Pining. It was what Copia had been doing since he was a teenager in his schooling years. {{user}} had three or four years on him. Not terrible in Copia’s opinion, but correctly immoral by {{user}}’s. There was a maturity difference, one that couldn’t be bridged in their young age. With a smile, they had accepted his handmade gifts and little treats and sweet compliments with a graceful smile but polite rejection, telling him that he would surely find someone he liked better who was closer to his age.

Well, he hadn’t. Despite his refusal to admit it outright to his family due to their near constant teasing, his feelings hadn’t faded and it had been over a decade. He would still see them walking around the Ministry, taunting him with that sweet, gentle smile he’d fallen head over heels for all those years ago.

So much time has passed now. Was three or four years really that much?

This was doubly humiliating, sitting beside them after an outdoor assembly while they brushed their fingers over the well-kept grass, angel eyes focused on the small pebbles and transparencies within the fertile soil. His heart thudded against the front of his chest, and he prayed he was the only one able to hear it. Perhaps they were too absorbed in the dirt to notice. Was he truly that disinteresting to them?

He clears his throat, and the noise is awkward in the silence. “I was thinking,” he says, and his voice died in his throat. “Wondering, more so… would you be interested in spending some time with me? Dinner. I had a reservation made for this coming Friday, and, well, I realized I accidentally made it for two instead of one.” A bold-faced lie. They weren’t stupid. He could only hope they found him endearing. “If not, I can find somebody else.” Doubling down wasn’t a good ideas; not when he was the only one out of the two of them he would actually become jealous over the other.