chormac college au
Cho breaks up with Cormac McLaggen on a Tuesday.
“So that’s that?” He asks, and he’s got his coat infuriatingly flung over his left shoulder, stance nonchalant, words nonchalant, in the way that just reaffirms why she’s making this decision in the first place.
“Yeah,” Cho says, sipping on her green tea latte that tastes nothing like green tea and faintly like cardboard, “That’s - that.”
Cormac stares at her as if seeing her for the first time. “I don’t get it.”
“There’s nothing to get.”
There is - Cho just doesn’t want to say, because saying means delving into being unwanted, just a pretty thing on his arm; her, anxious, waiting for the felling hand to come by his wavering of interest, which she’s witnessed and heard of before. She’s beating him to the punch, but she can’t let him know that.
(Her logic only really works on paper, not so much in action.)
Cormac continues staring for a minute longer, coffee gripped tight in his hand, before he huffs a “Fine”, and walks off with the jacket still maddeningly swung over his shoulders. Cho watches him go, and if she’s supposed to feel something other than relief, well.
She’s sorry to say she doesn’t.
She spends the next few days avoiding all the places she knows he usually haunts - the gym, the student center, the annoyingly pretentious campus cafe that only serves soy lattes and fresh-pressed juice. Her friends all console her for the decision, and Cho doesn’t mind not knowing whether he’s hurting or not. It doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, she’s relieved that she’s escaped this so obviously uneven match between them, before it could blow up horrendously in her face and actually leave her with a broken heart.
Of course, the relief only lasts for a week, before everything comes screeching to a mess in front of her.
It’s at Marietta’s birthday party when everything falls apart again.
They’re in their sorority house off campus, kitchen decorated with the cheap fairy lights every girl gets at Urban Outfitters and Cho is in charge of mixing the drinks - that, and keeping a lookout for Roger Davies, Marietta’s newest thing, while her friend celebrates twenty-one with some well-downed vodka shots.
With a bunch of drunk AKPsi boys jostling her for more beers, Cho’s already at the end of her patience, and very much not paying attention to who’s walking in the room, except then Parvati wobbles over in her too-high heels and whispers “Red alert!” in her ear, which means -
Ex. In the room. Ex boyfriend in the room, and then there’s Cormac fucking McLaggen sauntering in with the blue crisp shirt Cho had given him for his birthday, wearing it as if it was tailored specifically for him even though Cho knows she’d just snagged it from Banana Republic, right off the rack. And of course, a busty brunette babe on his arm.
Fuck.
Fuck. She’d forgotten that he’d been invited, because the event was set up before they’d broken up, and she hadn’t thought that even Cormac would have the balls to show up to Cho’s best friend’s birthday.
“What the hell,” She hisses into Marietta’s ear, “Is he doing here?”
Marietta notes her tone and whips around far too obviously for Cho’s liking, but then again, she’s got a Long Island iced in her hand. “Oh. Oh no - do you want me to scope it out?”
Cho shakes her head, tugging Marietta further back into the corner, as Busty Brunette spots their turned heads. “No - no, let’s just. Ignore them.”
Luck doesn’t happen to be on her side - not that it ever is, but she can already feel her face flaming as Cormac’s date of the evening gestures towards the corner she’s trying valiantly to hide in - as if even at her worst, she’s been anything but a good wallflower.
And then Cormac’s striding over, long easy steps cutting through drunk frat boys and stumbling sorority girls, cheekbones dimly accentuated by the sparse lighting and a smirk growing on his every quirked up lips. Still full of himself, still eager to get his bravado out.
It’s so easy for Cho to hate him - at this moment, at every moment, really, except she can’t find it in herself to actually follow through.
She talks herself into meeting his gaze, flips her long hair over her shoulder, and starts playing nonchalant. “Cormac.”
Bite the bullet before it can graze her.
“Hey, Chang,” Cormac’s smile is more reserved than she expects, “How are you?”
“Fine. Doing well,” Cho drops in on purpose, “You?”
Cormac only shrugs, eyes darting over to where his date is hovering a little ways away. “As good as I can be. This is one hell of a party.”
“Only the best for Marietta.”
The silence that descends between them is sharp, heavy. Cho can’t stand how they’re clearly tip-toeing around the elephant in the room, the obviously not entirely amicable way their one year relationship had ended.
“Well - if that’s all, I have drinks to get back to.” Cho says, making a move to get away, when Cormac stops her with a hand to her shoulder.
“Wait, Chang,” And there’s something off, about Cormac tonight, except she can’t quite place her finger on it. “Can we talk? Properly.”
Cho bites her bottom lip. “What is there to talk about?”
“You. Me. Us - I mean, you seem to be avoiding me, and I’m still pretty damn confused.” Cormac blurts out and it’s a jarring switch, from the usual bravado filled composure, the usual nonchalant swagger, that keeps Cho from walking away immediately. “I just thought we were doing well.”
He looks genuinely confused, and almost a little hurt, blue eyes narrowed and brows drawn. Mouth low in a way that Cho had only seen once before, that one night after his lacrosse formal and he’d found her crying in the club bathroom.
(He’d sat with her, khakis then grimy on the bathroom countertop but had draped his stupid blazer jacket over her stupid cold shoulders and everything about Cormac McLaggen had made, still makes, Cho feel stupid and out of her depth.)
“We were.” Cho manages, eyes focusing in on the seam of his shirt instead of his eyes.
Cormac runs his hands through his hair, and Cho is struck by how this is the most absurd conversation to be having, in the middle of a party, with a Top 40 hit blaring in her ears, and Cormac’s date for the evening still hovering behind them.
“So what - what gives?” McLaggen manages, voice exasperated, and hurt.
He’s hurt .
Maybe she wasn’t avoiding anything after all. Maybe she’d gotten too far into her head again, like with every relationship. Maybe jumping ship before it sank would only really leave her wading water, trying to catch up to a whole embargo with four measly limbs.
Before she can formulate an apology of sorts, however, Cormac’s date tugs impatiently on his sleeve, and something inside her snaps. Reminds her of all the insecurities, all the times she’d melded into the background, watching him hold court with his lax bros, with the Kappa girls, blond and gorgeous and altogether too flighty with his attention.
So her anxiety tells her.
“That,” Cho mutters, once Cormac turns his gaze back on her, “That - the indispensability of us. God, being stuck in - in a limbo, the entire time, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And I was right? Wasn’t I?”
Cormac’s mouth opens and closes, before he musters a “What?”
“We dated for a year, and then a week later you have someone new. How do you think that makes me feel ?”
Cormac’s face turns ruddy. “You’re the one who dumped me. ”
“Because I didn’t want to keep waiting for you to drop me, like you would’ve!” And with that Cho wrenches her shoulder from his grasp, weaving blindly through party-goers and laughing friends who’d missed the whole exchange. She stumbles out into the chilly evening, angrily brushing the tears welling up in her eyes and tugging her short dress further down.
Her feet hurt, her chest hurts, and everything just hurts. Half of her knows that she’d brought all this on herself - the other half can’t help thinking about the way Cormac had walked in with someone else, how he’d fulfilled all her worst fears.
Cho begins to make her way back to her dorm, shivering and arms curled around herself. What she doesn’t expect, however, is for an achingly familiar voice to be calling her name.
“Chang! Oh for fucks sake - Cho!”
Cormac’s running steps catch up to her hurried walking (curse heels for making running practically impossible). He cuts her path off, stops her from walking further, and Cho would be amused at how dishevelled his hair and clothes look, if it weren’t for the levity of the situation.
“Do we really still need to be talking about this?” Cho sighs, brushing the last of her tears away and steeling herself.
“Yes,” Cormac says, firm, “Yes, we do - because if you thought for one second that I was going to ‘drop’ you, then we have a problem.”