hands like the devil

his face is blank for a brief moment (which to him feels like a full thousand years), but not before his ears start to redden. “i—i don’t know.” no! say something!

what was in it for her? smooth dancing skills, time of her life, list of corny puns dropped cleverly into their conversations, perpetual compliments. that didn’t matter. no, not at all. his peripheral vision seems to vanish as his eyes focus in on hers. brown eyes. think of a poem about brown. brown. sing ‘brown eyed girl’ by van morrison. no; lips? sort of peachy. peaches. ‘peaches’ by the valley below. wait, what did she ask again? 

you’d think that the (way too big) crowd would fall out by now, considering how long it’s taking for her to even say her cliché yes!, but the gaggle of students lingers. where were the professors to break things up when she needed them? then again, that wouldn’t have been the greatest outcome since they would see why the crowd formed in the first place — her. or peter. her? peter?

embarrassing boots. check.

weirdly fitting jeans. check.

t-shirt? white, black lining on the collar and sleeves. font: cooper black. but what does it say? soojung, yule ball? in a vivid red. and what are you going to say afterwards? if you go to the ball with me, all of your wildest dreams will come true. good.

check.

friday. four p.m., sharp. classes have just let out. are you ready?

a small crowd of students had already congregated in the courtyard. there is soft chatter about christmas and snow and mistletoe, remnant of childish excitement. peter is standing atop the stone platform with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans. he is getting strange looks, wearing short sleeves in the close-to-below-freezing temperature. a couple of the muggleborns recognize the reference, but in general the masses think he has gone mad.

soojung! ten feet away, just around the corner. cue music. canned heat, by jamiroquai.

and just like that, on the beat, this damn boy begins to shuffle, side-to-side. here comes the turkish twist! merlin’s beard, then there’s a series of some illegally awkward early 80s dance moves, including that god forbidden guitar wail move, which sort of makes peter look like a drunken grandpa, but, well, somehow it works (the hip thrusts make everything better). look at soojung! what is she thinking right now? mortification? hip thrust!

the song is purposely cut short in honor of the film, and for a moment it’s quiet; peter is frozen, with that blank stare on his face. he’s looking right at the brown-eyed girl before him. someone brings him a crudely put together bouquet of baby’s breath. peter jumps down from the platform and approaches her.

and the crowd goes wild!

the hushed murmurs derail her train of thought. she hears bits and pieces of conversations she’s not physically a part of (—in this bloody weather?—gonna have to get the infirmary ready for frostbite), and her gaze flits from face to face, corner to corner, wondering what in the hell everyone seems to see that she can’t.

there. bloody hell, is that… peter? she has to admit, a lot of willpower is going into her not rubbing her face in her palms. the sign is unnoticed at first while she subconsciously adjusts her scarf as if to make up for his stupidity of wearing a short-sleeve right before winter. a short shove from the back and a quick hiss from her end, she finds herself in the eye of the storm, staring straight towards her gryffindor counterpart.

if there’s anything that any student in-the-know at hogwarts knows about jung soojung (other than the fact that she loves shoving her nose into books), it’s that jung soojung does not like the spotlight to stay on her for anything other than a scholarly merit. peter oh dancing for jung soojung in god-awful (but admittedly, smooth) moves and hip thrusts in the middle of the courtyard with a giant gaggle of students circling around them certainly does not fall within jung soojung’s exception.

merlin, please help her now. the courtyard is silent as peter stares at her. ah yes, flowers. it certainly does explain the entire fiasco he’s prepared (a lot? she can’t tell for sure when he is one to burst out into random dances), but soojung never had the suspicion she’d be the one he would—