Dave smiled down at her. "We will get through this together," he said.
He gently brushed her hair behind her ear and rubbed the tears from her eyes. "I won't let him hurt you anymore. Just watch tomorrow," he continued.
She nodded meekly, but a small smile had returned. 'Ok. If you say so, I'll believe you," she said with some determination.
For once their night wasn't spent in pleasure as he used to it to cuddle with her and comfort her instead as they just wasted a few hours watching TV to distract her from her worries.
By the next morning she seemed to have gotten over the worst of her worries as she went into the new day with a renewed vigour. They enjoyed morning where they could spend it together without worries. Dave felt they had grown even closer after their date that weekend and the conversation they had the night before. It was as if their relationship had been raised to a new level.
After he finished his breakfast he looked at Jackie with a serious expression. "After you finish what you need to get done this morning leave the house and spend the rest of the day enjoying yourself. Don't come back until after I get home. Text me if anything comes up," he told her.
Due to his nerves the day seemed to be moving slower than usual as he kept worrying about his father's return and Jackie. Although he had reassured her and he knew eventually there was nothing his father could do since he had stolen his ability that still didn't guarantee things would go well after he accidentally sent him back to the hospital just a few days before.
It wasn't until lunch that something managed to get his mind off things.
He was grabbing lunch at the cafeteria with Kate when Brad came walking into the cafeteria looking around. The moment he saw the two of them he stormed up to them turning red in the face.
He stared at Kate. "It's true isn't it?!" he yelled.
There was an awkward silence as he kept looking at Kate. It was clear despite his suspicions part of him was still hoping she would deny it so he could continue to live in his delusions rather than face the reality that his girlfriend was effectively not his girlfriend anymore. That she hadn't been for quite some time already.
Kate's head dropped not wanting to look him in the eyes as she felt a little shame for her actions.
Despite the lack of an outright denial her silence spoke volume and Dave could see what little hope was in Brad's eyes dim replaced by tears in the corner of them instead.
His eyes darted to Dave and back to Kate. "S-say something!" he said, but it was clear his heart wasn't in it anymore.
Kate couldn't even look at him turning to look at Dave instead as a form of escape. Her eyes were red and she seemed like she was about to cry just as much as Brad did.
Dave who had been watching the developments sighed and wrapped his arm around Kate's waist pulling her towards him. She didn't resist at all instead wrapping her arms around him and pressing herself into his side excitedly while resting her head against his chest. "How much longer are you going to delude yourself?" he asked exasperatedly.
Brad's gaze turned hard. "No! Get the fuck away from her!" he said threateningly reaching out towards Kate. Unfortunately with his diminutive physique it wasn't near as threatening as he would hope it to be.
Dave who had actually felt a shred of sympathy for Brad up to that point killed it. He let go of Kate and stepped in front of her blocking Brad. He was already half a foot taller than Brad even before, but now that his physique had improved he utterly dwarfed the twig of a guy that had spent his entire life focusing on school.
"And what if I don't?" he said glaring down at him threateningly.
Now that Dave had gotten closer to him and towering over him forcing him to look up it him, it became clear the mess he was getting himself into. Finally he snapped out of anger and brought some sanity back. Brad gulped his eyes darting between Kate and Dave. He liked Kate. He really liked Kate. However the question was did he like Kate enough to get beaten up? He didn't even question whether it would end up with him beaten up. Once he had regained some sanity he had already realised that would be the only outcome if he pushed it further.
He tried gazing at Kate pleading for her to say something. For her to take his side. However he noticed she still only had eyes for Dave. Her gaze firmly locked onto Dave's back as he shielded her from her boyfriend. As horrible as she felt about what she had done, a small part of her felt pleasure watching Dave stand up and unabashedly claim her as his and be willing to get into a fight for it to remain that way.
This realisation killed what little hope Brad had. He didn't have the strength nor courage to fight for her and she wasn't going to deny Dave despite her being his girlfriend. No not being. Was. He realised he had lost her. It wasn't even right them, he had lost her without even realising it. When had it happened?
Brad clenched his fists. A few stray tears escaped from his eyes, but finally he turned away walking out of the cafeteria. Defeated.
Kate quietly wrapped her arms around Dave from behind holding on to him tightly. He could feel her shaking, but he didn't say or do anything just giving her the moment to compose herself.
The cafeteria was silent. Everyone was watching. This was the best gossip in weeks and they didn't want to miss a moment of it. Many of the girls had feverishly watched on. Why couldn't it have been them with the boys fighting over them in public? It was a shame that it hadn't become an actual fight. That would have been even more exciting. Slowly some whispers broke the silence as people excitedly started to discuss what had happened. Some started texting their friends what they had seen, excited to be the first with the news.
Tftc
Feel a bit bad for Brad here but o well that's how it goes sometimes.
lol well it is a netori story. In some cases like with Jackie and his father it's pretty deserved, but it can't be like that every time. There's a reason for the selfish protagonist tag, although he isn't going around punching babies since the system rewards him for stealing women he isn't only going to do it to people that completely deserve it.
@prognastat Absolutely, and well she obviously wasn't for him considering she cheated. I wouldn't have been mad if he took Brad aside and said: look guy, sorry it's over, she's with me now. You don't seem like a total d*ck so wanted to save you some embarrassment and do this privately but it is over, don't try to bother her or I will make you regret it.
@Murky Yeah, but I also don't want to portray getting women to cheat on their partners with you as being a good or kind thing at best doing so in situations like his father who is abusive can be slightly excusable. However even then it's not really a good thing, just understandable.
Although he isn't an outright villain OP is definitely a bit of a d*ck. He has his life as somewhat of an excuse, but it is still just that an excuse. No truly good guy would be going around stealing other men's women. He is very much a grey character more busy with improving his own life even if it comes at the cost of someone else's happiness.
@prognastat Not sure there is such a thing as a 'real life' good guy, that is, someone who always does the right thing. No one is perfect and even the best of us does selfish and insensitive things. Basically all I'm saying is just because you act in your own self-interest doesn't mean you need to do so callously. Not saying you've done anything like that with this character but since he isn't a bad guy, just a guy doing what he needs to to better his life, it's alright for him to extend a bit of consideration on occasion to those who may be less deserving of the green hat. As a reader it's satisfying when the comeuppance is deserved but sometimes circumstances are just unfortunate for those involved and it's appreciated when the character can be magnanimous in those situations. I feel Dave handled this as well as he could have under the circumstances.
@Murky You want a story/stories where Good means being Good. Google Power of Ten :D Side note the way this went was pretty tame compared to how it could have been. Anywho can't wait for next chapter.
@Raizuto I actually don't, haha but I can see why you may have thought that. Just being chatty for no reason, making the point just because the character is a badguy or a greyguy doesn't mean they also have to be a complete asshole. And I didn't mean to infer that Dave is an asshole or anything. He handled that cafeteria scene pretty well, he didn't humiliate him or anything. I appreciate that. No need to be excessively unreasonable. The girl is in the wrong here but to be slightly generous to her, she is just a kid and her needs were. ot being met. Obviously cheating is bad but a high school with an enhanced libido not getting what she needs from her boyfriend.....yeah well we can all see the writing on the wall.
@Murky It's mostly immaturity and inexperience on all sides.
Brad was just trying to be the "nice" boyfriend and ignoring both red flags and also his girlfriends unvoiced needs. He wasn't a bad guy, but just too inexperienced to understand that things weren't going near as well with his relationship as he thought.
Kate was bad about not communicating her unfulfilled needs to her boyfriend and instead got swept up by someone else who was fulfilling them without her needing to ask for it. She was also avoiding the conflict that would come from telling her boyfriend things were over and that she was moving forward with someone else. It wasn't only about sexual needs, but also the emotional needs of feeling like her boyfriend was paying attention to her and also enforcing boundaries.
Finally Dave. He was the most aware of the dynamics since he was behind orchestrating much of it, but was also avoiding the conflict and hoping it would resolve simply by Brad giving up or Kate communicating clearly that things were over. Neither of which of course happened and Brad took it badly which led to him finally having to step in anyway when things were going too far.
So there's blame to go around. Some more and others less, but they're all young and inexperienced in relationships after all. Brad and Kate were in their first relationship. Meanwhile Dave only has some experience with Jackie which has only been going on for a few weeks and is nothing close to a normal relationship to base things off of and he also has to balance it all with the requirements of his system.
Respect for Brad he didnt disgrace himself and was smart enough to recognise that 1. He stood no chance against our boy and 2. Even if he won it would do nothing to win Kate back. She cheated openly and made her choice known to the whole school before talking to him about it. Brad is better off rid tbh.
Got to remember these are teenagers. At that age boys and girls break up and make up all the time. Christ my friend group at school seemed to switch partners every other month. One lass I dated 3 times across 3 years of school, longest was 3 months.
Brad will move on, recover and hopefully be a little wiser moving forward.