olivia-anderson-fanfic

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

I love when fanfic authors are freakishly unhinged. "Yes, hello, I am here to write a heart wrenching story about relationships and mortality. My medium is Ducktales (2017)"

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Yuu can do it!

Part 81

First - Previous - Masterlist - TBC

“I can’t believe that Trein gave me extra homework,” Ace groaned.

“All you did was sleep in his class, he’s so unfair,” Ito said, wryly.

Ace nodded along despite the obvious sarcasm. “Right?! I mean, you pay enough attention for all of us, so I don’t see what his problem is!”

“I swear, the guy’s lectures are just sleep spells in disguise,” said Grim.

“Do those exist?” asked Enma. His excitement made the arm around Kuroki’s shoulder squeeze him just a little tighter.

“Well… no, but maybe that’s his UM!”

Kuroki had his doubts. Not that he’d ever voice them.

He didn’t get the chance to, anyway.

Something in his hindbrain was screaming at him that there was someone looking at him. He couldn’t pinpoint where the eyes were, the corridor they were walking down was mostly empty. This was exactly why they had chosen it – it meant they could all walk and talk without worrying about slowing down traffic.

He shifted closer to Enma, all but merging with his side.

And, apparently, that was for the best. Because something whizzed past his ear, embedding itself in the nearby wall.

Kuroki stared at the arrow that had just nailed where his head had been only a second prior.

“What the fuck,” he whispered. Enma dragged him into his chest. Ito whirled around to yell at whoever had attempted to assassinate him.

But the danger was gone.

“Can’t – can’t go a day without something happening when you guys are around…” Ace said, clearly trying to seem casual and failing spectacularly.

“Remind me who signed a contract with Azul?” Kuroki said.

“You,” said Enma.

Man, he was never going to let that go, was he?

Grim latched himself onto the front of Kuroki’s shirt and refused to move.

“There’s a note tied to the arrow,” said Deuce.

“Oh, great, they literally wanted to send a message with my corpse, how cool,” said Kuroki, feeling a little faint.

“Maybe it’s a challenge to a fight,” said Deuce.

“I don’t think assassins are looking for fair fights,” said Ito.

Deuce unfurled the piece of paper, seemingly intent on proving them wrong.

And then his eyebrows knit.

“‘Thank you for taking part in the Song & Video Championship auditions. The following students have passed our rigorous screening process: Kuroki Yuuya, Ace Trappola, and Deuce Spade. Please report to the Pomefiore ballroom after school today.’”

...wait, what?

“We passed?” said Ace.

NO!

“How?!” Kuroki said, instead, because he had enough of a brain-to-mouth filter to not Give The Game Away.

“Why didn’t I pass?” complained Grim.

“Wait, I thought there were only two slots open,” said Deuce. “Why did all three of us pass?”

“Maybe it’s a prank?” offered Kuroki. Because he couldn’t have passed. There was no way in hell.

“An invite to a fight,” Deuce said, again, as if he was trying to manifest it.

Enma grinned. “We might as well check it out, right? If it is real, you’d be giving up quite a lot…”

“And we get to see what Pomefiore is like,” said Ito.

“Exactly,” said Enma, his eyes bright. “What do you think it’ll look like?”

“What’s the point in theorizing? We’re going there later, apparently,” said Ace.

“So I can laugh at anyone who gets it wrong,” said Enma.

“What if you get it wrong?” said Deuce.

“I’m just not going to say my theories out loud. Therefore, you can never prove I was anything but 100% right.”

Kuroki pressed his face into Enma’s chest. “I’m going to assume you were completely wrong unless proven otherwise.”

“Can’t believe you would foil my plans like that,” Enma said, mildly, his hand coming up to rest over his head.

They proceeded to skip the rest of their classes.

(Ace remarked, at one point, that Kuroki should get shot at more often. And then had to fend off the many miscellaneous objects Enma threw at his head.)

~

Pomefiore was… a pretty dorm. But, from the looks of it, form was far more important than function.

The mirror to get in was halfway blocked by the tail of a silver peacock, which Kuroki took careful note of, because it would be just his luck to brain himself on the thing on his way out.

All thoughts was about that were dashed from his head the second he stepped through, though, because Pomefiore was fucking cold. Snow fluttered picturesquely to the ground, to join the layer of thick snow at their feet.

It would have been nice if Epel had warned them that they’d need snowshoes. But he had not, and it was too late to turn back now (because walking all the way to Sam’s and then coming back was not an enticing idea), so they took a step forward as one, prepared to brave the elements –.

Everyone immediately slipped on a hidden patch of ice and ate shit.

“I have hate in my heart,” said Ito.

Deuce sniffled, rubbing an already bright red nose. “It’s not that bad.”

“Hey, Rudolph, do you see the castle in the distance?” Kuroki asked, sullenly.

“Yeah. It’s pretty!”

“We have to walk all the way there.”

“… fuck.”

And so began the longest hour of their lives.

It was, probably, only meant to be a quarter-hour walk (which, let Kuroki say, should still be classified as torture), but their small group of first years had decided to hold onto each other for… well, they said it was for balance, in reality it was just so they could all drag each other down with them when they fell.

Not to mention the time a Pomefiore student passing by threw a snowball their way. Enma jerked to the side to avoid it, which, of course, made him slip. Which made everyone else in their conga line of losers fall, too.

“Strike!” cheered the Pomefiore student.

“Should have taken the snowball to the face,” Ace said.

Enma retaliated by shoving snow down the back of Ace’s shirt.

By the time they stepped through the doors, and the barest traces of warmth washed over their faces, they all looked like they had walked through a blizzard. Wild hair that had frozen itself in awkward positions, so much snow stuck to their clothes that the actual cloth was almost invisible, faces flushed mottled shades of red and noses dripping…

The beautiful, deep purple rug with golden accents, which no doubt cost more than their entire dorm, was not happy to see them, Kuroki was sure.

But that wasn’t what they focused on.

Epel stood in the doorway, grinning. “Have fun out there?”

“You could have warned us,” said Kuroki.

“Nah,” said Epel.

“… I’m going to tell your Housewarden that you cursed yesterday,” Ace said.

“Do you want me dead?”

“Right now? Kinda.”

“Awwww… I was gonna give you some advice, but now I don’t wanna.”

They squinted at Epel. Reasonably suspicious. Mildly pissed off that the dorm, quite possibly, was going to throw even more shit their way.

But, even if Epel had wanted to explain it to them, he wouldn’t have had the time:

“No outsider gets to simply waltz into our dorm,” a student said. He was perched on a surprisingly sturdy light fixture. Why was he on the light fixtures? Did he just hang out there like a very stuck guard dog?

Kuroki looked at him. “We were invited.”

(Some of them were invited, anyway. And if you invite Kuroki anywhere, you’re basically inviting Enma, Ito, and Grim, too. Everyone knows this.)

A wet glove slapped against the tile. Why was it wet? Kuroki had no idea.

“The road to true beauty is fraught with peril!”

“That wasn’t at all related to what I just said,” Kuroki said.

“Does he have prerecorded voice lines?” Ace asked.

“The — the road to beauty is fraught with peril!” the stranger said, again.

“I think the record is scratched. Someone smack the machine and see if that fixes it,” said Enma.

“… I think he’s stuck up there,” said Deuce.

“No I’m — I’m not,” the poor student said, subtly shifting back and forth, trying desperately to get his fur coat unstuck.

“Your outfit is cute,” said Ito. “Those jade earrings are to die for. They match your eyes so well.”

His face flushed bright red and he hid his face in his hands. “Thanks…”

“Ito, please stop adding guys to your fan club,” Kuroki groaned.

“It’s not my fault straight guys are desperate,” they huffed.

“The guy’s in a purple fur coat,” said Kuroki. “And I’m pretty sure that shirt beneath it is covered in sparkles.”

“No, they're right, I’m straight…”

“Don’t stereotype,” Enma said, swatting Kuroki over the back of the head.

“Wait,” said Epel. “Is he straight if he falls for you? I thought you were…?”

“Like I said: desperate.”

“Let’s just… go…” said Epel, looking painfully embarrassed by the whole ordeal.

The dorm’s honor was saved by what Kuroki could only describe as the two most aggressively British men to ever exist. The caps? The sweaters and cardigans? The accents? Kuroki could practically hear the colonization coming.

“The guy at the front gate was just a warm-up,” said the tall one.

“We literally didn’t even fight him,” said Ace.

“Now, you face us,” said the chubby one, blatantly ignoring him.

“They’re not makin’ any sense,” Grim complained.

And then they turned tail and ran.

“Cowards!” said Epel as he raced to catch up with them.

“Smart cowards,” Kuroki ‘corrected’ him, grinning.

And they were smart, because, for all that the two stooges had claimed that they were going to cream the first years who were really just having a terrible day… they seemed reluctant to throw spells at moving targets.

Enma picked up a random candelabra and then threw it over his shoulder.

The tall one scrambled to catch it before it could hit the floor.

If you looked carefully, you could see the wide grins that spread across the first years’ faces at the confirmation.

They rushed to grab things as they ran. A Faberge egg, a doily, a random vase… nothing was safe.

(They, of course, made sure to telegraph things before they threw them, and only ever used underhand, giving the two ample time to catch and carefully replace everything before even considering throwing something new. They didn’t actually want to break anything. There was a reason why Enma had grabbed a candelabra for his test – the things were pretty sturdy, it would survive hitting the ground… they were avoiding a fight, but they weren’t dicks.)

“Wait, Felmier, don’t take them that way!” the tall one yelled, suddenly, nearly making Kuroki drop what he was pretty sure was a random pearl necklace someone had forgotten about.

“But it’s a shortcu –!”

Epel froze, falling behind, as some kind of horrible realization hit him.

This, of course, only served to make them curious about whatever had made their pursuers slow and start pleading for them to stop and turn around.

Enma reached the door first. He flung it open.

The castle beyond the door was torn to shreds. Frilly drapery hung off of askew curtain rods; tables were overturned; the walls were painted with what seemed to be failed potions.

The group of students skidded to a stop.

“What the fuck,” said Kuroki.

Did they only clean the parts people would see?! What?! Kuroki understood kicking things under the fridge from time to time, he was a huge fan of ‘out of sight, out of mind’, but this is just…

“Jas, Vil-san’s gonna kill us,” the tall one whispered.

“Then we fall on the battlefield as brothers in arms,” said the chubby one. “I’m proud to have fought alongside you to the bitter end, Horace.”

“You know, if you let us get past you without trying to kill us — again — we won’t tell Schoenheit-san that we saw… whatever this is,” Deuce bargained.

”… okay,” said Horace.

The walk to the meeting room was without incident.

Jas and Horace were, apparently, rather nice when they weren’t trying to kill you. And chatty. Kuroki wasn’t sure what to do with the information that they were, apparently, Crewel’s adoptive sons. That did not fit his view of the man. Kuroki needed to sit down.

“How’s it feel to have a DILF for a dad?” Ito asked, seemingly just to watch them cringe.

“See, Horace, this is why we gotta stop telling people he’s our dad,” said Jas, endlessly exhausted.

Horace merely sent Ito a raised eyebrow. “Isn’t the Headmaster basically your dad? Shouldn’t you already know?”

The Crowley Hate Club was going to be contacting Horace’s lawyers.

Ito opened and closed their mouth a couple of times. “He is not. Crowley’s – like – a weird uncle, at best.”

“Disgusting,” said Grim.

“The Stockholm Syndrome is setting in,” Enma said, horrified.

“Ito, snap out of it. He’s your boss. And a shitty one, too,” said Ace.

Even Deuce looked like he wanted to grab Ito and start shaking them by the shoulders.

Kuroki fell to his knees in despair.

“NOOOOOO.”

~

“You three can probably stay outside,” said Jas.

“If you try to make us leave Kuroki we’re just gonna sneak in through the vents,” Ito informed him, as their friends were still catatonic with grief.

“... there’s something wrong with you,” said Horace.

Epel gave a long-suffering sigh. “Yeah. There is.”

~

“I see none of you have dropped out,” said Vil, the moment they strode inside. “You pass, for now –... why do you all look devastated?”

“It’s unrelated, senpai,” said Ito, flashing a thumbs up.

“What’d you do?” Jamil asked.

Ito shrugged.

Kalim jumped to his feet, his eyes wide. “They got in?! Oh wow – congrats!”

Ouch. He didn’t need to seem so earnestly surprised.

But Kuroki had to admit… he, too, was extremely confused as to how he got in. “I… thought I bombed the audition.”

“You did,” said Vil.

Kuroki wasn’t sure he could take any more devastating blows today.

“However, I happened to witness your Mostro Lounge performance last week,” Vil continued. “Where you proceeded to carry out your routine perfectly, several times.”

Fucking Azul. No wonder he’d randomly forced Kuroki to perform – he was trying to pawn him off onto Vil!

Which, okay, maybe Kuroki had given off the impression that he’d wanted to get in, but he had been utilizing a little-known tool called lying!

Because! He! Hadn’t! Thought! He’d! Get! In!

“As for the audition… I tend to give a bit of leeway to nonhumans. I’m aware Rook can be somewhat… unsettling.”

Nonhumans.

Kuroki crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m human, thanks.”

“I disagree,” said Rook.

“That’s called ‘being wrong’,” said Enma. “It’s not a crime, but it’s a little annoying.”

Kalim raised his hand. “Um, okay, Vil. I get why you let Kuroki in – maybe – but what about the other two?”

“They weren’t half-bad dancers,” said Vil. “And… teamwork and camaraderie are important in things such as this. Trappola and Spade are on good terms with you, Viper-san, and Epel.”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Kuroki saw Ito’s lips twitch into the barest trace of a smirk before they schooled their expression back into polite interest.

Kuroki fought the urge to facepalm. Of course. They would all be staying in the same dorm for bonding purposes, so it should have been obvious that Vil would prefer people who got along before the competition had even started, so they could prioritize learning the routine sooner.

And Kuroki strongly suspected that Jamil and Kalim being chosen to help Ace and Deuce was no coincidence.

Kuroki had never had a plan backfire so spectacularly. Everyone was working against him, and they didn’t even know it. Oh, this one stung.

“Now that all of the questions are out of the way…” said Vil. He cleared his throat. “Listen up, everyone: Viper-san, Kalim, Trappola-san, Spade-san, and Yuuya-san. You are the five finalists.”

“... finalists?” repeated Enma, slowly. “The competition isn’t over?”

“People grow the most when they are competing with each other,” Vil said. “As such, only four of you finalists will be able to perform alongside Rook, Epel, and myself at the VDC.”

Many eyes went wide.

“My my, Roi du Poison. I see you're taking off at full tilt right out of the gate. You're so bright and dazzling that everyone else is stunned into inaction,” said Rook.

Terrible assessment of the situation, Rook!

Kuroki raised his hand. “Does the person who ‘loses’ still get a cut of the prize money?”

“... no,” said Vil.

“Fuck,” said Kuroki.

“Who – who’s most in danger of losing right now?” Ace asked.

“Honestly? The three of you are so unpolished that it’s anyone’s game,” said Vil.

“Hey, hold up! You left me out of that whole speech!” Grim complained.

“... I didn’t ask for you to come,” said Vil, his eyebrows knitting.

Grim’s mouth dropped open in offense.

But everyone was distracted by a dull thud. As one, everyone’s gaze turned to the window, where they watched their esteemed Headmage slowly slide out of sight.

Vil looked kinda upset that his grand moment was getting overshadowed by Shenanigans. He was not going to like the next month.

Ito walked over to the window and opened it so Crowley could get inside. “Don’t know how you didn’t see the fucking colored glass –.”

Crowley threw himself at them, wrapping them in a hug.

“Ito-chan, you see me as family!” he crowed.

(He valiantly ignored the many first years glaring at him.)

“I said you were a weird uncle at best!” Ito snapped.

“We’ll work on it!”

“You will not,” said Kuroki.

Crowley seemed to deflate a little. “Hello, Yuuya-san.”

“What is going on,” said Epel.

“We hate the Headmaster,” Ace said. “Catch up.”

Epel looked even more confused, now.

The Headmaster stood up straighter – he did not release Ito, they were now hanging a meter off the ground with the most regretful expression ever seen on a human being – and cleared his throat, awkwardly.

“It’s a good thing you’re here, actually. Shoenheit-kun, this is Ito-chan, they will be your ‘manager’ for the next four weeks.”

Kuroki’s mouth dropped open.

Kuroki’s fake plan actually worked?!

Ito groaned. “I don’t wannaaaaaaa…”

“Should our team win first place, Roi du Poison and I will donate our shares of the prize to you as thanks for helping us,” Rook said.

Kuroki’s fake plan worked a million times better than expected?!

“Two shares?” said Grim, his eyes wide. “Henchman, you have to do it!”

“... did Grim just pimp me out?” Ito asked.

“Think about it, Henchman! Between your two shares, and the share the other henchman will get, we’ll be rich!”

The light in Crowley’s eyes dimmed.

“What?”

Kuroki’s fake plan was literally perfect, no notes. He was giving it a metaphorical promotion.

“Did you not hear, Headmage? I’m one of the five finalists.”

Crowley, finally, set Ito down. So he could lean against them and sob dramatically into their shoulder.

~

Kuroki may have won far more than he’d ever expected, but that didn’t mean Azul was off the hook.

He pulled the Yuus’ communal phone out of Enma’s pocket and sent a quick text message to ‘Octopussy gang’:

Keep yourself safe :)

All he got in response was a gif of an octopus laughing at him. Which is a very specific gif to have on hand. And an extremely unprofessional thing to send your employee. But okay.

Azul can laugh, for now. He will not be laughing later.

~

(When they stepped through the mirror to head back to their dorms, Ace collided head-first with the peacock decoration just beyond the mirror and stumbled right back into Pomefiore. They were never going to let him live this down.)

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the Break of Dawn - Pt 36

<Pt35

(TWST Zombie apocalypse AU where Yuu beast tames just a little too close to the sun)

A lot of things happened in rapid succession:

Vil and Yuu dropped each other’s hands, jerking away from each other.

The people Vil had been with started protesting.

Deuce kicked Grim toward the zombie, as if trying to prompt him to do something.

Ace launched himself at the zombie himself, knife out.

It sunk its teeth into the side of Ace’s neck.

Everyone froze.

Ace’s knife clattered to the floor.

It used the moment of hesitation to push Ace off of him, sending him careening right into Yuu.

Deuce dug through his backpack, frantically, in search of something he could use to disinfect the wound. As if there was anything they could do.

Yuu and Ace clung to each other, desperately. Grabbing at clothes, skin, hair, anything.

Ace looked terrified. His face was pale.

… his face was pale.

Not green.

Ace wasn’t turning.

The virus wasn’t optional. If it was, Jade and Floyd wouldn’t have had their weird version of it. And, even if Grim had figured out how to bite people without infecting them (which – why would he do that?), he wouldn’t pass up an opportunity like this.

So… what?

Yuu turned his head to look at the Ugly-Bob-Man. Who had curled up on the floor, his head in his hands.

When he noticed Yuu’s eyes on him, he lifted his head, a pained expression painting his face.

“I suppose the jig is up. Merde.”

Yuu’s mouth dropped open.

He wasn’t actually a zombie.

HE WASN’T?! ACTUALLY?! A ZOMBIE?!

~

The group of random survivors they’d found had decided to go back to their base. Apparently, this was too much for them, and they needed to rest and recuperate from the whole Ordeal before they went out again.

Ugly-Bob-Man (he’d reintroduced himself as ‘Rook Hunt’, but Yuu wasn’t intent on giving the man any kind of win) had followed after Vil like some kind of overgrown, particularly overenthusiastic puppy, and had decided that he could not stalk Vil alone. So, he had grabbed Yuu by the hand and dragged him along and now they were, unofficially, on the same team.

Now, why was Yuu walking with Ugly-Bob-Man, you might ask?

Honestly, Yuu was pretty sure he was just conditioned to allow green people to do whatever they wanted. It was, probably, a problem, but then again it wasn’t like finding random green people who weren’t zombies was a widespread epidemic. No, Ugly-Bob-Man was just unique that way.

Thankfully. The world couldn’t deal with another person like this.

Yuu glanced back at where Ace and Deuce were following, at a slight distance. They were chatting.

(Ace’s smile looked strained. Deuce glared daggers at Ugly-Bob-Man every time he dared to look in their direction.)

Ugly-Bob-Man cleared his throat.

“About the wedding –.”

“We’re not getting married!” Yuu snapped, disgusted.

Because, really, Vil Schoenheit was attractive, but not Yuu’s type. Yuu’s standards had been lowered by the apocalypse (@ Ace Trappola), but he much preferred people with personality disorders over… whatever Vil was. Look at him with his huge group of friends. Disgusting. Yuu would never be able to handle that.

Vil turned on Yuu. “Why do you look disgusted? I’m clearly out of your league. You should be honored.”

“You literally don’t even like me?” Yuu said, confused as to why Vil was, apparently, upset that Yuu didn’t have a crush on him. “What does it matter if I think you’re attractive?”

“Yes… true…” said Vil, as if he hadn’t considered that before.

“I’m afraid my darling Roi des Morts-Vivants isn’t allowed to have romantic relationships, regardless,” said Ugly-Bob-Man, mournfully.

“You could be the last person in Japan and I would still sail to China before I dated you,” Yuu hissed.

Ugly-Bob-Man hung his head sadly.

~

Vil Schoenheit took everyone to what had once been an apartment building – and, from the look of things, it had regained its sense of purpose. A couple of people poked their heads out of their windows, curious as to why their leader’s supply run had ended early.

They didn’t get any answers.

Vil Schoenheit shooed them off, telling them to go back to whatever they were doing.

Everyone was quick to do so. Whether this was because of the zombie cat at Yuu’s heels, or because Vil was well-respected among his peers, was hard to tell.

The only one who lingered was a small… well, he had to be a guy, considering Grim had yet to kill him. The guy leaned against what had once been a reception desk, his arms crossed over his chest, clearly trying to look intimidating. Considering he was pretty cute for a guy, it really only came across as a pout.

Not that Yuu was going to say anything about that. He didn’t care.

He grabbed Ugly-Bob-Man by the shirt.

“I need to have a chat with him. Everyone play nice, m’kay?”

Ace and Deuce nodded. Ace did so reluctantly, but Yuu was going to take the win where he could get it.

His eyes locked on Grim, who seemed to be trying to cozy up to Deuce, who was clearly not having it.

Yuu, still pulling Ugly-Bob-Man behind him, marched over to grab Grim by the scruff of his neck.

Yuu dragged his two hostages into a nearby bathroom.

He looked down at Grim.

Grim mewed, quietly, giving him the most innocent look the cat could muster.

Yuu didn’t blink, entirely unimpressed.

Grim drooped.

“How did you not notice that he was faking it?!”

Grim refused to meet his eyes, his ears flat against his head.

“Now, that’s hardly fair,” Ugly-Bob-Man said, amicably, as if he wasn’t already pushing enough of Yuu’s buttons by merely existing. Did he need to talk, too? “He has many zombies to keep track of, and only so much mental bandwidth. Do you believe that security guards in an outlet mall are capable of watching every screen at once? Or do you think they concentrate on a few at a time? And, really, who would think to check for a fake?”

Yuu was going to tear someone’s hair out. Preferably Ugly-Bob-Man’s.

Speaking of! The bob was a choice?! Something the guy had to consistently maintain?! What the fuck was wrong with him?!

Actually, what was wrong with him?!

“So – all those times –?!” Yuu started shaking him. “You stalked me for months! Why?! You could have just been a random roaming zombie, what the fuck –?!”

“I assure you, my Roi des Morts-Vivants, that my feelings for you are entirely genuine.”

“That –!” Yuu spluttered. “That makes it so much worse! You get that, right?!”

Ugly-Bob-Man didn’t seem to ‘get that’. Yuu inhaled, deeply, through his nose. He had a No Kill Streak that he cared about.

He looked at Grim. “You can make this up to me by killing him.”

But Grim – looked away?! What?!

“You’re going to kill me, after all that I’ve done for you?” he asked, his eyes widening in faux innocence. “I saved your life many times, did I not? Are you not intent on returning the favor?”

Oh, that bastard.

“He has a crush on me!” Yuu snapped. “Surely that overpowers any debt you may or may not have with him, right?! Those are the rules – you can’t just change them –!”

“Oh, dear, are you homophobic?”

“I’m –!” Yuu started, only barely catching himself before he could out himself to a mass murderer who had already proven he would get rid of all of Yuu’s potential love interests and a stalker. “I’m not homophobic, I just don’t like it when people watch me without my consent.”

“Ah, do I have your consent to continue?”

He had to be fucking joking.

Yuu opened his mouth. Closed it again, because he needed to think of a response that didn't consist entirely of swear words. Opened his mouth a second time.

And then reconsidered, because logic caught up to him.

Why was he even doing this?

He dragged Ugly-Bob-Man back into the lobby. Everyone had been none-too-subtly eavesdropping on their conversation. Not that Yuu cared. He all but threw Ugly-Bob-Man at Ace and Deuce.

“Kill him.”

Ace and Deuce didn’t even hesitate to ready their weapons.

Yuu looked at Grim, pointedly, as if to say ‘See? This is how it’s done.’

Ugly-Bob-Man slung his arm around Yuu’s shoulders while he was distracted.

“Ah, but don’t you two understand me? I mean, surely, you know better than anyone what it’s like to be a little obsessed with ‘Yuu’ in particular.”

Yuu flinched. Was he saying -?

“Which will be faster? Your weapons, or my tongue?”

He could see Ace and Deuce running calculations. The mental math was adding up, just not in their favor.

“Tres bien. I’m glad you understand,” Ugly-Bob-Man said.

Yuu felt something crack beneath his fist before he’d even processed the fact that he was throwing a punch.

The man stumbled back, his eyes wide as blood spilled from his nose. He looked at Yuu for a long moment, stunned.

Dark red mixed with the green facepaint the man had been wearing, making it far darker than it should have been.

“Ah, my Roi, that expression truly is beaute,” he said, a grotesque smile stretching across his face.

Yuu’s fists clenched.

~

A hand caught his arm.

Yuu blinked a few times.

The zombie beneath him was bloodied, bruises and welts already starting to form on his skin, his facepaint hopelessly smeared…

It was still fucking smiling at him, its eyes shining in sheer adoration.

“To be killed by you would be an honor.”

Yuu shrugged the hand off of him in favor of wrapping his fingers around the things stupid throat and squeezing.

Shut the fuck up shut the fuck up shut the fuck up –!

A well-placed jab between his shoulder blades forced him to let go, his arms tingling numb. Yuu's head jerked around to look at Vil.

“We aren’t animals. We can handle disagreements with words,” he said, his expression cold.

“We can, but why should we?” Yuu said.

Vil looked disgusted. “Are you a savage?”

“Sure,” said Yuu, entirely unconcerned with what a guy who did Perfume Ads thought of him. “If you don’t want to watch, I can always take him and leave.”

A jolt ran up his arm and Yuu gritted his teeth against the static-y feeling, his eyes immediately shooting to the zombie beneath him.

“Of course. Where you go, I go.”

Yuu wanted to say the guy clearly didn’t know what Yuu was intending to do the second they left the premises, but he seemed very aware and also very into it, for some reason.

“If you leave, take me with you,” said the short guy, a little desperately. He grabbed Yuu by the arm – what was it with everyone and fucking touching him – and gave him a pleading look. “It fuckin’ sucks here, ‘n you guys seem way cooler.”

“No. No,” said Ace, all but stomping over purely so he could detach the stranger's hand from Yuu’s arm. “We have three people. That’s enough.”

Grim meowed, as if to remind him that they had a fourth member.

Ace’s expression darkened further.

“Besides, Epel,” Vil cut in. “You’re staying with me… in fact, Rook is also staying with me, so I’m afraid you will have to leave alone.”

Oh, this bitch…

“Or, you can talk it out like adults.”

Yuu looked down at the thing beneath him.

And then he looked back at Vil, smiling.

“I’m an expert at playing nice, actually.”

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Yuu can do it!

Part 80

First - Previous - Masterlist - Next

Kuroki glared at Jamil. Jamil simply stared back at him, looking entirely content with the fact that Kuroki Did Not Like Him. This did not soothe Kuroki’s hatred in the slightest.

“Why are they here?”

Ito shrugged. “I don’t think that I can teach three people at once, and we don’t have that much time to practice.”

Kuroki narrowed his eyes. He grabbed Ito by the arm. “You’re teaching me.”

“Obviously,” said Jamil. “We agreed that, should I attempt to teach you, you would probably spend all of your time trying to ‘accidentally’ hit me in the face instead of learning.”

Kuroki’s lips twitched into a grin despite his best efforts. What can he say? The image was funny.

“Thank you for proving my point,” said Jamil. He glanced at Kalim. “Judging by what Ito-san told us, I’d be better suited to teach Ace-san, and Kalim would likely work better with Spade-san.”

“You told them about us?” Deuce asked.

“A little bit!” said Kalim. “They said Kuroki-san’s main problem is nerves, and Ace-san sometimes forgets things, and you tend to be a little stiff… I wonder if Vil would give us those handcuffs if we asked for them…”

“Handcuffs?!” said Ace and Deuce, for once unified in sheer shock and horror. Imagine not being in the loop, must be awful.

Not that Kuroki was intent on filling them in.

“You’re such a ‘chis-mo-so’,” Kuroki said, turning on Ito. “You couldn’t help yourself.”

They rolled their eyes. “Calling that chismes is a stretch.”

He crossed his arms, but, ultimately, decided to let this go. For Now.

“Alright, let’s get started,” said Jamil.

… actually, maybe Kuroki was going to really hammer home just how messed up it was that not only did Ito cheat on them by gossiping with other people, they also gossiped about them. A double betrayal!

Ito grabbed him by the hand before he could even open his mouth, dragging him away from the rest of the group, until Jamil’s stated need to ‘see Ace and Deuce’s skills for himself’ was little more than a murmur in the background.

Kuroki raised an eyebrow at them. “I’m not great at dancing, but I’m not, like, a danger to the people around me or anything.”

“I know, I just need you to stand out a little,” they said, their hands on their hips.

“... wait, what?” said Kuroki.

He already stood out on account of being a magicless student. And that was far more than he wanted! He was born to be a background singer, a background dancer… hell, a background character in his own life! And he preferred it that way!

“I don’t think I’m going to be getting any starring roles, Ito,” Kuroki said.

“I never said you would. I don’t think those slots are open, anyway. Unless you really wow the judges –.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“... and, even then, they’ll probably make Schoenheit-senpai the main attraction. They’d be stupid not to, you know?”

“Then why do I need to stand out?!”

“Because you hate having eyes on you, so we need to get you used to it,” Ito said, shrugging. “Listen, dancing is all about confidence. If you feel nervous, even technically perfect choreography will feel stilted and awkward. And, if you’re confident, you can pull off some stupid moves and make silly mistakes without the audience knowing or caring.”

“It’s like a class presentation,” Kuroki murmured.

“Exactly.”

“Ito, I always fail those.”

Ito grimaced. “Well, that’s why we’re working on your confidence.”

A chin came to settle on his shoulder. Enma smiled at him. “If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll try to dance, too.”

Kuroki raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you terrible at it?”

“Yep. Which means people will barely be looking at you… we’re here to help, Kuroki, we’re not just throwing you into the deep end for fun.”

“... bullshit,” Kuroki said.

“Okay, maybe it’s also revenge for biting me the other day,” Ito said, lightly. “We can have two reasons for doing things.”

~

“Ito-san was right,” Kalim said, grinning from ear to ear. “You guys have two left feet. You can hardly dance, and you'll have to dance and sing at the audition... maybe you're in over your heads here.”

Ouch. Leave it to Kalim to insult them with complete sincerity. Which, of course, only made it sting more.

Not that Kuroki particularly cared about that right now.

“I fucking knew you were gossiping!”

Ito crossed their arms over their chest. “I was asking my seniors for advice.”

“You said we have two left feet!”

“I didn’t say that,” said Ito.

“Did you imply it?” Enma asked.

Ito huffed. “In my defense, I didn’t think Kalim-senpai would pick up on that.”

And, you know what? Fair.

Kuroki was still bitter about it, though.

~

Waking up early to go on a jog with Jack and Enma was probably the last thing Kuroki wanted to do. Alas. Jack had promised Ito that he would help out, and he was not interested in listening to Kuroki’s adamant refusals.

Maybe that was why Ito had asked Jack, not Kuroki…

He glared at Jack and Enma out of the corner of his eyes. They weren’t letting Kuroki set the pace (because he would slow them to a literal crawl, if given the opportunity), but he strongly suspected that they were going easy on him. They were chatting, casually, about their Personal Magical Ability homework, as if Kuroki wasn’t wheezing up a storm beside them.

Whatever. Point is. He was going to kill everyone in this damn school. Starting with Jack.

~

“People are staring at us,” Kuroki grumbled.

“Not really,” said Grim, shaking his head. “Most of ‘em are busy with their own shit.”

“There are eyes on us,” Kuroki said. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He could feel someone watching, even if he couldn’t pinpoint who.

“And?” said Ito. “The worst thing that can happen is they think we suck at dancing.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Only if you let it be,” said Enma. His face was slightly red, but damn if that wasn’t going to stop him from doing the saddest little pirouette the world had ever seen.

Ito poked Kuroki’s shoulder. “You’re too tense. Loosen up a little. Have fun.”

“I’m allergic to fun,” Kuroki muttered.

“You’re telling me,” Ito said, sighing. “Alright, new plan, you’re taking the girls’ part.”

“Wait, what –?”

They took his hand and, faster than he could really process, they’d somehow managed to maneuver him into a dip. He shrieked, holding onto the front of their shirt for dear life.

They snickered. “Hey, think of it this way – at least you’re not tense anymore.”

He glared up at them.

“You’re a sadist.”

“Please, I’m nowhere near as bad as Enma,” they said, grinning.

Enma, who was only a meter away and was therefore definitely within hearing distance, jolted, as if offended by what they’d said.

… nope. He’d just tripped over his own feet again. He could not dance.

~

“Awwww, Kurokiiiii, you stretched out the neckline of my fucking shiiiirt,” Ito whined.

“Good, suffer.”

“You’re a sadist, too,” Enma said, ruffling his hair.

“Never said I wasn’t.”

~

Jade, Floyd, and Azul materialized the second the ex-Ramshackle students went for their water bottles. Kuroki started going over the past few days in his mind, trying to figure out whether he had done something to deserve a personal visit from all three of them.

He didn’t remember doing anything in particular. And yet. He could hear the ‘Can I see you in my office?’ coming from a mile away.

“You looked like a couple of jellyfish out there,” said Jade.

Oh dear god. It was even worse than he’d thought. They were here to ridicule them.

He would rather they beat him up, frankly.

“Weightless and elegant?” Ito asked, their lips twitching in vague amusement.

Jade smiled politely. “Perhaps.”

The fucking liar. He’d been calling them blind, boneless, brainless things that merely followed the currents of the water around them, rather than making moves based on anything resembling logic.

Enma and Kuroki considered chucking themselves off the highest tower this castle had to offer. They could make a pact. Who doesn’t want to spend their Sunday afternoon committing suicide with your BFF?

(Don’t.)

“Ahem,” said Azul. “We are here for a reason.”

Ah. Right. Kuroki was probably getting an HR letter or something. He’d almost dared to forget about that for a second.

“The singer I had booked for tomorrow fell ill. I need you to cover their shift.”

Did that require coming here in person? With Jade and Floyd?

Oh. Azul thought he would say yes out of fear of the repercussions… that was stupid. Kuroki knew by now that he would get ‘repercussions’ either way.

Enma clapped a hand over Kuroki’s mouth before he could respond. “Sure. He’d love to, right, Kuroki?”

… oh.

Azul wanted Enma and Ito there, because they’d say yes for him, for the sake of getting him used to being on a stage.

Why were Jade and Floyd with him, then?

Azul smirked. “Great, now that that’s settled –.”

“Kumanomi-chan,” said Floyd, slinging an arm around Ito’s shoulders. “With the VDC stuff going on, you can probably go down to the city, right?”

Ito blinked in mild surprise. A sly grin began to stretch across their face. “True, true, I have to find the perfect venue. I had an idea, but I might need a local to help me find some more obscure spots.”

Floyd grinned. “I doubt the Headmaster would mind if we stopped at a few stores while we were out…”

Ito and Floyd high-fived.

Wait. Hold on. What?

“Ah, but what will I do while my beloved twin is away?” Jade asked.

“You could do your job,” said Azul.

Jade had, apparently, gone fully deaf. He snapped his fingers. “Perhaps I should go on a trip into the mountains. Alas, I have no one to go with...”

Enma lit up. “Rea –?”

“No,” said Floyd and Kuroki, at the same time.

Egads. What had his life come to? He was agreeing with Floyd of all people. Floyd!

Jade’s eyes flicked from Floyd, to Kuroki, and then back to Floyd again, as if he was carefully considering who he was going to punch first.

“How about we make it a girls’ trip?” said Ito. “We can hike down the mountain to town, do some shopping, and then take the tram back up. Everyone’s happy that way, right?”

Enma sighed, hiding his face in Ito’s hair. Devastated that the maybe-date had been demoted to a hangout session. But, apparently, he was going to take the win where he could get it: “Yeah… sounds fun…”

Kuroki felt like he was going insane.

He looked at Azul, desperate for someone to commiserate with, before promptly deciding that he would never sink so low as to be on Azul’s side in anything, ever.

Instead, he whirled on the four teenagers who were, apparently, planning a fun day out.

“You – you can’t have a girls' trip. There are no girls!”

“That you know of,” said Jade. Why did that sound so ominous? Did Jade and Floyd kidnap a girl solely to make girls’ trips possible?

More importantly, how were Ito and Enma on friendlier terms with Kuroki’s dormmates than he was?! How did that even happen?!

“Don’t be jealous, Koebi-chan, you can hang out with Azul while we’re away!”

“Absolutely not,” Kuroki and Azul chorused.

They glared at each other.

“Awww, but you get along so well…”

“No,” said Kuroki.

Azul turned away, tired of this useless conversation, in favor of all but running to Jamil. “Ah, Viper-san, how have you been as of late?”

Jamil shot Azul a disgusted look.

(Kuroki dared to consider that he should keep Azul around more, just to make Jamil miserable… but Azul’s presence would also make Kuroki miserable, so he wasn’t sure that it was worth it.)

“My day had been relatively nice until now,” said Jamil. Implying that Azul’s very presence had made his day worse.

Azul looked at this implication. Read the scrap of paper it was metaphorically written on several times. And then crumpled up said piece of paper and tossed it into a trashcan.

“Is there, perhaps, tension amongst your dormmates?” Azul asked. “Don’t worry, should Kalim-san and Mo-ra-les-san become too much for you to bear, or should Kalim-san ever kick you out for your attempted coup, you will always have a place in Octavinelle.”

Ito looked torn between sulking about being put on the same level as Kalim and laughing at how determined Azul was to say their last name despite how hard it was for him to pronounce it.

Kalim had no such inner turmoil. “I would never throw him out!”

“Even if he did, Octavinelle is the last dorm I’d turn to,” said Jamil.

Kalim frowned a little.

And then he turned to Ito. “How much longer do you have with your friends today? One hour, right?”

The Yuus sunk to their knees in perfect unison, tears building in their eyes as they begged for just a little more time, come on, please senpais.

“... I think they’re getting worse,” said Jamil.

“This is just the adjustment period,” Kalim said, though he looked slightly troubled. “... probably.”

Ace and Deuce made their way over. Deuce looked a little concerned. Ace didn’t even glance up from his phone.

“They’re acting,” said Ace.

Fucking traitor.

“And you’re ‘acting’ like a bitch,” said Kuroki, glowering at him.

“See? He stopped crying,” said Ace.

“Motherfucker.”

~

Ito got dragged away an hour early for that particular stunt. Enma, Kuroki, and Grim turned on Ace, who looked like he was suddenly regretting calling them out.

Good. Self-preservation is a good trait to have. Even if it wouldn’t help him. It was too late, now.

“C’mon, guys, it was a little funny,” said Ace.

“5,” said Enma.

Ace blinked. “What?”

“4.”

Realization sparkled in his eyes. “Wait, hold on –.”

“3.”

Ace turned tail and ran.

~

Kuroki’s foot tapped impatiently as he waited for his cue to go out on stage. He’d tried to run, but alas. The Twins.

(He couldn’t even run to the safety of his own dorm anymore.  Even his room wasn’t safe, because apparently they had a spare key to every room in Octavinelle. Life is pain and suffering.)

Azul looked very smug.

Kuroki crossed his arms over his chest. “Never put me on kitchen duty ever again, if you know what’s good for you.”

Azul looked much less smug.

Good. Fuck him.

Kuroki heard the music shift from live piano to prerecorded jazz, and left a very pale Azul behind.

He stepped onto the stage, twirling the microphone in his hand idly. A grand piano had been wheeled out for the person Kuroki was covering for.

Standing around and singing for hours at a time was boring, and the whole point of this was to make him more comfortable on stage…

No one was going to be paying attention to him, he might as well drape himself over the piano dramatically a couple of times. And maybe he tried out a little bit of tap dancing, to help himself stay on beat between verses. No one was going to stop him from straight up doing the entire routine for the VDC auditions once or twice, for the sake of practice.

And, hey, at least Azul could never claim Kuroki didn’t earn every cent he made that night.

~

“How’d you convince Viper-senpai and Kalim-senpai to help us, anyway?” Deuce asked over lunch one day. “Not that I’m not grateful, obviously, Kalim-senpai has been a huge help… but… Viper-senpai doesn’t seem like the type to help others.”

“It’s a new development,” said Grim. “He was soooo nice up until his breakdown. Now he’s mean to my henchmen…”

Kuroki patted him on the head. Jamil was no more ‘mean’ to them than anyone else, in his opinion… though he supposed that the sudden personality shift might make him seem worse by comparison.

But he hated Jamil, so he didn’t bother to correct the monster.

“I threatened to take over their dorm if they didn’t help,” said Ito. Casually. As if that was a normal thing to say.

Ace frowned. “Can you even do that? You don’t have any magic.”

“The dorm values deliberateness,” said Ito, shrugging. “It’s not about raw magical power there — if it was, Kalim-senpai would not be in charge — it’s how you use what you have. Kalim-senpai has his position because of charisma and connections, I don’t need magic to beat him at his own game.”

“The dorm’s probably a little unstable, after what happened during the break…” Enma murmured thoughtfully.

“Exactly. If I worked at it, I could probably steal the seat from him within the year.”

“Do you three just think of ways to take people down for fun or something?” Epel asked.

“Basically,” said Kuroki. “Why shouldn’t we?”

“Because it makes you seem like psychopaths,” said Jack.

(Jack’s tail had been wagging from the moment they’d all sat down together for lunch. It was hard to take his insult to heart.)

“People throw that word around way too much,” Enma mused.

Ace scoffed. “If people keep calling you psychos, maybe you should try not acting like psychos.”

The Yuus looked at each other.

“… nah,” said Kuroki.

“Sounds boring,” Ito said.

Enma crossed his arms over his chest. “You say that like you don’t benefit from our supposed ‘psychopathy’ allllll the time.”

“And we suffer just as much,” said Jack.

“Try saying that again when your tail isn’t wagging,” Kuroki said.

~

“So… about the whole… ‘not being human’ thing Hunt-senpai mentioned…” said Deuce.

The Yuus looked over.

“Does it have anything to do with…” Deuce looked left. He looked right. And then, he whispered, “The Shadows?”

There was a beat.

The Yuus sighed in perfect unison.

“Man, why’d you have to bring that up? Now we have to kill you,” Ito joked, though the glance down at their shadows suggested at least a hint of nerves.

Their shadows looked… normal-ish. If you ignored that Enma’s was somewhat larger than it was supposed to be, and Ito had a weird lump wrapped around one of their legs.

The shadow around Ito’s leg, slowly, detached to show the form of a small child, which waved at the onlookers.

(Briefly, Kuroki considered punting it.)

Enma pinched the bridge of his nose. “The shadows aren’t ours. They’re Sam’s… ‘friends’.”

“Oh…” said Deuce. “If they’re Sam’s, then that’s probably why they stick around Enma the most.”

Enma grinned. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure they like me more than Sam at this point.”

“Though you may have a point… they could be the reason Hunt-senpai thinks we’re not human,” Kuroki said.

“I’m surprised you noticed the shadows, honestly,” said Ito. “If they weren’t kinda-physical, I don’t think I’d know they were there.”

“I usually pretend they’re not there even when I do feel them,” admitted Kuroki.

A weight settled on top of his head, seemingly purely to fuck with him. He glanced at his shadow. There was, apparently, some sort of bird-shaped creature in his hair. Most of the ones that lingered around Kuroki for longer than a few minutes were animals, so this was hardly surprising.

“I think they like to watch us suffer,” said Kuroki. “‘Cause Ito barely gets any.”

“Mmm… I just assumed they hated the desert,” they said.

“Or they just think you’re more self-sufficient,” said Enma. “So they don’t feel the need to watch over you as much.”

“You’re… really casual about this,” said Deuce, slowly.

Kuroki hesitated. “Should we be worried?”

Deuce stared at him like he was insane. “About the fucking –?!”

A shadow jumped out from behind Enma. And then it jumped Deuce, sending him straight into the ground, where it proceeded to choke him out.

Well, that’s a little concerning.

Ito raised an eyebrow. “Do they think we don’t know they’re demons?”

There was a beat. The shadow that had been trying to prevent them from knowing the truth seemed to pause, awkwardly.

Well. That’s a ‘yes’ if Kuroki had ever seen one.

Enma grinned, offering Deuce a hand up. “Don’t worry about it, Deuce. I’m pretty sure none of us have souls for them to steal, anyway.”

Deuce glared at him. “That’s not funny.”

He was right. It really wasn’t.

~

Ito grimaced as they knocked back two pills.

“You know, you’re supposed to take those with water,” said Deuce.

They huffed. “I’d rather –.”

Enma glared at them.

“... I don’t want water, thanks.”

Kuroki squinted at the pill bottle in their hand. “Are we sure those are helping you at all?”

Ito blinked a few times, before looking over. “What do you mean?”

“He’s got a point, the suicide jokes haven’t stopped,” Deuce pointed out.

(Enma mouthed the word ‘jokes’, his expression bitter.)

Ito raised an eyebrow. “I mean, sure, but… I dunno. Jokes like that are pretty common, where I’m from. And I don’t really intend on dying anytime soon, so I don’t see the harm.”

Ace ran his fingers through his hair. “I think you’re expecting too much. I doubt there are pills that can make them — like — normal. And Ito’s definitely felt more… present, lately.”

Even Grim nodded his agreement.

Was Kuroki the only one who was wary?

“Would it make you feel better if I got the pills through Kalim-senpai instead?” Ito asked.

Kuroki snorted. “You’d still be getting them courtesy of Viper-senpai.”

“... yeah, true.”

~

“Where’s Enma?” Ace asked, squinting suspiciously at Ito and Kuroki. He glanced at their pockets, as if expecting to find him hidden there. Which, considering Ito hadn’t yet improved in Alchemy (he was pretty sure they were blowing up their cauldrons out of pure boredom at this point), wasn’t entirely impossible.

But, no, he wasn’t there.

“Did you sacrifice him?” Deuce asked.

“What?” said Kuroki.

“Don’t give them any ideas,” Ace said.

Ito raised their hand. “Why would we sacrifice him?”

“I dunno. He’d probably want you to,” said Deuce. “To see what happened to him after.”

“No, he’d sacrifice one of us,” Kuroki said, shaking his head. “He wouldn’t get to see what happened afterward if he was the one who died.”

“... good point,” said Deuce. “Where is he, then?”

“I dunno. Maybe the buffet line? But they’re taking a while…” said Ito, frowning.

There was a burst of blue flames across the room.

“Found them,” the first years chorused, with varying levels of exasperation.

When they managed to muscle their way over, they found Grim fighting Jack… or, at least, Grim was throwing spells Jack’s way, and Jack was casually flicking his wand to deflect them.

Enma was just standing there, watching with a vaguely amused expression while Jack suffered. He had food in his arms, and therefore could dissuade Grim with a simple bribe. But he was not doing that. Because Enma was easily the most sadistic out of the three of them.

“What happened?” Ace asked Epel.

“Jack’s tail whacked Grim one too many times,” he shrugged.

“His tail’s not wagging now,” observed Deuce.

“Probably because there’s a monster attacking him,” Kuroki said.

“Ohhhhh, yeah.”

~

“Hey, guys, can we have dinner alone tonight?” Kuroki asked.

“Hm?” said Enma. “I mean… sure… but why?”

“Just feels like it’s been a while since we’ve done anything just the four of us, I guess,” he said. So nonchalant. He wasn’t even looking at them for their reactions, because he was just that nonchalant.

Enma and Ito glanced at each other over his head. Not that he noticed. Again, he wasn’t looking at them.

“... Kuroki, just because we have other friends doesn’t mean that we care for you any less,” Ito said, gently.

Kuroki’s face flushed. “It’s not like that. I just – Ace, Deuce, Epel, and Jack? They’re so annoying sometimes.”

“He’s got a point,” Grim nodded along.

“See!”

Enma sighed, lifting a hand to carefully ruffle his hair. “Sure, Kuroki, we can have dinner alone tonight.”

Kuroki squeezed their hands tighter.

Why were they even trying to make friends with other people? It wasn’t like they’d ever understand them, anyway. He was just saving them time.

When he finally looked up, Ito and Enma looked exasperated.

(Something almost vindictive curled at the corners of his lips.)

“Don’t worry, I’ll cook,” he said. “Are you guys feeling up to Ramen?”

Grim nodded eagerly. And, since Grim always got the final say when it came to their food – because he would become very annoying if they didn’t agree with his choices – Ito and Enma didn’t complain.

~

It wasn’t quick or easy, but Kuroki did get to the point where he was confident that he wouldn’t embarrass himself too badly during the audition.

It helped that he would be auditioning with Ace and Deuce. Did Kuroki think it was, likely, a logistical nightmare? Yes. How can you accurately ascertain three or more people’s skills at once? But, hey, he benefitted from it, and that’s all that matters.

“Whoever wins, no hard feelings, okay?” Deuce said, seriously.

There were only two spots, and three of them. There was no way all of them were going to qualify.

“... Deuce, buddy, let’s be real, none of us are getting in,” said Ace.

Kuroki nodded. There was no way any of them were going to qualify, realistically. He’d seen other people practicing, from time to time. Some of these people had been training for their entire lives. No amount of spite was going to win this for Kuroki, unfortunately.

All he needed to do was get through this without dissolving into a puddle of pure shame, and then he’d be golden.

“I’m gonna make it in, just you watch!” Grim said.

Grim didn’t qualify to participate, as the VDC just didn’t account for sentient monsters, but damn if that was going to stop them from lying to him. He was just a kid, really, there was no reason to expose him to that kind of stuff.

Kuroki patted him on the head. “We have to be better than Ace and Deuce, at least.”

Ace and Deuce gave halfhearted protests, but Kuroki and Grim ignored them, so did that really matter?

They stepped into the gymnasium.

Rook Hunt and Vil Schoenheit sat in the stands, quite literally looking down at them. They had clipboards in their laps.

Rook Hunt.

Kuroki fought to keep his composure under the guy’s watchful gaze.

The four of them were performing together, and Grim’s dancing was far more ‘interesting’ than Kuroki’s, there was no reason why Rook Hunt should watch him the entire time.

This didn’t stop him from doing it, though.

Needless to say, Kuroki – who had trained with the belief that no one would be looking at him specifically – bombed to hell and back. Muscle memory and autopilot can’t do shit for you when you can’t get into autopilot in the first place. And who could expect him to?! The guy was staring at him as if he knew all of Kuroki’s secrets! Anyone would be unnerved!

Vil Schoenheit seemed disappointed in him. His life was ridiculously unfair.

He went off to find Ito and Enma the second the song was over.

Ito was nowhere to be seen.

Enma was chatting with Ruggie, since he was, apparently, up next.

“I hope you fail,” said Ruggie.

“... I’m not going to audition, senpai,” Enma said, lightly. “But that’s not very nice. I was going to root for you to win. The money would really help you out, right? I might not like you, sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I want you to suffer.”

Ruggie’s ears flattened against his head in embarrassment and, quite possibly, guilt.

He made a quick escape by ducking into the auditorium.

Enma cracked the second the door shut behind Ruggie, pressing his hand over his mouth in an attempt to muffle his snickers.

Alas. Ruggie was a yajugen, and he had better hearing than most people should. He yelled something through the door that was impossible to make out, but was surely unkind.

Enma grinned widely despite – or, perhaps, because of – this.

And then his eyes landed on Kuroki.

He didn’t say a word, he simply opened his arms and allowed Kuroki to fall into them.

It wasn’t long before Ito came back, too.

“The bathroom was full of people fixing their makeup, I had to run across campu –,” Ito started to complain, only to cut themself off. “... oh, baby…”

They draped themself over his back.

Kuroki buried himself in his friends’ arms.

A faint smile threatened to tug at his lips, something deep in his chest settling.

He’d known he wouldn’t get in from the very start.

Nor had he really wanted to – the money, the fame, and the dorm would have been nice, but those would just be cherries on top. All he really needed was for Ito and Enma to keep caring for him. Ito and Enma were always most affectionate when Kuroki was in need. Enma saw him as a ‘younger brother’, and Ito had always had a soft spot for kids. So, if it kept them close to him, if it prompted them to take care of him, then Kuroki could suffer a bit. He didn’t care what he had to do.

They were his siblings. His. And Kuroki wasn’t intent on letting them leave, too.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Maribat Fic Recs!

Here is a link to the submission form!

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A bond formed through trauma by Totally_no_one_like_me ( @totally-no-one-like-me )

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Protection Detail by FairyChix26 ( @the-alice-of-hearts )

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Non-Anon recommendations:

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I fell in love with this (and its series) because the idea of Damian being complete affected by the idea of a girlfriend being *home* and wanting to be taken care of just because he saw Marinette in an Apron made me absolutely weak

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iffy recommends Canary by oliviaandersonisntmyrealnamelol ( @olivia-anderson-fanfic )

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[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Yuu can do it!

Part 79

First - Previous - Masterlist - Next

Deuce squinted at Kuroki. “I thought you weren’t gonna audition.”

He seemed a little betrayed and upset now that he had lost one of his only allies. As if Enma wasn’t also right there with them.

(Enma wasn’t going to be auditioning. He wouldn't get in. Nor did he need to for Kuroki’s plan to work — Leona didn’t give a damn whether the Yuus actually stayed apart. The only Savanaclaw student who might care about the rules was Jack, who had already communicated that he was not stupid enough to get between them. Enma basically used his new room in Savanaclaw as a storage room. Otherwise, he only really popped by Savanaclaw every once in a while when he wanted to bully Jack into socializing. Or just bully Ruggie in general.)

“It’s all part of my grand plan to make That Bitch pay,” Kuroki said.

Enma sighed. The little puff of air ruffled Kuroki’s hair. “You should at least call the Headmaster by his title.”

“He hasn’t earned it.”

”… technically —.”

Before Enma could try (and surely fail) to correct him, they heard a familiar voice:

“— right?! They’re a crime!”

Ito was chatting with someone as they made their way over. From the looks of it, they’d managed to convince the guy to carry their books for them.

Despite this, the guy was smiling, as if he was the one winning here, somehow.

Kuroki narrowed his eyes at the stranger. They merely blinked at him in return. His feather earring swayed just slightly when he tilted his head to the side. And then he smiled, setting Ito’s books down so he could stick his hand out to shake. “Hi, you can call me Usman-kun. I’m a second year, but being called ‘senpai’ makes me feel old, so...”

Kuroki glared at his hand.

Usman glanced at Ito. “People shake hands here, right?”

“They’re supposed to, yeah,” said Ito.

Enma sighed and leaned forward to take Usman’s hand instead. “Don’t worry about him…”

Kuroki could see Enma’s brain working overtime to figure out whether it felt more disrespectful to call their senior by ‘-senpai’ or ‘-kun’.

(For just a half-second, Kuroki swore he saw Usman’s eyes narrow in shrewd calculation, but the expression was gone within blinks.)

Usman glanced at Ito. “Your friends are… interesting.”

“Well, you’re one of my friends,” Ito said. “So. Maybe look inward.”

Usman’s eyes widened in mock horror. “I’m gonna go have a breakdown over that in my bed.”

Ito nodded along solemnly, though there was an amused note to their voice that they didn’t bother to hide as they said, “You do that. I’ll see you later.”

The guy flashed a wave, before heading off.

“Who was that?” Ace asked, glancing up from where he’d been playing games on his phone.

“Usman-kun,” Ito said, simply.

Ace sent them a vaguely unimpressed look.

They snickered. “He’s my new roommate.”

“I don’t trust him,” Kuroki said, glaring at the guy’s retreating back.

“Wonder why that is,” Ace said dryly.

Kuroki glared at him.

“Oh, no, Kuroki’s right,” Ito said, leaning over Ace’s back to steal one of the Pocky sticks he was eating, to the boy’s eternal dismay. “The dude’s shady as hell.”

Deuce spluttered. “Then why are you friends with him?!”

“Why are you friends with us?” Enma said.

Deuce opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, trying to come up with a reason as to why being their friend was totally different. He came up blank.

Ito took pity on him.

“Well, again, he’s my roommate, so I’m not gonna be a dick to him. It’d make weekends really awkward,” Ito answered Deuce’s original question. “Two… I like his style. Three, I figured Enma would like to know about his species.”

Enma raised an eyebrow, but he looked a little touched. “His species?”

“He’s a bird yajugen.”

Enma grabbed Ito’s hands. “Tell me everything.”

Deuce frowned. “What’s there to know? Isn’t that common knowledge?”

Ace sighed. “I just assume they know literally nothing nowadays.”

Deuce nodded slowly, realization dawning on his face. What was he realizing? Who knows. He almost definitely wasn’t correct, so who cares, really?

Ito smiled and started sorting through their things, until they pulled out a small notebook. “General gist of it is they can’t actually fly — humans are too heavy… but they’re lighter than the average human, still? Anyway. They try to fly like… once after their feathers grow in and if it doesn’t work they just kinda… chop ‘em. ‘Cause they’re ‘useless’.”

“… what?” said Kuroki, horrified.

(He, kinda, felt like a dick, now. But, at the same time, the guy was suspicious and Kuroki was right to hate him!)

“I know, right?” Ito said. “It’s wild. Oh! And, apparently, they have this legend where one of them betrayed the Sorcerer and their entire species was cursed to never fly again.”

Enma’s eyes were gleaming despite the heavy subject. “That’s — I mean, it’s terrible, obviously, but —.”

“Enma. Man. We know you. You don’t have to pretend to care about that,” Deuce said, resting a hand on Enma’s shoulder.

Enma flushed, but didn’t argue the point.

Ito smiled and tossed their notebook at him. “Here’s the specifics.”

Enma looked like he might cry, cradling the notebook like it was something precious. “You — you started a notebook for me?”

“I mean, yeah, you’d be annoying about it if I didn’t tell you everything, and I didn’t want to forget...”

Enma smiled. “Thanks.”

“Of course.”

It was a cute scene.

Kuroki gritted his teeth, jumping to his feet and grabbing Ito by the arm. “C’mon, you promised to teach us to dance. We only have four hours with you today, we shouldn’t waste them.”

Ito blinked a couple of times as they processed that they were being dragged away against their will, before falling in step with him with only a glance back to call for Ace.

~

“I can’t believe the audition song is fucking Piece of My World,” Ace said, handing his phone to Ito (willingly, for once!) so they could pull the song up for them.

“They probably wanted something everyone knew,” Ito shrugged. And then they sighed. “Mierda. Ads.”

“Not even getting dragged to another world was enough to escape ads,” Kuroki sighed.

“Wow, just saying that in a crowded room nowadays?” Ace teased, though his eyebrows punched in mild concern.

Ito shrugged. “No one’s close enough to hear.”

This was true. They weren’t the only ones practicing in the gymnasium (why did Vargas always insist on making them work out outside, rain or shine, when they had a gym?!), but they were given a pretty wide berth. Whether that was their status as magicless students or because of their growing reputations as omens of death and destruction, it was kinda nice to have as much space as they wanted.

At the same time, people were looking at them. Some were decent enough to try to hide it, but most weren’t all that subtle.

Kuroki fought the urge to curl in on himself.

If he got onto the team, he’d need to do this in front of an entire stadium’s-worth of people.

Was it worth it?

He glanced at Enma, who was flipping through the notebook Ito had given him. Deuce was leaning over his shoulder, pointing to certain things and elaborating on them. There were stars in Enma’s eyes.

When was the last time Ito had gone out of their way for him?

Kuroki’s eyes found their way back to Ito. They were aggressively spamming where the ‘skip ad’ button should be, despite the fact that it was clear by now that the ad was unskippable. They were going to bore a hole through Ace’s phone before the thirty second ad was over.

Ito had befriended their roommate at least in part because they lived together. Was it the same with Kuroki? Were they only friends because Kuroki was there?

Well… fine. He would just have to ensure that he was always there.

~

“How’d we do?” Ace asked when they decided to take a water break after nearly two long, grueling hours.

“It was hard to watch, so I didn’t,” Deuce said.

Ace kicked him in the stomach. Deuce retaliated by grabbing Ace’s leg and pulling, sending the redhead to the floor.

Ace seemed content to just lay there.

Kuroki flopped down beside Enma, leaning into his side for comfort. Which Enma gave, his hand coming up to ruffle Kuroki’s hair despite the fact that it was damp with sweat.

Of course, this came with a price:

“Why’re you two so tired? Ito looks fine,” Enma teased.

“Ito is basically just hitting us every time we fuck up. That doesn’t take much effort,” Ace huffed, accepting the water bottle Deuce offered him with little more than a tiny nod of acknowledgment.

Ito had not, in fact, hit them once. They had barely even touched them the entire time, and only when they were on tiptoe, to make sure they didn’t fall over.

What did they do about these false accusations?

Admit to wrongdoing, of course. For The Bit.

“Excuse you, you’re extremely hard-headed,” Ito said, giving a mocking pout as they shook out their hand. “It hurts to hit you after a while.”

Kuroki rolled his eyes and brought his water bottle to his mouth, gulping down as much as he possibly could. He might have drank it too quickly, because he started to feel a little nauseous. He mumbled a curse. And then several more, in quick succession. Can’t throw up if your mouth is too busy swearing! Probably. Hopefully.

Ito crouched by him. “I think we should stop for today. Risking an asthma attack is… not the goal.”

Kuroki frowned.

“I thought you said we were gonna end early so you can, and I quote, ‘plot’?” Enma said.

“That too,” Ito said, grinning. “Now that I have a general idea of your abilities, I can plan around that.”

“Does this mean we’ll get to have dinner together tonight?” Grim said, his eyes shining with hope.

“Sure,” said Ito. “Kuroki, Ace? You two got any preferences?”

“That one pasta with the white sauce,” Ace said.

Ito flashed a thumbs up. “Might be a bit heavy on your stomachs, just so you know.”

“Is that the one with the mushrooms?” Kuroki asked.

Ito nodded.

“Then let’s eat at Savanaclaw. Mushrooms aren’t safe in Octavinelle, Jade always mixes in some of his ‘special’ shrooms.”

Enma smiled a little.

“… Enma. Please. You’re killing me, here.”

“What? Maybe I’m just excited that we get to eat with Jack today!”

Enma got a grand total of five unimpressed looks.

His face flushed red. “I miss when we only made fun of Ace and Deuce’s weird pining.”

“Hey!” said Deuce, now blushing profusely as well.

“It’s old news,” said Ace, a little too quickly.

Now, Kuroki, usually, would zero in on any hint of weakness. However. He disapproved of Jade and Enma, so that took precedence:

“Your thing is way worse.”

~

Ito, cheerfully, picked up their books and made as if to leave.

“Wait, why’d you even bring your books in the first place?” said Ace.

Ito thought about it.

“Honestly? I just wanted to see if Usman-kun would do it.”

Deuce pinched the bridge of his nose. “You can’t perform unethical experiments on people for fun.”

“Aw, it’s not even that unethical.”

“Lying is unethical.”

Ito made a so-so motion with their hand.

The tower of books in their arms did not appreciate this, wobbling uncertainly.

Deuce was quick to help steady them. But he could not be distracted from his attempts to teach Ito basic morals:

“What if that was his final straw?”

“Then he was weak,” Ace said, seemingly just for the sake of annoying Deuce.

Ito sighed. “Listen, he was being too nice to me. He might have a crush on me… or he’s just trying to use me for my connections. Now, I’m leaning toward the second one, but it’s always good to check…”

Their voices trailed off in the distance.

“Do you think he realizes that they’ve made him carry their books, too?” Ace whispered.

“Not a chance,” Grim said.

“Doubt he’d care either way,” Enma shrugged.

“I think he’d care about carrying their books, but the manipulation probably isn’t his favorite thing,” said Kuroki.

“Want to bet?

~

Deuce came back ten minutes later, looking very annoyed. Who knows why.

(At least Ito was nice enough to free him once they got to the Mirror Chamber. Kuroki had been convinced they’d drag him all the way down to Scarabia. Maybe his unhinged rant about empathy had done something, after all.)

Kuroki grinned as a couple of thaumarks were tossed into his lap.

~

“Why is that guy singing forlornly into a well?” Grim asked.

“Shhhhh!” said Ace.

Alas, Deuce had now taken notice of the guy. He frowned. “We should check on him.”

Enma shook his head. “Just keep walking.”

“... this school has an Overblot every few weeks. And, somehow, you’re always involved. We should check on him.”

Oh, so when Deuce tries to manipulate them (Poorly, might Kuroki add! He was way too obvious about it!) it’s all fine and dandy.

“See, but this is how we get involved in the Overblots,” Enma pointed out.

Deuce wasn’t having any of it.

Kuroki sighed and turned to Enma.

Enma rolled his eyes, but lifted his hand.

“Rock, paper, scissors, shYuut,” they said.

Kuroki had been so offended by the pun Enma not-so-subtly tried to slip in that he forgot to throw anything out.

Enma smirked, placing his ‘paper’ over Kuroki’s ‘rock’.

Kuroki stomped on his foot. And then turned back toward the well, intent on pushing the guy down it out of sheer spite. Let's see him Overblot in a cramped space.

Luckily for everyone involved, Deuce was Tired Of Their Shit and had gone over to the stranger himself.

“Hey man, you good?”

The stranger flinched so hard that he nearly fell into the well all on his own.

And then he whirled around to look at Deuce. 

“Nah — I mean, I’m fine, thank you!”

Ace clapped his hands together. “Look at that. He says it’s fine. Let's go.”

The guy turned to send a halfhearted glare his way, only to blink a few times in mild surprise. “You’re… that guy from orientation. I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”

“Ace,” he said, putting his hand out. “And don’t worry ‘bout it, I forgot your name, too.”

“Epel Felmier.”

“What’d you do during orientation, Ace?” Enma asked, his lips twitching into a grin.

“I don’t want to hear that from you.”

“We didn’t do anything,” said Kuroki.

“The monster’s yours, so… by extension, you ruined our orientation.”

Damn. How dare he call out their lie by omission?

Epel became very tense.

“Wait. Wait. Ain’t that the magicless students —?! No, it can’t be, there’s only two of them...”

Enma and Kuroki hung their heads at the reminder... Ito... Ito come back...

“These are my henchmen,” Grim said. “The third one is away fulfilling my orders.”

His food order, maybe.

The poor guy looked a little pale at the confirmation. “Ah, yeah, I — um — have places to be…”

“You’re scared of them? They can’t even do magic,” Deuce said.

Kuroki and Enma glowered at him. Sure, Deuce was only saying that to put Epel at ease, but also how dare he.

“I’ve heard horror stories. Pomefiore is full of gossips. And that’s not even mentioning some of the sh — stuff that Jack and Rook tell me.”

And Deuce's attempts to soothe Epel weren't even working. He was slandering them for no reason.

“Jack talks about us?” said Enma, looking like he was mentally taking note of his dormmate’s transgressions for later.

“Jack has other friends?”

Deuce was asking the real questions here.

“Hold on,” said Deuce. “We’re off track. Epel. Are you okay?”

If you looked closely, you could see Ace, Enma, and Kuroki all cringe. Because, really, it was so obvious that Epel was avoiding the subject on purpose, and you shouldn’t push someone to talk if they don't want to, especially not if they're a complete stranger —.

“Oh! You’re right!” said Epel, his eyes blowing wide. "We got off track!"

It was a fucking accident?!

“I — uh — I’m one of the people who’s on the VDC team. I’m practicing,” Epel said, playing with his hair a little. “The well echoes your voice back to you, so it’s easier to tell whether or not you’re on key.”

“Oh!” said Deuce. “Congrats on getting in!”

Deuce’s earnest praise earned little more than a grimace from the guy.

Uh oh. Not a great sign.

Thankfully, before they could get a sad backstory word-vomited at them, they were saved by Epel’s phone ringing.

Epel looked like he was on his way to the guillotine.

He picked up the phone and pressed it to his ear.

His face, which was already pale, paled further.

“Vil-san, I would never skip out on my vocal lessons to chat with some friends. Like, I don’t even know these guys —!”

Wow. They didn’t need to hear the other side of the call to know that that was not the right thing to say. Never admit to wrongdoing of any kind!

Epel scowled at the floor. “They ain’t done nothin’ to deserve that kinda language. They were just concerned for me… and they should be, ya know! I’d much rather be —.”

Kuroki couldn’t make out the words on the other end of the line, but they didn’t seem particularly nice.

Epel hung up after a while. Which was, probably, not a great idea.

He seemed to realize this a moment too late. He looked around frantically. He didn’t seem to find what he was looking for. So, instead, he screamed at the sky:

“ROOK, YER A FUCKIN’ SNITCH!”

And then he turned to his fellow first years.

“Harbor me, please.”

Deuce nodded immediately. They didn’t even get the chance to protest. Which was, clearly, Deuce’s intention, because he glared at anyone who dared to open their mouth.

Ace, Kuroki, and Enma sighed. This is what they get for making friends with the Star Student Wannabe, they supposed.

“Guess Jack’ll be happy to see you…” said Enma.

“I’ll tell Ito that they need to make extra food…” Ace said, pulling out his phone.

~

Deuce clapped a hand over Ito’s shoulder the moment they appeared in the doorway. “Teach me to dance.”

Ito blinked a few times.

They glanced at Kuroki and Enma. “Did he have a character arc while I was gone or something?”

Kuroki shrugged.

Ito sighed, before carefully shifting the Tupperware in their arms so they could free up a hand to ruffle Deuce’s hair. “Sure, man, I might as well.”

~

Ito looked confused by their new addition. And, to be fair, even Kuroki was a little confused, and he'd been there when it happened. Sometimes life is just Like That, he supposed.

They frowned a little.

“Isn’t this that one guy we talked to during the Magift bullshit?”

Epel nodded, offering his hand to them. “Epel Felmier.”

Ito shook his hand, though not without a bit of hesitation. “Ito. What’re your pronouns, again?”

Epel looked very confused.

“… ah, riiiiight,” Ito said, with a wince. They turned to the room at large. “Someone teach him about they/them pronouns, because I don’t wanna.”

Kuroki, reluctantly, explained the concept of gender-neutral pronouns to an increasingly confused Epel.

“Wait, so he’s acting all girly on purpose?” Epel asked, mildly disgusted.

Ito barely even dignified the comment with an eye roll. They turned to give Ace a second helping.

On the complete other end of the spectrum, Kuroki’s eye twitched. The only reason why he wasn't threatening Epel with his fork was because he still needed it to eat. But after dinner? All bets are off.

And, listen, he understood. It’s a difficult thing to wrap your head around. Most people take a while to adapt to the idea that gender wasn’t entirely binary.

He didn’t particularly care about that, though. It wasn’t about understanding, it was just basic respect.

“… say something like that again and I will show you why everyone on this campus has horror stories about us.”

~

“Hey, Jack, you use the right pronouns for Ito when you tell Felmier-san about us, right?” Enma asked.

“Honestly, I only really talk about you three as a whole. You’re all, like, one person in my mind.”

Enma considered this. “I guess you’re not really wrong...”

“What’s that supposed to mean —?”

“You talk about us?” said Ito.

“All good things!” said Epel, quickly. Too quickly.

Jack shrunk in his seat nervously. Considering how tall he was, it wasn't all that helpful.

“Don’t worry, Jack,” Ito said, in a tone that only seemed to make him worry more. “You can make it up to us — I need you to help Kuroki increase his stamina.”

Jack groaned, but accepted his fate. “I‘ll get roped into it no matter what…”

“That’s the spirit!” said Enma, cheerfully.

~

Now that they had everyone who was going to audition, they decided they might as well apply.

Which is why they were now standing in front of a third-year classroom, awkwardly hovering outside the door, unsure whether they were actually allowed in.

Kuroki sighed. “Should have just made Epel-chan turn these in for us as ‘payment’ for harboring him last night…”

“Maybe we should flag down a Heartslabyul junior… not sure they like us, though…” Ace mumbled.

They poked their heads through the door, squinting at their options.

“Oi, Leona!” said Grim.

Leona glared at them. The other students all stared at them like they were vaguely interested in whether the guy would chew their heads off. And there was one weird student who gave a dreamy sigh and rested his chin in his hand.

(Kuroki decided he didn’t like the last guy. He had no real basis for this, he just had The Ick.)

When Leona realized they weren’t leaving anytime soon, regardless of his glare, he reluctantly waved them over. “You have five seconds to tell me what you want.”

Enma was the fastest to react: “We need to talk to someone named Rook Hunt-senpai —.”

Leona made a gagging sound. “The fuck do you want with him?!”

“Yes, why do you need me?” a voice said, from behind them.

They had nerves of steel, thanks to Crowley and his many random appearances, but that didn’t make it particularly fun to get snuck up on.

And, oh, it turns out 'Rook Hunt' was the guy that had creeped Kuroki out earlier. Of course.

Wait, when did he get behind them?!

“We’re applying for the VDC,” said Deuce, setting three applications in his hands.

"I see, I see." Rook beamed. “It's nice to finally meet all of you. I’m Rook Hunt, le Chasseur d’Amour. I am devoted to seeking out beauty and supporting it. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“… we didn’t ask,” said Ace.

Enma cuffed him over the back of the head.

“Ah, I apologize. I simply know so much about you, I thought it would only be fair to tell you a little about myself in return!” said Rook.

“Our reputation precedes us…” said Deuce, grimacing.

Leona snickered, for some indiscernible reason.

“Of course! Now, let’s see. We have… all class 1-A students. Half from Heartslabyul, and half recent transfers to the Savanaclaw, Octavinelle, and Scarabia forms… Ace Trappola, 172 centimeters tall, human… Deuce Spade, 173 centimeters tall, human…”

“Wait, what,” said Ace.

“I’m taller than him?” Deuce said. And then he blinked. “Hold on, how do you know our heights down to the centimeter?”

They were ignored.

“Grim, 70 centimeters, monster — classification: direbeast...”

Grim was hiding behind Kuroki. Kuroki, absently, ran a hand through the monster’s fur, and yet couldn’t bring himself to look away from the impending car crash.

“And finally… Jules ‘Ito’ Morales, Kuroki Yuuya, and Enma Yuuken. 167, 163, and 187 centimeters respectively. Species unknown.”

The silence after that last sentence was deafening.

“… unknown?” repeated Enma, his eyebrows knitting in confusion.

“Yes, I’m afraid I’ve never seen anything like you three before, could you — perhaps — enlighten me?”

Leona looked over. “They smell like dirt because their monster loves scenting them.”

“What does 'scenting' mean?” Kuroki asked.

Grim huffed, leaning into Kuroki’s hand a little more aggressively. “Don’t worry about that, Henchman. My ear itches.”

Kuroki frowned, but complied, even if he was still mildly concerned about whatever that word meant.

Not that that was the only thing he was currently concerned about. He contained mulitudes.

“We smell like dirt?” said Ito.

Oh, had they not been traumatized by Leona like Kuroki had? Lucky.

Or maybe not. They were frantically smelling themself. Ace was subtly leaning closer to their head to sniff their hair. Deuce was much less subtle about sniffing Enma. Kuroki wasn’t free, either. There was a nose by his shoulder. Ew.

“You’re correct, Roi des Lions, they do smell of earth.” Rook said, his voice far too close to Kuroki’s ear for comfort. “However, that’s not what I was talking about.”

Wait a minute. That nose belonged to Rook.

Kuroki whirled around, preparing to punch the guy in the face.

Ito beat him to the punch… or, rather, they pressed a knife to Rook’s neck, forcing him to back up.

Where did they get the knife? Frankly, Kuroki would like to know, too!

Rook blinked a few times, and then leaned into the knife a little, making blood well up on his own neck. He gave Ito a look that was, frankly, sickening to look at.

“Are you going to kill me, Jules?” he asked, sounding like he might be into that.

Ito, slowly, pulled the knife away from him, looking disgusted.

And then the first years made a tactical retreat.

~

Ace frowned. “So, who was stupid enough to give you a knife?”

“It’s a letter opener.”

Ito flicked the letter opener in a vain attempt to get the blood off of it.

Enma took it from them with a sigh, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping away the blood for them.

Once it was clean (and Enma’s handkerchief was tossed into a nearby trash can), they all leaned in close to confirm that it was actually a letter opener.

Surprisingly, it was. A dainty little thing that would probably snap in half if someone actually tried to stab someone with it. The ‘weapon’ was courtesy of Crowley, if the key-shaped engravings meant anything.

“Why’s it sharp?” asked Deuce.

“I was bored.”

“…” Ace pinched the bridge of his nose. “I hope you know that explains nothing.”

“I do.”

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the Break of Dawn - Pt 35

<Pt34

(TWST Zombie apocalypse AU where Yuu beast tames just a little too close to the sun)

Despite being a cat, Grim was not stupid. He was possessive, selfish, and prone to ignoring the fact that Yuu was a separate person with his own wants and needs…

But he wasn’t one to take risks.

Especially not where Yuu was involved.

When Yuu had sat in his old apartment, oil slick over the floors, a pack of matches in his hand, and told Grim that he wasn’t going to be staying there anymore, Grim had listened. Perhaps because Yuu hadn’t bothered to make a small island in the oil where he could safely stand – Yuu had told him, on no uncertain terms, that if he wanted him to stick around, then Grim would have to let him out of the house.

Yuu had been let out of the house.

He had still set the place ablaze as he left, of course, out of sheer spite.

For what, he didn’t really know.

(Not Grim, apparently – Grim hadn’t minded. The place was only sentimental when his favorite pet was there, it seemed.)

Nowadays, Yuu wasn’t quite in the same position. He could pull Cater’s gun out of his backpack and press it to his head, but it wouldn’t be enough. Grim wouldn’t prefer that Yuu die, there was a reason he wasn’t a zombie yet, but Yuu knew, ultimately, if he ever did die, Grim would simply bring him back. Which meant that, if he was ‘bargaining’, it wouldn’t work as leverage. He needed to die in a way that Grim couldn’t immediately reverse.

He had no accelerants on him, and Ace and Deuce were close enough to pat out any smaller flames.

So, that fateful day when Kalim had pointed them out to the zombies, Yuu had made a simple decision:

He would give Grim what he wanted.

And let him see the consequences.

Grim would, of course, try to make Yuu ‘play nice’ with other humans. He’d seen what happens when Yuu was left with no one to interact with for too long, and was more than smart enough to avoid that. He would set up little ‘playdates’ where he would try to get Yuu to bond with whichever survivor was unlucky enough to be close by.

Enter Kalim Al Asim.

… exit Kalim Al Asim. Immediately afterward.

Yuu couldn’t bring himself to directly go against Grim’s wishes, thanks to that pesky thing called self-preservation skills, but he could find loopholes. He was supposed to play nice. So, he, as a good samaritan, informed Kalim of his bodyguard's daily attempts to assassinate him. Really, was it Yuu’s fault if Kalim took it the wrong way and kicked him out?

And Yuu had been ready to keep driving away any and every person Grim sent his way until Grim gave up and let him have his ‘friends’ again.

Yuu was stubborn, if nothing else, and he could and would outlast Grim.

He hadn’t expected to get sick, nor did he think he would be so hard on Grim that the monster would have to go to Ace and Deuce for help, but he wasn’t going to complain. It had certainly sped things up for him. Grim got to see how having them around had immediately made Yuu feel better (in a literal and figurative sense).

The zombie would be forced to come to one obvious conclusion: Yuu needed Ace and Deuce to be happy and healthy.

It was manipulative. It was, admittedly, bad for his already frayed mental health. But Yuu didn’t have any other choices.

Ace and Deuce couldn’t die.

And he didn’t trust Grim to keep his word. Not for long, not if Yuu could never prove otherwise.

Not if Yuu couldn’t retaliate even if Grim killed both of his ‘friends’ in front of him.

Because, ultimately, Yuu held no power here, and both of them knew it.

But it was, perhaps, because he was so ‘fragile’ that he could, sometimes, get what he wanted.

When in doubt, have a mental breakdown.

“I’m not a cat, Grim. Humans need social interaction.”

He could see the exact second the zombie softened, if only slightly.

Yuu blinked a few times, until tears formed in the corner of his eyes.

“You can get it somewhere else.”

“And what happens when I get too attached to the new people? If I had become best friends with Kalim, like you wanted, would you have gotten jealous of him, too?”

The zombie hesitated.

“How long do I have to keep doing this?” He gently disentangled his fingers from Ace’s, so he could wipe his face. “I can’t – I can’t.”

Grim looked stricken.

So did Deuce. He jumped to his feet, taking Yuu’s face into his hands, his thumbs swiping beneath his eyes to brush away stray tears.

Yuu leaned into him, if only slightly.

And then snickered when Ace wrapped his arms around him from behind, sticking his tongue out at Deuce from over Yuu’s shoulder.

The attempts to cheer Yuu up were, admittedly, a little clumsy. But the fact that they’d tried at all, in their own ways, was more than enough to make up for it.

He really might be in love with them, he thought.

“Please let them stay,” he said, quietly.

“Yuu, they –.” The zombie glared at the ground for a solid minute, thinking hard. “They’re corrupting you.”

Is that what it looked like, from Grim’s perspective? That Yuu had only started acting out when Ace and Deuce had gotten involved?

“Grim, the reason I’ve been lashing out more is because of loneliness. That’s why I burned down that apartment. I did that before I’d ever met either of them.”

Grim seemed to be struggling to process this. Perhaps because it put the blame almost entirely on Grim for isolating Yuu like he had. And Grim loved Yuu, so surely he couldn’t hurt him, right?

“... can’t you choose better people, at least?”

“Sorry, Grim, but they’re the only ones I want to keep.”

“They hate me,” Grim said, almost petulant about it.

“Because you make Yuu cry,” Deuce said, flatly.

“I would argue that you’re just as at fault,” Grim said.

“But look at who he goes to for comfort,” Ace said.

Something flickered across the zombie’s face as it looked at the two humans behind Yuu.

And then it smiled. “Actually… sure. If you can keep them on a leash, then you can keep them.”

… wait, what?

No, no, something was wrong. Grim should agree begrudgingly. This was too easy.

There was a catch. But what was it?

Something about how Yuu needing to ‘keep them on a leash’, probably? ‘Misbehaving’ was, in general, a subjective thing. It encompassed everything from glares to mild insults to outright murder attempts, depending on who was asking.

Yuu worried his lip. “O… ‘kay… I’ll allow a self-defense clause… on both ends, obviously… if someone physically attacks someone else, they should be able to retaliate…”

“Deal.”

A shiver ran through Yuu.

Was Grim… banking on Ace and Deuce trying to kill him?

Yuu… didn’t think they would. The risks were higher than the rewards. Sure, there was a chance that taking out Grim would get rid of his hivemind, but there was also a chance that the ‘control’ would shift to a different zombie (one that might not be quite so benevolent toward Yuu). Not to mention, burning someone alive isn’t exactly a quick process. Grim might take Ace and Deuce out with him, if they tried.

And they had all lived together for months without anyone trying to murder each other…

But Grim looked so confident.

What was Yuu missing?

He looked at Deuce.

Probably safe. He wasn’t likely to murder Grim. He was much more likely to grab Yuu and run. He wouldn’t be able to do that without Yuu’s consent, he wasn’t strong enough to carry Yuu all on his own, and wouldn’t get very far if he tried.

Deuce was, probably, safe.

He looked at Ace.

Ace flashed a halfhearted smile, pressing closer to him. “Trust us a little more, will you?”

Yuu hesitated.

”… okay.”

~

Yuu sighed as he tossed a match, something in his shoulders loosening as he watched that damned clothing store go up in flames.

And then he turned around, scooping Grim up so he could hug him to his chest, as usual.

“Feel better now?” Ace teased, slinging his arm around Yuu’s shoulders.

Yuu hummed, absently scratching beneath Grim’s chin.

(If his pinky hooked under the cat’s collar to keep Grim from snapping at Ace’s fingers, because the two were glaring daggers at each other, then that was no one’s business but his own.)

“Nothing like a little arson to soothe the existential dread,” Yuu said.

Deuce grinned. “Isn’t lighting things on fire a sign of psychopathy?”

“I’m pretty sure you should be worrying about our cannibal ‘friend’, not me.”

Said cannibal shot Yuu a look that screamed ‘call me your friend again and I will cannibalize you’.

Noted!

Deuce grinned. “I can worry about both of you at once.”

“I haven’t even eaten anyone in ages,” Ace complained. Whether he was complaining about the ‘mischaracterization’ or the fact that he couldn’t get his hands on any ‘food’ was up for debate.

“It’s not for a lack of trying. We just haven’t found anyone you can eat,” said Deuce.

Ace huffed, though he didn’t seem all that upset. “You eat, like, fifty people and suddenly it becomes your thing.”

“That is how it works, yea – fifty?!” Yuu said.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m a terrible person,” Ace said, with all the false bravado the world had to offer.

“Nah, those are rookie numbers. You had, like, six months alone and you didn’t even manage to hit triple digits…” Yuu said, shaking his head.

Ace’s mouth dropped open. See how there was no Human Meat in there? This was, clearly, proof that he needed to up his game.

“Fake-ass cannibal,” Deuce joined in.

“Stolen valor,” Yuu agreed.

~

Deuce pressed his face into Yuu’s back. “‘May the best man win’, huh?”

Yuu shrugged as much as he could while laying on his side. Which is not much.

“I’m practical, what can I say?”

Because, really, Yuu wasn’t against the idea of running away with his partners like Deuce wanted… but, at the same time, he absolutely was. If they ran, they would never be able to stop running. There were more zombies than humans, these days, and the hivemind wouldn’t make it easy for them.

“Think of it this way: at least we still get to be together,” Yuu said.

Deuce sighed. “With a few limitations.”

His hand, on Yuu’s hip, flexed just slightly. Usually, at night, Ace and Deuce would hold hands. But that was before, back when Grim didn’t wedge himself between Yuu and Ace’s stomachs. Ace had retaliated by finding a way to cling to Yuu regardless, his arms around Yuu’s shoulders, his face burrowed in his neck, his knees hooked around his thighs... just overall determined to touch Yuu as much as was physically possible, out of sheer spite for what Grim was trying to do.

Yuu sighed, lightly. “There would have been limitations either way.”

They’d be able to do whatever they want, sure, but only for a short period of time.

Lips brushed against his skin. A quick, chaste kiss between his shoulder blades. “Yeah. I just wish…”

He trailed off without finishing the thought.

Yuu closed his eyes.

“I know.”

~

He felt a paw poke his ears, and Yuu fought the urge to tense up. He couldn’t look guilty, couldn’t incriminate Ace and Deuce, not after all of the effort he’d just gone to to keep them around.

“I don’t know,” Yuu shrugged. “I might’ve pulled them out while I was sick? Everything’s kinda hazy…”

“You gave him dangly earrings, right?” Deuce said, frowning. “You’re not supposed to sleep in those. They can catch on bedsheets, and then you have to say goodbye to your earlobes.”

If Grim didnt believe them, he didn't let anything on, content to curl up in Yuu's arms for the time being.

~

“Listen, all I’m saying is that there has to be things we can do other than read,” Ace said.

“Just because you’re illiterate doesn’t mean everyone else is,” Deuce said.

“Says the guy with the worst grades here,” Ace huffed. “And it’s just – boring. Like, ‘ooooh, look, a magic wizard school’. There are zombies, everywhere! I couldn’t care less about whether this one guy passes his alchemy class!”

“I think it’s nice,” said Deuce, sounding a little offended on the books’ behalf.

They looked at Yuu to break the tie.

Yuu took a long drag of his cigarette as he mulled over what he should do.

The ‘fight’ didn’t mean anything. They were arguing for the sake of arguing. It was a way to pass the time. Because, frankly, all of them were sick of sitting around and reading at this point. They had long since run out of things on their reading list. So, they explored and chatted and did basically anything else.

Despite this, he took Deuce’s side. What can he say? He played favorites.

“Sorry, Ace, I’m contractually obligated to take Deuce’s side at all times.”

Ace’s face always flushed a pretty shade of pink when he was annoyed.

“That’s not fair. Aren’t I your first?”

Yuu narrowed his eyes. Ace knew exactly what that implied. Grim probably wouldn’t know, it was a slang term that he doubted Grim would ever come across. It was ambiguous enough that Grim would probably just interpret it as Ace saying Yuu had found him first. But it was still an unnecessary risk.

“You should get addicted to shutting up. It looks prettier on you,” Yuu said, blowing a little bit of smoke in Ace’s direction to be petty.

“Already addicted to cigarettes, thanks to you two, so I’m afraid there are no slots left,” Ace said.

Yuu was very annoyed.

He also really wanted to kiss Ace at the moment, for reasons he couldn’t entirely understand (maybe the urge to shut Ace up by force?), and the fact that he couldn’t was only serving to make him more frustrated.

There was a tug on his pants leg.

Yuu looked down at Grim, his face immediately draining of all color. The zombie’s teeth were tangled in the fabric of his sweatpants.

Yuu, quietly, allowed Grim to drag him away from his partners. Grim wasn't placated until they were over two meters away from each other.

Ace had a knife in his hand. Yuu hadn’t seen him pull it out.

Deuce managed to make him settle down, thankfully, wrapping his hand around Ace’s in a move that both soothed his boyfriend and made it hard for him to stab something. Multitasking.

Yuu flashed a smile Deuce’s way. Deuce managed a smile in return, but it was much more wobbly — much less convincing.

They continued walking. The tension in the air was palpable, and Yuu feared no one was going to break it.

Yuu felt a hand lock around his arm and pull.

Now, Yuu was pretty used to being grabbed at. So, he had immediately followed the hand, content to let the universe (and, quite possibly, a complete stranger) decide where he was going. He didn’t even think to look at who had been dragging him along until several seconds had passed.

He turned his head, vaguely curious.

Ah… Ugly-Bob-Man… yay… he’s still alive… would have been a shame if he hadn’t been…

“Did Yuu just get kidnapped?” Ace asked, finally done processing what had just happened.

Even Grim seemed a little shocked and offended.

Ugly-Bob-Man continued in its mission despite this. In fact, it sped up a little.

Yuu’s eyebrows knit. “Um?”

He didn’t get an answer. Just a thin-lipped smile.

Okay, now Yuu was slightly unsettled.

This was, in his opinion, pretty bad. His tolerance for bullshit was way too high, and yet things just kept crossing that threshold. He kept raising the bar, why did the universe insist on jumping over it again and again?

They turned a corner, and Yuu came face-to-face with another group of survivors. A decently-sized one at that. Not what you want to see.

And, to be fair, the survivors also seemed uncomfortable and on edge at the sight of him.

Or, maybe, it was at the sight of the zombie beside him. Who’s to say –?

Isn’t that the guy from the perfume ads?!

He watched on, very confused, as Ugly-Bob-Man dragged Yuu over to Perfume Guy and forced them to hold hands.

Ugly-Bob-Man made a happy, slightly squeaky sound and clapped his hands together.

Perfume Guy looked at Yuu. The words ‘what the fuck’ were etched clearly in every (barely there) line in his face, but no one was particularly interested in going against a zombie’s wishes… it wasn’t directly attacking anyone, and neither of them were interested in changing this.

Ace, Deuce, and Grim finally caught up with them.

“Great! Everyone’s here! Now, we have gathered here today to witness the sacred union of Vil Schoenheit and Yuu –.”

Perfume Guy (‘Vil Schoenheit’, apparently) flinched. Hard. He stared at their interlocked hands in muted horror.

And Yuu felt much the same.

Because he was pretty sure he knew where this was going… but, surely, he was wrong. Grim wouldn’t –.

“Wait, wait, what’s going on?” Ace cut in.

“They’re getting married,” Ugly-Bob-Man said, flatly, as if Ace was the weird one for questioning it.

…

“WHAT?!”

~~~~~

Pt36>

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

he’s an unreliable narrator TO YOU. i believe him

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

what if: time loop. pov character's partner is doomed to die at the end of it every time. nothing they do can save them. but the pov character sees the time loop as a blessing. they dont have to spend any time without their partner. they get to live every day with them. they get to make sure their passing is as comfortable as they want. that they aren't alone when they die.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

The cat that ate the canary

In which Yuu is a normal teenage boy who has recently adopted a totally-just-as-normal cat.

(Prequel for the zombie!AU)

You know, Yuu Shimura was a lot of things. A future vet, for one, if he had anything to do with it. A star student, if you ignored how often he was sent home halfway through the day because he had brought an animal to class. A decent cook, if you asked his mom, who also said that he was the special-est boy in the world, so take that with a grain of salt.

Good in stressful situations, he was not.

He didn’t know what to do about the dying cat he found while walking home from his friend’s house.

Don’t get him wrong, he wanted to be a vet! He had taken in so many charity cases over the years! But he had never…

Well, the cat was missing half a face. Its fur was matted with blood. There seemed to be a fungus growing on its tail. And it had a limp to boot (okay, to boot might not be the best way to describe a probably broken paw, but he had already admitted he wasn’t great in these kinds of situations!).

Frankly, this cat was far worse off than any of the other animals Yuu had taken care of.

And it was hissing at him whenever he got within a meter of it, too!

Admittedly, he was used to cats hissing at him, but it certainly wasn’t helping.

Now, Yuu should just leave the cat alone. Call animal control and ask them to put the cat out of its misery. That was the proper, good samaritan thing to do.

But the cat was in the middle of the street. It wasn’t quite the time of year when he would be too worried about snow, but it was just cold enough that every breath steamed in front of his face…

Yuu liked to think that he was a good person.

He knelt a few meters away from the cat, careful to keep his smile faint because animals often interpreted showing teeth as a threat. It was hard to smile, anyway, in the face of something so obviously in pain.

“Let’s see…” he mused aloud, trying to sound as soothing as he possibly could. “I need to find you food, at least. Not that it looks like you can eat right now… but it might help you believe I’m on your side. I only really need to pick you up for long enough to get you out of the street… maybe closer to a restaurant, they’re usually warm… I could, probably, just scare you into running in a certain direction, but that seems cruel… no need to traumatize you further… I’ll leave that for last…”

The cat continued to watch him. This wasn’t surprising. It would probably watch him until he left its sight.

Yuu ran his fingers through his hair, glancing at the nearest convenience store. They should have tuna there, but Yuu really didn’t want to leave the cat alone in the street…

“Ah, fuck it,” Yuu said, pulling cash out of his pockets. How much was tuna these days? Last he remembered, it was like 5 yen, but inflation existed, unfortunately… couldn’t be more than 10, at least.

He sprinted into the store and grabbed a can of tuna, all but throwing the money at the poor cashier, who looked more than a little stunned.

The cat… had almost managed to crawl out of the street on its own. It sat just in front of the curb, still staring at him intently.

Yuu, carefully, opened the small package of tuna and set it on the sidewalk.

The cat, still watching him, took a couple of steps forward, until it could tentatively sniff at the tuna.

Yuu breathed a sigh of relief. Not because it had eaten the tuna, the cat was gagging and batting it away with its paws, but because it was now solidly out of the street. He, with an open hand, reached toward the cat.

The cat eyed him warily, but he just, carefully, patted it on the head, briefly running his thumb over its fur.

It leaned into his touch, just slightly, its nose ghosting over his palm, sniffing him.

Yuu, quietly, hoped that the thing didn’t have rabies. It wasn’t frothing at the mouth, but that symptom didn’t set in immediately…

“Want to come home with me, baby?” Yuu asked, drawing one leg up to his chest. He always felt a little silly, talking to animals. It wasn’t like they understood him. But he found that, when he kept his voice soft and soothing, most of them calmed down. Animals weren’t particularly deceptive creatures, after all. If one had bad intentions, they made it obvious. So, if he seemed docile, surely he must be, right? “I might have to hide you under my bed so my parents don’t find out, but it can’t be worse than living on the street.”

The cat stared at him.

It, slowly, inched its way forward, until it could place a paw on his lap.

Yuu, gently, scooped it up and started off toward his apartment once again.

It was a relatively uneventful walk, save for the fact that it did, in fact, start raining. It was a light rain, just barely a drizzle, not the kind that you can take your umbrella out for without feeling a little silly… but Yuu took out his umbrella regardless, because it was too cold for rain, and this cat was already hurting, he really didn’t need it to catch yet another disease, too…

His apartment was quiet.

He clicked the light on, absently toeing off his shoes – he took a moment to make sure that his parents’ shoes weren’t there, more out of paranoia than anything – and made his way to his room.

He waltzed over to his closet and tugged out a small box hidden in the back corner.

Now, with most teen boys, the box hidden in the closet should not be touched, under any circumstances. Neither the kid nor the person snooping needs to deal with that kind of trauma.

Yuu, though? He was using his Secret Box to hide pet supplies.

He rolled out a pet bed for the cat and took a moment to scratch it behind the ears before dragging out a first aid kit.

And, so he got to work. The cat was a surprisingly well-behaved patient. It wasn’t the first time an animal had understood that he was trying to help it, but it was certainly the first time he didn’t get, at the very least, a look of betrayal for trying to cleanse a wound. Not that he was complaining. The cat looked sickly, and Yuu didn’t want to catch anything. The less it bit and scratched at him, the better.

Though… strangely enough, the cat didn’t have nearly as many injuries as he’d expected.

Like, yeah, half of his face was gone, obviously, and Yuu didn’t know how to deal with that so he simply wrapped it in bandages and decided that had to be good enough… but he wasn’t sure what was causing the limp. There were no injuries on the cat’s leg, not even a break or sprain, as far as he could tell. He still splinted the leg, because surely the cat wasn’t limping for no reason, and then moved on to the weird bit of… fungus? The strange spot on its tail.

He squinted at it, tempted to reach out and touch it, so he could analyze it closer, but not really willing to risk it. Instead, he cleaned it as best he possibly could (which, apparently, was little more than disinfecting it), and then pulled back.

The cat still looked worse for wear. It looked like something out of Pet Cemetery. Yuu had failed to make it presentable.

But he hadn’t expected to make the cat presentable, really, so he just heaved a great sigh and scratched it behind the ears.

“Alrighty, done,” he said.

The cat seemed content to lie there in his lap, unmoving.

Yuu sighed, again. He wasn’t allowed to move anymore, by cat-owner law.

He, slowly, tipped back until he could lay out on the floor. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but it wasn’t like he had any other options.

His eyes fluttered shut.

By the time he opened them again, the cat had moved from his lap.

It was exploring his room, from the looks of things. Sniffing everything, rubbing up against each and every piece of furniture it saw, adding a few new claw marks to Yuu’s poor bedposts. Classic cat things, really.

Yuu sat up, slowly, wincing as he craned his head from side to side in a vain attempt to get rid of the crick in his neck. This must be his divine punishment for daring to lie on the floor. Who did he think he was, putting someone else’s comfort above his own? Really, this was his own fault.

This didn’t stop him from cursing under his breath.

The cat jumped at the sudden sound. It turned to look at him with wide eyes, staring at his lap, as if wondering whether it was supposed to stay.

Yuu fought the urge to coo over it.

“I should give you a name,” Yuu said, propping himself up on his forearms. He didn’t want to put a lot of thought into its name, considering it was probably going to die soon, but he couldn’t just call it the cat forever. It was dehumanizing!

Well, it wasn’t ‘human’, but that’s beside the point!

So, he carefully took all of the books out of his bookshelf and set them on the floor, deciding that whichever book the cat ‘chose’ (read: lingered by for longer than two seconds) would be the basis for the cat’s name.

The cat wandered over to the bookshelf, its nose poking at the single book Yuu had left.

Yuu grimaced as he picked up The Brothers Grimm. He’d had to buy it for his Culture elective. Something about understanding Western Culture. As if the internet wasn’t almost entirely Western Culture. Ugh.

Regardless…

“That – uh – isn’t the best name, it doesn’t really bode well for you…”

The cat continued to inspect the book.

Yuu sighed. “‘Grim’ it is, then.”

He felt a paw touch his side and raised an eyebrow. Grim was poking him in the stomach, repeatedly, staring up at him.

When it was sure Yuu was paying attention, Grim gave a squeaky little meow and started rubbing his face against Yuu’s side.

Yuu figured that Grim was, probably, starved for affection, and Yuu really didn't want to think about why... but that didn't stop him from thinking that Grim was adorable.

He reached down and scratched beneath Grim’s chin, careful of his injuries. “You’re a sweet little guy… can’t believe someone did this to you… poor baby…”

Grim gave a low purr, for just a second, before cutting himself off.

Yuu cooed, quietly. What a cutie.

He would have rested his chin in his hand, but dried blood had long since caked itself under his fingernails, so he really didn’t think that’d be a good idea.

Speaking of which.

“I should give you a bath,” Yuu said, already grimacing preemptively. “Any chance you’re one of those rare animals that’re okay with water?”

The cat stared at him. Whether this was because Grim had, from the looks of it, never seen water in his life, or if it was just because cats don’t understand human language was anyone’s guess, really.

Yuu scooped him up and headed into the bathroom. Grim seemed content to curl up in Yuu’s arms while Yuu awkwardly juggled a very injured cat and tried to set up the sink at the same time.

It was hard, but Yuu managed.

Now for the actual hard part.

He, slowly, set Grim on the edge of the sink.

“Look, it’s nice and safe and I made sure it was the perfect temperature just for you,” Yuu said, trying not to sound too nervous. If he sounded nervous, then Grim would notice and get nervous himself, and he would definitely refuse to go in the water then.

So, Yuu had to smile, softly, and trail his fingers in the water to show that it wasn’t dangerous.

Grim looked at Yuu. Looked at the water. After a long moment’s hesitation, Grim placed his paw in the water, as if testing the temperature for himself.

(Now, obviously, Grim was just testing to see if the water was truly ‘safe’, but Yuu liked to pretend that the animals he spoke to understood him, sometimes. Made him feel slightly less silly.)

Slowly, Grim waded into the water.

Thank you, Jesus! Wait – is Jesus the name of their God? Or are they separate people…? Uh, whoever did me this solid, thanks.

Yuu beamed. If Grim was safe to kiss, he would totally press a kiss to his forehead, but that could wait until after the bath… after a week’s-worth of baths, actually. To be safe.

For now, he went to work.

It was then that he noticed the strangest little tidbit of information about Grim:

Was Grim… green?

He hadn’t noticed it before, since the blood matting Grim’s fur had more or less covered the strange color. But, now, he carefully parted Grim's fur to peer at the skin hidden beneath it.

Yuu tilted his head this way and that. Blinked a few times to clear his vision. Lifted the cat out of the water to get it as close to the lights as possible.

No, yeah, that was green.

And, as Yuu started putting a little more elbow grease into scrubbing down Grim, he realized that it was not going to come out.

Yuu frowned. If it was dye, then he should be getting at least a little on his hands right now, right? He was pretty sure he’d heard his mom complain about accidentally getting black dye all over her towels before…

So, what was going on?

He leaned his hip against the rim of the sink.

“Maybe the dye’s been in there too long? So it can’t be washed out?” he mused aloud. “But it’s still…”

It would be one thing if the cat’s fur was green (and, to be fair, that might also be a dark shade of green that was making Yuu second-guess what color black cats were) but it was Grim’s skin that gave him pause. Because how does skin turn green?

Was it some kind of fungus? But he could see something that looked like mold on Grim’s tail, and that was a completely different texture...

It was possible that the cat had developed two separate types of fungal infections, but Yuu felt like that would make Grim particularly unlucky… there was no other explanation that he could think of, though.

He supposed he could look it up once he was done with this.

And, so, after washing as much of the grime and blood off of Grim as he possibly could, he gave the sink a quick scrub and then waltzed over to his bed, phone in hand, to do some research.

Grim settled down on the bed next to him, and Yuu flashed a smile as he continued scrolling through the internet.

Huh. So there are ways skin and hair can turn green, even in human patients… exposure to chemicals, mostly. Learn something new every day.

“So, Grim, did you eat…” He squinted at the words on his phone. “‘Ex-o-gene-ous copper’?”

The cat did not answer him. Because it was a cat.

But Yuu nodded along as if he had. “See, that’s what your problem is. Nevermind probably getting hit by a car, no, you fucked up when you saw a precious metal and said ‘is anyone gonna eat that?’”

Grim continued to stare at him.

Yuu smiled, patting him on the head once. “You’re so well-behaved. I’d give you treats, but…”

Well, the cat couldn’t even stomach tuna. He doubted it would be able to get down something as solid as cat treats.

Grim wouldn’t last long.

But Yuu was going to make sure that Grim’s life up until his passing was as peaceful as he could make it.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t spend every second with his new cat, because he needed to make sure his parents wouldn’t catch on.

He needed to act natural.

“Did anything happen today?” his mom asked.

Did she know?!

No, no, he shouldn’t panic. This was a normal question that people ask over dinner. She was just ‘expressing interest in his life’, or whatever.

Yuu set down his chopsticks, briefly, while he tried to think of something that wasn’t the cat in his room. “Not really. I saw this one girl trip and eat sh –... really hurt herself. It was terrible.”

His mother narrowed her eyes at him, briefly, but decided to let it go.

Or, at least, she was willing to let go of the near slip of his tongue. His behavior, though? No, that was unforgivable, apparently: “And you didn’t help her?”

“I couldn’t make her un-trip,” Yuu shrugged.

“This is why we’re never getting grandkids,” she lamented.

His father sighed. “Truly tragic.”

Yuu couldn’t roll his eyes at his parents without being rude, but he was rolling his eyes in spirit. Because, really, that was not the reason why they weren’t getting grandkids.

“Well, if you’d just accept the grandchildren I have already given you –.”

“Human grandkids.”

Yuu did not pout. No one can prove it, therefore he didn’t.

“I’d rather just focus on my studies, momma.”

(He’d tell them one day. Just… not today.)

A hand reached out and ruffled his hair, and Yuu flashed a grin.

“What did we do to have such a well-behaved kid?” his father said.

“Perhaps too good of a kid,” his mom said, her chin in her hand. “You’re in high school, you should enjoy it, Yuu. ‘Hang out’ with your friends more. What about that one senpai you really like? He’s probably free this week, how about you two go to an arcade or something?”

Yuu rubbed the back of his neck, fighting the blush creeping up his cheeks. “He – uh – isn’t really the type to go out and do things, either. And, besides, he’s got his new job, he’s super busy these days, so even if he did want to go out, he can’t.”

“Staying at home all the time can’t be good for you,” his father said.

Yuu could only shrug. “Hey, think about it this way – the less I go outside, the less strays I can pick up!”

The totally-not-a-stray Yuu picked up lasted longer than he’d originally assumed it would.

Grim survived until the end of the week.

Hell, he survived two weeks.

And Yuu wasn’t even sure how. The cat refused to eat anything Yuu gave him, and Yuu had yet to see evidence that the water disappearing from Grim’s dish was anything more than evaporation. Certainly, Grim should have passed away by now, and yet…

Well, Yuu had noticed a distinct lack of bugs over the past few days. Maybe Grim was catching and eating those? But then why was he gagging over the food Yuu gave him?

Maybe he liked the hunt!

Yuu tied a small bite of chicken to a piece of string, and then made his way over to where Grim was lazing in a patch of sun.

Grim’s ear flicked, and he, slowly, looked up at Yuu.

Yuu wiggled the string like his life depended on it.

Grim gave him a very unimpressed look.

So, not that, then…

He groaned, sinking to his knees, resting his arms on the sill beside Grim. “I don’t get iiiiiit,” he whined.

Grim continued to give off an aura of general disdain. Which is typical for cats, so Yuu wasn’t particularly worried.

(… not about that, at least.)

He pressed a kiss to Grim’s forehead. “You’re cute, but you won’t be quite as cute if you waste away into nothing because you won’t eat.”

Grim, being an animal who couldn’t understand a word Yuu said, sent a few lazy blinks his way.

Yuu groaned again, a little louder this time, before giving up.

His eyes fell to the ground, several stories below. He could see a couple of teens chatting with each other as they walked home from… whatever they had been doing with their Winter Break.

Hm. He should call his senpai.

Not because he thought Idia would know what to do about Grim. But because Idia was prone to shutting himself inside his house for weeks at a time. Someone had to drag him back into the world of the living from time to time, and Yuu took his job… well, not very seriously, considering he himself was prone to getting distracted by every cute animal that wandered into his sight line, but when he remembered to do it he sure did!

And, so, he dialed Idia’s number.

His phone didn’t even finish its first ring before a familiar voice came through: “Shimura-shi, you’re alive.”

“Senpai,” he said, trying not to sound too happy that Idia had actually picked up.

“I was wondering when you’d remember I exist,” Idia said. Yuu could hear the familiar clicking of Idia’s keyboard through the phone.

“Aw, that’s not fair,” he said. “You’d get it if you saw my new baby.”

Idia sighed. “Is it a cat? Because otherwise I’m not interested.”

“He is a cat, yeah,” Yuu said, absently running a hand over Grim’s fur. “And he’s so precious. I don’t know what his previous owners did to him, but they’re going to Hell.”

“You’re religious now?”

“Solely for the sake of sending them to Hell, yeah,” Yuu said, nodding solemnly even though he knew Idia couldn’t see. He could only hope that his tone was enough to get the point across. “Do you want to say hi to him?”

“Obviously,” said Idia. Yuu wasn’t sure why he’d bothered to ask.

He put the phone on speaker. “Grim, say ‘hi’!”

Grim stared at Yuu for a solid five seconds before heaving a kind of put-upon sigh and meowing quietly.

The sound that came through his phone was a squeal so high-pitched that it spooked Grim. The cat’s fur stood on end, and that was all the warning Yuu got before his lovely companion darted away to the safety of Yuu’s bed, disappearing under the blankets, never to be seen again.

“Damn, senpai, are you trying to make me go deaf?”

“Sorry – it’s just – you know how I feel about cats!”

Yuu sure did.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to tease Idia a little, when given the opportunity: “Says the guy whose job does animal testin –.”

“Shhhh, not in front of the baby!”

Yuu snorted. “Grim ran off when you broke the sound barrier earlier. But fine, fine, I’ll take you off of speaker.”

He brought the phone back to his ear.

“Alright, you’re safe now, my child can no longer hear about you and your shady secret internship at a ‘makeup factory’.”

“Our child,” said Idia. It was clearly an attempt to get Yuu to leave the subject of Idia’s job alone, Yuu was already well aware that the guy was beholden to several NDAs.

And yet.

Yuu felt his face warm, and was suddenly glad that Grim couldn’t see him. Not that Grim would understand what it meant, of course, but it was still embarrassing.

“Really? You need to step up in the child-care department, then,” Yuu said.

“Well, I’m busy taking care of our other child, so,” Idia said.

Yuu’s smile faded, if only slightly. “How’s he doing?”

“Same as usual. Do you want to talk to him?”

“If he’s feeling up to it,” said Yuu.

There was about a minute of silence. Yuu could hear quiet chatter, but couldn’t quite make out the words.

And then:

“Yuu-tan?”

“Hey, Ortho-chan,” Yuu said, quietly. “How’s it going, bud?”

“Good!”

Yuu’s shoulders relaxed, if only slightly. “Yeah?”

“Mhmm! Nii-san played with me alllllll day!”

Yuu smiled. “That’s awesome!”

“... wish you would come n’ play with me, too, sometimes,” Ortho said, and Yuu could practically hear the kid’s pout over the phone.

Awwww… baby’s first attempt at manipulation!

“Sure, bud. Next time you’re having a good day, you, me, and Idia-senpai can go to an arcade or something,” Yuu said.

“Promise?” Ortho said, sniffling.

Yuu smiled. “Promise. Now, tell me about your day. What games did you play? They better have been appropriate.”

“Well…” Ortho said, which was not a good sign.

“Maybe I’ll drop by sooner than expected,” Yuu muttered. “Need to punch some sense into him.”

Ortho giggled, and Yuu smiled, and Yuu spent the rest of the day listening to the younger Shroud brother talk about the new fighting game Idia had introduced him to.

(It was definitely not appropriate for children, and Yuu was going to grab Idia by the shoulders and shake him the next time he happened to catch sight of that damn otaku.)

By the time dinner rolled around, Grim was visibly sulking on Yuu’s bed, glaring at him with his head in his paws.

“Awwww, are you jealous?” Yuu teased, walking over and scratching the cat behind the ears. “Don’t worry, you’re my favorite.”

Grim narrowed his eye at him, but eventually caved, leaning into Yuu’s hand with a soft meow.

Yuu smiled and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Cute.”

And, so, life went on. Grim continued to survive despite all odds, and Yuu continued to take care of him.

He could admit that he was getting a little attached.

But, really, who wouldn’t fall in love with an adorable little cat when they’d been taking care of it for almost a month?

It was at the one-month mark that Yuu felt the bed next to him shift and peeked an eye open sleepily.

The cat was right in front of his face.

It settled down, slowly, on his pillow and started to purr.

Yuu grimaced a little, internally. He really didn’t want to risk rolling over in his sleep and crushing Grim, but… Grim wouldn’t understand if he tried to tell him that. He would just assume that Yuu was rejecting him, and Yuu wasn’t going to do that right when Grim was opening up.

He scooped up the cat and hugged Grim to his chest.

Grim purred quietly, kneading biscuits into the fabric of Yuu’s sleep shirt.

Yuu smiled faintly, pressing a kiss to the cat’s forehead and settling in for a probably-terrible night’s sleep.

Winter Break was coming to an end, anyway, he needed to get used to Not Sleeping again. It’d suck less when school started, that way.

His masterful planning for the future did nothing for him.

It was time for the first day of school, and his alarm was blaring, and Yuu was glaring at the ceiling. Grim hissed at Yuu’s phone. This did not help his mood.

He, silently, counted to ten.

He failed to count to ten because he was too busy seething at the fact that he had to go to fucking school. And he had to wake up extra early to physically drag Idia to class, because Idia was an awful human being who refused to attend class if Yuu didn’t make him.

Yuu rolled out of bed. Failed to land on his own two feet. Hit the ground in a series of dull thuds.

He was going to kill someone.

Maybe he understood Americans, after all.

He ran his fingers through his hair, exasperated.

And then he started getting ready.

It was harder than it should be. Grim was still on edge, it seemed, thanks to the alarm, and was winding around Yuu’s legs, meowing frantically at him.

Yuu flashed a smile. “It’s fine, baby, it’s just school.”

Grim didn’t understand. Because Grim was a cat.

Yuu knelt to press a quick kiss to Grim’s forehead. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

Grim, of course, continued to panic.

And, while it ached Yuu to leave Grim alone while he was panicking, Yuu couldn’t just stay. He had a life to live, school to attend, a stubborn senpai to drag to class.

Grim would realize, when Yuu came home, that it would all be fine.

But in order for Grim to realize this, Yuu had to leave in the first place.

He set Grim in the bathroom, and then headed off.

Idia's house was, thankfully, only a short walk from his apartment. As one would expect, seeing as they went to the same school.

He rang the doorbell.

Idia opened the door in his pajamas.

"... senpai."

"I forgot there was school today," Idia lied through his teeth.

Yuu sighed and brushed past Idia, into the house. "Go get changed. I'll wait."

Idia grumbled about how this was a crime against NEETs. Nevermind that the guy wasn't definitionally a NEET, considering he was both employed and in school. Yuu was, apparently, evil and discriminatory.

Idia walked in a few minutes later, reluctantly. His bright blue hair (Ortho had asked him to dye it, and Idia never said no to his brother) was a mess, and that huge hoodie was not up to their dress code, but Yuu was going to take what he could get.

Yuu glanced behind Idia, at the empty hallway. Usually, Ortho would come and say 'hi'...

“... bad day?”

“Yeah,” Idia said, his smile a hair awkward. “I think there’s time to go check on him, if you want.”

Yuu hummed, glancing at the time. It’d be close… but, really, their teachers wouldn’t care. They got top grades, consistently. Their school wasn’t going to risk pissing them off, not over small things like tardiness or attendance, lest they transfer to a different school.

He stepped past Idia, walking further into the familiar flat. It smelled sterile, like a hospital room. Yuu had never figured out whether that was because Idia’s parents were both doctors and therefore carried the scent home with them, or if they simply sterilized the place for Ortho’s sake. Perhaps both.

He knocked, lightly, on a door.

And then let himself in.

Ortho was in bed, curled around a giant plushie. Yuu, vaguely, recognized it as a character from that one Disney movie Ortho watched religiously, but he couldn’t put a name to it.

Yuu kept his eyes on Ortho. He hated looking at the medical equipment by the kid’s bed.

Ortho sat up, slightly, and flashed a weak smile Yuu’s way.

Yuu hesitated.

He looked at Idia. “... want to attend class virtually today?”

Idia grinned. Yuu strongly suspected that Idia had been planning this. But he wasn’t so petty that he’d make Ortho miserable just to spite Idia.

(And it wasn’t like he loved attending school, anyway.)

“I’ll get a spare computer for you.”

True to his word, Idia came back bearing two computers.

… and two Switches.

Yuu sighed. “If you keep skipping class, they’ll hold you back, senpai.”

“If I get held back then we get to go to the same school for an extra year,” Idia said.

Yuu narrowed his eyes.

“You know they’d never hold me back, anyway.”

He shook his head, exasperated, but took a seat beside Ortho and booted up the Switch. “Any requests?”

Ortho shifted to rest his head on Yuu’s lap. “The one Nii-san sucks at.”

Yuu snorted. Idia gasped in mock offense.

“You like him more than me!” Idia accused.

Ortho nodded his agreement.

Now Idia looked like he might actually be offended.

“You just don’t know what Shimura-san 's actually like,” Idia sighed. “He’s a handful. He’s lucky he has such a competent senpai taking care of him.”

Yuu rolled his eyes. “You’re not gonna be my senpai for much longer, at this rate.”

Idia smirked. “Even if I did get held back two years, you’d probably still call me ‘senpai’.”

Yuu considered this. “I don’t know what I’d call you. Idia-san?”

A shiver of disgust ran through the two teens.

“You can’t be held back,” Yuu said, seriously.

Idia nodded, putting his hand out.

Yuu shook it.

And then they started playing video games instead of paying attention to their online lectures.

(At least Ortho seemed to enjoy watching them try to ruin each other’s games.)

A few days into the school year, Yuu was confronted by his parents:

“You have a new 'pet project', don’t you?” his dad asked, mildly exasperated.

Yuu blinked a few times, and then shook his head. “No…?”

“The Howl family says that their dog has gone missing,” his dad said, throwing an accusatory glance Yuu’s way. As if he had something to do with it.

Which was fair enough, honestly. He’d picked up a lot of animals over the years, but he hadn’t picked up a dog recently. And, assuming the Howl family had a collar on their dog, he would have given it back to them the moment he realized the dog had a proper home.

Now, he could point this out. However. He was much more interested in being petty.

Yuu crossed his arms over his chest. “And why does the – I forgot their name.”

“Howl.”

“Right! Why does the Howl family get to have a pet and we don’t?”

“If they want to risk getting kicked out of their apartment, then that is their own decision.”

“But, dad, you don’t understand. We could have mutually assured destruction.”

“Tempting,” his dad said, dryly.

Before Yuu could convince him (because surely his father was only a few more sentences away from caving, look at those positive responses!), his mom came in bearing dinner.

“Thanks, momma.”

She pressed a quick kiss to his temple, before collapsing in her chair. “You will not believe what I had to go through today.”

Yuu tipped his head to the side. “It was a meeting, right?”

“Yes,” his mother said. “My coworkers are so…”

She made a squeezing motion with her hands.

Yuu nodded along like he understood. Maybe he did. There were certainly days where Idia was extra annoying.

He was quick to excuse himself from dinner.

The second he closed the door to his room, he allowed a grin to steal its way across his face.

They had confronted him about the wrong animal.

Oh, he was so in the clear.

This cat was his.

There were a few problems with that, though.

It became clear after a solid week and a half of leaving and coming back that Grim was not getting used to Yuu’s need to go to school.

Grim had separation anxiety. Or trauma. Or both.

Yuu knelt in front of his beloved cat. “I’ll be back in a few hours. You’ll probably sleep through it, anyway.”

Grim continued to look betrayed.

He pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I’m sorry, bud, I don’t have a choice. Gotta go to class, y’know?”

Grim did not know. Because Grim was a cat.

Grim tugged at Yuu’s pant leg, meowing sadly.

While the cat wasn’t getting used to Yuu leaving, Yuu was getting used to the daily routine of ‘wake up, get ready, console cat, leave’. It was getting steadily easier to close the door in the cat’s mournful face.

It still sucked, don’t get him wrong. Yuu wanted to be a vet for a reason – he hated seeing animals in needless pain. But, sometimes, there really isn’t anything you can do.

So, he gently nudged Grim out of the way with his foot to make sure his whiskers couldn’t get caught in the door, and then started off toward Idia’s house.

Yuu’s growing apathy, in hindsight, probably wasn’t helping things on Grim’s end.

He stared at the thin trail of blood on his floor, his stomach flipping.

“Grim?” he called, setting his backpack on the door handle just to make sure that he wouldn’t somehow throw the thing and hit his apparently already injured cat. “Where are you, baby?”

He found the cat curled up in his bathroom. One of Grim’s legs had been twisted at a strange angle.

Now, Yuu wasn’t stupid. He knew that this injury was, probably, self-inflicted. There was nothing Grim could do in Yuu’s room that would end in him getting injured, especially not to this extent.

Animals are simple creatures. But they can still recognize patterns.

Yuu had taken Grim in because he was hurt. And, now that Grim was getting better, Yuu was suddenly fine leaving him alone for hours at a time.

It didn’t matter if that wasn’t actually why Yuu was leaving. That Yuu would be happy to take care of Grim full-time, if only he didn't have so many pesky responsibilities. He couldn’t communicate that to Grim in a way the cat would understand.

So, what could he do? Continue going to school? What if his behavior got worse in his desperation to get Yuu to notice him?

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

Fine. He’d take Grim to school with him. It’d been a while since he’d taken a pet to class, maybe no one would notice.

Idia noticed immediately.

“... you have an animal with you, don’t you?”

Yuu frowned. “What makes you think that?”

“Because of the way you’re holding your backpack,” Idia said. “You’re being too careful with it.”

Ah. This must be what people were talking about when they said ‘the morbid ordeal of being known’.

Yuu glared at him.

“You're a terrible actor. Now, let me see our son,” Idia joked.

“He’s not exactly photogenic, senpai. I took him in for a reason,” Yuu warned.

Idia waved off his concern.

It was with great reluctance that Yuu complied. He unzipped his backpack, and Idia leaned in close to see.

Idia stared at Grim. Grim stared at Idia.

A lot of expressions flicked over his senpai’s face.

“... why is he green?” Idia asked, eventually.

Yuu shrugged. “The internet said that it’s probably chemical exposure.”

“You’ve had him for, like, a month, though,” Idia said, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression troubled. “That should have started fading by now.”

That was a good point.

Yuu’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I dunno. He’s a weird case… for a lot of reasons. Think your parents would know anything about it?”

“They’re human doctors,” Idia sighed. “But, if you leave him with me, I can try showing him to them.”

Yuu hesitated. “I dunno, he’s pretty anxious when I’m not there.”

Idia worried his lip. “He could be contagious.”

“Then I don’t want him around Ortho-chan.”

“Shimura.”

Yuu didn’t know what to make of Idia's expression. He didn’t think he’d ever seen his senpai quite so serious.

A hand settled on his shoulder. “Just – listen to me – you really need to – fuck!”

Grim tried to snap at Idia’s hand, and it was only thanks to years of QTEs that Idia was able to move out of the way in time.

Yuu frowned down at Grim.

Who was glaring at Idia… and Yuu, too? Idia, Yuu could understand. Grim didn’t know him. But Yuu wasn’t sure what he was doing wrong… maybe Grim wasn’t comfortable in Yuu’s backpack. But it wasn’t like Yuu could openly carry him to class.

Or maybe Grim was just jealous and didn’t like someone else touching Yuu.

Yuu, frankly, had no idea. Grim had never lashed out like this before.

“I don’t think I can leave him with you,” Yuu muttered, scratching Grim behind the ears to calm him down.

Grim glanced at Idia. If Yuu didn't know better, he'd say the cat looked kind of smug.

Idia’s eyes narrowed, before he crossed his arms over his chest. Perhaps to protect his hands from Grim’s wrath.

“Fine, fine. It’s… probably not pressing, anyway, if he’s been like this for over a month already.”

They didn’t get much longer to talk about it, because their school came into view and Yuu had to stuff Grim out of sight. Idia promised to take Yuu out to an arcade that weekend, and Yuu had readily agreed. And then they went their separate ways.

They weren’t in the same class, after all.

Maybe, if they were, Idia could have helped him hide Grim.

Unfortunately for Yuu, he wasn’t quite capable of keeping his teachers from realizing that Yuu was harboring a fugitive. Not for long.

Grim had been quiet. But, alas, one of his classmates noticed Yuu’s backpack shifting every once in a while.

The bad part of being a ‘smart kid’ was that his class was made up almost entirely of fucking teacher's pets.

He was sent home.

It wasn’t this that made anxiety crawl up his throat.

No, it was because Yuu knew that the school was going to call his parents.

His time with Grim was about to come to a very abrupt end.

… dinner that night was awkward. No one wanted to bring it up, but the longer they went without saying anything the more tense things got.

“Bring it here,” his father said, finally, setting down his chopsticks.

Yuu, reluctantly, walked to his room and scooped Grim up, off the bed.

He presented his beloved cat to his parents.

His parents exchanged glances.

“Yuu, we can’t let you keep him,” his mom said. Not quite gentle, but considering this wasn’t the first time Yuu’d done this (nor would it be the last, he was sure), he wasn’t surprised that a little bit of frustration was leaking into her tone. “If he’s found, we’ll be kicked out.”

“He’s going to die soon, anyway,” Yuu said, hugging his cat closer to his chest. “He deserves a loving home until then.”

Grim was growling lowly. He, of course, couldn’t understand what they were saying, but even a cat could not miss the growing hostility in the room.

“It’s not that simple,” his father said.

Yuu worried his lip. He wasn’t stupid. Of course, he knew that things weren’t going to be that easy. But this was his cat, now. He’d named him, taken care of him for over a month. He wasn’t going to give up on Grim now –.

“We can let you be there, when they put him to sleep,” his mother offered.

“He’s getting better,” Yuu blurted. “Just – I can’t – what if –?”

“I thought he was ‘going to die soon, anyway’,” his father said.

Yuu’s eyes flicked to the side.

“Yuu… don’t make this harder than it has to be,” his father said, reaching out and gently tugging on one of his arms, trying to loosen his grip on the cat.

Grim sunk his teeth into his father’s hand.

His father jerked back in surprise. “Is the thing fer –?!”

He didn’t finish his sentence.

It wasn’t even the kind of slow trail-off that came when someone was distracted. It was sudden, as if his father had realized something mid-sentence.

Yuu peeked up to find his father standing there, completely motionless. A blank look on his face.

His skin was tinted green.

His mom looked just as confused by the development as Yuu was.

At some point, he had dropped Grim. Or maybe the cat had simply jumped out of his arms.

Yuu glanced down to look for him.

Only for his eyes to shoot right back up when his mother gave a strangled scream.

His father was tearing his mom’s throat out with his teeth.

Yuu fell out of his chair, barely even registering the pain flaring in his elbows. He scrambled away from – his dad was going insane, clearly, he needed –.

He fumbled his phone out of his pocket. The screen had cracked during his fall, but it still lit up when he clicked it on. Shaky hands rushed through calling the police, and he dragged his phone to his ear.

“Hello?” the person on the other side of the line said, sounding painfully bored.

“It’s – my dad – he’s… he’s gone insane – he’s eating her!” Yuu stammered, his eyes flicking around desperately for some kind of weapon. He could see the knife block, on a nearby counter, but could he really stab his own dad?

“He’s – what?” the receptionist said, flabbergasted.

If Yuu could breathe, he might have laughed.

His dad’s head turned to look at him, and Yuu swore he could feel his heart stop.

“Hello? Sir?” the person on the other end of the line asked.

Slowly, his father crawled off of his mom, still laying limp on the floor.

Awkward limbs that didn’t seem to move quite right, hands and feet that seemed unsure on the ground. His mouth was caked in blood. There was something stuck between his teeth. Glassy eyes stared at Yuu in a way that made him feel sick, because his father might have been one to enjoy dry humor, but he had never looked quite so empty before.

Yuu grabbed the overturned chair, holding it like some kind of shield as his – the something crawled toward him.

And then his mother started to move, too. Flopping over onto her stomach. Slowly rising, using the nearby counter to push herself up, like a toddler just learning the ropes of being a human.

Her neck was still bleeding sluggishly.

“Y-Yuu,” the thing inside his father said.

His mother made a gurgling sound, as if in agreement.

Yuu’s back hit the wall.

The things clearly weren’t used to their bodies. Could he make a break for it?

But Grim was still around somewhere, wasn’t he? He was supposed to protect the cat… but the cat had done this, hadn’t he?

He didn’t get enough time to think it over, because his mother lunged toward him.

Yuu hit her with the chair.

The chair shattered upon impact.

It didn’t even seem to register the pain.

It fell on top of him, taking his face into its clumsy hands, swiping its thumbs beneath his eyes. No amount of shoving at its chest was deterring it. It forced his head back.

Yuu pressed back further into the wall, trying to delay the inevitable.

He felt it tuck its head into the crook of his neck.

Yuu went very still.

Was it messing with him? Why was it not killing him?

His father’s body reached him, then, wrapping around one of his legs, clinging to him.

Yuu couldn’t move. Shouldn’t move. It didn’t seem aware that he was still alive. Maybe it was going by T-Rex rules! Maybe he was fine so long as they just forgot he wasn’t some really human-esque furniture!

Lips pressed against his neck.

It was short. A chaste peck.

Yuu retched and jerked away, tripping over his father’s body in his haste.

He was back on his feet in seconds, his heart pounding in his chest in time with his footsteps as he made a mad dash for his room.

His phone –.

Was a lost cause, tucked behind the thing inhabiting his father.

He slammed his bedroom door shut behind him, pressing back against it to keep it from opening, even as the monsters on the other side banged their fists against the wood.

He wouldn’t be able to keep them out for long. It was two fully-grown adults versus one scrawny teenager. His odds were terrible even if the two of them could die. Which, considering his mom had had her throat torn open, only to continue on as if nothing was amiss, he wasn’t sure they could.

So, they’d come in and get him and he’d become one of them and –.

His cat stood in the center of the room. Green fur glistened in the sunlight streaming through the windows. Its mouth was still dripping with his father’s blood.

Yuu’s breath caught in his throat.

It got closer and closer, and there was nothing Yuu could do. If he moved away from the door, then they would be able to get in. And they would have no trouble pinning him down, at least not in comparison to a cat. He could always just punt the thing, maybe.

It would only buy him a few seconds at most, and he wasn't sure making it mad was a good idea.

Blood dripped onto his shoe.

The anxiety that had been creeping up the back of his throat finally made its way to the surface. Yuu doubled over, throwing up the breakfast bar he’d managed to get down that morning before running to school.

God, was that really just a few hours ago?

He felt a paw settle on the back of his hand.

His next heave was completely dry, more of a gag than anything.

Yuu’s arms trembled beneath him, and that was all of the warning he got before he collapsed against the floor, just barely managing to avoid the puddle of his own sick.

The things were still pounding against his door. His heart thudded in time with every knock. Dully, Yuu thought that the things must not know how to open doors.

Not that it mattered, when there was one so close to him.

He watched the thing approach him. Slowly, warily, as if it were scared he’d run away or attack it if it got too close too quickly.

It crept its way closer, stepping gingerly over one of his hands, making its way over to his chest.

Yuu squeezed his eyes shut tight.

It didn’t bite him.

It settled itself down on his chest and started to purr.

Yuu stared at it, watching it rise and fall with every quick, panicked breath.

Slowly, shakily, he lifted a hand to scratch it behind the ears.

It leaned into his touch.

~

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Yuu can do it!

Part 78

First - Previous - Masterlist - Next

Kuroki made his way into the mirror chamber. The place was blazing hot (especially to Kuroki, who had spent entirely too long in the Headmage’s freezing office), but everyone present seemed content with this. Which, Kuroki figured, made sense. The desert and savannah would be hot, and he was pretty sure he remembered Mexico being close to the equator… really, this was probably an ideal situation for this particular group.

... save for Enma. Enma looked like he was melting.

So, he told him, “You’re the only one who didn’t dance and you’re still sweating that much? Dude, you need to be more active.”

Enma raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah? You should teach me your ways. I’ll make sure to wake you up early tomorrow so we can go on a run.”

Kuroki regretted everything.

“No thanks.”

“Whaaaat? Why not?” Enma said, grinning and throwing an arm around his shoulders. Kuroki shrieked, because Enma was sticky and sweaty and fucking gross. “It can be a bonding experience.”

Kuroki tried to push his smug, annoying face away.

In the meantime, Grim floated over to Ito. “That performance wasn’t as cool as it could have been – I would have made it way better – but… you guys still managed to do okay without me.”

Ito smiled softly. “Thanks, Grim-sama.”

“Well, obviously it was good, I was there,” said Leona.

“I did not say it was ‘good’!”

“You were the worst part of the performance. In case you’ve forgotten, our entire purpose was covering up just how terrible you were,” Jamil said, flatly.

“And my henchman did the best, for the record,” said Grim. “In fact! Enma did better than you did, and he wasn’t even performing!”

Leona clicked his tongue. “You’re biased.”

Enma grinned. “And you’re not?”

“No, I’m self-aware.”

Kuroki raised an eyebrow skeptically. He didn’t think anyone who had Overblotted should be allowed to say that.

Kalim was quick to defend a man in need: “I think you did great, Leona!”

Leona didn’t seem particularly happy that Kalim was the only person on his side. He should be — he had someone who was willingly agreeing with him, somehow, he should really take the win.

Because Ruggie certainly wasn’t going to give him one. “It’s okay, Kalim-san, you don’t have to sugarcoat it. You’re a kind soul, though.”

Kalim laughed, sounding slightly nervous, his eyes flicking to the side. And then he brightened up. “Vil! What’d you think of our show?”

Kuroki followed his gaze to where Vil Schoenheit was leaning in the doorway.

“Did it live up to your standards, your highness?” Leona asked, dryly.

Vil crossed his arms over his chest. “You earned a passing score. And after all that whining, too… I helped you reach your true potential and then some in just one day, isn’t that nice?”

Leona rolled his eyes.

Kuroki sidled his way behind Ito to protect himself from The Gays. Ito was A Gay, technically, he was pretty sure, but there were no women that they could be gay for, therefore they were the safest one here. “I hate this fucking school.”

“Same,” said Ito, sighing. “Should’ve gone to an all-girls school instead…”

Kuroki would prefer it if the four of them were homeschooled, but sure.

“– Ito-san?” said Vil.

Both of them looked up, very confused. Enma seemed amused. Whether this was because they had been caught not paying attention or whatever Vil had said, Kuroki could only hope to find out.

“Yeeeees?” said Ito.

“... can you sing?” Vil repeated.

Kuroki ducked to hide behind Ito in a vain attempt to hide his laughter from them.

Ito crossed their arms over their chest. “Hey, I’m not that bad.”

Leona and Ruggie, who had once had to listen to the Yuus scream (sorry, sing) for hours, shot Ito a vaguely amused look as they headed off, probably toward their dorm.

“For the record, I’d rather let you hunt me for sport than go through all of this again,” Leona drawled.

“I didn’t ask,” Vil said. “But I’d be happy to shoot you, if you’re really so willing.”

“Yeahyeahyeah, who cares, so about my pay…” said Ruggie, physically dragging Leona away.

Sweet! They forgot to drag Enma back to Savanaclaw with them!

Not that Enma had noticed yet. He seemed to be struggling to find a way to tell Ito that their singing was, at best, extremely flat and, at worst, reminiscent of a dying cat.

“I mean… you’re… not… good…” said Enma, delicately.

Ito pouted. “What’s it even matter?”

Vil sighed. “I was merely thinking ahead. The VDC is coming up, and if that’s what you all can accomplish in just one day, we’d have a real shot at beating RSA this year.”

The Yuus glanced at each other, in a kind of ‘do you know what he’s talking about?’ There were three collective shrugs.

And then Grim piped up and said: “It’s this huge singing-and-dancing-thingy that they do!”

The Yuus stared at Grim. He… knew something? That they didn’t? This was a new low. This one hurt.

“Yes, he’s… it’s… you don’t know…?” Vil cleared his throat, visibly taking a moment to compose himself. “The VDC is a part of the yearly Arcane Academy Culture Fair — a two-day festival with several contests. Think of it as a chance for people to show off what they learned in their culture clubs and art electives.”

(Kuroki grimaced. He knew about the Culture Fair, at least. Because his choir teacher never shut up about it. Professor Kaa had been talking about their upcoming ‘hypnotizing performance’ since the beginning of the year. Kuroki couldn't bring himself to care about it. He wouldn't even care if it was a ritual to actually hypnotize people… hell, he’d be glad if it was, because then he could wipe his performance right out of the audience’s memory!)

“The VDC is the main draw. It’s a worldwide song and dance competition,” Jamil said, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Because he was thinking really hard about the VDC, surely.

Grim nodded fervently. “I saw it on someone’s TV back – back before – I came here! It’s super cool!”

“You three really don’t know anything about it?” said Kalim, his eyes blown wide. “And here I was thinking that they showed it everywhere.”

“Our hometown is really small,” Kuroki shrugged. “And, like, cursed so no one can leave. Trust me, we’re just as shocked that all this happened as you are.”

“Ooooooh, is that why you can’t go home?” Kalim said.

“Yep, no one knows where we’re from,” Enma said. “Makes it hard to go back.”

Vil cleared his throat.

Oh, right, he was still here. And, possibly, uncomfortable with the heavy topic. Kuroki would be surprised if he could even tell which ‘Yuu’ was which. This was a lot of information to learn about people you could barely put a name to.

The fact that everyone at NRC was emotionally stunted probably didn’t help either.

“Sorry, senpai.” 

“No need to apologize,” said Vil, flashing an award-winning smile. “I suppose I’ll only need Viper-san’s number, then…”

Jamil handed his phone over to Vil so he could type his number in.

“You’re gonna do it, Jamil-senpai?” Ito asked, raising their eyebrows.

Kalim beamed. “We both are! It’ll be a great bonding experience, right, Jamil?”

“If you say so,” Jamil said, flatly, ignoring the person who was practically hanging off of one of his arms. “I merely have nothing better to do now that I’ve been partially relieved of my duties.”

“You have to babysit me,” Ito reminded him, grinning.

Jamil raised an eyebrow at them. “If you want us to supply you with alcohol, you have to behave.”

Ito’s grin dropped into a pout.

“Speaking of which,” Jamil said, taking his phone back from Vil with a tiny nod. “You’ve already gone way over your daily limit, friend-wise.”

Ito’s pout became much more real.

“Those were special circumstances!” Enma said.

Kalim beamed. “Yeah, don’t worry, we’re not unreasonable or anything, but it does mean we should get going soon.”

“Aw… but it’s just, like, an hour until curfew. And it’s a long trek up and down those stairs, I might as well just go with them, it’ll save everyone time…”

Ito trailed off. Kalim seemed unphased.

They clicked their tongue. “Fine, I’ll make dinner and then come back. Is anyone hungry for anything in particular?”

~

For the first few minutes, Kuroki wasn’t sure what had woken him up.

To be fair to him, his brain was working at half speed, because, again, he had only just woken up.

He shifted, reaching around blindly until he could pull their phone out from under their pillow. He squinted at the bright screen, trying to take in information despite his burning retinas.

5AM. Not an ungodly time of the night, but still not fun. Kill him.

(Please don’t.)

He sighed, pushing himself up to sit slowly, rubbing his eyes.

“CrowleyCrowleyCrowleyCrowleyCrowley…” Kuroki grumbled. If he had to be awake, then the ‘gracious’ Headmage should be kind enough to be awake, too.

It was then that he finally noticed Enma. Fast asleep, but mumbling under his breath. Clinging to the closest thing (read: Ito, who was, as always, passed out cold) like it was a lifeline. His face screwed up like he was in pain.

Fuck.

Kuroki liked to think he was decent at pattern recognition. And he had realized over the break that Enma always had nightmares right before things went to shit.

… actually, when Enma woke up from those nightmares, he was usually sore at best, and outright sick at worst. So, maybe, it was less ‘he got nightmares before things went to shit’ and more ‘he got sick right before things went to shit, and was prone to fever dreams’.

Whatever. Point is, it was a bad sign.

Hesitantly, he reached out and prodded at Enma’s face until his eyes fluttered open.

For a moment, Enma’s eyes darted around.

And then he seemed to realize what was going on. He groaned, long and slow, taking a moment to relax.

Kuroki pressed a hand against Enma’s forehead.

Yep, warm.

He made as if to pull his hand away, but Enma leaned into his touch, and that foiled all of Kuroki’s plans. Somehow. Don't ask. Mind your business.

He nudged Ito with his knee. Repeatedly. Finding a place right beneath their ribs and digging in to maximize their discomfort.

They were (relatively) quick to wake, for once. Maybe the combined discomfort of Enma using them as a stress ball and Kuroki‘s attempts to bore a hole into their side was enough. Perhaps they simply had a sixth sense for when they were needed. Frankly, both possibilities were equally likely.

Either way, they tried to sit up, tried to get their bearings… only to get dragged back down by Enma within seconds.

They blinked a few times, processing.

They looked at Kuroki.

”Save me,” said Ito.

Kuroki hesitated.

“Ecchan,” he said, gently brushing hair away from his face. “Are you gonna throw up?”

“Mmmm… maybe…”

“I’ll leave this one to you, Ito,” Kuroki said, giving them a salute even as he scrambled off of the bed. He promptly decided that wasn’t enough space and backed several steps away, as well.

Ito scowled. “I don’t like dealing with vomit either, yknow.”

“Yeah, but you don’t throw up at the sight of it,” Kuroki said. “Unless you want to clean up after two people.”

Ito sighed, long and slow. Then, reluctantly, they waved Kuroki off in favor of comforting Enma.

… partially, at least.

They did take the time to turn onto their side and slot themself beneath his chin so Enma could cuddle them in the way that was most comfortable for him.

They also took the time to nag him, though:

“That bite you got from Bucchi-senpai must’ve gotten infected,” they said. They clicked their tongue, lightly. “I told you you needed to disinfect it the second you got it, mouths are some of the dirtiest parts of the human body, and that’s not even considering he’s a yajugen, but nooooo.”

Enma grumbled incoherently and hid his face in their hair.

Ito huffed, but let the subject drop. For now.

Kuroki watched them settle in to sleep for a few seconds, before sighing and running his fingers through his hair.

Might as well get ready for the day…

~

Ah. This must be what Enma had had a premonition about.

Kuroki would like to add Vil Schoenheit to his already too-long list of enemies. And, yeah, maybe he should pick his battles more carefully... but, at the same time, this was important!

Because, now that Grim had remembered that the VDC existed, he was obsessed with it. Trying to convince him to join it, because apparently they would make a ‘great duo — no, band’. Because why shouldn’t Ito and Enma also get involved, without their knowledge or consent? And, hell, even if they were there and playing along with Grim’s idea, it wasn’t like it would work. Ito couldn’t sing, Kuroki couldn’t dance, and Enma and Grim couldn’t do either.

But never mind all of that pesky logic. They were going to be stars someday soon.

“I thought you were going to be the greatest mage the world’s ever seen,” Kuroki said. “You can’t change your career path now.”

He was, of course, bullshitting when he said this. He could have been right but, frankly, he had no idea how being a ghost worked. What were the Rules? Can you simply change your objective if it suits you better? It felt wrong, but, then again, the very existence of ghosts was a little counterintuitive and wrong.

Was he going to admit any of this aloud? No!

”I’m talented enough to do two things,” Grim sniffed.

Now how was Kuroki supposed to respond to that? It wasn’t like he was against it on principle or anything, he wasn’t deluded enough to think that they’d get in or anything, so he didn't mind auditioning for fun… but Not Getting In was exactly why he didn’t want to do it! If Grim auditioned and didn’t get the part, he’d be sad!

“Enma and Ito aren’t here?” Deuce asked, dropping into the chair beside him.

“Enma’s sick,” said Kuroki, jumping at the excuse to change the subject.

“Ooooooh,” said Deuce, nodding along sagely.

“My other henchmen would be on my side…” Grim grumbled.

Kuroki narrowed his eyes.

“What’s he going on about this time?” Ace said. He hovered by their desk, as if he was considering whether or not it was worth it to join their group today.

Grim sent Ace a glare, before, apparently, thinking better of it. He pointed at Kuroki. “Convince him to audition for the VDC with me!”

Ace raised an eyebrow. “Have you seen the prize money yet?”

Kuroki’s nose scrunched. “Ito’s actually getting paid minimum wage, now, and all of the Scarabia dorm’s food is bought and paid for by Kalim-senpai, so we’re not as desperate for money. And, even if we were, it’s not worth it. That shit’s on TV. I’m not embarrassing myself in front of millions for any amount of cash.”

Deuce nodded along. “And that’s if you get in at all. Which, let’s be honest – there are only two spots left, it’s not gonna happen.”

Kuroki wasn’t sure how to feel about Deuce being the only person on his side.

Broken clocks are right twice a day, perhaps?

Certainly, Kuroki couldn’t be the one in the wrong.

He cleared his throat, awkwardly.

“Besides. I’m busy making Crowley’s life Hell.”

He, idly, wondered whether the Headmaster had appreciated the plague of crickets he’d released into his office that morning.

(He hoped not. That would defeat the purpose.)

“I see, I see,” said Ace. “A noble cause.”

It was with a theatrical kind of reluctance that Ace sat down on Deuce’s other side.

Kuroki rolled his eyes. “Maybe you should audition.”

“I’m thinking about it,” Ace said. “Could be fun.”

“See!” Grim said, waving his paws around in wide gestures that had no real rhyme or reason. “It could be fun!”

“I’ll be you guys’ shoulder to cry on when you bomb,” Deuce said, solemnly… if you ignore the gleam of amusement in his eyes.

“Don’t be lame, Deuce,” Ace groaned.

“Henchman, come on!”

Kuroki sighed. “Grim…”

For the first time ever, Kuroki was glad to see Crewel. The man strode in just as the bell rang, as usual, and they were forced to pay attention to that, instead.

~

By the time that Kuroki’s shift at work ended, he was exhausted. Ito, Enma, and Grim were back in his room. He’d survived nearly an entire day without his emotional support friends. He deserved to run right to them.

He lingered in the kitchen, wondering if he should get something to-go...

This was, as he quickly realized, a mistake.

“Ah, Yuuya-san!” Azul called.

Kuroki made a mad dash for the door.

Jade scooped him up before he could escape. Where did he even come from? How did someone that tall sneak up on him?!

“That’s not very polite. Azul wishes to speak to you.”

“Enma’d be jealous if he saw you doing this,” Kuroki said. He may think Enma’s crush was ill-advised, but he would invoke it if it made Jade put him down.

Alas. Jade continued smiling thinly and decidedly did not return Kuroki to his beloved floor.

He faced Azul with the kind of resolve you would see in a man knowingly walking into a slaughterhouse.

Please don’t fire me. I’ll have to do the stupid VDC thing and I don’t wanna…

“Schoenheit-san asked me to give flyers to all of my Lounge performers,” Azul said. “If it helps motivate you, I can honestly say that you have a shot of getting in.”

Are you fucking kidding me?!

Kuroki glared at the piece of paper that had been all but shoved into his hands like it had personally insulted him. Because it had. Trust him on this – had he ever lied before?

“Thanks, Azul,” he said. “But I’d be more flattered if you weren’t only saying that to get rid of me.”

"I believe that you gaining financial independence would be beneficial to both of us."

Azul didn’t even bother to deny it.

Kuroki hated this stupid dorm.

At least Jade finally freed him.

He started off toward his room, the flyer crumpled in his fist. He needed to find a place to throw this away before he made it back to his room, lest the sight of it earn another round of pestering from Grim. Should he stop by the kitchens –?

He turned a corner and came face-to-face with a very bored Floyd Leech.

Who immediately lit up.

“Koebi-chan!”

He! Hated! This! Stupid! Dorm!

~

He closed and locked the door to his room behind himself. He’d managed to shake off Floyd by running to the library and sending Riddle the most pitiful look ever seen on a man (thank you, Riddle Rosehearts, your sacrifice will be remembered for generations to come), and slowly slid to the floor.

“Long day?” Ito asked.

“You have no idea,” Kuroki groaned, tipping his head back against the door.

Ito smiled wryly. “I have an idea.”

Kuroki glanced at Enma. Enma had cocooned both him and Ito in a blanket, with only their faces poking out. Grim was curled up on top of the cocoon, his tail just barely swishing back and forth.

It looked like they were having a good time to him.

“Did he throw up?”

“No, but he hasn’t let go all day. He’s so clingy when he’s sick. I swear, he’s only, like, one step above toddlers.”

Kuroki wasn’t sure he was seeing the issue here.

“Just let me have this,” Enma sulked.

Ito rolled their eyes, but they did stop complaining.

Kuroki crossed his arms over his chest. “Did he eat at all?”

“I made him some soup. He wouldn’t accept anything else.”

Okay. Great. It wasn’t particularly filling, but it was something, at least.

He glanced at Enma. He didn’t seem much better despite the sustenance.

“Should we take him to the infirmary?”

“Not happening. Apparently. I called the Headmaster for help, ‘cause I can’t carry Enma all the way to the infirmary on my own, and the Headmaster said that I should try and fix it myself, since I’m going to be working in the infirmary from now on. It'd be 'good practice',” Ito said, rolling their eyes.

“See, I told you Crowley’s a bitch.”

Ito’s eyebrows knit.

“When have I ever said that he wasn’t one?”

Kuroki frowned right back at them. “But… you like him, right?”

“Yeah? He’s cool.”

What wasn’t clicking?

“But – but he’s a bitch!”

“So are you,” Ito said, gently.

“True,” said Enma.

Kuroki scowled. “Go back to being sick.”

Enma gave his best impression of a kicked puppy.

… it was working.

Kuroki sighed, running his hand through his hair. “Alright, anything you want to eat, Enma?”

“I don’t know… can we get something delivered? I don’t wanna move,” Enma groaned.

“You don’t have to. I can go grab something –.”

Enma frowned. “No.”

“... ‘no’?” Kuroki repeated. He hadn’t thought that he’d asked a Yes or No question.

Slowly, Enma removed a hand from The Cocoon and reached for Kuroki.

Ah.

“Stop smiling, Kuroki, you don’t understand my pain,” Ito grumbled.

“I’m not smiling,” Kuroki said, schooling his face into something more neutral as he unplugged their phone.

He frowned at the millions of notifications.

Pretty much all of them were courtesy of ‘Slave owner????????’ and ‘I don't think I can beat you in a fight so kys for me’. Kalim and Jamil must not know where Ito was.

Well. That sounds like a problem for Future Kuroki.

Current Kuroki was hungry and was going to make ‘Alpha Male Podcaster’ bring him food.

He hummed as he navigated to their contacts, intent on bullying – no, guilting… that didn’t sound much better… politely asking – someone to bring them something to eat.

“Hey, Jack, can you do me a favor?”

~

Kuroki leaned against Enma’s side as he, somewhat reluctantly, read over the flyer Azul had given him. Grim would wake up, soon, and remember that he still wanted to be a part of the VDC. Which meant Kuroki needed to dissuade him, somehow.

Hopefully, the terms and conditions would be enough. Surely there was something here that Grim would dislike.

Unfortunately for him, there really didn’t seem to be anything bad. Maybe his time working under Azul had given him a skewed idea of what making a deal was like in this world...

Wait. Hold on. Kuroki had found some fine print. Restoration of his faith in humanity: canceled.

He squinted at the tiny text at the bottom of the page, small enough that he had originally thought it was a smudge:

‘All participants must attend a month-long training camp with their bandmates. Food and lodging will be provided.’

Lodging…

The people in the band… got to live together.

Nevermind what Kuroki had said earlier about his list of enemies. Vil Schoenheit was an amazing human being and Kuroki would love the opportunity to work with him!

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

( This post is starting to get some attention, so I'd appreciate it if you'd follow my art blog @katlyntheartist )

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Yuu can do it!

Part 77

First - Previous - Masterlist - Next

The plan was simple – put on the fashion show that the faeries so desperately wanted. Make it a show. Give it the works. Flashy outfits, performers dancing their way across the stage, a magic-fueled light show... make it the best thing that they’d ever seen.

And, while everyone is distracted by the Pretty Magic lighting up the sky, they would use just a little extra magic to swap out the magestone for a replica.

(Kuroki had asked why they had to distract the faeries at all, if they were just going to swap the stones over their head. Apparently, faeries were super sensitive to magic. Which was, perhaps, why Crowley ran the school – who better to find magical prodigies than a man who could sense magic from a mile away? It surely made more sense than the man somehow getting to the Headmaster position through his own merit.)

It wasn’t something that required a magicless student’s help, let alone three.

Kuroki could have been home free.

But here he was. Sitting in the Headmaster’s chair, scowling as he sewed millions of fake flowers onto everyone’s outfits. His fingers and wrists ached, and he wasn’t even close to being done.

And, even worse, Grim was sad because he couldn’t sleep in Kuroki’s lap!

He was never going to forgive Crowley. For anything. But especially not this.

Now, was this Crowley’s fault? Not really. Not directly, at least.

However, he was blaming him anyway.

He certainly couldn’t blame the people who had done this to him. If he tried to tell off Professor Crewel and Vil Schoenheit, he feared he might actually die. If not because they killed him, then because of the anxiety attack he would definitely have while confronting them.

And can you really blame him? They were intimidating. They were all… classy, put-together, attractive (probably)…

Terrifying, frankly.

Just look at how they’re yelling at everyone else!

“Your feet drag along the ground. Your posture is atrocious. Your head bobs when you walk. You swagger like some kind of ruffian… some prince you are. Are you sure you're not just the royal jester? Actually, no — saying that is an insult to jesters everywhere.”

Kuroki would have cried had any of these words been said to him.

But Vil wasn’t talking about him, so he snickered a little. “Can’t even walk...”

“You slouch just as much as I do,” Leona said. Surely because he was bitter about being told off in front of a bunch of people, all of whom looked like they were trying very hard not to make it too obvious they were laughing at him.

“This ain’t about me,” Kuroki said.

Leona took a calming breath.

“Shouldn’t have voted for me,” Kuroki added, just to be petty.

“Ooooookay!” Crowley cut in before a murder could take place. Maybe he didn’t want blood all over his fancy desk and chair. “Kuroki-san, you may be dismissed.”

Kuroki lit up. He all-but threw the clothes off of his lap, and only because he feared that Vil and Crewel might scream at him if he were to let them get too wrinkled. He hugged Grim to his chest, glancing back at Ito and Enma. “Alright, guys, let’s go.”

Ito and Enma didn’t hesitate to follow after him.

Leona grabbed Enma by the arm.

Enma glanced back at him.

Leona rolled his eyes, but let go pretty quickly.

Crowley, however, was quick to jump in front of the door. “Hey, hey, where are you two going?”

“I dunno,” said Ito, shrugging lazily. “Maybe someplace that’s not too cold… or too warm… oh! Crowley, can we go off campus for the day? I want to see the town…”

Crowley frowned. “You’re supposed to be helping.”

“But, Headmaster, surely, in a school as prestigious as this, we aren’t needed to solve these kinds of menial problems. Aren’t the mages that come out of here supposed to be brilliant minds?” Enma asked, so-very-polite if you ignored the clear undercurrent of disrespect in his tone.

The little balls of light in Crowley’s eyes shrunk to the size of pinpricks. Kuroki couldn’t decide whether this was an expression of fear, or if this was just what ‘narrowed eyes’ looked like on Crowley.

“There was a democratic vote, which you lost,” Kalim said, diplomatically.

“So stop bitching,” said Leona. Much less diplomatically.

“Do it or I’ll bite you,” said Ruggie.

Suddenly, Leona seemed like a Saint.

“Would I get an infection from that?” Ito asked.

Ruggie grinned. “Want to find out?”

No one, it seemed, was particularly eager to find out. Sure, they fucked around, but that didn’t mean that they wanted to deal with the consequences…

Reluctantly, Ito went back to Vil. Who immediately started lecturing Ito on their flakiness. Ito clearly wasn’t taking in a word of the guy’s rant, which just seemed to be pissing him off more. Frankly, Kuroki was shocked – and a little disappointed – that they hadn’t devolved into a catfight yet.

Enma, on the other side of the room, seemed perfectly content. Which made sense. He was one of two people who didn’t have to answer to Vil.

(The other person was Ruggie, who had been tasked with the actual theft part of the operation. His ‘practice’ was really just levitating things with wind magic. Which was, evidently, rather easy for him… either because he was a second year, or because he, perhaps, had practiced stealing things using magic before all of this happened. Because he was an overachiever like that.)

“You may still leave, Kuroki-san,” said Crowley.

Kuroki frowned, hugging Grim to his chest. “Well, if I left, who would annoy you?”

“That’s hardly an essential job.”

“No. It is.”

~

“As loath as I am to admit it, Leona could make an eye-catching main model if we leverage that air of smug superiority he gives off…” said Vil, squinting at Leona.

Leona wasn’t blushing, per se – or, if he was, his skin was too dark for it to be noticeable – but his ears were nearly flat against his head in what Kuroki could only assume was embarrassment.

Or maybe he was just pissed off and preparing to rip the guy’s throat out. It was hard to tell. The facial expressions are very similar.

“I suppose, if those three really work to balance out Kingscholar’s complete lack of talent, the fashion show might be a success…” Vil said. He sounded like he was talking to himself more than anything. Which, honestly, might have been worse. He wasn’t even trying to insult Leona.

“Are the three of us enough to distract from Leona-san?” Jamil asked.

“We can try our best!” said Kalim.

Ito turned their head to ‘cough’ into their hand.

Ruggie seemed to be getting secondhand embarrassment. “Sorry that our housewarden’s giving you so much trouble.”

“Hey, Leona, I learned how to walk on two legs pretty recently, so if you ever need any help, I can offer a few tips,” said Grim, smirking.

Being placed below Grim seemed to be Leona’s final straw. “You know what? I’m sick of your shit, I don’t have to do this –.”

“You’ll live,” said Crewel.

“And for what?” Leona drawled.

“Because you’ll look really cute in this outfit,” said Ito, leaning over Kuroki’s shoulder with a grin. “Can I braid some flowers in your hair, too? That’ll complete the look, I think.”

“No,” said Leona.

Ito pouted.

~

Enma left for approximately half an hour, and then came back with what looked to be ten bells, which he laid out on the Headmaster’s desk, beside the vial of faerie dust.

“... what are those?” Kuroki said. “Is your special interest bells now? Why?”

“They’re translators,” said Enma. “So we can talk to the tiny faeries.”

“... why are they shaped like that?”

“I thought it was because they sound like bells, but they said that it’s a cultural thing. The faerie that managed to bridge the gap between technology and magic was named ‘Tinkerbell’, so they shape everything they can into bells in her honor.”

(Kuroki nodded slowly. Since when has this world put the actual heroes of those Disney stories on a pedestal? Kuroki hadn’t known they could do that. But, hey, good for them, propaganda had been averted exactly one singular time.)

“How’d you get these?” said Ruggie. He picked one of the translators, peering at it, clearly trying to figure out if it was made out of real gold.

“Well, the faeries owed me,” Enma said, snatching the bell out of Ruggie’s hand immediately. “For… reasons.”

Ruggie frowned, opening his mouth. To ask what the ‘reasons’ were, or to protest the loss his new favorite shiny object, Kuroki would never know, because Enma was quick to cut him off:

“Anyways! They were happy to make us some.”

Kalim raised his hand. “Couldn’t you have asked them to swap the magestones out for us?”

“Dunno if they have that kind of power. They seemed like pretty average faeries to me,” said Enma, shrugging. “And, if I asked they’d pay more attention to the magestone, and it’d be even harder to steal. It was too risky.”

“You didn’t think to ask, did you?” Kuroki asked.

Enma flushed red and stomped on his foot. As all innocent people do.

~

The dance crew was… well, Kuroki wouldn’t call them successful.

Actually, he would. They’d looked fine to him.

Vil, apparently, disagreed.

“You two,” Vil said, pointing at Kalim and Jamil. “Are entirely out of sync.”

“I thought we were on beat,” Kalim said, frowning.

“You were,” Vil said, waving him off. “However, you aren’t meshing well together. You’re too boisterous, and Viper-san is too stiff. It makes the entire choreography seem – unbalanced. At this point, I fear even the Get Along Handcuffs might not be enough to get you two in sync…”

“... the what?” said Jamil.

“The Get Along Handcuffs,” Vil repeated, in the exact same ‘woe is me’ tone. As if he was the one suffering the most here. “I have never had an unsuccessful show for a reason, Viper-san… and I’m not starting today, either.”

The Get Along Handcuffs were almost exactly what they sounded like. They were four long pieces of rope binding each of Kalim and Jamil’s limbs together, forcing them to copy each other's movements. If one of Kalim’s arms went too far, Jamil’s body would jerk to follow after him. If Jamil failed to move one of his feet enough, Kalim would find himself completely off balance.

They hit the floor. A lot.

The floor was padded, slightly, thanks to the snow, but that definitely wasn’t enough to make it not hurt at all. And, honestly, their pride only ended up more wounded when, after finally getting back on their feet, they struggled to even brush the snow away thanks to the very predicament that had coated them in snow in the first place.

Frankly, the fact that Jamil didn’t attempt to strangle Kalim was a testament to his patience… or because the Get Along Handcuffs made it very hard for him to get his hands on Kalim. Take your pick, they’re both equally likely.

~

As for Ito…

“You,” said Vil.

Ito poked their head out from where they had definitely not been hiding behind Crowley’s cape, a scowl on their face.

“Why do you insist on not learning the steps?”

Ito thought this over.

“I don’t wanna.”

Vil was going to have an aneurysm. He probably would have already, if it wasn’t so damn cold in the office. Those faeries were saving lives, one slowed blood pressure reading at a time.

“I don’t care if you’re magicless, I will punch you in the face if you insist on being difficult,” Vil said.

“Is that problematic?” said Ito.

“No,” said Ruggie, glaring at Enma out of the corner of his eyes.

“Yes,” said Crowley.

“Yes and no,” said Leona. Seemingly just to be difficult.

Ito considered all of this, before rolling their eyes. “Listen. Dancing is about having fun. Making all these ‘steps’ defeats the purpose.”

Vil rolled his eyes right back at them. “That’s all fine when you’re dancing on your own, but the point here isn’t to have ‘fun’, it’s to be ‘good’.”

Once again, Kuroki wondered if this was going to escalate into a catfight.

Then Kalim and Jamil hit the ground again, successfully tearing everyone’s attention away from All That.

At least temporarily:

“You guys could compromise!” Kalim said, smiling despite the fact that he’d just Ate ShitTM. “Ito’s pretty good with people, right? Can they do crowdwork somehow?”

Vil and Ito looked thoughtful.

(A shudder of disgust ran through Kuroki. It was always weird when Kalim was even slightly competent.)

~

Have you ever heard someone talk about a ‘sad, wet cat of a man’?

As the room-full of students watched a sopping wet Leona trudge his way through his posture classes, they could not help but understand the true meaning of the phrase. Truly, there was nothing sadder than a wet cat.

Hair and clothes hanging in limp ringlets. Makeup running. The most sour expression ever seen on a human being.

But he was getting there.

Slowly, his posture was being corrected by sheer brute force. The gaps between each vase that toppled over and soaked him yet again became fewer and fewer. Say what you will about corporal punishment, but sometimes it works.

Also, it’s funny.

The door flung open.

“Leona-san, I’ve got your lunch –.”

The vase toppled over.

Ruggie and Leona stood there for a solid minute in silence.

“Uh, I’ll come back later,” said Ruggie, carefully closing the door again.

(They could hear him book it down the hallway immediately afterward.)

~

Kuroki quietly braided fake flowers into Ito’s hair. They hadn’t allowed anyone but Kuroki and Enma to do it, and Enma was still obsessing over faerie rules (could there really be that many?), so the responsibility fell to him and him alone.

Not that he particularly minded.

Ito sighed as Grim, once again, ran out of beads to put in their hair. They’d given him a very small section to braid, and a couple of beads to string throughout. Grim had used them all at the very top. And then he’d asked for more. Which Ito gave him, time and time again.

“Fine, but these are the last ones,” said Ito.

“You said that last time,” Kuroki murmured.

“Well, this time I mean it,” Ito said.

Kuroki strongly suspected this was less of a hard limit and more a ‘Grim is running out of hair to put beads on anyway’.

Was he going to point this out? No, not when Grim was clearly so pleased with himself.

Instead, he continued working. “When’d you learn how to dance?”

He hadn’t really expected an answer. They didn’t really… talk about anything from their own world.

(He didn’t have anything to miss, so he could only assume that it sucked.)

“After the pandemic, everyone was throwing parties all the time. Making up for lost time and all that, I guess. I figured it out sometime around there, I think. I dunno. I was, like, four, so…”

Kuroki hummed. “Did your parents teach you?”

“Nope,” they said. “They – uh – weren’t around much, after the pandemic. Their work took them out of the country a lot. We had a lot of tias – er… babysitters…? Nannies.”

He snickered. “What? Like Kalim-senpai?”

They flashed a grin. “Not that many, no. Just one for all of us. I only say ‘a lot’ because I… think I remember them changing a lot? I dunno, I haven’t really thought about it in a while. And they stopped coming around once I was old enough to take care of everyone on my own.”

They didn’t say any more, and Kuroki didn’t press.

Grim, on the other hand, wasn’t quite so tactful:

“When I’m big ‘n strong, I’ll make sure to take care of all my henchmen. So you don’t gotta worry about all that, here.”

Ito smiled, reaching out and giving Grim a tiny pat on the head. “I don’t mind ‘worrying’ about it. Someone has to. Might as well be –.”

“Me!” said Grim

“... of course, Grim-sama,” they said.

Kuroki cleared his throat. “Well… I’m a little jealous of you, really. I can’t dance for shit.”

“That’s why you can’t dance,” said Ito, immediately. “It’s all about confidence.”

Kuroki gave them a flat look. “And I’m the most confident person ever.”

Ito grinned. “I can teach you to dance, if you want.”

He hesitated. If asked, he’d say that he was just thinking back on when Ito tried to teach Grim to dance. That hadn’t gone very well.

But, really, he just… wasn’t particularly eager to make a fool of himself.

“I could probably bully Enma into doing it, too,” they said.

He nodded along immediately. He was very eager to watch Enma make a fool of himself.

~

Dress rehearsals are exactly like normal rehearsals, but they – get this – are dressed up.

Crazy, Kuroki knows.

Frankly, he suspected that they were more for the sake of the ‘costuming department’ than the performers. A couple of times, Crewel and Vil had to make quick alterations to the dancer’s outfits to make sure they had as much freedom of movement as they needed.

But, finally, they were as ready as they’d ever be.

Ito pulled a tablet out of a nearby cupboard and then handed it over to Kuroki.

“Here, now you can watch from the security cameras.”

“... there are cameras?” said Ruggie. He looked very nervous all of a sudden. Kuroki had a few guesses why, but he was no snitch (or, at least, he wasn’t a snitch when he didn’t have a reason to be).

“Don’t worry, I’m the only one who really checks them.”

“That’s the most worrying thing you could have said,” said Jamil.

Ito’s lips twitched into a smirk.

~

Enma gave them a ‘presentation’ on faeries. Supposedly, he had summarized everything he’d read. The presentation was half an hour long. And only because it was cut short by Leona:

“Isn’t all of this just ‘be polite Or Else’?”

Enma pouted. “Well… yeah, mostly. Outside of things like don’t owe them a debt, don’t outright lie to their faces (lie by omission, instead), and don’t give them your name… or pronouns, if you’re fond of them.”

And so, Enma’s presentation met an anticlimactic end. As all presentations do, unfortunately. Kuroki would like a whiteboard to explode after a presentation, just once. To keep things interesting, you know?

That being said, Leona’s days were numbered. How dare he make Enma feel bad? Only Kuroki was allowed to do that.

“Looks like my work here is done,” said Enma.

“You did very little,” said Jamil.

Enma flopped down onto the thin layer of snow on the floor, laying back, seemingly content to let himself be consumed by the cold now that he had completed his mission.

“Actually –,” said Crowley.

Enma groaned and turned onto his side, curling up into a ball.

Crowley ignored this. “I would like you to watch Bucchi-san to ensure that he does not cause any international incidents.”

It was hard to tell who was more offended by this – Ruggie or Enma. They were certainly both complaining just as much as each other.

Well, they had been until Ruggie, apparently, decided that the only way to get out of having a babysitter was to make sure there was no one around to babysit him.

Which is to say… he sunk his teeth into Enma’s shoulder.

Which, first of all, that’s counterproductive when dealing with Enma. Ruggie was just begging for Enma to develop a weird-as-hell crush on him.

Second of all, why the hell did Ruggie think he’d beat a guy twice his size in a fist-fight?

Third of all, and they only realized this once the two of them settled down…

They had accidentally proven that Enma could absolutely ‘babysit’ Ruggie.

~

A small faerie floated up to them the moment their group stepped through the door. Not because they looked particularly suspicious – Kuroki could only see them through the cameras, but he could tell, even from a distance, that they looked entirely relaxed. Even Kalim, who Kuroki wouldn’t think was a great actor considering his… Kalim-ness, looked at ease.

The point is: not one of them flinched. If Kuroki didn’t know better, he would have assumed that they were meant to be there.

The faeries stood no chance.

The faerie made a bunch of twinkling noises.

(The translators must not work when on the other side of a camera. Maybe because magic and tech interact weirdly…? He’d tell Enma later. The guy would have a field day theorizing about it.)

“We’re here on behalf of their father-figure,” said Enma. He motioned to Ito.

If you looked close enough, you could see the way both of them cringed just slightly while he said it.

Crowley wasn’t looking closely – Kuroki would have bitten him if he got within range – so he preened a little.

Was it worth it to stand up and bite him?

No. Grim was asleep in his lap. Moving was illegal.

Later, then.

The faerie made more bell noises. They were different than the first noises. Absently, Kuroki wondered if it was possible to learn to speak their language…

“He’s not here,” Ito said, placing a hand on their chest delicately, their smile absolutely forced, even if it might look real to those who didn’t know them. “But he told us to enjoy the Gala in his stead.”

More faerie sounds.

“We ate earlier, but we appreciate the offer,” said Kalim, smiling.

The faerie’s expression went from pleasant to amused, and it stepped aside – if you can really call it that when the thing was flying – to allow them to make their way further into the Gala.

And, really, it went off without a hitch.

The performances were dazzling, even when watching through a screen.

Fashion was always strange, but faeries took it to an entirely new level. Frankly, Kuroki wasn’t sure whether half of these things could even count as clothes. They felt more like costumes than anything – a hummingbird, a being of pure light (somehow). Was that one wearing a shoe? What? Why was it kinda Working It?

That wasn’t even getting into all of the magic. It was so potent that it was actually visible in the air as tiny, white lights that seemed to linger around whoever was closest.

And then there was Their performance. They had been scheduled to go last, a natural result of signing up as late as they had, and they had certainly been the best. Vil’s training had been brutal, but it had paid off.

Leona was the reason why they called that thing a catwalk. Jamil and Kalim had balanced each other perfectly, to the point where even their giddy smiles seemed to match. And Ito had made sure that people weren’t bored once the primary trio had passed them, teaching younger faeries dance moves, inviting faeries up on stage to dance with them, laughing and clapping along to the music so even the most left-footed of faeries felt free to participate…

The light show had been spectacular as well. Perhaps, in the privacy of his own head, Kuroki could admit that this was a school of talented mages, and it showed. Leona’s magic weaved through the air artfully, sprinkling delicate sand down on either side of the stage, making it look like their little performance troupe was little more than a mirage.

(It was so attention-drawing that Kuroki only barely remembered to watch and make sure Ruggie didn’t get caught stealing… and looked over just in time to watch as the boy subtly tucked the magestone into one of Enma’s jacket pockets.)

They reached the end of the catwalk just a moment later, and Leona sent a wave of fire along the edges of the stage, allowing the flames to reach as high as they could without burning the entire place down, stretching around the group of performers, curling in tight.

And then, all at once, it was gone.

As were Leona, Kalim, Jamil, and Ito.

All that remained of the performance was the faerie Ito had been dancing with just moments prior, standing alone on the stage, looking somewhat bemused.

The crowd erupted into thunderous applause.

It had to have been deafening for the four teens huddled beneath a secret trapdoor on the stage. And, aboveground, Ruggie and Enma were left to awkwardly excuse themselves from their conversation.

But that was all fine – because they had just successfully pulled off a grand performance and a heist in a day.

And, as the infiltration crew headed back toward the mirror room to fix the school’s air conditioning, they didn’t bother to hide their elation.

Leona had a swagger to his walk that was borne either out of spite for Vil or satisfaction at a job well done.

Ruggie was clearly coming down from a post-heist high, his footsteps light as he damn near bounced around, the magestone cradled gingerly in his hands.

Even Kalim and Jamil seemed to be having a pleasant conversation.

Enma laughed and threw an arm around Ito, his other hand waving in wide arcs as he rambled about all of the conversations he’d had with faeries while babysitting Ruggie. Ito nodded along, their expression soft as they listened to Enma talk about how faerie, apparently, only use food as decoration during events like this, and it actually works as a kind of intruder alert, and…

Kuroki tossed the tablet vaguely in the Headmaster’s direction (Crowley squeaked in fear and scrambled to catch it) so he could get comfortable in the man’s chair

“They’re safe,” he said.

Crowley managed to keep the tablet from shattering on the cold, unforgiving floor, and perhaps this was what earned a sigh of relief from the man.

Or, perhaps it was what he said next: “And without any property damage, this time!”

Kuroki rolled his eyes. The man’s priorities were skewed beyond –.

“It seems my theory was correct, you three are better when kept apart.”

Kuroki sat up so abruptly that Grim woke up, giving a groggy whine from his place in his lap. He couldn’t even bring himself to feel bad about it.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Well, I’ve noticed that, when together, you three solve a lot of problems, but you create just as many as you solve. But your employers have very few negative things to say about you… in the employee sense, at least. So, I thought – why not separate you three and see if your performance improves?”

He, briefly, angled the tablet in a way that would let Kuroki see the screen. To show off his friends and classmates, all celebrating a job well done. As if to say ‘see the results for yourself’.

Kuroki’s fingers curled in Grim’s fur.

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“You…” Kuroki started, only to trail off, his lips pressing into a thin line. He tipped his head back against the chair, his eyes on the ceiling. The snow had come to a stop, finally, though it hadn’t yet warmed enough for it all to melt. “This body is alive, right?”

“Strange phrasing, but yes.”

“And it’s mine?”

“It certainly seems that way,” said Crowley, motioning to Kuroki as if to say ‘you’re in it’.

Kuroki considered this. He was dead, back in his own world. But if this body was his… could he take it back with him? Could they really just leave?

They certainly couldn’t stay here.

“Crowley, is there really a way for us to go back home?”

“Yes,” said Crowley. “If you could be brought here, then you can be sent back home.”

“Are you really looking for it?”

Crowley didn’t answer.

Kuroki’s eyes fell back to the man’s face. “Fine then. I’ll figure it out myself. Because I’m getting Ito the fuck away from you.”

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Some idiot: "Why are you reading your own fic, that's shallow and stupid"

All fanfic writers and writers everywhere: "Who the fuck do you think I wrote it for?!"

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

You know when you get one of those readers who comments on every chapter of your fic, pointing out their favorite parts and quoting lines that really resonated with them?

Yeah, as a writer, this is an absolute gift. ❤️

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Maribat Awards 2024 Winners

We have some amazing winners listed below! Make sure to check them out, as well as their competition in the Nominations List or in the AO3 Collection! There were some very close calls, and several ties.

Thank you to everyone who voted or nominated.

Congratulations to all of our winners!

Art: Favourite Artist Gourins

Favourite FanArt https://www.tumblr.com/gourins/753732913747640320/hi-magic-user-in-gotham%E2%91%A4

Authors: Favourite Author of 2024 (Tie!) Otome_wandering StarWarsMum

Favourite Underrated Author Kuroko

Favourite Maribat Author of All Time (Any year) Otome_wandering

Favourite New Author StarWarsMum

Fics: Favourite Fic Heirs by otome_wandering

Favourite Underrated Fic (Tie!) if you really are the summer maybe stay until december by boldlyanxious I Don't Need Every Universe (When I Already Have You In This One) by Coffee

Favourite Maribat Fic of All Time (Any year) Heirs by otome_wandering

Ships: Favourite Daminette (Tie!) Heirs by otome_wandering The Batarang Thief by dragonbug

Favourite Jasonette Inconveniences, Cultists, and the Warehouse of Rejected Toys by Apathetic_Witch

Favourite Timari The Runaways by Am_I_really_a_writerhuh

Favourite Dickinette Bad Omens by newdog14

Favourite Rare Pair Rain Check by mochegato

Favourite Platonic (non-bio-family) Unkidnapped by boldlyanxious

Favourite Biological family AU (not just biodad!Bruce) (Tie!) Defy by joe_bobbi_o Kuroko's Maribat BioFamily September by Kuroko

Overall: Favourite Fluff Heirs by otome_wandering Adopting a neighbour (not exactly in the legal way) by Lady_on_paper

Favourite Angst the way i loved you by Undercover_fangirl

Favourite Hurt/Comfort The Forgotten by boldlyanxious

Favourite Comedy Rented, Not Bought by otome_wandering

Favourite One-Shot The Emotional Turmoil of Damian Wayne by otome_wandering

Favourite Multi-Chapter Heirs by otome_wandering