Chapter Text
Azul Ashengrotto stared into his soup.
It was supposed to be his appetizer, and yet he'd hardly managed to take a bite of it, and lunch was already halfway over. At times, he lifted his spoon, preparing to dip into the creamy substance– but in the thoughtlessness of the action, his eyes would drift upward, and a crowd of sea butterflies would swarm the pit of his stomach and he’d lose his appetite all over again.
Right across the table of his choice was the object of… interest. Currently in the middle of a tumultuous argument, he stood from his seat with his hands firmly planted on the table, rattling his and surrounding trays of food. His voice was the loudest, booming, his face a strawberry red and only a shade away from the hair framing his face, and yet he failed to place any fear into the insolent freshman sat across from him.
The ones surrounding him, however, shrunk and held their drinks of choice tighter to avoid spillage or outright left to greet other friends at other tables. They were far over the ‘Please just let it go’ phase of mediating.
“For the LAST time, Ace Trappola, cereal is NOT a SOUP!”
The insolent freshman, unphased and adorned by a collar he’d come into the cafeteria with, shrugged. “Okay, but you didn’t give me any actual evidence to back up your argument, so…”
It, in fact, did not turn out to be the last time, as he flew into another heated rampage, one heart-decorated shoe stamping into the ground uncontrollably.
His eyes went back to his soup.
…He found Riddle Rosehearts significantly more irritating today. Wasn’t it obvious that his underclassman was just messing with him? What did he hope to achieve by doing something so short-sighted as blowing up, when he knew it did nothing but burn his energy by now? They were both second years, after all.
Azul had to bear witness to it plenty. They’d had the same class assortment for their first year, and he practically still had the memory of first year Riddle Rosehearts burned into his mind’s eye; Back straight, but legs wobbly enough from freshly learning how to walk on tall high heels as a new prefect, his jacket buttoned up and not a wrinkle or loose thread in sight. A permanent scowl, and a crown pin cruelty polished, reflecting as much warmth as his eyes often had.
Which was to say, none. Every conversation he’d tried to hold in those very new days had always been stiff, and curt. And yet, every time his eyes threatened to break contact, or his fingers twitching, or that dreaded right foot of his jerking uncontrollably, and Azul knew, he knew, that some part of Riddle Rosehearts wanted to fall for the saccharine greetings and graces he extended.
He’d tried his luck, again, and again, and again– but Riddle was simply too rooted to his ideologies to let him in. And it was those damned rules that he so adored that scored him first place in their grade every. single. time.
Summer break had come and gone, and now Azul was in group C and Riddle in E.
But he’d walked into Choir with his jacket unbuttoned, and just a little more warmth than before. A result of having a year’s worth of two reliable upperclassmen being his yesmen.
Azul was no yesman, and he was more determined than ever to outscore Riddle. So rivals they became. Not even the month where Riddle had overblotted and survived made a dent in his scores.
He manages a spoonful of soup before his sights settle on the redhead once again, who’d been bribed by one of his dormmates with a miniature fruit tart. One of the small, rectangular ones the cafeteria sometimes offered– it wasn't his favorite, but it served him well enough, it seemed.
Riddle’s eyelashes fluttered as he blinked rapidly, a brilliant ruby red under the light. Such color…
And then those eyes lock into his.
The chatter of the lunchroom goes quiet, time slows, the lights dim. That’s what it feels like.
Riddle Rosehearts has turned around, custard around his bottom lip and an aggressive, quizzical look to his face. Staring into the back of his head, it’s easy for one to get used to all the red. But Riddle’s eyes are a harsh, harsh gray with only a hint of blue in their depths, standing out so magnificently– they’re truly a sight to behold, for a merman.
So a pathetic gasp is all Azul says, his smile shakier than ever as he scrambles for any sort of bearing and gently taps his index finger to his bottom lip, where, metaphorically, Riddle’s custard would be. Riddle gets the hint and nods his thanks.
Sevens, that was hardly convincing. All he wishes for is to crawl into his pot, now.
The best he has is his reflection on his spoon, and the soup. His face is pitifully blue.
The blue in his reflection is gone when the spoon sinks into his soup, and reappears, and disappears, until the soup is gone in record time.
Riddle and his table are gone, the insolent freshman being the one taken to wipe the table down as punishment– and doing a shoddy job at it, cutting corners.
Azul clutches his chest, wrinkling the fabric of his shirt and tie. His hearts, fused into one with chamber after chamber so tightly interlocked, hammer so furiously in his chest– is he going to die?
He swallows a lump in his throat. Sevens, no.
Sevens. Sevens.
He couldn’t..?
No. He definitely knows what this means– it couldn’t possibly be anything else!
For a while, he stares at the empty seat a table down from him. That is, until an orange figure eclipses it, kicking the edge of the seat with the toes of his sneaker.
Not as pleasant as the rose-red he wants. But it’ll do.
A passing Octavinelle freshman is tasked with the burden of taking his tray away, and Azul walks up to his beloved peer.
“Ace Trappola.”
“Huh!?” The ginger underclassman jumps, his table-wiping performance becoming one worthy of the Mostro Lounge in recond speed. Only for a moment, however, as he takes notice of the one who spoke his name. “Awe, jeez, the hell I do to upset you guys, too?”
“Upset me? Oh, no, my dear, precious underclassman!” Azul chuckles, patting Ace’s shoulder. He shudders under the touch.
“See, I have a proposition for you.”
A startling number of his peers have gaps in their education.
That was to say, he was tutoring a number of third years in Heartslabyul on a variety of topics that should have been covered in Middle and Elementary school. Mostly mathematical. Nonetheless, it was his duty, as Housewarden of Heartslabyul and their current Queen of Hearts, to help them.
He laments their poor grasps on their topics silently as he cracks open an old geographical tome, flipping through the musty pages and slipping a variety of his bookmarks into the appropriate pages. He’d only be borrowing these books for a day.
A pair of people approach from the other side of the bookshelf– he hears one of them speak a few decibels too loudly, and he can already feel the downturn twist of his lips. It fades when the other voice gently chides them to lower their voice, calling to attention another detail.
He knows that voice. It’s the Housewarden of Octavinelle.
From the gaps in the shelf, he snares sight of silver curls following a mop of bluish green hair, a shorter boy in a deep purple vest. He appears to be in a much better state than his reddened state during lunchtime, idly chatting with what appeared to be a Pomefiore underclassman.
Though, without knowing if he had any other symptoms beyond what he’d seen, he couldn’t help Azul. Recommend he visit the infirmary, at best.
Unknowingly, he leans closer to one of the gaps, a rule at the back of his head scratching something about Looking Glasses.
“Well– we’re supposed to be the best at potions and poisons, Pomefiore. But poisons make me squeamish, and I don’t want to disappoint Housewarden Schoenheit…” The underclassman whines, earning a drawn-out sigh from Azul.
“You poor, unfortunate soul… I can sympathize with that. When you’re supposed to be good at something all your peers are… the expectations feel like quite the terrible burden, don’t they?”
The Pomefiore student eagerly nods, Azul’s voice soft and breathy, as if he could steal the other’s will with that alone. Even he, who knows better, can’t help but be slightly lulled by the sickeningly sweet lilt– comforting in the way the sin of indulgence would be.
He mutely watches as a gloved hand claps along the underclassman’s shoulder, smiling as if he’d discovered the most wonderful of things, gently ushering the underclassman along with a push. How someone could be so fake when…
“Well then, I don’t think we have any reason to wait anymore! Come to Octavinelle, and trust me, we’ll get something drafted up that will put you on par with the Beautiful Queen herself.”
Riddle grits his teeth. He was watching Azul trick a poor student into one of his deals!
As they turn around, Azul spots him, reacting in the last way Riddle would have assumed. His lips form the shape of an ‘O’, an indigo shade peeking out from underneath his shirt collar.
“Oh!”
He thinks the pair stumbles, he’s not there long enough to confirm, having rushed out faster than a white rabbit. The sound replays in his head as if it were a trapped dove, or stuck on a hedgehog’s running wheel. It’d been so unlike him– and so far from the charming figure he’d been only moments ago.
…He ought to finish adding the bookmarks to his books, pressing a hand to his burning face. Hopefully, he isn’t coming down with something.