Oops, I Kissed the Jungler

My crush of five years pulled me into a fivestack so I could carry him and the girl he simps over. I muted my mic and won the game for both of them.

Then she got cute about it. "She tries this hard for you. She doesn't have a crush on you, does she?" "Nah. Course not," he said. "Then what is she to you?" "She's—" He went quiet.

I opened my mouth to explain. And the jungler. The one who hadn't made a sound all game. He got there first. His voice came low and even. "My girlfriend." Me: ???

Chapter 1 Ten at night, almost asleep, when Beckett's name lit up my phone. Beckett: 5stack, one short. You in? Me: in. I'd love to tell you my heart didn't trip over itself.

It did. I was off the bed and logged in before the screen finished loading. Everyone was already in the lobby when I joined. I unmuted, cleared my throat. "Hey, I—" "Wait.

Is that a girl?" The voice that cut in was soft and honeyed, the kind that knows exactly how soft it sounds. I muted myself so fast my thumb hurt. Margot.

Beckett's goddess. "She's just a junior," he said. Fast. Like he was wiping something off the table. "Huh. Okay." She didn't love that.

So he pivoted, teased her, said something that pulled a laugh out of her, and the whole lobby loosened around the sound.

Whatever stupid little flutter I'd logged in with, it was gone. I stayed muted and played.

A few minutes in, Margot started up. "I got caught." "On my way, I've got you," Beckett said, soft as anything. She died anyway. Thirty seconds later, she died again.

I watched the blame load up in real time. "Where's our ADC?" The unlucky ADC was me.

I typed back: farming. "I got chased for ages," Margot said, all wounded. "Nobody even came to save me." Ma'am. You walked your support into the enemy jungle.

What was the ADC supposed to do about that, astralproject? I didn't type a single word of it. Five people in the game, and maybe two of them talked.

Beckett and Margot ran their little duet. Mid chimed in now and then. The jungler and I didn't make a sound the whole match. Whoever the jungler was, he was cracked.

I had no clue where Beckett found a jungle god like that. We took the first game without breaking a sweat. I was MVP. "Aw." Margot again.

Sweet on top, blade underneath. "She tries this hard for you.

She doesn't have a little crush on you, does she?" "Nah," Beckett said. "Course not." My chest dropped. "No?" She wasn't letting go. "Then what are you two, exactly?" "She's—" Beckett went quiet.

The whole lobby went quiet with him. I unmuted. "I'm—" The jungler. The one who hadn't said a word all game. He got there first. Low. Even.

A voice like a hand laid flat on the back of your neck. "My girlfriend." Me: ??? My lashes jumped. I opened my mouth.

The screen froze. "Oh, come ON, the wifi's dead again!" Sloane, deep in her show on the couch, yelling at the ceiling.

I ripped off the headset, burned my phone into a hotspot, clawed back into the lobby. Beckett had already left. So. Why did the jungler say that?

A friend request slid across my screen. My hand twitched. I'd accepted it before I caught up to myself. Him. The jungler. Me: hi. Nothing. Me: you played really well btw.

Still nothing. Me: 5stack again sometime? That one, he answered. Him: there's going to be a next time? Me: ...huh? A beat. Him: whatever. Gone.

I sat there blinking at the screen like it owed me something. Then my phone buzzed. Beckett: when did you and Caspian start dating? Caspian? Who? The jungler?

Beckett: and you actually kept it from me. He typed it like an accusation. Like I owed him a signed disclosure. Something hot climbed the back of my throat. I started typing.

I don't even know the g— I deleted it. Typed instead: You go chase your Margot. What's it to you? The other end sat still for a second. Beckett: Della, come on.

Margot's a little highmaintenance, she's not a bad person. Don't be mad. Me: I'm not mad. Beckett: then why didn't you tell me you were seeing someone? Tell you what, exactly.

That you could talk me out of it. Keep me benched. Your backup. The one you never actually sub in, you just like knowing she's online in case your main DCs.

My eyes started to sting. He kept texting. I left every one of them on read. Three games, and the guy hadn't made a sound.

Then he reached across a dead lobby and dropped his name on me like it cost him nothing. My girlfriend. I'd never spoken to him. I didn't have the first clue why he'd done it.

And I wasn't about to admit that some traitor part of me had been replaying that voice on a loop ever since. Chapter 2 My eyes drifted back to the screen, to the jungler's avatar.

Already offline. Caspian. He'd probably watched the whole sad little triangle play out and decided I was too pathetic to keep quiet about.

So when Margot started pressing Beckett on what I was to him, the silent jungler just reached over and answered for me. A total stranger couldn't stomach it.

And I'd been living in it for years. Beckett was my senior back in high school. Tall, easy to look at, the boy half the girls had a thing for. Me included.

I was too much of a coward to do anything about it. I never thought he'd stop next to me one afternoon, walking back sweaty from the court, and grin. "Hey, junior.

Cute hoodie." It was a Marvel hoodie. We swapped contacts. Talked about the future, about everything we wanted. Then he left for Hartwell.

Senior year, I clawed up from the bottom of my class and followed him there. He hugged me at the campus gates. I thought that was the beginning of us.

Then I watched him tie Margot's shoelaces. Bring her breakfast. Buy her tampons. And there it was. The thing I'd been too dumb to see. The guy I'd been pining over for years?

He was somebody else's lapdog. For days after, Beckett kept sharing his life with me like nothing had changed. I stopped answering. He finally clocked it.

If Caspian ever gives you trouble, you tell me, okay? Then he went quiet. And I caved. Of course I caved. I didn't even know Caspian. I definitely wasn't dating him.

After class I did what I always did and went to the court to find Beckett. Tell him the truth, clear it up. I sat in the stands, waited for the break, then started over.

A pretty girl beat me to him. "Drink." Margot pressed a water bottle into his hand and smiled up at him. "I got us movie tickets. Wanna go after?" I stalled out for a second.

Dropped my eyes. Turned to go. "Della!" Beckett, calling me back. No point hiding now.

I walked over and stood in front of Margot for the first time in my life. "This is the junior from the fivestack. Della," he told her.

Margot's gaze flicked over me, unbothered. "She's cute." "Eh. She's all right." Beckett, smiling like he was asking permission.

They volleyed something flirty back and forth, and then Margot turned to me, chin tipped, wearing the look of a woman giving a guest the tour of her house. "Is the junior joining us for the movie?" My fist closed at my side. "Beckett." I was going to tell him about Caspian and be done with it. "Actually—" "Caspian's over there too, isn't he." Margot cut me clean off, looking past me to the next court. "You came for Beckett instead of him?" A knot pulled tight under my ribs.

I didn't answer. "I knew it.

He was just doing it to get under my skin that day." She let out a breath and gave me one more glance. "He's selective, that one." She didn't have to finish it.

He could never want you. And from some place I didn't know I had, something lit. I had no idea what Caspian looked like. Couldn't have picked his face out of any guy on that court.

I knew exactly one thing about him. His name. I walked straight onto the next court. "Caspian!" Chapter 3 A whole cluster of guys turned to look.

In the middle of all that curiosity, one of them just stood there, ball tucked under his arm, brow faintly creased, looking at me like I was wasting his time. I didn't slow down.

I went straight for him. Grabbed his collar. Pulled him down. The court gasped. I kissed him.

Two inches from his mouth, his hand caught the back of my neck and stopped me cold. "Looking for Caspian?" Lazy.

Unbothered. "What happens if you've got the wrong guy?" The floor dropped out of me. Wrong guy? "S— sorry—" I tried to pull back on instinct.

His grip changed direction, and suddenly I couldn't move at all. I looked up at him, lost. He tilted his head.

The corner of his mouth curled, not quite a smile. "Lucky for you, though." A beat. "I'm Caspian." The court gasped again. He leaned in.

Slow, that last inch of it, like he meant for me to feel every second of the wait. His breath broke warm across my mouth, and his eyes never once left mine. And then he kissed me.

I'll be honest with you. I was aiming for his cheek. He flipped the whole thing on me. And just like that, my first kiss. Gone. Barely a brush of a thing.

He pulled back almost as fast as he'd taken it. But my pulse was slamming up in my throat, my knees had gone to water, and my head wouldn't quit spinning. Caspian looked down at me.

His gaze held a halfsecond longer than it needed to. "You staying?" I glanced behind me on reflex. Margot and Beckett were gone.

By the time I turned back, he'd already put the whole court between us. "They left," he said. Cooler now. Like a door had shut somewhere behind his eyes.

How did his face change that fast? I'd kissed him first, though. I wasn't about to push my luck. "Sorry.

For— for ambushing you." "Now you know." He bent, scooped the ball off the ground, threw it to a teammate, and walked off without another word.

A couple of guys whistled at me. "Bold move, junior!" "Caspian goes his whole college career without a girlfriend and loses his first campus kiss anyway." "Hey, what's your major?

What's your name—" I bolted through the noise of it. By the time I got out, he was nowhere. And it hit me, all at once, exactly what I'd done. Kissed a guy. In front of everyone.

On purpose. Even if he hadn't pushed me off. Even if he'd... Never mind. Back in the dorm my head was a swarm.

Sloane sat clutching her phone, mouth opening and closing. "What?" I said. "Della..." She turned the screen toward me. "The girl kissing Caspian.

That's you, right?" A photo of me kissing Caspian. Grainy. Still obviously me.

Some helpful soul had snapped it, and now it was tearing through every campus group on the app. "You know Caspian?" It finally caught up with me. "He's the star senior over in physics.

Gorgeous, top of everything, shelf full of awards." Sloane gave me a look. "Since day one you've had eyes for exactly one guy on this whole campus.

Tracks that you've never heard of him." "Do a lot of people... know who he is?" "Uh. Yeah." Cool.

So now I was famous. "It's a misunderstanding!" "A misunderstanding." I walked her through the whole thing.

Sloane thought about it. "You really need to go explain this to Caspian." So I did exactly that.

Called in a favor from a physics guy I knew through student council and had him knock Caspian out of his dorm. I waited at the bottom of the building.

The text came back fast: not in, probably off studying somewhere. I didn't leave. I parked myself by the path into the guys' dorms and settled in to wait him out.

Except the first person down that path wasn't Caspian. It was Beckett. Walking toward me, slow, the air around him pressed flat and low.

And something in his face said he already knew. Chapter 4 It was full dark by the time he came up the path, the streetlights gone soft and blurry, the air around him hanging low.

My chest went tight. This time of night, he should've just been getting out of a movie with Margot. "What'd you guys see?" I said, stiff, reaching for anything.

He looked at me for a few seconds without a word. "Didn't go." "Wh— what's wrong?" Another pause. "When did you meet Caspian?" I didn't get why he was asking.

A second later, I got it. "Della. What you're doing is hurting Margot." The streetlight stuttered on a bad current. The wind came up cold off the path. Margot liked Caspian.

And Beckett had known the whole time. Footsteps crossed the leaves. Someone passed us. Beckett and I both looked up at the same time. He saw who it was, and let out a small scoff.

Didn't leave me a single word. Just turned and went. Their dorms were in opposite directions. Once they were both far enough gone, I finally got my feet under me.

I caught up to Caspian outside his building. "Caspian!" He stopped. The night must have been cold.

He had a black windbreaker zipped all the way to his chin, and the whole of him read like a shut door. "I've been waiting for you." I was out of breath from running.

His brow pulled together. "Something you need?" I took a second to get my air back. "About today.

I'm sorry." He stared at me and said nothing. "I didn't actually mean to kiss you, I—" "Done?" he cut in. "Anything else?" I shook my head, blank. "Later, then." Hands in his pockets, gone.

I stood there staring at the back of him. So. Wasn't I supposed to be clearing things up? It went better than I'd braced for, honestly.

The photo made the rounds for a couple of days, then some fresher scandal buried it. A whole week went by without Beckett or Margot anywhere in my orbit.

Like the entire thing had only ever happened inside my own head. Until Margot came to find me. She looked worn down.

Caspian had been in a mood for days, I'd heard, and you could see it on her.

I pressed my lips together and decided to just tell her the truth. "Actually—" "Della." She cut me off. "I know you like Beckett." I went still.

Her eyes rimmed red. "Break it off with Caspian, and I'll give Beckett to you." And then, softer, like she was doing me a favor: "Okay?" I looked at her, and something about it struck me as almost funny.

The boy I'd spent years aching over. To her, he was a thing you could slide across a table. Yours. Easy. A word as light as give.

I huffed out a small laugh. "What's so funny?" "Margot." My voice came out harder than I'd ever heard it. "What Caspian and I are is none of your business.

If you want him, go fight for him.

You don't get to use some tacky little trade to cheapen the way Beckett feels about you." She stared at me, eyes red, and couldn't push out a single word. I turned and walked away.

The autumn wind came straight at me. I pulled my coat tighter, and the cold got in through the collar anyway. All the way down. I'd just put Margot in her place.

I should've felt good about it. So it was strange, the way my nose started to sting. The way my eyes itched. Why was that? Chapter 5 After that, Margot left me alone.

I packed everything I had into studying. Our major runs through some physics, and the professor set up a tour of the grad lab. We all gathered at the bottom of the building.

A grad student came hurrying over. "Okay, so, the professor wanted me to walk you through it, but I've got an experiment melting down upstairs, so I found someone to cover.

Don't worry. You're gonna love this." She glanced back over her shoulder. We all looked up with her.

A tall figure in a white coat pushed through the door, in no kind of hurry, came to a stop in front of us, and lazily lifted his eyes.

The group detonated. "Caspian!" "Wait, isn't he an undergrad? Why's he in the grad lab?" "He's on the professor's project. You didn't know?" ...Of course. Of course he was.

I dipped my head into the noise and prayed not to be seen. Then somebody just had to shout it. "Della, isn't that your boyfriend?" Two seconds of silence.

Then the whole crowd cracked up. ??? How was the kiss photo STILL following me around?

Caspian's eyes drifted over me, flat, and slid off like I wasn't worth the second look. "N— no, he's not," I mumbled. Nobody was listening.

I kept my head down and let the stares crawl over me. "Come in," Caspian said. Everyone scrambled after him.

I spent the whole tour with zero interest in any of it, trailing dead last, eyes on the floor. Didn't even register that it had ended.

Just kept marching forward, head down, until I walked straight into a person. "Sorry!" I jumped back. Then I clocked who it was and wanted to lie down and die.

Caspian, arms crossed, leaning on the wall, looking down at me. Chin tipped. "They all left." I whipped around. Sure enough. Gone, every last one of them.

I turned to go, and he called me back. Pointed down the other end of the hall. "Elevator's that way." I spun to fix my course too fast.

Maybe the floor was slick, maybe my shoes were garbage, but the second I turned, something wrenched in my lower back.

And then, with truly soapopera timing, I went pitching straight at Caspian. An inch before impact, his hand shot out and caught me.

Exactly like the day I kissed him. "Doing it again?" "..." "I—" I scrambled to explain. "Caspian, the elevator's busted!" A clump of students reappeared behind him out of nowhere.

He went still. The pressure of his hand let up. I lost my footing and lurched forward. Both arms around his waist. The whole hallway froze. Me, frozen. Him, frozen.

Nobody breathed for a solid five seconds. Caspian spoke first. "Not in front of everyone." "..." Somebody whistled. The hallway lost it.

I shoved off him and stumbled back a few steps, head down, face on fire. His waist, though. Kind of trim. "Then take the stairs," Caspian said, not a flicker on his face.

The hecklers quieted down and, taking the hint, pulled the stairwell door open. "One more thing. Somebody stays back to help me pack up the equipment." Every head swung toward me.

And then, in perfect unspoken agreement, all of them left. What. Leave me here? Before it even registered, Caspian was already moving toward the lab ahead of me. "Come on.

Work." Chapter 6 Once he'd told me what to do, Caspian dropped into a chair at the computer and started typing, with zero apparent plan to help.

I pulled a face at the back of his head. The work wasn't much, just fiddly, and it ate up a while. When I finished, he was still at it, locked in.

I edged over. "Um." He didn't look up. "You can head out when you're done." "..." I took a breath. "Caspian." That got him. He stopped, tipped his head toward me.

I scratched the back of my neck. "Sorry about my classmates. They've kind of got the wrong idea about us. I'll set them straight, I swear—" "Mm." Back to typing.

I tried again, careful. "So maybe, going forward, you could not say stuff that makes it worse?

Like, 'not in front of everyone' and all that?" Because that is EXACTLY how couples flirt, okay?!

He stopped again. "Is there a problem?" It came out before I could stop it. "You— you're hurting my dating prospects." "And not mine?" ...Okay. Fair.

I gave up and turned for the door. "Wait." He shut the laptop, stood, and came toward me, peeling off the lab coat as he walked.

I backpedaled fast. "Wh— what are you doing?" He stopped.

Turned, hung the coat in a cabinet, then stepped past me and pushed the door open. "I'm leaving too." We went down the stairs together.

To outrun the awkwardness I walked fast, telling myself the second we cleared the building we'd split off in different directions. We cleared the building.

He stayed right behind me, in no hurry at all. I stopped. "Was there something else?" Caspian looked at me like I'd grown a second head. "I'm going to the dining hall." "..." Right.

Cool. You go, then. I won't. I sped up, aiming to peel off at the corner ahead. I looked up. Two very familiar figures.

Margot, on Beckett's arm, the two of them laughing about something, headed straight for us. I spun on the spot and planted myself in front of Caspian.

Caspian: ? "Caspian." I wrestled my face into something pleasant. "Let me buy you dinner." He didn't answer right away.

Just looked at me, thoughtful, like he was reading something off the back of my eyes. The second before his gaze lifted toward them, I grabbed his arm. "Don't be shy." Caspian: ?

I hauled him to the little place by the campus gate. "Food's good here.

My roommates and I come all the time." Sitting across from him, I dug around for something to say and came up empty. He looked perfectly fine.

Long fingers flipped through the menu, then pushed it to my side of the table. "You order." "Okay.

Anything you don't eat?" "No." I ordered a couple of the house specials, sat there rigid, and ran out of words again. Caspian had his phone out, answering somebody.

It got worse. "So," I started. "Della!" Someone calling my name. What was I even about to... This place. My roommates and I. All the time.

Sloane and two others, faces lit up with the worst kind of curiosity. I shot to my feet. "You guys are here too?" "Yeah.

Texted you, got nothing back." I'd been too busy panicking to look at my phone. Sloane's eyes slid to Caspian behind me. Her mouth opened.

I had her by the elbow and around the corner before a single word got out. Chapter 7 "So what's the deal with you and Caspian?" Pure gossip, all over her face. "I told you.

Misunderstanding. I don't even know him." "Sure, you don't know him now.

Couple dates and you will." "I—" "Della." Sloane patted my shoulder like she was handing down wisdom. "Enemiestolovers is my favorite trope.

Don't fumble this." Then she towed the others off and left me petrified in place. I couldn't taste a bite of the meal.

Caspian caught me drifting and asked, polite about it, "Not to your taste?" I shook my head. Then, out of nowhere: "Do you drink?" It was my second time drinking, ever.

The first was the night I found out Beckett liked Margot. I put away two beers and showed up to my 8am the next morning like nothing had happened.

So I figured I could handle my liquor