Academically Yours (Jayfer)

Chapter 29
Jayjay’s POV

We were supposed to be working on our final pitch.

Keyword: supposed to.

Instead, we were in the far corner of the library — tucked between dusty business journals and case study binders that hadn’t been opened since 2006.

I had my notes spread out in front of me.

Keifer had his head tilted, watching me with that stupid soft grin he wore only when no one else could see.

I ignored him. For ten minutes.

Then—

“Jay?”

I sighed. “What?”

“You’re distracting me.”

I blinked. “I haven’t said a word.”

“Exactly.” He leaned in slightly. “It’s the silence. It’s lethal.”

I gave him a flat look. “Do you want me to start monologuing about supply chain analysis?”

He leaned even closer. “Not unless you’re gonna whisper it directly into my ear like a villainess.”

I pushed his face away with one hand.

He kissed my palm.

I froze.

He didn’t.

Instead, he reached across my open textbook and kissed me again — slow, unhurried, like he knew he had all the time in the world to make me melt.

When we broke apart, I stared at him, breathless.

“You think you can just do that whenever you want now?”

He smirked. “You let me kiss you once. Now all the others are mine too.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s not how consent works.”

He raised both brows. “Say the word, and I’ll stop.”

I didn’t say a thing.

Instead, I kissed him again.

Later That Week – Cafeteria Chaos

We hadn’t officially told anyone.

But apparently, Keifer forgetting how to shut up about me made it obvious.

“You’re glowing,” Lumi said, sliding into the seat beside me.

“I’m oily.”

“No, that’s love, babe.”

I was about to deny it when Yuri stood up at another table and shouted, “RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU’VE BEEN PERSONALLY VICTIMIZED BY HOW CUTE JAYFER IS.”

Half the cafeteria cheered.

Keifer high-fived Yuri.

I slid under the table.

Section E Groupchat
🧠 Freya: did they soft-launch or hard-launch???
📸 Lumi: keifer literally kissed her wrist while she was holding a soup spoon. that’s a hard launch.
🧢 Yuri: they're making me believe in love again i hate it
🔥 Mica: if they break up i’m dropping out of college
👑 Jay renamed the group to:
“i deserve privacy and silence”

Library Again — Few Days Later

I was organizing our files.

Keifer was tracing something in the margins of my notebook.

I glanced over and saw it — a tiny sketch of my face. My expression exact. My eyebrows mid-raise. A tiny, smug smirk.

“You drew me again.”

“Every version of you deserves to be remembered,” he said simply.

And for a second, I forgot how to breathe.

That Night

He walked me back to my dorm.

I was tired. Slouched against his arm. My fingers twitching with the need to hold on.

When we reached my door, I didn’t go inside right away.

I turned.

“I think I like being yours,” I said quietly.

Keifer blinked.

And then — like he’d been waiting to hear those exact words for years — he pulled me in.

Not rushed.

Not burning.

Just held.

Held me like I wasn’t a fire he needed to survive…
But a story he wanted to read slowly.