Chapter Text
There's a girl Pardofelis likes. She sits two seats ahead and one to the right of her in history class, and always sits on Eden's right side at the lunch table. She has a bracelet with a butterfly charm and the prettiest blue eyes Pardo has ever seen.
Her name is Aponia.
Pardofelis thinks she's in love.
Right now, though, she's just hanging halfway through the window of the local library with a book in hand.
"Pardo, are you ever going to quit dragging me into your weird escapades," Kevin complains.
"Shut up, Kevin, help me get out."
"Seriously, couldn't you have just checked the book out? Can you not do anything like a normal person? Also, what the hell is '25 Tried and True Ways to Woo the Love of Your Life'?"
Pardo practically hisses, squirming in place. "I don't have a library card. And besides, I'm not going to check out the book I need for Aponia while she's on her internship hours."
Kevin stares at her. "Then get one? It's literally free. Also, what?"
Pardofelis gives a frustrated groan instead of a response, before seemingly accepting her fate and allowing her top half to just hang upside down out the window.
"Shit, Aponia's coming," Kevin curses, finally grabbing her wrist and trying to yank her out. Pardo squirms in fear. "Pardo, drop the book and give me your other hand."
"No!"
"We're going to get caught if you don't!"
Pardo huffs in frustration. "Kevin, just be stronger!"
Kevin glares at her. "I could just leave you here."
Felis squeaks. "No, don't! Fine, I'll drop the book!" She does so. It clatters to the ground unsettlingly loudly. "Shit, did she hear that?"
Kevin doesn't answer, just grabs Pardo's other hand and yanks her out roughly. Without waiting for her to get up, he declares, "Run!" then picks up the book, tosses it as gently as possible through the window, and bolts.
Pardo picks herself up, wincing. "Wait-"
"Pardofelis? Is that you?" Aponia's voice calls.
Fuck! Pardo scrambles to her feet and runs.
A safe distance away, Pardo rounds a corner and immediately hunches over against the wall, panting. Kevin is there, too, but he's already pretty much recovered. He gives her an incredulous look.
"You-" he pauses, taking a breath, "You like Aponia?!" he yells, grabbing her by the shoulders.
"Well there's no need to tell the whole city!"
Kevin gapes at her. He looks like he's going through a crisis. "I thought you and Hua had something going on!"
"No! She has two girlfriends and I'm neither of them, how did you even think of that?" Pardofelis now feels the same way Kevin looks.
"I don't know! You always sit together!" Kevin exclaims.
"So do you and Su!"
Kevin's face goes red. "Not the same thing!"
"You sure about that? Didn't you guys kiss at that party one ti- Kev- ack! You're choking me!"
/
Pardofelis gets assigned to be Mobius's lab partner in Chemistry, and that's fine. That's cool.
...Even though she kinda wanted to be Aponia's partner, and Mobius has a strangely giddy look on her face at the prospect of experimenting with potentially dangerous chemicals. But then again, Felis doesn't really want Aponia to ask questions about the events of the day before, and she trusts Mobius not to purposefully murder her, 'cause she's the only one in the group that lets Mobius screw around with her blood samples.
So she ends up standing at her lab station and leaning over the table with her chin in hand, staring at Aponia while she works with some random guy Pardofelis has never met.
She's not jealous.
Okay, yeah, she is. But I mean, why does some random guy get to work with Aponia and she doesn't? It's so unfair. He probably doesn't even understand the sheer perfection of the woman he's working with.
Mobius flicks her on the shoulder. "Are you going to help?" she asks flatly.
"Uh..." Pardofelis trails off, glancing at whatever Mobius is doing with some weird liquids in a test tube. To be honest, she didn't listen when the teacher explained the lab at all. "You seem like you're doing fine." Mobius rolls her eyes, but doesn't press further.
Pardo goes back to gazing longingly across the classroom.
"Pass me the funnel," Mobius says.
Pardo grabs the closest thing to her and passes it to Mobius without taking her eyes off of Aponia.
"This is not a funnel."
"Okay." Pardo isn't really listening. She grabs something else and gives it to Mobius.
"..." She can still see Mobius glaring at her in the corner of her eye, so she passes the green-haired girl one more thing.
"Finally," mutters Mobius.
On the other side of the room, Felis can see Aponia talking to her lab partner and writing something down. Pardo's eyes practically have hearts in them. Everything the other girl does is beautiful to her.
"Isn't Aponia just so perfect?" Pardo sighs dreamily.
She blissfully ignores the side-eye Mobius sends her way.
"I'm surrounded by gay people," Mobius grumbles, but she never pushes Elysia off every time she knocks her over with a hug after school, and always lets Eden walk her to her class and kiss her goodbye after lunch, so she can't really talk.
Pardofelis just keeps staring.
/
At lunchtime, Pardo leans on Hua's shoulder and tries not to stare at Aponia chatting with Eden and Elysia just across the table. It's proving very difficult, as she catches her eyes wandering for what must be the eighth time. She pouts and goes to steal a bite of Hua's lunch, earning a shout of protest.
Kevin stares at Pardo from where he sits to Elysia's left, and when Pardo finally meets his eyes, he mouths, "You see where I'm coming from?" and gestures to where Pardofelis is comfortably laying on her best friend, Hua.
Pardo sticks her tongue out at him, and then realizes Su is literally asleep with his head on Kevin's lap. That hypocrite! She gapes at him and points over the table to his lap. He flips her off.
Pardo giggles, and Kevin kicks her leg under the table. She immediately stares at him with a look of utter betrayal, before chucking her empty juice box directly at his face. Kevin has to swerve his upper half to avoid it, leveling her with an unimpressed glare. She sticks out her tongue again.
It takes her a few seconds to realize the conversation between Aponia, Eden, and Elysia has lulled, and that Elysia is snickering to herself while Aponia glances confusedly between Kevin and Pardo. Eden simply takes a drink from her water bottle that Pardo is 99% sure is actually filled with wine.
"Um." Pardo stills, face flushing.
"What was that?" Elysia asks, a wicked little smirk on her face.
Pardo crosses her arms, fighting down the embarrassed blush creeping up her neck. "A proportionate retaliation, obviously."
"All I did was kick you. Gently," Kevin retorts.
"And it still hurt! You're a meanie, Kevin. You agree with me, right, Elysia?" Pardo asks.
Kevin turns to face Elysia expectedly.
Elysia hmm's. "Sorry, Kevin, I have to stand with the cute girl," she winks in Pardo's direction. Kevin groans and throws his hands up in defeat.
Pardo laughs at Kevin's suffering. She glances toward Aponia, just to see her reaction, and freezes when she catches those pretty blue eyes staring back at her.
It's a bit like time slows, if Pardofelis wants to be dramatic about it. And she does.
For one, long, terrifying and wonderful moment, Pardo just stares into Aponia's eyes, and Aponia just stares back, and something flutters in Pardo's stomach. It feels like every time she sees Aponia, she falls a little further. It's pretty daunting, actually, but it's one of the best things she's ever felt.
And then Pardofelis is wrenching her eyes off of Aponia's, like the coward she is, and deciding to inspect the table instead.
Her faces is probably so red. She covers her cheeks with her hands, willing herself to disappear, because what was that ? She doesn't know if Aponia is still looking at her and she doesn't want to know. (She does. She just doesn't want to look up when there's a chance it'll be only to see a look of disgust.).
When the bell rings, Pardo is quick to leap to her feet. She's turning on her heel to leave when someone catches her wrist.
"Wait, Pardofelis," Aponia says. Even in the ugly fluorescent lighting of the cafeteria, she's beautiful. Pardo is so far gone.
Kevin sends her a knowing look. She pointedly ignores it.
"Y-yeah, Aponia?" She smiles nervously.
"Can I walk you to class?" Aponia steps closer as she asks. Pardo's brain short-circuits.
"Um," Pardo flounders, trying to regain cognitive ability. "I...Uh- I mean, sure, yes. Okay," she blabs, then clamps her mouth shut.
"Great," Aponia smiles at her, and this time Pardofelis's fucking brain just shuts off. Aponia is going to be the death of her.
/
"So," Pardo begins. They're walking side-by-side through the hall. Aponia's shoulder keeps brushing against Pardo's, and it's making her insane. "Why did you want to walk me to my class? Isn't it the opposite way from yours?"
"It is." Aponia smiles like she's thinking about something else, and Pardo tilts her head quizzically. "Nothing. Don't worry about it, Pardo. I just thought it'd be nice to spend more time together."
"Okay," Pardo says. She likes spending time with me! And then Aponia takes her hand and, embarrassingly, Pardo jolts.
"Ah, sorry," Aponia lets go, and Pardo panics, quickly grabbing Aponia's hand back.
Pardofelis flushes red upon realizing what she did, and averts her gaze from Aponia. "I-It's fine. You just startled me," Felis manages to say through her embarrassment.
Aponia doesn't say anything. Nor does she drop Felis's hand. And, risking one glance up at her, Felis catches her smiling.