Chapter Text
It's been almost a year.
The first time Hunter met Willow, he never thought she was going to be the first person he ever had a crush on.
After all, it made sense. Both half-a-witches, both underestimated. What started as a little crush with a couple of blushes and nervous laughs were now somehow deeper, some of them translating to wanting to be with her all the time, listening to her stories and touching her fingers. He wasn’t so oblivious, of course these things were unknown to him because he never developed such feelings in his life, but all those little details, the way Willow smiled at him and played with his hair when they talked were… definitely something related with feelings. Something related with… affectionate feelings.
In the human realm there were problems and hobbies that were resolved pretty easily, and with all of them accepted after a while they were not gonna be back in The Boiling Isles soon, he had more time to think about it.
Who knew what was falling in love anyway? He wanted to ask Luz, but probably the minute he said the word “love” she was gonna explode the house and torment him with a million questions he wouldn’t know how to answer. Gus could have been a great help, sure he was a smart kid and of course Gus could explain what love means, he sure has loved people in his life, but he was still four or three years younger than him, so probably Hunter will be the one explaining things rather than getting the answers he needed. Is not distrust, he needed someone who could relate with him and know exactly what he meant.
So the last person was Amity. Amity was in a relationship with Luz, right? They shared a bunch of time and interests together, were openly affectionate and they always seem to be happy around each other —and, being honest, Hunter more than once wished to have that with Willow—. Besides, Amity was always so serious when their friends asked her for advice, and Amity offered him help anytime he needed her before, so she felt like the right option to ask.
Amity and Hunter were known in the Noceda's house for waking up very early in the morning, a habit they had because of the way they were raised. Commonly, they remained quiet drinking anything until the rest of the house started to move. But that morning was different, totally different, because Hunter asked something that Amity never thought she would listen to come out of his mouth.
“Love?” Amity asked, raising an eyebrow and side smiling. Hunter dropped his ears, scratching his scalp, with his face all red.
Who would have known she was going to tease him first.
“Yeah. How do I know I… fell in love.”
“Uh-uh, I heard you, but… Just tell me one thing.”
Hunter shifted his stance.
“Sure.”
“Is this about Willow?”
The color disappeared from Hunter's face and he almost passed out. Amity snorted at his reaction —but quietly, because the other people in the house were still sleeping—, confirming what she already knew, but she decided to explain to him even when her inner self told her to keep tormenting the poor boy.
“I guess love is… deeply caring about someone. You care about what they do, what they think, what they feel. And, it is nice to think about it, everything is just so light by their side, but also, very disastrous in my experience. Uhm, Tea?” Hunter nodded and held a laugh. “Like, you are so happy to be with them that your brain just starts to do stupid things, things that you never thought you would ever do…”
“Like, reveal against a coven head?”
Amity shrugged.
"Or your parents."
Hunter hummed. "Can relate."
“Of course you can.”
Hunter made an annoyed red face, but Amity giggled again.
"Besides, there's the contact."
"Contact?"
"Yeah, like, wanting to hold their hand so badly, or lay your head on their shoulder and fall asleep forever in it but, when there's the most mundane physical contact it becomes unbearable."
"I actually think that could be a sickness."
Now Amity was doing an annoyed face, but Hunter didn't laugh. He was processing the things Amity just said, and both stared at the hot water about to boil.
"So I am in love." He suddenly said, connecting every point, getting a strange sensation in his tummy.
"If you feel all these things with her, yeah, I guess so."
A nice silence sat up in the kitchen, Amity put the hot water in two different cups and Hunter was, again, thinking about it. Thinking about love. Being nicely obsessed about someone and the person in question equally obsessed too. In an endearing way. A realization hit Hunter's head then, something that, of course he could confirm with a little more observation, but still wanted to keep in mind Amity's experience in the materia.
“And, how do I know she… feels the same thing?”
Amity stayed still, leaving the sugar right over the table. Caught out of guard.
“I… don’t know.”
Hunter became very much exalted.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T KNOW?”
"Shhhh!" She scolded him and Hunter moved his hands around the air. “I– You know!" Amity held her face with one of her hands, thinking. "I lost track of Willow for a long time… of course we used to read romance stuff when we were little but– We never discussed it!” She then gave a small sip from her tea, and a small blush tainted her cheeks. "Besides, I never figured out Luz liked me back… she just said it. it just happened."
Hunter exhaled, frustrated, about to give up. Amity took a deep breath and handed him a cup of tea and he gave her a thankful smile.
"Sorry to disappoint you." She said.
"You helped a little."
Both of them giggled, then Amity said one last thing.
“You just have to be patient, believe me, things happen, well, unexpectedly. So just pay attention to her."
That last sentence probably confused him more, but he had it clear now: He fell in love with Willow Park.
The next couple of days, he took Amity's advice very seriously, and was paying attention. Amity said he should ask Gus how Willow behaves when she’s flustered. Gus told him he only has seen her in that state once: when her dads asked her if she was dating someone. Flipping red ears, blushed cheeks and neck, oh and how forget, the flowers blooming out of her hair. So Hunter observed her. Sometimes he observed her too much, or too close, so Willow could definitely feel it. Like that day Willow was fixing Mrs. Noceda's garden, and Hunter was there. No watching her work, or starting a conversation, just there, staring.
“Hunter, what are you doing?”
“Observing.”
“... me?”
“Yeah.”
He said it with the most relaxed and casual tone, but still, that confirmation made her flustered, red ears and red face as Gus said.
And Hunter was very happy with these results, until Luz said he was scaring her.
“¡Impossible! The captain would never be scared of me!”
"Hunter, think. What would you do if Willow just stared at you for hours?"
Hunter groaned, but Luz's observation made him feel embarrassed.
He found himself in a dilemma. These observation periods were not being of too much help, since Willow only lasted less than one minute with him watching her and then ran away. Why does she run away? Was Luz right and he was making her feel uncomfortable? Amity’s words were resonating hard in his head “... You care about what they think, what they feel...” and Hunter never intended to be such a burden to Willow. Maybe she was getting tired of him only watching her and doing nothing, probably she wanted an explanation, maybe she wanted him to make the first move…
He stood up quickly from his chair, sending Flapjack to fly away from his head. “Of course! I have to ask her directly!”
Hunter wasted no time. The next morning, after breakfast with Camila and the gang, he made a question that ignored every possible privacy rule or discretion that could exist.
"Willow, do you like me?"
Gus coughed violently. Amity almost spills the orange juice she was serving to Luz, who almost fell from the chair. Camila opened her eyes widely, and quickly took her purse and keys.
"Well! See you later kids! Wash the dishes, don't do anything I wouldn't! I'll be home at night."
And she left.
"Uh-" Amity spoke then. "I think we're gonna- like, uhm, Luz, Gus, c'mon."
The way they literally ran upstairs frankly confused Hunter.
There were only two people at the table. Willow was staring at Hunter very surprised, her lips partly open, not making a sound or movement. This time Hunter understood Luz's words. He was getting nervous under the emerald eyes that he felt his cheeks burning.
"Something is telling me this wasn't the right moment."
"It wasn't." Said Willow quickly.
Silence once again, and not a nice one like they used to have. Hunter was a fan of quiet places that didn't get him on his nerves, but in that moment, he wished at least hearing something. He stared at his hands, covered in the new pair of gloves Mrs. Noceda gifted him. They were made from a soft material, and he unconsciously rubbed his fingers.
Meanwhile, on the other side, there was Willow. She wanted to stand and leave the poor Hunter without an answer. If only her legs could respond. 'I like you' . She thought. 'I really do' , but the words were stuck in her throat, and the more she thought about them she noticed how the plants around them started to grow and grow more, some even blooming flowers.
'Please Willow Park say something' . Her scalp felt weird, like something wanted to get out from there. 'Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no! Please say something!'
Boop!
She jumped.
"I do."
Hunter stared at her.
"Uh?"
"I do. I do like you."
Oh.
"Oh!"
Willow was sitting right in front of him, and giggled when she saw his surprised face. Could feel her own cheeks get filled with blood and the warm feeling all over her face, the sensation in her scalp finally disappeared, still, she didn't expect Hunter jumping on the table to be right in front of her face.
"You get that weird feeling in your stomach too!?"
Too?
"You mean, the butterflies?"
"Butterflies?" Hunter's attention went to his abdomen. He, of course, was feeling them right there. "I think it's more accurate to describe the sensation as firebees. The tickles are very strong, a bit painful, but… nice."
Oh and Willow was feeling it.
"Yes, yeah! I mean, I feel them."
"Great!"
Willow giggled again, staring at him. Hunter didn't notice how his magenta eyes were shining and the ears flipping, again. Willow seemed happy, and Hunter was too, because now he wasn't alone in this thing called love. Willow liked him and that was sending his mind to another dimension.
Willow then stood up from the chair, and now they were much closer, something that abruptly stopped Hunter's inner thoughts.
"So that means…"
Hunter was speechless.
"Do you like me, Hunter?"
Through the entrance, Hunter was able to see a couple of purple, brown, and curly hair spying on them and their conversation. He wanted to throw the juice at them, but Willow was waiting for an answer. So he put his eyes over her again, and with all his heart and the most flushed cheeks he ever had, he simply nodded.
Both let escape two long breaths.
Even when the annoying —not really— laugh of their friends in the other room changed all the atmosphere, neither Hunter or Willow dared to look the other way.
A bunch of things changed after that. Both decided that, even after the confession, they were gonna give themselves time to get to know each other more. They started to hang out together, to share time together, and have long talks that lasted hours. They just simply started to be seen together.
It was wonderful when they finally asked out; or, actually, Willow asked him out. A couple of months later. Was simple and very lovely. On one date they wanted to go to the beach before winter, but they forgot that in the human realm, fall was a thing. Too much wind to handle. Still, everything went pretty well because Hunter screamed “YES!” as soon as Willow asked, and that was the first —but not only— time he saw the many blooming flowers in Willow's hair.
It was something that amazed Hunter a lot. When he was in the Emperor’s Coven, seeing Terra Snapdragon with that big flower on her hair was terrifying, a proof of how powerful and strong the coven head was. Hunter read before some stuff of how witches were capable of changing their anatomy and physiology according to how developed their magic was, so Willow being able to grow real flowers out of her at such a young age was worthy of admiration. So after officially starting dating, and holding hands tightly, he asked:
"Do you know how they appear?"
They were sitting outside an ice cream shop, right over the pavement. Willow took a bite of her mint blueberry ice cream, thinking.
"My magic is deeply bound to my emotions." She said, "Whenever I have these… big situations, everything around me just starts growing. The plants act depending on how I feel."
Hunter made an amused expression of excitement and gave a thumbs up, wanting Willow to know that he thought that was a great thing. She giggled, but sighed. "I guess it's cool but… it’s also dangerous. When I met Luz I was pissed off about… a lot of things, really. This time it wasn't pretty flowers growing everywhere. They were vines, thorny vines. She said she was fine after that, but I know I hurt her.”
“You are afraid of your own magic?”
“I’m afraid of not making the right choices with my magic, and I end up hurting people I love.”
They stayed in silence. Willow expected Hunter to remove his hand from hers, insecure about how he would feel about all of this sudden sincerity on a special day like this. But instead, Hunter let his head fall over her shoulder, giving his berries ice cream a quick lick.
“I’m not afraid of you.”
She smiled.
“Me neither.”
“I'm actually a big fan of you. Just want you to know that.”
“Thanks, Hunter.”
He closed his eyes.
Their second date as a couple, Luz recommended them to go to Hammonasset State Park, and after a brief search on the internet (and teaching Hunter to type faster) the couple gladly accepted.
The place was nice, the beach temperature wasn’t precisely hot but neither cold (again, fall already). Some families were there, Hunter and Willow walked along the water, smiling, doing some jokes and playing around, properly hiding their witch’s features. They found a little private place full of big rocks and vegetation and they stayed there, watching the sunset, eating some snacks, and talking. When the place was quiet enough, and none of them saw people around them, they took their beanies off.
“My ears hurt.” He said.
Willow giggled, and gently massaged them with her fingers.
One of the things Hunter felt blessed about dating Willow was the confidence. All the blushing messes they were finally over because it felt so normal with all the gestures and proximity they had. Still, Hunter was now totally conscious about those words Amity said about the physical contact. Willow touching his face, so close, that he was perfectly aware of every single of her factions. The beautiful green eyes, her button nose, the flushed cheeks and the soft pink lips doing a soft lovely smile.
And maybe his gaze stayed there too long, because Willow noticed and immediately some flowers appeared. She stopped touching Hunter's ears, but there was this endearing shine in her eyes.
“Looking for something?”
Hunter realized his actions and forget the thing about the blushing mess because his face was bright red once again, the ears dropped and his gaze went to the other side. “No! I-! Just- Ugh.” Embarrassed, he covered his face with his hands. “You are like- so pretty to watch…”
Willow smiled for the compliment “Heh, okay.” Her gaze focused now on the nice shape of the waves and the sun adorning the beach with its orange and yellow light rays. The boy regained his composure a few minutes later, but again, his magenta eyes were looking at Willow. There, with the day finally ending and the sunlight making her skin brighter, Hunter realized something that probably his mind didn't stop to think about and he would regret to say later.
"You're so golden."
Both stared at each other. And stared and stared. Not too close, not too far, about half meter away. Hunter smiled and watched the waves disappear with the sun. Willow felt a blast of emotions running through her veins.
“Willow, I-”
Hunter got interrupted by the abrupt closeness of Willow’s face to his own. Something that he didn’t expect at all. An action that sparked a flash of memories of someone coming so fast to his face and hurting him in the past flashed through his mind, because Hunter flinched and stepped back.
But it wasn't those buried memories or the realization seconds later that it wasn't someone other than Willow trying to kiss him that made him feel like the dumbest person in the world, but rather the tearful, shocked, pained look in the emerald eyes staring back at him. He felt his blood leaving his body, his heart trying to leave his chest, and his legs totally paralyzed even when he wanted to follow after Willow, who just stood up and started walking out of the beach.