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Toshiko Kayura was, for all intents and purposes, the best matchmaker that had ever lived. Well, in her opinion anyway.
She had created matches so profound that her pairings had stopped wars, and love so powerful that whispers of her name could be heard in every romantic setting a lovelorn couple would ever wish to flock to. A reputation forged in fancy and flamingo feathers was what had made Toshiko the talented young matchmaker she is today. And, with that Ultimate Matchmaker stardom, she had so iconically acquired, she had been able to hone another, more obscure type of romantic understanding. The type of understanding that, if revealed, could unravel everything people thought they knew about the people Toshiko knew oh so much about.
The first time Toshiko's super sense had flared up within the confines of Eden's Garden Academy had happened quite innocently, amongst innocent breakfast chatter as she and some others sat around the dining table. She had been enjoying a bowl of colourful cereal hoops while Jean Delamer articulately explained how it is that he gained such a muscular figure, detailing the exercises, diets and stretches that had contributed to him being at the "peak of male form", and, out of the corner of her eye, she had noticed something so fleeting, so suspicious, so random that she paused what she was doing and stared straight in the direction of the anomaly she was confronted with. An anomaly which, upon being spotted by Toshiko, shrunk back into his seat like a wilting orchid before Diana raised her voice to question what was going on.
"Hey Toshiko, what're you doing staring at Desmond like that?"
If Desmond Hall had looked awkward before attention was drawn to him, Toshiko thought that he looked damn near helpless by the time everyone else had rounded to question the move. Fanning herself absentmindedly, the cogs in Toshiko's head had started to whir at a concerningly fast rate as she digested both her breakfast and the banter she had just seen unfold before her, all the while also working out how to dignify Diana with a polite response without forsaking Desmond's - or her own - dignity. "Haha, yes. I was just observing the intricacies of the human complexion, as all scholarly Ultimates do! As a matter of fact, I've been observing all of your faces while I've been here so I can find your soulmate through morphology and facial symmetries alone!"
The concern that she was laying it on thick seemed to dissipate the moment Jett questioned what she could tell from his face, as, while the next half hour entailed much nervous improvising about how girls find guys with helmets mysterious and alluring these days, the successful segue had easily averted any suspicion from the Ultimate Marksman that could've possibly formulated itself based on a stare and a stare alone. For all Toshiko knew, people could be thinking she had some kind of schoolgirl crush on the sharpshooter, gawking at him in her youthful innocence in the hopes that life would devolve into some deranged fanfiction, but Toshiko had found such a thought as uncouth as it was unladylike since these were her peers at the academy, and she only ever read fanfiction if it was one hundred thousand words of more and had the tags "Slow Burn" and "Enemies To Lovers" on it.
Nevertheless, the day, aiming to be just as quiet as the last few, passed without any major fights or confrontations, as while Grace did attempt to chase Damon around with a marble rolling pin for a good three hours, even she found her strength reduced by the time the artificial sun had set and Ingrid had put the potential kitchen weapons on a shelf only she and Jean could ever possibly reach, citing the uncomfortable reasoning that "if someone ever does get murdered, we can narrow it down to two suspects". Though this reasoning hadn't particularly sat well with Toshiko, knowing that there was a stepstool in the pantry that even she could reach the top shelf with, she knew that explaining this to Ingrid would only make her more anxious about potential killing, and so settled for letting her live in peace while they still could, stagnant in the potentially illogical hope that nobody else would die in this violent game.
By the time the moon had made its nest in the crook of the sky, Toshiko had returned to her room with a busybody smile on her face, an idea in mind of what fun projects she could get up to with no adults, as she fished some paper out of her drawers and began to write a fun tale about how she and her friends Princess Ladyhammer and King Musclefish had saved the kingdom from the evil reign of Queen Crow, her creative flow was interrupted by a sharp, almost militaristic, knock on the door. Despite being at quite possibly the pinnacle of the story (Princess Ladyhammer exacting the finishing blow on the malicious Queen Crow), Toshiko took no time in clambering off her mattress and making her way over to the door, wondering mentally who could be responsible for such a strange, sharp knock. Perhaps someone as attentive as Diana? As sharp as Desmond? As careless as Mark? Perhaps maybe even someone as quietly attentive as Eloise? Maybe Damon. Maybe Ingrid. Heck, if she thought about it, it might even be--
"Wenona! How ungracious of you to stop by my sanctuary at such a late time. Don't you know that ladies like you and I require an important amount of sleep so we may rule the world in the mornings?" With a dramatic flutter of her fan, Toshiko's disarming smile and saccharine smile would have been just enough to send a gullible neighbour, such as Cassidy or Jett, straight back to their rooms to let her return to her worldbuilding with utmost importance. However, as Toshiko edged closer and closer to shutting the door in the Ultimate Entrepeneur's face, three simple words grabbed her by the ear in the stern, honeyed tone of the woman on the other side of the doorway.
"Desmond is gay."
The smile on Toshiko's face was now as wide as the doorway itself, the wooden door holding onto its hinges for dear life after the matchmaker had slammed it open, now stepping backwards to let Wenona cross the threshold into her room before shutting the door behind her and hissing in a conspiratorial tone towards the entrepreneur now stood unbothered on her bright pink carpet. "You can't just say that. People could overhear and harass him for being of the male persuasion! Do you have no comprehension of how being a lady works?"
Though Toshiko's worries for Desmond's safety were... questionably justified, given the presence of a certain drag racer and golfer both rambunctious and insensitive enough to make Desmond's life a living hell, Wenona did not appear to possess the same great desperation Toshiko had to keep things under wraps in order to make it feel like she knew something the others didn't. Toshiko had pegged Wenona as the "knowledge is power" type the moment she met her, and yet her presence in her room only seemed to make further sense once Wenona spoke in her usual measured tone once again. "...You don't understand what this means, do you?"
At that point, Toshiko felt personally attacked.
"Wh-what?! Of- of course, I know what it means. It means that Desmond likes boys the way other boys tend to like girls. There's nothing wrong with it, you... you bigot! You can't pray the gay away! You can't pray the gay away!"
Of course, Wenona was perfectly composed in spite of Toshiko's repeated accusations, a slyly amused smile creeping across her face as the matchmaker grew more determined in abjuring Wenona's "offensive worldviews" and aggravatedly explaining why "capitalist douchebags" like her shouldn't have the power they hold in societal ongoings. It came to the point at which Toshiko was about to start chucking things at Wenona that the Ultimate Entrepreneur crossed her arms in quiet amusement and spoke in a lilted voice. "You really think I'm a bigot? I thought you could tell from the way I dressed that I play for the other team."
Once again, Toshiko's catastrophic inability to let other people talk before jumping to conclusions resulted in her being told something she should have, realistically, already known. "Oh. Yes! Right. Uhm. Anyway. So. If you're not here to complain about Desmond's... otherwise directed romantic inclinations... what is it you're taking issue with? Are you jealous of the idea of him being in love when you aren't, perhaps? If so, I'm sure you and Ingrid would get along like a house on fi-"
"You know who else gets along like a house on fire?" Wenona had now leaned herself against a chest of drawers, expression her dismissively neutral trademark as she looked down at her nails, back to Toshiko, and back to her nails again, tone dripping with the undertone of 'get the hint or you're stupid' as she once again looked over at the girl, having now judged her as worthy of her attention. "Desmond and the fencer girl. They're mighty close. I even heard good old Ingrid gushing over how much young love seems to do for her. I know girls like Eloise, too. They're impressionable. And cute. And prone to misinterpreting kindness as..."
"...A crush."
As if verbalising it had made it clearer, Toshiko's initial thought of "Desmond is gay and it will have no consequences" had quickly contorted itself into a very poorly exercised "Desmond is gay and it will most definitely mess things up if he doesn't tell the sweet fencer girl as soon as possible". And, judging by the look on Wenona's face, she seemed to have come to the very same conclusion that was likely to have been quite a significant while ago. "So... we need to tell Eloise that Desmond is gay, and ruin her chances of falling in love in the future?"
Contrary to Toshiko's nervous worries that romantic equilibrium would be disrupted if Desmond were to out himself, Wenona's cool and composed expression cracked only for a moment of amusement as she provided a far more logical, albeit extremely confusing, response. "No. We wouldn't do anything of that sort. All we would do is approach Desmond and tell him that Eloise is falling for him, so he needs to buck his ideas up and come out of the closet before someone else does it for him."
Instead of offering some melodramatic response to that statement, Toshiko merely blinked in silent request that Wenona condense what it was she was trying to say. Y'know, since she is 14, and she's not likely to understand concepts as easily as Wenona is used to laying them out during board meetings and strategic renovations. Thankfully for Toshiko, Wenona's condensed version left very little to be explained and very much to be questioned. "We're going to make Desmond tell Eloise that he's gay before someone else does it for him."
And that's when Toshiko Kayura realised that, while she may be the best matchmaker that ever lived, there was nothing - absolutely nothing - stopping her from being the worst person on earth for this plan.