Work Text:
“Ughhhh, that’s not going to work either!” the writer said, ripping yet another page from her notebook and tossing it behind her. “C’mon Bernie, think. You made these characters, you should know how they work already! Jacques and Lorielle are your most developed characters, how could you be screwing them up like this?”
Bernadetta woke up to the realization that today was her off day, and with all her college work finished for the week, she decided it was finally time to get back to writing that story she’d been posting online. And given that she’d been writing this story for the better part of 2 years, had finished the outline for the third act of her story months ago, and had developed the actions of her characters for what would happen recently, Bernadetta was confident when she pulled out her laptop and turned on her desk lamp that she’d be able to get a couple of chapters done, or at least started, by the end of the day.
That was eight hours ago.
Since waking up, she’d tried to figure out how to put a specific character interaction into words - it was the emotional tipping point for Jacques, the deuteragonist of Lorielle, where he would make his final decision to save the kingdom and help Lorielle become the people’s queen - for roughly six of those hours. The other two were spent going to lunch with Sylvain to ask for advice, followed by Ingrid interrogating his intentions with her. That led to him promising he was only interested in Bernadetta as a friend and a huge fan of her work, which led to the last amount of that time where the two tried to calm her down from her anxieties of Ingrid being mad at her (she wasn’t, she would’ve been mad at Sylvain).
Bernadetta decided that she needed a change of scenery from her room after lunch and went to the college community center. While it was a public place, they had rooms specifically for studying in quiet spaces, and she would often hole up in one of them when she was struggling to write in her apartment. Which led to her current predicament.
She looked at her notes once again, looking at some of the points Sylvain had suggested. His advice was actually pretty good and helpful most of the time, a fact that Bernadetta still struggled to fully believe, but was thankful for. Unfortunately, most of the things he said didn’t help in this specific situation. He was adamant about not being spoiled, but offered to proofread should she need it, which was helpful in its own way, but that could only help her once she had written it out, not before. So she was still stuck.
She sighed and looked around, only just then realizing that she’d missed the garbage bin with every single one of her blind tosses behind her. She groaned. “And I have to clean up before I leave too...”
Bernadetta got up and began picking up the closest torn out page to her seat when she heard the door open up ahead of her. She looked up in a panic, “Don’t hurt me! Please, I’ll leave if you want the space!”
She heard a click of someone’s tongue, and a voice she recognized said “Don’t be so hasty, Bernadetta. I was actually coming in to ask something, but if you’re stressed, I’ll just ask you later.” Yuri smirked, a hand on his hip. His hair was in a ponytail and he didn’t have nearly as much makeup on as he usually did, Bernadetta noted. He looked around the room, an eyebrow raising in curiosity. “What a mess. What’re you doing in here?”
Bernadetta pouted, her arms straightening as she balled her fists at her sides. “Yuri! Don’t scare me like that!”
Yuri put a hand up with a shrug, “Hey, you make it too easy. Seriously, though, what has you in such a scare?”
She sighed and contemplated for a moment. Yuri was trustworthy...sort of. She trusted he wouldn’t do anything intentionally harmful towards her, but his teasing was relentless, and she never told him about her writing. “I was just...doing homework! For my, uh, art class!” She was lying, of course, as she and Ignatz had finished their assignment together a while ago (well, they weren’t working together, but they both liked the company and trusted each other’s opinion).
Yuri’s smirk in response made her cave inward a little bit.
“For art class, huh?” He said, picking up the closest crumpled page and opening it up a little bit. “I’m sure written language about overthrowing royalty is exactly what you do for assignments.”
Bernadetta whimpered as she took a step back. “It’s just...I...uhm…” she tried to get out, but the words were getting caught in her throat. Today just wasn’t her day, huh?
Shaking his head, Yuri started to pick a couple of others. “Listen, you don’t have to tell me what you’re doing if you don’t want to. I just saw the mess and got curious about-”
“I’mwritingastoryandthisonesceneisgivingmesomuchtroubleandIdon’tknowhowtocontinue” she sped through, explaining her predicament in the span of five seconds. Yuri blinked, taking a moment to process the jumbled mess that was spouted at him. Bernadetta gulped and started again, “S-Sorry. I’m writing a story and I’m stuck on a scene. I can’t figure out how to write it out. Every idea of how it goes I come up with feels unnatural or forced,” she said, plopping back down in her chair and covering her face with her hands. “I keep spouting out garbage, I may as well be Queen Garbage…”
Before he can even think about whether he should say it, Yuri states “If you’re Queen Garbage, then I’m the garbage collector. When should I pick you up tonight?” It takes a moment for him to fully process what he asked, and he tries to mask his panic with a smooth smirk when Bernadetta shoots up in her chair, eyes wide and pointed at him.
“P-Pick me up…?” she questions, gulping with a blush growing on her cheeks as she pokes her fingers together. “I-I-I guess...7?”
Yuri has to restrain his eyes from widening and letting out the fact that he, in fact, had not intended to ask her, his long time crush, out on a date this evening. He barely keeps the facade up, picking up a couple more crumbled pages and tossing them in the trash bin as he walks out the door, waving behind him “sounds good. See you then, Bernie.”
When Bernadetta is confident he’s no longer within earshot, she squeals in panic that her best friend and long-time crush just asked her out with a line that sounds like even Sylvain would barf at.
When Yuri is back in his car, he runs a hand to his forehead and berates himself for getting into this situation and potentially ruining all the trust he’d regained with her.
When both see each other again at 7 that night, they do their damnedest to make the most of their time.
Worth it , they both think.