Sucy opened their dorm room door, slowly, looking carefully as if there was someone outside who would catch her in the act of something, but the emptiness of the hallway reassured her that there was nothing to worry about.

After she stepped outside, Akko followed suit, coming out of their room at a quicker speed, licking her own lips a little. While she closed the door, the brunette made a mental note to buy some chocolates for Lotte as a thank you gift for agreeing to leave the room for a while, so that she could finally have the chance to talk to their alchemist friend alone.

The Japanese girl still remembered the lavender's skeptical eyes when their orange haired friend claimed she needed to go out for some "emergency errands" on town. She recollected how scared she felt at the moment, fearing that the alchemist could see right through her intentions, the chance that she would reject her right before she could even ask, or that she would casually alsoneed to leave the room to go find some mushrooms outside, or even the possibility that she herself would chicken out and just pretend like there was nothing to talk about, and just act like Lotte left the two of them alone in a totally-non-suspicious manner without any ulterior motive at all.

But even though all of that happened less than an hour ago, Akko started to feel those fears and scary possibilities running wildly through her mind as if they were just a distant point of her past, simply because she was now enjoying the relief that in the end, everything had worked out alright. Because in the end, Sucy had said yes.

The subject of Akko's affections turned around to look at her, with her tired expression facing the brunette's ruby eyes, "So, um… do you want to go for an ice cream…or something? That's what girlfriends do, right?"

Suddenly taken away from her thoughts, Akko gave her the goofiest, yet most charming smile the alchemist has seen from her yet, "Woah, the prettiest girl in school is my girlfriend now AND I get free ice cream too? Did I hit the jackpot or what?"

Having said that and without notice, the brunette girl took her girlfriend's hand and closed her eyes, all while getting closer to give her a kiss. The lavender girl's eyes widened and quickly stepped aside, almost letting the Japanese girl fall on the floor if it wasn't for Sucy's arm. Even if she moved, she didn't let go her hand.

Once she got her balance back Akko stared at the alchemist in confusion, but quickly understood her mindset when she saw her frantically watching around, as if confirming that there was no one observing them. As dense as she was, Sucy's reaction was obvious.

Akko lowered her voice even though there was hardly someone who could hear them around, the halls remaining as empty as they were back when they left the dorm room. Despite being barely a whisper, her next words resonated loudly in the lavender's ears.

"Do you want to keep this a secret?"

The tone of her voice was calm and understanding, yet Sucy could feel the disappointment in her words. They really should have discussed this beforehand.

"Yeah, well… I have an image to maintain, you know…" The lavender girl tried to joke, brushing off the situation as if to reassure herself that it was no big deal.

Akko looked at her eyes, chucking a little. "To who?"

The alchemist blinked a couple of times, before letting go the Japanese girl's hand and resuming their path. Even if that little question was not meant to be serious, these two words managed to startle her internally. The fact that Akko was so understanding about it may be what bothered her the most. Sucy would honestly have preferred if she was a bit mad. She could have dealt with that.

Looking away from Akko as they advanced, the lavender started to feel a tiny bit of shame at how quickly she managed to ruin her girlfriend's ecstatic mood in just their first day together. Is that how it was gonna be from now on? Limiting their affections and interactions just within their little dorm room, and pretending to be just friends anywhere else?

It's not that Sucy was embarrassed by being seen with her. If anything, she assumed it should be the other way around. She felt a part of her thinking that Akko deserved better than that. And a smaller part of her wondering if she could ever give it to her.

Sucy frowned a little, without Akko's notice. She didn't want this day, of all days, to find herself having these kinds of thoughts, thoughts of inadequacy, or not being good enough for her friends, stuff usually kept buried deep, deep down on the metaphorical little vault hidden within her heart.

She tried to think of something else, trying not to ruin a pretty good day with that kind of worries, when something else caught her attention. From the opposite side of the hallway, Sucy could recognize two figures walking towards them, a black haired girl and a redhead with a yellow bow. Two figures that if alone would not stand out, together were unmistakable. Chatting and giggling, Hannah and Barbara stepped through the hall towards the direction of the other two girls.

They were in better terms now, as much as they could be, but these two still loved a good gossip more than anything else in the world. If they found out that she and Akko were together, half of the school would know. And if they were asked to keep it a secret, the entire school would know.

Akko seemed to be aware of this, as the duo got closer to them, she looked at Sucy with the same understanding smile as before. The alchemist inspected those ruby eyes from what it felt like hours, finally giving the brunette a small smile, as she turned around to face the two newcomers before Akko could notice the smirk forming on Sucy's lips, a new determination on her mind.

To who? Why did she care anyways, really?

Both Hannah and Barbara stopped their conversation as they walked right past the two members of the red team. Before, they wouldn't have even bothered to acknowledge their presence, or if they were in a particularly good mood they would throw a cruel joke at their expense. These days, they would sometimes wave their hand at each other, but rarely anything else. This time, however, Sucy decided to chat a little bit.

"Hi Hannah, Hi Barbara," the alchemist said while looking at Barbara and Hannah respectively, "What are you two doing up here?"

The false jovial tone of her voice wasn't lost on Akko, who quickly realized that something was up. The two members of the blue team exchanged confused expressions, not sure what to make of the lavender girl sudden interest in their lives. This was most definitely a set-up, but for what, they couldn't fathom. Just after a little bit of silence, Hannah decided to answer.

"Well, Barbara and I were going to study some of the spells for our test tomorrow, you know, something that you two could also be doing…" She said while giving a quick glance to Akko. For a brief second the redhead girl considered ending the conversation there, but decided to apply some common courtesy to her now frien-ahem, acquaintances, "What about you two, are you going somewhere?"

"Oh, you know. Just going to get some fresh air with my girlfriend" The alchemist grabbed the Japanese girl by the waist as she said this, much to her confusión.

The two blue team members looked at each other with a dumbfounded expression, now their shared irritation replaced with genuine surprise. This time Barbara being the one to talk, "Wow, we didn't know you two were, like, together…"

Akko could feel her cheeks getting warmer, she assumed her blush was also noticeable.

"Ah, you know how it is, is pretty hard to ignore the charms of someone when you keep living with them in the same room for too long" While she said this, Sucy moved just slightly a little from her previous position at Akko's side and hugged her from behind, while giving her a quick kiss on the cheek before continuing talking, "Isn't that right, my little guinea pig?"

Akko's face was red as a tomato now.

Sucy almost let out a small snicker. She knew that the two girls' reaction would be amusing, but she found Akko's embarrassment pretty endearing as well, "Sorry, but we gotta go now. Good luck with your studying, make sure to not get too distracted".

She whispered her next words while putting the palm of her hand near her mouth, in an almost exaggeratedly cartoonish manner.

"Oh, and by the way, this is supposed to be a secret. Don't let me down, you two".

And with that, she and Akko kept walking while the other two girls stayed there for a couple of minutes, blinking at each other and overanalyzing these last words, all while feeling as if they were two little kids trusted to keep safe a pot of gold and not buy mountains of candy with it. It was gonna be hard to concentrate on their studying now.

"Are you sure you are the Sucy I know?" Akko questioned while holding Sucy's hand with their fingers interlocked, "You know how these two are…do you really think that was a good idea? I mean, do you think it was worth it just to mess with Hannah and Barbara for that one moment?"

The alchemist's expression remained as stoic as ever. Akko was internally amazed at how she didn't let things bother her, genuine admiration in how she could be the master of her own emotions.

"Well, things have been pretty calm around here lately… kinda boring. So I felt like we needed a little something to spice things up, you know?"

As she talked, Sucy let go the brunette's hand for a second, taking it again but this time rubbing in small circles with her thumb.

"And besides, the best part of hitting the jackpot is to rub it on everyone's faces" Sucy continued, her stoic expression slowly shaping into a huge grin, showcasing at full length the sharp, pointy teeth that characterized her, "Wouldn't you agree?"

Akko giggled, happily looking at the familiar smile that she, with time, learned to stop fearing and being nervous about, thinking how she slowly began to enjoy it's sight, recognizing said expression as a sign of the alchemist enjoying herself and having a good time… even if it meant doing it with her typical machiavelic nature. Yup, that was the Sucy she knew alright.

"By the way, Akko, you are the one paying for that ice cream".

"Oh, C'mon!"

A/N:

A couple of things:

first fic I've ever published! and honestly first I've ever written since some small thing I did in eleventh grade that was sort of lost in an old computer, but anyways, this was lots of fun to do. Hopefully, I did the characters justice, since I have a couple of ideas for another thing I wanna write someday.

In all honestly, English is not my first language. But I think doing writing of this kind may be a good way to get better!

That being said, please leave any comments or feedback if you wish so! Thank you very much for reading.