Twisted-Wonderland: Our Precious Treasure (Part 2)

(162) PoD: You'll Always Be by My Side

"Ugh... I can't believe we still need to take part in this." Ace put one hand on his hip with the other holding his basket filled with flower petals over his shoulder. A sigh escaped his lips. "I thought we did enough. This is ridiculous."

After the long confession and last minutes arrangement, a new wedding was about to be held. Most of the things prepared for Jonah's wedding distraction were given to Chubby as his wedding gift. While the rest of the students had been freed from the freezing slap and were now part of the audience, Ace's team, the light music club, and Grim were still going to be part of the wedding reception. Ace didn't know how Azul thought they were fit as the flower boys, but here they are.

"We've already dressed for the occasion," Riddle said, making sure that his coat no longer had wrinkles. "Might as well do it right?"

"I'm looking pretty fine!" Grim exclaimed. His bow was fully black and he was wearing a top hat. In his two front paws was a pillow with two rings with crystal that he had gotten from the mine. Once again, Ace didn't know how Azul thought it was a good idea to give Grim the ring carrier role, but here they are.

"Yeah, but still." Ace groaned. "This is why you don't marry at thirteen."

"It's a tragedy," Rook said. "But alas. Even to this day, there are still unfortunate people who must be married to the people they don't love." Riddle hummed in agreement.

"Speaking of that," Epel chimed in, "have you been betrothed to someone?"

"What? Ew! No!" Ace yelled. "What makes you say that?

"What you said to her about the ideal marriage partner," Epel continued, looking at Ace from top to bottom, frowning as he didn't see any sign that he was looking for, "that sounded too romantic coming out of your mouth."

Ace raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you saying I'm a beta male?"

Riddle stopped himself from laughing out loud, but a 'pfft-' sound managed to escape him. Grim meanwhile was laughing out loud, but he was being so careful to not drop the rings. Rook was also laughing, though more composed than Grim. Epel was just blushing. "Th-That's not what I meant!"

Rook chimed in when his laughter is over. "What Monsieur Little Apple is saying is that you seem to have some knowledge about love, which is something no one ever expected from you."

"There's no point in asking Ace about love. There's no way he gets it," Grim said. "A mean and twisted guy like him could never be popular."

"Could you quit judging me?" Ace rolled his eyes. "My only experience with romance is back in middle school with this girl named Gabbie." He smirked. "Unlike you, Grim, you bitchless cat."

"What?!" Grim hissed. "You're so cocky!"

"You never mentioned anything about your relationship," Riddle said, "did it end badly?"

Ace groaned. "Well... She doesn't like thrill rides so all we did was ride the merry-go-round or the ferrish wheel. She was all happy taking Magicam photos and saying it was 'cute' but I don't get how it was fun. She didn't want to watch horror despite I wanted to and pulled me to the romance movie. Eventually, I stopped contacting her."

"I see," Epel sighed. "That's a little unfortunate... I guess."

"And the crazy part was everyone thought it was my fault!" Ace yelled. "Her groups just called me out, saying things like: 'Why don't you ever contact her?' 'I feel sorry for her!' 'She's been crying all this time!' 'You're so ungrateful!' Ugh! That's when I realized if the partner is only one-sided, then I don't want to be with them. It's way more fun hanging out with my buddies."