I.
It started with Hester, as all the worst things tend to do.
Tedros and Agatha didn't think they were being particularly conspicuous. Quite the opposite, in fact; it wasn't like the two were sitting at opposite ends of the table (they were right next to one another, actually), but they weren't paying any more attention to one another than to anyone else. There was really no way for anyone to know that their feelings for one another weren't nearly as platonic as they would have everybody believe, so they held hands under the table — there was no need to be overly secretive when no one suspected anything anyway.
That was, of course, until Hester dropped her fork and had to crawl beneath the table to retrieve it.
They didn't think fast enough; in fact, it didn't even occur to them that she might have seen until she looked at Agatha with a smirk as she sat down once more.
No words were exchanged, but Agatha made her feelings on the matter quite clear with the look she give her; 'You'd better keep your damn mouth shut, Hester.'
Hester's eyes, of course, conveyed an equally clear message;
'No.'
II.
Agatha never thought herself to be closer with Beatrix than any of the other Evers (save for Tedros, of course), so it seemed a bit peculiar to her when she started extending her invites more and more frequently.
Agatha could only turn down so many, she thought, and so she eventually accepted the suggestion that her and Tedros (a suspicious duo for her to invite, she noted) join her for coffee one afternoon.
It was a nice little affair; Beatrix offered to pay for everyone's drinks — an offer which the couple couldn't turn down — and it was the middle of winter, so the treat offered some much needed warmth.
The conversation was nice, too, at first, just exchanging pleasantries between the three of them.
"How are you lately?"
"Did you sleep well?"
"How long have you two been together?"
Tedros choked on his coffee and Agatha froze with the cup halfway to her mouth. Beatrix just smiled cheekily at the two of them.
"You make a cute couple."
III.
Anadil had been snickering throughout the whole movie.
Her laughter wasn't the off-putting part of it, honestly; it was hardly something noteworthy. She could never truly keep quiet, regardless of what they were watching — she tended to find something stupid and laughable every time. No, the off-putting part was the fact that every time she giggled, she looked over to the couch with Agatha and Tedros at opposite ends and Hester smack dab in the middle.
Hester's choice of seat wasn't inconspicuous in the slightest. It was quite the opposite, in fact, which Agatha had no doubt in her mind was Hester's very intention when she first walked over with a smirk on her face and asked if they would mind. (They did mind. They minded very much, but to say that would be to out themselves to more people than they'd like, so Agatha simply bit her tongue and told her that it was fine for her to plop herself right in between her and Tedros.)
That in itself was annoying enough, but coupled with the periodic laughter from Anadil, Agatha really couldn't stand it.
"Do you need something, Anadil?"
"I just have a question, actually."
"…What is it?"
"How do you feel about long distance relationships?"
IV.
Subtlety was never Sophie's strong point.
Of course, the more Agatha thought about it, the more she wondered if Sophie was even trying to be subtle, and to be perfectly honest, she couldn't arrive at a clear answer.
Maybe she would have arrived at an answer if she could actually think straight, she decided, but the constant noise was really doing its best to break her train of thought at every opportunity it had (and there were certainly more opportunities than Agatha ever would have guessed there to be).
As if on queue, the door flew open yet again, slamming right into the wall with an awful sound as it did so, and there was Sophie, hopeful face quickly souring at the sight of Agatha on one couch and Tedros on another. Alongside her face, her phone — which was clearly poised for a picture — fell down to her side.
"…Can I help you?" Agatha finally decided to ask. It was for the wall's sake, really; they were going to have some serious damage to repair if she flung the door into it one more time.
Sophie looked like a child, pouting and flailing her arms about. "You guys are no fun," she whined. "Why won't you just kiss already?"
V.
Agatha really thought that she might pass out if she had to stay up for even a second later, but she did her best to tough it out - it was a rare moment for her and Tedros to unabashedly be together.
It certainly took long enough (three hours and twenty seven minutes, to be exact), but the living room had finally cleared of other people. The night had begun with everyone huddled around the TV to watch an episode of a series they followed and eventually extended into a binge watch session. It took a while, but slowly, slowly, everyone began to filter out as they got tired. It was past two in the morning by the time Chaddick finally decided to call it quits.
Agatha was tired - oh, god was she tired - but she was happy to finally have a few moments just to the two of them, and she scooted over to rest her head on Tedros' shoulder the very instant that she heard Tedros' door shut.
It was nice for the first ten minutes of the next episode that they had started, but then her eyelids started to feel heavy. She fought it off for as long as she could, but she was eventually forced to give in, and she fell asleep with her head rested on Tedros' shoulder.
He knew he'd have to wake her eventually, but for the moment, he let her rest, the look on her face far too serene for him to do anything else.
It was a perfectly sweet moment until he heard the sound of a door opening.
Tedros stiffened up completely, torn as to what to do - should he just leave her there and hope they didn't look? Should he wake her up and move away from her quickly?
He took too long to decide, and before he knew it, Hort emerged from down the hall, set towards the kitchen for a late night snack.
Tedros prayed to every deity he'd ever heard of that Hort would be too tired to notice the two of them there, but it seemed that luck wasn't on his side, as Hort's eyes fell on the two of them almost instantly.
He stopped in his tracks for a moment, locking eyes with a silently pleading Tedros, but he moved on again before too long, smiling to himself and shaking his head.
"Cute."
VI.
It wasn't often that Dovey called students into her office to speak with them alone.
In fact, it had never happened before to Tedros. Ever.
As such, it was only natural that Tedros was feeling a bit apprehensive when the teacher asked if she could talk with him for just a minute, leading him into her empty room and shutting the door behind them.
He had no idea what he had done wrong, but he's certain that it must be something — there was no way that a one-on-one talk with Professor Dovey could mean anything good.
Just when Tedros thought he was about to burst from the anxiety of not knowing what he'd been summoned for, Dovey finally spoke.
"I don't… I don't really know how to say this," she admitted, and the perplexed expression on her face mirrored how Tedros was feeling inside. What could he have possibly have done to fluster Dovey like this?
"Forgive me," Tedros said sincerely, desperate to know just what was going on. "But I'm not sure what I've done wrong."
At that, Dovey took a deep breath. "Don't worry, you're not in trouble." She assured him. "I just want to make sure you know that… if that time comes, you and Agatha need to be safe—"
Tedros was out the door before Dovey had a chance to finish her sentence.
VII.
Kiko had been jittery lately.
Jittery, jumpy, distracted, just flat out strange, really. Something was up with her, and whatever it was was very obviously wrong, regardless of how strongly she insisted that she was perfectly fine.
Kiko was generally a happy, excitable girl, and she would never pass up an opportunity to go and spend time with her friends. Regardless of what they intended to do, Kiko would be there without a doubt, that one constant little sun spot there to brighten everyone's day.
Lately, though, she seemed almost adverse to going out. She reacted like she might just die if she left the dorm.
"Hey, Kiko, do you want to go shopping later?"
"I'm actually a bit tight on money right now, sorry!"
"Do you want to come see a movie with us?"
"It doesn't look that interesting…"
"How about we go for a walk?"
"In this weather?"
It wasn't that she'd die if she left the dorm - Agatha had seen her go out with Millicent and Reena without putting up any fight at all. The problem seemed to be leaving the dorm with her.
After being turned down for what felt like the 500th time that week, Agatha couldn't help but to ask her.
"Why don't you want to spend any time with me or Tedros lately? Did we do something to upset you?"
Her response was a sheepish, "I don't want to impose on your dates."
VIII.
Chaddick, too, seemed to be suffering from the Kiko effect.
His version of it was perhaps a bit less open, but the way he moved to the opposite end of the room when Agatha walked in is was still very, very far from subtle. In fact, it was so absurd that Agatha almost thought that she was overreacting at first, and she had to test her theory out a few times.
If she sat next to him, he moved to the other end of the couch.
If she passed him in the hall, he all but flattened himself up against the wall.
If she walked into a room with Tedros, he flat out left the room.
Everyone had been acting so strange around the two of them lately, Agatha was almost starting to accept strange as the new normal. It was a little bit entertaining, she had to admit, watching the overly dramatic reactions to everything she did. But more than anything else, it was tiring.
As soon as she entered the kitchen with Tedros, she saw Chaddick's eyes dart to the door.
She was faster than him, though, moving to stand in front of him and staring him down with a look that meant business.
"Why are you avoiding me?" She demanded, and Chaddick looked like a deer caught in headlights at her words.
"I'm not avoiding you," he tried.
It was a valiant effort, but one gone to waste; she just continued to glare until he finally offered her an answer.
He couldn't even keep a straight face, the corners of his mouth just barely curved up into a smirk as he said, "Tedros has been giving me this look every time we talk, and I kinda like being alive."
Agatha glanced back at her boyfriend, ready to call bullshit on Chaddick once more, but sure enough, he looked like his gaze could burn right through the other boy.
Alright, so maybe she couldn't really blame Chaddick.
IX.
Tedros may not be overly tall, but he certainly seemed to take up a lot of space as he lay on his stomach on the floor of his room, limbs stretched out in every direction. He took a deep breath that was really more aligned with a sigh than anything else, trying to expel all of the tension that he was feeling.
"You look comfortable," Tristan said lifelessly, sitting perched on the bed and looking down at his spread out friend.
All he got in response was a grumble, heavily muffled by the carpet. Tedros didn't even bother to lift his head, not moving at all from the position that he'd been in for a rather impressive amount of time now.
"What's bothering you?" Tristan tried again, using a different approach. "You're clearly upset about something."
"Can you tell?" He tried to joke back, but, again, his intentions were lost on the carpet, and all Tristan heard in response was a dejected sounding mumble. "I'm so tired."
"Is it something with Agatha?"
Tedros almost thought he heard wrong at first, but his head snapped up at the mention of her name.
"What do you mean?" He asked, tone suddenly a thousand times more animated than before.
"You know," Tristan made vague gestures, and, no, Tedros absolutely did not know. "Relationship problems."
Tedros' jaw dropped — adding Tristan to the list of people the couple had somehow been outed to. "How - how do you know?" He asks incredulously.
Tristan cocked an eyebrow at him and waited for a moment, giving him a chance to follow up with a 'just kidding' or something of the sort, but when such a statement never came, he just scoffed.
"How could I not?"
X.
There was no use in hiding it anymore, really.
As Sophie had pointed out, Tedros and Agatha's relationship had more or less become common knowledge (all thanks to Hester, Agatha was sure) — trying to be secretive would really just be a waste of energy by then, and it was with this thought in mind that Agatha sat snuggled up to Tedros' side on the couch in the middle of the day.
It's funny, she thought - the one time they weren't trying to be discreet was the one time no one was around to bother them. For as long as they kept their relationship a secret, it seemed that there was at least one other person with them at all times, but with it out in the open, it was like the dorm had fallen silent.
Regardless of the irony of it, they enjoyed the situation - they would take any chance that they could to just be alone with each other.
It was one of those tooth-rottingly sweet moments. The TV was on in the background, but neither of them were really paying attention, their eyes trained on one another instead. They both started to smile as they looked at one another, the close proximity making it a bit embarrassing, and it was only a matter of seconds before Tedros closed the distance between the two of them for a kiss, and — and then there was a gasp.
The second their lips touched, they heard a gasp, and broke away quickly in shock only to look up and find Dot standing there, eyes looking about ready to pop out of her head.
"Dot!" Agatha exclaimed, caught off guard and a bit flustered to have been seen at such a moment. "Sorry, we—"
Dot cut her off, holding her hand up. "It's okay," she said, the look in her eyes serious and sincere.
"Your secret's safe with me."