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There’s always been some sort of tension between Mr. Wastaken (she really needs to start calling him Dream, since Mr. Was- Dream visibly gags every time he hears the formal title) and Mr. Blade. She’s been at Rivals Academy for three years now, and she’d like to say she’s pretty well-versed on the two school owners, but even she can’t figure out what their deal is.
There’s rumors that they’re friends, enemies, siblings (which she could never understand), fuck buddies (which she cringed at, because who wants that mental image?), and even lovers ーwhich- maybe? She really can’t see it.ー the point is, nobody knows the truth. Students who have been here longer than she has have revealed that they’ve interrogated both of them, tried to look in the school records, and even asked other teachers if they knew anything.
Which led absolutely nowhere, since the other teachers either claim they don’t know the truth either (probably a lie, but whatever), or awkwardly try and change the subject (namely: Mr. Halo, who she, and everyone else, obviously knows is lying, but nobody has the heart to pester him about it). Nobody has access to the school records, so nobody could go that route, and the two teachers were experts at making it through interrogations without revealing anything ーwell, more like Mr. Blade shuts down any attempts at it and Mr. W- Dream shifts the attention onto whichever poor student got sent to the slaughter.
She, as Dream’s number one favorite student (self-proclaimed), believes that they’re just friendsーwell, she thinks they’re best friends (she’d even go as far as childhood best friends), since they literally founded a school together, and you wouldn’t do that with someone who you only have some surface-level relationship with. She has seen Mr. Blade laugh more with Dream than he does with everyone else, probably combined, and she knows for a fact that that’s a hard feat to accomplish (she’d rather not relive when one of her classmates spent hours creating some comedy sketch, and all they got was a small smile full of pity from the pink haired teacher).
She doesn’t mind the other theorists, they have some genuine evidence for why Dream and Mr. Blade are x, y, and z, but she just knows she’s right. Sure, the two teachers may have some weird tension between them, and sure, they bicker… a lot, and sure, Dream wears a wedding ring, but none of those things really mean anything. Plus, people love to speculate that the ring Dream wears is for his marriage with Mr. Notfound, so really, if anyone’s married, it’s those two.
Apparently, her best friend didn’t get the memo, for he’s constantly talking about how he has “solid evidence”ーwhich really is code for “I think they’re cute together so I’m going to over-analyze every one of their interactions and twist it so that there’s evidence that they’re married,” which, to be fair, people do with Dream and Mr. Notfound all the time, but stillーthat Mr. Blade and Dream are the classic “enemies to lovers” trope.
He’s constantly talking about how the small ruby on Dream’s ring matches Mr. Blade’s eyes, or something, and how he swears he can see the outline of a ring through Mr. Blade’s shirt some daysーwhich causes her to always question why he’s looking at Mr. Blade’s chest so often, a question he avidly avoidsー, and how they always walk out of school together at the end of the day (which literally provides evidence for everyone’s theories, so she doesn’t get that one).
Basically, everyone has tried to find clear evidence to back up their theory on their relationship, but nobody has found anything solid that points to one conclusion.
Which is how she found herself crouched behind a bush outside the front of the school, her best friend pushed up against her side, waiting intently for Dream and Mr. Blade to walk out of the large entrance doors. She would like to make it clear that she only agreed to this weird stake-out thing her best friend suggested because he promised to buy her the special dumplings, which were made to look like the school’s crest, the dining hall was handing out all this week.
Her legs were beginning to ache from squatting, her arms kept brushing the bush in front of her, and she could see the sun dipping below the horizon in the distance. If those two don’t hurry up, she is going to switch to being Mr. Soot’s favorite student. “If they don’t hurry up, we’re gonna get into trouble with the RAs.” Okay, she might be lying, since Ranboo, the RA of the Kind dormitories, would apologize to you for “getting in the way” if you were to kick him down a flight of stairs, but her best friend doesn’t need to know that.
She thinks he was about to respond, since he got that furrow between his eyebrows that he gets when he’s about to argue, but before he could speak, the front doors burst open. She whipped her head towards them, feeling her best friend do the same, and she had never been more happy to see Dream and Mr. Blade. The two seemed to be deep in a conversation, with Dream’s hands moving around and a small smileーwhich is always a surprising sight to seeーon Mr. Blade’s face, and they were seemingly unaware of their surroundings, which her best friend took full advantage of, grabbing her hand and yanking her up before following the two teachers at a respectable, but not too far, distance.
Her legs felt like jelly for being bent for so long, her hands hurt from an accidental paper cut from grabbing her textbooks in a rush, and the only light to illuminate them now was the streetlamps above their heads. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help laughing quietlyーshe swears it was quietly and she did not deserve to be glared at, especially by her best friendーat the absurdness of the entire situation.
The longer the two students followed the teachers, the more she started to question her best friend’s eyesight, because how in the world does he think they’re married? There’s like a foot of space between them as they walk! She didn’t even need to look to her left to see her friend to know that his eyes were bugged out, ready to catch even the slightest hint of anything that could be more-than-platonic.
The two are literally just talking to each other, and it isn’t even about anything interesting! They’re talking about… some show? She doesn’t know. She’s never heard about a t.v. show named Patches, but Dream keeps talking about how he’s “excited to see Patches,” so apparently the two teachers have some special channels in their rooms. Mr. Blade just keeps nodding along, interjecting here and there with small comments, but overall not seeming like he’s enjoying the blond’s company very much.
Finally, finally, the two teachers stop walking at the entrance to the dorms, and she can already taste the dumplings she’s going to receive tomorrow. Her friend drags her behind a nearby tree, and they can both just barely manage to peek out behind the trunk. He is probably vibrating with anger at her side, the lack of new evidence doing nothing for his confidence, but she can’t find it in herself to care. Just as she’s about to laugh in his face, a frantic hand starts slapping her shoulder, and she takes that as a cue to look at the two teachers.
She was expecting them to be fighting, or for them to be laughing at some poor student who tripped, not for them to be so close, with one of Mr. Blade’s hands in Dream’s own. The two were standing intimately close together, and Dream was holding the pale hand up to his mouth, placing a small kiss before gazing up into the pinkette’s eyes. She feels like she really shouldn’t be watching this, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away, and she was about to physically turn her head with her hands when she was interrupted by Mr. Blade slapping Dream.
Well, okay, it was a light slap, and Dream was laughing, but if anything, this only helped prove the enemies theory, and she really doesn’t know what her friend sees between them. When she looked over, hoping to find a defeated expression on his face, she was met with pure awe covering his sharp features. “Why do you look so happy?”
“They just kissed!” His outburst was loud enough for the two of them to whip back to the two teachers, who had apparently disappeared, since their previous spot was now empty; he took this as free liberty to talk as loud as he wanted to. “Did you not see that?! They fucking kissed!”
“Mr. Blade slapped Dream!”
“Oh, you know that was harmless, c’mon.”
“Listen I don’t have a husband, but I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to slap them-”
“You are so stupid, it was playful! Dream could probably kill Mr. Blade if he was actually abusive.”
“Are you serious? Mr. Blade could probably kill anyone with a paper cli-”
“What are you two doing out here?”
She didn't screamーshe didn’t, no matter what her best friend saysーbut her friend definitely did. The two whipped their heads away from each other and towards the third person who spoke, and she felt her heart drop to the floor when she saw who it was. Dream, in all his glory, was standing in front of them, staring at the students with an amused look on his face. “Isn’t it past curfew?”
“Mr. Was- Dream! Heh, uh, we’re just taking a nightly stroll!” Her voice was wavering, and she was sure her friend would snicker at her if he wasn’t trying to hide behind her shoulder, but the amused look on Dream’s face didn’t change. “We just, uh- he saw a cool bug over here on this tree! And we wanted to, uh, go check it out.” She tries to drag her friend out from behind her, so he can start pulling some of the weight of trying to save their asses, but he just cowers further- that bitch.
“Were you guys spying on us?”
“What?! No! We’ve never done- we, uh- we don’t have any reason to spy on you!” Fuck social interaction, fuck talking to people, this sucks. “I swear, it was just a midnight stroll, and sure my friend,” she managed to wretch the boy away from behind her back, and his shoulders tensed up as Dream’s attention shifted to him, “was a bit interested in you two, but we didn’t mean any harm, we swear!”
Dream laughed at them, one of his wheeze-chuckle things, and she would probably be offended if she wasn’t trying so hard to save face. “I’m assuming you’re interested in our relationship with one another?” Huh? How does he know?
As if hearing her thoughts, her best friend spoke. “How do you-”
“Oh, it’s the talk of the school! You kids think you’re being sneaky, you really do, but we both see it all.” Does that mean he saw the girl next to him attempting to draw Dream shirtless that one time? Because she sincerely hopes he didn’t see that. “What’s the popular consensus this year? Enemies? Lovers? Friends with benefits? We’ve seen everything in the years since we founded the school, and I’m actually curious as to what the new freshmen are saying.”
The two students’ mouths were on the floor, literally down in the dirt, and she really didn’t know what to say to him. Should she lie? Should she tell them that the entire class is entirely split on the final conclusion? Should she ask what the truth is? Apparently, her friend thought the last option was the best, because he started talking, confidently, as if he wasn’t asking a teacher about his intimate relationship with another teacher. “Well, what’s the truth?”
“We’re married.” What. “We’ve been married for ten years now.” The. “We don’t have any plans on separating anytime soon.” Fuck. Her mind has turned to mush, her eyes are popping out of their sockets, and her jaw is literally at the center of the earth. She doesn’t- what- they’re married? Her friend was right? What the fuck.
“Wait, why are you telling us this?” Her mouth spoke without her brain telling it to, and she wished she would’ve stayed silent, but at least her voice didn’t shake. They’re married, and apparently have been married for her entire school career, and she had no idea? Nobody had any idea?
“Because, if you tell anyone else, nobody will believe you.” ... Wait- “Learned that one from Tech when he told Tommy about us, it was hilarious.” She doesn’t know who “Tech” or “Tommy” is, but she had no time to think about that as Dream began to walk away, saluting the two of them before walking into the dorm building.
The two stood there for a moment, basking in whatever the hell that was, before her friend started shouting. “I told you! Ha! I told you and you didn’t believe me!”
“Okay, calm down, calm down, stop jumping for goodness sake.” She put her hands on her friend’s shoulders, effectively stopping him from hopping around, before she finally processed everything that had just happened.
Looks like she’ll have to change her theory.