Detention (ASOUE)

Chapter Forty Four

After telling Lily about what happened when I went to speak to Klaus, she had been on one, forcing me to divulge in every detail of every single conversation I had with him since then. But there wasn't really anything to tell, much to her disappointment. 

Klaus and I spoke a lot. He had got a lot more chatty over the weeks and we spoke pretty much everyday, texting if we couldn't see each other in person. But nothing much more happened than that, despite Lily furiously trying to push us together.

I knew we were more than friends, but it seemed terrifying to take that leap and make it official. At least, it felt like that for me. So I waited and hoped that he might find the courage to do it himself.

One day after school, Lily cornered us. And by cornered us, I mean Klaus and I were having a conversation and she jammed her way into it and grabbed both of us by the arm.

She had said: "We're going for cake," and then she lead us out and didn't unlink herself from both of us until we had finished the walk into town and to a bakery, which had a small seating area inside. We ordered, sat down and, within minutes, Lily very unconvincingly received a phone call and had to leave. After that, Lily liked to refer to that day as our first date, and she started calling herself a relationship expert. She told me afterwards that she had been sure he would take that opportunity to ask me out and, given his skittish nature the entire time we were together that day, I had wondered that as well. 

Despite him not taking the plunge, it was still a fun day, and I secretly thanked Lily for doing it, although I wouldn't boost her ego by saying it to her face. I don't think she needed any more encouragement to stick her nose into Klaus and I's business. 

A couple of weeks after our "first date", school had just ended and I found myself in the library. Even though we hadn't arranged it, Klaus came too and we browsed around separately before sitting opposite each other at a table. There were a couple of other students milling about or doing homework, but they quickly left, leaving just us two reading quietly. 

Klaus glanced around, noticed that even the librarian had left the room, and cleared his throat. I looked at him from over the top of my book.

"Um..." he began, "I've been meaning to ask you something."

"What is it?" I asked.

Klaus shifted nervously in his seat. "Basically, my cousin is getting married this weekend and... we're allowed to bring a plus one." He paused, making eye contact with me. "I wondered if you would go with me?"

I smiled slightly. I wanted to say yes straight away but, since I figured I could get something else out of the conversation, I decided to act dumb.

"Go with you as... your friend?" I said slyly, hoping he would take the bait.

He fidgeted in his seat and I tried my best not to smirk at the fact that I had put him on the spot. 

Klaus took a deep breath before saying, quietly, "Well I was hoping you would go as my girlfriend." Then he spoke up a bit. "Will you... be my girlfriend?"

I smiled and him and nodded. "Of course."

"Okay," he said awkwardly. "I mean, good. I'm glad."

Then he opened his book again and basically hid behind it, using it as a shield to conceal his extremely red face. 

We read for a bit longer, although I could hardly focus on the words. I read sentences over and over to try and make my brain process them but I couldn't escape the fact that Klaus had just asked me out. I knew I had pushed him a little to do it, but still. My heart was doing backflips and I begged it to stop so I could get on with reading. I wasn't sure if Klaus was in a similar predicament to me but I did notice that he didn't flip a single page after our conversation. 

After a while we packed our things away, thanked the librarian (who had since come back and was reading a thriller), and then headed out of school. It had become a habit of ours to walk home together, but it was a habit I was happy to have picked up. And, since we were officially together, I took liberty in holding his hand the entire way back to our street.

We both subconsciously made the decision to take the long way home. Sometimes we would suggest it if we were having an interesting conversation we didn't want to end, but today it was an unspoken choice. 

We let our feet take us on the familiar route and instead focused on chatting about pointless things. We spoke about school, the books we were reading, and we eventually got on to the topic of his cousin and what type of wedding he was having. Then we fell into a comfortable silence.

"We should go on a date," Klaus said all of a sudden, "A proper one. That we've planned ourselves."

"We should," I agreed. "What did you have in mind?"

Klaus thought for a moment before saying, "What about dinner? There's a nice Italian place in town. If you even like Italian food."

I nodded. "Sounds good."

We settled on a time and date and then, before we knew it, we had turned onto our street. We slowed our pace, neither of us wanting our walk to be over, but nevertheless we eventually came to his house and knew there was no other way to drag it out any longer.

"See you tomorrow," I told him, and I was about to turn and walk away when I had a thought.

If we're technically dating now... shouldn't we kiss or something?

I swallowed nervously and stepped closer to him and, wanting the same thing, Klaus leant down slightly to meet me halfway. However, before our lips could touch, a loud: "CUTE!" echoed from the Baudelaire doorstep.

Both of our heads snapped in the direction and saw Violet in the doorway, hands clasped over her mouth and eyes wide like she hadn't meant to say anything at all. She must've known she was in trouble because she dashed inside again and slammed the door. 

"See you tomorrow," Klaus repeated to me with an exasperated sigh, and squeezed my hand slightly before turning and heading towards his house, probably to give his sister a right telling off.

I smiled to myself and walked the small distance to my own house, and used the minute or so to plan out my text to Lily. After writing it and staring at the words on the screen, I decided I wanted to see her reaction in person. I deleted the message and planned to tell her the next day instead.

Lily, the self proclaimed relationship expert, was about to have her dream come true. 

A/N:

An I oop- (is that still relevant???)

Why do I lowkey feel like this chapter was lame hahahhaha anyway, I hope you guys liked it.

Also when I wrote the chapter before this one I was meant to say thank you for 10k reads but then I forgot to add it into the authors note. Then, I decided I would say thank you on this chapter instead but... we've already hit 11k???? Thank you so much!! It's crazy to me that so many people want to read this story.

Thank you for all the support!!

Btw, this doesn't really affect you guys but I wanted to mention that my work is opening next week :( so I'll have less time to write, but I'll try and get another chapter out by the end of this week if I can!

Anyway, thank you for all the votes and comments, I genuinely appreciate it so much. See you guys next time ❤