Cinderella and the Beast

VI

Even after things seemed to be resolved, a small part of Seraphine was still afraid Ekko had only accepted Viego’s apologies due to her being unable to mask how that incident didn’t actually make her feelings falter, but after the third double date (that turned into just a group hang out) Sera realized that yes, Viego, Jinx and Ekko were indeed keeping in touch when she wasn’t looking, and such confirmation came when Jinx suddenly sent a screenshot between her and Viego with the caption “I’m gonna corrupt him” after he asked what Homestuck was.

Two months of dating had passed, and that was the first time she actually heard Viego refer to people as “his friends” in plural. It was September, the temperatures were getting mild, and she had yet to meet with his best friend-niece Kalista, who used to be his only mentioned friend, but now Viego also talked about not only the timebombs but his partners from Pentakill as well. 

She didn’t expect that her fight with him would actually cause Viego to reach out to his collaborators and see they were, indeed, his friends after all. She even lost her count over how many times he would laugh out of nowhere and then show what someone sent to him, and Seraphine couldn’t help but feel immensely happy for him… But also guilty, as she was still unrest over the fact he never had shown anything Isolde sent, if she had at all. She had believed they were still on good terms, but it wasn’t hard to notice how Viego would only talk about his ex-wife in past tense. After all, Sera was the one who assumed they were still friends, and Viego simply never corrected her over it. Was it really a lie, if that ended up being the truth? But well, omission was still a form of deceit after all.

At first Sera excused her naivité of it still being the rose tinted lenses of their “honeymoon phase”, but it was becoming hard to continue to delude herself as the time went on. Seraphine had to accept she was being willfully ignorant, and that she was pretending to not notice how Viego would still look into the distance as his secrets danced on his glazed, unfocused eyes; something that even made feel remorseful over bringing him back to reality. Things were good, and that’s all she could ask, especially when the way Viego looked at her always made Seraphine forget what she was even worrying about.

Between work and exercises a package had arrived on Sera’s doorstep, and although it was Viego’s socializing time she ended up coming to meet him after he shared a status update on Instagram, having a coffee break with Kalista. Seraphine hoped to catch up with them, but when arriving on the scene she only saw Viego still savoring his drink. She approached her boyfriend while admiring that suit and tie look, having mostly seen him that way through pictures, so it was a nice change of view when she managed to look at the ensemble in real life.

“Why is she always gone when I get in?” Seraphine asked without hesitation as she sat on the chair across Viego, who was scrolling through his phone.

“Why are your girlfriends always too busy to meet me?” He rebutted without looking up, taking another sip from his cup.

It has been two months and their closest friends still were waiting for their tumultuous break up to then recollect their pieces. Seraphine wanted to get along with Kalista, and it hurt that she was still so suspicious of her, but at the same time it made Sera feel relieved that Viego also had someone so caring towards him. And at least Sera wouldn’t try to hurt his niece-friend after meeting her.

Okay, that’s water under the bridge, they’re all fine now.

“Sera? What did you want to show me?” Viego brought her back from her divagation, leaning back towards his chair after seeing she was back to reality.