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[3rd POV]
"Grass is... green," the all-knowing Gem known as Phosphophyllite muttered as she was writing down the details of the plants known only as "grass".
Her red-haired BFF was standing beside her, overlooking her work while doing his best not to facepalm and just do the thing himself. As someone that does pretty much everything around the school, he found himself annoyed that he couldn't just do the job for Phos which would be both faster and more efficient considering the green-haired Gem was as dumb as a rock, pun intended.
Phos stopped writing on the clipboard before throwing her hands to the side, eliciting a deep sigh, "Why do I have to do something as boring as this? I wanna fight!"
"Sigh, Phos I thought you wanted to be useful to others," Y/N pinched the bridge of his nose as he squatted down and plucked some of the grass from the ground.
Phos took slight offence to his comment, "I do want to be useful! Just... doing this isn't really my thing."
Y/N chuckled at that, "A lot of things aren't exactly "your thing", am I wrong?"
The green-haired Gem let out a shocked gasp, "What?! No, you, my dear BFF Y/N, dare to think I am bad everything?"
"Yes," Y/N's deadpan response nearly made Phos bellyflop onto the ground while the red-haired lustrous being inspected the grass in his hands. "Poaceae or Gramineae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland."
Phos just looked at him like he grew another head, "What?"
"Hm? Write that down, Phos, write that down," instructed Y/N with little to no effect.
"But I want to make a shocking discovery! The grass isn't shocking, or new, or anything! Your knowledge about grass sure is though..." Phos' comment stroked Y/N's ego quite visibly as he grew a small ghost of a smile.
"Why thank you," Phos groaned but continued to rather poorly draw grass onto the paper on her clipboard, "You can't draw for toffee."
"Why thank you," the green-haired Gem replied with the same amount of self-confidence as Y/N previously did making the male sigh, "Also what's a toffee?"
"No idea, it just popped into my head," Y/N's absentminded revelation only made Phos sigh, she was all but used to Y/N's weird episodes where a random word would pop into his head at a random time, "While you're drawing... grass?"
"YES, IT LOOKS HORRIBLE SO WHAT?!"
"Right... Pass me one paper, might as well help. Those flowers over there look awfully interesting," a deaf person could tell Y/N was being sarcastic, Phos passed him a few papers from her clipboard and a spare pencil, "Be back in a few minutes."
With that their conversation came to a close and Y/N began doing what he does best, helping out. The blessing and the curse of being good at everything is that everybody expects you to do everything, not that Y/N minded, the opposite actually, he liked being useful, praises were just a cherry on top. Yet, he couldn't help but worry about Phos, when they first met Phos was very open, and still largely is, but she was a lot more carefree back then. He felt bad for her seeing as opposed to him, she couldn't do everything, in fact, it seemed like she could do nothing. So when she first approached him about partnering up he wanted to refuse, yet found himself with her the next. The pity he felt for her back then largely disappeared over the years though as Y/N began to realise how mundane and boring everyday jobs were, yet Phos could still somehow bring something new and exciting to the mix, even if she messed up.
Describing the beautiful dark red, almost black flowers in front of him in words was a breeze, yet when it came to drawing them... yeah, Phos' drawings looked like the work of a great artist in comparison. When he was done he felt his eyebrow twitch at the crude picture he drew, whilst being good at doing specific jobs, there were still things he sucked at, such as drawing for example.
"...Ugh..," grunted Y/N in self-disappointment, if Phosphophyllite saw this she would laugh her ass off.
The sun began to already set when Y/N was done with the pages his BFF has given him. Looking around to locate his partner he found her quite far back, completely engrossed in drawing something by the looks of it.
"...I need to work on my artistic skills," with that said Y/N was about to approach Phos when he saw something from the corner of his eye. A black abstract pattern in the sky.., "A sunspot?!"
Phosphophyllite noticed it too, but she didn't possess the speed nor agility to even bother trying to run away. So when the Lunarians appeared as they usually would, floating on a platform high in the sky she had no means of defending herself. Y/N threw the papers he was holding to the side before running as fast as he could towards Phos while bubbles of Red Matter began to manifest across his body. The Lunarians fired their arrows, and Y/N was too far away to effectively use his Red Matter to protect his friend, but just as the arrows neared the green-haired Lustrous another figure came into the fray. An all too familiar one for Y/N...
"Hah!" the red-haired female let out a yell as she brought forth a wall of silver liquid to protect not only herself but also the defenceless Gem behind her, "I was wondering who would be stupid enough to be at The Cape of Emptiness by sunset. Should've known it was you, 3.5!"
The crimson-haired male nearly tripped but managed to regain his footing in time, he wanted to rush in and take over the battle, but he found his body unable to do so, "...Cinnabar..."
The red-haired female Gem, Cinnabar, the very same one to discover Y/N washed up on the Shore of Nauscency those many years ago started to slowly struggle against the never-ending bombardments of arrows the Lunarians sent her way.
"All I do is breathe and the grass withers away... I don't want... to spread pollution. Or for anyone to see me like this. I don't want to fight in this disgraceful way... I don't want to -HNGH-" waterfall of silver liquid, liquid mercury, began to flow out of Cinnabar's mouth like a waterfall before it took the shape of tens of humanoid replicas of herself, "I don't want to fight..."
The liquid replicas of herself began to rapidly advance towards the Lunarians, like a battalion of highly toxic soldiers closing in on the enemy. As the rows of fired arrows took down some of the mercury soldiers Cinnabar continued to rapidly advance on the Lunarians, using her copies as shields before jumping high into the sky. She willed a large cover of mercury to eclipse the main Lunarian. Her tactic worked and the Lunarians went PUFF. However, her "master plan" had one very major flaw. She didn't consider her safety and due to the Lunarians previously hovering above the cliff she was about to dive straight into a rock-covered shore.
"Cinnabar!" but Phos had other ideas and recklessly rushed to help her saviour. Yet before she could set a foot on the mercury-covered ground a crimson vine wrapped around her waist, stopping her dead in her tracks as another one zipped passed her and caught Cinnabar by her leg.
"Gotcha," Y/N came in at just the right time to stop both of them from doing something they might regret doing so later.
He gently brought Cinnabar back to the ground and retracted the vine holding Phos in place, letting the green-haired Gem roam the grasslands freely. Phos let out a breath of relief, "Phew, thanks for the save, Y/N."
"Mhm," Y/N hummed in response and was about to talk to Cinnabar but the red-haired girl was already seen walking away, Y/N sighs in disappointment as this was the same treatment he received whenever he tried talking to her recently, "It was nice seeing you again, Shinsha!"
But Cinnabar seemingly completely ignored Y/N and continued on her way to god knows where she patrolled a lot around the shore and the Cape of Emptiness for reasons not known to many. Y/N sighed at the lack of response he received before he noticed the curious look Phos was giving him.
"What is it?" Phos tilted her head to the side at the question, as if not knowing how to properly assemble words.
"What's the deal with you and Cinnabar?" the curious Gem gave as much of a blunt question as Y/N expected her to.
Y/N sighed as he scratched the side of his head before turning around and motioning Phos to follow him, "It's late, let's talk on our way back."
The two were then slowly walking back to the school, "I should probably start from the beginning. When I was born the one to find me was Cinnabar. Things were relatively hectic back then, and they still are because of certain someone."
"Teehee~" was the response Phosphophyllite gave Y/N which made the male roll his eyes.
"When I first started doing what I do now-"
"Everything,"
"-Yeah, everything, I also tried to help Kongo-sensei in finding a proper job for Cinnabar. But because the nature of her body which constantly produces liquid mercury she couldn't stay close to others, and both me and sensei were out of ideas," Phos listened intently to what the crimson-haired male was saying.
"We were at a loss, so I tried doing something stupid," Phos rose an eyebrow at how emotionless Y/N's tone has become. Usually, there would be an undertone of sarcasm, or just about any other emotion, but now his voice was dull and empty.
"My body produces liquid that is the polar opposite of Cinnabar's mercury, so I tried to... 'purify' Cinnabar's body, didn't work out. After that failure, she has become rather distant, can't blame her though," Phos once again tilted her head to the side in confusion.
"What do you mean? Shouldn't she at least be thankful that you tried?" asked Phos as if it were the most obvious thing in the universe.
"It wasn't purely that as to why she is the way she is now towards me. I guess the best emotion I could compare it to is jealousy. You see, Cinnabar's body is even weaker than yours, having a hardness of just 2 while my body becomes infinitely stronger over time," Phos nodded in understanding.
"That coupled with the fact everybody is constantly hanging around me, the fact that other Gems are afraid of her presence and the fact the liquid produced by my body does the exact opposite her does made her somewhat moody towards me," Phos seemed to now understand as to why Cinnabar seemed so distant towards Y/N.
As they finally made it back to school and walked through the dimly lit hallways Phos stopped dead in her tracks, realising something, "Wait, you stopped trying to find her a suitable job?"
That question made Y/N stop dead in his tracks as well, he grew awfully silent for a full minute, "I guess I never bothered to try after that..."
"Oh come on!" Phosphophyllite's sudden yell made Y/N raise an eyebrow in her general direction, "Seriously? After one failed try you stopped trying to help her altogether?"
Y/N chose to remain silent, he had nothing to say as everything Phos has said so far was true. But Phos wasn't done, "You didn't give up with me, did you? And look at me now! I have a job! Although a very shitty one... BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT! The point is that you shouldn't stop trying until you've tried everything, even the things you didn't know existed!"
Y/N had found himself more and more impressed as his closest friend finally started to show as to why he respected her so much, and to the mint-haired girl's surprise he loudly chuckled, "...Never stop being a fool."
"Wha-?" that one "advice" confused Phosphophyllite greatly, but she couldn't properly ask him what he meant as he walked right passed her and started walking back outside in the direction they came from, "Where are you going?!"
"To see an old friend. Get some sleep in the meantime, okay?" Phos let out a confused whine as she was once again lost but her growing drowsiness overpowered her sense of curiosity as she yawned and left to her room.
[Meanwhile]
Meanwhile, Y/N could be seen walking by the Cape of Emptiness with small blobs of Red Matter floating around him, absorbing the little light that was present and using it to keep himself awake and moving. He had no general direction, just one hunch which proved to be correct.
"Hello again," Cinnabar was startled for a second by Y/N's sudden intrusion before she calmed down, Y/N noticed a stack of papers in one of her hands.
"...You can't draw for a toffee," Y/N blinked in response before comically hanging his head low.
Almost sounding like his best friend, Y/N uncharacteristically whined, "Oh come on, it's not THAT bad. It's better than Phos at least, I think... She was uncharacteristically helpful today..."
"Whatever, here, take these back," Cinnabar nearly tossed the papers at Y/N who managed to catch them.
Just as Cinnabar started to walk away she was stopped yet again from doing so by Y/N, "Wait, Shinsha."
"Can you not call me that anymore?" Cinnabar sounded annoyed. "Shinsha" was the nickname given to her by Y/N when he was born and couldn't properly pronounce words, "And what do you want? Unlike someone, I have patrol duty."
"Ouch... Okay, listen, remember that promise- Oi, I haven't finished talking stop walking away!" Y/N's yells were unheard by the red-haired girl as she continued to stomp away from the other Gem trying to converse with her, "HEY, SHINSHA, I'M GOING TO FIND YOU A FUN JOB ONLY YOU CAN DO SO STOP PRETENDING TO BE DEAF!"
But alas, no response from the fleeting lustrous being, sadly. Y/N sighed for the umpteenth time today, at the very least he had a somewhat decent conversation with her after so many years of no contact. Grumbling under his breath he made his back to school, feeling slightly disappointed yet also determined to help out an old friend.
[Meanwhile]
Cinnabar walked back to her cave after another day of boring patrol before taking a seat on one of the rocks in her "home" and gazing at the lone piece of paper in front of her. When she returned the papers lost by Phosphophyllite and Y/N she kept one to herself, it wasn't important to the encyclopedia anyway.
"Honestly, only Y/N could rival that clutz in being bad at drawing," the piece of paper Cinnabar kept revealed a very crude and very terrible drawing of Y/N's face.
It was the worst piece of art Cinnabar has ever seen and the only way to tell it was Y/N was by the fact he had his name written beside the horrible image. Cinnabar also noticed one very small but still noticeable detail of the drawing, a small heart by Y/N's name.
"...That idiot," cursing under her breath Cinnabar looked at the crude drawing for another minute or so before bringing out her own pen.
"...I don't want to make decisions I will regret, so please, don't make me regret this, Y/N..," with that said she hid the picture for safekeeping, even if she could draw a better image if she tried, she wanted to keep that one.
That horrible, horrible drawing somehow made her reconsider the way she was acting towards Y/N.
[[TO BE CONTINUED...]]
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Braggski: And there you have it folks, another chapter right on schedule! Also, yes, that shitty ass picture was drawn by a monkey using his feet and a touchpad in Microsoft Paint, aka me. I did it in exactly 0.91 seconds. I am (on) speed. Anyway, hope you liked these not-so-subtle Phos x Y/N x Cinnabar moments, there is a plethora more of them coming in the future. Also also, expect some canon divergence for the sake of implementing Y/N smoothly into the story, although that much should have been obvious.