My Black Hole Junior Can't Be This Dense!
By Kermie
Horizon, City Of Leviathan's Rest
Sometime after Eidolon, sometime before Mona's meeting with Scarlet Maturity
You are Shelley Marie, and…
how.
Over the course of your years as a music teacher, you have made a point to not discriminate or assume anything about metahumans with dysmorphic looks. Those who fell into that category were still… let's just say that they were changing during the periods you were teaching them and leave it at that, but none of them were ever that affected by those changes. Personality wise at least. You remember teaching this one sweet kid with shark teeth— you have to wonder where he is now.
However, the student (?) in front of you is seriously tempting you to rethink those good-hearted assumptions. Because
Leviathan's Blood, this girl is as dense as a rock (or a singularity, heh)
around her crush.
It started around lunch time. After
the things that happened a few days ago, Mona was sitting down next to you while you were trying your best to fix JU's finances and get more info on the black site called the Brig. Neither effort was bearing any fruit, so that's when you asked her:
"Got anything on your mind?"
Mona wasn't eating any food at the time, so she thankfully didn't sweep anything off the table when she got up to look at you. "Uh, yeah! It's—"
She opened her mouth, and then immediately closed it. "Uh, private."
You couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. "
How private? Is it like, classified Justice Unlimited business, or…"
Mona shook her head, eyes wide in some mixture between shock and tiredness. "Uh, no! It's about Ellie."
Ok, that's probably not Handyman, you saw Maddie on TV during that disastrous interview, so Ellie has to be…
"You mean Valiant Gold?" you guessed.
Mona nodded glumly. "Well, yeah. It's just that…"
"That… use your words, I can't read minds Mona."
She closed her eyes for a second, before blurting out, "
Ithinkshe'sreallycutebutIcan'tstopfumblingaroundher!"
You blinked in surprise. Something something… did Mona have a crush on Valiant Gold? Man, you knew some people who would pay
bank for that gossip. Unfortunately, that's when your morality kicked back in and you just felt like helping her out. You can make more money later, then. "So, you're into girls?"
Mona waved her hands around in an attempt to articulate something, before nodding her head. "Well, I'm bisexual. I dated a few guys before, but never any girls."
You had to hold back a little laugh. Man, how many bisexuals are there in Horizon? At this rate, you could walk through the Apiary's halls and find someone bi/pan in under five minutes if you talk fast. Of course, that's assuming that you're not counting
yourself. "Huh, same! And your relationships with those guys, how long did they last?"
That was when Mona fiddled a bit with her long blonde hair, kind of like you do occasionally. "Well, not that long."
So, not much longer than 1 year or six months at max. Not the
worst track record. Not the best either. "C'mon, tell me about her!" you asked, "I swear on Uiara's grave, and Valiant Silver's grave, and Apiary's grave even though technically we might already be inside her grave, that I won't tell anybody what I hear."
Mona considered it for a second, before gritting her teeth and probably mentally shrugging. "Ok, fine
. Ellie's like, the coolest girl I've ever met. She's cool, and brave… also she looks really good in a leather jacket."
You nodded in solemn agreement. "Everybody looks better in leather jackets or suits. Continue."
Mona sucked in a deep breath through her teeth (wait, does she even need to breathe?) and continued. "Uh, but I have a problem around her. Outside of hero duties, just in normal life."
"What, you can't speak up around her? Tongue-tied?"
"
I wish. I keep on fumbling around her! Whenever I speak to her specifically, I can't help but fumble the bag! The first two times I talked to her, she wanted to kill me!"
You rolled your eyes. It couldn't be
that bad, right? "Alright, calm down. I've had good and healthy relationships with a variety of people, of all shapes, sizes, and genders. If you need some advice, you can talk to me. Now, start from the beginning…"
As it turns out, it was absolutely that bad.
"
Mona…"
"I said I was trying, ok?!"
Mona is fumbling Ellie as badly as that one time you fumbled that cute bartender who, in retrospect, was totally flirting with you when both of you were off the clock. While you're pretty sure that you haven't heard everything about Ellie, you're also pretty sure that you know enough.
"In the span of two to three weeks, you have managed to do
so badly. Holy—" You have to take a deep breath. Remember to calm down! You're a teacher, first and foremost! Don't blow up at your pupils! "Do you want me to say this in the easy way or the honest way?"
Mona nods, a bit sheepish. By now, the Apiary's food court has mostly emptied out, leaving only a few stray workers and you two. "The honest way?"
You clasp your hands together, and then give it to her straight— she'll never learn otherwise. "In the span of two to three weeks, you've managed to insult Ellie's mom issues, the people she cared for, her credibility, her food, her reliability, and I'm going to take a shot in the dark here, you probably also insulted her style once or twice. You've managed to do all this while acting down
horrendous, down
hellish for her every time she wears any outfit that looks 5 or 10 percent different than "jeans and T-shirt". And if I had to be honest, you'd probably explode if you saw her wear ripped jeans."
Mona blinks in surprise, and opens her mouth before closing it.
"This doesn't even get started on how there's clearly some homoerotic tension I doubt even Novalight could blast through. Said homoerotic tension—
and yes, I'm going to keep calling it that!— is visible to all of your closest teammates and confidants, except maybe Chauncer, John, and Ellie herself. And I'm pretty sure Chauncer knows, since according to you he's been spending a good bit of time around your mom."
"Please don't talk about if they've been fricking or not."
"Alright then, but speaking of your mom, I think she sees it too. I was talking to her yesterday and she said that she had a long talk with Ellie. Your mom literally gave her a shovel talk."
"It's not like that! She didn't really talk that much with my boyfriends…"
"Uh, because they weren't going to last for more than half a year. Maybe a year max. And before you ask, no, you can't deny it. I have proof."
You hold up a notepad. You had asked Mona to write down a few things she had remembered saying to Ellie earlier. You flip to one of the pages Mona scribbled on, and start reading out loud.
"
Yeah! You were doing a great job until everyone started fighting! And don't worry, Black Swan will always be by your side to clean up your messes!"
"I assume that this was after the memorial?"
"Yes."
"The memorial, where Valiant Gold made her public debut. The memorial, where Valiant Gold's negotiation with Monarch allowed people like me to evacuate on Dreamcatcher's lead."
Mona can't help but look away. "Well, yeah! But I was busy thinking about this whole upcoming thing I have with Scarlet Maturity…"
"No buts! You yap way too much— you could have cut out 70% of that entire sentence! She would have loved it
if you had capitalized on that whole thing you did earlier, where you showed up just in time. You should have said something like…"
"
Yeah! You were doing a great job until everyone started fighting! And don't worry, Black Swan will always be by your side to clean up your messes help you out!"
"Also, don't refer to yourself in third person. That's weird. And that's one that I think Ellie was half-ok with. What about…"
"I just mean, Lady Leizi saved them? She pretty much fixed almost all their problems all at once. They don't even really need you!"
You've double underlined and circled that last part. There's absolutely no reason why that should even— there's putting your foot in your mouth, and then there's
verbal suicide.
"Mona, I don't know who "them" is here. But if you had said this to almost any other metahuman, they would have tried to fight you on the spot."
"Ellie tried to fight me after I said that with the Scissors mode of her armor."
You just can't even anymore. All you can do is just stare at Mona blankly. You love your students. You love helping out others with less life experience than you. It's part of why you became a music teacher. But this is just plain stupid.
You flip to the next page of your notepad, and take out a pencil. "I do think that if it wasn't for the whole fact that she's on the same team as you, that you should apologize and start fresh. But since that's way out of reach, just try this."
You write down four letters on the notepad, vertically aligned.
K
I
S
S
"And no, you're probably not going to get Ellie to kiss you right now. Or hug you even. What you need to do is
Keep
It Simple, and I regret having to call you this,
Stupid."
You bonk Mona on the head with your pencil, and it's for a moment that you realize the ridiculousness of the situation. You just hit one of the most powerful metahumans in Horizon on the head with a pencil, and are giving her dating advice. What has your life come to.
But all you can do is continue forward, ridiculous or not. "Give her short compliments, and try to just be unbiased. Don't mention anything about what she
could do, just appreciate her for what she is doing. And by the Leviathan's Blood, don't act so down bad."
Mona looks at you strangely, before taking the notepad and flipping through it. Her eyebrows scrunch as she sees what she's been saying. "Are you sure that'll work?"
"Yes, as long as you try your best to calm down. Just talk to her like how you'd talk to any other friend! Look, she's over there, go talk to her."
"Ellie!"
"Mona. How's it been going?"
"Good, really. By the way, did I mention how good your shirt looks today?"
"Oh, uh, thanks?"
"And by the way, it goes decently enough with your practical pants as well. But uh, I could probably get you a better outfit! You don't have to be practical, and, uh, stuck up seeming with the clothes that you wear. Not all the time."
"…"
"Mona Merola-Morales!"
"I tried, ok?!"
Author's Note:
The funniest thing about the fact that Shelley isn't the protagonist of a story anymore is that she can be as out of pocket as possible, as the cool but exasperated mentor. Hopefully this was funny enough for y'all.