#am: akagami no shirayukihime

[redmemoirs]

i know i already put these in my recent obizen picspam but i wanted to talk about these specific parallels again bc they make me so ill. shouldve just done this in the original post but better late than never!!

starting off simple with this first one

theres really not much to say bc the pictures say it all. zen is complimenting him both times but the first is when obi was only just made zen's knight/shirayuki's bodyguard. even though he was the one to initiate this dynamic by calling zen master at their literal first meeting, he doesn't quite understand exactly what he's signed up for, bc zen is different from anyone else he's ever worked for before. for zen this is a relationship of reciprocity - "but ive decided to take hold of those reins." and tho the second scene is still remarkably early on (lilias epidemic arc), he's starting to get what he's signed up for and what it means for him and zen and shirayuki, and just how much zen trusts him now.

and just, visually. the change in expression. the surprise in the first, when he still cant understand what exactly is zen's (and shirayuki's) deal. and in the second the smiles. the reciprocity. the understanding. the panels arent facing each other but instead it looks like theyre giving each other their backs.

also this isnt the end of their relationship development by any means - more recently, obi doesnt make excuses to get away from them when its just the three of them. at this point the two of them together is a scene he cant intrude on, but-

that's not the case anymore! he doesnt walk behind them or step away to give them space! whenever theyre scheming to give zenyuki alone time its when the knights trio are all there. when it's just obi? its just obi. he belongs right there with them.

and now THESE PAGES

it was sheer luck i ran into them in my screenshot folder but oh man. zen only barely tolerating obi, obi already thinking so highly of just that much regard, mitsuhide not letting him in except for urgent matters... to obi and zen relaxing and hanging out together and saying theyll miss each other but take care of themselves for each other's sake?? mitsuhide being there??? im ill. im so ill. there is no further analysis look at their faces look at the smiles look at the comfort. this is home now. no wonder obi cant keep himself out of zens room its the surest possible proof of how far theyve come.

honorary mention for their antics. i lovethem.

[what-plant-metaphor-am-i]

Chapter 135 spoiler warning!

This scene entertained me too much so I made a very crappy video of it with voice over and sound effects. Warnings for bad quality, motion sickness from the camera movement and my dumb humour.

Thanks so much to Clarines Press for the fan translation!! 🫶

Excerpt from chapter 135 of Akagami no Shirayukihime by Sorata Akiduki. Buy the beautiful manga folks!!

[onedivinemisfit]

Seconds to a murder

[characterswithcolorsnamesfight]

Prelim Poll 7

Propaganda here

[sabraeal]

At Your Command, Chapter 2

[Read on AO3]

They’ve got two guards at the gate— well, two that he can see, though he doesn’t doubt there’s a dozen more posted around this entrance, up on parapets and spying through towers, yucking it up each time some courtier acts out the inciting event in one of those puppet shows in the market. There’s a younger one— fair as any prince, at least by the etchings in the paper— his hat just scarcely too large to sit above his ears. An idiot, by the looks of things. An easy dupe.

The other one, though—

“Revoked?” The older guard sits back in his hips, eyeing the Marquis’s order— and his scar— with a hefty amount of skepticism. “Out of nowhere.”

Out of all the expressions he bends his face into, patronizing smile isn’t part of his regular vocabulary. It’s a real tussle between the muscles and teeth to keep it there instead of gritting down to a grimace. Gate guards aren’t meant to question noble couriers, especially not ones that come around flashing royal seals and dropping titles with more history than the palace itself, but here he is, standing in front of the only soldier with more than two thoughts to clack together to make a spark. Any minute now, this guy’s going to bark out an “Explain!” and he’ll have to dance the dangerous edge between obeying the letter of the law and defying its intent.

Or at least he would, if he wasn’t wearing this nice little uniform.

“Enough.” His teeth snap around the word with every ounce of authority the Marquis’s crest lends him. It’s not much this many rungs down the ladder, but it’s more than these chuckleheads have. “No objections.”

Oh, he makes a good show of barking and gnashing, but he might well be one of those little pillow dogs the ladies keep for all the good it does him. Now even the dupe’s got a wary look in his eyes, jaw setting the way it does before people start asking him things like, can I see your credentials, and what did you say your name is again.

Ha, he’d heard the Elder Highness ran a tight ship, but this is something else. Daddy might have let his lords throw their weight around, bullying the poor boys on door duty as if it were one of those divine rights passed down to them on high, but it seems at least this apple got flung far from the tree. Part of him’s impressed, he’s got to admit, but the other part—

The other part’s got a job to do. And, if this goes on any longer, a real nasty itch to scratch.

“Please try to understand”— he’s a study in softness now, pressing a hand to his heart, shoulders taking the same pleading tilt as his brow— “how this decision must have pained His Highness.”

The dupe’s all eyes now, wide and trembling, real taken with the idea of some princeling’s struggle with his tender emotions. But the older guard shifts his weight, arms crossed, and frowns. It’ll take more than a few tears and tugged heartstrings to get this guy to swallow a story.

Good thing he doesn’t have to. All he’s got to do is lean close, squinting down at the elegant sweep of the Marquis’s signature across the page, and he sees it too: it’s legal. However the hero here feels about this particular little prescript, putting it to question is well above his paygrade. At least so long as it’s the old king’s cousin who’s got his name slapped on it as co-signer.

“Well.” The scroll snaps shut in his hand, and he flashes the hero the sort of grin found on a knife’s edge. “That will be all.”

It’s new to him, walking away like this— lofty chin and step so springy he might looking into a high horse when all is said and done. A guy could get used to this sort of thing, no to mention the weight of his purse and the promise of enough food to fill him. All he’s got to do now is get back to His Grace and—

“Wait!” the older one shouts, giving him one hobbled step before he adds, “Get back here!”

It’s the sort of shout that could be for anyone— hell, he’s half convinced it’s not even him, up until his heels start sticking to the pavement, not so much holding him in place as making it a real hassle to saunter off with any style. Give the guy a few years and maybe he’d get enough gravitas to haul him up short, but as it is, he’s an annoyance rather than a threat. The kind that’s got him gritting his teeth to keep that servile smile on his face. “Excuse me. Is there—?”

“We’ve got to tell the prince.” It’s the younger one who says it— whispers it, really, the way mummers do on stage, loud enough to be heard all the way in the eaves— eyes anxiously aimed at his superior.

It’s a miracle he manages to grit out, “Tell the prince what?”

“It’s Lady Shirayuki,” the older one replies, not possessed with the same sense of urgency as his partner. In fact, he’s downright leisurely when he adds, “She forgot a book in the prince’s office and came back to get it.”

“It was just before you came, sir!” The idiot’s practically biting his nails down to the quick just thinking of it. “She’s already gone through!”

*

This job was supposed to go off without a hitch.

There’s no wiggle room for mistakes in this business; not when the difference between a good grift and a shallow grave is balanced on a blade’s edge. All it takes is a glance too unsavory or a word misspoke to see a man clapped in irons, dragged off to dungeons so deep even his own mother would forget his name. If he had one, that is. Men like him usually don’t.

Oh, not every job’s determined at knife point, draw blood or be bled, but the point still stands: there’s no such thing as a do-over when the coin you’ll pay with is your life. No amount of almosts will fill an empty belly, or a keep a body warm at night on the Port City’s streets. In a world where everyone’s fighting for scraps, it’s the ones who walk away that win. And he—

Well, he’s built a career out of being the one that does. Too bad this prince-chaser chick hasn’t gotten the message.

She’s probably skipped her way off to His Highness already, none the wiser. Makes the timing of this whole order a little sticky, but it’s nothing he can’t straighten out once she’s out of the pretty prince’s eyesight. Nothing like a royal decree and a frog march with a few guardsmen to really sell the story, after all.

But when he whips around, searching the scene through the gate, and— there, a flash of red flitting through the arcade. Ha, so the idiot hadn’t lied when about her coming through just before he got here. And just his luck, she’d stuck around long enough to hear her golden ticket get revoked.

His hand clenches on his shoulder, barely dulling the ache. Well, isn’t this nice? In the time it’d take him to convince the guards to get up off their duffs, the little gold digger’s going to have gotten her teeth sunk into the prince.

He’s never been much for plans. Contingencies, sure— nothing wrong with stacking the deck in to make sure he stays in Lady Luck’s favor. But when at any given moment a casual remark can drag his day to grinding halt, it’s his wits he’s learned to fly by. Wits and a good dose of sheer animal instinct, since when he tracks that cardinal weaving between columns, he’s already up on his toes, ready to give chase.

Not on her heels like some wet-behind-the-ears footpad on his first follow— that would take him through too many people, guards and nobles alike, all of them used to giving commands and expecting to be obeyed. No, he’s a half dozen steps past the gate when he finds his first foothold, vaulting himself up onto the shifting thatch of some outbuilding. It’s only a skip and a jump— maybe a harrowing leap or two, but who’s counting— before he’s up on the castle’s roof, tiles clacking and clattering beneath his boots. Not his usual ones, worn in and worn down, silent as a whisper, but the new ones His Grace’s bootblacks had shined to gleaming, made more for stirrups than streets, and certainly not for rooftops.

These tiles aren’t made for walking either, but he’s no stranger to making do— even a slip off the gutters is better than being brought to his knees by some young court flower, shocked at the impropriety of a man passing by her too quick. They might shift and slide, their smooth surfaces slick beneath a pair of boots too fine for friction, but his stride is still longer than some little miss, and his path far straighter. Oh, she might know all the twists and turns between the gate and the west wing, but he—

Well, all he needs is line of sight.

*

Plans might not be his forte, but his one contingency is tucked up against the tower— a library maybe, or some royal offices, he’d never bothered to check— caught against the rough patchwork between one hall’s straight roof and the curve of the tower’s. The quiver’s untouched, bow still safe in the shadows even under the mid-day sun, and it’s nothing to string it, just—

Just this damned coat doesn’t fit. One pull to full draw and he’s got shoulders up to his neck, practically drowning him in wool.

“Ha.” He’s careful to set the bow down gentle, leaning it against the fancy balustrade they’ve got rigged up round this place, even though there’s not even a door to get out to it. “Should have known. Noble messenger was never gonna sit easy on these shoulders.”

There’s no time for a full costume change, not when he can see her dodging the west wing guards idling in the arcade, but he’s got enough to shuck off his shell of respectability, letting it crumple to the tile. Hopefully whoever His Grace lifted it from didn’t expect it back— he sure wouldn’t be carting it through the gutters to make it happen.

Strung and nocked, the bow sits easy in his hands, not even a tremble on the draw. She’s not quick enough to make aiming a challenge, cutting a path without a single dodge or weave save for where she needs to skirt passerby. If he let it loose right now, he could stop her right in her tracks, let her bleed crimson all over this spotless white, but—

Don’t harm her. His hand jerks, curse curled around it, loosing the arrow wide, burying ash in stone rather than skin. He grins, draw hand flexing at his side.

“Nice,” he murmurs, watching the girl stare at the shaft that’s sprouted from the wall in front her. “Couldn’t have done it better myself.”

There’s a message bound on the shaft, a pretty bit of ribbon he’d snagged from a passing pigtail, but he doubts she’ll see it, never mind bother to read it. The arrow’s enough, most times, for people to pick up that they’re not wanted. This is the part of the job he likes most— in fear, everyone obeys with the same haste as he does.

But not this girl. The ribbon’s half unfurled from the force of the shot, and she lets it trail between her fingers as she unwraps the rest. To our dear red-headed guest, it reads, a clever bit if he says so himself— but even with the spyglass, he’s too far away to appreciate how her eyes must widen, how all that brazen greed must give out to fear. His one regret keeping his hands so clean on this one, since—

Since she just rips is out of the wall and runs. Not out, the way any reasonable person would, but in. Not to safety but toward—

Toward the prince. The prince, and this whole little debacle going entirely tits up.

Make sure she goes home. The command itches like a pulse beneath his skin, one he can feel all the way to his fingers. And for once, he doesn’t resist.

*

Little Miss Pushing-Her-Luck careens around the colonnades' corners, boots squealing as she slips past another pair of promising guardsmen, too confounded by her speed to do more than shout out, “Slow down!” before her back disappears.

The command nips at his heels, trying to sink its teeth into enough sinew to hobble him— that’s the real danger being out in the streets; this curse likes to turn caltrop whenever his ear catches a raised voice— but he’s old hand at dancing out of arm’s reach. A few hops across a convenient balcony and a tip-toe across a balustrade sees him safe, whatever weak tether those words have snapping as he drops down onto a tree branch. His feet plant, back to bark, as she races through the halls around him, arrow still clutched in her grip.

“Welp,” he sighs, cold metal sliding between his knuckles like old friend. “I tried to be nice, but looks like the only way to get rid of a leech is the old fashioned way.”

He lifts his arm, letting his curse set his aim—

Just to catch himself as a mop of silver-white rounds the corner, trailed by a giant and a goddess, both with blades at their hip— and the casual coiled strength of people who know how to use them. His Highness and his aides— the younger one. “Shirayuki?”

Well, damn. Steel presses cold to his palms as he pockets them. Looks like he’s run out of chances.

*

He expects the girl to hole up; after all, what better way to cozen up to a prince than to convince him her life’s on the line? His Grace might have told him to keep the carpets clean when it came to dislodging this particular pest from the palace, but it’ll take more than a little discouragement now that she’s gone to ground. No way she’ll just walk out here and let him have another chance—

And yet, that’s what she does. Slips right out of the prince’s office— empty-handed, he notices, stomach sinking down to his knees— and down the colonnade. Like she were any other guest. Like she didn’t just survive an arrow flying in her path.

This girl’s either the bravest woman he’s ever seen, or the stupidest. And he doesn’t have time to decide, not before she takes two steps and comes face to face with the one person who can make this situation even worse: his boss.

His fingers dig right into his shoulder, trying to ease the ache. It’s not his business, whatever they’re talking about. Not unless His Grace had a mind to make it so, which doesn’t seem likely when—

Ah, when he’s drawing his blade. And holding it, right there, at the young miss’s throat.

Protect your client. His breath catches, old words gripping him like a mother cat does its kitten: with jaws around its neck. Even at cost to yourself.

“Ha.” The laugh slips through the space between his teeth. “Guess there’s no getting around that one.”

*

It’s not easy to climb his way over— the trees here are ornamental, meant to sway prettily in the breeze, not hold weight, and spaced to encourage soft-soled nobles to stroll between them. A scoundrel swinging from branch-to-branch is straight out.

And yet, with a few more gravity-defying leaps than he’d like to think about, he makes it to the one just beneath the second floor’s balustrade. Fingers gripping tight, they hauling him up, his arms giving one good tremble before he spills himself over the stone. Ah, maybe he shouldn’t have turned his nose up at that breakfast. Looks like he could have used it.

He glances up, ears perked to hear just what sort of drama has unfolded in his absence—

“Fine, if you’re right, and I’m not supposed to be here” —the girl steps forward, the blade so close it dints her skin— “then it’s your duty to take that blade and cut me down.”

—and somehow it’s gone and got worse. Ah, if only his shoulder would let up on him, maybe he’d be able to think this through. At least before His Grace went and did his job for him.

“Stop, girl!” The naked blade trembles, catching the barest glint of the afternoon sun. “I won’t hesitate.”

There’s a moment where the girl startles, eyes blinking wide, first to His Grace, then to the sword between them. This is where anyone else would balk, where they would shuffle back and try to save face, but she—

She only smiles, letting the point dip so close it’s luck that keeps it from drawing blood. “Be my guest.”

[murasaki-cha]

Look at me put my Noragami clown wig and my OHSHC clown shoes and my Shirayuki clown nose like the hopeful clown I am

[nokaru]

*eats him*

[loredropper]

We gonna talk about how Shanks’s father is apparently a celestial dragon or some shit like that cuz like????

[bubblesthemonsterartist]

THE DAY

IT HAS COME

LIL' RYUU

HE IS

T A L L E R

THAN SHIRAYUKI

just by a hair but like

don't touch me

i am having

The Emotions 😭💖

[necronyancy]

obiyuki fanart

[akagami-no-rae]

looking at the library ceiling… standing on that carpet… remembering a certain night fondly

[redmemoirs]

gee zen, sensei lets you have TWO doting siblings?

[onedivinemisfit]

Fashion magazine concepts anno late 1700s, lovely haki and izana decided to model for me

Tag urself I’m reading the article on “the art of swooning - with steps” yes I laugh at my own jokes

AnS (c) Akizuki Sorata

Art: Me

[raventhekittycat]

I recently got a bookstore gift card for graduation, and I was wondering if anyone had any good fantasy recommendations? I tend to like stuff by authors such as Tamora Pierce, Naomi Novik, Trudi Canavan, Shannon Hale, but I've also enjoyed some Madeline L'Engle (I know she's more SF than fantasy) and Dianne Wynn Jones. I also recently read a book by Foz Meadows, who's title escapes me now, that I also enjoyed. I'll take recommendations in other genres as well, but fantasy tends to be my favorite, and I'd love to get a new book or author to dive into!

[nicotinemaiden]

Chapters: 7/? Fandom: 赤髪の白雪姫 | Akagami no Shirayukihime | Snow White with the Red Hair (Anime & Manga) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Obi/Shirayuki (Akagami no Shirayukihime), Obi & Shirayuki (Akagami no Shirayukihime), Shirayuki/Zen Wistalia, Suzu/Yuzuri (Akagami no Shirayukihime) Characters: Shirayuki (Akagami no Shirayukihime), Obi (Akagami no Shirayukihime), Ryuu (Akagami no Shirayukihime), Yuzuri (Akagami no Shirayukihime), Suzu (Akagami no Shirayukihime), Lata Forzeno Additional Tags: POV First Person, Diary/Journal, Character Study, Personal Growth, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Short Chapters Summary:

One summer in Lyrias Shirayuki decides to write a diary.

[sabraeal]

Minimum Distance, Chapter 2

[Read on AO3]

Obiyuki Trope Madness 2024, Championship: Undercover as Lovers

Feathers might settle on silk, but Obi’s heart is still taking flight, pounding in triple time as Doc takes her eyes off him, tipping back her chin to show off the spray of freckles beneath her jaw, right where the most delicate part of her skin stretches to cover her pulse. There’s a part of him that knows he should be worried about the man at the door, that he should already be composing a plan to get not only her but Ryuu out of this house, global lockdown or not, but—

But there’s another, louder part that sees an invitation. That got the fucking Save-the-Date from Doc anteing up that whole dance across the carpet and has some real opinions about just how well her skin would hold a mark. Who is really stumping for him to test some hypotheses about how freckles taste.

Telling it to shut up isn’t hard. Just another Tuesday here in paradise.

“Well…” Her neck stretches just a fit further, straining the limits of her voice, but she finally gets the door in her sight. Takes a minute one she’s got it to worry at her lip, leaving the barest, babiest dints behind, the kind he’d love to feel against his— “I guess I should go get that.”

Obi sits back on his knees, staring. She’s real confident for a girl who wanted to switch rooms one shower ago. “Doc, shouldn’t you— hngh?”

She wriggles, hips not just worming but also squirming right beneath him, and it’s doing something both wonderful and terrible to the wiring up and his brain. Real light show right where his lizard ancestors party down.

Doesn’t mean he was born her bodyguard yesterday though. Grandpa Gator might be personally projecting the world’s sexiest powerpoint presentation, but Obi’s already shifting, one of his thighs catching under hers, trapping it up between his knee and elbow. Gets her wrists for good measure too, both of them bound up in one hand, ignoring her surprised little whine when he pins them to the mattress.

That’s Bodyguarding 101 when it comes to Doc: can’t trust any of those little interested noises when he’s got his hands on her. Her interest in manhandling is purely academic; with only two geriatrics to keep an eye on her as a kid, anything more physical than a side hug registers as a novel experience. A real Only Child Problem.

Imagine that, being the only kid in the house. Absolutely buckwild.

“Wasn’t the whole point of swapping rooms so that you wouldn’t be getting any midnight rendezvous from that creep?” he growls, frustration itching just beneath his skin, deep enough he can’t scratch.

“Well, yes,” she allows, back flat against the mattress. She couldn’t be more thoroughly bed-bound if he tied her to it— which, god, he should really not be thinking about right now. Not when he’s got his knee between her legs and all that’s between him and skin is some skimpy teddy. It’s got the same sort of effect on him as a whole bottle of tequila: absolutely devastating for the parts of his brain involving high function, excellent for his circulatory health. “But there’s no problem now, if you’re here.”

There’s actually a bunch of problems— most of which start and end with his body’s sudden interest in showing off what sort of improvements this new three mile jog habit has made on his dick game— but there’s still the overhanging stuck in this dude’s smart house for the foreseeable future and we don’t know what his long game is. Short game, though, seems pretty fucking clear.

“Doc,” he hisses, leaning close enough everything but her eyes blurs, like that guy who painted haystacks for a living. “That doesn’t mean he won’t try to—”

“Um, hello?” There’s another knock, more insistent this time, and god, this guy might be some…pharmaceutical savant or whatever, but it doesn’t seem like anyone ever bothered to teach him how to read a damn room. “Are you there, or…?”

Doc’s mouth thins, her jaw getting that stubborn set it does when she’s about to haul off and jump out a window, but she doesn’t move. Doesn’t even squirm under him, just lays there, staring up at the ceiling, brow all furrowed and—

And that’s why he doesn’t even see the pillow coming. He barely has time to register she’s slipped a wrist free— right through the gap between his thumb and fingers, the minx— before a pound of down feathers takes him right out. He keeps his grip, fingers locked around the only wrist he’s got left, but all his air being replaced with eiderdown doesn’t do much for his stability— a fact Doc’s all too ready to exploit, using their momentum to put him right on his back.

Damn. Probably should have seen it coming. Taught her that one himself right after that whole clusterfuck with Umihebi, along with a few of the less brutal takedowns in his repertoire.

Instead he’s left breathless, trying to win a wrestling match with the pillow over his windpipe— a fight he could win, if she wasn’t clambering down him the whole time, rubbing bits of her over parts of him primed to pay attention. A solid toss knocks the thing back— right in time to catch a flash of strawberry-print cotton as she dismounts, scurrying toward the door.

It shouldn’t do anything. Not when he could write his own dissertation on the classification of every shade and shape of bush. But apparently his dick hasn’t gotten the memo on that one, stretching both his credulity and his waistband before he slams the pillow over his crotch, adding a new shade of blue to his vocabulary.

By the time he’s got any mind to stop her, Doc’s already peeking her head through the door, telling number twelve of the Forbes Fifty Under Fifty, “Excuse me…it’s really late?”

“O-oh, Shirayuki. Yes, of course. It is late. Very late. It’s just, you see…” From this angle he can’t see the guy’s face, just the nervous fluttering of his hands, like two drunk birds trying to fuck their way out of chimney. “I think there may be some…misunderstanding? Are you, er…?”

Alone, that’s what this asshole is trying to say. Because that’s how he wants her: vulnerable. How all these rich jackasses seem to think she should be. And here he is, trapped on this bed as thoroughly as if Doc were holding him down, debating whether she’s in enough trouble to saunter up and risk showing off just what sort of heat he’s packing.

He stifles a groan. This is how it’s always gonna be, isn’t it? Finding some new way to live his life on the edge, no matter how cushy the gig is; as strung out on her as anything that came in a little plastic baggy.

“Am I…?” Doc leans out the door, her weight shifted over her feet-- the perfect way to be snatched off them-- and that’s enough to get him off the bed.

Big Pharma’s prodigal son had seen fit to provide every room with one of those cushy bathrobes, even nicer than the ones he steals from every hotel where the Big Boss sets them up, each one monogrammed with their initials in the nicest, curliest cursive. Obi doesn’t know just how this guy decided which of his aliases to use, but he’s glad to have something on hand that might do a better job of obscuring what gray cotton won’t.

There’s not enough time for him to be strategic about it— he just strings it across his shoulders and knots the belt over his waist, hoping velvet is heavy enough for even his circulatory system to struggle against. By the glance Rugilia gives him when he leans behind Doc in the doorway, all casual menace, before his eyes drop straight to his crotch—

It isn’t. But that guy still looks away first, flushed right past the collar of his stupid robe, so at least his dick’s overactive imagination has gone and paid off for once. Oh boy, just wait until Kiki hears about this one. Princess would put that shit right in the company newsletter.

“Want to explain what you’re doing here?” Obi hardly needs to fake the gravel in his voice. Doc might not have ridden him hard or put him away wet or anything, but it’s the closest he’s come in almost three years. “Standing around Doc’s door at the witching hour?”

“B-but…” Obi’s got a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to these people with more zeroes in their bank account than brain cells in their head, but when Rugilia’s eyes widen, jaw going so slack he can see all the way back to his tonsils— well, he’s gotta say, it’s convincing. “But it’s supposed to be your room.”

Now it’s Doc’s turn to stare at him, and, well, that throws are few things about this night into perspective. Damn, too bad Master’s not still hanging around in the closet— he could use a reminder that Obi’s still a hot commodity. “So, you’re here for me?”

It’s flattering, even if this stick figure isn’t his type. Certainly the most aggressive come-on he’s had in a while. He might even think about it, if he wasn’t on the job. Sometimes a boy likes to be chased, after all.

“N-no, wait, that’s— that’s not what I meant.” Rugilia might be huffing and puffing now, glaring at the both of them like it’s their fault they found him caterwauling outside their door like a hard-up tom, but Obi doesn’t miss the way his eyes keep drifting south of his equator. “Oh, honestly, if you two want to— to! You could have just said you wanted a room together.”

Doc clears her throat, guilty. “We were, um…trying to, ah…be discreet?”

“Discreet? Whatever for?” He crosses his arms, flushed. “At least then I would have known to check the cameras before I came down to—”

“Cameras?” Obi asks, but it’s too late, Doc’s already barreling ahead with, “We haven’t told the company we’re dating!”

Rugilia blinks, eyebrows bumping blindly over his nose. “Do your departments really work closely enough that you have to?”

Doc’s looking at him, like he’s got his finger on the pulse of these fraternization regs for some reason, but he’s still stuck on— this guy really thinks he’s a lawyer. This guy looks at the scar cutting across his naked chest and the other riding high by his hairline and sees four year college. Sees another three years post-grad at least, internships, sees passing the goddamn bar—

“Anyway, I wasn’t coming here to be a…er…pest,” Rugilia continues, suddenly as confident in his bathrobe as he would be in a three-piece suit. “I had a favor to ask.”

Right, this guy came here for a reason. Even if it wasn’t to take advantage of the California King situation past this door, this guy is up to something. Something that involves Doc. “Listen, Doctor Lyon doesn’t—”

“Oh, ha! I didn’t mean Shirayuki!” Rugilia waves his hand, utterly disarming— until he fixes his stare on Obi. “I’m here for you, Mr Won.”

Well, he didn’t have that on his eccentric billionaire bingo card tonight. “Uh.” He steps back, making space. “Then come in, I guess.”