Day 17 Phobias-Public Execution - “Just grin and bear it”
His mother used to tell him he had a surgeon's smile. It was wistful and nostalgic in the way she brought it up, back when he was younger and less of an Ace, and more of a- well it didn't really matter.
She used to look at him, telling him to smile, and then break out into one of her own at the sight of his. Through bittersweet and breathless laughing she'd tell him, only if he asked, that his smile looked like a surgeons smile.
Or in this case, his grandfathers.
"It's just what surgeons and doctors look like when trying to smile for pictures", she used to reassure, never quite as sarcastic about it as his grandmother, always huffing about her husband's habits.
"You look like your uncle in this way." She'd admit, a little bit distant in tone. "It's not a bad thing, it just means you're a little bit awkward. When you're happy, your smile looks quite beautiful."
He never quite forgot about it, as the year went on. He had trained himself out of it eventually, though. He had learned to adapt a more open and suave, and asshole-ish smile, as his friends later told him.
He remembered practicing all those years ago. Trying to fix it and never being quite right with it. He still used to do it till his face burned. Desperate to not have that 'Surgeon smile'.
Never could really imitate the happiness. His aunt commented once that it was the eyes, far too dead-looking like his mother.
"Dead eyes huh?" his mom always laughed at that, it was never the pretty laughter though.
As the years went on, he realized the only people who could really see through it, see that the pleasure in his smile wasn't real, were his family. Everyone else bought it easily.
It made him feel a bit incredulous in a way. Annoyed too, at all the wasted practice, and teasing he endured at the hands of his brother.
"Your real smile looks beautiful," Yuula told him once, right after they had become real friends, her brother Yuuto had nodded, half absentmindedly but mostly sincere.
"True, you should smile more Ace."
"I do," he blurted out, somewhat annoyed. "All the time." They had look surprised then.
"I meant for real," Yuula corrected.
And Ace at the time had been even more annoyed, because why should she care about his smile.
He would realize later that Riddle had the same sentiment, if not in the opposite direction.
"Ace Trappola." Riddle's overblot form had been obsessed with him, just a little bit. Not enough that anyone else would notice really, just enough that Ace sometimes had nightmares about it.
It was in the way the collars were all aimed for him, that and the rosebushes.
"Off with your heads!" Like it was an execution. Really, Ace had to wonder what Riddle or his mom, were thinking when they named his unique magic.
It was on the nose, but still.
Not just that, but what if the collar was too small? Or it cut off more than the users magic? what then would the red rose tyrant do?
You can bring back magic, but you can't reattach a head.
"Why don't you back off housewarden?" he had smiled then, not his usual 'grin' or his supposedly amazing smile, but the surgeon's one. The exact one he knew didn't look happy at all.
"An execution smile more like," Yuuto had sneered, still too angry after everything, "Honestly, you smiled like you were going to die." An execution smile. What a funny thought.
Execution.
That's what that was supposed to be, wasn't it? The duel they had challenged Riddle to was meant to be an execution of Ace and deuce. Two foolish freshmen set to die in shame. A public execution for all to see.
"Ace Trappola?" He smiled, pushing his lips up till it burned, leaving enough annoyance showing to make it look believable. His neck itched and his hands shook as he turned to look at the red queen Rosehearts.
"Yeah," his grin was crooked, "What's up?"