At her limit, her emotions boil over and she finally exclaims, "Because I like you okay?!"
A deafening silence soon follows, and right before he so much as opens his mouth, she continues. "I've always liked you. More than I think I should. You just- you make me feel so warm and so safe that...I can't stand the thought of being away from you."
She chokes back a sob, her voice cracking as she releases all of her pent up emotions. After what feels like years of doing so, with her chest squeezing as she tries to wipe the tears away from her eyes.
"I- Whenever I look at you, I'm just so happy and it hurts because I know that if I try to tell you how I feel, I'm scared that you'll either say no or brush it off, and things would get awkward, or worse. That you'd end up pushing me away."
In one fluid step she rushes forward and wraps her arms around his waist. Pushing her face into his chest. "Please, please don't go. Please don't leave me behind like everyone else…"
The floodgates open as she sobs into his shirt, shaking and gasping for breath as her emotions run rampant. Only to give a slight pause at the feeling of his touch, of his arms wrapping around her smaller form with a hand on her reddish hair.
"I'm sorry...but I need to. This...this can't work. Not now. Not yet. But...for what it's worth, I feel the same." His voice was soft and comforting, even during rejection. Even as her heart cracks at his answer. At least she knew how he felt as well.
"I promise, that by the end of this, the end of this entire pointless conflict, I'll come back. I'll come home. I'll come to you." He tilts her head up, and leans down. For the briefest of seconds, their lips make contact. And it was pure bliss.
"Percy…" She whispers. "Paulette…" He replies.
"WAHHHHH!!!" Wails the audience, particularly Spinel, Peridot, and to a lesser extent Lapis. The first two holding each other with tears in their eyes as they watch the new episode of Camp Pining Hearts. The episode right before the finale in fact.
So focused on the show, that they couldn't have noticed a rather concerned yet understanding Steven just staring at them all with a drink in hand. When they said they wanted to watch tv over at his place, he didn't expect them to get so involved. Even for one of their favorite shows.
Though to be fair, Camp Pining Hearts was also one of his favorites, though he fell out of it somewhere within the first half of the reboot.
So with a slight chuckle, he makes his way into the group, and claims a spot for himself. Only for a distraught and emotionally destroyed Spinel to grab at his shirt with large teary doe eyes, and fail to communicate her thoughts before settling on crying into his chest at the injustice of it all.
Steven simply takes his role as a glorified tissue as elegantly as he can, and pets the poor gem's head.