Valentine's Day was a great day this year. All of those girls buying chocolate made for a very profitable season for anyone in the chocolate making industry. This year, there was a new entry in that so-called candy race, and it was the Chemistry Department of Slayers HS.
The unprecedented success of their love potion (as demonstrated on a girl who even now still firmly believes she is their great-grandson/nephew's girlfriend) was the last ingredient they needed for their best-selling valentine chocolates. After all, what girl wouldn't want to buy a chocolate with a love potion in it? For that matter, they were getting brisk business from guys too.
Then there was the other side of business, the antidote to the love potion. [After all, what idiot would make some kind of mind-altering potion without a counter to it? Don't answer that.] Yes, there was great call for those antidotes too. When everyone can buy a love potion, naturally, all of your rivals are going to want the counter so then they can have a chance. It all made for a very messy business, though profitable one, which love always was.
Take for example, the aforementioned successful testing of a love potion. Naturally, the family was quite ecstatic that their favorite great-grandson, grandson, nephew, son, brother was finally going to get some except...well, besides the fact that he wasn't getting some (that boy is a Puritan I tell you), it was also frankly, quite boring.
Enter stage left a frustrated young man by the name of Valgaav who wanted to break the enchantment that Lina was under. [Hmmm, apparently the Witness Protection Censoring is broken. Oh well.] Jumping on this chance to introduce some fun drama back into this high school, the Ditzy Duo got to work on an antidote. They were given full support by at least half of the faculty (the half that was family that is) since the only real reason they were all working here was to watch unfolding high school dramas.
So now by this lovely Valentine's Day, not only was the Chemistry Department rolling in dough (a yeast experiment gone horrible wrong), they were also rolling in lots of money. And there was one Valgaav with a big smug smile on his face and a special box of chocolates in his hand.
Everyone, well everyone but two people, tuned into the Graywords channel to watch for the return of the semi-love triangle.
"Zelgadiss-sama, please accept my chocolate!!" screamed about oh twenty or so girls who almost jumped the chimera at the school gate. More were running in from other directions, apparently having realized that they were waiting at the wrong gate to catch him.
Zelgadiss, fully aware that his relatives in the chemistry department have become quite a bit richer over the past few days, was no fool. It wasn't like he even accepted these chocolates normally (cold-hearted person isn't he?) and he saw no reason to make an exception when this year's chocolates were laced with Love Potion Version 6.0001.
But he didn't need to lift a finger. "Diem -- "
Zelgadiss leaped out of the way.
"Wind!"
The eager throng of chocolate givers was blown away, not by a divine wind of course but by one of good timing at the very least. Now if he could only get away before --
"Z-E-L!"
He allowed himself a resigned sigh as he began his downward descent, followed by his savior(?) of red hair, red eyes, fiery temper, and...a gift-wrapped somewhat malformed chocolate heart. By now, you would have thought that he had accepted the inevitable. This had been going on for several months now with absolutely NO signs of ending.
Purposely ignoring the offered chocolate (you bastard!), Zel looked Lina in the eyes. Which turned out to be a bad idea because the cheerful sincerity in there was making him feel horrendously guilty. Well, okay, maybe a little guilty about this whole deception.
"What is it, Lina?"
"It's Valentine's Day, Zel."
To Zelgadiss, that could have been equivalent to saying that there was a sun up in the sky. Not a romantic bone in that boy's body. His father was such a charmer too.
"So?"
"I um...There is...well..." Lina knew she was blushing, a lot, and even though they had been going out for several months now (usually involving her dragging Zel somewhere), she still wasn't too comfortable with this romantic stuff. This whole holiday was really embarrassing and Lina would have preferred to give Zel his chocolate in private. But after seeing all of those...those...hussies try to give love potion laced chocolates to HER man, well!
Zelgadiss saved Lina the trouble of giving him her chocolate. "Well, would you look at the time. I need to talk with um, a teacher, any teacher, in the teachers' office. Catch you in class." He ran off amidst cries of 'Cold-hearted bastard' from Lina's fan club (she's gained quite a following).
Somewhere else, Valgaav was resisting the urge to tie lighted candles to the side of his head and start stabbing a voodoo doll of Zelgadiss. He was supposed to be a juvenile delinquent, not an occult otaku. That role was still open.
Really, it was kind of like Halloween in a way, all of the candy collecting. You know how it is, some people seemed to have hit the Mother Lode with chocolate coming out of their sleeves while others sulked and looked jealously at others.
Zel was one such target of jealousy, as the morning's incident showed quite well. It was of course, not the ONLY incident as throughout the day he was continually assaulted(?) by girls trying to get him to eat their chocolate. They even invaded the boy's locker room.
Detention was going to be quite full for the next week or so.
The only thing noisier than that, was Valgaav and Lina. The former had been trying to get the latter to eat one of his chocolates all day. Her fan club for some reason were not getting involved, by choice it seemed. Zel wasn't as lucky.
"I'm Zel's girlfriend! There's no way I'm eating one of your chocolates!" Lina retorted, sticking out her tongue at Valgaav.
She ducked as he tried to throw a chocolate into her mouth. It instead bounced off of Zel's head and was promptly re-caught by its thrower. Waste not, want not.
"You're using those tainted chocolates that the other girls have been trying to feed Zel all morning!"
"Hell no. I'm trying to break the spell he's got on you!" retorted the aqua-haired youth, leaping over Zel to tackle Lina. "I've told you a hundred and more times already, everything you're feeling is because of a love potion!"
"Liar!" Lina kneed Valgaav in the groin and then kicked him over her head. "Baka!" she yelled as she ran out of the class. "There's no way I'd listen to what you say!"
"She's only going to hate you so why do you bother?" Zel asked in a bored tone, now that the class had quiet down a bit with Valgaav curled up in a ball on the floor. "You sound like a jealous guy whose trying to break up her relationship so you can have her for yourself."
"Oh shut up, Mr. Hypocrite." It would have sounded more impressive if Valgaav growled instead of somewhat whimpered. Lina hits hard, gender notwithstanding. "You're the one taking advantage of her."
"I have no idea what you're talking about. I didn't hit her with the love potion and I certainly have not encouraged her in any way as I'm sure you know considering how you've been following us almost constantly when we're together."
Valgaav slammed his hands on the table. "Hey! I was making sure you weren't going to pull anything on an innocent girl!" Neither commented on how ironic of a description that was. "You're the one saying you don't care about her but haven't done one thing to break the enchantment!"
"I'm no chemist," Zel replied testily. "And I know better than to just grab potions willy-nilly from my two dunces of relatives and pour them down her throat, hoping one will undo the effects."
Valgaav pulled out a tetsubo (steel staff) from out of nowhere and whacked Zel on the head.
"What the hell was that for?!?!"
"There IS an antidote to it, you imbecile. What do you think those two quacks have been selling? You have what you need to break the spell but no, you chose to keep her as your enchanted girlfriend because you know there's no way that she or anyone else in their right mind would be your girlfriend."
"I. DO. NOT!" the chimera gritted through his teeth, standing up to look Valgaav eye to eye. Valgaav didn't enjoy remembering that he was about an inch or two shorter than Zel.
"Oh really? Then prove it," Valgaav challenged, shoving his box of chocolates into Zel's chest. "Give her this chocolate and watch her eat it." Valgaav's smirk said all as he turned around and sauntered out of the room.
Zel gave the room one silent look, the kind that says death to any that speak, and left.
The rooftops of the school buildings were off-limits, for insurance reasons and such. That doesn't stop students from sneaking up there and when the son of Principal Graywords comes up, everyone vacates the premises pretty quickly. Which was just fine for him though he had no intention of reporting them.
Valgaav's words had not hit a bit too close to home; they were right on the dot. Yes, Zel had realized that the effects of the love potion were not going to 'just' go away. Yes, he hadn't done anything about, even when he knew that Tweedle Blind and Tweedle Dumb were working on an antidote. They may both have the combined common sense the size of a peanut but when they put their minds to it, they could create something that worked correctly.
And so, Zelgadiss had been purposely avoiding them.
Even though he knew Lina's feelings were completely the result of the potion, it was nice having someone sincerely care about him. (Well, sincerely in as far as it can go when it's magically induced.) He liked the attention, he liked having her around.
No, he didn't take advantage of her. There's still some sense of honor lurking in the dusty recesses of his head. Guilt was still there too, about letting this go on like this and pretending everything was okay.
He looked at the box of chocolates next to him.
If he didn't take up Valgaav's dare, things would stay the way they were. He had no doubts about Lina's ability to avoid Valgaav's attempts to feed her. But eventually the antidote would get slipped into her food (not too difficult of a task when you think about it), and poof goes the little bubble of daydreams.
Zel was a realist enough to know that with the antidote available, it was only a matter of time before Lina would be broken out of her enchantment. It was unknown whether or not she would remember everything that happened. If she did, he'd likely end up in the Intensive Care Unit for the next year. If she didn't...it would be like these last several months never happened.
He wasn't sure which was worse.
"Zel! Here you are!" Lina clambered up onto the roof where Zel was lying. "I was looking all over for you but I didn't think I'd find you up here cutting class!"
"...I was thinking."
"You think too much," she chided. "You need to do less thinking and more doing! Like me!"
"..."
"Anyway, I um...wanted to give you this..." Lina intently studied the ground between them, holding out her hand-made chocolate. She knew it didn't look anything like the store-bought ones or even very good for a hand-made one. But she had spent all night trying to get it right and this one was the best.
"...thank you."
Lina's face was aflame as the chocolate was removed from her hand. Kyaaaaaaaaaaa! He actually took it!!
"I..." Zel swallowed and closed his eyes. "I'm afraid I only have this to give to you." He held out a golden-wrapped piece of chocolate.
Lina shook her head so hard he was afraid it was going to fall off. "No! No, that's great!" She grabbed the chocolate before he could think to retract it. "It's from you and that's all that matters!"
He had to swallow hard, real hard to keep down the lump growing there. He couldn't look at her beaming face, couldn't stand being next to her for another moment. Zel jumped off of the roof of the exit staircase. "I've got to get something," he said lamely. "I'll be back soon."
Zel closed the door of the roof stairwell behind him, with no intention of coming back.
Elsewhere, enrapt viewers of the Graywords channel were sobbing buckets of tears over all of the melodrama. Well, all except two, of which one was suffering from way too much tender loving care.