There was a silence that fell over Gavin when he felt overwhelmed.
Tall and mighty, strong and healthy. He tended to keep himself fit and he garnered attention (he hated this, mind you) due to his exterior appearance. He wasn’t self-conscious, simply shy due to knowing that he was at the other end of someone’s microscope. For Merlin’s sake, Gavin just wanted to live quietly as he had tried doing so for the past six years. He had one more until he was free from the gates of Hogwarts, and he’d been fairly quiet about it all too.
He blamed himself, for even thinking he had a chance with Park Kyungri. He caught eye contact with her a few times already in class, just simply from admiring — well, her exterior appearance. Irony, you bitch.
At the snaps, he looked over at her with a somewhat nulled expression, slightly shocked and slightly mundane. He couldn’t put together why she was playing him like this, he felt like he was the victim of a con (which wouldn’t be surprising, considering how he gets lost in his thoughts for nearly half of each day). The con had a tongue of venom and he thought it was wine, she had a gaze as strong as that of a feline, and her confidence was only beginning to put Gavin out of place.
He looked down at his half-empty plate, “I-I’m busy.” The slightly lisp on his “s’s” was faint, only those who really payed attention would know of it. His voice was low and as quiet as a murmur, but his eyes fluttered from her gaze to his plate — almost expectantly. He didn’t know what to say or what to do, he simply cleared his throat to complete his actions (they weren’t much, that’s for sure). She could tell he was lying, anyone with a partial conscience could tell.
“But why would you want to meet? With me?” He first looked over to the other Hufflepuffs that had been watching from the beginning, and then over at the Gryffindors that looked as though they were at a soccer match and waiting for their team to score a goal. He then looked at her, his elbows on the table allowed for a hand to reach back to his neck. He rubbed the nape softly, trying to distract himself from the sharp gaze and long sleek dark hair that framed her face — or the long lashes and the natural color of her lips and —
Oh God, had he been staring? He looked away, shamefully. After hating attention and garnering it simply due to appearance, he’d been doing the exact same to Kyungri. He huffed quietly, finding this rather frustrating that she’d do it here, with people audibly whispering and cheekily making comments under their breaths.
Hang on, he told himself, just wait for her answer, and then you can get up and leave.
There would be no con, at least — not today.
Patience was not a virtue that Kyungri had mastered, and yet there she sat, playing the waiting game as she stared right back at him. Maybe it was because everyone else around them was waiting with bated breath for his reply, maybe it was because she knew that if she wore him down enough, he’d cave. It was arrogant of her to think that, but when Kyungri put her mind to something, nothing else was at the forefront of her priorities.
Plus, her grades were at stake, she wouldn’t want to mess that up.
She had been so focused on being quiet and calm that his reply nearly went unheard. It was obvious she didn’t understand what he said-- and no, it wasn’t from his lisp or soft speech; Kyungri simply couldn’t believe it, and neither did anyone else around them. His comrades in yellow gawked at him, some even whispering rather audibly in disbelief, while her own housemates did the same, though, some more openly appalled with their vocalizations.
“With what?” Her words came out short and brash, smile no longer as sweet as she tried to figure out why he had rejected. It wasn’t like she had asked him to go for a walk in the Forbidden Forest, or steal a book from the Restricted Section of one of her favourite places in the whole school: the library (which, no one quite believed or knew of; imagine, Park Kyungri with her nose buried deep in a book). Her stare remained on him, taking in his every little action now to see if she could piece together what made him so feeble around her.
Perhaps he didn’t know it, but she caught him staring at her countless occasions before. Whether it was across the room in Potions (and he couldn’t deny that, not when she saw him nearly drop a flask when she had looked right back), or sneaky side glances in Defence classes, she knew.
How did she know? Well, she had snuck a few too. She knew he muttered to himself in Defence class when he was trying to remember a spell. She noticed how he meticulously put his ingredients in order during Potions the moment the Professor announced it in class. And she knew the way he always rubbed at his nape when he felt uncomfortable--
--but she would never admit to anyone else that she noticed all these things.
So she drank in his body language, knowing well enough he was blatantly lying to her, and she surely wasn’t going to let him get away with it. “Aren’t you Hufflepuffs known for being hardworking? I was thinking we could get some studying in together before next Potions class together. Prof’s been on my back to shape up and actually get one right, which is why I think he put us together. So, I figured you could help me catch up? That way I don’t hold us both back and have you get so frustrated with me that you’ll take over completely.” It wasn’t a lie, she was pretty terrible.
She raises her hand now, hand curling into a loose fist as she goes to lightly punch at his arm-- which, to her surprise, was a lot more firm and muscular than she expected. “C’mon, you wouldn’t turn your back on your lab partner so soon, right?”
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