#enmari

heres separate parts bc i got them and they're quite cute

gachi mari can’t stand him but she keeps a drawer of his clothes at her place so really what is the truth

1.) I don't recall drooling over tattoos...couldn't be me🙈 as for how the bet came up, I think I must've brought up making an appointment to get another small one for myself (because compared to him I am BARE) and he gets the idea to bet me on my favorite game that he can beat me if only to see if I'll get his name on me. I'm unfortunately cocky and agree and he is bastard enough to sabotage me while we're competing. He teases me about him winning sure, but he doesn't actually press about it. I kind of compromise by getting his umbreaker's silhouette somewhere on me (in tiny form bc...it's not that cute) and I don't actually tell him about it. I just wait for him to find it eventually o(｀ω´ )o

2.) The first kiss was when he was leaving the bar at the same time as me one night and decided to walk me part of the way home since it was raining and well, he's got an umbrella at all times so it just makes sense ig. He asked me to hold the handle for him at one point and I was so surprised he gave it to me that I barely had time to register him leaning down to kiss me.

Once my brain processed it I nearly ran away with the umbrella by accident because how?? did he think I'd react to that? It was a case of me ignore the chemistry that we already had because I figured he was like that with all the other girls which in my defense 🤨 is understandable

3.) I'm still kind of fleshing out my backstory right now, but I think I'd want to be a giver with my vital instrument being a sewing needle? Mending and making clothes and accessories while also trying to keep it on the down low because most people might be kinda iffy on a giver fixing their stuff. I thought it'd be cute if i just kept the needle in different places on my person (while also accidentally stabbing myself with it on a regular basis because that's what happens irl) I'm playing around with it a bunch but it seems like a fun little thing. I’m not sure what else I’d want as a vital instrument, but supporters are really cool too so i’ll think about that route too at some point.

“Hey…hey! I’m talkin’ to ya cleaner.” 

A drunken slur perks Enjin’s ears as he sulks on his barstool. Semiu sits on his left and Umbreaker is leaning against the bar on his right, coincidentally where the call is coming from. As he looks over, glaring but hazy blue eyes lock on to him, and he gets thrown off by the sight. He’s used to most people not liking cleaners; it’s pretty much a given, but this girl is brandishing a sewing needle at him as her friends shush her and try to tug her away.

“Huh? What-” Enjin starts, only for her to point from him to his Umbreaker vigorously. 

“Your mending job is shitty and that thread’ll never hold the way you want it to. Lemme fix it,” she demands, her face as fiery as her hair. The empty bottle of sparkling wine next to her is the most likely cause for her drunkenness and he can’t help but scoff as he grabs the umbrella’s handle and moves it closer to himself. 

The stitching he did is piss poor, but he’s not gonna let some random chick in a bar touch his treasure. He’s not sure how it happened earlier, but the tear was rough enough to leave a fist-sized hole in the canvas which she happens to be fussing about right now. When he went to August to fix it, the designer was completely locked down in his room as frustrated mutterings seeped under the door, an incomplete outfit design stumping him into uselessness. It left Enjin to stitch it himself, a temporary fix until he could figure out something more permanent. 

“No thanks. The stitch is just fine,” he grumbles, his eyes trailing down until they reach her chest that seems to be glaring at him just as severely as she is. Shit, if she wasn’t trying to touch his vital instrument he’d be moving closer to get a better look. The green jumpsuit frames the cleavage with an underlayer of gold, making it a gilded window he could stare into the whole night if Semiu didn’t speak up, shaking him out of his boob-induced stupor. 

“I think you should let her. What can it hurt?” Semiu says lightly, a glint in her eye as the glow of her power fades and she takes her glasses off to look at him knowingly.

“Really? Ugh…fine,” he says, turning to see the girl’s already taken the umbrella onto her lap, running her fingers over it to feel the fabric. 

“Mari, seriously? We’ll be at the bar down the street when you’re done playing tailor again,” one of the girl's friends sigh, showing this must be a common occurrence. The look of unease on their faces also tips Enjin off that they must not be fond of givers despite one of their friends being one.

“So it’s Mari? Easy name to remember,” he hums, watching her take out the sewing needle from where she’d stuck it into her own clothes. “...you an actual tailor, or is it a side gig?” 

It’s a valid question. Giver or not, that doesn’t mean she’s able to mend it right, but if Semiu agrees, he’s inclined to give it a try. 

“Dunno. Be quiet…you.” Mari mutters, too focused to care about anything other than the job in her hands, and certainly not caring enough to ask his name right now. Her eyes glow along with the thread that seems to come out of the needle, wrapping itself around her wrist in loose loops of gold. Each stitch sends a shimmer through the umbrella, making the hairs on the back of Enjin’s neck stand up as he tamps down the urge to snatch Umbreaker back.

It’s a decently fast process, the hole having not been that big, but her movements are precise and careful as she undoes his earlier work and replaces it with her own. By the time she gets to her last stitch, she pricks her finger with a hiss, though Enjin’s not sure if it was on purpose. Her hands had more than a few injuries, leaving him to assume she’s just clumsy.  When she shakes it off, her pointer finger throbbing angrily, she knots the end and the thread almost soaks into the canvas itself.

“All done! Take better care of it though, or I’ll be mad,” Mari smiles, not directing it at him, just pleased she was able to do what she’s best at. 

“I do take care of it. It’s just been a shitty day,” Enjin shoots back defensively. 

“That’s no excuse,” she yawns, the needle having disappeared from sight though Enjin’s sure it’s still somewhere in her clothes if the jolt and wince he sees as she lays her head on the bar is anything to go by. “...it’s pretty happy though. That you’re its owner, I mean. I could feel it.”

“...yeah, well it makes me pretty happy too,” he admits, turning the umbrella in his hands, testing and prodding at her work as if he’d find a flaw to it. He can’t though, and he’s impressed, even if the girl herself is relatively normal despite her pushiness. Before he can think to say anything else, small snores make him look up, the girl having fallen asleep with her cheek smushed into the dingy wood of the bar. 

“Looks like she needs a knight in cleaner armor to take her home. It’s the least you can do since she fixed that for you,” Semiu chimes in, the cigarette in her mouth barely hiding her amused smirk. “At least she’s cute. I bet she’s cuddly too,” she teases.

“She’ll be fine if I leave her. Her friends will come back,” he says, though he’s sure that’s a lie, even if he’s only just met her. From the looks her friends gave earlier, he assumes it’s more conditional than real friendship.

“You’re heavy, y’know that? This is the third bar I’ve checked and none of those girls you were with before are anywhere. You’re a great tailor, but a crappy judge of character,” he says, conversing though he can tell from the drool on his neck that she’s still knocked out cold. Semiu was right too. Mari is cuddly.  Latched onto him the moment he put her on his back cuddly. Nearly started nibbling on his shirt cuddly.

He’s pretty sure he’s allergic to this exact breed of clinginess even if he’s not breaking out in hives. And sure, it kind of a nice feeling. Her chest is pressed heavy against his back and she smells sweet, like something he’d buy for Rudo from the Viander’s, but he’s not looking to bring her home with him.

He decides to take the next best course of action in this impromptu rescue mission, renting a room and tucking her in the small bed after taking her shoes off. This girl has taken up most of his night, but he owed it to her to make sure she was safe enough to get home whenever she decided to get up. Sitting on the floor against the bed, he’s passed out in minutes, his neck bent back at an angle that would make waking up later a pain.

By the time morning comes, he’s snapped awake by Semiu’s voice coming from his choker, her exasperation clear as she tells him to come back to HQ for a mission. The groan spilling out from him is coupled with a few joints cracking as he looks back to an empty bed. Umbreaker lays there with a note that reads “Thanks, and you’re welcome. (P.S. The money for the room is in your pocket)” along with a small doodle of a cat next to the words, squiggly and simple as it looks at him. The note sits in his pocket far longer than it should, and well past the room money’s time in there, though no one but him knows about it and he won’t think too hard on why he hasn’t tossed it yet.