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While Wednesday despised most of the technological advances of the 21st century, especially those concerned with any form of pervasive and, quite frankly also perverse, breach of privacy, she reluctantly found herself growing quite fond of one of her cellular device's rather useful properties:
The ability to listen to music wherever and whenever she wanted to without having to bring along an enormous and plausibly inconvenient device, like her beloved gramophone, to do so.
One day, over the course of their forced early vacation from the Academy – and after an ungodly amount of importunate advertisements, which appeared whenever she so much as opened one of those deplorable apps she had downloaded to her phone, had informed her of the existence of one interesting little accessory with the ability to enhance her music experience to 'new heights' or something equally as misleadingly hyperbolic – she had found herself giving in to her lingering curiosity and had wandered into one of those way too brightly lit electronics stores to look for the advertised additional accessories to her cellular device called earphones.
She had quickly found the displayed array of the sought devices and quickly grew annoyed at the sheer amount of earphones to choose from that clearly indicated that she should have done more extensive research on the topic beforehand.
Knowing the misleading strategies of capitalism, her gut feeling told her that the most expensive device didn't necessarily equal the best performance, so to her utter dismay and regret she had actually found herself asking an inconspicuous store clerk for help about choosing the best performing device from the offered selection.
After she had to curtly shut him down in his meager attempts at mansplaining the ins and outs of the workings of such devices to her multiple times, because she had simply not been in the mood to entertain his futile attempts at getting her interested in him by showcasing his extensive knowledge on the matter, he had finally relented and shut up and just presented her with the earphones of his choice without as much as another word.
It had been a rather pleasant outcome and his despicable mansplaining did at least tell Wednesday that he knew what he was talking about to some extent, and the way she hadn't immediately snapped at him at an intensity that she had used to display rather often in the past also made her feel quite confident that he was not trying to screw her over with his selected option either.
The earphones did come at a rather high price, so she hoped that, in this case, it actually spoke for the superior quality of the device for once.
Later that day, she had made the absolutely horrific realization that the purchase of such earphones appeared to be quite the life changing experience.
The earphones fit very snugly into her ears and appeared to drown out the rest of the world very effectively. Wednesday felt like she had been put into some kind of vacuum or pocket dimension where she wasn't exposed to anything but her own genial thoughts and faint heartbeat pulsing through her veins.
Even without selecting music to play through them she immediately realized their potential for increasing her concentration during highly intellectual tasks – such as her writing.
While usually she preferred to write with some gentle and haunting tunes playing in the background to get her into the mood and zone, she found herself content with the way that an almost impenetrable silence seemed to engulf her.
It was only when she appeared to hit a lull in her writing that she tried to use the earphones for their intended purpose: playing music.
Following Enid's advice after Wednesday had gone through the strenuous task of asking her for her preferred choice of music apps, she selected one of them that she had been recommended and that had promised the best experience for her endeavor, and was pleasantly surprised when what she had assumed to be a rather niche interest in music yielded immediate results on the app.
Selecting one of her favorite pieces by Vivaldi, Wednesday let herself be consumed by the all-pervading sound that started to fill her ears. The last time she had used headphones had been a number of years ago, and even she had to admit that the technological advances in sound quality proved to be immensely impressive.
The imposing quality and volume of the song directly playing into her ear was an all-consuming experience. It even brought the ghost of a disgusting little smile to her face as she found new motivation for advancing the plot of her story hitting her almost momentarily.
Back at Nevermore, her phone and earphones proved to come in handy quite often, much to her absolute indignation.
She was found using her phone more often than she had ever expected herself to, the small companion device that seemed to be dictating every beat and rhythm of the lives of her peers around her – turning them into mindless attention and meaningless affirmation seeking zombies chasing after big amounts of arbitrary clicks and likes that were supposedly telling them who they were and what their worth was in society – turning out be just as much of a trusted companion to her, albeit for very strikingly different reasons.
Yes, social media was still a soul sucking void of worthless distractions and a breeding ground for humanity's absolutely lowest forms of entertainment and morally degenerate discourse. Her opinion had not changed in that regard at all, so Wednesday still steered absolutely clear of any sort of engagement with her cellular device in that way, except for the occasional text exchange with Enid and Xavier.
What she had come to admire and utilize quite often was the muffling and dampening qualities of her earphones, especially when she was forced to surround herself with a horde of hormone driven buffoons that liked to yell at each other at a frequency not quite unlike that of chimpanzees.
During social gatherings, motivational speeches, public service announcements or most commonly during recess, Wednesday was rarely seen without her earphones plugged into her ears anymore.
And, finally, for Wednesday, it looked like she had found something akin to achieving complete peace of mind.
Even Enid and her had developed a curious and unique little routine around Wednesday's preference for spending her time with her earphones plugged into her ears:
Enid would use those times to babble to her about absolutely anything and everything and their dog under the sun, and Wednesday would enjoy her company and her babbling because, in actuality, she wasn't hearing anything Enid was saying at all.
She did like having Enid close to her, that seemed to be an open secret at that point. She didn't like being roped into gossiping however, so this proved to be a very efficient and mutually acceptable way for them to spend time together, each of them doing something they loved and still being able to be in close proximity to each other without ticking the other off.
Enid wasn't incessantly gnawing her ear off about mundane teenage intrigues any longer (or at least Wednesday didn't have to hear about them anymore), and Wednesday didn't feel herself forced to make hurtful comments about Enid's peculiar obsession with their classmates' private lives.
It was mostly during their lunch breaks that the two of them sat together in this constellation, Enid talking about whatever her heart desired, and Wednesday either listening to music with her eyes closed in a very meditative kind of way, relishing the feeling of Enid's arm and leg brushing against her as she animatedly talked about the things she found interesting, or Wednesday straight up glaring at Enid as she spoke as if she were hanging on her every word although she virtually wasn't able to hear her.
Wednesday loved watching Enid talk, but not necessarily having to listen to her all the time. When Enid talked about something that she loved or found passion in, Wednesday found herself drawn to her like the tides to the moon. It was the way her eyes lit up like sunlight shining on an icy blue glacier on a clear winter's day, how she so expressively emoted her feelings in a way Wednesday would never be able to, the way her knee excitedly jerked against hers, or the way she would so tenderly smile at Wednesday when they neared the end of their lunch break and she told her that she had enjoyed their hangout today and ironically thanked her for listening to her.
At first, Wednesday had thought that Enid was being sarcastic and that she was rather offended to find out that Wednesday hadn't actually listened to her at all for a number of days during their first time back after the break.
But instead, Enid had told her that she understood Wednesday's way of decompressing from exhausting social interactions and that she had been aware that she wasn't able to hear her, but that it didn't deter her from having those one sided conversations – or rather monologues – with her. And thus, it had become their little routine.
Wednesday was the first one at their bench overlooking the lake today and started playing a new cello song she was intending on mastering on her phone while she waited for Enid to join her.
When Enid did eventually join, she looked rather frazzled and annoyed, which made Wednesday narrow her eyes at her inquisitively.
Enid only shook her head and waved her off as if to say that it was nothing important and she should just continue listening to her music.
Wednesday, with the slightest desire to scheme an intrigue because she was actually interested in what Enid had to say, stopped the music on her phone but left her earphones plugged in so as to not raise suspicion that she was going to be listening.
Enid didn't start talking immediately, so Wednesday closed her eyes and just enjoyed the gentle breeze blowing past them and carrying Enid's sweet cologne right into her nose. It soothed her.
It appeared that Wednesday closing her eyes had broken the dam that had been holding Enid's willingness to converse back. A very heated rant about some unfair grade she had received on a group project broke out of her, and she voiced all the stress and anxiety she'd had to endure during the week of preparation for the project where most of the work had fallen on her shoulders, naturally, and no one in her group had seemed willing to take any kind of responsibility or charge for ensuring them a good joint grade.
Wednesday had noted Enid's absence in their room the last week or so, but Wednesday herself had been preoccupied with a similar group project in one of her classes. Thankfully (she can't believe she is saying this, to be honest, but listening to Enid it seemed like the more fitting term in this situation), she had been paired with Bianca for her project, so their preparations had been swift and efficient and their grade had mirrored their remarkable work.
Wednesday also felt the littlest bit guilty (how utterly wretched of a feeling that was) when she found out about the stress Enid had had to go through and which she hadn't been able to discern or had been too preoccupied with her own life to notice.
Against popular belief (which Wednesday at least assumed was the case), Wednesday did care about Enid and had grown continuously more interested in her life and well-being and had even on more than one occasion expressed her desire to help Enid distract herself when she wasn't feeling well.
Apparently she had failed to even pick up on Enid's deteriorating well-being over the last week and a bit in the first place and had therefore not been able to offer her any consolation.
And no, Wednesday was not particularly happy to discover her shortcomings in her position as Enid's best friend.
While her eyes remained closed as Enid was pouring her heart out, Wednesday almost opened her mouth to let Enid know that she had been listening and wanted to express her regret (for the sake of the dead and gone, when had she started getting a taste for that deplorable emotion?) about not picking up on her distress and not having been able to provide her with due distractions.
It is what she would have done, if Enid's next words hadn't knocked the absolute last remaining life force out of her.
"God, it was such an awful week, and honestly… Since I know you can't hear me, thank God, I'm just gonna come out and say it, because I know I will feel better after getting this off my chest. Or so Yoko told me, although she totally meant that I should talk to you in person and when you were actually listening to me, but baby steps, okay? Okay… three… two…one…I just really wished you could have been there and taken me into your arms. I really miss hugging you. Did you know that you, like, give the best hugs ever? Ever since our first hug after defeating Tyler and Crackstone…ugh, Wednesday, your hug was pretty fucking amazing, and now I feel like I'm addicted to them or something? Like honestly, I feel so blessed whenever I get to hug you, you tiny little gremlin. You just fit so perfectly into my arms, you know? I can bury my nose into your neck and just smell you, and you smell really fucking amazing. There's like, notes of cedarwood and ink, the metallic smell of your typewriter, and something that is just uniquely you, and goddammit, I wish I could make a perfume out of your scent and carry it on me at all times… Gosh, just look at you."
Oh okay, now she felt her sixth sense pick up on Enid's eyes on her. Wednesday was way too curious and also mortified to open her eyes right now. She didn't want to interrupt what was very clearly some kind of heartfelt confession that was not meant for her ears…yet.
So, Wednesday remained unmoving and forced every muscle in her body to still.
"Man, you're totes beautiful, Wednesday. Like, drop dead gorgeous, actually. I wonder if Tyler ever told you that…"
Wednesday tried really hard not to cringe. No, Tyler had never told her that, at least not in terms that expressed such a deep adoration for her.
"Your eyelashes are so long, it's totally unfair. And your nose is really cute, although you'd probably threaten to end my life if you actually heard me say this, haha. Good thing you're listening to your music and not me. I wonder what you're listening to. Maybe one day I'm gonna work up the courage to ask you if I can listen to your music with you… I think that would be kind of romantic."
There was a beat of silence in which Wednesday considered what to do from here. Clearly, she now had a better and more profound understanding of Enid's desires for her continued support. Enid required more hugs from her for her own well-being. Perhaps Wednesday could do that for her. She was not as opposed to the act of hugging Enid as she was to being crammed in between her classmates at their lunch table. The latter was definitely the more uncomfortable experience of the two.
In fact, she found herself weirdly agreeing with what Enid had said. She also liked the way her body fit so effortlessly and naturally into Enid's arms. It was definitely not something that had gone unnoticed by her, as every other hug in her life had been rather… sickening, disgusting, too uncomfortable and awkward.
Yes, perhaps they could hug more often. Now Wednesday just had to decide how to bring this tentative topic up without being found out about eavesdropping on Enid. She would have to find a solution later, acutely aware that it was now in her hands to express the desire to increase the amount of their shared hugs.
The beat of silence was eventually filled by a deep sigh. It was most likely time to head back inside, Wednesday concluded.
She would wait for Enid to gently rub her arm to let her know that they had to go back to class, as always. Then she could finally open her eyes and put herself through the ordeal of having to pretend that she never heard any of the heartfelt things Enid had just said to her.
Strangely, that never happened. Instead of telling Wednesday that they had to head back, Enid took a deep breath. For some reason, the breath felt very important, so Wednesday almost unconsciously braced herself. For what, she didn't know yet.
"I really, really wish I could kiss you right now."
Wednesday's eyes snapped open before she could stop herself, and her head immediately turned to look at Enid.
Enid, who appeared to have been staring at her lips, Wednesday assumed by where her line of sight was currently landing. Enid, whose eyes suddenly rounded in shock when she noticed that Wednesday was now staring at her – as if she had heard what she had said.
Enid, whose face turned an impressive shade of red that looked quite appealing on her.
"What?" Wednesday asked rather dumbly, but even she had to admit that she was a bit taken aback. Her heart was pounding loudly in her ears, the sound of her pulse intensified by her earphones, which forced her to take them out.
This confession had taken her by complete surprise. She didn't know Enid harbored such feelings for her.
Feelings, as horrifying and terrible as it sounded, that had begun to plague Wednesday's own mind more often than not, and feelings she thought she had been alone with. Which resulted in her never acting on them, completely content with the platonic nature of their relationship as long as Wednesday just got to spend time with Enid.
"Uuuuuhhh… I… really… miss yuletide?" Enid tried with a crooked smile on her lips.
"Enid," Wednesday said, keeping her voice soft yet stern. She was not going to let this slide, not when this opportunity to finally deal with her own growing (horrifying) feelings presented itself to her.
Enid buried her face in her hands. "How much did you hear?? I thought you were listening to music, Wednesday! You looked like you were falling asleep! OMG, I wanna die."
"Do not speak of wanting to end your life in front of me, Enid," Wednesday reprimanded her, suddenly feeling very hot with… with anger?
"I'm sorry!" Enid whined, "I'm just… incredibly embarrassed right now? Uh… maybe we should just…forget I ever said any of that? Please?" She pleaded but Wednesday was having none of that.
"Enid," she said again, leveling her roommate a look. Enid yelped and gulped, still blushing furiously, but it looked like she was going to listen to her.
"Enid, while I must admit that I feel… a regrettable sense of shame having eavesdropped on you, and there is really no other way of putting this because I heard all of what you said –" Enid whined and groaned again and buried her face even deeper into her hands, " –my sincerest apologies, I should have let you known that I was listening to you – But there is simply no way for you to take back your words or for me to unhear what you have said."
"I'm such an idiooooot…" Enid's dreadful lamentation continued and the anger in Wednesday's stomach grew hotter.
"Stop saying that. Enid, you may be clumsy and overeager and way too excitable at times, but what you are absolutely not is an idiot."
"But I just ruined our friendship!" The werewolf suddenly yelled.
Wednesday was utterly perplexed.
"Why would you think so?" she asked. The logical reasoning behind Enid's accusation completely eluded her.
"What do you mean?" Enid asked, her voice small and laced with something Wednesday couldn't discern.
"I would prefer it if you dignified my question with an answer before you asked me another question," Wednesday said, not understanding the relation of Enid's question to what she had asked.
Enid lifted her face and squinted her eyes at her, tears crowding the corners, obviously confused just the same.
"Well, I mean… I just said that I want to–wanted to kiss you. You were not supposed to hear that because obviously you don't feel the same way," Enid explained but it only helped Wednesday understand one part of the problem.
Indeed, it appeared she had never addressed her growing feelings for her roommate. Partially because it had taken her a while to figure out that she was in fact not experiencing severe allergic reactions towards Enid ever since their reunion, but signs of affection. It had taken extensive research, and a lot of snide comments from Bianca– who, now that Wednesday thought about it, appeared to have been making fun of her for her lack of understanding of such elusive emotions –to figure out what was suddenly wrong with her whenever Enid got close to her.
Perhaps, she had been the fool in all this all along.
They had admittedly grown closer. But Enid was a very openly affectionate person that treated everyone with the same kind of physical affection, did she not? Or had that been another wrong assumption on her part?
Racking her brain over Enid's behavior the last couple of weeks – there had indeed been an increased amount of lingering touches, stares and even hugs.
Wednesday tried to remember if Enid had displayed similar behavior towards their friend group, but came up with no hints of any unusual changes in the way Enid had been treating them.
"Uhm, earth to Wednesday? Are you still there?"
With one careful, calculated blink, Wednesday grounded herself.
"Enid," she started once more, convinced that she had solved this puzzle, "It appears that there has been a misunderstanding. While I don't see why our friendship would change if I didn't reciprocate your feelings, I am reassuring you that you ruined nothing, and want to tell you that you're wrong in your assumption about my feelings for you."
"W-what? Wrong how?" Enid asked, and now Wednesday thought she had figured out the feeling her voice had been tinted with earlier.
Hope.
Wednesday slackened her face, feeling the crease that had shown up between her eyebrows as she had been parsing out this mystery disappear.
Then, she softened her face a little more, and leaned closer.
Enid looked a little alarmed, eyes darting from her lips, to her eyes, to her lips again, question marks written all over her features.
A smirk tugged at Wednesday's lip, and she let it show.
"I want to kiss you too, Enid," she said, their noses brushing now.
Enid gasped and they both closed their eyes as they leaned forward and let their lips meet.
A bolt of electricity shot through Wednesday's entire being and made her head spin. That was definitely unlike anything that had happened with any kiss she'd shared before, and it drove her mad with desire.
Desire to devour Enid's strawberry chapstick lips, desire to bury her hands in Enid's hair and draw her closer, a desire that never wanted to let Enid go again.
So this is what her family was talking about…
Enid seemed hesitant at first, not sure whether this was actually happening or not or if she had hit her head during fencing and was actually passed out and daydreaming on the floor of the gym.
Wednesday leaned back a little bit so she could speak again. "I have wanted to kiss you for a while, Enid Sinclair. Now, don't hold back, or I will fall apart."
"Wednesday," Enid gasped her name like a prayer.
And then Enid finally kissed her with a welcome ferocity that Wednesday had only ever daydreamed about.
It felt like everything was finally falling into place as their lips feverishly moved against each other.
They wasted no time with tender and shy pecks.
Their mouths ravished each other, tongues darting out and eagerly exploring what they could reach, and Enid's hand suddenly grabbed her collar, drawing her even closer so that their teeth – sharpened canine against impeccable incisor – clashed together, drawing a delightful moan from the back of Enid's throat that sent shivers down Wednesday's spine.
Eventually, Enid had to pull away when her lungs were seizing up with the lack of air. Something that Wednesday didn't seem to have any such problems with.
"Holy shit, Wednesday," Enid panted, her eyes darkened with lust and desire. "Where did you learn how to kiss like that?"
Wednesday scoffed, her version of a laugh. "I didn't learn how to kiss in such a way, it is simply by my very nature that I know how to please my…" She caught herself for a moment.
Enid's eyes looked hopeful for whatever her next words were going to be.
"My potential paramour." She finished. Enid's smile was blinding.
"Don't worry, it wasn't Tyler who taught me."
And then the smile dropped. "You literally heard everything, did you?!"
Wednesday scoffed again and rolled her eyes. "That is precisely what I said. It started with your complaints about an unfair grade, which, by the way, I should really schedule a visit with Ms Swindler for."
"You're not going to threaten her into giving me a better grade, are you?" Enid asked, concerned for Ms Swindler.
"That's for me to know and you to find out," Wednesday smirked.
"Wednesday!"
"Enid," Wednesday challenged her and then she stood up from the bench. "It appears we're going to be late for class."
Enid frowned and then looked around. Everyone was gone. No one had even bothered to tell them that lunch was over. Which, to be fair, no one in their right mind would approach a couple heatedly making out by choice, would they?
"I will see you after class, Enid," Wednesday said and began walking back to school.
"Wait!" Enid called out to her. "Kiss goodbye? Please?"
Wednesday stalled for just a moment. "If I kiss you now, I won't be able to sto–mpf."
But Enid had already crossed the distance and now her mouth was back on hers and her tongue back inside her mouth and their teeth were clinking against each other.
As she closed her eyes, Wednesday was positive that they would not make it to their next period.
And they didn't.