Noticed (Villain Academy AU Paperhat)

10 - Emotional Roller Coaster

Flug stretched satisfyingly in his chair, having just finished an especially time-consuming and meticulous invention, which happened to be a mold-based bio weapon this time.

Once he comfortably settled in his place again, he sighed in relief as he realized that he could finally take a break without feeling stressed over unfinished work. Now that he had dealt with seemingly all the bothersome customers the world could offer, finished two weapons and stored away one of them (the one that he had worked on whenever he had had to wait) for testing on living subjects, he could take some time for himself.

And how does he plan to do that, you ask? Work on personal projects, of course!

Well, he would, after he took just a couple minutes to rethink his forever unchanging opinion on his last meeting with Black Hat and the overall events of that day for the hundredth time in these past few work shifts. As was pretty much evident, he only reminisced about Black Hat in such a way because he wanted to lift his mood, as it worked flawlessly every time.

Overall, he truly thought that all of his crush's reactions and actions would never in a hundred years leave his mind, not even when he forced himself to balance two projects at once, completely of his own accord. He couldn't forget that look Black Hat gave him after saving him even if he suddenly went mad and decided to try and suppress the memory.

Clearly, he didn't blame himself too much for fixating on those events (more specifically, on the most positive parts of them) at all, both because he understood he couldn't have it any other way and because he just had so much to think and theorize about that it would simply be unlike him not to — for example, he still believed that final meeting's resolution to be the most genuine and wholesome response he could've ever gotten, which really put into question what his boss thought of the interaction. That question, though, was a mildly concerning one, so he shook it off for now.

As much as he tried to get into his head that any future relationship progress between them was utterly unrealistic, their last encounter lifted his mood incredibly immediately after it had happened, and it continued to do so through reminiscing thoughts. It finally gave his imagination a break when it came to Black Hat showing him signs of affection and it gave him hope that maybe, just maybe, things could stay this way, and he would be able to silently observe his boss untill the end of time without ever ruining it or caving into his desire for more.

The situation with Dementia, though, was not nearly as hopeful. He really didn't like thinking about her too hard nowadays, since at this point he just decided to regard their current terms as a natural progression of their friendship, a falling out of sorts, all because of who they both were. That "who they were" mostly entailed Dem's main obsession and Flug's new infatuation contradicting, of course, but he liked the more vague and less confrontational phrasing.

And yes, he was still mad at her for "crossing the line", as he saw it, since she had interrupted the conversation between him and Black Hat while practically being passive-aggressive during the whole event. So passive-aggressive, in fact, that those intense and almost accusatory stares that had confused Flug so much were still being sent his way whenever the so-called friends crossed paths.

He was mostly done with feeling guilty because of them crushing on the same person, since Dementia really didn't own (or deserve) the person in question, and they weren't even friends anymore, so he didn't have to be nice to her. Even if she had obsessed over him for longer than the human had, even if she had talked about her future plans with Black Hat so much back at the academy...

Ah, the academy... Flug had such mixed feelings about that place, even though this "memory" of his wasn't old by any accounts, and thus, logically, shouldn't have been affected by nostalgia. It had only been a few weeks at most since he had last visited a lecture, but he was still happily dismissing all the horrible things that had happened to him, and all in favor of what? A friendship that he, even if resentfully, could admit was probably already in the past? A position in which he could get brutally murdered by his embodiment-of-all-evil boss?