The Writer's Pandemonium

Even at such a small dinner party, Diasomnia spares no expense in making sure you’re cared for. As soon as Silver escorts you through the massive doors, Lilia is quick to pop out of nowhere with his youthful grin. “Well, well, if it isn’t the belle of the ball! I trust my son has been a wonderful escort!” He winks at you before hurriedly pushing you. “Come, come, Malleus has been eager to see you since forever! If we leave him alone for any longer, I’m afraid that even Sebek cannot calm his tantrum!”

“T– Tantrum?” You echo, letting yourself be pushed around by the bat fae. Silver quietly follows behind.  “Is Tsuno— uh, Malleus angry?”

Lilia chuckles. “No need to act polite. You know that Malleus is quite fond of your nickname for him. But no, not angry, but he has been sulking about the other dorms having you to themselves.” Stopping at a smaller yet equally impressive door, he steps in front of you and gives you an apologetic smile. “Now, I won’t pretend to be ignorant— we’re all quite aware of the rumors around you.” The expression on your face must be exceedingly bitter, because Lilia reaches up to pinch away the frown and shakes his head. “You know how overprotective our Malleus is, so we have taken extra precautions to keep him away from those nasty whispers.”

“Sebek’s taken too many precautions, I think,” Silver speaks up from beside you. Lilia waves it away.

“They do deserve it, and it’s not like Malleus has heard of Sebek’s actions. Yet.” Lilia puts two steady hands on your shoulders and levels you with a stare. “Us hardworking knights have done our best to protect you and others from Malleus’ wrath, so please don’t let it slip, okay? I am not against Malleus smiting those wicked men, but you…” You shake your head immediately. Lilia steps back with a satisfied smile and pinches your cheek one last time. “Of course. Our [Y. Name] is ever so kind, after all.”

Silver and Lilia push aside the doors to reveal a small table fit for five with Mostro Lounge takeout placed appetizingly around green-flamed candelabras. Malleus is looking out the window, lightning flashing to illuminate the stormy expression on his face, while Sebek is saying something to placate him. When they hear the doors creak, they quickly turn around.

“[Y. Name],” Malleus greets you warmly, approaching you in long strides. He is handsome as ever, the friendly expression sitting so regal on such an otherworldly face that makes you feel small compared to him. You think back to the days when you didn’t know how much of a deal Malleus was, taking late-night walks with him outside of Ramshackle. You’ve always thought him handsome and imposing, but certainly not someone you would be scared of.

The image of his Overblot form overlaps with his current form as he stops in front of you, but you return his smile as sweetly as you could. “Malleus! Thanks again for the invite; the others were driving me crazy.”

He chuckles, smooth as butter, but you catch the darkening of his eyes for a sliver of a second. “Mm, yes, I’ve heard whispers.” Behind him, Sebek starts telling you to stop with a cutthroat motion. He quickly stands still when Malleus follows your eyes to look behind him. He turns back to look at you, smiling the same as ever. “Would you care to join us for dinner? We’ve prepared quite a feast to welcome you.”

You say your thanks as everyone joins Malleus at the table. “I could’ve cooked, you know~!” Lilia sighs. “Is it not rather rude to serve take-out to a guest as dear as our [Y. Name]?”

“N– Not really,” you nervously laugh. “In fact, I’m already getting shy from all this unnecessary welcome. None of the other houses really did this for me…”

“Of course!” Sebek booms with pride across you, thumping his chest with his hand. “It is to be expected that Diasomnia, the dorm that our Lord Malleus leads, will be a step above the rest!”

Lilia, on the other hand, leans forward on the table and perches his sly face on his hands. “Oh, I’m sure the other dorms must have been hospitable in their own way…” He purrs, eyeing you knowingly. “But fae pride themselves on being hospitable. I think serving takeout is somewhat distasteful, but if our guest has no complaints, then who am I to say so!”

The dinner falls into a comfortable conversation, each one playing a role they’ve clearly been playing for many years. Lilia cheerily inquires about you on the general state of things, with Malleus slyly trying to weasel information from you on what (or who) you’ve been up to these past few weeks. Sebek loudly demands that you answer his young lord’s questions while Silver scolds Sebek for being too imposing. 

The scene is… familiar. Sharing takeout around the dinner table, interacting freely with each other— they overlap with people from your world. Your parents, your siblings, your friends… You bow your head and force yourself to take another bite, blinking away the sting welling up in the corner of your eyes.

You don’t quite notice the shared looks around the table, the green candlelights of Diasomnia flickering every so slightly brighter.

SEBEK ZIGVOLT has no duty to you. Nothing is binding him to you, so why does his heart squeeze so painfully when he sees you with that vacant look in your eyes?

You’re standing on one of the dorm’s many balconies, unmindful of the chilly wind blowing throughout the night. Bathed in the serene glow of the moonlight, Sebek would have mistaken you for a nocturnal fae had he not known any better. The indifferent look on your face, as you look upon everything that Diasomnia has to offer, is eerily inhuman.

Sebek swallows down his feelings and knocks on the glass door leading out to the balcony. You turn to him, a little light returning to your eyes, yet your expression still stays somber. “You’re supposed to be in your room,” Sebek says stiffly. “It’s already lights out. Do yourself a favor and get some rest.”

“Hi, Sebek,” you softly greet him, turning back to the dreary view below. You study the twisting vines and branches. “Don’t you get depressed living in a place like this? It’s so… well, depressing.” He frowns, taking the space beside you. He’s never thought of it. Briar Valley was full of similar twisting vines, and they weren’t so scary when the woodland fae were there to light the way. “I don’t think much of it,” he huffs. “I don’t have the luxury of admiring views when I’m busy serving Lord Malleus.”

You laugh shortly, like you expected that answer. “Of course, of course,” you hum, smiling to yourself as you continue looking out. “My mistake. Our dear Sebek is wholly devoted to making his young lord proud.” There is a silence as you ponder to yourself. “... One question.”

“I will permit it.” 

You playfully roll your eyes at such haughtiness but continue anyway, expression taking on a softer note, “Your dream… When you dreamt of celebrating Lilia and Malleus’s internships… Were you happy?”

Sebek’s eyes widened at the unexpected question. “I– Well, yes, I suppose so.” The memories of that dream and the circumstances that came alongside it left a bitter taste on his tongue, but he supposes that he could forgive you since you were caught up in it as well. “The dream was intended to make one happy, and nothing would make me happier than to see Master Lilia and Lord Malleus thriving and healthy.”

“How was it?” You press on. “Did it really feel like the paradise that Malleus intended it to be? Did it feel like you wanted to be there forever?”

Sebek looks at you once more. You’re staring at him, eyes probing him for answers. He bites the inside of his cheek before tearing his gaze away from you. “Of course, I did,” he says hesitantly. “Lord Malleus was happy, Master Lilia won’t leave us permanently, Silver would still have his father, and nothing could make me happier. Before you and Silver barged in, I was as content as I could be.”

“If you didn’t know anything,” you continued to press. “If Silver didn’t tell you that it was a dream, would you have ever woken up?”

Sebek stays silent before he looks at you almost angrily. “What is this about?” He demands. “Why are you so curious about my dream?”

You stare at him, looking a bit shocked at the hint of frustration coming from him, before you press your lips together in a bitter line. “... my dream.” “What?” Sebek raises his voice, brows knit together in exasperation. “How am I supposed to understand you if you keep slurring your words!”

Jaw clenched, your hands bundle into fists as you stare long and hard into the distance. “My dream.” You say louder. “I couldn’t experience it.”

“What could you possibly gain from such an experience?” He practically spits. “Lord Malleus is indeed great enough to spin such a realistic dream from his magic alone, but the fact that it isn’t real should already deter you. It’s already a humiliation for me that you, Silver, and that beast of yours have seen that side of me.”

Tsk. You find yourself growing irate with Sebek’s frank words, though you know that he’s said nothing wrong. “I know that, I’m not stupid. It’s just—! It’s just not fair, okay! I’ve had to jump from dream to dream, see all of you live your best lives, even for just a moment. You had maybe an hour or even more to live out a reality where you were perfectly happy!”

“What part of fake do you not get?”

“It wasn’t fake for you!” You spin to him, angry tears welling in your eyes. Your expression had contorted into one so ugly, so pathetic, so human that he almost reeled back. “Before Silver and I came along, that was your reality! I wanted that! For one hour at least, I could live out a life where I was actually happy! I could be back in my room, I would be hanging out in my usual cafe, I’d be grinding my dailies on my PC, I’d get to see my family again! I don’t—!” You let out an ugly laugh. “Fuck, I don’t even remember the color of my walls anymore! It’s not even been a year! This school is fucking killing me!”

A moment of silence passes after your outburst, your chest heaving from the screaming, and Sebek watching you crumple onto the floor. Human. You’re so human, like the rest of them. Ugly and jealous and inferior and everything he didn’t want to be.

A beat passes. “... Do you hate it here…?”

You avert your eyes. “I don’t even know anymore,” you plainly say.

It stings, but anyone would have seen this coming, especially Sebek. You were always an outlier in every event, unable to familiarize yourself with Twisted Wonderland’s culture and traditions in such a short amount of time. You don’t fit in. You are an alien, no matter how hard you try. Even if people say they accept you, you wouldn’t accept yourself. 

Sebek turns his back to you, unable to properly form his words. “Then– Then how do I…?”

You look at Sebek’s broad, muscled back. In the darkness of the night, you don’t know whether you’re imagining the shaking of his shoulders as he mutters something to himself. “D– Did you say something, Sebek…?” You see him shake his head and rub at his eyes with his sleeves, before turning to you with a scowl.

His eyes are wet, but his glare has real heat behind them. “Of course, you would want to leave,” Sebek plainly says. “You don’t belong here.” 

Now, you glare at him for stating something so painfully obvious. Did he really have to rub the facts in your face? “But how could you leave? There’s been no spell in history opening a portal to another dimension. You are the first of your kind. It is a fool’s hope to even think of devising such an unthinkable spell.”

“You don’t know that—!”

“And you don’t know if a spell like that even exists,” he shot back. “Do you think, in all his greatness and power, Lord Malleus would not have done so already? He has a terrible fondness for you that I cannot fathom, but if Lord Malleus couldn’t do it, then who else can?”

You think back to Malleus overblot, those inky hands clawing at you from dreams as he latches onto your body with enough vice to never let you go. “Would he?” You say sardonically. “Come on, Sebek. We’ve been through so many dreams because of that. Would he really?”

Sebek shoots you an infuriatingly smug smile when you finally come to the conclusion that he’s wanted. “Exactly. If Lord Malleus of all people would not permit you to leave Twisted Wonderland, then—”

You stare back at him in stunned silence as it finally dawns on you. Sebek, with the smallest hint of guilt, relishes in it.

“— Who are you to believe that you could actually leave?”

You (SILVER VANROUGE): Father.

You (SILVER VANROUGE): Father. You must do something about Sebek. His violence is getting out of hand.

You (SILVER VANROUGE): I cannot keep covering up for him. Day by day his outbursts are getting more and more aggressive. It is also unseemly for us to be attacking civilians.

You (SILVER VANROUGE): I know he would agree. He was never the type to lay hands on civilians before. Why now would he…? 

Father (LILIA VANROUGE): ohoho :3 young love, how I love to see it !

You (SILVER VANROUGE): This is no laughing matter, Father. I’ve tried talking to Sebek about it but won’t listen to a word I say. Just this morning we got into a fight over how I don’t care enough for [Y. Name]. 

You (SILVER VANROUGE): I was so upset at the accusation that we almost exchanged blows. But still… am I in the wrong?

Father (LILIA VANROUGE): Of course not! u n sebek care in ur own way!! since ure so easygoing, ure able to be by the prefect’s side whenever to protect them from any harm

Father (LILIA VANROUGE): but sebek can’t be honest with himself, the poor thing (っ´ω`)ﾉ(╥ω╥) u and i know that all he wants is to protect those dear to him,,, so let’s just look the other way, ok ? ♡

Father (LILIA VANROUGE): otherwise, i fear that even the cute prefect won’t be able to handle sebek’s overeagerness (･ω<)☆

“Oh me, oh my!” LILIA VANROUGE sits on the edge of your bed, kicking his legs back and forth as he greets you with youthful cheer. “That’s an awfully glum expression you have there, dear! Did Sebek say something to upset you again? I’m sorry, that boy has such a mouth on him. I fear that he gets it from his grandfather.”

Having just entered the room, your throat feels dry as you watch Lilia pat his side. “Lilia,” you croak out. “I thought…? Is this your room?”

Lilia covers his mouth with both hands as if you’ve suggested something very scandalous. “Oh my, I could never! You sly thing! You look so innocent, but here you are insinuating!” He wags a finger at you. “Bad, bad! Of course, we arranged for you to have your own room. It wouldn’t be very noble of us Diasomnia folks if we had a guest share, now would it?”

Turning to the side, Lilia then mutters to himself, “And Sebek and Silver wouldn’t let me.”

“What was that?”

“Oh, nothing!” Lilia leaps up and drags you to the bed with him. “Now, come! It wouldn’t do for you stand there all night long with such a grim look on your face! What’s got you in a twist?”

“N– Nothing…” You say, twiddling with your thumbs as you look despondently down on your lap. You ignore Lilia’s constant moving in the background. “Just came to a realization, that’s all.”

Lilia hums knowingly, having produced a brush from one of the dressers and starting to run its bristle across your strands. “Oh, don’t mind me. I just thought you might do with a little grooming, that’s all. Do carry on. Realization about what?”

“... My current predicament?” You sigh hopelessly. “Lilia… Is there really no hope?”

“For you to return home?” He replies in an upbeat tone, as if the conversation wasn’t heavy at all. “At the beginning, I would have said that there was a chance. Even if our headmage is a lout, the fact that you were summoned here means that there is a way of opening the fabric between worlds— just that it hasn’t been explored yet.” Then he pinches your cheek, grinning at you from the side. “But then you had to go charm Malleus! How could you ever leave after that!”

Sebek said the same thing. Malleus this… Malleus that… If you weren’t ignorant on the night that you met Malleus, would he have ever held any affection for you? Or if he would, would it be to the degree of possessiveness that everyone thinks he has? The fists clenched in your lap relax. What was the point of ruminating over the past?

“You know, Malleus was such a selfish boy growing up,” Lilia sighs, using his fingers to unknot a particularly stubborn one in your hair. “So possessive over me as well! Why, when Silver came along, he could hardly comprehend that he had to share me! I didn’t know whether to be flattered or troubled. Everyone in that family, really... what a bunch of troublemakers!”

You smile to yourself. “I saw.”

You feel Lilia nod behind you. “Oh, you did, alright. My embarrassing past… I’m happy that it was only you, Silver, Sebek, and dear Grim who saw it! I wouldn’t know what to do if my other schoolmates saw such a grumpy side of me… It’s very uncool!”

“I think a lot of people would disagree otherwise,” you say. You think back to when Lilia would glare down at the four of you coldly, every bit of the terrific general as his followers praised him to be. “We were certainly scared… and awestruck.”

“Now were you?” You hear a bit of pleased satisfaction in Lilia’s voice as he finishes brushing your hair. “There you go, smooth as a baby’s bum.” From above, Lilia looked down at you with half-lidded eyes and a smug smile. “Did I hear you correctly? Did our pretty prefect fall in love with General Lilia at first sight?”

“Now you know I said no such thing— w-woah!” You find yourself pinned to the bed, your head in between Lilia’s thighs as he continues to stare at you. “Lilia! What the hell!”

“Now that’s a look,” he hums. His lithe fingers trace your expression— to the crease between your brows to the dip in your cupid’s bow— and cocks his head to the side. “From depressed to angry, you sure are a fickle one. When I first laid eyes on you, you were as meek as a mouse, but I would never have thought that you had such fire in you! I’m sure you were well-adored in your world as well.” At the mention of your world, your eyes dim a little, and Lilia pats your head lovingly as you become lost in thought. “And yet, that fire cannot be stoked in this world. After all, there’s so many bad men who are willing to douse that water out just to have your cinders for themselves… One cannot blame you for losing that spark.”

You continue to be silent, his vague analogies lost on your drifting mind. His rhythmic strokes lull you to a false sense of comfort, the back of your brain nagging at you that something is wrong. “But it’s not so bad, is it? When your future begins to look bleak, it’s okay to depend on us. We all love you so much, surely that means something to you?”

Love… You turn the word around in your brain like a stone to be examined. Does love feel so suffocating and so hopeless? Is love supposed to make you feel fear? Glancing up at Lilia’s red eyes, looking down at you all, fatherly and doting, you wonder if love is supposed to look so sinister and scheming. He tuts at you. 

“Now, now, you’re in no condition to be thinking so hard.” He massages the creases between your brows and cocks his head to the side. Blocking out the ceiling light, it haloes around him and casts a dark shadow on his face. You are unable to decipher the strange expression he has on. “On the chance that you can’t come home, you’re not lacking for anything here. So many possibilities! Royal consort of Sunset Savannah’s second prince, married to the heir of the al Asim wealth, the partner of A-list star Schoenheit… or even live out a cozy life baking treats with your lover, picking apples with dear Epel in the countryside, managing the ever-so-successful Mostro Lounge with Ashengrotto… The possibilities are endless!”

“As for what I’d do with you…” He taps a finger on his porcelain cheek, making a display of thinking. “Sevens, I’m already old, so I’m afraid I can’t compete with the younger ones’ vigor. Still, you’ve enamored me for a long time now, and this old man can’t help but spend the rest of his days with you and the boys. What do you think?” He smiles at you cheerfully, pointy fangs poking out from his upper lip. “We make a pretty cute pair, don’t you think?”

You hum thoughtlessly. “Whatever you say…”

He pouts at you. “Have the other fiends harassed you so much that you don’t react to this anymore? I remember when you’d squeak at the slightest touch. If a face as cute as mine can’t move your heart anymore, then what am I to do?” He sighs. 

“You could let me sleep?” You suggest hopefully. He snickers, and you drop any hope of actually getting in an early rest.

“But I haven’t had my fill of playing with you yet! Silver and Sebek may think that we’ve taken you under our roof under the goodness of our hearts, but I’ve always been a ruffian. Less knightly and more soldier, as you well know.” He lifts himself from where he sits, the mattress pushing upwards as he stands. It’s a rather awkward position as you avert your eyes to avoid seeing any more up his shorts, and you hear him laugh at your politeness. Those slender legs straddle themselves on your chest, and with a squeak, you look back at him to see a rather self-satisfied expression on his face. “Well! There you go! Just a little bit of skinship to have you squeaking like a mouse. Not so cold as I thought.”

“Th– This isn’t a little bit!” You protest, attempting to push him away before your fingers curl in on themselves just inches away from his bare legs. “You’re literally on top of me!”

“Just some innocent roughhousing!” Fully playing the act of an innocent boy, he purposefully squirms to feel the friction between the two of you. He laughs in delight when you cover your mouth to stop any inappropriate noises. “What’s the fuss? Is our innocent prefect actually thinking naughty thoughts right now?”

“You know what you’re doing!” You whine. He chuckles again, toying with the fray of your clothes in silence as you try to settle into the new position. Lilia finds it rather endearing that you haven’t tried to push him away, whether it was out of politeness or simply because you’ve learned your lesson from past houses. The perfect and cutest doormat. He sees you toss your head to the side and squeeze your eyes shut as his fingers tease and graze along the curves of your hips, watching closely every minuscule change in expression as he gently grabs your waist and presses his thumbs into your abdomen.

“If anyone walked in, this would be enough to fuel their fantasies for months,” he muses to himself, enjoying the way your abdomen tenses under his touch. “Two cute things playing with each other, me straddling you in between my legs, your thighs shivering as I touch you all over… What a sight to behold, I’m sure. Being like this together makes me rather happy that we met at my current age. I wouldn’t know what my younger self would do to such an adorable, pathetic thing like you.”

You whimper as his fingers go higher and higher, circling your chest but never fully committing. Your shirt is well above your neckline, exposing your torso to the cold air. “That brute may have ravaged you on the spot in front of all his army, maiming your neck just so every fae in the vicinity will know that you’re the general’s. He may not control himself when another man tries to touch you. I’ve always been messy… Thorn Fairy knows how many times Baur has tried to lecture me on this front.”

“That is why~” He leans down, your bare chest against his clothed one, and he grinds down for good measure. “You’re so lucky to meet cute ol’ me. They say patience comes with age, and I’ve 700 years of it.” He presses a kiss on your forehead, sickly innocent in contrast to his perverted fondling. When he lifts his head, he is grinning down at you like he knows exactly what’s going to happen next.

“So even if you try to resist, I still have plenty of years left to make you see things my way.”

This… might be the longest you’ve slept in any dorm yet. You’re rather surprised, yes, but you’re not going to complain. Although the darkness of Diasomnia may have fucked up your internal clock for a little bit, you find yourself waking up refreshed in the mornings. Really, this is the hospitality that you’ve been needing for a while now.

And yet… why does…?

You shake the minuscule worries gnawing at the back of your mind and start getting ready for bed. You and Grim fucked up another potion-making test today and have to wake up early in the morning to retrieve the ingredients for your retake. Well, it was more so that you fucked it up for both of you. Your mind has been foggy these days that Ace and Deuce have to literally shake you by the shoulders to snap you out of it.

It’s a pleasant daze… something that you wouldn’t mind falling deeper into. But… You shake your head and slap your cheeks in front of the mirror. You gotta take this retake seriously, or Professor Crewel will seriously chew your ass out. Now, where were those notes…

As you rummage through your bag for your papers, you hear a steady rapping on your door. “Coming!” You call out to them, quickly rushing to the door while you make yourself appropriate. You find MALLEUS DRACONIA staring down as soon as you swing open the door.

“Care for a walk?” He asks with the expression of trying not to seem overeager. You hesitate, thinking back on your upcoming test before shaking your head and looping your arm through his.

“I have to retake a test tomorrow,” you tell him as you step outside. “I messed up today’s test.”

Malleus hums. “It’s highly understandable that you don’t excel in Alchemy. You’re no mage, and you have an unruly direbeast to perform magic on your behalf. Does Night Raven College not consider your predicament?”

“Mmm, not really.” You idly kick a pebble. “I mean, Grim and I make up two halves of one student, right? Grim performs the magic, and I have… opposable thumbs.” You shrug and look up at him. “I’m the one who messed up. I accidentally dropped a whole lot more mugwort than the recipe asked for. It didn’t need magic or anything; I was just being stupid. I haven’t been thinking straight these days…”

“Hmm…” Malleus hums again, looking to the side thoughtfully. “There has been a lot of activity going on with you recently…”

“Um, activity?” You cock your head to the side. “I– I don’t think so? I’ve been doing the same as I’ve always have, I think?”

He smiles at you, looking like he knows something that you don’t. “Oh, that was just some off-comment of mine, pardon me. After this walk, perhaps I could educate you on whatever potion it is that you’re struggling with.”

You perk up. “You would?! I mean— ahem.” You sheepishly look to the side. “Sebek would have my head for making you do that. It’s okay, really, I can manage.”

The century-old dragon fae pouts at you, lifting your chin by the finger to make you look at him. “Do you prioritize my retainer’s word over my own?” He grumbles, looking oddly adorable as his mature face creases into a childish sulk. “It is not every day that I offer to tutor someone. You ought to be grateful that I offered my services.”

You can’t help but crack a wry smile, becoming increasingly aware of the faint electricity crackling in the atmosphere. “Well, if the Prince of the Valley of Thorns insists, then who am I to refuse, right?” Malleus pulls away, looking smugly satisfied with your words and with himself.

“Exactly,” he croons. There is a mischievous expression on his face as he looks down on you, lips pursed into a rogueish smile as he draws his face closer to you. “Well, then, shall we start the session?”

There is the cool sensation of his lips pressed against your forehead, before you feel the tender trunk of vines wrapping themselves around your ankle, twisting further up and up to your thigh till they create a cradle around your torso. Malleus’ pale face blurs in and out of focus, looking at you just like he once did when he was covered in ink and going insane. 

“See you in a few, my dear,” is all you hear, faint and soft like a lullaby, until the black thorns block your vision and you finally go to sleep.

You open your eyes to a familiar [F. Color] ceiling, popcorned and patchy with stickers you stuck on throughout different phases of your childhood. There is a loud, obnoxious banging on the door, along with an even more obnoxious voice telling you to wake up. A more muted one, so faint that it’s drowned out by the banging and shouting, says something that you can’t make out. 

You groan and roll over, hugging the pillow to your chest. “Shut uppp, Sebek!” The banging stops for a loud gasp before it resumes with an even louder force. Man, this guy.

Knowing that nothing will stop Sebek from knocking your whole door down, you decide to spare yourself the misery of broken hinges and swing the door wide open. Still in your pajamas and sporting a bedhead, you scowl at the already in-uniform Sebek. “What?!”

He scowls back at you. “What do you mean by ‘what’?! Look at you, underdressed and disheveled at six in the morning. School starts at eight, and here you are wasting precious daylight! Get moving!”

You open your mouth to argue back, before Silver steps in between the two of you. “Okay, that’s enough. [Y. Name]’s already awake, and that’s all that matters.” Silver looks to you and smiles. “You can freshen up after eating breakfast. You pulled an all-nighter again, didn’t you?”

“Malleus had me memorizing formulas the entire night!” You complained, yawning into your hand as you began to walk downstairs. “I’m pooped.”

“Malleus taught you?!” You wince and plug your ears with your fingers as Sebek yells into your ear. The two of you stop just short of the staircase, glaring into each other’s eyes again. “You had Malleus teaching you, and you have the nerve to complain!”

You stick your tongue out at him. “Maybe Malleus could teach you, too, if you lived here—” You fake a gasp, hand covering your mouth like you just realized something. “Oh, but you don’t live here, do you? Blehhh.”

“Why you—!”

As you and Sebek begin duking it out in this cramped hallway, you feel something boring into the side of your skull. When Sebek claims his victory by (lightly) smacking you upside the head and begins to head down himself, you shoot a quizzical look towards Silver, who’s been staring at you with an odd look in his eye. “Silver?” You call out. “You… er, okay? What’s up?”

Silver shakes his head before returning to his stoic yet soft expression. “Nothing. I was just… wondering. Let’s head down and eat breakfast before it gets cold.”

“Ignore him,” Sebek scoffs from the foot of the staircase. He has one hand outstretched to you, blush faintly covering his cheeks as he averts his eyes from you. “He’s always an airhead.” Sending a teasing grin Sebek’s way that he pointedly ignores, you gladly take his hand and let him escort you to the kitchen.

“Well, well, looks like Sleeping Beauty has finally joined us!” Lilia teases as soon as the three of you enter the kitchen. Donning a frilly apron, he sets the table with Malleus taking the head of the table as always. You find your usual positions on the table, grimacing at the odd-looking concoctions. “I could hear the racket you were making from all the way here!” You and Sebek grumble out varying volumes of apologies.

“Are you prepared for your test today, [Y. Name]?” Malleus leans on the table with his arms propped up, watching you with glimmering green eyes. “I take it that you’ve familiarized yourself with the potion’s recipe?”

“P– Potion…?” You furrow your brows. You were taking a… chemistry test today, weren’t you? But… but of course! Potions and chemistry. That much was obvious. Your confusion melts away into sureness, and you nod cheerfully. “Yep. Got the recipe down pat. I think I’ll ace Crewel’s test today, no sweat!”

He reclines with a pleased smile. “Under my tutelage, there is no doubt you will ‘ace’ this test.” Sebek, who’s been piling heaps of rice on his plate, eagerly leans forward.

“If— If it’s no bother to you, Malleus, could I join you for your next session?” He asks hopefully. “I– I’ve been struggling with academics as well…!”

Malleus chuckles, looking beyond amused at Sebek’s attempts. “There’s no need to downplay yourself, Sebek. I know your academics have been far more than satisfactory. You have your own due diligence to thank for that.” Sebek shoots you a haughty look across the table, to which you respond by kicking him by the shin under the table. He glares at you but does not attempt to respond.

Breakfast goes by with Malleus and Lilia conversing about everyday topics while you and Sebek try to stomach the food. Lilia eats some of his own cooking, but Silver and Malleus don’t touch anything. Malleus never had a large appetite, but you nudge Silver with your elbow. “Aren’t you gonna eat?” You gesture at this empty plate. “You can’t go to school on an empty stomach, you know! You’re in a sports club!’’

With an odd look of helplessness, Silver stares at his plate for a second. “I doubt this could fill me up,” he mutters under his breath, before he looks at you. “Pardon my asking, but does this have any taste to you, [Y. Name]?”

Something in the air tenses, Malleus narrowing his eyes at Silver’s direction. “Silver,” he says in a tone so dangerous that it has you and Sebek focusing on your own plates. “Leave it be.”

Silver purses his lips, like he wants to say something, before defeatedly looking away. “Yes, my— I mean, yes, Malleus,” is the only thing he mutters before he heaps himself a serving of rice just to poke at it. The silence is so awkward that even the ever sociable Lilia looks like he’s at a loss as he tries to figure out this mysterious interaction between the men. 

Malleus’s green eyes don’t seem to quite leave Silver before they soften and settle on you. “Let’s pick up where we left off last night on the way to school. I shall be your escort today.” He gestures to Sebek. “Sebek, kindly see to it that Silver goes to school on time. [Y. Name] and I shall make our leave first.”

Although Sebek looks disheartened at the command, he follows through with it and is still nagging Silver when you finally finish freshening up and head out the door with Malleus. Lilia waves the two of you cheerily off, and you both begin the familiar route to school in comfortable silence. Malleus seems to take in his surroundings with curiosity, whatever interest he may find in the same old suburban buildings and sky-high towers in the distance.

“It never ceases to amuse me,” he ruminates. “How a world can be so… ordinary. No magic to be found. It is charmingly mundane, indeed.”

“Hm?” Malleus has always had a habit of rambling about mysterious stuff that’s almost nonsensical to you, so you always brush his meandering off as some sort of personality quirk. “Well, it does grow boring when you’ve been living here for almost all your life,” you absentmindedly agree as you skip over a crack. Or break your mama’s crack, you hum as you continue skipping. You turn around to Malleus, who looks at you with an unreadable expression. “Where do you wanna live instead, Mal?”

“If I said a world full of magic and wonder, where you’d never want for anything, would you follow me there?”

“Of course, I will!” You nod. “I mean, we’re family, aren’t we? We might not be blood, but we’re a package deal! I’m sure Lilia would be too worried about leaving you somewhere on your own, and Silver will follow… then Sebek too… oh, but Sebek’s family…” Listing them all off, you raise five fingers at him. “Lilia, Silver, and me, then Sebek and his family! We’ll all follow you!”

Malleus stares at your outstretched palm, held up to him proudly as you look at him expectantly. Then he begins to chuckle into his palm, and eventually bellowing into full-blown laughter. Even you’re taken aback by this sudden burst of laughter, and you circle him to inspect what could be wrong with him. “Hey, what’s with you? What’s so funny?” You pout at him. “I wasn’t joking, you know!”

His merriment dying down, he continues looking at you with the same fondness as you both resume walking. “Of course, of course. How could a sweet thing like you possibly lie to someone like me?” Rather big ego he has there, but you choose to ignore it. “I guess that’s another wonder of this world. I’ve yet to see you so happy. It’s rather thought-provoking what a change of environment can do to one’s personality.”

“You always say the most confusing things!” You naively remark. You look back at him after skipping another crack. “I’m happy every day! I’ve got everyone with me. Later, my friends and I are gonna go to this ritzy mini-golfing thing.” You make a lousy attempt at swinging your imaginary golf club. “Putt! Or something.” 

You stop your playing around when you finally reach the pedestrian crossing, and Malleus watches as your already carefree expression stretches into a happy smile as you wave at your friends from the other side. They’re unfamiliar to Malleus, clearly memories of people from your world— or what was left of those memories. They mirror the same carefree smiles and waves, but their features are darkened by the shadows of their hair. You are clearly forgetting.

He looks around. The scenery doesn’t seem to be coherent either. Now in the thick of the city, you are surrounded by skyscrapers and bustling shops, yet a closer inspection reveals things that should only exist in Twisted Wonderland. Why else would a magickless world need a store hawking magic pens and brooms? He looks down on his uniform. There are symbols from Night Raven College littered throughout the original design of the uniform of the school you used to come from, a clear mismatch with your relatively unblemished one. He hums.

“[Y. Name],” he calls. He preens when you quickly turn around, foregoing your friends to give him your entire attention. The way you look at him, all starry-eyed and untroubled, is a sight that he could never get used to. Always diminishing yourself for the sake of not getting picked on, jumpy at every show of magic— he would never have guessed that the otherworlder he had met on that fateful night outside Ramshackle would be this lighthearted and blithesome. “[Y. Name],” he calls again.

“Malleus, Malleus,” you playfully echo back to him. He represses an ungraceful snort.

“You always seem to favor this dream,” he muses, walking towards you and gingerly taking a stray strand in between his gloved fingers. “Partaking in breakfast around the table, squabbling with your family, taking leisurely strolls to school… Later, you will doze off in the middle of a lecture, making sure to hide your antics behind a book. Then you will race with your friends to buy whatever special the cafeteria has today. There will be your clubs, then you will make merry with your friends in town, then go back home satisfied and not having finished your homework. This unremarkable routine is what you always come back to.”

He cocks his head to you, taking in your confused expression. “Have you always been this easy to satisfy? If I’m not mistaken, this is what you already do, isn’t it?”

You furrow your brows. “What I already…?”

Malleus throws his head back and laughs. “So many hints, yet you refuse to wake up. I don’t mind. Silver can’t pin the blame on me if you are unwilling to release yourself from these delusions.”

The scenery shifts, the buildings dissolve into the ground and melt into inky shadows until a looming stone-walled castle rises to take their place. You stumble backwards and frantically look back to the images of your friends, who have vanished into the black thorns, gradually blocking the darkening sky. You yelp when you feel Malleus’ hand against the small of your back, and you look up to see his face darkened with…

“You would never respond this brightly when I placed you within the confines of my palace, adorned in fineries fit for royalty. This blinding smile you’ve always shown me in this world… nowhere to be seen even when I seat you on the throne next to me. I tell you— I order you to love me, yet you only nod and fold your hands subserviently. You give me compliance when I wanted your heart!” His taloned nails dig through your uniform and barely pierce your skin. 

His expression is downright livid, glaring down at you as green lightning streaks against the dark sky. He brings his other hand to pointingly dig into your temple. “I could easily manipulate this feeble mind of yours. Humans are so eager to submit to pleasure, and yet—” He looks torn. “— Even I force you to be my betrothed, I cannot be satiated until I know that you wholly return my feelings. It would not be a happy ending if I turned you into a marionette, would it?” He looks off to the side, pondering something, and nods. “Yes, it would do me no good. Sebek adores happy endings. I cannot deny him or Lilia and Silver one.”

Malleus returns his gaze to you, gasping for breath as the thickness of magic begins to slowly fill your lungs. “Do you see the position you have put me in? No other dream will do for you, so here I am diminishing myself to the wiles of your ordinary world. I admit, it has been fun playing family with you and the others. How many times has it been? Walking hand-in-hand with you, playing with strays on the street with Silver, eating out at these ‘family restaurants’ to avoid Lilia’s cooking, stopping at these little shops to gorge on ‘crepes’ that Sebek has taken a liking to… I admit, there is an appeal in the mundane, and yet…” His eyes flick to the looming castle. Its pointed towers and gray-stone walls must feel intimidating to you when you’re so used to charming food stalls and cute models appearing on billboards.

“Alas, that is not the life I live.” With a flick of his wrist, everything melts away into the sunny metropolitan scene, but he is still draped in that inky garb, “So I have to make do for now. I want to know what about this world makes you happy. I want to continue seeing that smile. I—” Malleus’ voice hitches for a second, and despite the menacing ink floating around him, he begins to look like every schoolboy that you know. “I’ve learned my lesson. Delusions cannot make us happy.”

He swallows his tears, yet his glistening green gaze is enough to shake even the coldest hearts. “I don’t want to lose you to this world.” His plea comes out shaky, still giving his best efforts to be composed as he usually is. “I don’t want you to leave me.”

"So for now, I will place you in this world. The only world that will give me this smile." He takes a step back, yet his shadow continues to loom. "Till I know what will make you stay forever. Till you satisfy yourself with mere images and finally them let them go. Then you will come to me and I will show you another happiness."

You can feel still the sting of his claws. On your back. On your temple. You look at his black garb. The pedestrian sign above you chimes a signal for you to cross. You look up. The day is sunny and bright. Today will surely be a good day at school.

You’re fucking crazy.

You continue staring at the sky. The clouds are unmoving. Actually, you don’t feel even the slightest bit of wind. You try to tune in to the passerby’s chatter, but they’re all incoherent. Just buzz imitating human conversation. Your friends’ distant voices continue to repeat the same phrases as they beckon you to the other side of the street. They never stop.

You’re really fucking crazy. I never wanted this. I don’t want this. I want to go back home. I want to sleep and wake up and remember nothing. Why why why why why me why did it have to be me—

“[Y. Name]?”

Like an unused doll creaking its joints, you slowly tilt your neck down and look back at Malleus. When you weren’t looking, that mysterious outfit returned to being another poor imitation of your school’s uniform. The necktie shouldn’t be that color, should it? Malleus is staring at you, slowly watching your every move. 

Every facial muscle feels wrong as your lips soften into a smile, and you stretch your hand out to wipe away the tears pricking the corners of his eyes. “What's wrong, Mal?” you ask softly. You take his hand into your own and begin guiding him into crossing the street. “I told you, didn’t I?”

“Why would I ever want to leave my family?”

“SILVER!” You call out, waving to him from the school gates. In this hazy dreamscape, in a scenery with blue skies marked by towering skyscrapers, SILVER VANROUGE finds you at the same location every time. 

You are always so pretty in that unusual uniform. Like a magnet, he finds himself drawing closer to you in the midst of a faceless crowd. You shoot him a concerned look as you give him a lookover from top to bottom. “You alright?” You ask, poking at the creases in between his brows. “You look even sterner today! Something went wrong during club? You’re awfully early today!”

He shakes his head, but leans into your touch when you press your hand to his forehead to feel for a fever. You could never bring yourself to touch anyone like this so brazenly in the real world, so knowing that you were actually affectionate… gave Silver a few opportunities to be selfish. “I skipped,” he mumbles.

“You skipped?!” You cry out, staring at him with such comical bewilderment that it would have made Silver laugh were it not for the circumstances. You bring out your phone (not the cracked one that the Headmaster gave you, he observes, but (F.Color) and adorned with a personalized phone case) and hurriedly dial something. “I– I have to call Lilia!”

With hurried ease, Silver gently puts his hand on yours and lowers the phone. “It’s okay, really,” he assures you. “I… just wanted to go out early. Aren’t you the one always saying that ‘all work no play makes Silver a dull boy’?” At least, in the other dreams.

Fortunately, this comes to you as something as you would say, because you don’t comment on it. “B– But you’re always saying that discipline—!” He shakes his head and offers you his arm.

“Come,” he beckons you, looking princely in his dashing school uniform and striking silver hair. With a sort of tired fondness, he crooks a smile at you. “If I said that I wanted to spend time with you, would you indulge me at least?”

He watches as a blush blossoms on your cheeks, and you nervously wrap your shaking arm around his. He hides a gentle chuckle to himself. So this is what you looked like as a normal student. He thinks back to whose place he might be taking up in your dreams. Could it be a friend of yours as well? Did you link arms with them as you did now? Did you enjoy living out your youth under such a stunning blue sky with them?

He shakes his head. Whoever he might have replaced, they were long gone to you. There is nothing he could do in that regard but make you happy in their place.

“And so, I got picked on by the teacher again!” You whine to him. “Ugh, I stayed up all night watching anime and doing my dailies, so I didn’t have the chance to read the assigned readings! Waaah, Sebek’s gonna make fun of me again…!”

Another point of interest that stood out to him was how much your attitude towards education differed from that of this world and Night Raven College. He had always assumed that you were naturally diligent, acing high scores in subjects that didn’t need magic to excel. Finding you in the library wasn’t an odd sight, and sometimes he would even find you tutoring some of your fellow first-years and Grim with little success. Yet here you were in your natural habitat, foregoing academics in favor of hanging out with friends after school or binging your animated shows. 

While he mulled over the differences between this version of you and the one that he knew, he is snapped out of his thoughts when you began dragging him to a pop-up gathering of indie stores in the middle of a plaza. “Let’s check it out before we head home!” You urged him, tugging his sleeve when he came to a standstill. “Come on~! It’s such a waste of your good looks if you keep wearing the same thing whenever we go out!”

“I don’t—” Silver starts, but sighs when you’ve successfully pulled him into shopping territory. He lets himself be dragged around by you, placing cute clips in his hair and even snapping pictures of him to send to Lilia and the others. At one point, he holds onto your hand to not get lost in the crowd as you get excited over thrifted clothes. You weren’t this absentminded either, were you? But as you turn to him with a cute hat on, posing for him as you ask whether it was cute or not, he decides that this wasn’t bad either. If you were so at ease that you didn’t feel the need to keep your guard up, then maybe he should let you enjoy yourself for a little bit.

There are things here that exist in Twisted Wonderland— cars, phones, colorful balloons— and then he looks up expecting to see a mage whiz by on their broom only for… nothing. Despite living the majority of his life in a secluded forest cabin in a country that was mostly old stone houses and gothic castles, the unfamiliarity of urban life did not perplex him, but rather what it lacked. Street magicians pulled coins out of kids’ ears rather than waving a wand and arranging a light show, brooms were not used to fly but to sweep, and vehicles emitted unpleasant smoke rather than magic exhaust, just to name a few. Your ordinary was… far more ordinary than anyone was thinking.

And yet it is in these ordinary dreams that Silver finds you happiest. You bound over to him with two cups of ice cream in both hands and sit on the bench next to him. “Here you go~!” You cock your head when Silver continues staring at you. “Um, Silver…?”

With a drowsy yawn, Silver plops his head into your lap. “Please feed me,” he says, closing his eyes as you pout down at him. “I’m tired.”

“You didn’t even attend club activities!” You complain, yet you feed him a spoonful of ice cream. 

With the taste of nothing cooling down on his tongue, he lets the idle buzz of the plaza become white noise as he focuses on the plush of your thighs and the gentle touch of your fingers combing through his hair. In this cityscape that you keep returning to, Silver is always met with new things that he would never have experienced. Holding your hand as you window shop, playing around with filters on your phone, basking in the warm sun after a date… He had too much on his plate as Malleus’ retainer and a student of Night Raven College. 

He pries his eyes open, your silhouette against the sun coming into focus like an angel’s halo as you busy yourself with your ice cream. “[Y. Name],” he breathes out your name, fingers coming up to graze against your cheek. You look down at him and smile. “Are you truly happy?”

“You and Malleus keep asking the same things,” you gripe. “Do I look sad to you?”

“I’m… just asking.” He puts down his hand. “Come, [Y. Name], you’ve had enough. Let’s wake up.”

You stare at him.

“Please, [Y. Name], wake up already.” He hears his voice breaking. He pushes himself up and puts a steady hand on your lap, looking earnestly into your eyes. “Wake up already. This isn’t real!”

The white bird continues to fly around your head. He buries his face into your shoulder and lets out a broken sob.

“I don’t know what to do, [Y. Name],” he whimpered into your clothes. “Please tell me what I’m doing wrong.”

He feels your hand pat his back, comforting, yet the last thing he wants right now. “You’re doing great, Silver.” You tell him the words he wants to hear, like it’s his dream and not yours. “Why are you crying? You’re doing everything correctly.”

“I’m not!” He yells, pushing you back by the shoulders. He stares into your eyes, hoping, praying, that he finds even the faintest flicker of realization inside them. “If I did do anything correctly, then you would want to stay with me!”

How could his voice echo throughout a busy plaza? No one looks at you. You only continue to stare unblinkingly.

“When I found you amidst all those dreams, awake and feeling, I was— I was so happy,” he sobbed. “I couldn’t take on the task of facing all those dreams alone. When you were there when the truth about my origins was revealed, I felt that, despite our brief meeting, there was no one else aside from my family that I would be happier to share my secret with. After all, you… You…!” His face twists as he tries to stop himself from crying, but his emotions continue to spill out like ink on paper. He delicately grasps both of your hands in his, but the way he’s squeezing you is desperate. “When you encouraged me to keep going… All those times when you held me by the hand and guided me forward… When we saw all those absurd dreams… Undergoing trial after trial…”

He presses his forehead against your hands in a silent plea. “Was it not enough to make you want to stay with me?”

The silence that ensues only further breaks Silver’s heart. He doesn’t know if you’re silent because you don’t fully comprehend the words that he’s saying in your dreamlike state or because that is your answer. He doesn’t dare look at you and only grips your hands tighter.

“Ever since I saw you in that dream…”

As according to the fairytales.

“Ever since you stayed by my side to weather the storm…”

As how the perfect princes start their vow.

“Despite our brief knowing…”

Because love does not discriminate.

“You have always been the object of my thoughts and my adoration.”

Because love is all-encompassing.

“Even If I know your kind heart would not say so…”

Because you are love.

“I would draw my sword for you if you so decree it.”

A heartfelt promise.

“I would do anything for you.”

A romantic gesture.

“No matter the cost.”

Even if it goes against whatever morals his breaking heart has left.

“So please,” he whispers, lifting his head to you as he bares his tears and feelings to you, as vulnerable as the day he thought he lost everything. “Please.”

“Just come back to us already.”

I love you.

But your eyes only crease in fondness, patting his silver hair like he isn’t falling apart in front of you. “Okay, Silver,” you murmur, smiling. “Let’s go back home.”

Silver bows his head and sobs, uncaring for the vacant stare the doll in front of him gives him.

“They’re not completely gone, Silver,” Malleus purrs from your bed, stroking your sleeping self as his knight stares at them from the doorway. “Do you not trust my word? I don’t plan on keeping them in this state forever.”

“Lord Malleus, please. Stop these dreams already,” Silver chokes on his words, stumbling into the room with his eyes on you the whole time. “Or at least, put me to sleep with the rest of them. I can’t bear it.”

Malleus tuts pityingly, thumbing the boy’s pale cheeks as he studies his bloodshot expression. “Look at you, barely a wink of sleep. It’s not my fault that your Unique Magic allows you to easily wake during your dreams. It is within my realm of power to put you back to sleep, but…” Malleus has a thoughtful expression as he looks at your peaceful slumber. “You always seem to be having a grand time before you decide to ruin everything for yourself.”

“I’m— I’m not,” Silver protests. To prove a point, Malleus stretches out his palm to portray a glowing pair of figures. Silver, with his hair tied back and in a formal suit, seems to stare at your figure with the most blissful expression as you twirl around the ballroom. Then, behind him in another flicker of green light, you, Silver, and Lilia are playing with cats just outside your home. Then, on his shoulder, Silver kisses your palm as he swears to protect you as your knight forever. Lastly, the green image of you both strolling hand in hand through racks of clothes dances in front of his eyes. “That’s—”

“It’s a dream, Silver,” Malleus says, the green figures flickering out when he closes his palm. “A place where you can momentarily forget about your worries. Is this not what the Child of Man came here for? A good night’s rest? They will wake the following morning feeling energized and refreshed, without knowing what transpired within their subconsciousness.” He cocks his head at Silver. “Are you saying that you would not allow [Y. Name] this slight reprieve?”

Silver shakes his head. “Of– Of course not. But every dream they have of their original world, they fall deeper and deeper. If we do not lose them to the world on the other side of the Mirror, then…” He swallows the anxiety in his voice. “Apologies. I… don’t mean to doubt you, my lord. It just…”

“Speak, Silver,” Malleus urges him. “Do not think for a second that I don’t know what ails you. After all, they occupy my heart as well.”

He bites his lip, feeling pathetically like a child in front of his liege as his eyes sting with tears. “I hate it,” he admits. “I wish they’d stop dreaming about that other world. I just wish—” His breath hitches. “I just wish I had made them happy enough that they’d forget everything and stay with… us.”

His voice trails off, ashamed of his own selfish inhibitions. “This isn’t the sort of thing a knight should think, but I… I’m scared. I don’t want to go hunting people like a mad beast like Sebek does, but…” He buries his face in his hands. “If that would make them happy enough to make them stay…”

“You would do anything,” Malleus finishes for him. Silver, face still hidden, nods. “I can tell. It is nothing to be ashamed of, Silver. I fear that just may be the many mysteries of love.” The prince smiles down at you, thumbing away the creases forming between your brows. “It drives us to do things we wouldn’t do. I thought it was a hindrance, the knot in my chest that forms every time this Child of Man invited me, and yet now I understand. Love is the start of many miracles. That was true for you, for Lilia, for me, for Baur.” He closes his eyes with a pleasant smile.

“That is why, Silver, you must never let go of those that you love.” Opening his eyes, he stares at the young boy with the eyes of a future king, glowing like the devil in the shadows of the room. “Do you understand? To make yourself happy. To make everyone around you happy.”

“Through love and for love, all things are possible.”

All things are possible…

With a renewed purpose, Silver rubs away his tears and stands tall in front of his liege, nodding. “Yes, Lord Malleus, I understand.”

“For love, I must do everything to make sure this love stays.”

a/n ! 🎺🎺🎺 after a full year, we're finally done with the series!! this has been a long ride with +11k word celebrating the finale and hoo boy am i ready to move on to other projects! it has been fun writing my pervy twisted boys, but what turned out to be a self-indulgent project actually turned out to be a full-fleshed plot?! crazy. thanks for sticking with me for a full year everyone~! (also PLEASE PLEASE SILVER AND MALLEUS MAY BE SIMILAR BUT THEY ARE FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT. the brothers are similar but they grieve different) idk why i did that im just a bit insecure that they might be too similar

“Did you know I started this piece a year ago?” His words echo slightly in the now empty room. The lights pointing straight at the painting cast beautiful shadows across his face. You only hum in response, reading the title card next to the painting. 

The Sea’s Love.

“Good thing it sold for the highest then,” you joke lightly, still focusing on the painting ahead of you. Rafayel turns his head slightly, gaze focusing on you. 

“When I first started painting it, I was fueled by anger and frustrations,” he states, voice neutral as he continues to watch you. “I was so angry, I felt like I would never be able to feel truly happy, like I’d never trust enough to be able to love again.” Rafayel pauses for a second, eyes shifting back to the painting you were so engrossed in. “I abandoned it after three days of working on it.”

Your brows furrowed slightly, focus finally tearing from the art to the artist beside you. 

“You said you finished this in six days though,” there’s genuine confusion on your face as you continue, “and you said you were inspired by feelings of hope and love, not anger.” 

Rafayel hummed, a soft smile playing on his lips as he leaned closer to you. “I did. Somewhere along the way I realized I could love again, but it doesn't mean those negative feelings just vanished overnight.” 

“So your anger and fears, they still live alongside the way you love and devote yourself to whoever your beloved may be.” It was less of a question and more of an observation. You cocked your head at an angle, eyes tracing every brushstroke. 

“Exactly Miss Bodyguard. Love is like the sea, filled with beauty and serenity, but also storms and chaos. That's what love truly is, messy and heartbreakingly wonderful."

It was nice to talk to Rafayel when he was in his element and not making your job next to impossible. You smiled at the explanation, nodding your head and turning to look at him, his eyes met yours. 

“That’s nice, I like that.” 

“I picked it up again a month ago. I found new inspiration, one that invoked the more ‘positive’ influence of the painting.” He’s quiet for a moment, eyes lingering on you enough to make your face flush, “right after I met you, actually.” His eyes never left yours, and the last couple words make heat rise quickly to your cheeks. The room felt too hot all of a sudden, and you were quick to break eye contact first. 

“I think they’re about to shut the lights off, let’s get you home before Thomas tries to pitch you a commission for a sponsor,” you smile, turning on your heel and taking a deep breath. So he picked up his painting about love and the complexity of it after he met you? So what? It doesn’t mean anything, just a coincidence, a one off chance that will probably never occur again. 

Rafayel smiles behind you, watching as you wipe your hands nervously on your pants. You were flustered, cute. He takes one last glance at the painting, focusing on the middle right, where he’d hidden your initials among brushstrokes.

It was hard for you to say no to people. Even harder when ‘people’ was Rafayel staring at you with wide pleading eyes, and you were saying ‘no’ to an all-expenses-paid trip to Italy to visit his aunt for the weekend. 

“Miss Bodyguard, what if EVER gets me on the flight there? Or my stalkers figure out where I’m staying and kidnap me? I’ll be defenseless and all alone and you’d be none the wiser!” Rafayel gives you his best pout, and damn it was good. 

“Rafayel, I promised my friends I’d go to dinner with them already,” you sighed, guilt creeping in your chest as your mind ran wild with possibilities. What if something bad did happen to him? What if he really did need you there?

“Fine, when you see on Linkon City News that world-famous artist Rafayel Qi was found dead on the Italian coast, you better not cry.” He huffs softly before getting up from his spot on the couch, heading to his back porch as the sun begins to set. 

You frowned at his words, quickly following him outside. “If you’re worried about security you could always hire someone else! I’m sure anyone would-”

“I don’t want anyone, I want you.” For a moment a flicker of something flashes in his eyes, it leaves before you can place it. Your stomach flips at his words, and you have to remind yourself he doesn’t mean those words in the way you secretly hoped he did. This was a professional relationship. As professional as a pouting diva artist and overworked hunter-turned-security detail can be, at least. 

Rafayel leans on the railing that heads to the beach, chin propped in the palm of his hand as he scowls. He knew you’d feel guilty if he sulked for long enough, and sulk he did. “I’m sure my dumb seagulls will miss me when I’m dead in three days time, we never finished our final choir act y’know.” 

You rolled your eyes, pulling your phone out and sending a profuse apology to your group chat. You can’t make brunch Saturday, the job you took as a side quest is requiring you to travel for an event this weekend. 

“Watcha writing? You should look up caskets near us, help me choose one since I’ll be dead in-” you cut him off by flicking his forehead. “Ow! What was that for? You’re supposed to protect me!” 

“You are so dramatic you know that?” Rafayel can’t help but smile, knowing he had you right where he wanted you. “Stop smiling, you ruined my weekend plans,” you furrowed your brows at him, looking out into the ocean as the sun slowly sunk deeper into its depths. The oranges and pinks never failed to take your breath away. 

“I promise I’ll be on my best behavior Miss Bodyguard.” 

You were going to kill Rafayel. You had to find him first, but then you were going to kill him. This was poor foresight in your end, you had to admit. You really should’ve put two and two together when Rafayel took you dress shopping and picked out only items that matched his suit. 

“I thought you were just visiting?” You’d asked, zipping up the dress and looking in the mirror.

“Well yes, but she has this charity event she’s putting on, told me to come and support the cause,” he mumbled, eyes glued to his phone as he scrolled mindlessly on social media, he smiled when he saw your moments posts.

“What’s she donating to?” You asked as you smoothed the dress out, fixing your hair a bit and twirling to see how it fit. 

“Combating human trafficking,” he replied, it wasn’t a total lie. 

“Oh that’s nice.”

The sound of the curtain opening made him snap his head up. He thought his nose might start bleeding soon.

“What do you think? I feel like maybe it’s too much? I’m just security so I shouldn’t be flashy in the first place,” you slowly shrunk into yourself, Rafayel was quick on his feet. 

“It’s perfect,” he breathed out, his fingers ghosting over your shoulders, itching to finally touch your skin. It took every fiber of his being to pull away, he swallowed hard before shaking his head. “You’re my security, you have to look the part, don’t want you embarrassing me with a boring outfit do you?”

You shook your head, smiling slightly as you caught your reflection in the mirror. “It is really pretty, isn’t it?” Your eyes were focused on the detail of the gown, Rafayel was focused on the details of your face. 

“Very beautiful,” he agreed softly. 

“Miss Y/N?” The voice pulled you out of your haze, a nervous smile on your lips as you focused back on the woman in front of you. 

“My apologies, what did you say?” Your eyes shift nervously around the room, hoping to find the familiar purple haired man you’d arrived with. 

“How long have you and Rafayel been together?” The question would’ve been harmless, had you actually been in a relationship with the artist. You were grateful for the amount of training the association made you do on remaining stoic under pressure. 

So with a gentle smile you replied, “only about a month,” the lady cooed at you, going on about young love. The second your eyes met with Rafayel’s across the room, you quickly excused yourself. Rafayel smiled at you, then he realized your eyes were narrowed at him, his smile seemed to grow when you roughly grabbed his arm. 

“Where the hell did you go?!” You hiss at him, making sure your voice wasn’t too loud. 

“Miss me already cutie? I was just giving the staff my piece for the auction, doing my part or whatever,” he smiled at you, trying to hide how much he loved how angry you looked. 

“Okay first of all do not call me that,” Rafayel pouts at your words. “Second of all I’m here as your security, to secure you, make sure you’re secure. How do you suppose I do that when you run off behind my back?” You smack him lightly with your purse, hitting him harder when he lets out a string of ‘ow's that cause guests to turn and look at the two of you. Both of you give them convincing enough smiles to turn away. 

“Third of all, why did some random lady ask me how long we’ve been together?” 

Rafayel’s cheeks turn a hue of pink as you ask your third question, a nervous chuckle leaving his lips as he looks at you with the softest eyes you’d ever seen. No, stay strong. 

“Okay! Okay! I’m sorry for running off. I just had to give them the canvas I donated or else Aunt Talia would have me gutted. I promise I won’t do it again cu- Miss Bodyguard,” he begrudgingly corrects himself, you thank him under your breath. “As for the last question, hypothetically, how angry would you be if I told my Aunt that you were my girlfriend and everyone accidentally found out? Hypothetically.” 

It wasn’t an accident, he’d asked Talia to put you down as his plus one, and next to your name on the guest list were the words ‘Rafayel’s muse.’

“Hypothetically you don’t pay me enough to fake date you,” you bite back, hoping he can’t see the flush on your cheeks or hear how fast your heart is beating. “Hypothetically,” you sigh out, pinching the bridge of your nose and closing your eyes for a moment before looking at Rafayel, “if you have a good enough reason for it then I won’t quit.”

“Well, if everyone knew you were my bodyguard they’d know to target you, and then without you I’d be a defenseless fish out of water.” You hate how quickly he replies, and you hate how much of a point he has. You can only grumble, muttering something about a raise before taking a flute of champagne, chugging it down, and slipping your arm into Rafayel’s. 

He pulls you closer to his side. You steal a glance at someone’s program, seeing that underneath the piece Rafayel had donated was your name, and next to it were the words ‘to my one and only muse.’ It must all be part of the ruse, the way he complimented you and stole glances at you throughout the night was just to sell the act. 

And when he takes the heels off your feet and carries you from the cab to your hotel room, you take it as him just being nice. The way his eyes linger on you for a second too long when you say goodnight at the door probably means nothing. 

You stare up at the hotel ceiling, repeating it to yourself until you can convince yourself of it. 

It means nothing. There’s nothing there. 

You wish the butterflies in your stomach and the thumping against your rib cage got the memo. 

Rafayel takes you into the city the next day, buying souvenirs for the two of you. His hand brushes against yours more times than you can count, you hope he doesn’t notice the way your breath catches in your throat. (he does).

When the two of you arrive in Linkon again you turn to say goodbye to Rafayel, finding him already looking at you. 

“I really enjoyed being with you this weekend,” his words catch you off guard, mouth slightly agape as you scramble to find the meaning behind his words. There’s no way he means fake dating you, that would never happen. You smile at him and nod in agreement. 

“So did I, I’ll see you around,” you reply, not thinking too much of it, you can’t let yourself. Before you can turn to hail a cab, his hand envelopes your wrist, his mouth opens slightly, like he’s going to say something. 

“What is it?” You ask, scanning his face for a moment and ensuring nothing was wrong. He’s quiet for a moment, still holding you in place. 

How does he stop you from leaving? How does he keep you with him for as long as possible? 

“Let me give you a ride home, airport cabs are way too expensive,” he finally says, his voice as relaxed as it always was. You want to punch yourself for thinking he would say anything else. 

“It’s okay Rafayel, if you’re that worried about my finances just give me a raise,” you tease, waving goodbye and easily slipping out of his grasp. You feel your chest tighten as you close the door behind you, letting out a small sigh. Fake dating for a weekend didn’t mean anything, him falling asleep on your shoulder during the plane ride was nothing. 

There’s nothing there, you remind yourself. You bite the inside of your cheek as you stare at the clouds, as much as you wished there was, there wasn’t. 

You needed to go out on a date. It was starting to get ridiculous. So you did what any sensible person does: bought bottles of wine and invited your friends over to curate your dating profile. Hours later through flushed cheeks and barely contained giggles, it was done. Now all that was left for you to do was swipe on whoever you liked and hope you’d match. 

It didn’t take long for you to realize that half the people on there only really wanted one night stands and nothing serious. With most of them starting off with terrible pick up lines and the rest jumping straight to “dtf?” You were seriously giving up hope, until finally you came across someone who actually struck up a conversation. 

Two weeks later you found yourself fidgeting with your outfit, changing for the third time and fixing your hair one more time. You jumped as your phone buzzed on your bathroom counter top. 

[incoming video call from Rafayel]

You answered on the second ring, phone still on the counter with only the top half of your head showing as you fixed your mascara. 

“Hey Miss Bodyguard wanna come over? I need your opinion on this art piece I’m working on,” he pans the camera over to a colorful canvas before re-centering his face, you can see his brows furrowing as he watches your actions. “What are you doing?” 

“Sorry Rafayel, I can’t today I have plans already,” you blink a couple times before finally feeling satisfied, fluffing your hair and grabbing your phone. “I don't think I'm qualified to give opinions on art, but I can swing by tomorrow after work?” You watch as Rafayel’s eyes widen, his mouth opens slightly as he stares at you. “Hello?” 

“Do I have an event I didn’t know about?” Rafayel questions, swallowing hard as he blinks rapidly, drinking in your appearance through his phone screen. God, you looked gorgeous. 

“No, no, just going on a date is all,” you mumble, embarrassed beyond belief as your cheeks heat up.

“A date?” Rafayel feels his world stop, blood going cold. 

“Yeah figured I should put myself out there y’know? It’s been a while and I’ve been- anyway whatever, good luck with your painting!” You smile brightly before hanging up. Rafayel thinks his phone might crack from how tightly he was holding it. You absolutely could not go on that date. 

You needed this date, you had to get over your feelings for Rafayel. Taking a deep breath you finally exited your apartment, locking your door and heading for the cafe you’d agree to meet at. 

When you arrived at the cafe you sent your date a quick message, telling him you’d be seated in a booth near the back corner. You tapped your fingers against the table, looking around the room as you checked your phone. It’s fine, people run late all the time. 

Ten more minutes passed, and you figured it wouldn’t hurt to order your drink while you waited. You stood nervously in line and glanced at the door with every ring of the bell, heart sinking when it wasn’t your date. The thumping of your heart slowly subdued, and you felt silly for getting your hopes up so much. 

With slumped shoulders you slid back into the booth, checking your phone one more time as you sipped on your drink. Nothing. The door opened again, the small bell on top of the door rang as your head shot up. 

It wasn’t your date. You sipped your drink slowly, opening your phone and staring at the last text your date had sent you. 

‘See you soon! :)’

It’d been thirty minutes already, you’d texted him with no response. Just your luck you get ghosted on your first date back on the dating scene. With a heavy heart and a bruised ego you threw your now empty cup in the trash can, stepping into the warm summer air and taking a deep breath. Maybe it was a sign.

You didn't move when you got in your car, staring blankly at your steering wheel for a moment. The sound of your phone vibrating made your heart rate pick up, quickly checking the screen. 

[incoming call from Rafayel]

You take a deep breath, muttering a small prayer under your breath before answering. 

“Hello?” 

“You know it’s terrible etiquette to answer your phone while on a date right?,” you can hear his teasing tone, it makes your stomach churn. 

“It uh- ended early,” you lie, “what’s up?” 

Rafayel grins at your words, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder as he places an ice pack over his knuckles, walking back to the couch. 

“I ordered way too much takeout, what are the odds you wanna swing by and grab some? We can put on that movie you told me about last week,” Rafayel adjusts the bouquet of flowers he got you during his side quest earlier. 

You’re quiet for a moment, this was definitely not going to help squash your bubbling feelings for the artist. But you were starving, and you didn’t want to wallow in self-pity just yet, not when your hair had turned out so nicely. 

“Did you finish your painting already?”

“I can work on it tomorrow,” he huffs out, “c’moooooon cutie, come over and help me finish this food, please?” 

“I’ll be there in 15,” you reply, biting back your smile as you shake your head and hang up. 

You unlock his front door with the key he’d given you, calling out to make sure he knew it was you entering. Within seconds he rounded the corner, a smile on his face as he greeted you, clad in a hoodie and shorts. The sight never failed to make your heartbeat race. 

“You look beautiful y’know,” Rafayel says softly after the two of you finish eating. You’re sitting on opposite ends of the couch, your eyes are glued to the TV stuck on a loading screen. “He’s an idiot to not have realized what a catch you are, cutie.” 

You don’t have enough fight in you to protest against the pet name, you know he doesn’t mean it romantically. You're too emotionally drained to think about the fact that you never even told him how the date went

“Thanks Raf,” you say softly, had anything been playing he wouldn’t have heard it. 

“I’m Raf now?” The man grins, cheeks dusted pink as he repeats the nickname. You can’t help but roll your eyes at him. 

“Don’t make me take it back,” you groan as he scoots closer to you, leaning his head on your shoulder and letting a content sigh leave his lips. Maybe it was because you already felt vulnerable and Rafayel just so happened to be there for you. Maybe it was because he handed you a bouquet of flowers when you walked in the door. You don’t know why you say it, but you do. 

“I should’ve known better than to think I’d find someone on a fucking dating app,” you scoff, laughing slightly as your gaze settles in your lap. Rafayel sits up straighter, a sympathetic smile on his face. 

“Hey,” his voice is feathery, his touch even more so as he lifts your chin for you to look at him, “dating apps are stupid, I could’ve told you that for free.” He smiles, you can’t help but reciprocate it. 

“You’re amazing, you know that? Anyone would be lucky to have you,” his face is closer to you than you ever remember it being, “I would be lucky to have you.” There’s no playful undertone in his words and no pout on his lips as he stares at you. His eyes flicker down to your lips for a fraction of a second. 

“Rafayel,” you breathe out, eyelashes fluttering as everything becomes too much. What was happening? Could this mean-

The sound of the movie abruptly starting makes you jump, the sudden realization of how close you were has you clearing your throat, scooting away from the man you so desperately wish to be closer with. 

He almost kissed you. You almost kissed him. He was there for you after a terrible date, with flowers and your favorite food. Which could mean nothing, and for the sake of your already aching heart, you tell yourself it does mean nothing. Because it was Rafayel and you were just, well, you. 

It was hard to quell your feelings after that night. It was harder for you to ignore how pretty Rafayel was, how charming his smile was and how well you and him got along. It was damn near impossible to ignore just how much you liked him. 

You tried to brush off his offhand comments, immediately deflecting and not allowing yourself the pleasure of entertaining the idea. This was Rafayel. The most handsome man you’d ever seen in your life, he was funny and kind and caring and he did not have a thing for you. 

“Hey cutie, what do you say we grab a bite after this?” He winks at you during an exhibition, you want to kill the butterflies in your stomach. 

“I can’t, sorry Rafayel,” you say simply, giving him a small smile and hoping he’d drop it. He doesn’t, of course he doesn’t. 

“C'mon! We can go to the place you’ve been wanting to try! I saw your moments post about it,” he narrows his eyes at you, crossing his arms and leaning forward. 

You take a small step back. Rafayel wants to grab you by your waist, he digs his fingers into the fabric of his shirt to stop himself. 

“I already have some food I have to finish up, maybe next time?” You smile nervously, palms already sweaty from how intently he was looking at you. His purple bangs falling gently across his forehead, you fight the urge to brush them out of his eyes. 

Rafayel only spoke to you again when parting ways after the exhibition, turning around and causing you to almost bump into his chest. 

“Y’know I’m here for you, right? Whenever you want for whatever you need,” the words catch you by surprise, making your heart thump louder in your ears as you smile at him. 

“O-okay thanks,” you reply, moving to walk past him, he grabs your wrist, staring at you like he was going to say more. He opens his mouth before closing it again, shoulders slumping and letting out a small sigh. He lets go of your wrist, savoring the way the warmth of your skin felt on his. “Let me know when you get home, Miss Bodyguard,” he smiles softly. 

“Okay,” you breathe out, eyes lingering on his lips for a second too long. You turn on your heel quickly, the mantra you’d always repeat to yourself when it came to Rafayel already looping in your mind. 

It probably means nothing. The look in his eyes wasn’t anything, it couldn’t be. Your heart tugs the further away from him you get, God, you wish it did. 

You decided you were going to be brave. After almost a year of debate, you were going to take a leap of faith. 

With shaky fingers you hover over the dial button, taking a deep breath before tapping your screen and putting the phone to your ear. It only rings once before you hear the same voice that always makes your stomach flip. 

“Well to what do I owe the honor of you calling me first, Miss Bodyguard?” Rafayel smirks on the other line, leaning back in his seat as he puts the phone on speaker, mindlessly twirling a paintbrush between his fingers. 

“I need to ask you something, and I want you to promise that you won’t judge me or laugh at me or- are you already giggling?” You furrow your brows, nerves slowly replaced by that familiar feeling of enamored frustration only Rafayel managed to bring out. 

“You can’t tell someone to not laugh at something, everyone knows that just makes them want to laugh,” he states, “but fiiine, I won’t laugh.” 

“Do piercings hurt a lot? I know you have a bunch and I’ve been wanting to get one forever and I’ve been so scared but I really want one.” You rush your words out, pacing around your living room before staring out your window and flopping backwards on your couch. 

“You thought I would laugh because you’re… scared to get a piercing?” Rafayel cocks his head slightly, pausing his movements as he sets his brush down, grabbing his phone and smiling softly. He can picture you already, your face is probably warm, nose scrunched and lips pouting as you look to your side in embarrassment, shrugging your shoulders. 

“Well, yeah,” you mutter, nose scrunched and face hot as you stare away from your phone, as if he could see you through the camera. 

“What kind of piercing do you wanna get? The pain depends on the placement but also everyone’s pain tolerance is different.” He hears you hum on the other end of the line. 

“I wanted to get my nose pierced, is that lame?” Your face is hot, embarrassed to be so scared of something so many people did. 

“You’re gonna look great with it! It shouldn’t hurt too much, when are you gonna get it?” Rafayel has to take deep breaths as his imagination runs wild. The thought of you with your nose pierced, he closes his eyes for a moment, willing himself to calm down as he shifts uncomfortably in his seat. 

“I don’t know, I was kinda thinking of getting it soon, rip the band aid off,” you smile, sitting up from your position on the couch and checking the time. “Are you busy right now?” 

“I’m never busy when it comes to you,” Rafayel replies easily, wiping his paint stained hands on a nearby rag before standing up. 

“Do you think you could come with me? To get the piercing?” You’re covering half your face with one hand out of embarrassment. You’re fully prepared for him to laugh at you, say ‘hell no!’ and hang up on you. Okay, that might be a little extreme. 

“I’m already on my way, cutie,” he replies, you can hear the jingling of his keys before you let out a small, ‘okay’ and hang up. You stare at the floor for a moment, then a wide smile breaks onto your face. You break out into maniacal giggles, burying your face in your hands before biting your bottom lip. 

Rafayel knocks on your door in 15 minutes time, hair falling perfectly and cologne wafting into your senses the moment you open the door. You look up at him with a shy smile, having never noticed just how built the man was. He crowds your space as he leans against the door frame, smiling and holding his hand out for you to take. 

“Are you ready?” He asks, you nod, hesitantly putting your hand in his. You ignore the way your whole body reacts to the simple touch. You’re too in your head to notice the way his face goes red as his hand envelopes yours. 

Rafayel was enjoying this way too much for your liking, but you were too nervous to make any remarks as he walked into the piercing shop with your clammy hand in his. 

“Hey what can I help you guys with today?” The man asked, looking between the two of you, “matching tattoos maybe?” He grins, you can’t help but let out a nervous chuckle. 

“Maybe next week, right cutie?” He chuckles when your eyes go wide and you elbow him. 

“I wanted to get a nose piercing,” you tell the man, and two consent forms later you’re seated in the piercing chair, fidgeting with your t-shirt nervously as you talk to Rafayel. 

“It’ll look good right? I won’t look stupid with it?” Rafayel smiles at you and nods. 

“You’re gonna look stunning, Miss Bodyguard,” he mumbles, walking from his position across the room to your side. “Who knows, you might even inspire me to paint more pieces about you.”

You smile at him, then the words process in your mind. “What do you mean ‘more’?”

“Alright! I’m gonna go ahead and mark where the piercing will go and let me know if you like the placement!” The piercer walks in, saving Rafayel from having to answer your question. Reluctantly you tear your gaze from him, smiling at the piercer and sitting still as she marks your nose and hands you a mirror to check. You nod in approval, handing the mirror back as she preps the area. 

Rafayel is staring at you intently, your heart is racing, fear coursing through your veins as the piercer turns to grab the needle. 

“Can you hold my hand?” You ask quietly, Rafayel all but jumps at the opportunity, intertwining your fingers with his, like he was always meant to be by your side. 

“Alright, you ready?” She asks and you nod, eyes focused on Rafayel’s pretty blue-pink ones. “Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth for me.” You do as you're told, feeling slightly embarrassed by how sweaty your palm is against Rafayel’s.

“Deep breath,” he says softly, eyes glancing between your gaze and the needle, squeezing your hand as she punctures the cartilage. “Good girl,” Rafayel praises, thumb stroking the back of your hand in soothing circles as your eyes water slightly. You blink rapidly, a stray tear slipping out as they insert the small stud in place of the needle. 

“Alright you’re all done!” The piercer smiles at you, letting you know to head up front to pay. You thank her quickly, turning to Rafayel who still had a tight grip on your hand. 

“How do I look?” You smile at him. Rafayel doesn’t say anything for a second, eyes scanning your features as his thumb swipes the stray tear from your cheek. 

“Beautiful,” he whispers, squeezing your hand before helping you out of the chair. He’s quick to beat you to the register, immediately handing the receptionist his card before you have the chance to protest. 

You’re too flustered by his compliment to fight back, opting instead to simply thank him as he places his card back in his wallet. Rafayel doesn’t say anything, his hand slotting back into yours. Both of your faces are burning hot, with neither of you addressing it until your hand leaves his as he holds the car door open for you. 

“That wasn’t as terrible as I thought it was gonna be!” You gush as Rafayel slips into the driver's seat. He watches from the corner of his eye the way you stare at your reflection in the sun visor mirror.

“You did a great job! My brave girl,” he says smoothly, left hand on the steering wheel and the other coming to squeeze your arm gently. Your body is on fire at the small contact, and you’re having a hard time rationalizing this into nothing. 

He holds your hand during your piercing, tells you he’s painted pieces inspired by you, that could mean nothing. But now he’s calling you his girl? Your mind is scrambling and you can only land on one conclusion. 

“Rafayel?” 

“Cutie?” He purrs back, he can all but see everything in your head clicking into place, his heart thumping against his chest as your gaze bores into your lap. 

“Do you like me?” You check to see if the passenger door is unlocked, in case he laughs in your face and you have to jump out of this moving vehicle. You think about the logistics of it, you’d most likely survive, mainly surface injuries, you’ve fought off hordes of wanderers, you could take jumping out of a car. What you couldn’t take, is the artist you’ve been crushing on for a year calling you delusional. 

“I thought that much was obvious, I’ve been flirting with you since I met you,” Rafayel lets out a deep chuckle, turning to look at you briefly. Your mouth is agape, eyes wide as you stare at him in disbelief.

“What?!” You shriek. Rafayel only laughs harder. 

“Did you think I just went around complimenting everybody? Calling people cutie and my muse?” Your silence makes Rafayel’s mouth drop. “Are you serious?!” He exclaims, parking the car in front of your apartment building before turning to face you fully. 

“I didn’t want to assume things! I just rationalized everything that happened,” you defended, “I just kept telling myself it meant nothing and you were just a flirty person!” 

“So when I gave you a key to my house?” 

“I’m your bodyguard so you gave it to me for security purposes,” you explained, and Rafayel had to hold back his laughter. 

“I told you there’s no one in my life that I’d want with me other than you, and that’s the conclusion you came to?” Your face burned as you tried (and failed) to defend yourself. “Okay and the time I told you that you were the reason I started painting with lighter tones and images of hope and love instead of despair?"

“You said that you did that after you met me, not that-” saying it out loud makes it seem obvious, embarrassment coursing through your veins as you realize the mental gymnastics you’d been doing all year. 

“I practically professed my love for you the night you got stood up, how did you rationalize that?” His head cocks slightly, a smug smirk on his face as he wonders what radical conclusion you’d landed on. 

“That you’d never have feelings like that for someone like me,” you shrug your shoulders, not daring to meet his eyes as you finally come clean. The true reason you’d brushed his every move off, the one thing driving the mantra you’d always told yourself. 

“Someone like you?” Rafayel repeats, his heart clenches at your words. He doesn’t say anything else, the restraint he had for the past year is thrown out the window as he reaches over the center console and angles your face towards him. 

“Do you like me?” Rafayel asks, his breathing erratic as he stares into your eyes. You give him a small nod, about to say something else before you’re cut off with his lips on yours. You tense for a moment, body catching up before your brain does as you melt into the kiss, hands weaving in the soft purple tresses at the nape of his neck. You whimper slightly when Rafayel pulls away and nips at your bottom lip. 

“Please tell me you can’t rationalize that,” he mumbles, you laugh, letting your head rest on his shoulder. 

“If I try hard enough-” Rafayel takes your face in one hand, lifting it up and kissing you once more, careful to not hit your freshly pierced nose. 

“I want you,” he mumbles against your lips, “you drive me crazy– you’re the only one I want– I want you all to myself, as my lover and as my everything,” he punctuates each statement between kisses, slowly turning rougher as you move in sync with him, tugging gently on his hair. 

When he pulls away, the only thing connecting the two of you is a string of saliva between your lips, which Rafayel quickly wipes with his thumb, licking it clean. You bite back a moan. 

“Am I clear enough now?” He smirks. You gulp, nodding. 

“Do you wanna- we should probably- come on let’s head inside,” you finally sputter out, quickly opening the car door and heading to your apartment. Rafayel is hot on your heels, relief filling his body when you turn around and shoot him a shy smile as you unlock your door. 

Rafayel crowds your space the rest of the day, kissing every inch of you, telling and showing you just how badly he’s been wanting you. He whispers sweet words to you as he brushes your hair out of face, his fingertips trace your sweaty skin, eyes staring at you like you were the most precious work of art ever created…. which could mean nothing. 

But you know better now.  It means the feelings you’d been shoving aside this whole time were reciprocated ten fold. It means he loves you, with every fiber of his being.

The thought of it makes you laugh. Right. Of all the people to be enamored with you, you’re confident enough that Idia Shroud is not one of them. He shrinks away from you whenever you draw near, pale face contorted in disgust as he mutters for you to not show your face anywhere near him. Behind that floating tablet of his, that shaky voice turns haughty as he heaps insults at you for your lack of knowledge of this world and magic. The only reason you ever tolerated him was because of Ortho Shroud, and you were pretty sure the only reason he tolerated you was that Ortho liked you. 

“I’m not joking!” Ortho pouts, sitting up, and fixing you with the scariest glare he can muster. “If you marry my big brother, then you can be part of our family, and then we’ll be a happy family! Oh, but it’d be too much to jump into marriage, wouldn’t it? Big brother isn’t accustomed to talking to people at all, so I guess we have to slowly build up. I keep telling him that dating sims won’t cut it even as practice, but he says he’d rather die than actually talk to people—!”

Another marriage talk? You feel your throat dry. “Whoa, whoa, slow down, Ortho,” you laugh nervously. “I can’t marry Idia.”

He stops his ranting, blinking at you as if you’ve said the most confusing thing in the world. “Why not?”

For an android that has unlimited access to the internet, he’s sure naive to these kinds of things. Maybe it’s because such delicate interpersonal relationships require actual real-life experience? “Well, when people marry, it’s usually because they love each other.”

Ortho pouts at you again. “I know that!”

“Well then, you know that we can’t marry each other.” You grin wryly. “I mean, for starters, Idia would never love me. He can barely even look at me.”

“Barely looks at you?” Ortho gasps. “What are you talking about, [Y. Name]? My big brother is always looking after you! We’re always looking after you!”

With a wave of his hand, Ortho brings up multiple holographic screens. Your stomach churns as you scan what appears to be live feeds of surveillance cameras. One shows the broken-down rubble of your dorm, clearly focused on where your perch used to be. Multiple blacked-out screens labeled KITCHEN, BEDROOM, LIVING ROOM, STAIRS tell you exactly what they used to be for. Another one seems to be located in Epel’s dorm room and outside of Vil’s room. You feel your throat parch.

“Oh, silly me! Priority task added: Take down CCTVs in Pomefior ASAP. ” Ortho then laughs lightly. “I have to do that before Vil finds out that I set up cameras…” He gives you an apologetic look. “Sorry… it looks like we can’t play together tonight…” Ortho’s sweet voice is drowned out by the ringing, deafening your ears as you try to process what you’re seeing right now. Your entire life… livestreamed to someone that you barely knew. You don’t even want to think about what kind of things they must’ve seen you do, how vulnerable you get behind closed doors… Ortho– Ortho wouldn’t do this to you, right…?! And he wouldn’t do this for anyone else except…

“Ortho.” Your voice comes out shaky as you turn to his expectant eyes. “Did… Did your brother put you up to this?”

“Yes, he told me to do so a few months back.” Ortho nods cheerily, and despite the disgust embroiling your gut, the fact that Ortho was commanded to do all this brings you some sort of relief. How could you blame Ortho, who was only following the orders of his creator? “He checks up on you all the time, you know! It’s always on the display monitor!”

Ortho doesn’t know any better. He’s still naive when it comes to human interactions, how could he have known that recording every intimate detail of a person’s life was bad? Yeah, yeah. Sweet, sweet Ortho wouldn’t do something so abysmal.

“But I didn’t think it was enough, so I added this!” His hands, cold and of synthetic flesh, reach out behind your ear and pull on the fleshy lobe. You feel something… hard? metallic? under the flesh, and you furrow your brows when you don’t understand. Ortho laughs at the silly look on your face. 

“It’s a vital tracker that S.T.Y.X uses on prisoners!” He tells you cheerfully, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. “Body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate… The works! There’s also a GPS tracker so that I know where you are at all times!”

You feel the soft shell of your ear, growing weak when you feel that metal embedded underneath your skin. Someone… Ortho had cut your skin open and implanted you with a… a…

You feel dizzy. You want to get out of here.

“Why?” You rasp out. 

Ortho tilts his head, as if the answer was obvious. “What do you mean ‘why’? I told you, we’re gonna be family, aren’t we? I have to know everything about you!”  His yellow eyes narrow slyly, revealing his self-satisfaction. “Oops, that’s not right, is it?”

“I already know everything about you!”

You hear IDIA SHROUD groaning from within his room as you bang on his door for the millionth time that night. He’s been ignoring you punching, kicking, and screaming outside his door for the past ten minutes. But you have too much adrenaline and paranoia in you right now to even feel your fists throbbing after every hit, and you’ve only grown relentless in your attacks. 

“Fine, fine! Just shut up already!” Idia grumbles as he takes his headset off. This was why he liked watching you from afar. You weren’t all up in his space when you’ve got a screen separating you two, screaming his name with that pretty voice of yours. Without thinking of anything other than hoping you’d stop interrupting his peace, Idia opens the door and jumps back with a high-pitched screech when he’s face-to-face with you.

He had long basked in the comfort of just creeping on you behind a screen that he had absolutely forgotten what it was like to actually see you in person— cute, lovely, glaring… angry. He lets out another pathetic yelp when you jab an accusing finger at his face, and he jumps back like a startled cat. “Wh– What—?! D– Don’t come too close or I…”

You ignore his incoherent mumbling as you continue glaring at him. This was the man who invaded your privacy, built an android that invaded your privacy and cut your ear, and had every detail of your life filed in that stupid, expensive computer of his?! You would have rather that it was someone like Leona or Azul or anyone else that you could have reasoned that you were in no way capable of dealing with. But this guy…? You let your eyes roam over his room. Thrown wrappers, discarded clothes… The only things that actually seemed to be in order were his merch, manga, and his desktop table.

You fix your gaze on Idia again. God, you dealt with people like this in your world. Just not ones who had the audacity to install cameras in your fucking house!

“What is wrong with you?!” You grit through your teeth, inching towards him with narrowed eyes. “I heard from Ortho. I know you know that I heard from Ortho, since you have an apparent obsession with knowing everything that goes on in my life. Where do you get off recording me when I’m…! When I’m, ugh, fuck!” Sounding it out loud— that I’m at my most vulnerable, when I’m fucking naked, when I’m in my underwear— has a primal feeling crawling through your nerves and squeezes around your neck. “Why would you–! How could you—?!”

“D– Not– Eek, not too close…!” Idia slinks back from you, trying his best to maintain a certain distance from you. “It’s– It’s not like I’m doing anything wrong, I’m just– I’m just um, keeping tabs on you, yeah, yeah. It’s not, like, anything new to you or something.”

“I think cutting my ear open to implant some creepy tracker is new to me,” you hiss, tugging on your earlobe.

“T– To be fair, that’s not me, that’s Ortho,” Idia mutters frantically, shielding his face from your accusing glare as you inch another step closer. “Okay–! Okay! Partly my fault. I should’ve stopped it. But it’s not anything serious!”

“Have you seen me in my underwear.”

The tips of Idia’s flame hair burn bright red. “Senior. Answer me.”

“I, uh, look away.” 

“How can you look away if you don’t know that I’m in my underwear.”

“What are you getting mad at me for?” Idia complains, black lips scowling as he sulks like an indignant kid. “It’s not like I’m the worst of the bunch. Do you know how many times I’ve protected you? There are too many OPs spawncamping outside your home or normies who think friendmaxxing is the way to go, and there’s like, wayyyy too many people ganking you—”

“What, what are you talking about?!” Idia shuts up, seeming to have delved into some ramble that you can only comprehend half of, and quickly thinks that the frustrated look on your face is way too cute. Yeaaah, he might be picking all the wrong dialogue right now, but there are just some things that 2D pixels can’t beat. Like, what’s up with that super cute wrinkle in between your brows when you’re confused? Sure, his super-advanced CCTVs can capture every detail of your body, but it doesn’t beat seeing your faves up close. And speaking of super-advanced technology…

Seeing your frustration, India’s anxious expression twists into a sardonic smile as he thoroughly contemplates the situation. Sure, suddenly breathing the same air as you has thrown him off, but the novelty’s long worn off, and he’d be missing out on this super rare event if he didn’t make the most of it. “Wheehee, of course you don’t know what I’m talking about. What was I expecting of you?”

The sudden 180 twist in personality has you on your toes. Right. For all your acting tough right now, it doesn’t help that you’re face-to-face with a magic-user— and the Keeper of the Underworld at that. Maybe having a chip implanted in your ear or being watched 24/7 has you bravely blabbing your mouth off, but any of these men could kill you if they see fit. 

“What, suddenly too scared? Hee, and you were just trash-talking me like whatever just now. Did you suddenly realize whose room you’re in now?” Idia’s yellow eyes have a certain glee to them as he takes a seat on his gaming chair and watches you like a hawk. “You’re in my territory. Heeh, that was pretty cool.”

Does he know you can still hear him? “I’m offering you shelter out of the goodness of my heart, y’know? Ortho brought you here ‘cuz your shack’s wiped out, so the least you could do is show me some respect.”

You bite the inside of your cheek, looking away as your fists clench. Why was this loser power-tripping all of a sudden? But you’ve seen what destruction he was capable of when pissed, so you glare daggers at the floor as you force out a “... Sorry.”

“Whaaat was that? I can’t heeaaar you.” You can feel his gaze heating on the top of your hair as he chews on some sour candy, treating your humiliation like a show. “You gotta speak up.”

As you lift your head up, you think back to the previous houses. Sure, Ace liked to take embarrassing pictures of you, and Leona had you walking out of his room and into his den with a large mark on your neck, but none of them humiliated you in such a… demeaning manner. Yet here Idia was, proclaiming that his stalkerish tendencies were for your own protection and making you grovel. You could easily walk out of here, go back to Pomefiore…

“I’m sorry,” your voice comes out pathetic and small. “And… th– thank you for bringing me here and for giving me shelter.”

Sour worm hanging off his mouth, Idia’s face is one of surprise, as if he didn’t actually expect you to meet his demands. He stares at you like that for a few seconds, unblinking and disbelieving, before his creepy snickers quickly erupt into full-on cackling. You flush, in disbelief of even yourself, looking away from his mocking sneer as you stew in your embarrassment.

“Heehee. I– I didn’t think you’d actually stoop so low, I mean, the door is right there! You could’ve just walked out, and I know you were thinking that because you were basically staring at it but, hehe, wow!” Idia finishes the rest of the gummy worm as he leers at you. “Are you really that scared? Scared that some overleveled magician is gonna slice your head clean off with a spell?”

You rub your neck. You have come close to that. Nearly crumbled to dust. Drowned in ink. Almost succumbed to permanent hypnosis. Choked on poisonous mist. You suffered in the ER even long after the others were discharged. No one would blame you for acting on a little caution.

“No use denying it,” Idia croons. “I mean, like, you pretty much got the worst luck of the bunch. I’m actually surprised you haven’t died after dealing with seven overblots. You must have super high luck stat to not be dead in a ditch right now.”

“They don’t want to kill me,” you try to reason. With Idia or with yourself, you’re not sure.

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, obvs. Can’t play a romance route if the character’s dead. But I’ve seen their dreams, read the reports. That doesn’t change the fact that they could have killed you. Almost killed you. I mean, I know I almost did. Overblot’s funny like that, huh? And even without the whole overblot biz, the average magician’s got at least fifty more levels on you. Although…” He looks at you thoughtfully. “I guess you would’ve learned that after sleeping around a bit, huh?”

Don’t phrase it like that. “... Are you gonna just make me stand here while you mock me?” You resentfully say. “Or can I finally leave?”

“Whoa, whoa, don’t spoil my fun, okay? I know you’re probably thinking: ‘wow, this loser’s suddenly got all mouthy just cuz we’re alone in his room.’ And you’re probably right. But this is the first time I’ve had you all to myself, you know? Outside the whole surveillance thing.” You feel shivers up your spine when you’re reminded of his perverted hobby. “Seeing you up close, you’re totally the one I’d go for in a VN.” The corner of his lips quirked up a bit. “And especially after seeing you bow your head… that’s like a real turn-on.”

He presses something on his desk, the screen emitting a bright blue until its laser lights are on you. “Make a whole turn for the scanner, okay? There’s something I’d like to see you in.”

“... Consider it payment for letting you sleep here ♪”

Gloomurai is typing…

Muscle Red: oya? you’re still online?

Muscle Red: when you logged off just a few hours ago, i had assumed it was because you were finally going to deal with that homework you were complaining about.

Gloomurai: ugh. don’t remind me 😑😑

Gloomurai: nono i just haaad to get this off my chest. cuz like. u would not believe what just happened

Muscle Red: i’m listening ~ ∠( ᐛ 」∠)_

Gloomurai: my main oshi. like the irl one. just barged into my room out of nowhere. and i was like totally freaked out..

Gloomurai: tbh im still freaked out right now,, but like theyre magicless and im basically op yanno. so i was playing a trick on em. freak em out a bit.

Gloomurai: omggg they’re so cute when they grovel a bit. and that look in their eyes when they try to hide that theyre scared... wtff. took everything just to not break character

Muscle Red: hm hmm… the dearest ones always seem more alluring when they submit. i’m happy to see you understand my tastes

Muscle Red: i was very offended when you called me a pervert! (`皿´＃)

Gloomurai: i thought i said sorry!!! 

Gloomurai: i honestly still think you are a pervert but ure on to something… my heart’s still beating… cant believe i got em to bow their head like that… or be in front of me at all.

Gloomurai: i was just content on just watching them from a distance 💀💀💀 i might actually get addicted

Muscle Red: (っ˘ω˘ς ) ahh young love truly is a blessing to witness! i’m happy for you, young gloomurai!!

Muscle Red: maybe i’ll fetch for my darling as well. you’ve made me quite envious! 

You frown. Would such a thing be so bad? If the poor little guy was hungry, you would happily indulge it; after all, withholding such a vital thing to its survival would be cruel.

“But it’s hungry,” you whine. The kitten polishes off the rest of the tuna before looking up at you and meowing loudly, bumping its head against your palm. Your heart soars at the endearing action.

“I’m serious,” your grandfather snaps at you in the tone that tells you you’ll be in trouble if you don’t listen. You give the kitten one last pet before reluctantly retracting your hand. You bite down on your warbling lip and blink away tears when it meows at your sudden absence in confusion and protest.

You walk over to your grandfather, and he takes your small wrist into his hand. He takes in your crestfallen expression and sighs, shaking his head.

“It’s for the best,” he says softly. “You don’t want strays getting attached to you.”

You look up at him with big, watery eyes. “Why not?”

“Because no matter how much you feed them, they’ll always be hungry, and then they’ll never leave you alone.”

Despite your grandfather’s warning, you continue to feed the kitten.

You’re careful to do it somewhere he won’t catch you, though. It’s summer, so you’ve been spending a lot of your time in the park that’s only around the block from your house. Turns out the kitten has been spending lots of time sunbathing there, too, so you make sure to start sneaking out some canned tuna with your packed lunch.

You walk past the swingset and toward the large, twisting slide that you’ve gotten used to finding the kitten under this time of day. Your small purple lunch bag bounces against your leg as you skip happily, swinging your arms animatedly. The tune you’re humming gets stuck in your throat and dies as you duck under the play structure and find a small figure already huddled beneath the slide.

A boy in a black hoodie two sizes too big for his frail body sits criss-cross on the floor. Bruised hands gently pet the kitten, which is curled up in his lap and purring softly. He can’t be that much younger than you— probably only by a year— but he seems far smaller than the kids in the grade below you at school, concerningly so.

His head snaps up as your feet come into his line of his vision, wide, impossibly blue eyes locking onto yours. He flinches so hard that the kitten yowls and jumps out of his lap, startled. He curls in on himself defensively and his breathing becomes labored, yet his wide eyes never leave you, tracking your every movement.

You blink in confusion at his reaction. “Um,” you start to say, but you’re cut off by a loud meow cutting through the air.

You turn to the kitten, which has now settled at your side and is pawing at your lunch bag. You giggle— of course, it’s already come to know where its next meal is coming from. You pick up the bag and unzip it, producing the canned tuna from inside it. You grunt as you tug at the tab a few times, but finally it gives way and comes off cleanly. You place it down, and the kitten eagerly prances up to it and starts eating out of it.

After a long moment of watching it eat, your eyes drift back to the boy across from you. His eyes are locked onto the kitten with such focus that it’s concerning.

Then, you realize he’s not looking at the kitten— he’s looking at the tuna sitting on the floor.

You reach back into your bag and take out a sandwich secured tightly in saran wrap. You unwrap it then split it in half, extending your arm out to offer it to the boy.

His eyes dart down to the sandwich and back to you, but he doesn’t make any move to take it.

“Here,” you say, waving your arm up and down in emphasis. “You can have some, if you want. Mom always packs too much for me, so I’m okay sharing with you!”

He glances back down at the sandwich and hesitates for just a moment more before his hand shoots out, snatching it out of your own and quickly bringing it to his mouth. You avert your eyes back to the kitten as he eats it, slowly working through your own half of your lunch.

When you’re done, you peek into the bag to see what else your mom packed for you. There’s a small bag of chips, an orange, and a banana. Maybe it’s a little selfish to keep the chips for yourself, but the boy seems to be just as eager when you set the fruits in front of him, so it’s probably fine.

He finishes eating before you do, and slowly, he inches closer toward you and the cat. He begins petting it again, stealing glances at you when he thinks you’re not looking. 

Finished with your snack, you crumple the bag up and throw it into your lunch bag before zipping it back up. You brush your hand off on your pants, leaving a smatter of chip dust behind that your mom will probably chide you for later. 

You look up at the boy, who is already staring at you. He flushes red and is about to look away when you hold your hand to him and introduce yourself.

You tilt your head toward him with a warm smile. “What’s your name?”

Michael waits for you under the slide the next day, and the next, and the one after that.

Days bleed into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. You become permanent fixtures in each other’s lives. You bring snacks and books, bandages and a gentle touch and an unspoken oath to never ask, never pry. He brings nothing but himself, but for you, that is enough.

Your mother never asks why you pack extra food, or where it’s ending up. She likely just chalks it up to you being a growing girl, and for that, you are grateful.

There are some days, though, where you’re being looked after by your father, who chides you for taking more than you need and makes you put the extras back in the pantry. On those days, you apologize to Michael for the smaller portions you both have, but he simply brushes it off. He says he couldn’t care less if you show up with no food at all, so long as you show up.

At some point, it stops being about the food, you just fail to realize it. Michael never breaks his habit of trailing behind you like your own shadow, and he’s not exactly a sociable person (in fact, his glare alone scares off any other kids your age who try to approach you two), so you figure there’s still something he wants from you. And because of your upbringing, hand-holding and leaning against each other and hugging is something so normal to you that you cannot even begin to suspect that there is something much different he’s actually after.

You’re fourteen and he’s thirteen the first time he kisses you.

It’s a sunny day, but not too hot; there’s a nice breeze in the air that keeps you cool as you sit in the grass, idly popping grapes into your mouth as you watch Michael kick a ball into a wall over and over again, as is customary for you two these days. As always, he eventually wears himself out and finds his way over to you, collapsing beside you and leaning his full body weight against your side as you complain and futilely try to push him off.

“Micha, get off,” you whine, shoving at his shoulder. He doesn’t budge, and instead sighs in irritation and wraps his arms around yours to stop your attempts. “You’re heavy!”

“Your fault for feeding me so much,” he mumbles into your shoulder, prompting you to roll your eyes. “Seems like oversight on your part.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have if I knew you’d grow up to be this annoying.” Your words lack heat, of course— you don’t really mean it, and even if it wasn’t evident by your tone, it’s evident in the way you relax into his embrace. “Seriously, though. You’re all sweaty. It’s gross.”

Michael gives one last aggrieved sigh before releasing you. He reaches for the water bottle set beside you and drinks from it, and you go back to your grapes.

A comfortable silence settles between you two as you observe the other people in the park. It’s summer, so it’s busier than usual, which means Michael will probably leave sooner rather than later.

You turn to look at him, but as always, he’s already looking down at you. 

You tilt your head to the side. “Do you need something?” You ask playfully.

Michael stares at you a moment longer, the wind rustling his hair into his face. Then, he leans down so quickly that you can’t react before he presses his lips to yours.

It’s soft, gentle. It’s barely there, his desire contained by a hesitation you haven’t seen within him in so long. 

When you don’t respond, he pulls back, his face carefully smoothed over into a blank canvas, but you know him better than that. Fear dances in his eyes, fear that he’s overstepped and swung a sledgehammer straight into your friendship.

You blink rapidly, trying to pull yourself together. “Oh,” you say, smartly, and then feel yourself flush red as you fully process what just happened. 

“Sorry,” he mutters under his breath. It sounds wrong coming from him, and you reach out to grab his arm just as he starts to withdraw into himself.

“Hey, look, it’s fine. I just— you just caught me by surprise. That’s all.”

He looks back at you, and you feel your breath catch in your throat. His blue eyes are shining, but there’s something dark in them that you haven’t seen before, something you can’t quite place.

“It’s fine?” He echoes in question.

You feel your face grow hotter.

“Yeah,” you whisper back, “it’s fine.”

When he leans down this time, you respond in kind.

You’re always the one to break off the kisses shared between you two.

At this point, you’re convinced he’s not human, given the way that lack of air never seems to be a problem for him. If anything, he seems more annoyed by the fact that you’ve stopped kissing him than the fact that he’s nearly panting from how long he’s gone without taking a proper breath. 

He’s insatiable, you quickly find out. Shockingly, for a few weeks following your first kiss, he spends more of his time kissing you under the slide than playing football. When you get tired or want to take a break, he just opts to hold you in a tight embrace until you’re ready to kiss again or have to leave. 

Eventually, his initial enthusiasm dies down, but his way of kissing you never changes. Shallow, rapid kisses swapped between inexperienced middle schoolers, but he never lets up, always eager to meet your lips again and take in your breath in place of oxygen.

You never put a name to whatever’s happening between you two. You’re not friends anymore, that much is clear, but you two don’t have the means of going out on dates, either.

Regardless of what you are, he becomes clingier than ever following the shift in your relationship, and a small part of you can’t help but feel like you’re suffocating.

“Micha.”

He looks up from the ball at his feet, skillfully dribbling it despite the fact that his focus is elsewhere. It’s impressive; hopefully, one day, you’ll be able to see him play professionally.

Your heart sinks to your stomach and sits there heavily. Would that be the next time you see him? On some screen, miles away from him, years from this moment in this time?

You’re moving out of Berlin. Your father’s being suddenly transferred to an office in Cologne, and you have just five days to get all your stuff packed up and ready to go for the train ride on Sunday. You have a shitty starter phone— your parents aren’t keen on you having a smartphone, yet— but Micha has nothing. You suppose you could write to him, but that would put him at risk if his father got to the mail before he did.

When he catches the look on your face, he settles the ball at his feet and locks his full attention on you. “What’s wrong?”

You swallow, averting your gaze to the ground. “I’m moving,” you mumble.

A thick silence settles between you two. The soft breeze is sharp in your ears, like deafening static reverberating through your head.

His voice comes out sharp, digging in a way you’ve never heard it before. “What?”

“I’m moving,” you repeat. “I’m leaving. Dad’s job— we’ve got to go to Cologne.”

He doesn’t respond for so long that you finally force yourself to look up at him. His face has gone completely blank, and there’s only something dark in his eyes, something completely unreadable to you.

His voice is tight when he asks, “When are you coming back?”

“I—” You sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t think I am. I think the transfer’s permanent.”

He looks down, seemingly mulling over your words. When he looks up again, his gaze goes is cold, and he hums, straightening out. “No.”

You blink, confused. “No?”

“You’re not leaving.”

You furrow your brows. “What?”

He looks down at you derisively, seemingly irritated that he has to repeat himself. “I said you’re not leaving.”

“I can’t just not leave,” you spit out. He’s starting to be ridiculous, and his condescension has never been something that bodes well with you, having only been on the receiving end of it so few times. “I’m not gonna have any family here.”

He jostles the ball between his feet as if this is another one your shared mundane conversations. “So we’ll just run away together.”

You narrow your eyes at him in disbelief. “Do you even hear yourself right now?”

He slants a side look at you. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

“Oh, sure,” you say, voice getting higher with each word, “just two teenagers running away and figuring out how to make ends meet. Can you please take this seriously?”

His foot comes down on top of the ball, hard. He flicks a finger between you two. “I am the only one taking this seriously.”

“This,” you echo, incredulous. “A stupid relationship.”

He kicks the ball to the side and turns to face you fully, and that’s how you know you fucked up. Each word bites as he asks, “Is that all this is to you?”

“You know I care about you, Micha,” you say carefully, “but asking me to throw away my family to stay with you is insane.”

Something shutters in his expression, but it’s gone before you can even register it. “I knew it,” he spits, “you’ve never cared about me as much as you’ve led me to believe.”

You grit your teeth. “Are you serious?”

He shrugs. “You obviously don’t value me as much as I value you.”

“Oh my god,” you snap, “you are fourteen. Get the fuck over yourself.”

“You think this is meaningless because we’re young?”

“I think,” you hiss, “that we have our whole lives ahead of us. I wouldn’t ask you to stay by my side if you had bigger and better things ahead of you.”

He continues to stare at you in icy silence. You sigh, frustrated.

“If it’s meant to be, it’ll work itself out,” you say.

Michael tilts his head, as if considering this. His eyes wander your face, committing every bit to memory. Then, he walks over to you, seizing your wrist in his hand. You step back, a bit thrown off, but he lightly tugs on your arm, pulling you back toward him. 

“It will work out,” he says, eyes boring into yours. “I’ll make sure of it.”

He leans down and presses a familiar, gentle kiss to your lips.

“Then you won’t have to leave me ever again.”

This time, when you pull away, he lets you go. Seemingly without a care in the world, he turns around and picks up the ball, heading toward the trail that he takes home.

You return to the park the day before you leave, but you don’t see him. You wait for hours, but he never shows.

The unease twisting in your gut doesn’t unravel until the train speeds away from the station, leaving Berlin behind you.

You’re about to turn eighteen when you see him again.

Not in person, but on a screen like you expected. The name Michael Kaiser sits in a scrolling bar across the bottom of the screen which plays footage of him playing on Bastard München’s youth team, his long golden hair flowing behind him beautifully. The news anchor says something about him being one of the most promising players of the new generation— not that that’s something you need to be told.

Your friend says something from across the table, ripping your attention from the screen. You don’t notice how tense you’ve gotten until you relax again.

Despite the lingering feeling of unease his memory leaves you with, you’re still glad he made it, after all.

“Who’s this?”

You’re back home for the holidays during your second year in university. Your studies have taken you back to Berlin, albeit a part you hadn’t grown up near and is still new and fresh to you. “Home” might not be the right word, though— you’re spending Christmas Eve at your grandmother’s house. She’s been hosting your entire family the past couple years since your grandfather’s passing forced her to relocate to a smaller house, an attempt to fill the empty home with warm presences.

Currently, she’s playing with a small, bedraggled dog that has wandered onto her porch. It’s wheezy and staggers when it walks, indicative of its old age.

“Oh, just a sweet little thing,” your grandmother replies as she pets its back. “You know, your grandfather always hated it when I would feed the strays. I did it a lot back at the old house on the other side of town, but there’s not too many animals on this side, so I don’t really do it anymore.”

You consider the dog. Its fur is matted, but nonetheless, its tail wags so hard from your grandmother’s attention that its whole body shakes with it. It sneezes pathetically.

You shove your hands into your coat pockets. “So this is a new one, then?”

“Well, not quite.” Your grandmother chuckles. “I first met this little guy back at the old house. I’ve been feeding him since he was a puppy! Seems he found his way back home on his own.”

“Huh.” Your eyes snap back to her. “I didn’t think they could actually do that.”

She laughs some more. “The most determined and loved ones can.”

You retreat back into the house. Your younger cousins jump on you immediately, demanding you play whatever nonsensical game they’ve thought up this time. You shed your coat, and with it, your lingering distress at your grandmother’s words.

“Oh my god, do you have a secret admirer?”

Your roommate’s voice pulls you out of your shocked state. The dread freezing your veins gradually thaws out, and you kneel down to pick the bouquet of flowers off the floor in front of the entrance to your shared apartment.

Blue forget-me-nots, with some blue roses interspersed throughout.

It’s October now. Just under a year has passed since Christmas, but your grandmother’s words are fresh in your mind, as if you’d heard them just yesterday.

You fumble around with the bouquet, movements becoming more frantic when you can’t find what you’re looking for. “There’s no card attached to this.”

“Well, duh,” your roommate says. “That would defeat the purpose of a secret admirer.”

Except, it’s not a secret who sent you these. You might have been able to brush it off if it was just the forget-me-nots, but the roses speak for themselves.

You flick your wrist out to the side, shoving the bouquet into your roommate’s chest. She grabs onto them, so you let them go in favor of getting the door unlocked.

“Figure out what to do with them,” you say as you enter the apartment.

She trails in after you, hot on your heels in incredulity. “Wait, you’re seriously not going to keep them?”

“You know I’m not interested in a relationship right now,” you say breezily, feigning a calmness that contradicts your racing heart. “It’s a sweet gesture, but I don’t want them.”

“I mean—” Your roommate stammers a bit before her words peter out. She sighs, then starts rummaging in the cabinet beneath the sink. “Alright, whatever you say.”

She ends up arranging them in a nice glass vase you weren’t aware you two even own and sets them in the center of the dining table. They mock you until they wither and die, and you can finally dispose of them.

By the time February rolls around without any further incidents, your guard has lowered significantly, which is, of course, your first mistake.

You’re lounging on the couch in the common space when there’s light knocking at your apartment door. There’s mostly college students renting in this unit, so it’s not uncommon for someone to stop by and invite you to some party or other, and with Valentine’s around the corner, there’s sure to be plenty.

You set your laptop down on the coffee table and get to your feet, sliding your feet into your slippers and crossing the room to get to the apartment entrance. You reach up and begin to undo the locks without checking the peephole, which is your second mistake.

You pull the door open, and immediately, everything freezes in place.

His eyes are as blue as the day you met him, only his gaze is far sharper than they were even on the day you left. 

The television and billboards really don’t do him justice. He’s fully grown into his figure now, the diet and training regimen of a professional athlete filling him out in ways that the portioned-out food fed to him from your hands could not. His hair is choppy, but a face that gorgeous can make anything work. It’s pulled up into a messy bun made to look regal by the glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. The blue rose on his neck is stark against his skin, and you eye the thorny vines that trail down and disappear beneath his shirt.

You meet his eyes again, apprehensive. His face is impassive, but the intensity of his gaze betrays him and keeps you pinned in place.

You clutch the doorknob so tightly your knuckles go white.

“Michael,” you say softly, and he frowns slightly at that. “What are you doing here?”

How did you find me? The unasked question hangs in the air between you two, but neither of you reach for it.

“Who’s Michael?” He asks airily. He steps forward, and hooks a finger under your chin before you get the chance to move away from him. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your Micha already.”

You swallow thickly. “I haven’t,” you mumble.

He hums. His thumb brushes against your chin lightly as his gaze trails over your body. When it lands on you again, his eyes swallow you whole. “You look good.”

Heat floods your cheeks in spite of the dread settling in your stomach, and you look to the floor again. “Thanks.”

You attempt to step back, but there’s a hand that finds its way to the small of your back before you can. The hand on your chin tilts your head up, up, until you’re forced to look at him again.

“I spent so long waiting for you, liebling,” he says. “Is this how you greet your boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend?” You sputter. “I don’t—”

His thumb presses firmly against your lips, quieting your protests. “Friends don’t make out, do they?” When you don’t respond, he adds, “We never did break up, you know. I’m glad to see you haven’t cheated on me in my absence.”

You finally reach your breaking point, all the agitation and unease within you spilling over. You shove at him as hard as you can, but if he didn’t budge all those years ago, he certainly wasn’t budging now. You shove at him again, this time trying to use the movement to push yourself away rather than push him, but he swiftly grabs hold of both your wrists and tugs you back toward him. Caught off guard, you careen forward and crash into his chest. His arms snake around your waist, an iron cage holding you firmly against him.

“Micha,” you hiss, “let me go.”

“Now, liebe,” he coos, releasing his hold on you just enough for you to shift and properly look up at him. “You know what that will cost you.”

You glare up at him, but to your chagrin, he seems perfectly content to simply hold you and gaze down at you. As seconds bleed into minutes trapped in his hold, you crack under the pressure. 

You tilt your head up fully, and Michael lowers his head just enough to be within your reach. You close the distance between you two, intending for the kiss to be short, shallow, and sweet, just like your first.

You honestly should know better at this point. One of his hands comes up to cradle the back of your head, and he pulls you back in just as you’re about to get away. 

The next kiss is deep, far more passion behind it than anything you two shared before you left. He bites at your bottom lip, and forces his tongue in when you startle. A whimper leaves your throat as he continues to lick into your mouth. You reach up to try to shove at his chest, but he places his other hand over it, rubbing his thumb against your knuckles in a mockery of a soothing gesture.

You gasp out when he finally breaks for air. Your lips sting from the sudden release of pressure, and a thin trail of saliva lines your bottom lip. You stumble back, but firm arms are there to catch you again.

You look up, and his pupil-blown eyes cause that unease to settle over you once more.

Gently, he brings your hand up to his lips and ghosts your knuckles over them.

There’s a glint in his eye as he asks, “Aren’t you going to invite me inside?”

Never satisfied. Insatiable, and now, somehow finding his way back to you.