𝑚 𝑒 𝑡 𝑎 𝑛 𝑜 𝑖 𝑎 // JJK x reader

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟖

"How often have you thought about escaping since you got here, hm?" He laid down, his body leisurely stretched out in front of you in the wet grass as he stared into the night sky and his eyes met yours at last after a few minutes of silence. You looked down to him, idly twirling blades of grass between your fingers before your gaze reached the stars again as you responded.

"Countless times." you muttered into the fist your chin was resting on. "And why didn't you do it?" His voice was quiet, but curious about your intentions and the reasoning behind your failed attempt at getting away. You shrugged your shoulders, staring into blank space and not sure how you could explain that everything you knew was overthrown when you experienced their kindness towards you.

"Come on," he squeezed your thigh lightly and you stared daggers at him, narrowing your eyes, "Do I have to pull every word out of your mouth?!" You sighed; your annoyance etched on your face as your hand rubbed your forehead to obviously shove some sanity back into your head – because you clearly had lost it.

His grin widened, significantly amused at your antics and he squeezed your thigh once more, but a little harder this time. You pulled away forcefully and shifted your position so his hands couldn't come near you and leaned back against the tree again. "I wonder if there is someone – just anyone living on this planet, that is more annoying than you."

"I promise I'll get worse if you don't tell me why you stole that stinky finger." He chuckled, but his low laugh died down a few seconds later, when he realized that you didn't really find it funny by any means. His white hair was slightly damp from the humidity and as he ran his fingers through it, a few strands were sticking to his forehead. He studied your expression as you struggled to decide if it was a good idea to open up to someone, especially him.

You pressed your lips together, but there was nothing left to hide – He caught you stealing and you were sure he was going to report it in some way if you didn't explain your reasons.

"I was on a fucking mission, okay." you confessed, your brows pinched together and your fingers now pulling the grass out aggressively, "He told me to get that damned finger and go back, but my asshole of a teammate hurt me so he could take credit for this 'job' and left me there to rot to death apparently..."

"Wow - talk about built up emotion..." he murmured, his eyes set on your fingers that were tearing the leaves apart and he weirdly giggled at your rant before you continued.

"And then Shoko and all of you came into my life with such an overwhelming kindness and left me questioning all of my beliefs and goals for my life, and now I'm sitting here overthinking every decision I ever made..." The words were just spilling out of your mouth, with no intention to stop as you rambled on.

"It's just...," you ripped out a patch of grass, throwing it into the air, "...I don't know what happened. It's like I was living in a kind of comfortable darkness before. I didn't mind it. It was home." Your hand brushed through your hair, loosening a heavy sigh upon talking quietly again.

"And when I saw what you all had, the friendships – the light that radiated off you all – it was just as if I could see the sun for the first time after an endless night. For the first time after years, I figured that it wasn't me what they wanted, it was my abilities – only to use me to their advantage. And I, as a person, didn't even mean anything."

He listened, unsure of what to make of the words that were gushing out between your lips, because the only thing that was on his mind was the abilities that you mentioned. He felt that you had a big amount of cursed energy simmering inside you, but he didn't know how it could be used or what it was exactly.

There was a hint of curiosity though, that he wanted to find out why they were so adamant on using you for your skills.

A silence settled between you both as you stared at the ground, the blades of grass scattered around you from your outburst. He didn't respond for quite some time, as if he wanted to weigh out carefully how to talk to you since you showed some vulnerability for the first time since you were here, and he didn't want to give you a bad feeling about it.

"You know... I've read something once in one of Nanami's books, that was really boring by the way, but it reminds me of what you just told me." He sat up, came closer to your face and tilted his head, talking quietly. "'The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping, is to make sure that he never knows he's in prison.'"

Your frustrated look was clearly amusing to him, and you saw his smile getting brighter as he got on his feet and squatted down again. He grabbed the wooden box from beside you and pointed it in your direction, his cheeky grin reappearing on his face.

"I'm going to take that with me, and you can do whatever you want with that information. Stay or leave, it's your choice, but this," he swung the box around, "stays here."

His finger tapped onto your nose lightly, leaving a hot sensation on your cold skin as your eyes followed his hand going back into his pocket. With a disgusted expression you eyed him intently and your tone of voice was more than determined when you shifted your position to prop up on your knees.

"If you do that again one more time, I promise you, I'm going to rip your fingers off, one by one." you retorted, your eyes narrowing in irritation.

"I bet you can't." he cooed, the box slipping into his pocket as his hand rose again to touch your nose once more. You knew what he intended to do and slapped his arm away from you, but as soon as you hit him with force, he winced and pulled back his hand, hissing at the pain.

"Ouch!" he groaned, but stood up nonetheless with a wry smirk plastered on his face and his gaze never leaving yours. "How naughty..." His voice was nothing more than a flirty whisper, but this was the last straw that finally made your blood boil.

You put on a fake thin-lipped smile as you rose to your feet and stepped up to him, only a few inches of tension filled air between your faces.

He looked down through his long lashes, a few strands of his white hair framing his face and a challenging spark lit up his piercing blue eyes as you stared daggers at him.

"If you're into that stuff I'd be more than glad to break your nose as well." you teased, your bossy expression not wavering any bit.

A gust of wind flew by, leaving you with goosebumps even if your temper would have been heated enough to light something on fire. The few leaves were carried along the ground, rustled lightly as the atmosphere charged up and made it seem like a fight between two natural predators. 

"I doubt that, but I'd love to see you try, though." He winked, playfully smiling as he turned around with his hand waving his farewell.

"Yeah, trust me, I will." you mocked, crossing your arms on your chest as you retreated back to your earlier spot near the tree and slid down again.