Chapter Text
Noelle was studying at her desk when her phone started buzzing a holiday tune. She sighed as she picked it up, brushed aside the dangling charm, and saw who was calling. Reluctantly, she answered.
“What do you want, Berdly? We’ve already worked on the project today, so-”
“Ah, dearest Noelle!” he said, ignoring her. She sighed, dropping her pencil and leaning back in her chair. “I was merely calling to inform you that, despite your previous options being off the table, there is still a premium model available if you-”
“What do you mean?” she interrupted. She wasn’t feeling patient enough to deal with his metaphors today.
“Well,” he said. She could almost hear him adjusting his glasses in his voice. “Given that Susan and Kris are now a thing, I supposed you might want to give me a second chance. You know, to take your mind off her.”
“Ha. Sure,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Look, that’s very funny, but I’m not in the mood.”
“Ah, this is ‘playing hard to get’, correct?”
She sighed. He hadn’t stopped talking.
“Well, never fear! I will not stop pursuing your affection! I-”
“Stop,” she said roughly. “Look, I don’t care how long you and Kris worked on this, but I said I’m not in the mood for pranks right now. Goodbye, Berdly.”
She went to press the hang-up button.
“Wait, you- you hadn’t heard?” he said. His voice had lost its better-than-you quality, which was enough to make her stop. A chill ran down her spine. She’d been certain he was joking.
“N-no. Why would- Susie and I just- the festival-” she said. “I mean, I thought… I thought we were kind of dating, faha…”
“Oh. Well. They were talking about it in the library. Pretty… pretty loudly. I didn’t think it was supposed to be a secret. Uh. Shoot.”
“What- what were they saying??”
“Uh. Well, they were making marks in a book, and they can’t do that, obviously, so I went to tell them to stop. They had a thesaurus and were marking out all the synonyms for ‘lover’. Like, trying them out by looking at each other and saying ‘we’re partners!’ and then deciding if they liked it. Or something. No one’s really done that before, but it’s not allowed, so I had to tell them to stop. And then Susie grabbed Kris’ hand and threw the book down and said ‘well me and my courter are blowing this popsicle stand’, and then they left, and I grabbed an eraser to fix the book, and-”
“Wh-what?” Noelle faltered. “When- when was that?”
“Oh. Like, three hours ago. I’m usually the last to know this kind of stuff, so I thought you were taking it really well and would be willing to- well, go out with me…” he trailed off, cleared his throat, and continued. “I’m really sorry, Noelle, I thought you knew already. I- is there something I can do?”
“N-no. It’s just Susie, Berdly, it’s not like someone died or something. It’s- forget it. Sorry for freaking out on you. I- I’m going to go. Bye.”
She hung up on him before he could say another word. She picked up her pencil and looked at her work. She’d drawn her and Susie’s initials in a heart on the paper. She dropped the pencil, got up, and walked down the stairs.
What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What?What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What?
“Noelle, where on Earth are you going?” her mother asked. She mumbled something about the library and left the house before making sure she even heard. She had to- she had to do something. Talk about it? With who? Annoying as he was, Berdly was probably her only option. She’d tell her father, but given his condition, she didn’t want to panic in front of him. Yeah, Berdly was probably her best bet. At least, now that Dess…
She shook her head. Maybe she shouldn’t’ve hung up. Especially since that was one of the rare times he dropped his ‘smart kid’ facade. What was she thinking? Where was she walking? What? What? Wh-
She shook her head to shake the thoughts away. She didn’t want to think about it too hard. Maybe they weren’t dating, and they were just friends? Still? Kris was kind of weird like that. Come to think of it, Susie was also kind of weird like that? Maybe they were always a thing? Maybe-
She’d walked to Kris’ house. She stopped short when she saw it. She hadn’t been here in… a while. Were they even home? Why had she bothered coming here, of all places? She had to talk to Susie, not-
No, her subconscious was right. If she tried to talk to Susie- if she even saw Susie- she’d be a desperate, sobbing mess, and need to leave immediately and erase the memories of every single person there. Yeah, she needed at least an hour before talking to Susie. Kris, however, was always chill enough. Even if she was an outright sobbing mess, they- they probably wouldn’t take offense? I mean, they both liked Susie. They could agree on whatever she wanted, right?
She shook her head. She sounded like a half-baked dystopian novel subplot. No, she could maintain her composure around Kris, and get clarity enough about the situation. Probably. Or- or she could just- go home! Where everything would be better, and she could scream into a pillow, and get back to her homework, like she probably should, and everything will just go on how it always had, fahaha, and she’d-
“Noelle! Hey!” a voice behind her said. She whirled around. It was Kris and Susie. She felt her heartbeat quicken as the color drained from her face.
“Oh. Hi, Susie!” she said, smiling. She was clenching her jaw a little too tightly, hands nestled into a tight, painful fist behind her back. Everything was fine. “And Kris.”
Kris waved. Susie rested her arm on their head playfully.
“They ain’t talking right now. Speechless at my crazy-cool rock-skipping, probably,” she said, grinning. Noelle’s breath caught, in a hopeless sort of way. She was adorable when she smiled like that. And- and she needed to stop all this.
“Oh. Well, uh, I’m going to go! I- uh, bye!” she said, ducking past them. Her eyes stung. She cursed her stupid eyes for tearing up so easily. She wasn’t even that pathetically disappointed, she teared up over everything.
“Wait, were you looking for Kris?”
“Huh? Oh! No, I just- I was just- dropping off- seeing- uh, Ms. Toriel was having me grade tests with her! For, uh, the elementary kids. I just finished, so uh, I’m going to leave, faha-”
“Are- are you okay? You sound-”
“Yeah, allergy season, am I right?” she said, ignoring her cracking voice. She turned around and wiped her eyes with the base of her hand. Susie’s face blanched. Kris wouldn’t look at either of them. “What?”
“Are- are you sure you’re okay?” she said, stepping towards her. Her heart jumped and she glanced over her shoulder.
“Oh, yeah, I- sad movies, fahahahaha-” she choked on her words. Great. Way to be less concerning. Why on earth did she come here? Like Kris wouldn’t bring Susie over for dinner, which she was pretty certain already happened pretty often-
Susie brushed her tears off her face, and that shocked her out of crying. She looked up at her, saw the genuine, oblivious, stupid concern in her eyes, and turned away, nearly running down the path.
“Sorry!” she yelled, not bothering to turn her head. She wiped her eyes with her forearm. “I’m fine! I’m- sorry! I-”
She stopped trying to explain and ran faster. She’d known this would happen. She’d just stumbled into it anyways, like the clueless little idiot she was…
Susie watched her go, still standing with her hand in front of her. She glanced at Kris, who hadn’t moved, then back at the path Noelle just went running down.
“What just happened?” she said. Kris didn’t say anything, of course, but they didn’t bother trying to communicate any other way. She looked back at them. “Kris, what- did you- was that not weird to you? She just-”
They nodded, reluctantly taking out their phone. They typed something in real quick and handed it to her.
She likes you, idiot.
“Huh?” Susie said. She gestured at the phone. “Well- well yeah, I- Why’d she be so upset if-”
Kris took the phone back, sighing, and punched in a bit more. She tried to be patient, but even though they typed pretty fast it was still hard to wait. She had no clue what was going on. Not really. She and Susie had had a nice day at the Festival just a couple days prior, and she’d seemed fine then. Now she was… a wreck. Susie glanced back down the road. She really hoped she was okay.
Kris handed her back the phone. Damn, that was a lot of text.
berdly probably gathered that you asked me out from the library and told her. she’s probably sad about it because she liked you. like romantically. probably got upset seeing us walking together. probably should’ve warned you lol but its okay we can talk to her
“Dude… shoot, I forgot, dating’s like- like- a two-person thing…” she said. She handed back the phone, and they deleted the paragraph. “Shoot! Dude, what do we do? Do we- do we just break up? Already? Like- that’d be lame. It’s been like one day. Plus, like, we- why are you looking at me like that?”
Kris looked down, flushing scarlet. They typed out a sentence and slowly handed her the phone.
I kinda like you too. like romantically :P
“Bro,” she said, looking at them. And back at the phone. And back at them. She laughed and grabbed them around the shoulders, ruffling their hair. “And you were just never going to tell me? Why’d you make me say all that stuff?”
They smiled, blushing red again, until she let go and handed them back their phone. Suddenly her brow furrowed.
“Wait, you didn’t try to tell me that earlier, did you?”
They nodded, laughing, almost, then shrugged. It was humorous, almost, now. Then they remembered Noelle and typed out another thing.
we should probably tell her she can also date you lol. if you want. i assume you're chill with that i am anyways i guess
just let’s not break up already if she wants you all to herself that’s not fair lol haha im serious pls don’t idk this is complicated for writing and words in general anyways point is let’s ask out noelle
“Oh wait, you can do that? Let’s gooo that is so freaking smart. Yeah, no, we should do that,” she said. “Man, I feel really bad for doing all that without telling her. I forgot- I forgot that was a thing. Shoot. I hope she’s not mad or anything.”
Kris shrugged, finding Noelle’s contact on their phone. They sent a text and showed Susie.
“Dude let’s go. That’s awesome,” she said, fist bumping them. They smiled and put their phone back in their pocket before opening the door inside for Susie. The two of them grinned at each other. Things were going pretty good.
Noelle snuck back inside the house, trying to be as quiet as possible. She regretted everything. Everything about that, about Susie, about her entire life, about everything at all. She had managed to stop crying, but she still sniffled with every breath. Years of waiting to be brave enough, or of waiting for Susie, or of just stalling and wasting time and this, of course, is the result. It was the only result, wasn’t it?
She went inside her room and shut the door. She didn’t lock it, her mother would need to open it for some reason and she’d be suspicious if it was locked. No, she’d just… pretend to be reading something sad, or something. Something like that. Or- maybe she should just talk to Berdly. He’d seemed to want to help. As much as he claimed to like her, he didn’t seem to mind switching crushes all the time and forgetting all about the old ones. Yeah. She’d call Berdly. As stupid as that felt…
She opened her phone, instinctively checking the text app since it had the notify bubble. One from a new group chat, named the coolest courters around, in all lowercase. Her stomach lurched. She didn’t really want to check. Kris didn’t seem like the type to rub it in her face, but why they made a permanent third wheel group chat she couldn’t begin to fathom…
Kris: hey noelle you should come back
[Kris renamed the group chat to the coolest courters around]
Kris: there’s pie
Kris: my mom said its okay
Susie: It’s really good pie!!
Kris: girl just say something already
Kris: we could play the winter wonderland monopoly we have
Kris: idk susie maybe she forgot her phone
Susie: Noelleeeeeeeeeeeee do you want to date us or not
Kris: her and/or us
Kris: look just come back please
Noelle glanced out the window. Her heart was beating faster, now, faster than it had been before. Dating Susie. Officially?? With- with real, actual dates and stuff?? And Kris didn’t… hate her anymore. If they ever did. They’d been distant, lately, but this… wasn’t really distant?? Maybe they just had been scared about them both liking Susie? Maybe-
Who the hell cares??? She and Kris and Susie were all on a date to play monopoly and eat pie or something!!
Okay, not exactly her dream date, but she’d take it, if she got to hang out with Susie, and be friends with Kris again. She put her phone in her pocket and walked back down the stairs.
“There you are!” her mother said, making a sour face. “I’ve been wondering where you’ve been! You haven’t been with that terrible girl, have you?”
“No, I just went to the library to finish my project!” She said, smiling sweetly. Lies came much easier than they used to. “Anyways, I was going to go to Kris’ house! They invited me for board games! I was just going to walk, it’s not too far.”
Carol’s temper cooled at the mention of Kris. She nodded. “Have fun. Thank you for telling me first.”
“Bye, mom!” she said, shutting the door behind her. She let out a kind of hyper-excited squeal and picked up her pace. She still had no clue what was happening, but she’d take it! Things were going good! And she and Susie were… something, at least. She smiled. Things were going good.