Karma ━━ Jake Sim

𝟭𝟳 ͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏⠀Try Me

Snap out of it, Sujin!

"I think you're a lot of things," She eyes him cautiously, "But you wouldn't like the sound of any of them, I fear."

Jake instinctively perks up, more curious than anything now. He pauses his movements, eyes trailing up from the knot he'd been working on to meet her own in a challenging stare.

"Try me."

Sujin ponders the offer for a brief moment. This may just be her only chance to really give him a piece of her mind - and she's never been one to back down.

"Alright..." She decides, "You asked for it."

Jake's gaze continually flickers between his hands and her face as he resumes his task of doing up the tie around her neck.

Down to the right, then left across the front.

"Go on, then."

Sujin clears her throat.

"Uptight. Cocky. Know-it-all." She raises her fingers as she lists the first three traits, "You've probably been told your whole life that you're oh-so pretty and talented, so nothing else really matters. So I'm gonna go ahead and add entitled, far detached from the real world, and most likely to peak in high school." She raises another three, "There's some sort of savior complex swimming up there, and if not - then definitely a god complex. Sounds like your worst nightmare is having to pick a side or form any sort of an opinion on your own, so there's non-confrontational and dependent. Not to mention a total people-pleaser... Ah, shit - I'm running out of fingers." Only half-satisfied, the girl cocks her head to the side with a simper, "Should I continue?"

Jake blinks, taking a moment to process her words.

Sujin suppresses a grin, mentally patting herself on the back for rendering the boy speechless at last.

But she may have celebrated too soon - because no more than a beat later, he's straightening himself and regaining his usual air of unabashed confidence.

He smirks, "You think I'm pretty?"

Damn it.

"I never- I- Um... Ugh. The fact that that's the only thing you pulled from everything else speaks volumes, Sim." Sujin looks away, doing her best to mask the heat rushing to her cheeks, "Add raging narcissist to the list."

Jake laughs, apparently enjoying the act of catching the girl off guard as much as she does to him.

Up through the loop. Almost done.

Sujin frowns, "I'm taking that as a confirmation of all the other things I said too, then."

"Maybe," He brushes off - Or does he? - her words with an eerily nonchalant shrug, "Maybe not."

Onto the final step; he feeds the tie through the knot he'd just spent the last few minutes perfecting.

"That's awfully vague." Sujin counters.

"And you aren't?"

She pauses, unsure of how to respond. There's something entirely foreign that hangs in the mere inches of space between them; something that catches her words in the back of her throat.

"... Fair enough."

Jake hums in satisfaction as he tucks the finished tie beneath her collar.

"There." He admires his work unabashedly, "Much better, don't you think?"

"I guess so." Sujin mumbles.

What now?

Neither of them quite seem to know the answer to that unspoken question. They're rooted to the ground, silently debating within themselves whether to step back or wait for the other to do so first, as if they're playing some sort of twisted game of chicken.