The elevator that Newt, Ava and I are riding up to the top of the Training Centre smells of roses and perfume, not of home. There aren't any roses in Twelve except for the occasional one in the front of a house in the town centre. Women certainly don't waste their money on perfume, unless it's a homemade recipe. But in the Capitol, I smell roses and perfume whenever I move the angle of my head the slightest bit. I smell the scent until we reach the top of the building, where the floor for the District Twelve tributes, escort and mentor is located. The elevator makes a light, ringing noise as it slows to a halt, and the two sliding glass doors open silently into a large corridor.
"Newt, your door is on the left, y/n, directly on the right," Ava says briskly. "Minho and I will be at the end of the corridor. Speaking of Minho, I have no idea where that boy has gotten to." I grin to myself as I realise that, yes, Minho is still, technically, a boy. My grin fades as Ava storms off down the corridor, probably in search for Minho. I hear a door slam with a bang and Newt and I are left facing each other awkwardly.
"Nice job with the opening ceremony," I tell Newt. He smiles.
"Good that," he replies, almost tiredly.
"What's wrong?" I question him, and the smile fades from my face, too.
"It just makes it so much more real, you know?" he says. "I'm gonna be bloody dead in a few weeks, and all these Capitol people do is cheer us on. It's horrible."
"You're not going to be dead in a few weeks," I say. "I'll make sure of it."
"No, y/n!" Newt says, his voice rising. "We promised to enjoy life now, and not think of that for the time being." I bite my tongue.
"Yeah, you're right," I say.
"Good that," Newt says, and he mutters something under his breath that sounds something like, You're getting home alive, love. I don't think that he meant for me to hear it, though, so I keep my mouth shut and don't acknowledge what he said, even though I'm not getting home alive. He is.
"I'd better wash this klunk off my face," I say, gesturing towards the makeup.
"Yeah, you look good without it," Newt agrees, then turns red, as if he didn't mean to say it aloud. I smile, and laugh.
"Thanks," I tell him.
"Anytime," he says, and a strange surge of warmth runs through me that heats me up from head to toe. I turn around and face the door on the right, before twisting my head back around so I'm looking at Newt.
"See you at dinner," I say.
"See ya, love," he replies, and pauses, as if he wants to say something else. When he doesn't, I walk into my room and close the door behind me.
The room here is bigger than even the one from the train. There's a shower here, too, and a button that I can press when I want to order a drink. Although, judging by the menu, I can not only order drinks, but any type of food I want to eat, too. I can program the wardrobe for any outfit that I want to wear, although when you live in District Twelve, you learn not to bother with fashion choices too much. Instead of choosing what to wear first, though, I open a door along the side of the room to a massive bathroom, complete with a shower cubicle that must be five metres wide, with hundreds of different buttons. I turn the temperature of the shower water right up, and press the first button I see on the panel, which squirts a jet of sky blue foam directly onto my hair. I massage it into my scalp and press another button that squirts pink soap onto my head too. Spending what must be over half an hour in the shower, I manage to press about half the buttons. I use all of the sponges I can to wash all traces of makeup off my face, and massage dozens of brightly coloured soaps into my hair to get rid of all of the black and grey colouring. I scrub my body down, but it still doesn't quite feel like it normally does after all my body hair was ripped off this morning. I rinse my body off with warm water, and step out of the shower onto the fluffy white mat. My hair blows in my face as heaters turn on that completely dry my body in five seconds flat, and I press a different button that sends waves through my hair, drying, untangling and letting it fall across my shoulders, the neatest it's ever been in my life, without me needing to do anything to it. Wrapping myself in a towel, I walk out of the bathroom, quietly humming a tune my mother used to sing to me when I was young. Before I really understood how horrible humanity is. Before I really understood the Hunger Games. I haven't heard it since my mother died, but I still remember all the lyrics and the tune. I walk over to the wardrobe, ready to program it with an outfit I want, trying not to cry at the memory of my mother, when the door flies open. I whirl around and face the general direction of the person who just invaded my new bedroom. Newt's standing there, his jaw wide open, frozen still.
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The Tributes of Twelve | Newt x Reader
Fanfiction(y/n) (y/l/n). A girl from the Seam in District Twelve. She lives under the control of the Capitol with her father and younger brother Chuck. She has avoided the Hunger Games her entire life and has instead focused on putting food on her family's ta...
