The blow was explosive, hard enough that my head rocked back so sharply I heard something in my neck crack. Shock overcame me first, everything numb as I blinked stars away, and the pain came plowing through at a close second. There was a throbbing, burning ache in my cheekbone and I wondered for a moment if it was broken. Seconds that seemed to drag into an eternity passed, and when my vision finally cleared enough that I could focus on you, I saw you staring at your own fist as if it had betrayed you.

“You just punched me,” I croaked, as if either one of us really needed the clarification. “I can’t believe you just fucking punched me.”

You clenched and unclenched your hand, still shell-shocked, and looked up at me with wide eyes. Your lip trembled a bit, as if you were about to cry, and you opened your mouth to speak but there was a lengthy bit of silence before any actual sound came out. “I-I didn’t mean to! God, you just made me so angry and you wouldn’t shut up and—and it just happened.” I swear your eyebrows just about disappeared into your hairline. “I didn’t mean to.”

Gingerly, I brought two fingers to my cheek and touched it. It was swollen, definitely still throbbing, and there was a split in the skin that blood was trickling from. “Shit, who the hell taught you how to throw a punch like that?”

“My dad,” you mumbled, running over to a cabinet. You flung the door open too hard the first time; it bounced back on its hinges and slammed closed. I heard you mutter something underneath your breath and pull it back again, slower. You had to tiptoe to pull something from the top shelf, a first aid kit.

You came back towards me and gestured towards a chair by the counter. I looked at you doubtfully before sneering. “Are you even going to apologize?” I prodded, wanting to get a rise out of you again.

You glared at me but remained silent, pulling the chair out with a loud rattle. “Sit down.”
I met your eyes and we were locked like that for a while, just staring each other down and seeing who would bend first. Eventually, I was the one who relented.

But only because my cheek was transitioning from throbbing to burning. It had nothing to do with how unfitting that scowl was on your face, so out of place that I just wanted to do away with it. Not at all.

I sat in the chair and watched you as you collected supplies from the kit, laying them neatly on the counter. You had a little swelling on your knuckles and there was even a bit of blood tingeing one of the rings on your hand. The split in my cheek was now explained. “So, do I get an apology?” I tried again, but you ignored me and pressed a cotton pad soaked with iodine to my cheek. I flinched away from it, hissing from the sting, but you only pressed more insistently.

I listened to you make noncommittal noises in the back of your throat as you cleaned the wound and I watched you make faces from the corner of my eye. An ill-suppressed smirk settled on my lips.

“What’s so funny?” You were throwing the cotton pads away into the garbage now, coming back to stick butterfly stitches on the cut.

I shook my head, reluctant to share with you how I found it rather adorable that you had a habit of sticking the tip of your tongue out the corner of your mouth when you were concentrating. Instead, I looked down at my hands and grumbled, “I’m…sorry for what I said earlier. You know I didn’t mean it. It just pissed me off to see—”

“Don’t,” you cut me off. My eyes flicked up towards you, confused, and you only shook your head. “Don’t say anything.” Your cool fingers gently stroked my skin and my eyes softened when they met yours. I sighed, leaning into your touch before my eyes closed.

A grin spread across my face. “Is this your apology?”

You firmly flicked my face and I was yowling from the contact. My eyes flew open to settle on your face, grim and unamused. “Shut up.”

I chuckled.