Vile Attraction (Floyd Leech/Yuu, Jade Leech/Yuu)

10 ~ Lie

Jade watched as his brother disrupted his girlfriend's lunch group and bombarded her with affection, all while she wore a look of poorly disguised discomfort. Jade was aware that his brother had been giving her love potions. Jade was aware that the potion wore off last night, leaving his poor girlfriend feeling confused and dismayed. And Jade was aware that his brother hadn't gotten the opportunity to slip the potion he had brewed last night into any of her consumables, which was why she was so uncomfortable right now.

Azul turned to where Jade was looking before turning back to him, eyebrow raised. "What are you laughing about? I don't see anything worth laughing over."

"Oh," Jade chuckled, "I simply find it funny how, ah, uncomfortable the prefect looks."

Over at the table the two were observing, Floyd had his arms wrapped around Yuu as she ate her lunch. Her friends had gotten used to him being there, though whenever he jokingly made any threats, they would all still scream and panic. Floyd randomly deciding to sit at their table some days had simply become the norm.

Ace, however, was the one person that had not gotten comfortable with this change. Whenever Floyd came to the table, he made sure to pay extra attention. For what, he didn't quite know, but if he noticed anything weird, he would go straight to Cater.

And today he did notice something weird.

Going back to before all of this, Yuu would be chill with Floyd whenever he sat with them. Then all of a sudden she started being awkward and blushy, which was when he spied on them and watched Floyd ask her out. They hadn't tried to hide their relationship or anything and Deuce and Grim didn't seem shocked by it, which made him think two things: either he really was overreacting, or those two were just stupid and oblivious as always. Somehow, he found the latter to be more probable.

Anyway, after that, Yuu started being affectionate and caring to Floyd when he sat with them as couples usually act. That was how things were for a while. But now she was acting all stiff and awkward again? And it wasn't even a blushy kind of awkward, it was an uncomfortable kind of awkward.

He really wanted to go to Cater with this, but it was more likely that the couple had just fought. He knew what he needed was hard evidence and not his own mere suspicions. If he got that, he could get Cater to help him. Cater could find things he couldn't.

An irritated sigh escaped him and he rose from the table. Yuu tilted her head as he began to leave wordlessly. "Wait, Ace, where are you going?"

"I dunno," he responded, not providing any more explanation.

She stood, surprising Floyd, whose arms were still lightly wrapped around her. "Mind if I come with you?" She wanted away from Floyd. She didn't want to have to keep looking at him, to have to deal with knowing that he loved her and she was just leading him on.

Ace froze. "...Sure."

Yuu tilted her head down to look at Floyd, who was clinging to her waist and pouting. "Aw, Shrimpy, don't go!"

She gave him a soft smile as she collected her things. "We'll see each other tonight at the gym, okay?"

He continued to pout but released her after giving her one last peck. She ruffled his hair and walked over to Ace, who was waiting with his hands in his pockets. "Shall we go?"

Ace's attention shifted over to Floyd and he watched him go back to his usual table with Azul and Jade. He wasn't going to overlook the possibility of Floyd following them, especially since Ace was the one who followed the two of them after noticing something was off.

"Yeah," he replied after a few moments, turning around to the exit of the cafeteria.

After a few moments, he glanced over at Yuu. "So... you and Floyd have a fight or something?"

She tensed up at the question. "What makes you ask that?"

"Maybe it's how you were being all spacey during lunch, or how you were acting uncomfortable with him hugging you, or how you asked to come with me when you could've spent more time with him?" He gave her a grin. "C'mon, I can tell when you're not yourself. What's up?"

Yuu was silent for a few moments, mulling over her thoughts and trying to decide what the best way to answer the question was. "We're not fighting. I... I honestly don't really know how to explain what's going on." She let out a quiet sigh. "The problem's in my head."

"Is he being a bad boyfriend?"

Her eyes widened. "No, no!" She exclaimed, quickly jumping to Floyd's defense. "He's great! Like, I'd tell you if he was bad. He's super sweet. It's more..." Another sigh escaped her as she tried to figure out how to explain her feelings. "How I feel about him."

Ace raised an eyebrow. "Wanna expand on that?"

"Most of the time, I really like him a lot. He's an incredible boyfriend! But sometimes, like now, I just... don't like him like that. It's really weird and random. Like, how can I go from being absolutely in love with him to being weirded out by the idea of dating him? And then I randomly just go back to liking him! And I know it's not me being uncertain about how I feel about him, it's like I either love him so much or I don't feel any particular way about him! That's weird, isn't it?" She put a hand on the back of her neck. "There's gotta be something wrong with me, right?"

"Yeah, that is really weird," Ace murmured in response after a few moments of silence. He didn't know what he had expected out of this conversation, but this wasn't it.

"It's only happened twice so far, so maybe I'm just thinking about it too much..." She let out a strained laugh. "I'm sure it's nothing!"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not so sure it's nothing, but I don't really know what to make of it, either..." He was sure to make a mental note of what she told him. This was certainly weird enough to inform Cater of.

"Don't tell anyone any of this though, okay?"

His cheeks flushed ever so slightly at her saying that so shortly after he thought about telling Cater, feeling almost as though he had been caught red-handed. He gave her a wink and a thumbs-up. "Won't tell a soul!" he reassured her with a smile.

Which, of course, was a lie.