Chapter Text
When Arcana walks in on his usually stoic, serious, and calculated partner stuffing her face with sweets, his first instinct is to burst out laughing. His second instinct is to duck down to avoid an arrow piercing his hat.
After saving his precious top hat and composing himself, Arcana allows him to take a second glimpse at Mona. He realizes that the only thing saving him from her screeching is the fact that her cheeks are inflated like a chipmunk’s with how many gummy bears she had stuffed in them. Her flushed face and tiny hands struggling to cover her mouth only add to the resemblance. How adorable! He thinks to himself.
Once again, he bursts out laughing, but this time, he is close enough to grab her hand before she fires an arrow at him. She scrunches her nose and furrows her brows in defiance as she chews, and Arcana can’t help but take out his phone to try to capture the precious moment on photo. Unfortunately for him, she had finally finished chewing her gummy bears in the time it took for him to grab his phone, so he finds his ears under assault as soon as she sees it.
“H-hey! No!” She yells, grabbing for his phone as he holds it out of her reach.
“Mmm, yes!” He responds gleefully, taking a barrage of random photos as the two grapple.
Mona stomps on his foot, and down he goes, taking her down with him. And, one of her precious lollipops that was sitting in her pocket. The moment seems to happen in slow motion from Arcana’s perspective. Mona’s scuffed up platform boot coming down on his big toe, causing him to lose balance. His arm reaching around her to grab onto the desk, only to find it just out of his reach, and grabbing on to her instead. A singular jasmine green tea lollipop falling out of her pocket, and falling onto the floor. And the grand finale! Him landing flat on his ass with Mona tumbling down on top of him.
The wind gets knocked out of him so hard that he doesn’t even register the fact that Mona is laying on top of him, groaning, until a shout brings him back to reality.
“Damnit!” She curses, cradling a small object in her hands.
Arcana rubs his head and sits up slowly, trying to get a glimpse of whatever she was holding without throwing her from his lap. “Hm?” He questions, giving up on trying to find a good angle to see.
“My last lollipop! Your fat ass crushed it!” She cries out, holding the lollipop to her chest in sorrow.
If Arcana woke up that moment and discovered that it had all been a dream, he wouldn’t have questioned it, because this was quite possibly the strangest behavior he’d ever seen from the silver haired girl. “First off, my ass is not fat, just shaped well! And secondly, what?” He asks, clearly confused by her sentiment towards a literal piece of food. A sweet, at that, something he had never even previously seen her eat.
“It was a limited edition flavor! I woke up at 4am to line up outside of the candy store on Bertran’s street to buy a box, and this was my last one!”
He scratches his head, and looks around her room, where he spots a box labeled with the store’s name, the lollipop flavor, and in giant, bold letters, the words “Limited edition, buy it while you can!” And, below it, the release date, which was only two days previous.
“You ate these all in two days!” He shouts, shocked by her speedy consumption.
Mona flushes and looks away while crossing her arms and mumbling something.
“Hm?” He prompts.
Finally, she turns to look at him and glares daggers. “I said, I have a bit of a sweet tooth!” She grits out, teeth clenched.
“No shit, sherlock! I’ve never even seen you eat candy before either, who would’ve thunk!”
At that, she turns even redder and grabs him by the shirt. “And no one will think! You open your trap and you’re a dead man!” Realizing that she is, in fact, still on top of him, she scrambles to get up and grabs a knife off her desk to point at him.
“Jesus Christ! I get it, I get it, the ice queen can’t let it get out that she has a soul. My lips are sealed! Promise!.” He yelps, holding his hands up to make a dramatic lock and key gesture by his lips to try to get her to put the knife down.
After some consideration on her part, she stabs the knife into the top of her desk and glares at him before sitting down on her bed and sulking.
“What?” He questions, feeling both immensely guilty and uncomfortable by the usually emotionless girl’s pouting.
Mona is silent for a moment before answering, “...was my favorite flavor.” She says quietly while staring at the floor.
He sighs, curses himself, and then stands up to leave. Time to play hero, God help me and Hermes guide me. “Where’d you get those from again?”
“Penny and Dime. Why?” She questions, not even bothering to look up at him.
“Don’t worry ‘bout it, I’ll be back in an hour or so, make sure to have your ringer on.” And with that, he rushes out the door.