#fromwork | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

crackedpumpkin · 10 days ago

Text

| 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬 | 𝟏𝟓 |

a/n: hi :> I'm alive :> I took leave fromwork today so i could finish this :>>> hope u enjoy lol still short but i promise next few updates will be much longer!!

taglist: @candyquokka @mikadough @em-100-blog @cursedreader @alicesmile1 @alexa24 @raegreenie4 @burdeningbitch @viannasthings @cadencannot @ml3czqo @nanasemo @certified-cole-simp @beescomet @theblindhag @mitbin24 @sweetlittlebumblebree @brooklyniswriting @cantbecreative @something-else3 @iinlovewithfictionalppl @itz-moonlight @jebesovovise @ryeheep @letthelightin2112 @classically-bored @clearlawyereaglewobbler @anajellyc @the-midnight-duck @fru1ty-bage3ls @elysiuansstuff @risagichi @mousedit@yoggi-bingus @silveritydreams @mikadough @greenunoreversecard @herondale3109 @something-else3 @herondale3109 @changeling5am @obs3ssingd3vil

[ 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 ] | [ 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 ] | [ 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ]

“...Why are you pouring flour into the rice cooker?”

You blink. The bag of flour in your hands is half-empty, and the rice cooker now contains a sad, white, powdery hill of disaster.

You clear your throat, trying to look casual as you slowly place the bag back in its container.

“I was, uh… measuring. You know. To see how much we have left.”

Zane turns his head slowly. He looks at the flour. Then at the bag. Then at you.

The silence is brutal.

“In what measurements?”

You briefly consider crawling into the oven and baking yourself alive. Honestly, that would be less stressful than dealing with the emotional tornado currently tearing through your stomach.

What even was all that earlier?

Zane silently slides a container of short-grain rice into your hands, his movements calm and precise. He replaces the bowl of flour with an empty one, giving you something productive to do because clearly, you look more frazzled than you thought.

Your hands shake a little as you set the bag aside. You're pouring rice, sure, but you're mostly just staring into the bowl like it might explain what the hell just happened. Like maybe the grains will spell it out for you in Morse code.

I don’t even know Morse code-

What was that look in his eyes? Why was he that close? Why didn’t you move?

…Why don’t you want to move now, just thinking about it?

You bite the inside of your cheek and blink hard. No. Nope. We’re not doing this. I don’t have time for whatever that was. There’s a perfectly logical, non-heart-flipping reason you nearly kissed Cole in a hallway.

Right?

You flinch when Zane clears his throat beside you, not looking up.

"Would you like me to handle the rice?" he asks gently, though you can sense the nuance in his tone that suggests let me handle this and spare you from more public humiliation.

You shake your head too fast. “Nope. I’m fine. Totally good. Just... needed a second to recalculate the uh… rice.”

Zane says nothing, stepping back with a raised brow and understanding smile. You move to the sink and begin washing the rice, stirring the raw grains with your bare hands. “So, what’s for lunch?” You ask warily, eyeing the way he’s holding the knife.

“Vegetable stir-fry and braised tofu.”

You nod sagely, like he’d given you the answer to life. “Tofu. Great. Love that for us. Let’s go vegetarians.” You stare at your lifeless fist pump in disgust, slowly putting it back down.

Zane hums noncommittally, already chopping vegetables with a terrifying position that makes you wonder if he’d ever consider being on an episode of Hell’s Kitchen.

“Do you think it’s possible to spontaneously combust from, like... residual embarrassment?” you ask, mostly to yourself.

“I have not encountered that particular phenomenon,” Zane replies, unfazed. “But I believe your odds increase if you continue scrubbing the rice like it personally insulted your honor.”

You pause, realizing the grains are probably cleaner than your conscience right now. Slowing your motions, you stare blankly into the sink.

It wasn’t just a moment of carelessness. Not really. It wasn’t like you tripped and accidentally got caught in a weird soap opera camera angle.

You’d leaned in. He did too.

And for half a second, everything in your head had shut up. No worries. No overthinking. Just… him.

You suck in a breath and quickly dump the rice into the cooker before you can spiral again. “Anyway. No combusting today. I have tofu to survive for.”

Zane slides a plate of sliced carrots your way. “That’s the spirit.”

You take them and start arranging them in neat, even rows. You absolutely do not picture Cole’s stupidly warm eyes watching you from across the kitchen. Nope. Not happening.

Absolutely not.

— — — — — —

Lunch goes smoothly without a hitch. What you feared to be an awkward moment filled with dread and existential crisis somehow turned into casual banter. The moment Cole had walked into the room and found your wandering gaze, it’s as if a silent agreement was instantly reached to not bring up whatever happened in the hallway.

You move to your seats and like the normal people you are, avoid anything that includes interacting with each other. This unfortunately didn’t go unnoticed, and your attention is drawn to Jay and Lloyd’s occasional giggles.

You eye them with suspicion, gaze sliding over to Cole who actively avoids looking your way. Did he say something…? Surely not.

Just as you’re about to comment on the two idiots who look like they clearly know something, your grip loosens and your chopsticks fall to the floor. Biting back a cuss, you bend down with a sigh and reach for the wooden sticks.

Whether by fate or bizarre coincidence (or maybe he has some manners in him after all), his hand closes around the other end just as yours do. You both pause.

There’s a beat of silence under the table, where the air somehow feels heavier. More… charged.

The floor is so sexy right now, you think bitterly, staring at that one oddly misshapen smudge that you suspect is probably a burn mark of some sort. Instead of doing the sensible thing and look up, your fingers instinctively tighten around the chopsticks.

The weight shifts just as you do, realising that he’d done the same.

Great. Now I’m stuck in a silent tug-of-war over two sad pieces of wood. This is ridiculous. Just let go.

...Except you don’t. And neither does he.

You stubbornly nudge forward a centimetre, gaze still stuck on the burn mark. He nudges back.

This bitch-

You make the mistake of glancing up. Then, you catch it. That goddamn smirk.

The corner of his mouth lifts in that same infuriatingly cocky way. Your breath hitches before you can stop it, thoughts derailing so fast you almost forget where you are.

Your gaze flicks down to his mouth.

Absolutely NOT-

You jolt upright like you’ve just been zapped by lightning, only to slam your head directly into the underside of the table.

The impact reverberates through your skull like a personal attack from the universe. You let out a sharp gasp, practically folding onto the floor as you cradle your head.

“Dude—!” you hear Jay wheeze above the table. “Did she just—?”

Cole shoots up after you, narrowly missing the table edge. “Are you okay?” he blurts, reaching toward you.

“I’m fine!” You wheeze, desperately flailing the arm that isn’t cradling your head in his direction to ward him off. “I’m all good.” If this man got within ten inches of you, there’s no telling what might happen. The further away, the better.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Nya hesitates, reaching out a hand before patting your shoulder in the most off-rhythmic way possible.

“I’m fine. Why are you guys acting so weird? Back to the food, c’mon. It’s vegetarian.” The pain lessens slightly, enough to shift from your initial cradling to a weak gesture, ushering them back to their seats.

From the corner of your eye you spot Lloyd with his head in his hands, and Jay gripping the edges of the table so tightly you can spot the whites of his knuckles. Nya and Kai simply exchange worried glances before slowly raising their chopsticks once more to continue eating.

“I’ll go check on the mast or something. Ship things.” Keeping your mouth shut would’ve made it a million times easier to slip away but no, you just had to make up a stupid excuse before hurrying out the doorway.

Your feet move on autopilot, eventually finding yourself standing at the deck of the ship. The breeze brushing against your flushed cheeks makes it easier to draw a breath, all tension from earlier dissipating in your chest as you stare at the mountains in the distance.

One breath, then another. You repeat the same action mindlessly, waiting for the calm to slowly inch its way into your chest and replace the nervousness crawling around inside. Glancing down, you realise that you’d been picking at the skin around your nails again. The tips are raw and red, hissing as you press against them with the lightest of pressure.

Pushing past the pain, you scrunch your hands into fists and press them into your palms, suddenly wishing desperately that you were anywhere but here. Maybe this was a mistake. You’d made it so abundantly clear tens of thousands of times that you’d rather die than accept him as your soulmate.

Pulling out your phone, you scroll through the contact before landing on one you never expected to call, not in a million years.

Your finger hovers over the screen, ghosting over the icon as you debate whether to truly go through with it.

Fuck it.

The moment you make up your mind, you’re interrupted by the sound of footsteps approaching you. You turn off the phone, swiftly sliding it into your pocket before pressing your lips together as the person moves closer.

It’d be dumb if you didn’t already recognise his steps by now. The very person you didn’t want to be here, stands beside you with his arms resting on the wooden railing. Staring straight ahead, irritability creeps in once again.

“You know, it’s really hard to keep ignoring you when you keep dangling that frozen bag of peas like you’re about to punch me in the face with them.”

“Oh.” He looks at it, then back at you again before raising his hands in surrender. “You caught me.”

That gets a small laugh out of you. The silence after is deafening, feeling heavier and more oppressive by the second. “So are you going to give me those? Or…?”

“Not at all. These are actually for me.” You raise your brows sceptically, watching as he places the bag on his arms with an exaggerated wince.

He lifts it off awkwardly, perhaps realising from the unimpressed expression on your face that the conversation would die before it even began. He shifts, gently pressing the cold bag against the spot on your head that’d been throbbing the most.

The cool sensation is nice, closing your eyes momentarily to relish in the relief it provides. “Thanks,” you mutter, keeping them shut so you don’t have to look at him. But even then, it provides no help whatsoever. It’s as if you’d become alert to everything; each draw of his breath, every shift in his posture, even the words you can anticipate he’s about to say.

“About earlier…”

Damn it.

You hear him swallow thickly. “Why did you…why did you lean in?”

“I didn’t lean in,” you say defensively, before remembering that you’re supposed to behave like an adult and actually talk about your problems instead of bottling it up. “I just— I don’t know, okay?”

The defeated sigh that follows your words makes you slump slightly, opening your eyes and staring pointedly at his shirt. What he says next, however, makes you snap your gaze back up to his, your breath hitching.

“I didn’t mind it.”

His cheeks are colored pinker than your face after a round of sparring with Master Wu, but he doesn’t look away. Your eyes search his, forgetting how to breathe when you see it — fear. It’s not that he wants to look away, he can’t.

And neither can you.

“I, uhm.” You inhale sharply, dropping your gaze to your clenched fists. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either,” he admits. His other hand reaches out, closing over your fists. “But that doesn’t mean I have to, right?”

You shrug.

That gets a chuckle from him. “Look. Maybe we don’t have to address it at all. We can save it for when we’re back home, right? Otherwise we might get distracted from the reason why we’re here.” He pauses, brushing his thumb over your knuckles. “Your safety.”

“That’s true,” you say ruefully, “stupid safety.”

“So, we’ll talk about it properly when we’re back home?” He asks once more, a glimmer of hope in his voice.

You nod.

“Great. And if we do it again, we’ll discuss it back home too.” That stuns you, any viable retort dying on the tip of your tongue as he grins unabashedly. “Let’s just keep it a gray area, okay? Okay!”

“What do you mea–”

“Hey look! We’re here!” He ignores you, pulling on the rope that makes a loud bell chime that alerts everyone else on the ship.

Castle spires and golden tips pierce through the clouds, sunlight glinting off the surfaces that make it glimmer. People stroll through the lush green lawns, waving happily at the ship and clamouring their welcomes.

He grasps your wrist, tugging you toward him and gesturing to the floating island. “Welcome to Shintaro.” A strangled noise falls past your lips, looking at him wide-eyed and feeling like your cheeks are on fire, as if he didn’t just basically say five seconds ago it would be a free-for-all.

“Cole!!”

#ninjago #lego ninjago #cole brookstone #cole brookstone x female reader #cole x female reader #ninjago x reader #cole ninjago #lego ninjago x reader

88 notes · View notes