✓ epiphany ━━ cedric diggory

﹙ 𝐱𝐱﹚ kidnapped

🖇·˚ ༘ ┊͙[ chapter twenty ] ! ˊˎ

╰─▸ fit seekers, exhaustion, and sarcasm

     "HEY, Y/N! WAIT UP WILL YOU?" A voice I easily identified as Ava called out to me.

     She and Spencer caught up with me in a matter of seconds and soon we walked in step towards the courtyard.

     Ava looped her arm through mine immediately. "Where have you been?"

     "I'm going to need you to specify what you mean," I replied back expressionless.

     Spencer too locked arms with me. "It just feels like we have seen less of you recently," she said, a solemn hint to her tone.

     Side-eyeing them one after the other, my brows furrowed. "I saw you like twenty minutes ago . . . in Defence . . . you guys sit behind me?"

     Realisation dawned on Ava's face but she quickly shook it away, "Okay, well, yeah, but we mean like outside of class."

     I'm still lost in how they seem to think anything has changed since previous years. "You mean where we share a dormitory and sit together in the common room?"

     "Can you just be serious for one minute, please, y/n?" I don't understand Spencer's annoyance.

     "I am being serious," I retorted. "I live with you, Spence. I don't get how I can see you more than that?"

     Ava and Spencer shared a look and eventually, after a simultaneous sigh, Ava jabbed me in the side, giving in, it seemed. "Merlin, y/n, what we mean is that Diggory is obviously stealing you away from us!"

     My cheeks instantly heat up. Is that what they were trying to get at? For me to admit that I've been more distant recently because I made a new friend? Who happens to be a very good-looking, very charming friend?

     "Oh, please," I huffed, striding forward a little faster in hopes they'll get the message and drop the subject, "I'd much rather spend my time with you two."

     "Sure you would," Spencer said sarcastically.

     "Okay, then," Ava then said, "study session, tonight, just the three of us. No fit Seekers allowed."

     I audibly groaned. "Anybody'd think Diggory and I are attached at the hip or something!"

     "Doesn't sound that ridiculous to me," Spencer mumbled, her eyes wandering elsewhere as if avoiding eye contact with me.

     Poking my tongue against the inside of my mouth, I freed myself from my friends' grip and stepped away to stare at them. "Enough about me leaving you for fit Seekers, okay?" I moaned, making bunnies with my fingers. "So how's eight? At the library?" I raised an expectant eyebrow.

     "And what would Ced think about that?" Ava smirked, folding her arms across her chest. The nickname is obviously intended to mock me and I don't find it very funny.

     "Yeah, are you sure he'd survive a couple of hours without you?" Spencer continued to tease me.

     Another grunt from my end. I was about to open my mouth to retaliate when the boy in question came right up behind my two friends and poked his head in the gap between them.

     "What that's about me and fit Seekers?" He grinned from ear to ear.

     "Been eavesdropping, Diggory?" I asked, my head cocking to one side.