Work Text:
How much do you care?
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Cassidy thought she was alone in hating her Ultimate talent. Everyone else here had some pride when they discussed their own talent, and despite the conversation not lasting long with many of the people here, some even had pride talking about how much work it took to get to it. Their talent was like a badge of honour, and honestly, Cassidy would have liked to feel that way when she looked at her title of Ultimate Pro Gamer. She didn't, though, and she assumed she was alone on that.
That was, until Eva had lied about her talent.
Of course, Cassidy always knew that Eva was the Ultimate Mathlete. She literally helped make this killing game. With that in mind, she was one of the most shocked people there when Eva said she was the Ultimate Liar. Not only was that, in the most respectful way possible, a dumb thing to say, but also, what did that mean for how Eva saw her talent? Did she hate her talent too?
Was there someone else in this killing game who understood how Cassidy felt about her talent?
Immediately, Cassidy wanted nothing more than to talk to Eva. She wanted Eva to tell her everything related to her talent. How did she get the title of Ultimate Mathlete? Was she trying to get that title? What did people outside of the killing game think of her talent? What did she think of her talent? Had she ever tried separating herself from it? Her desire for the answers to those questions only grew bigger when Eva was exposed for lying about her talent. Her terrified expression when everyone opened her profile made Cassidy think of a hurt little crow. She just knew that Eva hated her talent too. Someone in this place really did understand her.
It was tiring having to remember how she was like before her friend died, but it wasn't tiring at all when she remembered Eva. If all she needed to do was pretend to be happy and carefree about everything, then she would gladly pretend for as long as she needed to if it meant that she could understand Eva.
But the problem was that she had a stupid creature attached to her called Damon Maitsu.
Tozu and Mara let her watch the feed on the security cameras because of course they would. She was their boss. Through the security feed, she found out that every time she was free to go see Eva, Damon was with her, and the only times Damon wasn't with her, she had to be busy doing something else.
Tozu had spotted her glaring at the security feed showing Eva currently talking with Damon. He stood next to her and watched for a moment. He then asked her, "Are you jealous?"
"No," she huffed. "Why would I be jealous of some debater?"
He shrugged. "If you would like, I can always make him leave her alone. I could fake some emergency that needs his, and specifically his, immediate attention."
She raised an eyebrow. "Can you actually do that?"
"Only if you are interested," he said simply. "I am not opposed to adjusting the rules to fit as I please."
Yeah, but they needed to please Cassidy first, and she would actually love it if he could make Damon busy if it could mean she could get Eva all to herself for once. Even Diana, as innocent as she seemed, was keeping Eva away from her, since she said that she would be Eva's roommate right when Cassidy decided that she would forget about the fact that her past self wouldn't have been Eva's roommate because her current self would love to be Eva's roommate.
It was too early for Tozu to manipulate the killing game and be unfair, though, and Eva was probably going to die soon anyway. The motive targeted her directly. By the time Cassidy thought of taking it back, it was too late, and Eva had already taken it.
Mara told Cassidy that she would warn her if it seemed that a murder was going to take place. Mara had kept her word, and she told her that from what it seemed like, Eva Tsunaka was planning to kill Wolfgang Akire. That didn't seem too out of the ordinary, considering how Wolfgang was the participants' unofficial leader, so it didn't seem like too much of a stress for Eva to blame her mistreatment on Wolfgang, but it still saddened her that she had no time with Eva, mainly because of Damon demanding her spare time.
There was only one more time where Cassidy could have a conversation with Eva. It wasn't a totally private one, considering that Jett and Mark were also in the dining hall, but this was the best that she could and would ever have. At least Damon wasn't here.
So, she asked Eva, "If you could go back in time, would you choose to not have your talent?"
The only response Eva gave was giving her a weird look before she quickly busied herself with preparations for the upcoming murder.
That was practically a yes in Cassidy's eyes. That meant when Eva's execution happened, and the light from the fire grew brighter and brighter, Cassidy thought of Eva and wondered if they could have been close in a different life.