A/N: Thanks so much to all who took the time to review and comment! I'm ecstatic to know that there are actually a few of us aboard this rare (and sexy) ship.
As a quick note, this story will be primarily from Yuno's POV, but with just a couple of chapters from Noelle's (including this one) throughout.
INFLECTION POINT
2. A Battle for Insurance
The dull throbbing in her head pulls her slowly into consciousness as she blinks her eyes open. Almost immediately she registers the pure fatigue felt all throughout her body, heavy like a blanket of rocks holding her in place. She lets out the faintest groan at the feeling, subsequently registering the dryness in her mouth, like she hasn't drunk a single drop of liquid for perhaps a week.
Slowly, she sits up on her elbow and turns over to look out the window through bleary eyes, and it is still dark, as dawn has just barely begun to break.
Rising further to sit up relatively straight, she conjures water directly into her mouth—something she typically refrained from doing, seeing it as unsightly and unbefitting of a royal, but the relentless pounding in her brain and her sandpaper tongue were enough to warrant an exception.
It is only after hydrating that Noelle takes in her surroundings and recognizes that she is not in her own room.
'Did I stay with Mimosa…?' she ponders as she looks around, seeing a desk across the room and closet door that seemed similar to Mimosa's in style. However, the room in its entirety was mostly barren, save for a few books stacked on the desk. Additionally, it lacked that constant floral scent that Mimosa typically wore, which was also a constant fixture within her room.
It then occurs to her that she barely remembers anything from last night, much less how she got to this unfamiliar place, but she is almost too tired to panic about it.
With a sigh, she throws her legs over the bed to stand and explore her surroundings—but instead steps on what feels like flesh, a small, deep, groan emitting from whatever, or whoever, she just stepped on.
A chill jolts her spine, her skin prickling fearfully as she scoots further up to the edge of the bed and looks down to meet the unexpected sight of a half naked Yuno, clad in pajama pants, peering at her with groggy amber eyes.
Her eyes widen and his expression begins to mirror hers, and he flinches almost as if he's scrambling to sit up, before she shrieks:
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"
She doesn't get another shriek out because Yuno is fast on his feet, and sitting on the bed next to her, clapping a hand over her mouth.
"Please stop that," the stoic wind mage says calmly, though his eyes are filled with something that is not quite rage, but perhaps extreme irritation.
They look at each other for a moment, his eyes boring into hers, as if willing her to calm down by the intensity of his gaze. In the moments that pass, her panic begins to dissipate, and she takes in his haggard disposition, the darkened circles under his eyes standing out against his ivory complexion, his raven hair even more tousled than usual. She also finds herself passively observing that he is far more built than his Golden Dawn uniform and seemingly lanky stature let on, his torso lean and firm, muscles fairly prominent. Then, it is after this once over that she wonders why she hadn't already just blasted his hand off of her face.
Her anxiety builds back up just a little bit when she starts to wonder why he, too, was worse for wear. Slowly she begins to do the math—his nakedness, his lack of sleep, the fact that they're definitely in a Golden Dawn room, which is obviously his room, given its blandness…
"I'm going to remove my hand, and we're going to use our indoor voices. Understand?" Yuno finally says, remaining a picture of perfect calm, and she can't help the pang of irritation she feels at being commanded by the half naked windy showoff sitting next to her.
Nevertheless, she nods, brow still furrowed, hoping to communicate her extreme distress to him through at least that.
"Why are you naked?!" she blurts the minute his palm lifts its seal on her lips. "And why am I here, Yuno?"
She stares at his deadpan face as the math continues to add up to less than decent conclusions.
"Why am I here? Wh—what did you do?" she blurts, suddenly feeling fearful and naked—though, she subsequently notes that she still has all of her clothes on, save for her Black Bulls robe.
For the first time, there is a flicker of silent fury across his typically bland expression.
"I hope you're not suggesting that you think something uncouth happened by my hand," he says, voice quiet and low and thick with warning, the coldness in his tone giving rise to goosebumps on her skin. Immediately, she feels a sense of guilt at the mere suggestion.
Yuno would never do anything weird.
'He barely ever does or says anything in general,' she thinks to herself, now genuinely wondering if the man even had the capacity to feel emotions like a normal human being. She retracts the statement both internally, and by the faltering of her defensive expression.
"No, no I'm… no. Of course not," she says, looking down at the sheets as she shakes her head, feeling a little ashamed for the indecent suggestion.
"But… why am I here? And why are you naked?" she asks again, looking back up at him.
The darkness in his expression is once more replaced with an exhausted version of his typical deadpan as he quirks an eyebrow at her.
"You don't remember vomiting on me?"
Her eyes widen like saucers, mouth agape at the suggestion that she would ever do something so untoward.
"No. There is no way—I did not do that," she huffs insistently.
He blinks a few times at her, as though he wishes he were anywhere else but here.
"You don't remember anything, then," he says flatly.
She shakes her head, willing herself to. All she remembers is being at the War Ceremony gathering, having a few tasty drinks that were apparently alcoholic, but tasted just like juice —deceptively so—and then stumbling out into the night to get some fresh air.
Another moment and she remembers turning to find the stoic mage staring at her, in her drunken stupor.
"Let me refresh your memory then," he says, cutting into her train of thoughts. "You were drunk, so I offered to take you home. You didn't know the way back to the Black Bulls hideout, so I offered to take you to the Silva residence. You refused, so I took you here so you could wait for Mimosa and stay with her, but you fell asleep on my bed."
She stares at him, mouth agape at the summary, just a few dregs of it beginning to come back to her memory.
"Then you woke up in the middle of the night, and you…"
He gives pause, and she's not sure if he's struggling to remember something, or if he's working to intentionally omit something.
"... you woke me up and threw up on me and ruined my shirt, hence my shirtlessness."
Noelle blinks and has the urge to deny it again, but a bland, straight shooter like Yuno would never go out of his way to make up such an elaborate lie.
"Okay…" she says uneasily, feeling her face warm in embarrassment while she stares at the floor, unable to meet his gaze, mortified that he, Mr. Judgmental Show Off, of all people had seen her in such a state. She musters the courage to look back at him, to find that same vacant gaze, and it's almost a relief that it's not his usual judgement. "I'm… sorry then."
"It's fine," he says curtly. "Mimosa's two doors down if you turn right. She should be home now."
Noelle is still reeling from the information he had just dropped on her, and can barely register the insult of him trying to kick her out.
"Okay. Thanks," she says.
"Mm."
She sits at the edge of his bed, putting her sandals back on, face growing warm as she slowly begins to acknowledge the situation, feeling self conscious under the weight of the half-naked wind mage's gaze.
She finally rises and gathers her robe in her arms, noting the sky outside has lightened just a bit, avoiding Yuno's gaze as she heads towards the door.
"That's the closet. It's the other one," he says, and she feels her face warm even more as she redirects her stride.
She places a hand on the knob, pausing for a moment.
"I didn't say or do anything weird did I?" she asks, turning to look at him.
Yuno visibly gives pause once more, a glitch in his expression, but it quickly melts back into his usual blankness.
"There was nothing not weird about last night."
She feels her face burn even warmer, and before she can implore that he keep it all to himself, he says:
"I have no reason to share what happened last night with anyone. If anyone asks, I'll say I brought you here and you stayed with Mimosa. Consider your royal reputation safe and vomit free."
'You should be so lucky to have a royal vomit on you,' she thinks more out of habit and grouchiness than actual belief.
Noelle nods and faces the door and turns the knob—but then she gives pause once more, this time not looking over her shoulder.
"Thank you, Yuno," she says quietly, and she escapes before he can respond—though she's certain he would've probably just grunted in response anyway.
With a sigh, she turns to her right, following Yuno's directions. Before she can take a single step, the door that is her destination opens, and she is frozen in place, locking eyes with a groggy Mimosa in a frilly mumu nightgown.
The redhead rubs her eyes, as if to confirm just what she is seeing, and Noelle feels her panic begin to build once more.
"Noelle?" Mimosa calls out in a sleepy rasp, and Noelle feels her stomach drop.
'Shit.'
Noelle had recounted the story to Mimosa, who was apparently also too hungover and sleepy to interrogate her further.
After a failed attempt at napping in her cousin's room, she borrows her broom and heads back home to the Black Bulls hideout, where she is welcomed with a sheep-produced breakfast banquet, her comrades all looking ruffled from the night before as they ravenously inhale the feast.
She is relieved that everyone else is too hungover to truly interrogate her, or be suspicious of her late return to the hideout, and she recounts the story per Yuno's brief cover up—of course omitting her sleeping in his bed, vomiting on him, stepping on his six pack, and really everything between the time of their arrival to the Golden Dawn headquarters, through to her departure from Mimosa's room.
"How lucky! I expect nothing less from my meal-saving prince," Charmy says dreamily, before taking a bite of a beef skewer.
"I'm sure he was the perfect gentleman, and that the ride over was just beautiful under the stars," the half-dwarf says with a smile on her face, though her eyes are burning holes through Noelle.
"Uh, not really. I actually passed out," she replies quietly, having forgotten about Charmy's fixation with the Golden Dawn's golden boy.
"So he had to carry you at some point?" Charmy's smile widens as her eyes narrow, shooting the nervous royal a hair-raising leer.
"I—I guess so. For a second," she stammers, finding herself sweating next to her tiny comrade, wondering what exactly Charmy's reaction would be were she to discover the truth.
"Well, I'm really glad he was able to!" Asta thankfully cuts in, talking through a mouth full of food. "I wish I would've known you were feeling bad though. I would've offered to take you home myself!"
Noelle blushes, looking down at the table.
"W-well, you seemed a little preoccupied," she says quietly, nose stuck up in the air as she looks away.
"Yeah, that's right. You were drunk and too busy showing off how many pushups you can do for half the night," Magna spits.
"I was only that drunk because you kept pulling rank on me!" Asta pitches back, of course no hint of actual annoyance on his features, that typical goofy smile splayed on his face.
"Anyway, Noelle. Sorry about that. I would've flown you back in Black form if I'd known."
"No one wants to see you go Black drunk!" Magna scoffs.
The two have another back and forth, but Noelle has at this point zoned out, focusing solely on the image of flying through the night sky in Asta's obscenely muscular arms, green and red eyes gazing lovingly down at her.
Then the pleasant image is quickly muddled by the sudden memory of feeling nauseous and holding onto Yuno for dear life as he had zoomed away from the party on his wind transport. She grimaces remembering the image of his back to her, posture impeccable, raven hair flowing in the wind, golden robe swaying under the starry night sky, soothing sound of the gentle winds whirring beneath her as she had fallen fast asleep. And then she remembers just a sliver of consciousness when being picked up by him, her head pressed to his solid chest, feeling oddly safe and comfortable in his gentle hold.
In the background of observing the sudden return of her memory, she hears bits and pieces of Captain Yami barking something about a mandatory training trip to some mountain with another squad.
"... so you punks better show them what we're made of," the captain finishes in his usual gruff way.
"Ooh, so fun! I wonder who I'll get to fight!" she hears Luck exclaim, his hands sparking.
"Do you think they'll have some royal grade-A booze up there? I mean if we're essentially staying at an abandoned vacation home… " Vanessa says, and Noelle has clearly missed something.
"Um—sorry, what's going on?" Noelle pitches in.
"We're training with the Golden Dawn on Mount Virhorn in a couple of weeks!" Asta exclaims excitedly.
"... oh," Noelle says, the memory of Yuno's cool amber gaze over his shoulder right as she passed out flashing across her mind.
"Golden Dawn cuties all the way up in a lux mountain getaway... " Finral sighs to himself.
"And… why the Golden Dawn?" she inquires, uncertain of why exactly her level of discomfort had skyrocketed at the detail.
Yami shrugs.
"I dunno. Julius picked out the pairings at random. I guess it makes the most sense since we're top two," he says with a proud laugh.
Perhaps her hangover is partially to blame, but she feels incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of being stuck on a mountain in close quarters with both Yuno and Asta, and she's not sure why. While she trusted that Yuno wouldn't blab about her embarrassing state, given that he just didn't hold conversations on the regular in general, there is some anxiety gnawing at her that she can't quite place.
"It's going to be a great opportunity for all of us to bond and solidify our friendships," she hears Gordon murmur in the background as her thoughts begin to spin out.
And just then, her panic bubbles up once more as she begins to understand and remember her source of discomfort, the images slowly fading into view.
"No..." Noelle whispers to herself, suddenly feeling petrified as the chatter continues all around her.
'I can't sleep in your bed. What would Asta think?'
"No no no…"
'He'd think he owes me for treating his squadmate so nicely… why does it matter what he thinks anyway?'
"Nonononono no no…"
'You like Asta.'
Noelle screams bloody murder, the vivid image of Yuno's horrified expression as she retches onto him coming to the forefront of her memory, the echoes of 'Don't tell Asta' reverberating through her mind.
The whole room is suddenly silent and turns to her.
"I didn't know you felt that way about the Golden Dawn," Yami says after a few beats of silence, cocking an eyebrow. "Any particular reason why? I mean, I know there was the whole evil elf thing, but we gotta let bygones be bygones at some point."
"Oh, no! I just—I thought I felt a spider on me," she says as calmly as possible though her heart is pounding in her ears and she's certain her face has turned pink.
"Where?!" Asta immediately exclaims, drawing the Demon Dweller out and giving her a once over in search of the imaginary pest.
Her lie is apparently sufficient, as the chatter bubbles back up, and she finds that she is too stressed to be embarrassed by Asta's scrutiny—too stressed to yell at him for being stupid enough to think of using the Demon Dweller to attack a spider that might have been on her person—because someone now knew her secret. And not just anyone. A someone very close to the object of her affections.
… or, if she played her cards right, someone thought they knew something that she didn't want them to know, and she was going to convince that someone that they knew nothing—that someone being Yuno.
The hangover logic makes her brain hurt.
"Um. You know—I think I forgot something at Mimosa's," she says, rising and plucking her broom from the wall. "I'm gonna go."
"See ya," Captain Yami waves her off without even looking as she runs out the front door, determined to squash Yuno's completely correct assumptions.
The ride over to the Golden Dawn headquarters is rough. Noelle was already a terrible rider to begin with, and now with her frantic, panicked thoughts likely affecting her mana, the broom almost refuses to be controlled by her—and the hangover doesn't help.
As she zigs and zags towards her destination, she begins to form a plan to get Yuno to admit what he had correctly suggested. When she thinks about it, she is unsure why he had even suppressed that particular detail. In any case, his reasoning didn't matter. What mattered was that she needed to successfully convince him that he was completely way off base and there had been some sort of misunderstanding. Of course she'd "run into him" under the guise of visiting Mimosa—which she did with some frequency anyway.
Finally reaching to a grinding halt on the Golden Dawn courtyard, she slows her broom by digging her heels into the grass, and it's like divine intervention because Yuno is right there, sitting by the fountain, eyes closed and… meditating?
'Easy prey,' she thinks to herself as she props her broom up on a nearby column.
She strides over to him, for some reason nervous, and before she can even open her mouth to speak, he says:
"What do you want, Noelle?"
The small blonde sprite pops out from his hood to throw her a glare, as he peeps one amber eye open and she freezes in her place, already thrown. He must have felt her mana.
She remains silent for a moment, suddenly feeling flustered under his cool gaze, because he knew way too much.
"Got all the way over here with your broom smoothly, I see," he says, that monotone sarcasm dripping from his voice as he sizes her up, and she is suddenly self conscious about how ruffled her clothing and hair must be.
"Well, yes for your information. The wind is just very strong today," she retorts, and they both know it's completely untrue, but he does her the kindness of saying nothing at all.
"Um, no it's not," the wind spirit herself, of course, pipes up.
Yuno continues to look at Noelle in silence, energy alone communicating, "Well?" without him—or Bell—having to say anything at all.
"I was—I was going to see Mimosa, but I just thought I'd stop by and thank you again."
He looks unconvinced.
"Yeah right. You just wanted to see Yuno—"
"Bell," he says sternly, not even turning to look at the little wind spirit. With a huff, she disappears, making Noelle feel only marginally better.
"I just wanted to know what exactly happened last night," she half admits, easing her way to the crux of the matter.
But he is too smart, not at all like his happy-go-lucky and dense foster brother, and remains unconvinced.
"I told you everything that happened," Yuno says in matter of factly way, and she feels herself growing more annoyed than intimidated by the weight of his relentless, cool gaze. "I did leave out the part about the bathroom run, as that didn't seem relevant."
Again she stiffens, face warming considerably because it is like he has zapped her with lightning and jogged her memory. Images of her washing her face and subsequently giving his abs a gentle wash and massage with her magic come to mind.
She wills herself to snap out of her embarrassed stupor, and decides to not take the bait, now irritated with his coldness and nonchalance.
"Well, I'm pretty sure you left out something else," she grouses, gathering her bearings and willing herself to calm down.
"Nope," he says curtly without batting an eyelash, and in a way that is so flat that it's like he must be telling the truth, and she finds it mind boggling that this was the same person that had kindly—if begrudgingly—tended to her the entire night prior.
After another few silent moments, Yuno stands, and again she panics at his attempt to slip away.
"You—you suggested something that was—that was totally inappropriate," Noelle stammers, not at all coming off in the cool, confident and demanding way she had intended.
Yuno looks down at her, and it's a staring contest again—a battle of wills, and she then just barely registers the wind that's beginning to encircle them, her pigtails lightly picking up on the wind.
"And what was that?" he queries, and she frowns, wondering what exactly was about to happen, and why he was even playing dumb. There was now a shift in his gaze that had moved past the apathy, a spark of challenge evident in his cool ambers, and she finds her body responding in kind. It's akin to the energy she felt prior to battle, and now it was manifesting itself in the desire to wear him down and do away with that cocky expression of his.
"You—you said… you suggested that I…" and she can't get the words out for various reasons. She's getting riled up, she's hungover, and though embarrassment is no longer the overarching feeling, the words themselves are all too embarrassing to speak aloud.
Yuno waits patiently, taking a step closer to her, and she feels herself tense further.
The wind picks up around them even more as she glowers at his calm and collected and cocky face.
"If you're going to take up my training time with this, you might as well make yourself useful and spar with me," he says.
Noelle withholds the urge to roll her eyes and is about to comment on how ridiculous he's being—but in a blink she is suddenly several paces back behind a strong spiral of wind. She crosses her arms to cover her face, seeing his figure beyond the winds as she solidifies her stance so as not to be toppled over.
With a growl she breaks the stream of force, conjuring a spiral of water to combat his wind, and the two elements are pushing against one another. Her anger and annoyance overpower her hangover, and she increases the water so that she can begin to inch back towards him.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Noelle exclaims over the howl of the wind and the churn of her own water spiral.
"I'm not going to entertain this nonsense if I can't find any value in it," Yuno replies, effortlessly loud and firm over the sound of their combating magic.
Already she can feel members of the Golden Dawn's eyes on them, and she has half a mind to implore that he stop this craziness and say she'll gladly leave.
But then her water suddenly flows freely and she realizes he has gone up into the sky, dropping the spiral of wind, and aiming another at her from above—which she easily blocks with her own blast of water.
"YOU WANNA PLAY?!" she shrieks, her irritation and hangover finally getting the best of her, as she stares up at his still apathetic face.
"Water Creation Magic: Sea Dragon's Roar!" she exclaims without another thought, the majestic beast protruding from her wand and swirling gracefully in the wind towards her target.
Yuno sends a large blade of wind to its head, which is only strong enough to slap it, and his eyes widen in a moment of surprise at the ineffectiveness of his own attack. She feels her ego swell as the dragon elegantly swirls into the sky and chomps in her attacker's direction—all which he swiftly evades.
'Weren't expecting that, were you, you arrogant prick?!' she thinks to herself, feeling smug and incredibly pleased, until what she sees on his face is not a troubled scowl, but a slight smirk.
"Not bad," he says, throwing a glance at her, and she feels both stunned and flattered at the acknowledgement, and at being a recipient of one of the wind mage's rare smiles.
And for the one second she has let her guard down, her magic weakens enough for him to blast through her dragon, and she is left irritated with herself for letting a minuscule compliment throw her.
He looks smugly down at her and she bares her teeth.
"Okay, are we done here?! Can we talk now?!" she calls up to him.
"Nope," he says as he turns tail and floats out of the courtyard, towards the outskirts of town.
For some reason this ignites an anger and irritability in her so strong that before she even registers it, she is shrieking, "Water Creation Magic: Valkyrie Dress!"
And just like that she is armored and mobile, zooming out into the sky towards him, fast enough that when he turns around, there is an oh so delicious expression of shock on his face for a brief moment before he swiftly dodges the attack.
Noelle stabs at his figure with her lance with incredible agility, and he continuously evades the attacks, moving backwards to put distance between them. But she is too fast now, and he knows it, his face focused and watching her motions with unwavering interest and concentration.
"I don't want to fight anymore!" she hollers as she swings at him, and he pushes her weapon-laced arm away before she can land a hit, giving him an opening to push a blast of wind against her chest, easily putting ten feet of distance between them.
"Wind Creation Magic: Wind Blade Shower!" Yuno exclaims, and again there is that pleasing look of shock on his face as she gracefully and swiftly evades the barrage of blades, hurtling towards him once more, and he looks as though he is bracing for impact, but she moves past him, getting in close enough to at least thwack him in the head from behind with her lance. But still, the wind mage is too worthy of an adversary, and is too fast, as he spins around, and before she knows it, his hand is pressed to her chest armor, a constant disc of wind spinning against it, eyes boring into hers as the two torpedo down to the ground at a speed that makes it feel like she'll smash into a million pieces on impact.
"YUNO!" she screams, eyes wide in fear as she glowers directly into his cool amber eyes, at certain points, his nose brushing hers with how close he is.
Angered by his recklessness, she decides that she would not give him the satisfaction of winning that easily, and grabs the front of his robe, blasting him in the face with water.
In that moment, she grabs the wrist on her chest and swings herself over, now above him and in control of their rapid descent, gripping his wrist and keeping it pressed against his chest to mimic his previous stance.
He smirks up at her as though he's amused by the switch up, and it once again boggles her mind that the only thing that could make this man to smile was the heat of competition.
"You're insane!" she yells into his face, pushing harder into him.
In response, Yuno extends his free arm out and stuns her once more as he hugs her to himself—her face burning despite herself—and it is all for him to gain control and flip them over once more, back to where they started, his palm pressed to her aquatic chest plate as they plummet towards the ground.
Were she not exhausted and hung over, she would have fought harder to turn the tide—but instead she glares up into his lively amber eyes and psychotically flat mug, bracing for impact, trusting that he wouldn't make it so they two would become a puddle of broken limbs.
She is right to do so, as she feels a gentle, pleasant wind at her back just as they're about to hit the earth. They gingerly settle back to the ground, and all is still, save for the sound of their heavy panting.
As the howling wind slowly disappears, so does her armor, and she stares up into his face, brow knit, amber eyes intensely staring into hers, sweat beading on his forehead. Though he's trying not to show it, she has given him quite the workout, as he pants to catch his breath. And it is only after that smug feeling of giving him a run for his money that she finally feels herself breathing hard, hears her heart banging in her ears, and feels her clothes cling to her with her own sweat.
Even in her exhaustion, she notes that her body had come alive in response to the surprise challenge, and she feels the odd urge to continue to fight the intolerable wind mage. Another moment passes and again she is bewildered at the thought that yesterday, he had been her begrudging caretaker—whose interrogations had severely annoyed her, but her caretaker nonetheless. Today, he was a mischievous mage who apparently had been raring to fight her, with whom she felt an undeniable, palpable friction that she couldn't place.
A few more moments pass, their shared gaze continuing to spark with an unspoken sense of competition and begrudging excitement as their heavy breathing begins to calm.
Finally, Yuno parts his lips to speak, and it's only now she notes that he's way too close.
"So you do like him."
The wind disk separating his hand from her body disappears, so that now it is his bare hand holding her against the grass.
He has shocked her again, mouth hanging open as she continues to gasp for air, and she's too exhausted to do her usual routine of intense denial.
"Enough to panic and come out here and make sure I stay silent about it," he continues.
She wants to rehash the excuse that she had just come through to see Mimosa, but then remembers once again that he is far too smart to buy such lies.
"Let me make this perfectly clear. I don't care. I don't care enough to talk about it, or even think about it."
For some reason this is insulting to her, and she feels her irritation bubble back up, right at the same time she registers his skin on hers, palm calloused and warm and clammy with sweat that is likely mingled with hers, firmly, if gently, pressing into her chest. Her face reddens further with embarrassment or anger or exhaustion or a cocktail of all of it, and she wants to say something back, but what was she supposed to say? However cold his statement was, she had somewhat gotten what she wanted—the reassurance that he wouldn't open his mouth and blab about her feelings to anyone else.
Yet still, it bothered her that he knew, and she wished she could just erase his memory so she could be alone in her longing, without the nagging thought that the object of her affections' childhood friend knew her secret. At this point she would just have to trust him. After all, there was no other alternative that didn't involve physically harming the wind mage and inducing memory loss.
Blindly trusting his complete apathy and lack of desire to extensively converse with others was the best she could do for now.
And so, Noelle nods in understanding, and almost immediately he backs off of her, and she finds herself breathing far easier than before. He turns around and wordlessly conjures wind beneath them as their ride back to the Golden Dawn headquarters.
The sun is setting as they approach, and her exhaustion and hangover make themselves obvious once more, the fatigue worsening with every additional moment spent on her feet. Throughout the quiet ride, she watches the setting sun's amber glow on Yuno's back, his posture impeccable, raven hair flowing in the wind, golden robe swaying lightly, the soothing sound of the gentle winds whirring beneath her finally urging her adrenaline to calm.
When they touch back down to the courtyard, several Golden Dawn members' gazes are immediately set in their direction, looking on curiously, likely wondering how the impromptu battle had concluded.
She stares at the ground, trying to think of what to say. "Thank you," barely felt appropriate given that he had dragged her into a fight.
When she looks up, she sees him peering at her over his shoulder, shooting her a gaze so intense and heavy that it halts her train of thought and makes her feel strangely vulnerable and naked—as if with just his eyes, he is saying, 'I know something you don't want me to know. I have dirt on you.'
Noelle purses her lips, brow furrowing, face warming, about to snap and ask what that look is for, but before she can get a word out, he faces forward and walks away, leaving her even more speechless and frustrated than when she had arrived.
A/N: Nothing else to report here, other than the fact that this story has grown to about 12 chapters. I hate myself :)
Thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think! Reviews are very much appreciated as they fuel my desire to update faster, and they make me feel a little less weird about spending this many hours of my life trying to strategize how to make fictional characters kiss :D