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“Enjoy your date,” Kobra taunted, smirking.
Ghoul pulled an annoyed face and stuck out its tongue. It was not a date. It was a one on one activity with Party—a picnic, if it had understood well. So, definitely not a date.
“Aw, stop messing with it,” Jet told him through a smile. “It’s nervous.”
“I’m not!” it protested, crossing its arms. Even though no one had spoken, it still added, for good measure, “Shut up.”
And it wasn’t nervous. Why should it? This was simply a not-date with the one it had been crushing on for… two, maybe three… years….
Yeah, so okay, maybe it was nervous, but sue it, it had every right to be! Party had been acting differently lately: they’d been more physical—hugs, hand holding, kisses on the face—in their affection than usual. And that was saying a lot . Of course, Ghoul didn’t mind, except for the part where it felt like spontaneously combusting every time their fingers would even graze its.
Anyway, there was no way it was admitting any of that in front of Kobra, because, in the most loving way possible, he could be a pain in the ass and Ghoul would be dead before it would give him that much ammunition. He already knew too much. That fucker was probably psychic.
Before its two friends could add anything else, Ghoul hurried out of the diner, forgoing its jacket. It would just steal Party’s. Their jacket was nice. And—not that it would ever admit it—it was a guilty pleasure: anytime Ghoul wore it, it could pretend that they were something more. It probably needed to stop that, actually. It only hurt it in the process.
Shaking its head clear of thoughts—more specifically, Party-centric thoughts—it picked up its pace. Party had insisted it meet them on the hill a few minutes away from the diner. The only reason they’d offered was that they didn’t want Kobra bothering the both of them. Ghoul didn’t mind Kobra—loved him, in fact—but it was kind of grateful they were meeting up without him—or Jet, for that matters. Kobra tended to make these jokes about how obvious Ghoul was, and it was only a matter of time until Party clocked in. Also, there was the whole ‘pretending they were an item’ thing, but if Ghoul ignored that last part hard enough, maybe it would go away.
And, wow, okay, Ghoul was really bad at this stop-thinking-about-Party thing.
A few minutes later, it finally reached the hill, and proceeded to stop dead in its tracks. “What the fuck?”
“Do you like it?” Party inquired, smiling coyly, and kill Ghoul right the fuck now, it was too fucking gay for this.
“Dude, do I like it?” Ghoul scoffed, unbelieving. An overflowing picnic basket sat on a checkered blanket, and Ghoul had no idea where the food even came from, much less the cloth. “That’s fucking amazing! And you did all of that in…?”
Party looked away, turning as red as their hair, and this was so fucking unfair. “Uh. I’d rather not say.” When Ghoul narrowed its eyes at them, they threw up their hands in the air. “It’s embarrassing!”
Giggling—yeah, giggling . Like a fucking twelve year-old, what the fuck, Ghoul?—Ghoul declared that, “Well, it’s lovely. What’s the occasion, you’re getting married or something?”
The redhead choked and Ghoul cringed internally. Way to make this awkward .
“Um, no,” they said, scratching the top of their head. “I’m not getting married.” Then, regaining their composure, they added, “That is, unless you want to?”
What the fuck. How the fuck was Ghoul supposed to answer that? ‘Yes, Party, I would love to marry you, have dreamed about it countless times and already have the whole wedding planned out.’ That seemed like a good thing to say.
Party laughed, ruffling Ghoul’s hair, and thank the Phoenix Witch, because it had been about to spiral into a gay panic. “Relax, I’m just kidding. I’ll ask you again on our one year anniversary.”
“Haha,” Ghoul answered, and, yeah, it had made its peace with the fact that it wasn’t coming back alive from this mortifying ordeal. It had serious doubts about making it through the end of the conversation.
“I’m sorry, I hadn’t meant to make you uncomfortable. I’ll just, er, steer clear of wedding talk.”
Well now it felt bad. It didn’t really know how to make it better, though. This was over its capabilities. Was, ‘Hey, of course I’ll marry you, what else are best friends for, am I right?’ an appropriate response?
Party flinched and dear fuck, had Ghoul said that out loud?
“Fuck, I’m so sorry,” it exclaimed, eyes wide. “I really hadn’t meant to say that out loud!”
“No, it’s fine,” they said, but looking at their pained smile physically hurt it. “It’s cool to know where you stand. Regarding us.”
Ghoul tucked a strand of hair behind its ear, at loss of anything relevant to say. “I mean it, though, I’m really sorry. I hadn’t meant to make it awkward.”
“Don’t,” Party snapped, and Ghoul wanted to die all over. Except Jet had formally forbidden it from doing so after too many close calls messing with explosives, so it was forced to suffer through this. It would rather die than go against Jet’s wishes—and would you look at that? A paradox.
“Pois…,” Ghoul began, but Party shook their head.
“Please, let’s just drop it, this is embarrassing enough,” they sighed, pinching the bridge of their nose.
Ghoul fought the hurt crawling its way to its heart. It had dug its own grave here, and, really, this wasn’t so bad! Party was willing to forget about it, so Ghoul would just follow their lead. It was better than most of the scenarios of rejection it had come up with, so it would gratefully take it.
Apparently, Party had gone back on their decision, because less than ten seconds after asking Ghoul to drop it, they whirled around on their feet, facing Ghoul. “No, actually, I don’t understand. Why did you humor me?”
Ghoul blinked, confused. It hadn’t really humored them, it had literally thought out loud and desperately wished it could take its words back. “I didn’t mean to?”
“No, not the wedding thing!” they groaned, capturing their head between their hands. “Why are you here?”
Not the wedding thing? Well now Ghoul was just lost. “Why am I here? You asked me to hang out! Did you really think I would say no?”
Party, stunned, let their arms fall back on each side of their body. “ Yes , Ghoul, I would expect you to say no on the date I asked you on if you weren’t into that. Fucking Destroya, that’s why you made such a huge fucking deal out of the marria—”
“Wait, what ?” Ghoul interrupted, the ground swaying underneath it.
The other killjoy shook their head. “Yeah, Ghoul, I’m sorry that you didn’t have the fucking balls to tell me you didn’t think of me this way. And I’m fucking sorry I believed you when you told me you liked me back.”
“No, Party, hold up!” This was going so wrong, how was this going so wrong? This was literally everything Ghoul had ever wished for, minus the animosity. “A date?”
Party looked about to go on another anger spree, but a look at Ghoul’s face stopped them. “ Oh .” Then, they did the only thing Ghoul hadn’t expected them to do: they started laughing hysterically, hiccups and all that.
“Um, are you okay?”
“This is fucking splendid,” they told it, grinning, but they didn’t seem very happy. It sounded kind of—just a bit—sarcastic. “I ask my joyfriend on this third date I busted my ass off on only to learn it’s not even aware we’re dating.”
What the fuck? “What the fuck?”
“No, seriously, are you playing dumb so you can let me down gently or are you really just that fucking oblivious?”
Ghoul felt like crying—not out of sadness, though it guessed it was still to be taken into consideration, depending on how that apparently a date would pan out. “No! I really, honest to the Phoenix Witch, have no idea what the fuck is going on!”
“I asked you out last week!” Before Ghoul could muster out another half-coherent sentence, they elaborated, and it silently thanked Destroya one of them had brain cells. “Do you not remember? We were going to sleep and I told you ‘You know I like you, right?’, and you said—”
“‘I like you too’?” That wasn’t special, it always said it back.
“Yeah!” Party said, as though that enlightened anything. “And then I asked you if you wanted to hang out the next day, say at two.”
“Yeah, I was confused as to why you needed a time set, but you told me it was so I wouldn’t be late?”
Party nodded as though the misunderstanding had been explained. They groaned when they noticed Ghoul’s blank face. “Oh my—I asked you if you were in and you said yes and I said, ‘Great, it’s a date!’”
“Yeah, but you always say stuff like that! Only this time you waited until I reciprocated and fuck you asked me out on a date and I didn’t even realize!”
They smiled sadly, hugging themself. “Well. I guess that’s it.”
“Wait, you said third date!”
Disbelieving, Party scoffed. “The car ride? And I stole you that fruit, how did you not… this is so embarrassing, I’m disappearing effective now,” they groaned.
Ghoul let itself fall to the sandy ground. This was too much. Party liked it back? Why weren’t they kissing right now? It felt like they should be kissing. Would Party mind? No, they wouldn’t, they liked Ghoul too, apparently. Fuck, Ghoul still hadn’t told them it liked them back. This was such a fucking trainwreck.
“Hey, Pois?” it called out, jumping to its feet.
Party raised sad eyes to it, and, okay, that was painful . “Do you want an apple?” they offered, bitter.
“Shit, you got an apple? Wait, no, that's not what I wanted to say, hang on.” This was harder than it had imagined. “I’m… gay .”
The other’s shoulders dropped. “I know. You’ve told me this before. You say this on a daily basis. Bi-daily basis, if that’s even a word.”
Ghoul groaned, gesturing helplessly. “No, no, wait, I mean, I’m very, very gay. For you,” it choked out.
Frowning, the redhead took a stop forward. “You—what?”
“I never thought you’d like me back! I’m used to you being downright flirty and it meaning nothing at all, so I guess I didn’t realize you were actually asking me out, but I’ve never lied! I do like you, as a friend and more.” That probably should’ve been its cue to shut up, but the words just came flooding out. “Like may be an understatement, actually. I say that I’m gay that often because I’m constantly having gay panics. Have you ever seen you? That’s dumb, of course you have. Dude, Kobra makes fun of me all the time. I'm, like, super fucking into you. Though I guess you noticed? Because you did ask me on a date. Several times. So you were probably aware of that? Yeah, I—”
“Okay, I’m going to stop you, now,” Party announced, grabbing both sides of its head and fiercely placing their lips on its, effectively shutting Ghoul up.
Kissing Party was nice. Very nice. Ghoul would be at peace with the idea of doing nothing but kissing them for the rest of its gay little life.
They gently took a step back, and Ghoul—it would deny it until forever ended—chased after them. Good to know kissing turned off the only working part of its brain. Not that it could even begin to care right now.
Party pressed their foreheads together, smiling softly, and it was all so perfect. “I like you,” they whispered, as though it was the most precious thing in the universe.
“I like you,” Ghoul echoed, a secret finally out to the world.
“I can’t believe it took you three dates to realize we were dating,” they laughed, still pressed to Ghoul. “You do want to date, right?”
“Yeah, Party, I really do. Speaking of, I believe we have this third date you really busted your ass off for waiting for us?”
“I like you,” Party repeated, and let their lips meet Ghoul’s once again.