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Today marks Hunter's first full week at Hexside. He's sitting outside on the front steps next to Willow, waiting for the rest of their friends to arrive so they can all go get lunch together, when a group of students Hunter vaguely recognizes from one of his classes catches his attention. There's about five or six of them huddled together under the branches of a flowering crabapple tree, and from the moment he and Willow sat down, they've all been stealing glances at him, giggling and whispering amongst themselves.
Normally, it wouldn't bother him — after all, he'd gotten used to hearing snide remarks whispered in the corridors of the castle between the covenheads and lower-ranking scouts at his expense — but he was kind of hoping for a fresh start here. He'd expected a little curiosity, maybe some apprehension — former Golden Guard defects from the Emperor's Coven only for Belos to die at the hands of an ancient trickster god little over a month later? Yeah, that's pretty earth-shattering. What he hadn't expected was all of this incessant giggling and open-mouthed staring.
This kind of thing has been happening to him all week, and it's starting to get a little unnerving. He doesn't understand why. Is it because he fell, disgraced, from a high-ranking position? Is there something inherently funny about the way that he looks? Does he have something on his face? A stain on his uniform? He shaved just this morning…maybe he missed a spot?
But then, most of these angst-ridden, acne-encrusted hormone buckets are a little disheveled themselves — cloaks buttoned up the wrong way, bits of yesterday's meatloaf stuck to the sleeves of their uniforms, a couple of serious cases of bedhead, and in some instances, eye bags dark enough to rival his own. So why do they all keep staring at him like he's some sort of oddity?
"Hey, everything okay?" Willow asks, glancing up from the passage she'd been reading and clocking the uncomfortable expression on Hunter's face.
Hunter turns his narrow-eyed gaze to look at her, immediately softening under her encouraging smile. She always has a way of making him feel so safe. Like he could open up and tell her anything. Well…just about anything. He hasn't quite worked up the nerve to tell her that particular secret just yet.
"It's just—" he tries, scrubbing a hand through his hair in frustration, only to wince a moment later when he realizes he's just messed up the carefully-crafted style he spent nearly an hour trying to perfect in the bathroom that morning (and then had to endure Darius's relentless teasing — ooooh who are you trying to impress, little prince? — all the way through breakfast.)
"Everyone keeps staring at me," he says in a vulnerable huff. "But whenever I catch them at it, they all just quickly look away, like they're afraid to even look me in the eye. I can't go anywhere without hearing my name in hushed whispers or derisive laughter, without someone smirking and pointing at me. I thought I could do this — start over, just be a normal guy for once — but clearly I'm not welcome here…at least, not by anyone outside of our immediate friend group."
Hunter heaves a sigh, lower lip jutting out in a frown, and asks, in a small, despairing voice, "How long do you think it will take before everyone stops associating me with my evil uncle?"
"Oh Hunter," Willow sighs in sympathy, reaching out to place a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"I can't even escape it when we're outside," he says, trying to ignore the steady blush creeping into his cheeks at her touch. "You see that group of bard students over there? They haven't stopped staring at me since we sat down. Either they see me as a joke or they see me as a threat, and I just can't figure out which one it is."
Willow narrows her eyes and peers over Hunter's shoulder, ready to glare daggers at anyone who even thinks about bullying her Hun— her friend. Clocks the way the group of red-sleeved students all quickly avert their eyes, patchwork pink and red blushes on their faces, giggling and shushing and playfully shoving each other like friends do whenever they're teasing someone about a crush.
Ah. Of course. Willow figured it had to be something like that.
"Yeah, I don't think that's it," she says, lips curving into an amused smile.
Hunter stares at her blankly, one eyebrow arched in confusion.
"Don't worry, it's nothing bad," she reassures him, but Hunter doesn't look convinced.
"Then why—"
"They're staring at you because they think you're cute," she says with a small shrug, like it's an obvious fact, and Hunter nearly falls off the stone steps.
"What?" Hunter's voice cracks about an octave higher than its usual register. "No, no, no, that can't be it," he insists with a half-hysterical chuckle, batting the absurd notion away with a wild wave of his hands. "I'm not— no, it's got to be something else."
Willow stares at him for a moment, head tilted to the side like she's contemplating an unsolvable puzzle.
"Wait," she says slowly, brow furrowed in genuine concern. "Do you really not know how attract— um. I mean…has no one ever told you that before?"
Hunter glances up at her and slowly shakes his head, eyes wide with tentative hope, a faint pink blush blossoming in the hollows of his cheeks.
"Do you think I'm cute?" he ventures in a soft, awed voice, and Willow's heart skips about a thousand beats.
He's never looked more adorable than he does in this moment — fluffy blond hair coiffed in a windswept halo around the top of his head, dark eyebrows pulled upward in stunned disbelief, plush pink lower lip jutting out ever so slightly in a stupefied pout — and Titan have mercy, Willow is so far gone on this boy. She's never been so stupid in love with anyone in her entire life, but this boy downright threatens her IQ.
Luckily, a distraction arrives in the shape of a bard track student, psyching themselves up with a pep talk from one of their friends, before purposely striding over in their direction.
"Uh oh," Willow says, glancing over Hunter's shoulder. "I think one of them might be coming over here to ask you out."
"What?" Hunter splutters, effectively earthquaked out of his daze, a horrified expression replacing the soft, dreamy one he'd been wearing just seconds before. "No! Why? I don't want that!"
Willow absolutely does not radiate joy at that.
"Okay," she says, hastily trying to come up with a game plan to help him out. "Um, I could…pretend to be your girlfriend?" her useless, one-track mind supplies.
"Right," Hunter scoffs, and Willow's heart shatters for a split-second, until— "Like anyone would believe I managed to get someone as amazing as you to go out with—"
It's like his words are an incantation, triggering a powerful spell she's been waiting weeks to cast. In that moment, Willow makes an executive decision, throwing all propriety out the window, the poor spurned bard student stopping dead in their tracks as Willow reaches up to grab Hunter's face between both hands, and kisses him.
Hunter's brain short-circuits, severing connection with his lips for a full two seconds until it has the chance to process the fact that daydream.exe is in fact really happening, and then he's reaching up to gently cup her face with shaking hands, exhaling on a soft, contented sigh as he melts into her embrace.
Willow lets her hands wander until they're settled at the nape of his neck, fingers carding through his hair, sending pleasurable little shivers down the length of his spine. Hunter isn't sure what to do with his hands once he remembers how to move them, one tentatively perched on her hip, the other tangled in her hair, holding her close.
Her lips are so soft, and Hunter can taste the jasmine tea she'd slowly been sipping as she read from her floriography book, the mango lip balm she'd spread across her lips as they'd traipsed across the courtyard from the greenhouses, laughing about something that had happened in their shared plant magic class. Hunter's never had a favorite flavor before, but he sure as hell does now.
Several moments later (though still far too soon for Hunter's liking) Willow pulls back, bright green eyes wide with alarm, cheeks flushed an adorable shade of pink.
"Oh Titan, I'm sorry," she says in a flustered rush. "I shouldn't have just— I didn't think. I just saw them walking over here and did the first thing that came to mind."
Hunter arches an eyebrow. "Kissing me was the first thing that came to mind?" he asks, a self-satisfied little smile curling across his blissfully bewildered face.
Willow blushes deeper than the bright pink flowers on the nearby crabapple tree. "I— sometimes," she admits in a soft, small voice.
Hunter's answering smile is downright smug.
"Well, listen," he says hastily, smiling so wide she can see the adorable little gap between his two front teeth. "They might come back, so maybe we should do that again? You know, for good measure."
Willow stares up at him in disbelief, a beatific smile curling across her lips as Hunter pulls her in for another kiss.
They're interrupted a few minutes later by the sound of Luz's overzealous cheering and teasing wolf-whistles — a stark contrast to Amity, who merely glances between the pair of them with bored pretense, rolls her eyes, and says, "You guys are gross," before breaking out into a big, supportive smile and adding, "It's about damn time you two got together." And Gus — well, Gus is so excited for his best friends, he can't make up his mind which one of them he wants to high-five first.
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