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Coco reminds me of the sun, Agott muses to herself quietly, as she watches Coco from where she's handling the water buoy. Her smile is...bright like it.
Distracted with her thoughts, Agott's peaceful moment is abruptly halted when some of the water spills onto the floor.
"Aw man!" She puffs out before scrambling to put the water buoy down and getting something to clean up the mess. She's embarrassed to fumble this badly. The water buoy is one of the easiest forms of magic to work with ever, and Agott still managed to make a wrong with it.
"You did it again, Agott," she berates herself in a low voice while scouring for a towel or a napkin or something. Her scowl deepens as she doesn't find any, and starts looking elsewhere for—
Aha! Found it.
Agott rushes back to the puddle on the floor, knees knocking on the wood as she kneels down, using the napkin to soak up the water. Agott knows Professor Qifrey wouldn't be bothered by spilled water on the floors, but it only serves to make Agott scrub harder at the mess.
She still hates the feeling of being perceived, even now. It can't help but annoy her, and it frankly doesn't matter what she's doing. Being perceived with no prior warning always raises Agott's hackles, like clouds obscuring the reflection of the moon.
And then, like a beam of sunlight poking through the clouds, Coco appears next to Agott, crouching as she holds her own napkin.
"Did you spill it?" asks Coco in lieu of a greeting, already starting to soak up the water despite Agott's protests.
"I got it!" she snaps in embarrassment, and then feels embarrassment for snapping in her embarrassment.
"Ah, whatever!" she cries, face burning like the heat of a thousand suns put together. Coco always makes her so flustered, and so fast, too. It's not fair.
She presses her hands to her face to cover up her blush. Coco is undeterred by this though, already used to Agott's all bark and no bite attitude, and cleans up the rest of the mess herself before tapping Agott's shoulder.
"It's all clean now, see! No more puddle!" Coco cheers, smiling at Agott eagerly with shining eyes.
Agott takes her hands away from her face for a brief second to look at the cleaned-up puddle and then at Coco's bright smile.
She feels almost awed for a moment, like time had frozen only for her, to admire the beauty of Coco without it getting awkward for the two of them.
Speaking of awkward, Agott suddenly finds herself very close to Coco's face, and all of the heat rushes back right where it belongs.
"AAAHH!!" Agott yelps, jumping back and hitting the floor with a low thump.
"Oh no!! Agott, are you okay??!!" Coco leaps to her feet worriedly, hands flapping around in her panic. "I-I'm so sorry I–"
Agott interrupts her as she jolts up like she'd been struck by lightning, face red all the while.
"I'm fine!!" she shouts in a loud whisper, silently praying that the others in their atelier didn't hear them in the kitchen.
And before Coco can utter another word, Agott runs out of the room.
WHY DOES SHE MAKE ME FEEL THIS WAY?
Agott finds herself with her face pressed against her pillow, having ran all the way to her room, to get away from Coco.
She groans loudly as she rolls until she's facing upwards, properly. She's in a familiar bundle of blankets that normally would calm her down, but it seems that Coco—with her strange introduction to magic—has also made it so strange things would happen. Like Agott's bundle of comfort becoming uncomfortable.
She sighs loudly, already feeling embarrased for leaving so childishly. It grips at her like all of her previous social failures, slowly dragging the disowned child further down the social hierarchy. Is she even still on it, at this point? Has she reached social outcast levels of infamy yet?
Somehow, the thought of that doesn't tear her apart like it usually did. Though it might be because of one person who has...unexpectedly made living off the social hierarchy enjoyable.
Coco. Her...crush.
It still feels bizarre to have a name for it, even though it had been staring her in the face this whole time. Agott's never had a crush, unless crushes could form on subjects instead of people, then she'd have plenty.
Alas...she has none. Until now, that is.
Agott thinks about these feelings swirling in her stomach and is at a total loss at what to do with them. She's never been told or taught what the proper etiquette is when one has a crush on their friend. All she knows is look up when someone's talking to you, and eat even though you don't like it, and Agott dear, stand up straight or—ah, now she understands why Riche hates change so much.
Agott irritably rolls herself out of her blanket bundle, and tries to come up with something to do once Coco inevitably comes knocking.
"She's so...patient and for what reason?" her blankets get tucked in neatly as she grumbles with a light blush on her face. "I just don't get her."
Perhaps it's Professor Qifrey's influence. He's patient just like Coco, maybe some of his personality rubbed off on her. Though then again, wouldn't that mean Agott has also adopted some 'Qifreyisms' herself? She doesn't really remember or know about that, so that thought gets tossed aside as she smooths down the last blanket.
Finished with organizing her blankets, Agott turns to her stuffed animals, some of which had gotten knocked over as she wiggled and rolled around, muttering like an oversized brushbug.
"What do I even say to her now?" she holds up a whale plush to look at him like she was asking an informed adult, and wasn't a child playing pretend with her plushie.
"'I don't know,'" Whale says, "'maybe start by saying you're okay?'"
Agott hms at this, placing the whale plush back where he belongs. "I think that would be the wisest option," she grimaces, remembering again how she abruptly ran without even saying a "thank you" to Coco.
After uprighting one more felled plush, Agott takes a deep breath while facing the door. She feels the burning heat on her face again, and stomps forward before she could have a chance at fleeing.
No turning back now. She can't stay in their room forever.
"Here goes nothing..." she murmurs, grasping and turning the knob to reveal Coco standing at the other end of it.
.
.
Wait.
Coco???
And just like that, all of what she has prepared to say vanishes as if taken by Coco using her "pull everything" glyph.
"Oh! Uh—" Coco's cheeks flushes a bright red. It seems she has also had her words stolen away.
Agott mentally flounders for a few seconds before saying something a beat too late. "Sorry for...running. Thanks for helping me with the mess, but I had it covered. You helped a lot, still so thank you anyways. And I'm okay?"
She cringes at her awkward fumbling, heat spreading to her ears now, and tries to look as nonchalant as possible while picking at a loose thread on her dress.
"It's-it's okay! And I'm really glad! I'm relieved that you're okay too!" Coco stammers out in response, letting out a sigh of relief. Her shoulders were relaxing comically like Agott running out of the kitchen was just as stressful for Coco as it was for her.
"I was worried when you ran out the room," Coco explains with no questions asked. She seems to be looking around the room, trying to guess what the other girl did while hiding. "I thought I did something, though that was silly of me to think, right?"
She looks sheepishly at Agott, rubbing a hand on her head through lime strands of hair.
"Yeah, it was," slips out of Agott's mouth impulsively. She hurriedly makes up for her bluntness before Coco could get a word in. "But you didn't! I was embarrassed! That was on me, not you!!"
Her hands flailed in front of her face, anxiety coursing through her except even more so this time.
I keep messing up in front of her–
Warm hands hold Agott's flailing ones still. In her best friend's stunned silence, Coco moves closer to say, "it's okay, Agott. I'm relieved to see you now. I'm really happy you're okay. You're so calming, like how the moon is when it's out."
Coco gently squeezes their entangled hands, reminding her of her cue to say something in response.
"I...thank you," Agott ducks her flushed face down to look at their feet instead. "And you're like the sun. When you smile, it's really bright. I...like this sun because it doesn't hurt to look at."
She met Coco's wide eyes and equally flushed face briefly, before flicking her gaze down to her cute nose and open mouth.
"I like the sun I see only in your smile."
Agott feels the heat of the sun engulf her, and she uses it to propel her momentum into a whisper only for them two to hear, "and I like the moon who tells me to keep shining. May the sun warm the moon?"
Both of them were smiling at each other unabashedly and lovingly, and once the moon gave the "yes," their lips met briefly as the sun warmed the moon.