Chapter Text
Asta sighed, nursing another sore cheek as the sound of receding footsteps grew quieter. After spending months training his body and getting hit by all kinds of magic, he figured all the slaps across the face would start to hurt less, but…no, they still stung a lot! Only once Noelle’s footsteps had long since faded, and he could no longer sense her ki, did Asta finally dare speak, and even then, just quietly to himself while he slumped against the nearby wall.
“Geez…what’s her problem anyway?”
It was always like this with the mystery that was Noelle Silva. One minute she’d be perfectly calm, reasonable, her usual self with no issues at all. They’d be talking, having a nice conversation…it’d all be great. Then something would happen…what that something was exactly, Asta still couldn’t figure out; maybe he’d say something, or someone else would say something, or sometimes nothing at all. Then she’d freak out, usually call him an idiot or stupid, often hit him with a slap, and always storm off in a huff to return a few minutes later like nothing happened.
It just didn’t make any sense…and it was also starting to get kinda frustrating not ever being able to talk to Noelle normally.
“Oh, Asta, so ignorant in the ways of the world…”
Oh.
He’d totally gotten lost in his thoughts there and hadn’t even realized someone else was right nearby… The ki was so clear too, how had he missed it? Had he just gotten that distracted thinking about Noelle?
“Miss Vanessa! Hey, I was just-”
Asta didn’t get any further before Vanessa slipped an arm around his shoulder, holding a finger to her lips. Unsure of what was happening, a confused Asta let the clearly intoxicated witch walk him over and sit him down on the couch before she sat next to him. Vanessa took a quick swig from her bottle (it seemed pretty full for this late in the day...maybe it was her second one?), still not releasing him from her grip. Finally, she spoke again, straightening her hat and clearing her throat as if preparing for a dramatic speech before she dropped back into her slurred words.
“Now, Asta…I know how…I know that you’re a little…” Asta waited patiently while the witch gathered her thoughts. “...clueless about these delicate matters…so how about ‘ya let big sis Vanessa give you some advice, yeah?”
…well, Vanessa and Noelle were close, right? So maybe she actually knew what it was that Noelle always got so upset about! Ugh, he really was clueless! Why hadn’t he just thought to ask her before? Listening, Asta eagerly nodded his head, ready to take in whatever advice his senior would be offering.
“Asta. You’re honest. Dependable. H…honest. And that’s…that’s great! But…not everyone’s as good at it as you. So, sometimes, when you’re dealing with other people, you’ve gotta…y’know, read between the lines a little. Maybe instead of looking at just what they say and do, try and think about…about why they say and do those things? Dismiss no possibility! Read between the lines, y’know?”
“...I think I get it.”
He didn’t.
After all, that didn’t make any sense! How else was he supposed to know how someone felt other than what they said and did? Even using ki wasn’t reliable here; sure, he knew that Noelle trusted him even if it was hard for her to admit, but that still didn’t make her getting so mad at him all the time make sense…
Asta frowned while Vanessa took another gulp of her drink, locked on him from the corner of her eye as if gauging a reaction. …Vanessa was probably right here, though. She usually was when it came to people…he’d have to give it some thought…
Maybe if he couldn’t find the exact reason for Noelle’s anger…he could at least find what smaller things set it off? He’d considered it before, but none of the commonalities ever seemed to line up…maybe Asta just needed to “read between the lines” some more, then? ‘Dismiss no possibility’...He tried thinking of some times her ki had gotten angry recently…hmm…
“Let’s see…ah, that time last week when Rebecca invited me to dinner at that restaurant where Noelle works… Or uh…the other day when I got back to the base after Sally took all day to get through those experiments and tests? She really got angry then…oh, and just now! When I told Noelle about the pretty garden that Mimosa showed me!"
...wait a minute.
Was it because he was…spending time with other girls? That seemed like a common thread in a bunch of her outbursts…but why would Noelle get mad over that? At least for Sally’s experiments, maybe she was just worried, but Rebecca and Mimosa weren’t gonna hurt him. No, no, he was being ridiculous...It didn’t make sense; there wasn’t any reason she should get so angry about Asta going out to places with girls…
Asta…going out to places…with girls…
Asta…going out…with girls…?
Wait…
Was…Noelle jealous ?
The idea seemed kind of crazy to Asta; Noelle was awesome and strong, not to mention a royal. Why would she be jealous of Asta talking to other girls? But…didn’t it kind of line up? Was that why she was always at the places he went to with other girls? Or why she kept refusing his offers to train with him and Mimosa? Or when she’d come along forcefully to Hage to meet his family? Or when-
Wait…it couldn’t be that…no way…it wasn’t possible…but maybe…?
“...heh heh. That look on your face tells me you figured something out, right Asta?”
“Uh…maybe...” Asta glanced up at Vanessa’s trilling voice, seeing a slightly smug grin stretched across her lips. Faced with the obstacle of actually voicing his thoughts, he suddenly felt a lot less confident in his deduction…but this was about as good of a person to tell as any, yeah? After all, she was the one who got him to ‘read between the lines’ in the first place…and she’d said he shouldn’t dismiss any possibilities. Plus, she could probably confirm his suspicions about Noelle and him…okay, no use holding it back then... “...yeah, I think so, actually.”
“Great!” Clasping her hands, Vanessa leaned back, her slight smirk breaking into a full-out grin. She seemed positively delighted that he might have found something out…Asta let that be a comfort as he finally spoke.
“I think uh…I mean, it’s a possibility…but I think…”
“You think…?” Vanessa prodded some more with the same knowing smile.
“I think that…” Asta bit his lip, trying his best to focus and spit his thoughts out…usually he didn’t have any issue spitting out what he thought, so why was saying this so hard? Maybe it was just because he didn’t want to seem that dense? With a hard swallow, Asta shook his head. He just had to spit it out!
“I think that Noelle and I might be dating…and I just didn’t know!”
“...”
“...”
“...hmmm…”
What did “hmmm” mean???
Was it good? Bad?
Asta felt himself actively panicking, something pretty rare for him. When he’d already faced down elves, demons, and snotty royals, he didn’t think something like romance would phase him. After all, his eyes were set upon one woman and one woman only, and he’d never back from the things he decided to do! But…if he’d missed some kind of social cue or royal custom he didn’t know, and now Noelle thought the two of them were dating…well, he’d feel terrible about that! Because, then, he must have seemed like a super bad boyfriend! And, even if he didn’t feel that way about her, he still cared for Noelle!
He cared for her a lot, actually…so the idea that all her anger was from him acting in a way that hurt her, all because he wasn’t smart enough to pick up the social cues that she knew? That made him feel sick to the stomach, worse than any broken bone or bruised muscle…at least he knew how to deal with those things…trying to help someone’s emotional distress was…he didn’t know what to do, really.
“...I want to do better, though. I think I’ve been making her angry because I haven’t…’cause I haven’t been being a very good…boyfriend…” It still felt weird saying it aloud… “...so…can you help me, Miss Vanessa!? I don’t really get how all this stuff works, so can you teach me how to be better at it!?”
“Mmm…” Vanessa still appeared…confused? Surprised? Maybe just still drunk. Her mouth was hung open slightly, eyes wide as she stared at Asta. Upon his question, though, her mouth curled into a deep frown as she closed her eyes in concentration. She tilted her head back and forth several times before giving a wide smile as she looked back at him. “...kay! But only if you promise that you’ll take super good care of her!”
“Yeah, I will!” Vanessa was clearly just a bit too drunk to focus on what she was saying, but Asta took her words to heart regardless; after all, if he could help make Noelle happy, he’d do whatever he could. As for marrying Sister Lily…he’d figure all that out when he needed to. For now, what was most important was fixing his mistake and owning up to whatever he’d accidentally done. First, he would tell Noelle all about the misunderstanding, apologize for whatever he did, then-
“Okay! Step one! You can’t tell her about this conversation.”
“What? Why?” Asta’s immediate response sent him careening up off the couch, trying to wrap his head around what Vanessa was saying…don’t tell her? But wasn’t the most important part of misunderstandings clearing them up and setting everything straight? If he wasn’t honest, then wasn’t that just as bad as lying to her?
“Noelle is…she’s um…you know, she’s…what’s that word they use? She and her siblings, they’re all…proud and uh…”
“...she’s royalty?”
“Yeah, that was it! Cause…cause she’s all ‘I’m royalty,’ y’know? If you tell her about all this, I betcha…yeah, I bet she’ll totally deny it and get all angry, and you’ll be right back…back where we started. Except worse. Make sense?”
“I…guess so. But then, if I don’t want to do that, how am I supposed to fix this? I’ve…I gotta try something!”
“Don’t worry about it! I’ve got…I’ve got the perrrrrfect plan!” Vanessa sprung up off the couch, practically bouncing in excitement to tell Asta what her expert plan must have been. The witch put her wine down (a rare occurrence) as she eagerly motioned with her hands. “Okay, so step one, don’t tell her about this conversation. Then, step…two, you just…act like nothing’s changed.”
“But-”
“Wait until I’m done. THEN. Step three…just pretend you always knew!”
Eh?
“Eh?”
“‘Eh’? ” Vanessa frowned, her cheeks puffed in an almost childish way. “That’s all you have to say to my master plan ?”
“Well, uh…” How did Asta put this delicately? He’d been trying to watch his words more lately to try and offend people less, something Yuno’d advised him on. Not that it’d been helping much with Noelle, though…either way, he didn’t want to offend Vanessa, since she clearly had the best intentions here… “...like just uh…act like I know we were dating this whole time?”
“Yes! For a second, I thought you didn’t get it!” With an eager pump of her arms, Vanessa gave Asta a thumbs-up and raised her hand into the air. Though still a bit uncertain himself, Asta nevertheless accepted the gesture, clapping his own hand in a high-five.
At the very least…it was worth a try. After all, if it failed, he’d just come clean!
Easy peasy.