"Connie, will you marry me?"

"What?" Connie could've sworn she had heard Steven wrong. Surely he wasn't serious? He couldn't be, could he?

"Let's get married and live as Stevonnie!" Steven exclaimed, still kneeling in front of her.

"What?" Connie repeated, breaking the silence with an awkward chuckle. "Steven, maybe we should... talk about this first?"

Steven stood up to his full height, looking down at Connie still sitting on the ground, who was completely shocked at the words spilling from her best friend's mouth.

"I know you might think I'm being sentimental but this makes sense. For example, I don't know what you've been studying but Stevonnie does. We can go to collage together."

Steven's eyes lit up as he spoke. Connie hesitated for a millisecond. "Steven, come on. We're really young."

"You don't want to be Stevonnie?"
His smile was still present but now appeared more forced than before. Connie saw Steven's brow quirk slightly.

"Of course I do but I wanna be my own person too." She stood up, turning to leave.

"But... we..." Connie looked back to Steven to spot beads of sweat forming near Steven's temples, his smile wavering but not completely disappearing from his face. His brown eyes held desperation, want, yearning.

"But we need to be together. We're perfect for each other."

Steven stepped closer to Connie, grabbing her one of her wrists firmly in his hand and held it still. His smile widened eccentrically. His expression had become unnervingly aberrant to the point of which  Connie couldn't bring herself to even look Steven in the eyes. She turned he head away.

"Steven, that's not-! We couldn't-!" she tried to pull her arm from Steven's stronger than average grasp resulting in his fingers tightening painfully around her joint.

"We can." He breathed softly, "And we will."