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He could only kick his door open in irritation for the nth time before Trey or Riddle finally pinpointed the source, so he opted to do the next best thing in his mind: kick down Ramshackle’s front door and smile as he heard Yuu and Grim yelp from inside.
“SHIT DUDE-” Yuu squeaked out, toppling over the tower of cards he was building, frowning at the stack collapsing in on itself from his knee jolting underneath the table and shaking its foundation.
“mGYAH?!-” Grim yowled in shock, nearly jumping off the sofa.
Before he could even walk in to laugh at them, he was swiftly karate chopped on the head and winced in pain, letting his companion walk in first and grimacing at the other smirking back at him. “What was that for?!” Obviously he knew he deserved it, but a large part of him hated how it was Deuce of all people giving him the chop of judgement; how dare he!
Deuce only smiled as he continued to go past the threshold and waved a bag of snacks in Yuu and Grim’s direction, blinking in surprise seeing how a small blur of grey snagged their spoils and retreated back to his spot in less than .0001 seconds. Even Ace could admit that seeing the food-driven monster take it from the bluenette’s hands that quickly was impressive. Nonetheless, he still pouted as he walked towards Deuce and kicked his shin in retaliation for his earlier ministrations. Knowing how the other worked, he gave him a second before sidestepping and skipping over to Yuu’s sofa and settled himself down.
Hearing Deuce huff in temporary defeat, he heard him walk over to the kitchen and raid the fridge, probably to get them drinks. Sometimes he just wanted to go in and clean it up because “Yuu just sometimes forgets to take proper care of himself since Crowley runs him thin, so why not give him a hand every once in a while?” The idea was sweet in a way, but not in his style so he left that work to Deuce in his stead. It’s a win-win either way, since it meant he could bother Yuu more often. What can he say? He’s like his older brother in that regard but he’d never admit it to anyone.
Anyways, Ace extended his legs towards the coffee table and plopped his feet onto the table, snickering when Yuu leaned forward to push them off and gave him a side glance, grimacing at the specks of dust he had to brush off afterwards.
“You really should do some spring cleaning in here once in a while man, the amount of debris you’re inhaling every day probably isn’t good for you.” he said, eyebrows raised in mock concern.
“Well I only ever lounge around here during the weekends with everything else happening around me in our day-to-day school life ya know? I also don’t want the ghosts to think they’re my housekeepers, so I tell them not to worry too much about that.” Yuu responded back, with a slightly far away look in his eyes for the briefest of seconds, but it vanished nearly instantly after he closed his mouth to turn and pursed his lips in Ace’s direction. Weird, probably a trick of this room’s lighting. “So what brings you, oh so mighty card soldier, to my humble abode? Care to explain the shoe marks you chose to leave behind on my front door and make me nearly shit myself?” He raised a curious eyebrow.
Ah right, that.
Finally remembering his reason for coming here, he leaned back into the sofa’s cushions and chewed his bottom lip in irritation at the memory.
Let’s just rip off the bandaid right now before Deuce comes back in.
“You remember how we all ended up helping Riddle, Deuce, Jack, and Kalim from being trapped in the library a while back right?” He lolled his head in Yuu’s direction, seeing him nod in acknowledgement. “Yeah so some people caught wind of that in the film club and said we should totally make a short film on the original story since it’s super relevant to those pretty lanterns we made for extra credit that one time.” He finished, making air quotes at the last part. Yuu continued to nod and furrowed his brows as he digested that information.
“So what does that have to do with you?” Leave it to Yuu to ask the most obvious question before Ace could explain himself properly.
“... Well they want me to be the princess in their film.” He hid his face in his hand to avoid seeing Yuu’s reaction because he just knew how it would end.
Not even a second afterwards, he heard an ugly snort and spread his fingers slightly to see Yuu hold back his laughter.
“Snrk- so, pfft- sorry man-” Yuu attempted to speak, letting out small coughs.
“Ahaha-” He felt himself redden in the face as Yuu’s usually serious exterior became looser as he let more giggles slip out from his mouth.
“Shut up- This is why I didn’t want to tell you in the first place!-” Ace hissed out, shoving Yuu’s shoulder closest to him as he still tried to hide his embarrassment.
“Sorry sorry, I really do mean it! I just, haha, didn’t expect you to take the lead role is all-” Yuu was able to say while catching his breath.
“Yeah whatever you say… Anyways, they were basically asking everyone on campus to find some cast members since they really got into it after having that discussion. I’m more surprised that Vil didn’t offer himself as the lead since he’s pretty perfect for the role. I was more forced into it by Vil since a ‘spudling like me had potential in acting like the princess’. Not sure what he meant by that, but being asked by THE Vil Schoenheit to have a role in something he’s filming doesn’t sound too bad- Hey stop laughing man!”
He could only frown deeper as he saw Yuu slip into another giggle fit. He could only take so much embarrassment before he would combust on the spot, so he picked the nearest cushion by his side to whack his friend, laughing himself as Yuu weakly raised his arms in self-defense.
“I knew it!-” Yuu gasped out in-between pillow assaults. Ace slightly slowed down at the confession and linked the dots in his mind, becoming more lively as he felt his face flame even more strongly this time around.
“YOU ASSHOLE?! IT WAS YOU WHO SUGGESTED ME TO VIL?!” Ace gripped the pillow tighter and showed zero mercy on Yuu now. Screw their friendship.
“KYAAAAAA DEUCE HELP ME, ACEY IS BEING MEAN TO ME!!!!” Yuu whined out, running into the kitchen to hide behind Deuce’s smaller frame and pretended to shiver like a newborn fawn. He heard Deuce sigh as he walked closer, grimacing as the younger pat Yuu on the head before turning towards Ace’s direction with a knife in one hand.
Damn.
“Ace, go back to the sofa and leave Yuu alone, he’s already being nice enough to not kick your sorry ass out after what you did to his front door.” Deuce said cooly, twisting the knife in his hand before slicing into some fruits smoothly without breaking eye contact with him the entire time. This time, he knew Yuu’s shiver was real as he saw a bead of sweat drip from his forehead. He forgets sometimes how scary Deuce can be.
“...Fine, I’ll behave.”
Before he walked back to the living room, he heard Yuu pipe up from behind Deuce, “If it makes you feel any better, Riddle was assigned the role of the bandit who teams up with you!”
Scratch that, he really wants to kill Yuu the next time he sees him.
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The days passed by in a blur leading up to the rehearsal for the filming, he became used to the buzzing of stage hands around him carrying the cameras and angling them in odd ways, people in random group chats asking when he’d be available for fittings or blocking his placement in-between scenes for the maximum “oomph” effect they were looking for.
What caught him off guard the first time was being ambushed after one class to be dragged into an empty club room and dressed in a silk costume that not only had golden accessories accenting his chest piece, but the intricate layers of lace on the puffs of his sleeves to compliment it. Adding onto that was the sheer cape hanging off his shoulders with an ombre of pink and purple, with faint birds printed on. It was quite frankly, absurd how quickly this was done and fit him down to a tee. He had no idea how dedicated the film club actually was to this project, and it made him wonder how big their budget must be if they made his costume THIS quickly. They probably took the inspiration from Crewel’s initial designs from the previous incident, but it only made him wonder even more how his counterpart’s thief costume looked since they didn’t have to re-enact his appearance back then.
He wondered if Riddle would show him before they filmed the first costume rehearsal, but then again, the redhead was also busy with housewarden duties. Shame really, he would have loved to tease him on being his hero this time around.
Speaking of Riddle, he knew that the other was aware of Ace’s involvement in the film prior to Ace announcing it in one of their group study sessions, and smiled softly in his direction when he would ask for advice on reading his lines out loud, or memorization of certain scenes since they’d be filmed together. In a weird way, he was glad that the other had been trapped in the library prior to this since it gave him a clearer idea on how the princess must have thought about things in her isolation. He would never want to admit it out loud, but having Riddle to practice with eased his nerves since he couldn’t swallow down his embarrassment when he neared the gaggle of film club students clearly overzealous in their main stars and fussing over him like a swarm of vultures to fresh meat.
Besides that, the few moments they spent together also made his heart clench in a funny way, but he’d just push it down as nerves. He had a big responsibility to fill, so it would be better to focus on that than be temporarily distracted by weird feelings from their temporary closeness.
It’s just until filming is over, and I really don’t want to have this project fail.
Shaking his head, he made his way back into his dorm room and sighed as he noticed how empty it was right now. Placing his backpack on his bed, he fished out the crumpled script and took a deep breath before reciting his lines again, “Oh those? They’re lanterns, I knew they weren’t stars!”
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Hell, even Vil didn’t skimp out on him, giving him personal lessons on makeup and ways to carry himself to act more princess-like. It made his spine tingle in an odd way the way Vil was so careful with him as he arranged his hair with flowers and extensions. He knew that it was just for this role, but it felt more like a high end ordeal when he was being treated like a porcelain doll.
“-There. Now I know you need to express yourself as more delicate, which in your previous takes without your costume was abysmal -ouch-, but I know that you can pull this off if you actually put your mind into it. Even standing in place, you should remember that you’re royalty in the lens’s eye. I don’t expect you to cut corners, do I make myself clear Ace?” Even in his director mentality, Vil once again came for the jugular and Ace could only nod dumbly as he was patted on the shoulder and walked towards the tower’s window without a peep.
Vil snapped his finger as he stood by the room’s door and had Ortho hover by his side with a clapper board, and offered Ace a thumbs up to ease his nerves. Oddly enough, it briefly worked since he knew there were no ill intentions in his support. With a nod, he closed his eyes to take a deep breath and steeled himself in his first scene.
Ready.
“Action!-”
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He would never make fun of Yuu ever again when he would bring up being roped into Vil and Ortho’s tyranny when he’d be dragged in as an extra, this shit was mentally exhausting. He thought he had thick skin with the amount of dragging he would deal with on a daily basis from Deuce, Floyd, or Jamil on a bad day. This was even worse.
He thought that the table reading went well last week with the way Vil nodded as he continued to follow along with the script and provide zero commentary, but being told to retake scenes he thought he nailed the first time was doing damage to his psyche.
“Cut!- What did I tell you about looking straight at the lens?” You told me to look your way since this was the part where she has her monologue by her room walls on going out-
“Stop here- Ace, stop fidgeting on Vorpal, he’s clearly comfortable with you on his back, I even asked Riddle if he was able to help with this, you’re only stressing him out with that!” I haven’t even ridden a horse in years! I can’t keep my balance up with this costume!
He could only hold his tongue as he was criticized relentlessly by his director, knowing he did prove a point in his assessment, but it still sucked being the reason for the filming taking longer than planned. From their storyboards, he could only assume they changed certain beats of the story due to time constraints he didn’t know about, it wasn’t something he would bother to ask about since he would rather focus on the present right now.
At some point, they ended up in the forest in the scene where he finally got to work with Riddle properly since he would be whisked away by Trey or Cater to help with something last minute in the dorms. For some reason, he felt a spike of jealousy within his chest with the damn near perfect roll of his lines in their first scene with him wrapped around his hair. There was also a bit of a heat coiling in his stomach seeing Riddle look up at him through half-lidded eyes and a boyish smirk on his lips, damn he looked good even as a bad guy.
This role was ruining his sanity in more ways than one if he was really drinking in Riddle’s appearance in the short spurts of scenes they had been in together.
Please let this end soon-
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A week had passed since his first dress rehearsal and needless to say, Ace was dead to the world, Yuu being the benevolent soul he was, would drag his hollow corpse in and out of lectures without even asking. Deuce even showed some mercy by asking Trey to bake a cherry pie and send a slice his way to try and pep the ginger, with some success as Ace inhaled it not even a second after the plate was put in front of him.
Worst of all was Riddle, who would haunt his mind in his free time. He would think back on the time they were acting together and Riddle would only squeeze his hand subtly when he thought Ace began to feel overwhelmed with Vil’s sharp words. He still offered his help in improving his acting skills and continued to close his mouth when he would think how easily Riddle could flip between the princess’s role to the haughty bandit. He didn’t want to admit how attractive it was to him.
“So you can add a bit more force in this line here ‘-I get it, I’m just someone who doesn’t know the outside world, but I can also be more than that if you let me tag along!’” Riddle said, with a hardened expression, but determination laced in his voice.
It really was impressive how he could say that so smoothly. He nodded in his direction while scribbling a note on his script, not noticing how Riddle looked in his direction with brows furrowed in contemplation. As he finished his adjustments, Ace looked up to see Riddle glancing back to their script, with a hand nearing his chin, and a hum to fill the silence. It felt odd to find comfort in Riddle’s company, since he was usually causing problems to the redhead’s life; which also made him remember something that had been bugging him since the beginning.
“Hey Riddle, so why did you even bother to be in this thing, I know you’ve got tons on your plate as-is, but you don’t owe Vil or anything right?” Ace mumbled as he flipped through the pages nonchalantly, or as best as he could make it look like that. His fingers lingered on the scene where they confess their secrets on the rowboat. How fitting.
His eyes directed themselves to see his upperclassman with rosier cheeks and a quick side glance. An awkward cough slipped out from his lips, “Well, it was something of a selfish wish of mine.”
Hm?
“Wait what do you mean selfish? You wanted to work with Vil then? That doesn’t make sense since I know you guys usually talk in your dumb- I mean important housewarden meetings.” Ace noticed the twitch in Riddle’s shoulders as he corrected himself, feeling himself sigh as he saw the other relax after his mistake.
“I know you don’t really watch movies either, so starring in one wouldn’t be your big reason either.” Ace pinched his brows and crossed his arms over his chest as he continued to list more and more specific reasons for Riddle, all while being shut down immediately. He also noticed Riddle across the table getting redder as he was interrogated, feeling slightly bad as he saw a bead of sweat roll down from his fringe to the script in his hands. The crisp pages now became crumpled as he gripped their corners looking as if he wanted a hole to swallow him whole right this moment.
“-Ah is it because you wanted to see me all dolled up like you were!” Ace snapped his fingers and pointed them in Riddle’s direction in a eureka moment. He saw Riddle’s eyes widen a fraction as his face now bloomed into a rich red and he couldn’t even respond back to the younger’s words. Ace could only feel his own cheeks flare with heat as Riddle did the most cowardly thing Ace had seen him do in months: slam his own script down on the table and run away from the lounge to who knows where, leaving Ace to really sear that expression in his memory.
Footsteps entered the room, but he didn’t even acknowledge them as he grabbed a pillow from the sofa to scream into it.
“Hey Ace I just saw the housewarden running in the hallway, do you know anything about-” Deuce mumbled out before being cut off by the ginger’s yell. Frowning in confusion, he walked out to leave Ace alone.
Shit, he really did play me like a goddamn fiddle. No wonder he was chosen to be the bandit to his Rapunzel-