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So Jinx can admit she’s not the best at handling a break-up, alright? But that doesn’t mean she needs a rebound. She’s feeling single and not-fucking-ready to mingle. Can a girl just cope in her own ways?
Like yeah, after her now-ex dumped her via text three weeks ago, she may have reacted by getting shit-faced at 2 a.m. and spamming their DMs with various “I am in your walls” memes before she inevitably got blocked and starfished on the bathroom floor while sobbing about it.
And then she also might have run to their street and scream-sung “I Want it That Way” by Backstreets Boys outside of her ex’s window until they were forced to contact Vi (who had to wake up at crack ass 3 a.m. and drive her drunk sister back to her dorm so she wouldn’t get arrested for public disturbance) but she was totally fine!
Unfortunately, Vi who’s in a sickeningly loving and happy relationship with her own stupid girlfriend, seemed less than convinced and would not stop badgering Jinx about going on a date. Despite her numerous rejections, her older sister is nothing if not annoyingly persistent.
So okay, fine, whatever. Jinx will go on the stupid fucking date if it will get Vi off her back.
She’ll just show up – blow off the poor loser who Vi surely must’ve threatened into going on a date with a walking human disaster – and then she can go back to her regularly scheduled programming of watching Spanish telenovelas she doesn’t understand, but cheering every time the wife plans an elaborate revenge scheme on her cheating husband. All while ignoring the 30-page thesis paper she has only 2 weeks left to start on because she loves living on the edge.
For now, however, she’s forced to wake up at 7.30 a.m. of all times because Vi shows up at her door to help her get dressed and ready – foiling Jinx’s elaborate scheme to ruin the date by showing up with unwashed hair and sweatpants – because apparently, the date itself is at 9 a.m. Which is the worst thing that has ever happened to her. Like yes, sometimes her lectures start at 8 a.m. but do you think she actually shows up for those?
Regardless, Jinx begrudgingly allows Vi to urge her to take a shower and help her pick an outfit while she’s determined to act like a bitter little chihuahua about it. In the end, her sister even drives her to the actual date, which really shows how little faith she has in Jinx showing up of her own accord.
Which she could admit is not entirely unfounded, but also she has a healthy amount of fear for Vi’s ire – which any person would have if their sister spent her teenage years participating in fight nights at underground clubs behind their parents' back – so at the very least she’d show her face so it wouldn’t get back to her sister that she completely ghosted her date.
“Hey, cheer up. I’m sure you’re going to like this guy.” Vi tries to smile encouragingly after dropping her off. Jinx slams the car door in her face in response and walks to the café like she’s headed for her own funeral. “Have fun!” she hears Vi yell from her car before she finally drives off.
Dreading every single step she takes, Jinx enters the café. The only perks of going on a date at a café would be the fact that she can order some coffee. Which she desperately needs because it’s 9 in the godforsaken morning and she’s on the verge of attempting to physically fight the sun for existing at such a horrible time.
Upon entering, she looks around feeling like a lost toddler because it just occurred to her that she doesn’t have a clue who her date is or what he looks like. The only information Vi has provided her with is that it’s a guy, which tells her very little when the café is located near another college campus, meaning there are plenty of guys her age here.
“Jinx?” she hears a masculine voice call behind her. That must be her date. Well, here goes nothing. She spins around to face him, mind already thinking up the easiest way to blow this guy off and–
Oh no. He’s hot.
He’s only slightly taller than her, the perfect height for her to easily reach up and kiss– No! Bad brain. Don’t think of kissing random hot guys you were planning to ditch.
His hair, locs with a smooth fade, is a warm shade of white in beautiful contrast to his dark skin. He looks well-built, wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt that shows off a pair of muscular arms, and she hasn’t even gotten to his face. His eyes are a deep, warm shade of brown. In contrast, his jawline is sharp and smooth, with cheekbones Jinx is fairly certain should be illegal for a person to even have?
Simply put: he’s hot, gorgeous, beautiful, dazzling– whatever other words exist in the dictionary to explain someone as insanely good-looking as this guy. In fact, she’d bet the spare change in her wallet that you’ll see his picture as the description if you look it up.
Given that her mind was preoccupied with ways of ruining this date (and also if Veronica is going to forgive Roberto in the next episode since he got hit by a car while begging her not to divorce him) she hadn’t considered the damning possibility that she might be attracted to her date.
His eyes curiously dart off to the side before he looks at her again. “Uh, you are Jinx, right?”
Oh fuck, right, she actually has to respond.
“Oh yeah, that’s me,” she quickly responds. “I’m Jinx. You must be…” Seeing her awkwardly trail off, he decides to have mercy for her plight.
“Ekko.” He grins, his teeth white and his eyes crinkling in a way that Jinx can only describe as cute. “It’s nice to meet you.”
He extends a hand in greeting and upon shaking it she realizes his hands are big, bigger than her own at least, and she can feel herself going mildly hysterical at the thought. God, she’s royally screwed.
“Why don’t you find us a seat? I could get us some drinks in the meantime if you tell me what you’d like,” he suggests.
Still recovering from the tragic fact that her date is actually fine as hell, she dumbly nods. She doesn’t even remember what order she gave him as she walks off to find an empty table.
Okay, shake it off, Jinx. Don’t be so shallow. She can totally still blow this guy off, pretty privilege won’t have its power over her today! His being attractive doesn’t mean anything, it’s the inside that matters or something, right? What if he actually murders puppies in his spare time? The chances are slim, but never zero.
He comes back with a frappuccino and an iced americano, handing her the frappuccino and sitting down opposite of her. “You didn’t tell me which flavor you wanted. I hope caramel’s alright?”
“Yeah…” She faintly nods. Caramel is literally her favorite flavor. God, please have mercy on her. Jinx eagerly takes a sip from her drink to cool her head. She’ll need it if she intends to reject this guy.
So,” he starts, making her look back up at him, “I’m guessing you don’t remember me?”
That completely took her off-guard. Did she know this guy? Please don’t tell her he’s the person that filmed her and her friends stumbling across campus at 3 a.m. singing YMCA while wearing frog suits as a joke. Would it make it easier for him to not want to date her? Yes, probably. Would she still rather take the fact that she’s the person in that video to the grave? Also yes.
“I’ll take that as a no.” He raises a curious eyebrow at the blank, panicked look on Jinx’s face.
“If this is what I think it’s about, then I just want to clarify I was very drunk.” She holds up her hands in defense.
“Okay, we’re definitely not talking about the same thing,” he reassures with a chuckle. “We were neighbors for a short while. You guys moved away pretty quickly, though. We used to always imitate Vi and playfight, remember?”
She frowns, her mind rapidly working to figure out what he’s talking about. And it comes back to her. A kid a little older and a little shorter than her. He was always tripping over himself when mimicking Vi’s moves and was also her best friend for that one summer.
“Oh my god, right. Ekko. I’m so sorry,” she gasps, the memories coming back to her. Along with the embarrassing memory of crying to her parents that she didn’t want to leave and that she’d stay behind and marry Ekko, who tearfully nodded along with her.
Somehow this is more humiliating than the video thing would’ve been. She definitely can’t date him now. Jinx was 11 when they were neighbors, which was a deeply embarrassing time in her life even if she hadn’t woefully proclaimed they would elope. She was – as the kids would call it – cringe.
“It’s cool, I’m probably the weird one here for still remembering.” He shrugs, taking a sip from his own drink.
“No, trust me. I have the memory of a half-broken DRAM chip that got tossed into a ditch,” she reassures, her terrible joke somehow making him laugh. And his laugh is warm and nice, and it makes her feel– Okay, she’s stopping that thought.
“So how did you get in touch with Vi?” she asks as a way to hopefully distract from the butterflies she feels in her stomach.
“Apparently we go to the same gym. We didn’t recognize each other at first either, but after a while we connected the dots. Small world, right?”
She awkwardly laughs. “Wow, yeah. Who would’ve thought…” Is this why Vi set them up? She truly has the worst sister.
He shoots her an apologetic smile and she faintly thinks it should be illegal for this man to smile. What a cruel world it is. “Yeah, she told me that you go to a nearby school and that you’d be happy to see me. So I assumed you also wanted to meet me. We can just part ways here if this is awkward for you, though.”
And there it is. Her ticket to freedom. Ekko, bless his heart, is an absolute angel who is handing it to her on a silver platter.
Yet, for some mystical reason – that can only be explained as Jinx being an absolute idiot – she instead replies, “Not at all! Vi is the bane of my existence and didn’t tell me who you were, but it’s nice to see you again too. Really.”
And maybe it’s not so bad that she’s agreeing to stay if the way his face lights up is anything to go off. Still, is Jinx (certified walking disaster idiot who is somehow currently on a date with sunshine personified) ready to enter a new relationship?
To be completely honest, she wasn’t that emotionally invested in her ex – which might explain why they dumped her through text, but she’ll contemplate that another time – but the break-up combined with the weird dynamics she’s seen in telenovelas are kind of convincing her romance is just a scam by the government to sell more products for Valentine’s Day because they live in a capitalistic hellscape of a society.
“But,” she awkwardly starts, fiddling with her straw, “this is a date, right?” He nods in confirmation. “Well, you’re great and everything, don’t get me wrong, but I also just went through a break-up so…” She trails off, eventually just shrugging in conclusion to her explanation.
“So, you’re not ready to see someone else?” he finishes for her, making her sigh in relief.
“Yeah, that! Exactly.” She nods, quickly taking another sip of her frappuccino before her bad tendency of oversharing takes over and she gives him the T.M.I. of her disastrous break-up.
“We’re not eloping, then?” She shoots him an unimpressed look, making him laugh. He holds his hands up in defense. “Kidding, kidding. I respect that. If it’s cool with you, I’d like to see if we can at least be friends, though?”
“Of course!” she agrees, ignoring the disappointed feeling in her gut at the thought of just being friends with Ekko. She should absolutely block Vi after this out of revenge.
“Great!” he responds, leaning his arms on the table and distracting Jinx with the way the movement causes his muscles to flex. “So, tell me about yourself?”
So they talk, from recollecting childhood memories through a lens of nostalgia to learning what happened in between (Jinx very gracefully skipping over all the trauma because they’re not close enough for all of that just yet) and to who they are now. She isn’t surprised to find out they both major in Mechanical Engineering, albeit at different universities. It’s one of the things they bonded over as kids, after all.
And as the conversation goes on she discovers that aside from being devastatingly attractive, he’s also incredibly funny and smart and just fun to talk with. Sure, they got along as kids, but people change so she figured they might not have much in common anymore, but she finds she really enjoys talking with Ekko.
Self-fulfilling prophecies were clearly a fucking scam because Jinx went into this determined to have a horrible time and now she’s actually enjoying herself? This was so mortifying, if only because she now has to tell Vi that she was right and Jinx really does like him.
Ekko looks down at his phone. “Damn, time goes fast. It was great to see you, but I got to get to club activities soon.”
“You’re in a club?” Jinx enquires.
“Yeah, Community Service Club. Didn’t exactly come from the best neighborhood myself, so it’s nice to get to do something for my community, you know?” God, could he get any more attractive? Blissfully unaware of Jinx’s agony, he smiles at her again. “So friends?”
And somehow that simple sentence is the final straw. Vi is the evilest sibling to exist, Jinx is an absolute idiot, and Ekko is officially going to be the death of her.
“Fuck me,” she curses under her breath while Ekko looks at her curiously.
She grabs him by the collar and pulls him closer over the table, awkwardly pressing their mouths together. When she breaks the kiss, she finds Ekko looking at her shell-shocked and feels her face heat up in embarrassment.
“Sorry,” she chokes out, promptly releasing his now crumpled collar and leaning back in her seat, “can we please pretend that never happened, or do I have to move countries and change my identity now?”
Ekko laughs in response before he leans forward and kisses her much more gently than she did him. His lips are soft as they move against hers and she sighs into the kiss.
He breaks the kiss and grins. “I think you’re good. Could we exchange numbers?”
She smiles in relief. “Yeah, I’d like that.”