Royal Pride (Leona Kingscholar/Yuu)

32 ~ For Realsies

Yuu's cheeks were burning, and Leona's were several shades more flushed than before. She knew he was going to say that he had a crush on her, but she didn't expect the whole 'I love you'.

The words echoed, fresh in her mind, as she buried her face in her knees. "Go on," she prodded him, her voice muffled.

"You're frustrating, you know that?" He growled, though his tone of voice was nervous and sweet. She wrapped her arms around one of his and laid closer against him, giving him an "mmhm" as a response.

"...And then this year happened. When we really started talking. Getting to know you and talking to you made me fall in love with you even more.

"But then all of these things started happening, like the stalking and you getting kidnapped, and all of a sudden I couldn't see you any more. I realized that I...." He paused. "I can't believe I almost said that."

She smiled up at him, poking his cheek. "Said what?"

"Promise you won't laugh? ...Or get creeped out?"

"Promise. Unless it's something super creepy, like my toes are attractive or something."

Leona took a deep breath. "I can't live without you. Every day I can't see you is suffocating."

She paused for a moment. "Was that too weird?" He asked tentatively, glancing down at her.

She shook her head, giving him a reassuring smile. "It's good to know you feel the same way. When I had to work for Azul and couldn't see you, any time I got a text from you I would feel my mood get a little boost... Is that weird?"

Leona let out a laugh. "What are you laughing at?" Yuu asked defensively, squeezing his arm.

"I just thought that was adorable."

Yuu felt her heart leap out of her chest. "I'm gonna have a heart attack it's gonna be your fault."

"Good," he chuckled. "But don't literally have a heart attack, if you can help it."

"Anyways, continue?" Yuu rested her head against his arm again.

'Comfy arms.'

He let out a soft laugh. "I... ugh, this is so corny."

"No, it's healthy communication! I doubt you've had a lot of that, hm?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"You seem like you bottle up a lot. Now continue talking about how you're in love with me~" she teased, laughing at the way his expression changed slightly whenever she teased him.

He put his free hand on the back of his neck embarrassedly. "Sometimes I just look at you and think about how much I love you. I mean, I think that when you're not there, too—I mean... ugh, you know what I mean...

His expression darkened as he moved on from the lighter topic. "When I finally found you, I was terrified. You were just... staring. Not at anything, you were just looking ahead with this empty stare on your face. I know it was definitely worse for you, but seeing you suffering like that made it feel like I was... I'd never felt so horrible before."

Her throat clenched as she recalled how she felt. Leona looked down at her, noticing the slight shift in her behavior.

"Do you wanna talk about something else?"

A smile played on her face. "As much as I'd love to hear you talk about how much you love me, this is a good conversation to be having. I'll let you know if it gets to be too much, though."

He ruffled her hair before continuing. "I think the worst thing was when you were back, and when the nurse was disinfecting your wounds..." Yuu felt his arm tense up.

"Your ears give you sensitive hearing, right? Sorry about that... Ruggie, too."

He shook his head. "Well, yeah, but that's not the bad part. It was the fact that it was you. Hearing you scream like that, knowing that something had hurt you so badly..." He let out a dry laugh.

"After seeing you in so much pain, and my Spelldrive plan, I thought it would be best to keep my distance from you. I didn't want to upset you if you found out, and I didn't want other people to associate you with me if I did get caught. Told Ruggie to stay away, too."

"You shouldn't've snapped at me when I confronted you."

He tensed up. "I'm really sorry about that, especially when I... lunged at you. Can't believe I'd do something like that."

"Please," she laughed, "I could've easily pushed you off. I was just so mad that I wasn't gonna let you yell at me and do nothing."

"Everything's just been weighing on me lately... I was pretty unwanted at the palace. A nuisance. I mean, I know my family loves me and all, but I'm just in the way. And I lashed out at everyone around me. Overblotted. And here we are."

He took a deep breath, indicating that he'd finished. Yuu clapped for him. "See, that was great! I forgive you, and now you can bring me with you during Christmas to visit Cheka~"

Leona let out a laugh. "You wanna come over for Christmas?"

"Having me meet the family before you ask me out?"

"Never mind. You can stay here."

"Yeah, I probably will, realistically speaking. I plan on visiting my mom in Briar Valley over the break, but she's never been huge on Christmas. At least here, everyone's in the Christmas spirit."

Yuu closed her eyes, a random thought coming to mind. "You think your family'd make you marry a princess?"

"They can't make me do anything."

"But... y'think they'd like you to?"

He thought about it for a second before shrugging. "They've never really brought it up before. Why?" He smirked at her. "You planning on marrying me?"

"Absolutely," she declared. "I can see in your future that we're getting married."

He let out a laugh. "I'll be looking forward to that, then."

Yuu glanced out the balcony, then stood and tugged on Leona's arm. "Let's go watch the sunset!"

'Cute,' Leona thought to himself, not daring to say it out loud. He was glad that their relationship was fixed, but he was still shy about saying certain things that sounded overly romantic.

They sat on the bench he had on his balcony, Yuu wrapping her arms around his right one again and leaning on him. She kicked his foot gently with hers.

"Why aren't we dating yet?"

"I think this is the most peace we've had since the beginning of the year. We've never really had the time to talk about it," Leona replied.

He paused for a moment before mumbling, "We're basically dating." That last statement he wanted to say but wasn't feeling completely confident.

Yuu smirked at him. "You should ask me out all romantically, and then we can start dating for realsies."

"For realsies?" He echoed, raising an eyebrow.

"For realsies," Yuu repeated again with a laugh, nodding. "But if you do a crappy job, I'm gonna reject you~"