#he does

However, he notices that whenever he praises Ning Yingying, Binghe slyly gets between them to accept praise himself.

At first SQQ thinks his favorite disciple is just being clingy like usual, but a thought occurs to him- maybe LBH still sees him as a potential love rival!

(He, of course, doesn’t. LBH is just jealous.)

SQQ, being the certified overthinker he is, tries to find a way to solve this issue and lands on an answer, one so obvious that he’s shocked he didn’t think of it before!

He’ll tell everyone that he’s a cutsleeve!

He went anyway.

---

Shanks has been told a man named Buggy is coming for a visit. Benn, his supposed first mate, said they'd known each other for a long time.

Benn has also warned him about the nose. But when the most colorful guy he had ever seen walked inside the room with a scowl that contrasted his bright colors, the first thing that came out of his mouth as soon as his eyes got dragged to the red of the stragner's nose was:

"Is that real?"

Which pretty much set the clown off, tugging him by the collar of his shirt and yelling at his face to dare mention his nose. And while the clown is mouthing off, Shanks could only stare at the angry green eyes, the tri-corn hat that's niggling something in his mind, and tassels that he was pretty sure were his hair, which was such a pretty sky-ocean color on a clear day.

The man was yelling. He was angry. But Shanks feels the world lightening up inside his chest at this strange man dragging him into equal grounds when everyone around him had talked about him fondly but reverently in hopes he'd remember himself.

Unconsciously then consciously, his hand that had gripped one of the hands tugging his collar rubbed circles with his thumb, making this Buggy pause in his rant.

This one goes out for the woeful souls that are fans of ringmaster 🫡 (this design was made on the spot so don’t kill me ive never actually fawn him) i was gonna have random objects coming from the right side like a car reck but got lazy :P