Soft tapping from one end of the room set the scene: Spade was working on his laptop from his bed, probably buried under a pile of blankets. They’d long since stopped trying to compromise on the thermostat; Spade was somehow always cold, regardless of the room’s temperature. The tapping stopped as Ace stepped into the room. “Bloody hell, what happened to your face?” Spade questioned in alarm.

Ace huffed inwardly. So much for Luca’s assurance. “I fell,” he said rather unconvincingly.

“I suppose the floor punched you?” Spade shot dubiously. “Hard enough to grant you a black eye, even.”

Ace shrugged. “Didn’t need it much, anyway,” he muttered, setting down his bag. Spade didn’t demand any further explanation; he’d learned to expect the unexpected any time Ace went out with Luca. Ace shifted the subject away, “What are you doing?”

Spade hesitated briefly, considering. He finally dropped his interrogation with a sigh, and the typing continued. “Drafting my letter.”

“Aren’t those due in, like, three weeks?”

The “let’s all write letters to CORE world pen-pals” idea was a nigh-unanimously preferred alternative to the impossible quizzes Professor Moff had once assigned for their foreign language class. Nigh-unanimously, meaning, preferred by everyone except Spade. This was presumably because it turned what should have been his easiest class into an actual nightmare.

“Prospective work, Ace. I am anticipating writing eight total letters for all of 2-B, since our classmates are remarkably insistent on never learning Core. Do you suppose they’re stupid enough to believe that I spontaneously misplaced my native tongue?” Spade remarked with a cold laugh.

But Ace admittedly didn’t care about the letters. He was stalling from his actual accusation. He tried for a brief moment to think up a casual and non-confrontational transition, but the idea was shortly abandoned. With a slow breath, Ace said, “Moff told me you’re not being scored.”

Spade fell silent again. Ace continued.

“You knew that. Which means you had no reason to shove Verse. You just wanted to hurt them.”

Spade suddenly threw off his blankets and dropped down from the bed with the slightest grunt of pain. “I couldn’t care less about bloody Verse right now! Let them crash all they want if it so pleases them,” he snapped, pacing anxious circles around the floor.

Ace blinked, pulling back in alarm. “Spade, you’re scaring me,” he said seriously.

“I—” Spade stopped his pacing, exhaling slowly. The swing of aggression ended as abruptly as it had come on. His voice was quieter as he said, “Dammit. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Ace didn’t respond.

“I’m,” Spade took a sharp breath, “in above my head, Ace. Every time I find a new piece of this puzzle, it doesn’t fit how I think it should. And as much as I try to make some sense of it, I still can’t fathom what the final picture is supposed to depict.” Then he laughed again; this time it was defeated, revealing a heavy exhaustion. “Sorry. I’m speaking in riddles, aren’t I? I really just... don’t know what’s going on right now.”

He gathered the blanket he’d thrown and returned to his bed. Ace stared on blankly, wordless in reeling thought. A melodramatic outburst was far from unique from Spade. But some part of Spade’s tone had struck a little deeper than Ace was used to, and he finally accepted that, perhaps for once, Spade was not being melodramatic at all.

Spade resumed typing on his laptop without any further explanation. Ace had prepared an entire spiel for his own detective case. But Ace had enough awareness of Spade’s mood to realize that it was probably best to spare him an angst-ridden rant; Spade seemed a little preoccupied in his own enigmatic thoughts. Thus, Ace allowed the conversation to end on that note, and he left Spade alone for the night.