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It was a quiet early evening in Heartslabyul that Cater found…too peaceful. She realized what had been missing the entire day when she saw a magicam post by the ginger half of her favorite troublemaker freshie duo that she remembered—said troublemaker freshie duo had been absent from the dorm premises the whole day.
She scrolled through the various pictures Ace posted, delighting in seeing that she’d taken many of Cater’s suggestions for a worthwhile date, and that it seemed like they had a lot of fun. If she hadn’t known better, it looked as though the two were a couple. Though, after everything she’d seen, that she selfishly and secretly took credit for at least 80% of, it’d probably take a massive idiot to misinterpret what happened that day.
Cater stood up and stretched, mentally gloating over another victory in her unofficial matchmaker Cay-Cay service, when another student walked into the room. She excitedly bounded over to her once she recognized her.
”Heya, Deucey! Welcome back! Didjya have fun today?” Cater greeted.
Deuce looked at her confused. “Huh? How’d you know I was out?”
“I saw Acey’s post, ofc! Looks like a real fun day!” Cater ushered her towards a nearby couch and sat next to her. “Any highlights to share?” She was taking the opportunity to get firsthand feedback on her impeccable suggestions.
The younger seemed to brighten up at the chance to talk about her exciting day, which was already a good sign. She took a chance to think before speaking.
“Yeah! So you see, Ace had invited me to watch the recent popular movie that came out with her.” Deuce began her rant. “She insisted on paying for my ticket, which was weirdly generous of her…”
Cater nodded. That was one of the things she saw they did that day. But the conversation didn’t progress how she’d expected from there.
“It’s a horror movie, right? But I handled it well! I’m not so sure if Ace did, since we did a bunch of stuff after that was probably supposed to lift our spirits.”
Hearing date activities being reduced to “bunch of stuff” shouldn’t had wounded Cater so badly, but she did stake her ego on it.
“But yeah! I didn’t think I'd enjoy the movie so much, but the plot was pretty interesting, and I thought it was pretty profound and stuff.”
“Right…” Cater responded. Did she have anything else to mention about the date?
“Sooo…anything else? You two were out all day…”
Deuce took a moment to think. “…I guess we had food afterwards.”
Wow. Cater felt quite sad. She couldn’t imagine how Ace would feel if she heard this. So much effort put into what was supposed to be a romantic day out, and all Deuce could remember in detail was the movie they watched…
“So like…you didn’t think anything of anything else?”
“I mean, it was fun…? Why?”
“Do you at least know why Ace invited you out?”
“Hmm…I might’ve mentioned the movie at some point, so maybe she’s trying to get in my good graces for something later…”
Cater was dumbfounded. This poor girl had no idea…
“Deucey…I didn’t want to be the one to break it to you, but I guess I have to…”
“W-what does that mean?!?”
—
“O-oh…” Deuce’s face was bright red with embarrassment. Cater slowly nodded, reinforcing what she’d just said.
“Yep. She was trying to woo you the whole time.” Cater explained. She’d said this phrase in multiple ways in the past few minutes, but one more time couldn’t hurt a girl as dense as bricks.
She truly pitied Ace Trappola. She wouldn’t know what she’d do if she’d fallen for someone so utterly ignorant to romantic cues.
—
Meanwhile, the vice housewarden of Heartslabyul had her hands full in comforting a very dramatic yet seriously hurt freshman in the trials of her tumultuous love life.