Chapter Text
No one ever just visited the Tea Ceremony club room.
The club, and by extension, its room, was infamous in the Krakenburg Education Institution. Just next to the cafeteria, the empty room would be a perfect spot to spend your lunch in solitude... if it weren’t for the strict entry regulations. A pair of rough-looking girls guarded the door during school hours, throwing out anyone and everyone who tried to sneak in. No one ever made it inside without an invite from the incredibly selective leader, Camilla. Invites were incredibly hard to come by, and no one could make a connection between those who received one. There was no one trait that unified the delinquents, the student council president, or the shy, intimidating bear of a guy that were known to have received an envelope.
It was a mystery how anyone was deemed worthy to receive an invitation.
Corrin was no exception, she still had no idea how she managed to attract the purple-haired girl’s attention in the first place. She had no special place in the brain-bending academics that Leo enjoyed, nor did she have a gift for leadership like the student council president, Xander. Perhaps, it was her similarity to Elise and her kindness that drew Camilla’s gaze to her.
Whatever it was, Corrin was endlessly grateful for both the chance to become friends with the older girl and her family, and the spare key to the club room, given to her by Elise as a token of friendship.
“Before I say anything, I need both of you to swear that, no matter what happens, the information I entrust to you will not leave this room,” Corrin ordered, staring both of the blondes down as she locked the door.
“Of course!” Elise promised immediately, even crossing her heart and lifting her left palm into the air. “Not a word outta me!”
“Surely you can’t be that ashamed of your math grade?” Leo asked, eyebrow quirking at Corrin’s caution. The albino flushed, before shaking her head furiously.
“I-It’s not about math! I just need both of your strengths!” Corrin declared, before pointing at the younger girl. “Elise, you’re good at empathizing with people. Understanding them and their motivations and everything. I need that.” She turned to look up at Leo. “While, Leo, you’re good at strategizing and figuring out how to get the best possible outcome. Minimum losses, maximum reward. I need that too. I need both of you for this problem.”
Leo nodded slowly. “Alright. What sort of problem is it?”
“It’s a long story, and a bit complicated…” Corrin sighed, before gesturing at the tables. “I can get you some snacks and make some tea so you aren’t bored by it.”
“Oh, oh, let me help!” Elise hopped around excitedly, already moving towards the spare closet they kept the china and the tablecloths. “I can set the tables!”
“You don’t know the proper method,” Her older brother stated. “You can’t just set it up like a dinner table.”
“Then I’m gonna need your help, Leo! Show me your super smart etiquette training stuff!”
Corrin laughed, before heading to the cafeteria to set up the kettle and grab a few cookies.
Elise nibbled on a biscuit with a huge grin on her face. Corrin had gotten her absolute favourite, chocolate-vanilla swirl cookies! Or whatever the real name was. Elise liked her name for them better.
Leo was drinking tea, looking all poised and regal and fancy-looking. He even stuck his pinky out!
All in all, it would have been perfect tea party material, if it weren’t for the way Corrin stared into the depths of her teacup without touching it, and kept sighing and frowning. Seeing Corrin frown was enough to make Elise stop smiling.
Elise hated seeing her friend sad! So she swallowed her cookie really really fast and poked Corrin’s nose!
“What did you want to talk about, Corrin?” Elise asked sweetly, hoping her good mood would make Corrin happy, just a little bit.
Unfortunately, Corrin’s smile just then wasn’t a real, happy smile. It was the smile people gave her when they didn’t want Elise to know they had just been crying or screaming. That was the smile people gave when they were troubled but didn’t want to show it.
Leo seemed to pick up on it too, with his, “Out with it. I won’t tolerate having my time wasted, not even by you, Corrin.”
Corrin chuckled, before sighing again.
“Alright. It happened a while ago. I was screaming, ‘no, no, please, I’ll do anything, just don’t take me there’ to-”
“You were being threatened?!” Both siblings demanded in unison. Corrin waved her hands about frantically.
“No! I know it sounds like that, but-!”
“Ryoma, please! There’s no way I can go in there! They’ll drug me and stab holes in my teeth!”
“Corrin, if someone punched you in the mouth, they’d end up with a fist full of cuts! You need to let the dentist file down your teeth, before you bite a hole in your tongue!”
“No, no, please, I’ll do anything! Just don’t take me there!”
“You’re afraid of the dentist?” Elise gasped.
Corrin turned away, red with shame, a hand pressed over her mouth.
“You would be too, if they used a grinding wheel on your teeth…” Corrin mumbled.
“I have a feeling there’s more to the story than that, though,” Leo noted.
Corrin chuckled nervously, the hand over her mouth moving to rub the back of her neck.
“Well, uh, you know how you guys thought I was being threatened? Haha… Camilla thought so too. She also… had a very… unique way of dealing with it.”
“What did she do?!” Elise asked with wide eyes and a wider mouth.
“She, er…. She… might have started running towards us from at least six buildings away-jumped-on-top-of-a-fire-hydrant-to-flip-off-it-then-land-in-front-of-us-and-” Corrin paused to breathe, “Ahahaha… um, she… might have… kind of jumped at him and er…”
“And er?” Leo prompted.
“She kicked him in the sacred orbs!” Corrin blurted out, before covering her face with her hands out of shame.
“HOW DARE YOU TOUCH HER! I’LL DESTROY YOU WHERE YOU STAND!”
“She absolutely pummeled him,” Corrin stated, noticing how Leo and Elise’s chests swelled with pride. “She beat my older brother into unconsciousness.”
“Older… brother?” Elise echoed, eyes widening.
“Oh. That must be…” Leo searched for a word, wincing when he found none suitable for the occasion.
Corrin groaned. “It kind of got worse. See, my little sister was coming home from first-aid training! So she was there with a first-aid kit!”
“SAKURA WE NEED YOU PLEASE HELP!”
“That’s good!” Elise exclaimed.
“And Camilla helped,” Corrin added with a dark expression.
“And?” Leo sipped at his tea.
“Ryoma woke up, and they all talked.” Corrin sucked in a breath and slowly let it out, massaging her temples with one hand.
“I must know, how did you get that strong? You could down a grown man with one strike!”
Camilla chuckled before uttering a soft, “I suppose that’s what happens when there’s a threat to the ones I love, though I must apologize again for attacking you, sir.”
“It’s understandable, I’m aware of how the situation could have seemed to an outsider,” Ryoma said as Camilla tied up his broken arm. “Though, I’d prefer it if I wasn’t called a sir. I am only seventeen.”
Before Camilla could react to that (shocking) piece of information, Sakura piped up.
“W-wow… you’re really good at making slings… we just learned this in class, but you’re a-as good as our teachers…!” Sakura gasped, watching Camilla work.
“Oh, so you’re learning how to perform first-aid?” Camilla ruffled Sakura’s hair, making a blush appear on the younger girl’s face. Sakura nodded shyly. “That’s wonderful. My little sister is doing the same thing. Maybe in the future, I’ll go to the two of you for any scrapes or bruises I get.”
“I-I-I, okay!” Sakura stammered more than usual, completely enthralled by Camilla’s voice, words, and… pretty much everything.
“You are.. A kind woman, and noble too, judging from how you immediately jumped in to defend a friend,” Ryoma admitted, his cheeks… a little red? “It’s admirable.”
Corrin was pretty sure she sounded like a dying animal in that moment, but her siblings were paying too much attention to Camilla to notice.
“They both interrogated me after. Who was she, her name, her hobbies and interests and school and if she was dating anyone,” Corrin stated solemnly. “Sakura spent the next three hours researching what it would take to open a clinic and blushing whenever anyone asked why. Ryoma told Takumi and Hinoka that he got his injuries from a heroine of beauty and justice. They thought he was loopy on pain medication.”
“They’re both in love with her?!” Elise demanded. Leo, on the other hand, was at a complete loss for words.
“And I don’t know what to do!” Corrin wailed, despair in her eyes. “You know what the worst thing is, though?”
Leo’s expression would best be described as a mix between ‘it can get WORSE?’ and ‘well at least I’m not directly involved.’
“They go to Shirasagi High.”
The half-eaten cookie dropped to the table.
“Our biggest, meanest, jerkiest, super determined rivals?!”
“The ones who vandalized our school sign to call us scum.” Leo’s eyes narrowed with disdain.
“That… that was my little brother,” Corrin admitted sheepishly. “They… they take this rivalry thing very seriously.”
“They can’t take it more seriously than Xander, right?” Elise wondered. Xander had actually stood up and taken a break (practically unheard of!) from his duties as student council president, all to encourage the girls’ volleyball team to beat Shirasagi’s in their match.
“Hinoka is the captain of the girls’ volleyball team.”
“Hold on. Is Ryoma, by any chance, the captain of Shirasagi’s kendo team?” Leo inquired, familiarity hitting him.
Corrin gulped and nodded.
“And Takumi, Takumi…” Elise paused to think, before brightening when she realized it. “That’s the archery guy, isn’t he?! The one who sometimes goes up against Leo in chess!”
Corrin nodded again.
“And Sakura…?” Leo couldn’t quite remember any achievements linked to that name, unlike the others.
Nervous chuckles emerged from Corrin’s lips. “Elise, you remember that girl you declared to be your rival after her mochi beat your cupcakes in the baking competition?”
The light left Elise’s eyes as she felt a snarl come on her lips. Corrin didn’t notice as she went on.
“Well, the ace of the school and his little sister are in love with Camilla, and none of them know that they consider each other rivals. They’re also determined to dig up any information they can on her, for which they use me, their innocent sister who doesn’t deserve any of this. Any ideas?”
Elise and Leo exchanged a glance, managing to construct a plan in a split-second, communicating in a way only long-time siblings could.
“Their little crushes on Camilla are harmless,” Leo declared. “After all, they go to different schools. They would only meet if you introduced them formally, or if they met at another competition.”
Corrin brightened at the words, a hesitant smile on her face.
“Yeah, all you really gotta do is wait it out!” Elise exclaimed excitedly. “Give them honest answers, maybe leave out that she’s from Krakenburg, but tell them what you can about her!”
“So, nothing needs to be done?”
“It’s not as if you can stop them from admiring her,” Leo said wisely. “Simply humor them until they forget she existed.”
Corrin mulled over it for a few moments, before beaming at her friends.
“You’re right. Thank you two so much for your help.” Corrin stood to give both of her friends a huge hug.
“Hehehe, no problem!” Elise hugged back, while Leo begrudgingly allowed the contact to happen. “We’re happy to help!”
“Yes, you can come to us with any problem. No matter how strange or impossible, we’ll do our best to help.”
“You’re the best.”
Corrin was, at the time, completely unaware of what was going through the siblings’ minds.
One had to wonder if she would still call them the best if she knew what they were planning.
‘Crushes can be a total distraction! If my ultimate rival has one, then, then, then, it’s only a matter of time before I can TOTALLY CRUSH her!’
‘Having the eldest, and apparently leader, incapacitated will kill morale and his effectiveness on the field. While unconventional, in a war, one must take advantage of any resource they can get their hands on.’
Well, obliviousness was bliss, right?