Disclaimer: I don't own Elsword

PRIDE

In Chung's house, there's a lot of Eve.

For two reasons. One is that the Seikers rarely ever truly clean the house. Everything undesirable and dirty gets shoved out of sight, until the bugs start coming, then they all armor up in rubber gloves, face masks, and a flyswatter and a can of lysol each. (You can tell when it happens when Chung walks around smelling like disinfectant for days.) And even when they finally do clean, sometimes they'll still find one of Eve's socks under a pillow, and there's always her almond milk in the fridge. The other reason is that Eve doesn't like her own house. At all, since there's hardly anyone there except for herself, and she borderline despises the one other person who sometimes lives there too, her father. So she comes over quite a lot.

At least a third of Chung's closet is occupied by Eve's clothes instead of his own. A hideous black and pink toothbrush in the bathroom that also belongs to her, since Chung knows he and his family have better taste than that. Somewhere in the garage is a tiny pair of silver boots, left behind by an elementary school Eve. A hair stuck to the couch is just as likely to be Eve's as it is Chung's.

"Why don't you just move in?" Chung's mother had asked her once.

Eve refused, of course, but Chung could tell she didn't want to.

It was just a matter of officializing it by this point. Her sleeping bag was used so often that they once even debated the pros and cons of bringing over a mattress.

Today, or rather tonight, it's just them alone. If he mentioned this to any of their friends, there'd be a whole chorus of "OOH" s and suggestive looks. Chung knows what they're thinking, because honestly, everyone they meet thinks the same thing.

To clarify, he and Eve aren't dating, aren't married, and they're definitely not friends with benefits. They don't fuck, or screw, or copulate, or whatever other synonyms there are, and as far as he knows, the last time any of that happened in his house was sixteen years ago, when his parents decided to make a lovely child named Prince Seiker. (If there have been any other times, he doesn't care to find out.)

"Where's auntie?" Eve asks, lining up her shoes and padding into the kitchen.

"Grocery shopping. I think she's buying celery." None of the Seikers like the vegetable. In the words of his father, "a bundle of fibers stuck together with all natural glue", and Chung has to agree. Celery is Eve's favorite.

"Really?"

Chung enters the kitchen, grabbing a bag of chips, as Eve finishes her first glass of almond milk. Again, only Eve likes the stuff.

"I love you auntie."

Without context, it almost looks like she's speaking to the glass cup in her hands.

"Say that when she comes back, she'll be really happy. It's been awhile since you've visited after all." Around a month or so. Two weeks when Eve's dad dragged her to a business meeting, and two weeks of being too busy to come over were the reasons for her absence. Thank god plant based milks lasted long. They bought the carton Eve was holding five weeks ago, and it doesn't expire until next year, which only adds to Chung's wholly justified suspicion of it.

Chung squishes Eve's cheeks together, like his mom always does. "Awww, Evie, you've grown so much! How've you been?" He coos. The script is disturbingly accurate, but the tone is just straight up disturbing.

More almond milk sloshes neatly out of the carton and into her cup. "I've been well auntie. I'm taller than Chung now, right? Definitely manlier."

He winces, slowly retracting his hands. That was a low blow, and he tells her as such. (She references a dark past of Chung's, back in middle school when Chung's mom made him grow out his hair so that she could play with it ("A real life barbie doll!"). It doesn't help that Chung was born pretty; clear skin, delicate lips, and big, blue eyes. Since he started working out with his dad and cut his hair, people stopped mistaking him for a girl, but sometimes when Eve is really pissed at him, she calls him a muscle barbie (among other things) because she knows how much he hates it.)

Eve shrugs. "You deserved it. Besides, all's fair in love and war."

"We're not even at war!"

"Love then, O' Romeo," she deadpans, and he sighs, watching silently in horrified awe as she downs another glass of seed juice and makes a beeline for the shower.

There isn't much he can say to argue with that, because he's not insane, and he doesn't talk to empty rooms. Most of the time.

The greasy bottom of the chip bag reaches his fingertips, reminding Chung guiltily that he was supposed to save the last package for his dad.

It's unhealthy and he was sacrificing himself to protect the health of beloved father, he reasons, tossing away the trash and going to open the door for his mom when he hears the lock clicking.

"Where's Evie?" She asks before Chung can even take the groceries from her.

"Shower," he replies, a bit miffed that she hadn't even glanced at him It seems that everyone in his family cares more about Eve than him, though he can't really complain, considering how he's included in that "everyone" too.

The sound is a bit muffled, but the sound of Eve monotonously chanting history facts in the shower reaches them clearly, making his mom smile fondly as she cuts the celery and tosses it in a pot of stew.

Later, when Eve comes into the kitchen, the food is ready on the table, and Chung's mother rushes over and squeezes Eve's face between her hands.

"Awwwww, Evie! You've gotten so tall! How are you? Good, I hope?"

"I've been good. It's nice to see you again, auntie. Thank you for buying celery," she says, and the older woman laughs happily and wraps her into a hug so tight Chung thinks that it'd be a miracle if Eve could leave at all.

Eve pats her on the back, awkwardly as usual, because even after all these years, she's never quite gotten the hang of having a surrogate mom. "I love you."

Eve glances at Chung, smiling slightly, and he smiles back, feeling a bit more smug (but also more soft) than he should.

Eve isn't exactly what you'd call a social butterfly. Those are probably one of the last words you'd use to describe her, right alongside 'approachable'. She has a face like a statue; something you admire and appreciate for its artistic value, but not something you talk to.

As a result, to put it bluntly, Eve has almost no friends except for Chung and a few other people from the drama club.

And she's fine with it. She likes it better this way. Eve never understood how other people could manage so many relationships with others; it all seemed so troublesome and unnecessary. A few friends is more than enough for her. Or more accurately, Chung is more than enough for her.

It never quite occurs to her than she might not be enough for Chung, until he joins another club and can't sit with her at lunch one day.

So she sits there, in their usual spot under a tree, eating a sandwich dripping mayo with no one else around her except for a couple about ten feet away, gnawing each others' faces off.

It makes sense, though, now that she thinks about it. Chung is a warm person, of course he has friends aside from her. When they walk through school, at least ten people greet him. He has numbers to call when he forgets his homework or needs help on a test. Groups he can sit with at lunch. But since middle school, every day without fail Eve was the one who he always stayed with.

She doesn't like it.

Between the fact that Chung gave away his social life so that she wouldn't be lonely, and the fact that she never realized, she isn't sure which one bothers her more. They're equally irritating. Selfless Chung and selfish Eve. An unbalanced friendship that can't sail on like this for any longer.

Something more solid than the spring leaves casts a shadow over her.

"Can I sit here?"

An anxious Chung is not a Chung you'll often see. It's not in his nature to worry unnecessarily, and when he does, you won't see it; he's not an actor for nothing.

The scene is set like this: Velder Academy. Next to the fields. Building D. Classroom D116. Soccer club interest meeting. Second row from the left, five seats back. Prince Seiker. Chung.

Through the window, Chung can see that it's a beautiful day. A few puffy white clouds against a backdrop of azure blue, with a mild breeze ruffling the trees lightly. The team captain is saying something about tryouts and signed forms and club donations, but Chung is too worried to focus much, if at all.

Chung is aware of Eve's pitiful amount of friends, and he knows she wants to keep that way, but he also knows that she's in denial and that she feels loneliness worse than anyone else. In sixth grade, the thing she said she hated most was being lonely, and Chung can see that five years later, it's still true.

He can picture it clearly.

Eve eating her questionable sandwich, staring at her book and pretending to be occupied and not sad while trying not to listen to that obnoxious couple making disturbing noises.

The itch in his hands intensifies, so Chung sits on them to shove down the urge to chew his nails. He broke out of that habit years ago, but it never dies completely.

He's guilty that Eve is alone. Chung would like to say that he wouldn't be here if it weren't for his dad, but that isn't true, so he doesn't. He doesn't want to lie to Eve.

His dad is right; it's not Chung's responsibility to coddle Eve and try to make sure that everything in her life goes well. He's not her guardian. And Eve isn't his either.

He always liked to play soccer, but never joined the school team because sports teams always had too many meetings. This is his dad's and his own effort to help Chung and Eve branch out and become less dependent on each other, though he feels so uneasy now he isn't sure he'll even go to tryouts.

"And that's it! Make sure to come on time on the fifth," the team captain says, signaling the end of the meeting.

Chung picks up his stuff and sprints out to find Eve.

Contrary to what he had expected, she's not alone.

If he had to separate out how he felt currently, about twenty five percent of his emotions would be slight bitterness. Understandable, seeing two people replace you in less than thirty minutes is unnerving and a worthy cause of bitterness. But since it's Eve, the feeling is only slight. Like coffee bitter. Another twenty five percent is happiness. Eve made new friends, a once in a blue moon event, and Chung is glad for that. She's smiling too. The last fifty is forty five percent relief and five percent shame for feeling relieved. ("I can join soccer now," is what he thinks, and he's a terrible friend for that.)

About an hour before school ends, the wind evolves from magikarp to gyarados, which is to say, it's blowing all the umbrellas and moods the wrong way, and if Chung attached webbing to Eve's arms and legs flying squirrel style, she'd probably be able to fly straight into the sky. Even while being swept to the North Pole on a tornado, Eve could still injure him grievously, so he doesn't even dare to bring up the idea as they walk home.

The air isn't right for it either.

Eve is brooding on something, and when she gets like that, Chung knows from experience that all he can do is to wait for the egg to hatch.

Rain clouds swept in by the wind are ominous-looking enough that they don't even stop by Ms. Rena's, too in a rush to get home. There's nothing for drama today, as the performance was last Saturday, and the club won't meet up again until after winter break and the new semester starts. Members will need to reregister. Chung isn't too sure he wants to.

The clouds rumble overhead. He watched these clouds roll in through the dirty window panes of his english classroom. They seem to explode out of nowhere, eating up the sky and surface bursting and bursting with more puffs of cumulonimbus.

"Princess Seiker," Eve starts, and all Chung can think is oh shit I'm too young to die.

"You've made me very angry today."

Chung starts composing his own obituary. "Sorry, Eve, I'll sit with you tomorrow. I'm not joining soccer clu-"

"NO," she says, and it's the closest Eve's ever been to yelling that he's seen. She jabs a finger in his face. "Join your stupid club."

"But-"

"Join. It."

"Yes? Ok? But why…?" Chung backs away from her finger warily. He knows firsthand how sharp Eve's nails can be, so he sighs quietly in relief when she sheathes them and crosses her arms crossly.

"You like soccer. I've seen your pictures."

"I mean, yeah? I like soccer? But it'll take up a lot of my time."

Eve glares. "So?"

"Uh. I won't be able to spend as much time with you?"

"And so?" Her anger and voice soften to the level where Chung knows she'd rather slap him than kick him. "I have other friends."

Even if it wasn't meant to sting, it still stung.

"You have other friends too," Eve says abruptly. Just as abruptly, when Chung opens his mouth to reply, a literal flood drops down from the sky, and he stands there dumbly for second before covering his backpack and textbooks with his body and frantically searching for his nonexistent umbrella because the weather report said there was only a twenty percent chance of rain so why the hell would he bring it? He should've known better than to trust them.

"Here," Eve offers him one of her ponchos, already in the process of unfolding her own. Chung hesitates. He knows those ponchos. They made them together, after all, back in seventh grade, as a symbol of their friendship. "We'll stick around forever, like plastic", was the reasoning. The reappearance of the ponchos makes Chung feel touched that Eve had bothered keeping them around, but also disgusted, since in all honesty, they looked and look like trash. A logical conclusion, given how they were made from huge black trash bags stolen from their middle school.

The water soaking his backpack and most probably his papers too, remind him that he doesn't exactly have a choice.

"Hey." A pat against his now trash bag covered side.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks." A punch. "But I can take it from here."

Chung laughs and punches Eve back in the shoulder. "Then it wouldn't be fair."

The two layers of plastic muffle her words somewhat, but they reach just fine.

"...It's already unfair."

"The past is in the past. Let it go. We'll start over."

"Stop it with the quotes. That happened in middle school."

"And so did these trash bags."

"These are plastic."

"Everything about us is plastic. Durable, right? Here we stand and here we stay."

She walks faster, annoyed.

They must be a sight; two bulky black plastic rectangles speed-walking in the rain.

(It'd be even more of a sight if the stalker was here, but he isn't. Not for the past week at least.)

"Best friend Chung," Eve says, pausing at the traffic light that separates her path from his. "We'll be fine."

"Best friend Eve," he replies, mimicking her solemn tone, though his expression is the opposite. Not that anyone could see it through his trashy poncho. "We're good."

Elsword dates and breaks up in the same way; kindly.

At least that's what he thinks, but most consider it as two faced, and at best, on a whim. He dates well, and then breaks up out of the blue like an asshole.

A common misconception is that Elsword is an Asshole. Not even a player, or an asshole. An Asshole with a capital A.

But he really isn't.

He helps his friends, helps out random strangers, is nice to everyone, is living, breathing proof that chivalry and selflessness are not yet dead, and he always thinks for a long time on the best way, meaning the nicest way, to break up with someone.

He never wants to break anyone's heart, he just wants to end the relationship. That's it. But Elsword somehow trails broken hearts left and right. It just happens, and he doesn't want to, but hearts are fragile, and as Aisha always says, he's like a barbed arrow. He tears people up when he tries to leave.

(He can't help it. It would be even worse to stay; his heart already has a home, but his ego just won't fit.)

Asshole isn't a word to describe him, something that Elsword is always adamant about, but whenever he says that, Aisha, his teacher, and even his sister point at his contacts list. He never had the heart to erase any of them. From Madeline to Vanessa, Alex to Elizabeth, their names were all there, but he hasn't talked to them once since he broke up with them.

And now another person whose heart he'd probably break and never contact again: Ara.

Elsword stares down at his clasped hands, beneath them a crisply folded, white cloth napkin. Hopefully he wouldn't have to use it. "Look, I'm sorr-"

Freezing cold water splashes onto him, flattening his unruly red hair. A few ice cubes bounce from his head to his shoulders, and clatter to a stop by his toes.

The girl in front of him, beautiful nearly to a fault, has her face twisted up in fury and sadness.

"You'll get wrinkles like that. Smile- or at least calm down, for me, please?"

Elsword wonders if her mascara is waterproof. He would never find out, since he knows that she'd rather die than cry in front of him.

Ara huffs out a shaky breath slowly as a cracked sneer sneaks onto her face. "Smile? For you? Shut. up. You-I-I'm so fucking done." Long black hair slides out of an elaborate braided updo and she throws the empty water cup into the table. It ricochets off somewhere, nearly missing Elsword's face. He can see her bite back an instinctive apology from the way her eyes flash, and it makes him smile faintly.

The bell rings fiercely as she storms out, her neat dress snapping angrily around her legs.

Elsword sighs deeply, picking up his napkin and wiping away the water on his face. Looks like he had to use it after all. He never even got to apologize properly.

"Waiter?" He calls politely. "Can I have the bill? Ah. And I'll pay for the damages, too."

"...Nothing's been broken. I'll bring the bill in just a moment," a nearby uniform-clad employee says.

He nods, sinking into his seat. Around him, the cafe bustles back to life smoothly, like they hadn't just gotten their fill of entertaining afternoon drama.

The rain drums against the window steadily, and Elsword closes his eyes, imagining a different girl sitting opposite him, smiling in the way that only she could.

But he wasn't going to be the one to drag her to the table. She could do that herself.

Right now, he and Aisha had a table reserved for two, had had it for a while already, and he would not be the one to sit down first. It was the same Aisha's side. Not a chance in hell.

The waiter returns, and Elsword straightens up again to pay.

END CHAPTER TWO

A/N: I said the other characters wouldn't really appear, but hey, I guess I lied. yup. Which is why the title and summary changed.
I also edited the first chapter...a lot. I think I deleted at least half of it. Good bye Adeline and Jacob. We'll never see you again.

Classes: Elsword is Knight Emperor. Ara is Asura.

I'm working on cyclamen, but it's going pretty slow. Lots of plotholes to avoid.

Next up is Ara? Maybe Elesis? Maybe another Chung/Eve one. Or Rena. Most likely Ara and Elesis?

Thanks for reading!