Disclaimer: I don't own Elsword.

Summary for other minor pairings here:
Elsword and Aisha are both too proud to confess first. Reven are the happy(?) newlyweds. Ara loves her friends' drama but doesn't believe in love after her brother's failed relationship, while Add is just smart enough to stay away from it all. The only problem with Lu and Ciel dating is that Ciel always looks like a pedophile. Elesis ends her relationship for her brother and tries not to get distracted by his teacher, Ain, who tries his best to do just that. Meanwhile, Rose chases after an idol.

SONG: Riptide by Vance Joy

RIPTIDE

"O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet." Eve recites her lines clearly and with just the right amount of emotion. She tries not to yawn.

"Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?" Chung, as Romeo, has his back to their teacher, so he has the freedom to keep his face slack and sleepy.

Eve delivers her response as Juliet without even thinking, silently listing all the reasons why Romeo and Juliet make no sense and love definitely doesn't happen in less than five minutes. And what was so good about Juliet? Nothing. She was only a pretty face with no character, not to mention underage.

Chung and Eve continue their back and forth, completely and utterly bored.

Almost there….

"If they do see thee, they will murder thee," Eve finishes, immediately breaking character and getting off of the fake balcony by the shaky stairs. Through the thin plywood, Chung is saying his last lines.

"Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet, And I am proof against their enmity!" He yells, with much more enthusiasm than wanted, but it's nearly eight, and Mr. Valetty should forgive him for it.

"Clean up, and good work today!" Mr. Valetty calls, frowning a warning at Chung. "Don't do that at the actual performance."

Chung sighs, "Yes, Mr. V." He sighs again, draping himself over Eve's shoulders. "I'm hungryyy. Buy me food?"

"...Buy your own food." School had ended four hours ago, and they were all tired.

"Hey you two! Nice work out there," Krissy says, bumping Eve in the hip. She is a cheerful person seemingly always full of energy, and the drama club president. When they'd first joined, Krissy, short for Chrysanthemum ("It's my mom's favorite type of tea."), always gave the two pointers, and now they were the leads for the school play.

"You two have improved so much! I could really feel the tension-"

"Sexual tension, you mean?" Someone shouts, voice muffled by the tree they carry.

"Shut the fuck up, Ronnie boy!" Chung yells back good-naturedly.

"Oof. So forceful~!" Baron pokes his head out from around the tree. "Be careful, I don't think Eve will date you anymore if you keep it up."

Eve and Chung both ignore him as he walks into a wall and gets yelled at by Krissy for denting the tree, far too used to others imagining a romantic relationship between them.

They were best friends, nothing more and nothing less.

Eve shrugs Chung off of her roughly, heading for the girls' changing room. "Let's get changed."

"Then food?" Chung yawns after her, already in the wings opposite her.

Eve knows that he doesn't need her confirmation to know she's already agreed. It's what they always do, after all.

Ms. Rena is leaning against the front counter when they enter. "Back again?"

"Yes." Eve replies. "Can we have the usual?"

" 'Course." She gives them a funny look. "Take a seat and I'll be there in a sec."

Eve pats the top of Chung's head. "Did you hear that, o' loyal steed? Take me to a seat."

"Yes, your majesty, Queen Eve," he replies tiredly, trudging over to their usual stools in front of the window facing the streets. He'd carried Eve piggyback all the way here, and is still carrying her, because she claimed that she was too tired to walk. (Chung complained the entire way, but Eve knew that he would've offered anyways. He spoils her like that.)

This is Ms. Rena's cafe, Daybreaker. In May, she married a man named Raven, and they moved here, his hometown. From what Eve had heard from her, Raven teaches at a nearby university while she runs the cafe. It's only been open for a few months, but it's already immensely popular and a favorite spot for many, including her and Chung.

And why wouldn't it be? The food is delicious and the atmosphere is comfortable. ("And because Ms. Rena is pretty," Chung says around a mouthful of pasta. "...What? It's true!" Eve silences him with a kick to the shin. "You're disgusting.") The pair stumbled upon the place sometime in August on one of their walks and immediately fell in love with it, because of the tasty ice cream ("And because of Ms. Rena," Chung says. Seeing Eve's threatening glare, he hurriedly adds, "Because she always gives us extras!"), their current usual.

Today as well, along with their two flavors of ice-cream, Ms. Rena brings food they haven't paid for; an cup of hot chocolate for each of them.

"You kids just get worse and worse. It's snowing out, how can you eat more snow?"

"The cold never bothered me anyway!" Chung quotes, mimicking a door slam. "Right?" His eyes twinkle at Eve.

Eve narrows her eyes in distaste while nodding a quiet thank you to the pretty store owner. "Just eat your food, Princess Elsa."

Ms. Rena huffs disapprovingly, hands on her hips. "Don't blame me if you two catch a cold. Oh! Welcome!" She says cheerily to an entering customer. "What can I get you today?"

It's another regular of the cafe. He's overly skinny, and his hair is a whitish purple. Unusual, but it fits him in a way.

Chung drags Eve and her stool closer, motioning for her to give him an ear.

"He's always here to watch you."

Eve raises an eyebrow. "Maybe you're the one he's looking at."

His mouth flattens into a line. "Don't play dumb. Just be more careful."

They return to eating ice-cream.

Chung always gets chocolate, and Eve always gets strawberry.

"Let me try some of yours." Eve reaches for his cup. By now, they both know that it isn't just "some", and that the only time he'll get it back is when it's empty, but it's fine, because Chung eats all her strawberry. It's strange, but it's their routine.

They leave after wishing Ms. Rena a good night, with cold mouths and fingers, but they both clutch a still-warm hot chocolate. The snow looks like ashes in the inky blackness of a winter night, but more like spring leaves when in the path of Daybreaker's neon green sign and logo.

In the bright pool of a streetlight a few hundred feet away from the story, Eve glances back, noticing that the white-haired stranger has followed them out. Chung is tense; he's noticed too.

Eve sneezes, startling the blonde out of his trance, and realizes that she left her gloves back at school. "Chung," she says, holding out a hand.

His lips quirk, and he shifts his hot chocolate to his other side to take her outstretched palm. Eve pulls their entwined fingers, one set frosty, and the other radiating warmth through wool gloves, into her pocket.

"E-eve," Chung stammers.

"What?" She asks, adjusting his scarf clumsily so that it'll cover his neck better. "Are my hands cold?"

"No, it's just that you're too short." His back and knees are slightly bent so that he can fit his hand in her pocket.

"...Maybe it's your arms that are too short." Eve considers making him crouch the entire way as punishment for insulting her height, but Chung rolls his eyes and relocates their hands to the fleece-lined of his coat instead, and since it's warmer, she lets it be.

Following them is the stranger.

This is the first time he's followed them out of the store.

Usually, Eve can feel his persistent purple-pink eyes track her every movement all the way up to the point where she steps out of the door. Then the glass muffles it. And then the walls smother it. But today, nothing dampens his gaze but the falling snow. It doesn't bother her enough for her to take action though.

Eve is by nature not a chatty person. She isn't one to not talk either. She says what she wants to say when she needs to, and Chung is the same. But between them, a few words can mean a thousand or nothing at all, a touch worth the world or just a meaningless comfort. (They don't talk, they convey. They don't listen, they feel.)

So that's how they walk, in complete silence to all but each other, shoulders brushing and sides colliding again and again.

At the crossroads where Eve turns right and Chung goes left, they stop.

Her best friend looks behind them once more with narrowed eyes, smiles at her, says, "Come over?"

Then she nods and it's all routine.

CHAPTER 1 END

A/N: Seriously why am I starting another story. I just have so many ideas and I write them down and I get super excited and then I publish it. Sad, abandoned other stories. :(
But yes, my priority has shifted once again to this story instead. It's a pretty big story, and idk when I'll finish it. Probably never. But I'll try.

I know it's a bit weird how Eve is an actor here, since she's an emotionless nasod and all, but since she's a highly advanced robot, shouldn't she be capable of changing her face however she'd like? So that's kind of what I'm going for here: she can recreate facial expressions and emotions incredibly well, but when it comes to actually understanding/feeling/interpreting them, she's not so good at that. She's human here though.

Classes: Chung: Centurion, Eve: Code:Nemesis, Rena: Daybreaker, Add: Lunatic Psyker
Note: Maturity/age doesn't depend on job #. I just picked for appearance.

"Platonicality" isn't a word, as far as I know. I take it to mean "the quality of being platonic" or "the platonicness of something"

Thanks for reading!