all that jazz
theme 24: true friends stab you in the front
"I hate you. So much."
"…"
"You have no idea how much I hate you right now, Rude."
Darkly. "… I have a fair amount."
"Eh? How do you know?"
"Because, Elena, you've been saying it for the past hour or so. If I hadn't noticed that, then I'd have no clue." Sometimes, Rude really loved the amount of sarcasm he could inject into his baritone voice.
"… I see…"
"Besides, you really shouldn't blame me. It was the Golden Saucer, after all. They've had plenty of injuries before thanks to—" Rude promptly shut up.
"You were going to say 'thanks to awful actors', weren't you?" Suspiciously, and quite grumpily, Elena stabbed her mashed potato. It didn't even mash properly!
"Well…" Rude had never known when to open his mouth, so usually kept it shut. Unfortunately, it was apparently loosening his control whenever he was around Elena. "… maybe?"
"Alright. You're forgiven – on account of it being the Golden Saucer and because you're honest. And I like you. That counts too." Elena smiled, her anger abated, before succumbing to the darkness of her heart once more. "Although you didn't have to comply with the audience's wishes."
"They said 'kill the witch'. I killed the witch." Rude objectified. "Knights kill witches. I was a knight. You were a witch."
"And what about the audience that screamed, 'Witch! Break his leg and bite his nose! Quite hard!' Do you see me… ah… well. Technically… I didn't actually bite your nose." Elena began to make a circle on the duvet, giving Rude's leg a side ways glance. She hadn't meant to do it, it was peer pressure!
"… did you try that before or after the sword stabbed you in the gut?"
"After." Hiding her face in the duvet, Elena moaned, embarrassed by the whole debacle. "Definitely after. And before you broke your leg."
"If this ever gets out, Reno is going to tease us for eternity." However lovely the thought, glaring at his broken leg would not make his healing faster, would not make his leg mend, and would not make Reno eventually discover this… mishap.
"… it's already 'gotten out'," Elena bitterly replied, wondering if she could submerge herself into the cushiony bed. "Reno was filming the whole event. From the minute, we were chosen because were arguing about potato chips, to the gaudy costumes we had to wear, to the epic fail lines, to submitting to the peer pressure, to the fight, to falling off the stage, to ending up where we are now."
There was no use trying to stifle it any longer: Rude groaned.
Despite that, he was strangely smug about the whole situation.
"I still maintain the fact that I looked better in my shiny helmet and red cape than you did with your witch's hat and black shawl."