After YJ breaks up, Kon drops by the Elias School. He isn’t there to see Cassie, however.
Just Dropped By To Say
A light knock on her window woke Cissie from her half-doze. Moaning in denial, she pushed her head further into her pillow and tried to ignore the sound.
The knocking grew louder and, realizing that she was now awake enough to acknowledge that fact, as well as what a knock on her window meant, Cissie heaved a disgruntled sigh threw back the covers, and padding over to the window. “Kon, hey,” Cissie greeted her best friend’s boyfriend, with a smile that was bright, but also mostly faked.
The fact that Kon could see that either meant he was becoming more observant, or Cissie was too tired to dissemble. Considering that she had been woken up by Kon’s appearance at her dorm room window, it was probably the latter.
“What’s up?” Cissie asked around a yawn as she pulled back the curtains.
Kon nudge the window open with his TTK and flew in, landing a few feet away from her. “Nothing much. Just…needed to get away from Smallville.”
Nodding, a sympathetic smile on her face, Cissie offered reluctantly, “Cassie’s studying for her trig test in Greta’s room.”
Kon shuffled his feet, though his eyes remained locked with hers. “Actually, I came to see you,” he admitted.
Cissie blinked, blushed, and looked down at her bare feet, focusing on her sparkly red toes. The polish was chipped, her legs needed shaving, and all of the sudden she became aware of the fact that she was only wearing a ratty, faded green nightshirt with the Lucky Charms symbols on it. She crossed her arms embarrassedly over her breasts. “Really?” she asked, recovering quickly and shooting him a smile. “I can’t imagine why.” True, Young Justice had only been broken up for a few weeks, but she’d stopped being a member much earlier.
Even if she never did stop ‘dropping by’ to hang out with Cassie.
“Can’t you?” Kon asked, eyes piercing hers with their honesty.
Unable to bear his searing blue gaze, Cissie backed up a bit, hands fisting in her nightshirt. “I…no,” she admitted. She knew why she wanted Kon to be stopping by, but Cassie had been going on for weeks about the fact that Kon kissed her, and told her he loved her.
So it didn’t matter what she wanted.
Contrary to her thoughts, however, Kon’s words were: “I like you, Cissie.”
Cissie froze, eyes wide. Only when they started to burn did she resume blinking, and once started, couldn’t stop for several long moments, as she tried to process Kon’s words. “But Cassie-” Cissie finally objected, as she always had.
“Likes me, I know,” Kon finished for her. “But I like you.”
It had been months since Kon had acted as if he felt that way; months in which Cissie had pushed Cassie at Kon, because that was what a best friend did, and months in which she’d started falling for Kon in return, which she kept to herself, because she was Cassie’s best friend. Irony of ironies; she hadn’t wanted Kon until he didn’t want her. “But you told Cassie that you loved her.” Love didn’t triumph over all, but it did trump like.
“And I do,” Kon acknowledged, continuing before Cissie’s heart could give more than the merest twinge, “like I love all you guys. I tried to tell her that then, but she kissed me, and then Secret attacked, and I tried to tell her again when we partnered up with the Titans, but then Donna died, and…” He looked down and made a noise that sounded half-angry, half-upset, mostly disappointed. When his eyes met hers once again, they were filled pain, sorrow, longing…hope. “I sent her a letter a couple weeks ago. It’s not the best way to break up, but I couldn’t leave it any longer, and anyway, we haven’t seen each other since then, so I don’t know if we were ever really dating.”
That explained why Cassie had been so down lately; not just Donna dying, or the team breaking up, or her failing math grades, but also her boyfriend breaking up with her on top of that. “But you can’t just come here and- and expect me to-” In the small part of her mind that wasn’t screaming with worry, Cissie found herself glad that she and Greta had switched roommates. It was mostly because Traya needed more sleep than she’d get with Cassie out late training with Wonder Woman, but right now Cissie was just glad that she didn’t have to worry about Traya waking up and seeing this on top of the worry Kon was causing her.
“I don’t expect anything from you, Ciss,” Kon said, reaching down to disentangle her fisted hands from her shirt. He held her small, strong hands in his own, and Cissie was struck once again by the incongruity of her calluses against his smooth skin. “I just hope.”
Cissie felt her heart start to pound, and her hands shook in Kon’s. “Hope what?”
“That maybe, one day…you’ll feel the same way I do.” Kon placed his hands on Cissie’s shoulders, drawing her closer. He leaned in, close enough to kiss her, which Cissie more than half-hoped for, but just leaned his forehead against hers instead, locking his eyes with hers.
Cissie’s heart skipped a beat, then another, finally settling into a rhythm reminiscent of pounding drums. The tempo spurred her on, tearing away her momentary misgivings, and with a shaky smile on her lips, she said, “I already do.”
Before either of them had time to think, they had closed the scant distance between them, their lips meeting as their bodies had a moment before. The kiss was soft and gentle and like the embrace lingered on long past that of a friendly gesture.
Mind hazy with a pleasure she never dreamed could be hers, Cissie spared a moment to hope that Kon could drop by a lot in the future.
And that Cassie stayed up very late studying.