#almost cried

[...]

Jeremy rubbed at the ache and said, "Are you? I thought you hated him." He meant it to come out a lighthearted tease, but it fell a little flat. The sideways look Jean sent him said that he heard it.

"You didn't," Jean said, like that was all that mattered.

this is my first attempt at angst🥹 plz be nice(also my character limit is four unless it’s just a whole dorm, like heartslabyul cause they have 5)

wait does angst need cw??

CW! unrequited feelings, racism

The tide was low. The wind curled softly around his ears, carrying the scent of brine and earth. His heartbeat was… uneven. A merchant’s pulse before a gamble. A boy’s pulse before heartbreak.

But this would not be heartbreak. He was too careful for that.

Yuu was already waiting, just where he’d asked her to meet him, with that tired little schoolbag swinging off one shoulder and a neutral expression that read as bored to most, but which Azul had spent months learning the layers of. Her face was quiet, but her shoulders were tense. Her fingers picked absently at the hem of her shirt.

She was nervous.

Azul’s heart fluttered.

He adjusted his glasses, smoothing down the front of his dorm coat. “You came.”

Yuu looked over at him, eyes unreadable. “You said it was important.”

“It is.”

He stepped closer. Not too close. He wasn’t here to startle her. He was here to offer something… delicate.

“Yuu,” he said softly, “I’ve never been very good at being vulnerable.”

She blinked, expression flickering- almost a frown, almost sympathy.

“I’ve built a reputation on sharp deals and confident talk, and I know that. But with you… I’ve found myself wanting to speak plainly. No contracts. No double-speak. Just… truth.”

A slow exhale left him. His palms were clammy, though he kept them hidden behind his back.

“I like you.”

He said it plainly. Let the words hang there in the salt-thick air. No flourish, no legalese.

Yuu’s eyes didn’t widen. Didn’t soften. They just… narrowed.

“I thought you might have figured that out,” he tried to joke, weakly. “After all the lunch invites. The study sessions. The fact that I voluntarily walked through mud just to help you carry pumpkins.”

Still, she said nothing.

“…Yuu?”

Her arms crossed. Her weight shifted. Slowly, deliberately, she looked him over. Not the way someone gazes at a beloved. The way someone assesses a risk.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” she finally said.

Azul blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

She sighed, like she’d been holding it in for months. Years.

“You’ve been nice. Sure. And smart. And… careful.” Her tone was flat. “But I’ve been waiting for this.”

His stomach turned. “Waiting for… what?”

Yuu’s gaze cut like a blade. “For when you’d stop pretending.”

The sea was quiet. Azul’s thoughts screamed.

“I-“” He tried to laugh, but it came out paper-thin. “I don’t understand-“

“You’re a mer- one, Azul.”

His throat went dry. “Yes. I assumed you were aware.”

“I was,” she snapped. “From the beginning. You think I didn’t recognize the signs? The way you talked. The way you avoided certain topics. The way you never goin the water.”

He swallowed.

“My world doesn’t have… people like you,” she said, like she was saying something polite. “We have monsters. Stories. Creatures that lure ships into wreckage. That sing sailors to their deaths. That drag children under.”

Azul flinched.

“And I’ve seen what happens when they smile at you. When they offer you deals. You don’t think I noticed? Every time you mentioned a ‘favor’ or a ‘contract’?”

He tried to breathe. Tried to speak. Nothing came.

“I’ve been waiting,” she said again, bitter and tired. “Waiting for the mask to fall. For you to show your real face. Whatever it looks like when you stop pretending to be human.”

The ache was sharp. Like pressure building in his ears underwater.

“I’m not pretending to be human,” he whispered. “I’m not human, Yuu. I never claimed to be.”

“But you act like one.”

He stiffened.

“You dress like us. Talk like us. Flirt like us.” Her arms folded tighter, like armor. “But you’re not. You’re one of them.”

“Them?” he repeated, voice strangled.

“Fae. Beastmen. Merpeople.” The words were venom now. “You all think if you just smile and act like you’re normal, people will accept you. But I know better.”

His heart cracked.

“You were taught to fear us,” he said quietly. “But I- I never once treated you like less for being human.”

“That’s the difference,” she snapped. “You think that makes you the better one.”

Silence.

Pain.

He took a step back. The wind tugged at his coat.

“I thought we were friends,” he said. His voice barely carried.

“We were,” she said. “Are. But not like that. Not… this.”

Azul laughed. It was broken glass. “So I was acceptable as long as I didn’t feel. As long as I was quiet about it. As long as I played nice.”

Yuu’s lips pressed into a thin line.

“You smiled at me,” he said, trembling. “You shared meals with me. You trusted me with your secrets.”

“so you wouldn’t snap,” she said, instantly regretting it- but not taking it back.

Something inside him crumbled.

“I see,” he said. It wasn’t cold. It wasn’t sharp. It was worse. It was empty.

She looked away.

“I should go,” he murmured. “The tide is rising. Wouldn’t want the monster to get too close.”

“Azul-“

“No,” he said, soft and small. “You’ve made your feelings clear.”

He didn’t flee. Just turned.

And Yuu stood there, the salt drying on her lips, staring after a boy who had only ever offered her the truth

and whom she had never once seen as anything but the villain in a story she’d brought from another world.

The warm scent of mist and sea minerals lingered faintly in the air, subtle and soothing, as Jade Leech stood by the edge of the Mostro Lounge’s outer gardens. Where the greenery blurred gently into view of the tidepools below, waves lapping softly against the rocks. The hour was late, most students long tucked into their dorms or final duties of the day. A breeze stirred the reeds near the cliffs.

He stood still, posture poised, as always. One hand rested behind his back, the other adjusting the silver clasp of his uniform coat. There was no visible tension in his body, but his mismatched eyes were unreadably deep. Like looking into the water and realizing it was far darker than you expected.

“You wanted to speak with me?” Yuu’s voice came from behind, casual, curious. Friendly, as always. They’d been friends for a while now, as friendly as anyone could get with Jade, truly. Shared lunches, long conversations about botany and monsters and school politics. That strange, balanced friendship where both parties seemed to understand there was more lurking beneath the surface, but neither pushed.

“Yes.” Jade turned to face them fully. He smiled, slow and polite. “Thank you for coming.”

Yuu tilted their head, arms folded. “You’re being formal. That’s rare.”

“Mm,” he hummed, smile unfaltering. “Perhaps the occasion warrants it.”

There was a pause, just long enough for the breeze to carry the scent of the sea again. He let it pass before speaking.

“I’ve always found it… interesting,” Jade began softly, “how surface-dwellers describe courtship. So bold. Straightforward. Declarations made in the open air, beneath the sun.”

Yuu raised a brow. “Is that your way of saying you like someone?”

Jade’s smile grew, just a touch. “It is.”

A silence settled between them. Not awkward, not yet, but dense. And then, with a chuckle like glass over pebbles, Jade continued.

“I find myself drawn to you, Yuu. You are curious. Bright. And, dare I say… unexpectedly kind. I’ve come to appreciate our time together. I would like to court you.”

He said it plainly, no riddles. No teasing. Just his calm, polished voice, like the sea whispering secrets it meant for no one else.

Yuu stood still.

Then, slowly, their expression twisted, not in confusion or embarrassment, but in something sharper. Their arms tightened over their chest. “Is this a joke?”

Jade’s brows rose ever so slightly. “I assure you, I wouldn’t joke about such a thing.”

“But you’re—” They took a step back, expression tightening further. “You’re a mer-”

They cut themselves off.

Ah.

There it was.

Jade tilted his head, just a degree. His smile didn’t drop. “A merman, yes.”

A long silence stretched. And then Yuu exhaled, slowly, like something was boiling just beneath their skin. “I knew it. I knew it would happen eventually. I was just waiting.”

That stopped Jade. Not visibly. But a slight stilling of the air, like the tide pulling inward before a wave.

“…Waiting for what, if I may ask?”

Yuu’s voice turned brittle. “The moment you’d try to lure me in. The moment you’d drop the act and do whatever sea monsters do to get what they want.”

Sea… monsters?

Jade’s smile began to falter. Not fully. But it didn’t reach his eyes now. “Lure you?”

“I’m not stupid, Jade,” they snapped. “I know what you are. I’ve heard the stories. You hide it better than Floyd, but you’re still one of them. And I- I didn’t want to start trouble, so I tolerated it. I tolerated you.”

The air seemed to go still. Even the wind forgot how to move.

“You… tolerated me,” Jade repeated, voice quiet.

Yuu nodded once, sharply. “I was raised to know better. Not to fall for tricks. Not to trust creatures who live in the deep.”

The words cut like ice across bare skin.

“I see,” Jade murmured.

Yuu didn’t stop. Maybe they thought they were saving him trouble. Maybe they thought he’d laugh, say it was all a joke, that he’d only been playing too.

“You’re clever, Jade, I’ll give you that. But I knew it would come eventually. And now it has. And I can finally say no.”

Jade stood still. The smile was gone.

For a long moment, all that remained between them was silence. And the faint sound of waves crashing below.

Then, softly:

“I once thought,” Jade said, voice like water through stone, “that you of all people might see us for what we are. Not what the stories say.”

Yuu flinched.

“I thought,” he continued, “that someone who wandered so easily among beasts and fae and magic would not carry the same blade behind their smile.”

His eyes met theirs. Still calm. Still polite.

But behind them… devastation.

“And yet, here you are,” he said, with a soft, sad curve to his mouth. “Speaking of us like we’re waiting to drag you under.”

“I didn’t-” Yuu started, but Jade only held up a hand.

“You did.” Not harshly. Not cruelly. Just… honestly.

“I won’t apologize for feeling this way,” Yuu said, voice tight. “It’s what I was always told.”

“Yes,” Jade murmured. “And you chose to believe it.”

Something cracked, invisible and deep, something Yuu couldn’t see, and Jade wouldn’t let them. But it cracked all the same.

“…I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea,” Yuu said stiffly, stepping back again.

Jade watched them go. He didn’t stop them.

When they turned, he didn’t speak again. He only listened to the echo of their footsteps, each one pulling away from something he hadn’t even let himself name aloud until now.

When they were gone, truly gone, he let the sea breeze brush against his face. And for the first time in a very long time…

Jade Leech looked heartbroken. Not in the way a surface-dweller might. There were no tears, no shaking hands. Just a quiet, soul-deep stillness, as if the ocean inside him had gone still. As if the water had turned cold.

He stayed like that a while.

And when he turned back toward the tidepools, the wind finally moved again

and carried no trace of sweetness.

Floyd had never been particularly good at saying how he felt. Not like Jade, who always wrapped his words in silken threads, or Azul, who played with calculated diplomacy. Floyd just… was. You either figured him out or you didn’t.

But Yuu was different. She’d been around long enough to tell when his grins were real or when they were hiding something nastier. She didn’t flinch from his mood swings, and she’d rolled her eyes instead of running the first time he’d lifted her clean off the ground just because he felt like it.

So he thought maybe, just maybe, she got it. Got him.

That’s why he was standing here now, swaying slightly with his hands tucked in his pockets, sunset light filtering through the coral-patterned glass of Octavinelle’s hall behind him. The tidepool-blue of his eyes wasn’t glittering with mischief for once. There was something more honest there. Open.

“Heeeey, shrimpy…” His voice was softer than usual. Not a drawl, not a growl. “Been thinkin’ about somethin’ lately.”

Yuu smiled faintly, like she always did when she knew he was up to something. “That’s dangerous.”

He chuckled, teeth flashing. “Maybe. But I think I like ya.”

She blinked.

“I mean really like ya,” he said, rocking on his heels. “Like, I wanna pull ya close and keep ya. Be the only one who gets to mess with ya. The only one who gets your laughs, your grumpy mornings, your dumb little human expressions. like that one right there.” He pointed lazily at her, grinning crookedly. “That’s my favorite. The ‘uh oh’ face.”

Yuu’s smile faltered.

Floyd paused. Something… shifted in the air. He tilted his head. “What’s with the look?”

Her voice, when it came, was quiet. Too quiet. Careful. “Floyd… don’t joke about that.”

“Hah?” He blinked, genuinely confused. “Joke? Nah. I’m serious. I like ya, shrimpy. I’m not playin’ around. For once.”

Her lips pressed together, a tight, pale line. She stepped back.

His brows furrowed. “Oi. Why’re you-?”

“I can’t do this,” she said. Her voice cracked halfway through, like she was holding something back.

Floyd frowned, then narrowed his eyes. “Can’t do what?”

“This,” she snapped, gesturing at the space between them like it was poisonous. “You- me- whatever this is. You’re a merperson, Floyd.”

There was a pause. A full beat of silence. Even the ever-present distant sounds of the Lounge seemed to fade.

He stared at her.

She kept going. She had to. Now that she’d opened her mouth, it all spilled out like bile.

“I knew this would happen eventually. I knew it. You people always try to lure humans in eventually, don’t you?” she said, laughing, bitter and low. “You wait until they’re comfortable. Until they forget you’re not- normal.”

Floyd didn’t move. Not an inch. His grin was gone.

“I’ve been taught about this my entire life,” she said, voice shaking. “About water demons. About the ones that pretend to be like us until it’s too late. all of you! it’s all the same. Just a trick.”

His fingers twitched. She didn’t notice. Or she ignored it.

“I tried, okay? I tolerated you all. Because I had to. School, survival, call it whatever you want. But I’m not like the rest of you. I don’t- trust you.”

Floyd’s mouth parted slightly.

“I was just waiting for the day you’d try something. That you’d show me what was underneath all that teasing. And now here it is.”

“You really think that,” Floyd said finally. His voice didn’t sound like Floyd anymore. It was low. Heavy.

She didn’t respond.

“You think I’d try to lure you?” he asked, incredulous. “Like I’m some kinda- what? Monster?”

Silence.

“Shrimpy.” His voice cracked. Cracked. “You think I’ve been fakin’ it? Everything? The jokes, the fights, the walks, the snacks we snuck past Azul’s rules, all of it?”

Still, she said nothing. Her expression said enough.

Floyd took a step forward, and she flinched. Not visibly. But just enough. His breath hitched.

“Ohh…” he breathed out, long and slow. “So that’s how it is.”

She looked down, ashamed, but not enough to take it back. Not enough to lie.

He laughed. Quietly. It wasn’t his usual laugh. No cackles. No shrieking. Just a small, strange sound like something dying in his throat.

“You were waitin’ for the monster,” he said. “An’ now you’re mad ‘cause it never came, so you had to make it yourself.”

“Floyd-”

“Nah,” he cut her off, voice suddenly sharp. “Don’t do that. Don’t say my name like that. Like you care. Like I’m some sad tadpole you gotta feel bad for.”

His eyes shined wet, but he blinked too fast for it to spill.

“I liked you, ya know,” he muttered, almost to himself. “Thought you saw me. The real me. Not the teeth. Not the tail. Not the ‘scary eel monster’ stories.”

She stepped back again. Just one more inch.

That was all he needed to see.

His shoulders dropped.

“…Guess I was wrong.”

He turned, just like that. No more talking. No more games. Not even a snide nickname thrown over his shoulder.

And Yuu, she stood alone in the coral glow, suddenly cold, suddenly small, with nothing but the sound of his footsteps echoing away, and the unbearable knowledge that she’d broken something that had been real.

Even if she’d never let herself believe in it.

i hate myself for that floyd one, that hurt.

ANYWAYS I HOPE THIS IS HOW YOU IMAGINED IT!!

cecil and carlos in the high school gym: