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‘You know how I want that one watch I spoke to you about?’ Floch nonchalantly asks Eren one afternoon, absentmindedly playing with the pencil in his hand.
‘Yeah,’ Eren uninterestedly says. He’s got his head resting on the table on which they’re working at a school project for together, but both of them have grown tired and decided to take a short rest.
Floch doesn’t know where else he might get Eren to open up about his romantic relationship than in the private sphere of his studio, so he takes his chance now that the brunet has busied himself with doing nothing but enjoying the silence.
‘Right. Well apparently some popular tabloid is holding a free give-away of that watch, so I might wanna join.’
‘Cool,’ the brunet responds weakly, not really feeling involved in the conversation.
‘Yeah, but there’s a catch,’ Floch says, repeating what Yelena had taught him to say, ‘the watch is only awarded to the people whose filled out questionnaire had the most appeal.’
‘Sucks,’ Eren mutters boredly before closing his eyes, wanting to enjoy the silence. Though his compassion butts in and he doesn’t want to dishearten the redhead with his curt, uninterested replies, so he quickly asks: ‘What kind of questionnaire?’
The devious eyes of the other male light up in an instant. Unbelievable, Floch thinks, my plan is working. Well, our plan.
Alright, fine… Yelena’s plan.
*
It was on a Friday afternoon that Yelena had joined Floch on a table outside a café, purely by chance.
‘What brings you here?’ the redhead defensively asked, wondering what the tall woman was doing here in front of him, blocking the sunlight and casting her shadow on him.
‘Am I not allowed to go out on a sunny day?’ she responded innocently, then grabbed a chair, ready to push it back. Floch nodded, and the blonde saw it as him allowing her to sit and talk to him.
‘Did Eren tell you anything interesting about him and Zeke?’ she asked once she was seated, and to her disappointment she got a shaking head from the male in return.
‘Nah’, he replied in a low tone. ‘You know how they’re secretive about their relationship? I wish he told me more…’
‘I’m in the same position as you’ Yelena thoughtfully agreed, though she had Zeke on her mind as she said so.
She had admired her blond friend for his wit and strength, his perspective on the world and his ability to fit the world right in his hands.
A powerful man, she thought as the corners of her lips naturally tugged upwards every time she had the blond on her mind.
In the blink of an eye her admiration for the man had taken over her thoughts, but she was brought back to reality when Floch kicked her leg beneath the table.
‘You there?’ he asked, slightly creeped out by the smile she just gave him. What a weird woman…
‘I’m not just here,’ the smart lady responded, her bright smile turning devious, ‘I have just the right plan to make our private lovebirds sing to their heart’s content.’
‘What?’
Yelena rolled her eyes at the redhead’s blunt tone, then steepled her hands together over the table as if she was about to share the secret of the state. Looking Floch intently in his eyes, she stated: ‘I have a questionnaire asking personal questions about their relationship. You make Eren fill it in and I will do the same to Zeke. And then, we will meet each other again and compare their answers!’
With the way Yelena was sitting with those steepled hands and her devious grin, Floch had thought the crazy woman had actually come up with an infallible masterplan, but this… this plan had more plot holes than Twilight.
‘And what makes you think Eren will fill out such a questionnaire as nosy and intrusive as the one you’ve made?’
‘We’ll make sure that the stakes are high,’ Yelena continued, pretending to be unbothered by Floch’s condescending tone. ‘Eren will do something if it makes his friends happy. Zeke will do something when he sees it beneficial to his interests. We need to consider those factors when trying to appeal to them about our surveys.’
Floch leaned forward in his chair, slowly comprehending the woman had been more considerate and precise with this plan of hers than he’d judged her for too hastily.
‘So how will we give these questionnaires to them? What’s the situation?’
Yelena smiled, happy she got the young man on board.
‘We know both Eren and Zeke are secretive people, so having them answer the questions while you’re present won’t make Zeke answer anything, nor will having me present make Eren answer anything. This is why you will give the questionnaire to Eren when it’s just the two of you, and I will give it to Zeke when it’s the two of us. The other thing is that filling the questionnaire should be appealing enough for both of them to actually take it seriously. Like I said, that will be the case for Eren when he realises the questionnaire is related to his friends’ happiness in some way.’
She paused a slight moment, remembering Floch was still there. He nodded as a sign for her to continue.
‘As for Zeke,’ the woman said whilst the light of the sun reflected in her fiery eyes, ‘he will take the questions seriously once he finds it serving his interests in some way. I will take care of that.’
‘Right,’ Floch responded plainly, ‘but I’m not one of Eren’s best friends. What could I say to him to make fill out the questions?’
Yelena gave him a puzzled look.
‘You’re not a close friend to him? But you know about his relationship with Zeke?’
‘Not even Eren’s close friends know about it,’ Floch told the woman quasi-proudly. ‘I’m an exception.’
*
And that is how the redhead is here, having Eren in his studio since he’d chosen him as his project partner, with his made up free-watch-giveaway-nonsense. He’s told Eren on multiple occasions how badly he wants that watch, so now it must’ve gotten through to the brunet that filling out this questionnaire is a gravely important thing for Floch. With Eren taking the bait and asking him what kind of a questionnaire it is, Floch is one step closer to having the boy spill the truth on his romance with Zeke.
‘It’s really silly’, the redhead immediately begins acting out, rolling his eyes theatrically, ‘but it’s asking all these questions about your relationship with your loved one. Whoever gives the best answers is picked, I guess.’
Eren’s interest is peaked, Floch hopes as he sees the boy opposite him open his eyes again and sit up straight now. But the look the young brunet is giving him is cold and bored.
‘That’s stupid’, he bluntly tells him as he moves a delicate hand to grasp at some papers on the table, then collects them into one neat heap. ‘Just make up your answers if you want to give it a try. Your best chance is to write the most corniest shit.’
Floch resolutely shakes his head, not wanting to give the boy any alternatives. The only choice has to be Eren!
‘But I will just sound unconvincing if I do that, I’m not the one in a relationship.’
‘You’re implying I should fill it in?’
‘Please? I really want to win’, Floch awkwardly begs, hoping this will convince Eren.
If this doesn’t do it, he thinks, I’ll have to resort to giving my best puppy eyes.
The emerald green eyes before him narrow in hesitation. Eren is thinking it through. He’ll fill this in for him.
‘How about you make up your answers and I will try to make them better?’ Eren provides another alternative, to which Floch shakes his head as well.
‘Then you would have to completely rewrite my answers,’ he tells him, pouting a little. ‘C’mon, Eren, just write about you and Zeke? It’ll be under my name, no one will figure it out.’
Eren sighs as he leans back in his chair, then shrugs and reaches out a hand to him with his palm up.
‘Alright, let me have a look.’
Yes, thank goodness.
Floch readily whips the package of papers out from his bag and hands it to Eren, handling the papers swiftly and immediately as if he’s scared Eren’s about to change his mind in a second.
Feeling a little overwhelmed, Eren takes the thin pile of papers and skims through them. He’d thought the questions would’ve taken up two sides of one paper at most, but this is one long survey…
It makes sense, Eren reasons. That watch is really pricey, after all, so of course they wouldn’t just give it away with a half-baked questionnaire. This is the real deal.
His eyes fall on some questions and a blush of embarrassment rises up to his cheeks. I wouldn’t want Floch to know all of this…
‘Why are some of these questions so rude and intrusive?’ Eren asks indignantly as he looks back at Floch, his brows furrowing.
‘They are?’ the redhead surprisedly asks, as if he hadn’t written all those questions himself, together with Yelena during one long evening…
*
‘What is up with these questions!’ Floch aggravatedly exclaimed as he furiously waved the paper with Yelena’s example questions in front of her face. ‘Eren would never answer any of these!’
‘Maybe not,’ Yelena responded plaintively, but then brought her hand to her chest and smiled carelessly as she said: ‘I’m just really curious about them, so I put them in. I know some questions may make them flustered, but that’s why no question in the questionnaire is mandatory, see?’
Yelena pointed towards the top of the first page in her copy of the questions, on which it was written in small letters that no question was compulsory.
‘Though tell Eren that the more questions he answers, the higher your chance of winning that watch will be.’
‘OK,’ Floch responded unconvinced, then pointed towards one question on the paper he had just waved in front of her, ‘what makes you think Zeke will answer this?’
Yelena laid her eyes on the question the other was pointing at and started grinning from ear to ear as her eyes read “Q20: Did you ever break the bed and how?”
‘This is one of the best questions,’ she explained Floch matter-of-factly, ‘it helps me to assess Zeke’s strength.’
‘The what now?’ Floch asked in shock, though he wished to know no more.
*
‘“Q20: Did you ever break the bed and how?”’ Eren reads aloud in disbelief, then stares at his friend with big eyes. ‘Why on earth would you want to ask that of someone!’
Dammit, Floch thinks, I knew we should’ve left that one out… Yelena was just too insistent…
‘Well, you don’t have to answer all the questions,’ he honestly tells Eren, ‘you can leave some questions open. But please answer as much as you can, I really want to win.’
‘Yeah, I know…’ Eren responds in a dismissal tone, looking back and forth between others questions. Finally, he gets back to Q20, takes a pencil lying on the table, places the questionnaire on the flat surface and jots down his answer. In a second he tightly holds the pile in his hands again to keep Floch from peeking at whatever he wrote.
That was written fast, Floch thinks as he had his eyes unblinkingly focused on whatever Eren was writing, and yet he still missed it.
They must’ve never broken the bed then.
‘And what about this one!’ the brunet suddenly exclaims, having found another strange question during skimming. ‘“Q15: Please indicate in the scale below how dominant or submissive you are”?’
He then holds the paper out to Floch so he can see the spectrum beneath the question with on the one side written “submissive” and on the other “dominant”.
‘Uh’, Floch sheepishly voices, a smile playing on his lips. This was his question and it even has a follow-up. ‘I think you need to draw a line where you think you are on the dom-sub spectrum.’
‘I know what I need to do,’ Eren impatiently responds like he’s talking to a toddler. ‘What I’m asking is how dare they!’
He sends him an offended look, hoping Floch will share his feelings of indignation and take his side. But the other man only shrugged his shoulders and at best, he sends him a meek smile.
What goes on in Floch’s mind, however, is hardly related to Eren’s face of disapproval at the questions.
Did his eyes look towards the far left, the curious male discusses inwardly. Does that mean he’s a sub or did I not see it well enough?
But to Floch’s despair, Eren puts the paper face-down on the table to grab his phone and waste his time on there instead.
‘Uhm, are you going to answer the questions later?’ he cautiously asks him.
Eren spares him a disinterested glance, then turns back to his phone.
‘Yeah’, he curtly responds without looking up. Floch realises this is his way of showing his decision is final, and so he doesn’t protest and lets Eren be.
But as time goes on, their study project is left forgotten as the brunet is deeply focused on the questions before him again. Once a message from his phone brings Eren out of his thoughts, the brunet tiredly stretches his arms, releases a long, exhausted sigh and picks up his phone to read and reply.
Floch pretends to be disinterested by looking away from time to time, walking away to grab some snacks and going to the toilet.
For all he knows, he is actually both excited to know the beauty of their romance and surprised that Eren is actually answering all those questions! At some point he notices Eren’s phone has really distracted him when his eyes are glued to it for a solid five minutes, but there is no need to worry. Eren will finish it if means Floch can get that watch.
Once Eren’s returned to his task and completes it, he finally hands the pile of answered questions back to Floch, then leans back in his chair as if he’s had a long day at work.
‘You better not read them!’ Eren sternly tells him, frowning.
Floch nods as he takes the papers, happily smiling. ‘Of course!’
I’ll read them later…
As soon as Eren has left, Floch skips to the table where he left the papers and runs with them to his couch, then plops down on it.
‘Finally!’ he exclaims, grinning from ear to ear.
But something unexpected happens. The first response that Floch’s eyes catch sight of already brings him in a state of despair. Eren did not answer the questions seriously, sometimes he did not even care to answer them at all. But this is madness, he thinks as he sees through the incredibly short answers a second time. What about all the time he’d spent thinking on them? What was all of that for!?
Q1: When did you start having feelings for your partner?
Is that any of your business?
Q2: What nicknames do you give your partner?
You’ll never know.
Q3: What is special about your relationship?
Everything.
Q4: What do you think is the main reason your relationship is going so well?
It’s him and I.
Q5: What do your friends thinks of your relationship?
I don’t care.
Q6: What is the thing your partner does that makes you most flustered?
Seriously?
The next question makes the hairs on Floch’s neck rise like a scared cat. He can’t believe Eren wrote this down, as if…
Q7: What do you do when you want to see your partner most flustered?
How is that any of your business, Floch?
…as if Eren knew all along.