lashing out at her at this exact moment.

The only noise in the room between the two of them, other than the slowing of Rey's breathing,  was the artificial air vent whirring on. Several minutes passed before either of them made any noise.

To Rey's surprise, and to his own, Ren was the one to break the sustained tranquility. "I never thought I'd live to see the day that I would say this, but I find that your silence is much more irritating than your persistent nagging," the man tentatively spoke.

Rey gave a short, exasperated laugh. "Then perhaps I'll continue to sit here in silence. A little gift from yours truly."

"Did you hear anything I just said?" said Ren, his tone of voice dripping with annoyance.

The girl did not say anything but smugly looked over at him with eyebrows raised as if to sarcastically ask, "What was that?"

Ren tiredly rolled his eyes, stood up, and made his way to the door, stopping before walking out. "This has got to stop," he suggested, peering at her peripherally. "These mind games we play, they're taking a toll on both of us. It's time for this to end." With that, he stalked out of the room, leaving an incredulous Rey following after him with her gaze.

A/N:

Hello everyone! Wow, it's been quite the long time since I've done anything in terms of writing fic. Consider this a celebration for TLJ, if you would like. I believe some have been wanting a continuation of this for quite some time. I hope it's up to your liking. I think that I will be ending this fic soon. I'm not sure if I will write another, but if I do, you will be able to find it here or on my AO3, which is reylotraash. I got an influx of notifications on this fic recently which pushed me to publish this chapter, so thank you for all who expressed interest in this in some way! Alright, I've gone on too long in this. See you in the next chapter!