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“You should just tell him.”
All the first years, minus the person that they're talking about, are sitting in the cafeteria. Ace and Deuce aren't being helpful, and Epel is starting to get annoyed.
“How would that help, Deuce?! It wouldn’t and it would just be awkward from here on out, wouldn’t it,” Epel says back frustrated. “Well, it would help us having to listen to you talk about him all the time,” Ace says with a smirk on his face.
“I do not talk about him all the time.”
“You really do, though.” “How do you think we even knew you liked him?” Ace says right after Deuce. Sebek just nods his head with his eyes closed, and Ortho looks like he agrees as well.
“Guys, really, I think you’re exaggerating,” he insists. “The only person in this entire school who doesn’t know you have a crush on Jack is Jack himself, and I think that’s just because he thinks we’re all just really good friends,” Ace says.
Sebek interjects, yelling as usual, “ACE, IT IS NOT RIGHT TO TEASE SOMEONE ABOUT THEIR ROMANTIC FEELINGS!”
“Ha! That’s right! Thank you, Sebek! At least one of you is on my side.” Epel says triumphantly, smirking, and calming down for a beat.
“EPEL, I THINK IT’S WONDERFUL YOU LIKE HIM, I’M SURE HE LIKES YOU BACK!”
“No one knows anything, no one has a crush on anyone, and I’m leaving!” Epel angrily throws back his chair, which screeches against the floor, and stalks out of the cafeteria doors directly into Jack, who was walking towards the cafeteria to join them.
“Epel! Hello!” Epel looks up at him, confused for a second at running into someone. When he notices it’s Jack, his frustration at the others combines with being flustered. He starts to hold back tears. Jack looks down and sees this.
“...are you okay?” Jack asks with a concerned look on his face. Epel couldn’t respond, only turning his face away to continue running down the hallway.
I hope he’s okay. I think I saw tears in his eyes… Jack thinks as he continues to the cafeteria.
Reaching the first years’ table, Jack asks, “Hey, guys. Was Epel just here? He ran into me in the hallway.”
“Yeah, he was. He ran out of here pretty quickly for some reason…” Ace says, shrugging. Deuce slaps him on the shoulder, an angry look on his face. “What! I didn’t lie! He did leave here for a reason!”
“You know the reason, so don’t say it like that!” Deuce says back. They start yelling back and forth, so much that Jack can’t ask them what they meant by that.
He sits down and waits for their argument to calm down a bit before asking “Why was he so angry? He doesn’t usually seem that upset.”
“Umm, they didn’t have his favorite food?” Deuce says unconfidently. “Yeah, and the apple juice was bad!” Ace stacks on.
"You both know that Epel doesn't drink the apple juice from the cafeteria because he says it tastes fake,” Jack responds, crossing his arms.
Ace and Deuce both just look uncomfortable and look away. Jack turns to Sebek and Ortho. Sebek opens his mouth, but before any words can come out, Ortho tells Jack in a bored voice, “He was arguing with them about the fact that he has a crush on you.”
Everyone goes silent for a second, not even eating their food. Except for Ortho, who only stopped eating to say that.
Jack turned bright red at that statement. “What?”
Ortho looks up from his food, “Telling by your current heart rate, you like him back. Maybe you should go catch up to him.”
“That is a great idea!” Sebek says, “Ortho, thank you for your insight!” “You’re welcome Sebek Zigvolt, but it was really for myself.”
Jack had all but tuned out the rest of the conversation, only hearing static.
“I think you broke him, Ortho. He definitely didn’t hear you,” Ace laughs. Deuce waves his hand in front of Jack’s face, “Jack, can you hear me?”
This eventually breaks him out of his frozen state, but they don’t see much of a response from him since he leaves the cafeteria, calmly walking out, much the same way as he did walking in, aside from his tail wagging and hitting the chairs in its way.
Jack walks down the hallway, asking students on the way if they’ve seen Epel anywhere. He eventually finds him, with no help from many students. If he was really crying, he’d probably avoid people as much as he could, Jack thought.
Jack finds him in one of the history classrooms, sitting on the floor behind a cabinet. He hears the sniffling from outside the door.
Opening the door slowly, Jack whispers, “Epel, is that you?” The crying stops for a moment, but the sniffling doesn’t. Jack takes that as a yes and steps into the room.
“The others…well, really Ortho told me what happened.”
“...”
“It’s okay, I mean…”
Epel stands up suddenly. “It’s not okay! What makes any of this okay!” Jack jumps a little at the sudden reaction but stays in place.
“There isn’t anything to like about me! I’m just a weak, girly kid who can’t do anything right. Why would someone like you like me?” Epel cries, his voice going from yelling to almost a whisper, his head falling and hitting his chest. Jack can see the tears start again.
There’s a beat of silence.
“Who said you’re weak?”
Epel looks up from where he’s staring at the floor to see Jack’s expression, which seems upset.
“I would never call someone who can keep up with Leona and Ruggie in a Spelldrive match weak. Someone who’s weak would look at them and give up on the spot. You didn’t. You fought tooth and nail to be where you are.”
Jack continues, stepping closer, “People who are girly aren’t weak either. Would you call Vil weak?” Epel doesn’t get a chance to respond and takes a step back. “I think someone who fights for themselves and stands by their beliefs is strong, no matter what they look like. Do you?”
Jack, having taken multiple steps towards Epel, almost pinning him against the wall, just looks at Epel.
“Yeah, I guess so…”
“Exactly. So why would you call yourself that?” Jack seems like he wants to walk closer but is too polite to do so. Turning his head to this side to try to hide the rising blush on his face at the proximity, Epel says, voice back to a normal volume, “Okay! I get it! That doesn’t mean you are going to like me back. I don’t want to ruin the friendship we have, or what we have with the others.”
“Why would us being in a relationship cause them to think differently? Ace and Deuce are dating and nothing changed,” Jack responded, not moving from where he was standing. Epel was starting to think he didn’t notice how close he was.
“WHAT! SINCE WHEN?” Epel shouted, shocked at the information and turning back to face Jack. He sighed a little, “They’ve been dating for months, Epel, how did you not notice how close they are to each other?”
“I thought it was just because they’re good friends? They’re both from Heartslabyul, so it makes sense for them to be closer to each other than with the rest of the group?” he says.
Jack says flatly, “They’ve literally kissed and held hands in front of us.”
He doesn’t say anything, but the amount of shock on Epel’s face is enough of a response for Jack. “Anyways, nothing’s changed. And nothing will change if we were together too.”
“...does that mean you want to be together?” Epel questions, his voice almost too quiet for a normal human to hear, but that’s not a problem for Jack.
“Listen, I’ve probably wanted to be closer to you since the opening ceremony. To answer your question directly, yes, I would very much like to date you.” Jack says, voice showing his sincerity.
Epel looks up to Jack and a small smile starts to stretch across his face. “Well…okay, if you’re sure…”
Jack’s tail starts wagging so fast that it knocks into one of the desks near them, the chair almost hitting Epel. This startles him a little, making him realize how close he was standing to Epel. Jack jumps back, furiously blushing now, but his tail is still wagging at the same speed.
“Sorry, sorry! I didn’t realize that I was so close…” his voice lowers a little. At this, Epel just bursts out laughing, dropping to the floor, “It’s okay! It’s so okay.” Jack starts laughing too and offers Epel a hand back up.
Epel takes it, gets back up, but doesn’t let go of Jack’s hand.
They walk back to the cafeteria, hand in hand, and when the rest of the group notices they all have similar reactions of relief and congratulations. Epel glares a little at Ortho for telling his secret, but eventually whispers his gratitude.
Ace starts to say something along the lines of a joke, but Jack kicks him under the table and ends that.
As the lunch hour ends and everyone gets up to leave, Epel looks back at Jack, who was walking behind him. They smile at each other, and Epel starts to believe that they’ll be alright.