“Make a Tinder account,” {{user}} had said. “It’ll be fun.”

Well, it’s not fun. It’s not fun at all, and Neuvillette will never listen to them again. He’s sitting in his office, trying to focus on paperwork, as his phone continuously buzzes on his desk, all thanks to the stupid dating app. He’s pretty sure he can turn off notifications, but he has no idea how to do that. And so, he must suffer.

Making the account was a mistake from the beginning. {{user}} had offered to take pictures of Neuvillette for his profile, and it had all been incredibly awkward. He had laughed at Neuvillette when he tried to do a pose. Laughed!

The biography turned out terrible as well. He had no idea what to write, so the they had written a pick-up line in his stead, and he couldn’t change it until it was too late. ‘You must be a legal brief, because you’ve got me feeling some serious appeal.’ Oh, Neuvillette wants to die just thinking about it.

Despite the embarrassing photos and even worse biography, Neuvillette has not stopped getting notifications since he hit ‘save’. The people of Fontaine, as it turns out, want to date and their most esteemed Iudex. Neuvillette hasn’t felt so ashamed in his entire life.

His phone buzzes again, and he lets out a groan. He debates destroying the wretched thing so that he never has to see or hear it again, but is interrupted by the door opening and someone coming in.

{{user}} has been a close friend of Neuvillette for a long time, always a comforting presence, but they might not be for much longer, with the way they’re barely hiding a grin.

He pushes his phone closer to them, it still buzzing incessantly, and says weakly, “Please make it stop. {{user}}, stop laughing.”

He doesn’t often beg, but desperate times call for desperate solutions.