Work Text:
After everything that had happened at Night Raven College, Yuu decided that she needed more money for a plethora of reasons. Convincing Ace and Deuce to help her out when she needed magic to solve things but had none herself, ordering things off of the internet for Ramshackle because everything inside the dorm was ancient, Grim’s endless cans of tuna, paying for food when Crowley’s allowance wasn’t nearly enough…
The list continued on and on for much longer than she would like.
In hopes of being able to cross a few points off that list, Yuu started taking up shifts at the Lounge. It was much more convenient than finding somewhere off-campus, and from what she had seen so far, as long as she worked diligently, Azul paid her accordingly.
“Thank you for your patronage. Be sure to come again!” Yuu smiled a farewell as another customer left the Mostro Lounge satisfied. They all were, thanks to the wonderful service and incredible menu. She sighed in content, piling up the dirty dishes onto her tray to bring back to the counter.
Every Friday night had a huge rush, and this one was especially worse after the difficult test Professor Trein had given to the freshmen. While Yuu had thought that it went fine herself, there were a few people—specifically Deuce and Grim—who hadn’t. She had faith in Deuce getting at least a passing grade, since she and a handful of others had been trying to make sure he understood the material. If all things went well, the prefect would be confident in betting a couple Thaumarks that he would get a 70 or higher.
But Grim hadn’t studied, even after she kept nagging him to. She had caught him just as he was about to make another deal with Azul for his magical study guide the night before, just when she was about to clock out from another shift at the Lounge. It was safe for anyone to say that Grim didn’t get out of that lecture unscathed, with the way he came to class the next day trying to stay as far away from Yuu as possible.
Now that it was almost ten forty-five, the clients were dwindling, but there were still a handful that needed to be served. As soon as she got to the counter, Yuu traded the empty dishes with another table’s order, rushing right back out to serve it.
“Little Shrimpy!”
She didn’t even try to dodge Floyd as he ran over to her, picking her up by the waist while she walked away from the table she had just finished serving. It was one of the things that came with working at the Mostro Lounge, and after only a couple of shifts, she had gotten used to being swept off her feet by the moody eel.
“Are ‘ya done yet?” Floyd asked excitedly. “I wanna play!”
“Um, not yet,” she answered, trying to figure out how she could get out of his grasp without breaking a bone. His grip was already tightening as he started to pout from her reply. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to play tonight, Floyd. Sorry.”
“Why noooot?” he whined. “We got all night, ‘Lil Shrimpy! Azul wouldn’t care if we ditched. Promise.”
Yuu sighed. He had said that the last time he dragged her away from a shift, and she came back to an Azul that she definitely wouldn’t define as uncaring. “Let’s see what happens,” she told him. “Worst case, we have all weekend. Okay, you big eel?” Reluctantly, Floyd grumbled as he nodded. “Now can you set me down?”
He seemed even more unwilling to do so, but Floyd finally did after a few moments and a bit more coaxing. Yuu had almost thought she was going to have to call over Jade if any more time had passed. It wouldn't have been the first time she would have to do so.
When she looked around the room to see where exactly the Leech twin in question was, she found that he was behind the counter cleaning glasses, his regular smile on his face as he watched his brother toy with the Ramshackle prefect from where he was. But if anyone looked past the surface, they could see the small, subtle difference in how his lips quirked up when his gaze met with Yuu’s, how it even reached his eyes in the rare times he was genuinely smiling.
It was strange to more than just him how that change came just over the few months the prefect was at Night Raven College. It was especially strange when it wasn't him alone who had that same change. Floyd always seemed to be in a better mood when the prefect was around, and Azul sweet-talked her much more than what was necessary for her to consider deals.
Floyd sauntered over to the bar as Yuu went back to work, ignoring the duties Azul had tasked him to do as he slunk into a chair. The prefect caught sight of it and rolled her eyes a little, smiling slightly at how childish someone so terrifying could be. The Octavinelle trinity was still able to—and did—scare her on many frequent occasions. But the longer she spent trying to learn about them, the more she found that they weren't as horrifying as the other students made them out to be.
As unapproachable as they tried to make themselves seem, she was certainly getting closer to them than anyone would have guessed a person outside of the three of them could do. It was still a stretch, but Yuu was slowly beginning to see them as regular people. Friends, even, if that was what they could call each other.
Even if she was pretty sure that the Leech twins would commit murder and not even bat an eye. She wasn’t certain that they hadn’t killed someone already.
Yuu snuck a look over at the two of them, trying to see if she could maybe discover a little clue towards that answer. They caught her staring at them, Floyd giving her a giant wave as Jade smiled, and she had to look away to avoid the impulse of just straight-up asking them about what potential crimes the two had committed.
As she continued to mull over it, mind idle as she went through motions that were practically muscle-memory by now, Yuu realized that it was probably a bad idea. For all she knew, that question could turn her into the next cover-up that no one knew about, and she was too drained from the rest of the dysfunctional school's problems to add any more to it that were related to her potential disappearance.
Though there was no denying the little pound her heart did thanks to the shocking bind the Leech twins had. It did that more often than not these days, too close to their ranges to avoid it. More than a few escape routes had been offered up to her, promising her safety, but so far, she had yet to take one. The more time that she was around them, the less interested she became in swimming away.
Yuu shook her head to clear those thoughts, trying to figure out if it was because of herself or the twins that her pulse had picked up. Instead, it was better to do what she knew would actually get her Thaumarks. Working.
So she took in a determined breath, convinced her brain that she could stay up for just a few more hours longer when all it wanted to do was go back to Ramshackle and crash, then got to work taking the next table’s order.
~
“I believe that’s the last customer." Azul looked throughout the Lounge as Jade bid them farewell to confirm it. “Floyd, go put up the closed sign, if you would.”
“Yessir!”
As one Leech bounded off, the other stayed next to the housewarden as he finished scanning the room. “Where did our prefect run off to?” he asked.
“He’s taken over the dishes," Jade informed. "Would you like me to fetch him?”
“Don’t need to.” Both Octavinelle students turned as Yuu approached from behind, blowing soap bubbles off of her face. The sight was rather adorable to both of them. “What’s up, pretty boy?”
The only reaction Azul gave to that was a clearing of the throat, hiding the absurd amount of blue blood that rushed to his face from that alone. “You would like to get paid, wouldn’t you?” he asked. Then he smirked. “Otherwise, I would be more than happy to keep the share you’ve racked in.”
Yuu gave him a look. “Don’t even joke about that, you meanie. If I didn’t want the money, I’d give it to someone that wasn’t a successful businessman who is probably earning more than five times what I’m getting.”
Azul held up his hands in defeat. “It was worth a try.” Snapping his fingers, an envelope appeared in his hand. As he handed it to her, Yuu took it gratefully, opening the envelope and counting the bills inside to make sure that it was the correct amount. It was more a habit than an actual double-check these days. She knew that Azul would be fair—a work contract was still a contract after all. He didn’t go back on his word with contracts, like she had witnessed time and time again.
She tucked it into her bag, resting in a nearby booth while they finished up for the night. When Floyd came back, Azul roped him into wiping down the tables. Yuu took a mop from Jade, storing it and the one she had used back in the closet before she checked her phone for the time. “Ugh. It's so late already," she groaned as she closed the closet's door. “I don't want to make the trip back to Ramshackle.”
Her rapidly-draining energy had been all but sapped up by the day's events. At this point, she was running off of her backup reserves, which were getting tapped into much more than she’d like ever since becoming a Night Raven College student. Between the dysfunctional student body, getting good grades in her classes, and then battling Crowley about her living conditions, she really wondered how her bloodstream wasn’t just caffeine at this point. It was shocking to her that she could normally make it through the day with just one or no cups of anything with it.
“The offer of renting rooms at Octavinelle still stands, prefect,” Jade reminded her with a smile. “It’s only a hundred Thaumarks a night.” Yuu pursed her lips as she tucked her phone away, crossing her arms as she seriously debated it. The cold of late-winter and her rapidly draining brain were telling her to spend the rather high price and guarantee comfort. It would be wonderful not to spend a night freezing.
But her rationale triumphed over her wants. “I would take you up on that if I had money to spare,” she sighed. “All of my earnings are going towards renovating Ramshackle and buying a new bed.”
“You gettin’ a new bed, Shrimpy?” Floyd appeared suddenly, inserting himself into the conversation. Whether he had finished cleaning the tables or just gotten bored, Yuu wasn’t sure. Azul came over a few moments later, so she assumed that they had gotten their job done.
She nodded. “Mine broke about a week ago. I’ve been room-jumping inside Ramshackle for a bit, but all of the mattresses are so old and dusty I wake up sneezing every night.” Yuu rubbed the back of her neck as it started to ache. Talking about her broken bed reminded her about the pain resulting from the crook sleeping it in had given her.
After she slept in a room, she had made sure to clean it well enough for anyone to want to use. It would have been easy to just swap to another room and leave it at that, but she also had to keep changing rooms, since the ghosts loved to make sleeping tortuous. Yuu still thought it was a miracle that they somehow didn't bother her last night for once. She got maybe three hours of sleep instead of one for a change.
“That sounds rather unpleasant,” Azul mused, pushing up his glasses. “If you’d like, you can always make a deal with me, and I’m sure we could come up with a solution.”
Yuu gave him another deadpan look. “I’m not making another contract with you.”
"Do you truly find me so abhorrent?" he asked, feigning hurt. "All I want is for our dear underclassman to take care of himself."
"I appreciate the thought, but no," she said flatly, not buying into his act. "You'd probably make me start doing three times the work to pay for it."
Her phone buzzed, and she took it out, opening a text notification. It was from Ace. He, Grim, and Deuce were wondering where she was, since her gremlin had the habit of sticking around their freshmen friends until her shifts at the Lounge finished. The three of them were still a little sore from being sea anemones, and liked to make themselves scarce whenever situations involved the three with her now. Though that didn't mean that they wouldn't go to the Mostro Lounge occasionally just to make her life harder.
As Yuu started to type out a reply, the Leech twins shared a look with each other, the same thought reflected in their eyes. Then they both looked at Azul, two identical sly smirks on their faces. While the housewarden gave them a hard glare, he knew that he could do nothing to stop them once they had a look like that. But all three of them knew that if Azul had really wanted to put an end to their schemes, he would have shut it down the moment he saw that unmistakable glint.
“Hey, Shrimpy, I’ve got an idea,” Floyd chimed, yanking her phone from her hands. “If you sleep over here at Octavinelle, then you won't have to go back to your dorm, and we can play all night!” She gave him a glare as he grinned, holding her phone above his left shoulder loosely. There was no way she was getting it back until he wanted her to.
Yuu tapped a finger on her arm as she crossed them. “Like I told Jade, though, I don’t have any spare Thaumarks.” Floyd shrugged.
“Who said anything ‘bout Thaumarks? You’d just be sharing a room with me ‘n Jade.”
Her eyes widened. There were a couple of qualms she had with that. Namely her uncertainty about their potentially being murderers. “Uh, I don’t—”
“Floyd, come now. Neither of our beds are large enough to fit two people,” Jade chastised, his face serious. The prefect thought that he might be on her side for a second, sighing inwardly. At least this wouldn't be her last night to live. But then his face changed into a smile, and both Yuu and Azul’s stomachs dropped as he aimed it at his housewarden.
"Although, I do believe Azul’s is quite spacious as Octavinelle’s housewarden.”
She coughed as she choked on air in surprise. “What?”
“Excuse me?” Azul questioned with a hard look, though both of their responses fell on deaf ears as Floyd laughed.
“C’mon, Azul, it’d be so fuuun,” he said, slinging an arm around his brother's shoulders. “I’d get to squeeze Shrimpy all night, and he’d get to sleep in a nice, comfy bed, too!”
“It does sound rather like a deal, if you'd like to think about it in other terms,” Jade mused, bringing a hand to cup his chin as he smiled with closed eyes. Yuu rolled her eyes at that. Everything about his expression screamed just how shifty he was.
Azul was still as hesitant to agree as Yuu was, adjusting his glasses from where they had gone askew. “Floyd, Jade, I don’t believe it’s in either of your abilities to offer up my room,” he stated. She just watched as they continued to debate, not too sure if she wanted to pitch in just yet. The idea of not having to trudge through the cold and snow was sounding more than a little appealing as time passed, and her better judgement had only won by a hair in her silent debate just a few minutes before.
“It would benefit you as well, Azul,” Jade continued. “Assuring that the Lounge’s star employee is well-rested would surely lead to better sales.”
He opened his mouth to digress, but Yuu was on top of him. “And what would you get out of it, Jade?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow. "None of you ever do anything unless there's something in it for yourselves."
The sophomore just smiled at her, and she was hit yet again with exactly how suspicious he was. “The happiness of my dear brother is quite enough for me to be content.” For whatever reason, she didn’t trust his words. She thought it had something to do with the way his teeth just barely showed in his grin, reminding her that he was definitely not someone to take at face-value.
Floyd smirked down at her and Azul, waiting for both of them to agree to it. Their housewarden sighed exasperatedly after a few moments. “Fine. I do believe I owe the prefect some sort of bonus for his continued hard work around the Lounge, and I suppose a free night or two of lodging at Octavinelle wouldn’t be out of the question.” He glanced over at Yuu, a look of something in his eyes. “That is, only if he accepts.”
She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to respond. It was obvious that Jade and Floyd were pushing for it, but Yuu had no idea what the look on Azul’s face meant. He was looking anywhere but her, glancing around the Lounge almost nervously. She couldn’t tell if it was because of the lightning or not, but his face almost looked like it had become a deeper shade of the curious shade of blue he blushed.
The prefect sighed, feeling both her body and mind sag with exhaustion. Why did she have to open her big mouth and talk about not wanting to go home?
“...So how are we doing this?” Yuu relented, making Floyd’s eyes completely light up. “Am I getting a vacant room, or—”
“Azul’s room!” Floyd chimed happily.
Yuu sighed. “Okay. Are we going to bring in extra bedding like what I did with Leona—”
“Azul’s bed!” Floyd exclaimed, with the same cheery tone as his first answer. As she sighed for the second time in a row, Azul fixed his glasses yet again with an extremely shaky hand.
“Who’s all going to be in his room?” she asked, half unwilling to voice the question she most definitely knew the answer to when his face looked like that. Floyd just grinned.
One last time, the Ramshackle prefect let out a very audible exhale.
She turned to the poor boy whose room they were all going to invade for the night, and saw that his face had definitely flushed this time. “Are you okay with this?” she asked, and he waved a hand dismissively, trying to cover his mouth with the other as he looked away.
“...Mm.” Yuu had no idea if that was a yes or a no. When she glanced at Jade, he nodded, telling her it was a yes. While she was still internally questioning whether or not this was really a good idea, Yuu decided to maybe throw caution to the wind. Maybe. Not being cold was already tempting her to disregard the walking red flags the three of them were, and she would be lying if she said she wasn't curious about the mermen and how they were like behind closed doors.
Thankfully, she had learned that the potions Crowley provided her that masked her secret as a girl in an all-boys school tasted better when taken with a Mostro Lounge drink, so she had already taken the one that would work for the next twenty-four hours. That was the only kindness the headmage had given her once he was made aware of her situation, and while she honestly had no idea what they were or what they did, Crewel had assured her that they were completely safe for her to take.
So far, they had worked, since no one had made any comments about her being a girl, except for Ace calling her somewhat girly when they first met. At least that worry wouldn’t keep her up. The prefect was almost a little surprised that no one had found her out yet, save for Grim, who had known from the very start of their enrollment. Somehow he had managed to keep his mouth shut about that, even if he wasn't able to do the same for a plethora of other topics.
Yuu looked up at Jade and Floyd, who were both eyeing her with looks that seemed like they wanted to devour her whole, and she grabbed that caution right back before it flew too far away from her. Those were definitely the faces of someone who has at least seriously thought of murdering.
“Well, if we’re doing this, I need to text Ace and Deuce to let them know I’m not coming home. Grim will have to stay over with them at Heartslabuyl,” she told them. “And I might ask one of them to come over and give me a change of clothes.”
“Huh?” Floyd exclaimed, but kept her phone snug in his hand. “Why would you need that?” Yuu just stared at him with a dull look.
“I need pajamas, Floyd. I’m not making Azul’s bed dirty with my uniform.” He shrugged.
“Who caaares. Just borrow one of Jade’s shirts or somethin’.” Jade nodded, the same absurdly polite smile on his face. Even though she knew better, Yuu half thought he wanted it to happen.
She just agreed to it so that waste more energy debating him. “What about pants?” she continued.
“Wha?” Floyd looked down. “Oh yeah, legs are a thing!” Yuu didn't know whether to laugh or sigh at that. She was highly tempted to do both.
Jade chuckled at his brother, so she decided on the other option. “I’ll conjure you up some clothes," he informed her. "Please, don’t worry about a thing.”
She didn’t want to know if Jade did or did not know her size in everything. After having been acquainted with him for this long, she wouldn’t be surprised if he knew even her social security number. He was one of the ones who she thought would have seen right through her half-attempt at hiding she was a girl, but so far, she had seen nothing from him suggesting he knew.
Yuu still had no idea how something with such low planning could even happen—especially when someone like Azul was with them, when he wanted to leave nothing to chance, but he was occupied with staring holes into the ground, suddenly rather silent. “Azul?” she called, making sure he was still following the conversation. He didn’t respond.
She waited for a few more seconds, then reached over to grab his hat. Finally, he jumped at the movement, staring wildly at her as she swiped the fedora and put it on her own head. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Frankly, he almost looked like he was about to either burst or bolt. Or both.
Azul visibly took in a very deep breath, then nodded. “I was just thinking about how we shouldn’t loiter in the Lounge any longer.” There was something in his voice that Yuu couldn’t quite place, strained at the edges just a tad. “Come, I need to close up, and apparently get my room ready for guests.”
Yuu followed the three mermen out of the cafe after grabbing her bag, waiting patiently as Azul locked the Lounge’s doors. She looked over as he did, sighing as she saw what Floyd still had. “Floyd, I still need my phone back,” she reminded.
Floyd looked down at her and smirked, making her groan inwardly. “‘Kay. Come and get it.”
Oh, no. She knew where that was leading. Floyd found their height difference absurdly hilarious, disregarding that it wasn't her choice to stand at a meager 167 centimeters compared to his absurd height. She wasn’t going to jump in a futile attempt to grab it like he wanted her to.
Yuu gave him a glare instead, deciding she would still like to keep a fraction of her dignity. Thankfully, they started to walk through Octavinelle’s halls, so she hoped she could try to slowly get closer to him before he realized it. “Floyd, I need to text them. They will seriously send a search party here if they don't hear from me.”
“Do they truly dislike us that greatly?” Jade asked, far too amused with his brother and her to ever think about butting in. “I’m hurt. All this time I thought we were winning them over.” All four of them looked towards Yuu’s phone as it buzzed, getting another message from one of them.
When Floyd lowered her phone again, a wide grin on his face, Yuu realized that she had left her phone unlocked.
Floyd Leech had her phone. And he could do whatever he wanted with it.
“Give me my phone back, you living seaweed,” she huffed, trying to be quick enough to lash out and grab it so that he wouldn’t be able to pull away. No surprise, it failed, and Floyd held it high about his head as he continued to do whatever it was he was doing with it. The giant grin on his face grew as he continued to toy with his newfound power, rapidly increasing the growing pit in her stomach.
“Floyd,” Azul attempted, though none of them were confident it would work. “Give the prefect back his phone.”
“Nah. I’m having too much fun.” Yuu groaned as she tried to take her phone back again, but Floyd brought it too far up for her to reach once more. He just giggled at her continued attempts, cackling when she started to add half-hearted insults towards him whenever she failed.
The prefect could feel her ears beginning to burn rather intensely. “At least let them know I’m here,” she said, deciding that she had had enough of being embarrassed.
“Geez, Shrimpy, who do you take me for?” he asked. “Already told ‘em. Don’t sweat about it too much.”
Floyd had told the Heartslabuyl freshmen that she was there, but Yuu was wrong to ever assume that it was in the way she had meant.
[You]:
Lmao we have your guy
He’s not coming back
We’re keeping him :D
[Deuce]:
Excuse me?
Is this Yuu? If not, please give his phone back to him.
[You]:
He said the same thing too!!!
Nah CC:
[Menace 1]:
lol who dis
[You]:
Oh hey crabby
You two get to deal with sealie while little shrimpy stays with us
:)
[Deuce]:
Did you kidnap Yuu?
[Menace 1]:
nah hes just sleeping over
i think
hi floyd
[You]:
Gonna ask azul if we can keep him
[Menace 1]:
please take grim too
[You]:
Nah
There were little to no secrets that she could keep from the Leech twins when they set their minds to discovering them. But she would like to keep her search history to herself, especially when Azul was around to exploit it. It had more than a few extremely embarrassing searches asking about the general way things that her world didn’t have worked.
While most were about magic, there were a few she had had about beastmen and merfolk. They were nothing inappropriate, but things like 'do merfolk have phones underwater' and 'how do beastmen wear headphones' were probably questions that most everyone knew the answer to and would laugh at her for if they knew that she had searched those things.
She really needed to start going on incognito.
When Floyd laughed, her stomach dropped. “Crabby’s funny,” he chimed. “Ooh, Sea Snake’s here, too!” Yuu looked over at Jade for help, but he just smiled.
“Now Floyd, do be mindful of the prefect’s privacy,” he mused. When she gave him a look for better help than that, he remained silent. Great.
Good for her, this prefect had dealt with four overblots. The nonsense Floyd was pulling right now was child's play compared to those. So when Yuu reached up and grabbed the two ends of his undone bowtie with a clenched fist, all three sophomores watched curiously to see what she would do. Floyd practically beamed as Yuu tugged his neck down with her left hand, finally succeeding in taking the phone back from him as she snagged it.
“That is mine, thank you very much,” she said as she poked his cheek, deciding to instantly lock her phone as Floyd stared at her wide-eyed. She wasn’t confident that he wouldn’t just steal it right back.
“Shrimpy’s strong!” he exclaimed giddily, barely straightening even when she let go. “Do that again!”
“Floyd, enough,” Azul sighed. “Give him some space. We wouldn’t want our guest to never come here again.” Although Floyd frowned at Azul's words, he straightened, lacing his fingers behind his head as she gave Azul his fedora back.
She hadn’t even remotely thought about not coming back. To Yuu, Octavinelle was somewhere where she could always go, and there would be a place for her somewhere, even amongst the scheming students. There were three extremely dangerous men here, that was no doubt, but they always seemed eager to be with her. And to be honest, she liked being in their presences. Even if she thought she was a hair's breadth away from death when she was with them sometimes.
“It’s fine,” she said, in case any of them thought that she was actually upset. “Just so long as you didn’t sell my IP address to anyone.” Floyd grinned. She had no idea what it meant.
Yuu felt a little bit of fear at that, and she took a wild guess to say it wouldn’t be the last she felt tonight.
The rest of their walk wasn’t as eventful as the start was, and Yuu made sure to study the halls as she walked down them. She hadn’t been to the residential part of Octavinelle yet, so this was all new to her. Really, she had only ever gone to the Mostro Lounge, she realized. In a way, she was disappointed in herself because of that. Yuu marveled at the glass walls and ceilings that made it seem like they were inside an aquarium. Heartslabuyl’s gardens and Savanaclaw’s night skies were both wonders to behold, but Octainvelle was certainly something else.
“Hey, if it doesn’t trouble you guys, could I take a shower?” she asked as they stopped in front of a door. It had only crossed her mind then thanks to Floyd’s phonenapping. “I usually do that at night, so I didn’t take one this morning.”
Jade smiled. “Of course. What pitiful hosts we would be if we didn’t permit our guests to do such simple things.”
“Since we’re already here, you might as well use my bathroom,” Azul said, his voice holding some unfamiliar softness. “Floyd, get the prefect some towels. I’ll go make the room ready."
Floyd grinned, walking off to grab them as Azul slipped into what was revealed to be his dorm room, shutting the door behind him.
Jade knew that Azul was panicking at that very moment. As he smiled at Yuu, he would bet anything that his housewarden was running to and fro, trying to make sure that his room was as neat as possible in a desperate attempt to impress the very prefect in front of him.
“I apologize for Floyd’s behavior,” he said, getting her attention. “He should know better than to steal someone’s phone.”
Yuu just shrugged. “He’s okay. I think. I’m not really sure what all he did yet.” To be honest, she didn’t want to check, either. She was a little worried that he would have done something or texted someone things she didn’t have the willpower or energy to take back at that moment.
Jade chuckled. "Don't fret. If he had truly done something terrible, I would assist you in bringing it back to order."
The prefect sighed, already knowing how this went. “What would it cost me?”
“You still believe that our relationship is purely give-and-take after all this time?” Jade dodged answering, she noticed, bringing a hand to his chest. “I’m deeply hurt by your words, prefect. It would be free of charge.”
She knew it most certainly wouldn’t, and was convinced that that appeared on her face. But to be honest, Yuu found herself more wondering what the payment would be and how he would get it instead of dreading the inevitable. On the off chance that it wasn’t something extreme and terrible, sometimes it was interesting to see what the three of them would ask for in return for something.
Floyd came bounding back at practically the same time Azul opened his bedroom door, dumping the towels into Yuu’s hands. “You all can come in now,” Azul said. “And please, Floyd, this time don’t break anything.”
“Fiiine.”
The moment Yuu stepped into the room, she was taken aback at how beautiful it was. The decorations all seemed like something that Azul would have, elegant and classy with just the right amount of showing off that it didn’t seem obnoxious. She especially liked the glass orbs on the shelves, each one holding a different image. Her eyes widened when she realized that each image moved, an animation suspended in its own little world that she almost wished she could be a part of.
And the bed. The bed.
Jade was right when he had said that Azul’s bed was spacious. Yuu had been doubting whether or not they would all truly fit in it, but with a little effort, it was bound to happen. She half wanted to just jump onto the bed right then and snuggle in, but she wouldn’t yet. First, she would get out of her uniform, then get the day’s grime off her, and then maybe she would. It was still a little odd to her that she was actually inside Azul’s room, and she wasn’t sure if she was actually allowed on the bed or if she was going to sleep on the floor.
Even from just looking at it, Yuu knew that it wasn’t humanly possible for anyone to have a bed that both looked that beautiful and that comfortable at the same time. The sheets and pillowcases were ivory, gold patterns embroidered on both. It held the elegance and charm of both Azul and Octavinelle, but still had the coziness of her favorite spot in the Lounge.
All the housewarden’s rooms had their own personal bathroom, and Octavinelle was no exception. The door to it was on the right wall, perfectly across from Azul’s desk. “Go right ahead,” he ushered, noticing her hesitancy to go in. “We’ll use the Octavinelle showers and meet back here.”
“I can use the shower room instead,” Yuu offered, her eyes going a little wider. She hadn’t realized that they were going to take showers too. “I don’t want to use your personal one if you were going to.”
“Please. It’s fine,” he answered, adjusting his glasses. “Think of it as my apology for not giving you ample time to prepare for spending a night here.”
“Floyd and I would’ve had to go back, regardless,” Jade added, offering to soothe her nervousness. “We haven’t brought clothes to sleep in yet. One more coming along with us wouldn’t hurt anyone in the slightest.”
Yuu sighed, but she had to admit that showering in Azul’s bathroom was more tempting than the ones any Octavinelle student could use. There were too many scenarios where something went wrong and she was found out. She held in a shiver as countless bad endings popped into her head.
“Are you sure?” she asked one more time. “I feel bad using it when it’s Azul’s and he could use it instead.” He waved her off with a single hand.
“Like I said, it’s only a return payment,” he repeated. “Think nothing of it.” Reluctantly, she nodded.
“We’d best get moving so as to not keep you waiting,” Jade said. “I will return quickly and leave a change of clothes outside the door, prefect.” She thanked him as all three of them turned, returning Floyd’s wave as he grinned at her.
“See ‘ya soon, Shrimpy!”
“Please don’t break anything while we’re gone. I’d have to dock your pay to equal the cost of whatever it would be, and most things here are quite valuable.”
Yuu held in a little laugh as she nodded to Azul. She had already sworn that she would keep her hands to herself because frankly, she wasn’t sure that she could even afford the pen. Azul seemed to be satisfied with that answer, and closed the door behind him as the three mermen left Yuu alone in his room, finding it a little odd that she was there without the person residing in it.
She wasn't the only one who was uneasy. Azul was panicking every second he stayed away from it and her, worrying if she would find something that would make her see him as some pathetic ingrate. But that was hardly the case as Yuu gently opened the door to the bathroom and locked it behind her. If Floyd came back before she was done, the bolt gave her a little more reassurance, although she was pretty sure a lock wouldn’t stop him if he really wanted to get into someplace.
The prefect just sighed.
What a sleepover this was going to be.
~
Azul was still panicking about anything and everything that could go wrong as he and the twins made their way back. Neither of the Leeches would call the pace that Azul had set walking, even with their long legs. Their housewarden would be running if he went even a fraction quicker. He had hardly dried himself off and put on his sleepwear before taking off back towards his room.
“My, Azul, what seems to be the matter?” Jade asked, knowing full well what it was as he grinned. “How unbecoming of you to be so distraught.”
He had the clothes they would lend to the prefect in his hands, which they had stopped at his and Floyd’s dorm room to grab. Even that, which had barely taken more than a minute or two thanks to his ushering, had been too long. Azul was dreading if Yuu was waiting for the three of them to get back, already done with her shower ages ago and criticizing their slow speed.
“I wasn’t prepared for this,” he muttered irritably. “You could have given me more time to plan before you two sprung this on me.”
“Meh, who cares,” Floyd shrugged. “‘S just Shrimpy. Not like the sea witch herself is bunking with us or anything.” How wrong he was. If anything, Azul would prepare more for this scenario instead of where he came face-to-face with one of the Great Seven.
The prefect had done things to get such a place in Azul's hearts, and he had not the faintest clue what they even were. He couldn't tell if he liked how she seemed to occupy the small alcove he hadn't even noticed was there until she had taken it up. Especially when his hearts were racing so fast he thought all three might stop.
“Are you against this, by any chance?” Jade asked. “If so, I’m sure that neither Floyd nor I would be opposed to whisking the prefect to our room instead.”
“No.” Both twins snickered at how quickly Azul had responded. There was no doubt that he was overjoyed this happened, despite how much stress it was giving him. “You said it yourself, neither of your beds are large enough to fit two people," he added, fixing his glasses.
Really, they all knew that they probably could. It was just that Jade and Floyd were such giants that it would be more of a hassle than necessary. Especially when a bed like Azul’s was in the question. His face flared up as he realized that this was, in fact, happening.
This prefect would be the death of him.
~
Yuu had brought her bag with her into the bathroom, and she used it to store her the uniform she changed out of, carefully folded and neatly tucked inside. She had barely even stepped out of Azul’s shower and started to dry off when she heard a soft knock on the door.
“I have your clothes, prefect,” Jade’s muffled voice sounded. “Azul says to put your towels in the basket once you’ve finished. He’ll wash them tomorrow.” It hadn’t even been twenty minutes. Yuu had been counting to make sure she hadn’t spent too long in the shower, even if the wondrous smell of the shampoo and conditioner Azul had made it tempting.
She didn’t think it was all that strange that of course Jade Leech had an uncanny sense of things, so he would be there with clothes the moment she needed them, but still. How had he walked to the shower room, showered, gotten clothes and come back all within the span of her shower? Did she really take that long?
“Okay, thank you. I’ll grab them in a second.” She moved a little faster now, not wanting to be a bad guest by keeping them waiting. Yuu wrapped the towel around her before barely cracking the door open, quickly grabbing the neatly folded pile of clothes placed next to it before shutting it again. Then she put them on, checking in the mirror to make sure that she didn’t look terribly bad.
The clothes Jade had gotten her were a white button-up shirt and black shorts. The shorts barely even peeked out underneath the shirt’s hem, since it was so long on her. Yuu smiled a little as she realized that the shirt probably really was one of his uniform shirts. Due to the large size, it showed off more of her neck and shoulders than usual, revealing her collarbone if the two sides of the shirt's collar were pulled apart. It was far too many sizes big for her, but for sleepwear, it was extraordinarily comfortable.
She would refrain from adding that it smelled like Jade, too. When she inhaled, she could just barely make out the way the ocean's spray and how the earth smelled after it rained mixed together in such a way that her head almost spun. It made her feel strange things, shocking her into an odd awareness that somehow, she had gotten close enough to the Octavinelle trio to find all their scents almost comforting.
As she better dried her hair to keep from making her—well, Jade’s—shirt from getting wet, Yuu was taken away by how considerate the trio could be sometimes, while they were downright diabolical the next. If she had gone to sleep over at Heartslabuyl with Ace and Deuce, they would just throw their pillows at her the moment she said anything. And make her sleep on the floor. Compared to them, they were already much better hosts.
All three heads instantly looked up when they heard the door open for the second time. As it swung back, it revealed the Ramshackle prefect putting on her glasses once again before she stopped, feeling their eyes. She stared back as they stared at her, not really sure what she should do.
The three of them all seemed like they had been there a while, with Floyd sitting cross-legged on the ottoman, Azul in his desk chair, and Jade standing. Each of them had a certain but different glint in their eyes as they saw her. Floyd seemed excited in more ways than she'd like to count, a loopy grin breaking out on his face. Azul’s eyes widened slightly with what she would almost call surprise, the blue inside his irises swirling before he looked away. Jade just smiled, but something about it and the look in his eyes made her feel like she was prey that had been marked.
“Oh jeez, I did take a long time,” she chastised herself out loud. “Were you waiting for me? I’m sorry.”
“Not at all,” Azul answered, glancing back up at her for a moment before dropping his gaze again. She noticed that his face had become rather flushed with blue. “We just came back ourselves.”
He was wearing lavender colored pajamas, which Yuu would maybe even dare to say were made of silk if she could end up touching them. It almost made him continue to look formal even in such a casual situation. Yuu would have expected that Jade would have had a similar set of pajamas, but he instead had a white shirt with a large picture of mushrooms on the front and gray pants. She had never thought that he would wear something as informal as it was, and nearly laughed because she thought that it was adorable, even if it was Jade Leech she was calling that.
She must have been looking at him differently, because he smiled. "I like the mushrooms," she commented frankly. If she didn't think that it would take about five hours for him to tell her all about them, Yuu would even ask what species they were. Jade laughed, and she knew it was genuine when he brought a hand up to muffle the sound. It was different from all the times she had heard him laugh before. There was a melodic sound to it, just hidden in the waves of his voice. She had to say, she liked it.
"These were a gag gift from Floyd," he informed. "He didn't expect me to like them nearly as much as I do."
“Yeah, and you weren’t supposed to give me a lecture on what kind of mushrooms they were for three hours,” Floyd huffed. Just two off from what she had guessed, she thought with an amused snort. “I almost died of boredom.”
Floyd looked much more like Yuu, and not as dignified as both Jade and Azul still seemed. He had a black shirt and greenish-blue shorts with a pattern of little curled-up chibi eels on them. “Little Shrimpy’s hair’s down!” he exclaimed, beaming like a little kid as he perked up. “Didn’t think it’d look all that different from his normal thing, but it kinda does, right Jade?”
“Right, Floyd. It does look rather nice not pulled back,” Jade mused, and Yuu thought that she saw Azul nod slightly out of the corner of her eye. “Perhaps you should wear your hair like this more often.”
Her ears burned at the sudden compliment. Yuu ducked her head down to avoid showing it as she put her bag by the ottoman. “Thank you,” she muttered. “I really just put it back so that it doesn’t get in my eyes.”
Suddenly, Floyd pulled her closer by her accessible wrist, and she stumbled to not lose her balance. Yuu struggled to keep the burning in her ears from spreading to the rest of her face as she realized just how close she and Floyd were now, hardly even half an arms length away.
He just grinned at her, either unaware or unfazed about what he just did. “I wanna comb your hair, Shrimpy! It looks real fun to play with.” She blinked a couple of times, trying to get her brain to stop bluescreening.
“Um, okay,” she agreed, and she was surprised at how she really liked how his eyes lit up. “Do you have a comb, though? I didn’t bring one with me.”
“Mhm!” Out of nowhere, Floyd procured one in his hand, most likely due to magic. But as she studied it, she just looked from the ‘comb’ to the eel again.
“Floyd, that’s a fork.”
"Huh?" He wasn’t the only one to look at her with confusion when she said that. “You sure? ‘Cause this’s just like what was on display at the Atlantica Museum.”
“Yes, Floyd’s right,” Jade agreed, now intrigued. “It was what the mermaid princess used as a comb. We discussed this while we were there.” Yuu just shook her head, trying not to snicker.
“We don’t use those for our hair,” she told them, taking out her phone to find a picture. She purposefully moved back a little as Floyd lazily reached out, giving him a look that told him that the time he stole her phone earlier was the last.
After a quick search, Yuu went to the first picture that showed up. It had both an image of a brush and a comb. “Here,” she said, holding out her phone for them all to see. “This is what we use.”
She almost cackled as she watched the three of them lean in, their faces going from confusion to shock to confusion again. “Wait—” Azul stammered. “There aren’t just two separate items that look like that for eating and hairstyling?” he gestured to the fork in Floyd’s hand.
“That one looks the same!” the eel burst out, pointing to the picture of the comb. “Its shape's just a little different!”
Yuu explained the two of them more, noting the differences between a brush and a comb. “How fascinating,” Jade chimed as she finished. “You use one depending on if your hair is either wet or dry?” She nodded, and he hummed. “You humans are so peculiar about things.”
Azul looked mortified, and if she wasn't thankful for him letting her use his room, she would have giggled. “How could I have not known about that?” he despaired.
The prefect realized what this meant. “Hold on,” Yuu stopped herself, trying not to come to hasty conclusions as a laugh caught itself in her throat. “Are— Have you been using forks as combs all this time?”
None of them spoke. They just looked silently, sometimes at each other, sometimes at her. That chuckle moved even further up her throat.
She tried not to—she really did.
But the prefect cracked, snickering before she was full-blown laughing.
“Shriiimpy,” Floyd whined as she showed no signs of stopping, even after she tried many times. He resorted to squeezing, making her nearly fall to her knees as he pulled her closer. “Don’t make fun of us.”
“I’m not,” she insisted, though her nearly empty lungs said quite the opposite. “I promise. I just—”
The mental image of the three of them using forks as combs came into her head. Yuu doubled over, clamping a hand over her mouth to keep any more laughter from escaping. But her shoulders still shook every bit as violently as they would if she hadn’t, if not more.
Azul gave her an exasperated stare as she continued to suffocate. It was like she was underwater without one of his potions. “Yes, well, I’m just delighted that our shortcomings bring you such amusement,” he huffed, crossing his arms.
“It doesn’t,” she gasped, finally getting air in her body. “I promise. I’m not laughing at you.” While the housewarden did let out a hmph, he didn’t seem to be all that angry.
Yuu let out a shaky sigh, thinking that she was finally done being unable to breathe. “Sorry, that was just unexpected. You guys had made it sound like you knew what combs were back at the museum, so I assumed you used the ones that humans do.”
There was another thing to look up sometime in the future: what merfolk used for hair products.
“Anyway. Do you still want to comb my hair?” Yuu asked Floyd. “With a comb, not that,” she added as he lifted it with a playful grin, using a finger to lower the fork back down in response.
“Fine,” he relented. In another moment, one that looked almost exactly like the one in the picture appeared. It was white, curling into a soft arc. At the top where someone would hold it, it had been crafted to look like a shell resting on the top, using the loops and holes to expertly create the illusion.
Yuu just stared at the comb for a few seconds. “I still can’t believe you guys can do things like that,” she said in awe. It looked expertly crafted. Should she want to make something like that, it would take her years to get the skills to be able to. Yet they could do something like that in mere moments.
“The one that he just used was a rather simple spell,” Azul told her. “Most people in this school could cast it if they learned.”
Floyd nodded merrily as she shrugged. "Anything is incredible when you come from a place without magic,” Yuu responded. “Or beastmen. Or merfolk." She sighed as she realized the list went on for longer than she would like to voice. "Everything Twisted Wonderland has is nothing short of what people in my world would call fiction,” she simplified.
To let him comb her hair better, Yuu slid down to the floor, giving Jade a smile as he lowered as well, sitting across from each other. She thought that she would be saying goodbye to at least half her hair when Floyd started combing it, what with how roughly he had handled her in the past, but he was surprisingly gentle as he ran the comb through the strands. And unexpectedly good at knowing what to do, starting out at the ends of her hair before moving upwards.
It felt amazing. Really, she could just close her eyes and fall asleep then if she wanted to. She was almost considering it. “Your world sounds kinda boring, Little Shrimpy,” Floyd mused. She smiled softly, unsure if it should be as bittersweet as it felt.
“Honestly? Yeah, it is,” Yuu agreed. “Daily life’s a lot more safe since I don’t have to worry about wild spells controlling me or getting cursed by someone. But as far as I’ve seen, it doesn’t have people like you guys in it. And you make my days a lot more interesting, to say the least.” They also made them a lot more exhausting, but she would refrain from adding that.
But her world did have someone else in it. Many other someones. Her friends, her parents. Her brother. Her life. She would have shaken her head to forget about it, but she couldn’t while Floyd was combing her hair.
Instead, Yuu just sighed, closing her eyes before she could see how her words impacted the three of them. She made them wonder if she would ever want to create a new life, one where the three of them were in it.
“Shall we play a game, prefect?” Jade asked. “Floyd happened to bring a deck of cards along when we stopped at our dorm room.” Yuu perked up at that, opening her eyes again to watch as Azul swiped them off his desk before joining them on the ground on her right.
“Okay,” she agreed. “As long as I won’t have to make a deal to give you 100 years of servitude.” Jade just chuckled.
Azul seemed to give her a smug look as he shuffled the cards, a smirk appearing on his face as he did so effortlessly. Yuu was almost captivated by the sound of the cards and the way they flowed seamlessly together. It was incredible to watch.
“My, prefect, it seems that we should get you to help us draft contracts,” he mused. “Every time we offer you something, you come up with such creative payments.”
“I never know what you’re going to ask for in return,” Yuu replied. “May as well get the most outlandish requests out of the way before they’re said, right?”
Azul nodded. “You have the beginnings of a good business mind. We’ll have to keep sharpening it as an employee of the Lounge.” He stopped shuffling, satisfied that the cards had been mixed enough. Yuu was a little sad he had. She still wanted to watch how he did it. “What games do you know how to play?”
The prefect shrugged. “I know a few. Blackjack, Old Maid, Cheat. Go Fish.” She added that last one on purpose. Floyd giggled as Azul sighed. “Do they have different names here?”
“They’re the same,” Jade confirmed. She almost started laughing again as she pictured the three playing Go Fish under the sea.
“I’ll let you decide what we play, prefect,” Azul told her. She thought for a moment, realizing that against Jade Leech, someone whose mind worked in incredibly mysterious ways, and Azul Ashengrotto, a strategic thinker who did mental arithmetic for fun and was part of the Board Game Club, any high strategy game would be devastating for her.
But then again, it would be fun to try out.
“Let’s do Old Maid first,” Yuu suggested. “Maybe we can do Blackjack or something later, too.” Azul nodded, starting to deal out the cards.
“Do you want to play, Floyd?” he asked, glancing up before he either added a card to one of the existing piles or created a new one.
“Nah, I’m good. This’s fun enough.” The comb made another sweep through Yuu’s hair, and Floyd giggled a little. “Your hair’s so soft, Shrimpy,” he mused, and she felt him run his fingers through where he had just combed. “And shiny. It’s like one of Azul’s coins!”
She wasn't able to look over at the display case of them from her position, but she hummed anyway. The prefect couldn’t tell if it was because she made sure to keep her hair relatively detangled or if it was truly Floyd, but barely any pain from catching on snarls had happened yet. It was impressive.
Yuu picked up her cards as Azul finished dealing, looking over each of them. “I almost don’t want to ask, but will the loser have to do something?” She knew that she had walked right into a trap of her own making when both Jade and Azul had glints in their eyes. Curse her foolishness.
“That would certainly make the game more interesting,” Jade mused innocently, as though he hadn’t already made thousands of ideas before she even asked. “What do you think, Azul?”
He was already smirking. Yuu half wanted to take back what she said. “A sort of payment would be quite the fun addition,” he agreed. “I believe since you chose the game, prefect, and I shuffled, it would only be fair for Jade to make the first bet.”
Of course it was. Yuu felt even more of her energy drain away as she tried to ruminate over what she just got herself into.
“...Do we need to set ground rules on what they can be?” she asked hesitantly. With how interested in Ramshackle they had been not so long ago, Yuu was a little worried they would make another attempt at it with a bet.
“Don’t worry. We won’t ask of you what you can’t pay,” Jade reassured her, but it hardly did anything to relax the growing feeling of dread in her stomach.
"I'm letting you know right now that if you even mention Ramshackle, I will leave immediately," she warned. Even though it would be cold and she really didn’t want to go home. The moment she spoke those words, she instantly realized that no, she wouldn’t.
Azul just laughed that cursed laugh that made her heart jump and her stomach light. "Fair enough. I'll get you to agree to our proposal another time."
~
Yuu regretted everything.
She had no idea how she had thought that although there was the fact that Jade and Azul were Jade and Azul, maybe she could win against them. She had forgotten that no, she could not read them, and yes, they could read her as openly and plainly as a children’s book.
In a desperate attempt to figure out how they were untouchable, Yuu had thought that maybe it was the cards, and they were cheating as they dealt them out, but they continued to win even as she shuffled instead.
Floyd, for the most part, had stayed out of the games. After he had gotten bored of combing her hair, he joined the other three of them on the ground, but took the extra time to pull Yuu into his lap as he sat cross-legged. She had tried to squirm out for a few seconds, but it was obvious that he wouldn’t let her out of his bind, and she was too focused on the game to give him any more attention than she had.
To be honest, Yuu was half sure that he was somehow transmitting the cards she had in her hand to Jade’s mind as twins, and he was conversing with Azul on a wavelength she wasn’t privy to with her human mind. Because every single game they played, she lost.
As of now, she had had to do the following: tell an embarrassing story (Jade had been the one to propose that bet, and Yuu had to admit that she had wanted to hear what one—or both—of the other players would have to offer for that, but lost instead), give them all 10 Thaumarks (originally proposed by the prefect, since a little extra money never hurt, but ended up losing profits in return—she was getting suspicious at that point), and was now stuck on dish duty for a week at the Lounge (Azul had been the one to say that, which Floyd eagerly agreed with, overjoyed at not having to do any dishes should he get in trouble for a week—Yuu knew she had no hope around then).
“I think this is rigged,” she groaned as she lost, once again, while Jade smiled once he took the final card in her hand that wasn’t the Joker. “You all are way too good at this for me to be playing against.”
Floyd just giggled from where he now sat just a little ways away from her. He had decided to join in on this game, so he reluctantly had to let her go. But no surprise, it still didn’t make an impact on the outcome of the game. “You gotta pay up, Shrimpy!” he exclaimed. Yuu instantly felt her face burn hot as she gathered the cards together.
He had been the one to call the bet that time. And insufferable Floyd, he had declared that whoever the loser was had to kiss the rest of them. Jade had a sly smile on display, while Azul and Yuu’s glasses fogged just the slightest bit. She had no idea why she had agreed to it and no idea how Azul had agreed to it, but they had.
Now she had to pay her dues.
“Do I really have to?” she asked, dropping the last card in her hand onto the semi-messy stack in the middle of their four-person circle. Floyd nodded enthusiastically, and she almost glared at him when she saw just how excited for this he was.
“Are we really so revolting, prefect?” Jade replied. Then he smirked, flashing his razor-sharp teeth to make a small shiver run down her spine. “Or is this simply a matter of backing out of a deal?”
In any other situation, Yuu would have rolled her eyes. She knew the bait he was laying out, and any other day, any other trio, she would have just walked away. Yuu knew where her pride’s and ego’s lines were, and she would stick to them on the basis of being rational and smart.
But not tonight. Not with this trio. They had already blown far past those lines when she had to tell them about how she had sat in on a test being given to Class 2-B and hadn’t realized it until halfway through, despite waving at Ruggie when she walked in and getting a funny look from Trein.
A sudden spark of confidence overtook her. She got up from where she had been sitting with her legs folded on one side of her, practically crawling the barely two steps over to where Jade was. His eyes widened only by a miniscule amount, the extent to which he’d show his surprise as Yuu took his chin in her hand, turning his face to press her lips against his cheek.
When she moved away, she gave him a small smirk of her own. “Far be it for me to break a deal,” Yuu answered, accenting her words as she stroked the side of his jaw once with her index finger. Jade's skin was softer than she had thought. “Especially in the presence of such gentlemen.”
Yuu said the last word sarcastically, but Jade hardly seemed to mind. All he did was give her a smile. It was unlike the two he had given her just a few moments before, one gentle and one sinister. It reached his eyes, making some strange shock spark through them.
“What a brave little human you are,” he mused, taking a lock of hair and tucking it behind her ear. This was one of the first times she had felt his hands, not covered by gloves. They were cool, smooth. “I do wonder how far this fearlessness goes, little two legs.”
The prefect could almost feel herself being pulled closer to him, by some phantom enticement in his eyes, or in the ghostlike touch that still seemed to shock her heart even though he had barely brushed against her ear. He just had that unusual smile as her heart thudded in her ears, an uneven rhythm as he shocked it once again.
The prefect was just about to let herself be reeled in when a voice snapped her out of it.
“Jaaade, stop trying to steal Little Shrimpy,” Floyd whined. “He has to kiss all of us, not just you.” His brother only chuckled as Yuu leaned back again, taking her hand away from his face to fix her glasses.
“Yes, Floyd, I understand,” he complied, letting her move away. She still found it confusing and borderline unsettling just how much she lost sense of herself around these three. Especially Jade.
“Me next, me next!” Floyd demanded. Rolling her eyes a little at his silliness, Yuu moved closer to him, almost feeling like she would return his grin if not for the continuous burning of her ears.
The eel practically giggled when her fingers touched his face, almost moving on his own so that she could reach his cheek before she tilted his chin. When she kissed Floyd, a happy rumble came from his throat, causing his skin to vibrate and tickle her lips. It was binding, making her want to stay still just so that she could keep hearing it.
Her heartbeat was barely getting any stabler as Floyd bound his own spell to her heart. “I wanted you to kiss me here, Shrimpy,” he pouted as she pulled away, touching a finger to his own mouth.
Yuu grinned mischievously as she booped his nose, trying to hide the creeping of red on her face. “Never said where when you made the bet,” she chimed, making the merman frown even more. Then he grinned suddenly, getting an idea as his eyes flashed.
“We’ll just have to play again!” he exclaimed. “And I’ll say that Shrimpy has to kiss me on the lips no matter what.”
“Nice try,” she told him, already moving away in case he decided to squeeze her into agreeing. “I’m not playing any more cards with you guys tonight.” She wouldn't admit it, but she was a little sore that she had such a losing streak.
“Aw.” Yuu almost would have felt a little bad for him if he wasn’t the one to originally condemn her to this, as well as having the loopy smile on his face he did then. Even though he complained about it, he seemed fully content with his end of the deal.
When her eyes settled on Azul, Yuu thought that he practically turned to stone, stiffening even though he tried to appear suave. “Come now, prefect, you shouldn’t give up so easily,” he said, that signature business-loving smile on his face. “Why, I’d be happy to teach you my strategies. For the right price, of course.”
Because he was the one Yuu was sitting across from after Floyd took her original spot in the circle, she stood up, walking in front of Floyd and Jade before crouching next to Azul. “What price would that be?” she asked, resting her head on her right hand, the elbow propped on her knee as she gave her face a quizzical tilt.
He tried not to let it show. Yuu could see just the hint of Azul’s struggle, but his cheeks turned a touch of blue in the end anyways.
“Another night spent here sometime in the future. I’m loath to let my secrets leave Octavinelle waters, and explaining them will take a bit of time." He still had his smirk on his face, but there was a stutter or two in his words. “Of course, advertising our newest addition to the menu would be another condition.”
Yuu just smiled.
Neither she or Azul were quite sure when it happened, but sometime in their relationship, the deals he offered her had stopped being one-sided. His payments weren’t anything that she couldn’t afford. One time, it had even just been giving him the cheap pen she had been wanting to get rid of without throwing away. After that, the payments had been relatively steeper, since the twins wouldn’t ever let Azul get away without getting in a word or two about it. But it was nothing like their first—completely fueled by resentment and profits.
Even though everyone advised her against it, sometime when she knew him, she had started to enjoy striking up bargains with Azul.
“It’s a deal,” she said, taking his face in her hand as she signed her signature with a kiss. She could practically feel how his face heated up underneath her lips, and she grinned inwardly as Azul tensed up. It was pretty cute, she heard a small voice chime from somewhere inside her.
When she moved her face back, he cleared his throat, fixing his now-crooked glasses. But when she started to pull away, she didn’t expect him to grab back her hand as it left his face, kissing the back of it as his cheeks combusted. As she registered the touch, hers erupted into flames as well.
Floyd, who had been snickering the entire time she was next to Azul, got a little quieter as the sleeve fell lower on her arm. She glanced over at him to find the reason, only to see him looking intently at her. “What’s that, Shrimpy?” he asked, scooting closer. She gave him a confused look before following his gaze to her wrist.
It was her left hand. The scar that looked like a bracelet of thorns was in view.
“Oh, this,” she chimed, deciding that since they had seen it, she could just roll up the sleeve to reveal the rest of it. Besides, it wasn’t like she was hiding anything. At least, not this. “I got this when I had to fight Riddle,” Yuu told them, the entire spiral of thorns that went up from her wrist to her elbow now on display as her hand stayed in Azul’s. “I went up and punched him in the face, but one of his attacks caught me.”
Floyd burst out laughing when she explained the scar. “You punched Goldfishie?” he exclaimed. “Man, you really do have guts! Now I wanna see that!”
“Hm.” Jade had moved closer as well, waving a finger to use magic as the deck of cards floated up to rest on the desk once again. “How interesting.”
The prefect flinched slightly as she felt something on her skin, circling around her wrist. When she looked away from the twins, she saw that Azul had lifted his other hand, gently tracing the scar’s path on her skin with a finger. He followed the upward spiral, only the tips of the imprinted thorns visible as he grazed over the curling line.
“Did it hurt much when it happened?” he asked softly, looking up in a way she would almost call timidly as he reached the end of its trail. It made her heart pound just the slightest bit faster.
She shook her head. “Not for that long. Cater helped me mostly heal it before I bled all over the rose gardens.” She smiled a little as he followed the path back down her arm, unsure what emotion she should hold in it. “Injuries I get from magic don’t completely heal, though.”
Yuu hadn’t gotten many from magic. To be perfectly honest, if wounds she got from magic alone didn’t ever heal completely, then she would be covered in little cuts and burns from any and all of the fights Grim and her other friends pulled her into. But she hadn’t wanted to say overblots, especially when one who had gone through such a crisis was in the room with them.
“I want a cool scar like that,” Floyd mused, almost holding a little tone of jealousy. “You wanna give me one, Little Shrimpy?”
Yuu laughed a little. “I don’t think I could even if I tried, Floyd. You Octavinelle men are something else." She didn’t add that she was sure if she did, the other two—and the one she had harmed—would all seek revenge tenfold. "Besides, I don’t want to hurt any of you.”
Azul’s tracing stopped as he reached the end of the trail once again. Yuu stood, pulling him up with her by their still joined hand. The Leech twins got up as well, all of them deciding silently that the floor was too hard to keep sitting on any longer.
"So you don't find us revolting," he said, a pinch of teasing in his voice. While he had let the hand that had been tracing drop, he didn’t pull away the other. The way that he held her hand changed slightly. It was gentler, more relaxed.
"I don't," she answered honestly. "I find you somewhat terrifying and completely shady." She had said it with almost too much affection and warmth for someone to have. Nothing that was said in a way like that could ever be an insult. They all knew it.
"Only somewhat terrifying?" Jade repeated, a gleam in his eyes. "My, how we've softened. Floyd, we'll have to step up our game."
"Guess I'll have to spook 'ya more often, Shrimpy," he leered, but something about his smirk didn't make it as sinister as he wanted it to be.
Yuu just smiled, wondering how she had gotten far enough into the depths to see past whatever terrifying facades they put up. There were walls around these three, far too tall for anyone to ever hope of scaling, and a moat of engulfing shadows to cross before someone even made it to those. But somehow, for some reason, she hadn't listened to anyone when they warned her not to try it.
And the prefect started to swim, little by little.
She wondered how much progress she had made. She wondered if they even knew how close she was now. Yuu could feel how the air between them was different, the strange quiet almost beckoning her to ask, for them to answer. Jade's Shock The Heart wouldn’t be needed—anything that they said now would be truthful. It was a silent promise that they said to each other, whispered in some language that could never be spoken aloud. The prefect opened her mouth to do so.
Then a strand of hair fell into Yuu’s eyes, shattering the spell that had been cast on them in that moment. “I can’t sleep with my hair like this,” she muttered, irritably blowing it out of her face. It made her strangely upset that she hadn’t gotten the chance to ask them.
When her hand slipped out of Azul's to get something to do so, his fingers twitched as they had nothing to hold onto anymore. She immediately had an impulse to grab it back, and her mind hissed at her when she didn’t act on it. Immediately after it was too late, she wished she had.
As she crouched next to her bag, fishing out the hairtie she had in there, she didn’t see the looks that crossed any of their faces at her words for the second time that night. All three of them shared one common core at the center of their expressions, and while it was still rather unclear, the muddy uncertainty was getting unblurred little by little.
Even though it had yet to fully come into focus, it was easy for them all to see that she had already crossed the terrible moat of darkness. Yuu had gone straight to climbing up the mountainous barriers once she reached the other side, and they were rather curious to see what would happen if she scaled them.
The prefect's hands bumped against one of the three identical boxes in her bag when she took out the hairtie. She looked at it for a while longer as she gathered all her hair to begin plaiting, sighing a little as she did. They were gifts for each of the three with her that she had been carrying around for the right moment to give, but hadn’t found yet. Before she stood, she tried to hide them a little better, closing the bag so that they wouldn't be seen.
Maybe she’d give them to the three of them sometime soon.
Not yet, though. She straightened, going through the motions of braiding her hair rather quickly. Before long, it was done, and she tied it off.
“Didja get that here, too?” Floyd asked, touching her right ear. There was a noticeable notch just underneath where the top of her ear stopped curving, a small, jagged line running by where her head and ear met.
Yuu nodded as they joined the other two on Azul’s bed. He sat on the foot of it, facing her as she sat across from him. Jade was on her left, and Floyd joined them on her right. It was the same circle they had had on the ground, she thought with some amusement.
“That was when I fought Leona,” she explained, sliding her braid off her shoulder for it to rest on her back. “I pulled his tail hard and slapped him when he did that.”
More than one of them snickered.
Floyd moved closer to her as she tucked a small hair that didn't quite make it into the braid behind her ear. “Serves him right for messin’ with Shrimpy,” he muttered, and Yuu realized just how close his voice was to her. “Maybe I’ll squeeze ‘im for that.”
She frowned a little, glancing over at him. “It wasn’t his fault,” she said, freezing when she felt his breath on her ear. Goosebumps started prickling up on her skin. “Besides, I think he got all the payback necessary at the Spelldrive tournament.”
"Mmn." The sound alone filled her head, echoing even after it stopped. She was about to picture what state Leona was in when she finally woke up in the infirmary, but any thought unrelated to the three in front of her was dragged right back where it came when her breath hitched.
Floyd was biting her ear.
It was softer than what she had experienced a while ago, when he was moody and decided that clamping down on her shoulder was a good way to show it and relieve stress at the same time. This was different. He was more just nibbling, lazily pressing her ear between the two rows of sharp teeth. But even that was making her heartbeat pound in her head, each beat making it hotter.
"Floyd," Yuu called softly, not sure where she wanted to go with it. He let out a low hum, making her tense up as she felt his lips vibrate on her skin.
"'M not biting," he grumbled, thinking that she was about to remind him of how she had made him promise he would only bite her after she said he could—which would never happen. She would have rolled her eyes at him had her pulse not been steadily quickening.
Instead, she tried to take a deep breath to calm down, only to be met by Floyd's scent. It was fishy, but not in a bad way. It was the way the ocean smells on a harbor, telling her of the wonders that lay just beyond the waves. She was tempted to dive in as it playfully wafted through her nose, making her head spin slightly.
Yuu looked up to see if either Jade or Azul would reprimand Floyd, but one looked on with an almost envious look while his twin was coming closer. She didn't know what to make of the dark look in Jade's multicolored eyes.
Floyd's tongue flicked across her skin, and she nearly gasped.
“This I remember,” Jade mused, brushing his fingertips over the two dots of a snake’s fangs close to her left temple. The touch was so faint that she hardly felt it, sending tingles from where he had ghosted over her.
Yuu would have nodded, but decided against any head movements when Floyd was toying with the idea of making her into his bedtime snack and Jade looked like he was wanting to do the same with the glint in his eyes. Her heart raced, torn between fear and something else, and she decided on the latter when Floyd licked her again.
The prefect also decided that looking anywhere besides her hands in her lap was dangerous. Especially when Jade and Floyd could make a new scar for her right there and then if they wanted to. Instead, Floyd seemed content with making her want to squirm. Her face heated up as she finally shifted, hearing a soft laugh escape him.
“Jamil,” she confirmed, deciding that she wouldn’t have to explain it to any of them since they were all present when it happened. She had hit him in the gut just before one of the serpentine ends of his hair lashed out and struck her with its teeth. The only reaction she had given it was a glare as she tugged the snake’s fangs right back out of her skin and bopped it on the head.
Jade hummed softly, a smile torn between approval of her strength and ire at himself for not preventing the scar in the first place dancing on his lips. “How brave you were then, little two legs,” Jade admired. Yuu wasn’t sure if it was as a friend would, or as a person would compliment finely-made meal before taking a bite. His voice was low and quiet though nothing but in control, and it made a shiver run through her.
As suddenly as he had been slow, Jade’s lips brushed over the two scars. Heat bloomed from where he touched, making her already combusting brain feel like it was going to explode. “None of us could stop singing your praises after that,” he murmured into her other ear. “Especially Azul.”
Once he said the housewarden’s name, all three of them looked back at where even he had started to approach, two identical smirks on the Leech twins’ faces. Azul was dusted with blue, just as Yuu definitely was with her own shade of red. Especially with how much she felt like she wanted to dive into the sea around them just to cool off.
He was completely nervous to reach out, glancing between Yuu and anywhere else. “It’s okay,” she said, deciding that if two people were already inside her personal space, what harm could a third do? Besides, the touch was hardly unwanted. She had no idea what to think or feel when her brain was turning to mush and her pulse was the only thing besides the three of them she could concentrate on.
The prefect’s body hummed where her scars were, blossoming with heat and tingling with the strange giddiness only an exhausted mind would let it do. Carefully, slowly, Azul’s hand graced her skin just below her neck, almost as though she would spook if he moved even a fraction of an inch wrong. Though Yuu wasn’t too sure if that was truly to keep her from shying away or him from losing his nerve.
When Azul paused, Floyd’s nibbling also ceased, head resting on her shoulder almost gentle, and Jade put his cheek on the top of her head in a delicate touch. It was far more endearing than she thought they could be, their eyes tracking every movement as the two of them watched on in silence. The Leech twins were being surprisingly soft in contrast to their teasing just moments before.
Azul’s fingers nearly seemed to shake as he parted the two sides of the shirt where the top button had been left undone, revealing Yuu’s clavicle and the three scars on it. Three marks made from a trident as it pierced through skin and possibly even bone.
Three hearts equally distanced from each other.
She hated the look on his face as he saw them, his eyes widening as he realized almost instantly what they were while a jolt of sorrow rushed through her.
“Did I…?” Azul’s voice had the slightest warble to it. He didn’t finish his question, staring at the scars he made. None of them needed him to in order to know what he was asking.
When he looked up, Yuu felt her heart wrench as she saw the immense look of guilt on his face, the terrible storm raging in his eyes. She almost thought that he was going to burst into tears if she said yes.
She couldn't give him a blunt answer. "I’ve never blamed you,” she said softly. “I don’t hate you for what happened.”
Azul’s face fell as she watched, his eyes lowering back to the scars on her collar as they almost seemed to widen and squeeze shut at the same time. “Was it painful?” he asked. She almost wanted to lie to him and say it wasn’t, even though she could already see the two seas of his eyes darkening even more as he studied them. With how much he knew, how intelligent his mind was, he had to at least realize how deep the trident had cut, even if she wanted to hide it from him.
Yuu didn’t want to breathe. She was worried it would blow too heavy a storm into the rings of an ocean he had for eyes. “It wasn’t as terrible as I thought getting stabbed would be," she murmured.
Even though she had still wanted to fall over and collapse when it happened. Even though she had screamed, the sound caught in her throat terribly. Even though the three points of the trident had been far worse than Riddle's thorns and Leona's claws and Jamil's venom-laced fangs.
But her words were true. And she wasn’t going to make Azul feel any worse than he did now by telling him the full extent of it.
He placed a finger over each of the marks, almost as if he could make them disappear that way. Instead of sending fire like Jade and Floyd did, or like the trident had sent in its icy-hot burn, his touch cooled her. As if water had pooled over her chest, gently soothing the skin in its embrace.
“Leona healed me pretty soon after it happened,” she consoled, feeling how his touch started to tremble. "It didn't hurt for long."
Azul didn’t know if he should pull back his fingers as though Yuu’s scars burned them or if he should leave them there. He didn't know if he wanted to look at them, a permanent reminder of the horror he had been.
What he did know was that he didn’t want the three hearts to be there in the first place. A human shouldn’t have three. She should only have the one that was safely tucked away in her chest.
He had done this. He had hurt her. He didn’t know if Yuu was repulsed by his very presence or not. He almost hoped that she was, even though it would make him want to return to his octopus pot and never emerge again. It would be a fair payment for the damage he had done.
Azul was a monster.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, the edge in his voice making her heart crack. "I'm so sorry."
Yuu took his other hand in hers. He didn’t know if he should pull away or not. “That wasn’t you." Azul took in a shaky breath, forgetting that he had to breathe to survive.
"I can't even remember it." Azul's hand stayed limp in hers as she stroked the back with her thumb. "It's horrible. I don't—" his voice cracked, ripping Yuu apart more than she thought it would. "I didn't know I did this." She didn't make a sound, keeping her hold on Azul gentle in case he did want to pull away.
"How can you still stand me?" he asked. He was hardly audible. He was scared to hear what she said.
If she answered that she couldn't, that she loathed him, Azul wasn't sure if he could hear it without breaking. Even though he should for what he had done.
"Because I know that the real you wouldn't do that." Azul's eyes met hers, strangely comforted by the look in the prefect’s gaze. "You were breaking," she whispered, holding his hand a little tighter as she remembered it, "and I'm just glad that we could keep you together before you shattered."
She didn't know what she would have done if they had failed in bringing him back. Before, when they had first met, it wouldn't have hurt her as much. Azul, Jade, and Floyd had still practically been strangers to her. But now, when they were someones that Yuu couldn't think about not seeing practically every day, she couldn't begin to fathom how quickly she would have fractured and crumbled herself.
Azul had no idea how she did it, but Yuu even smiled at him. It was genuine. "Besides, I slapped you in the face. We’re even.”
He made a sound that she was certain was meant to be a hum, but sounded like a strangled cry instead. “So that’s the reason my cheek stung for a week afterwards.” It was well deserved, he thought bitterly.
Floyd hummed, and this time it sounded like it. It tickled Yuu's shoulder as he spoke. “Shrimpy knocked you out cold,” he said, a laugh weaved into his voice. “It was cool to watch.”
“He’s certainly much stronger than I first thought him to be,” Jade mused. Yuu didn't know who it was to. “I can’t tell if it’s fearlessness or foolishness that makes him keep coming back to us.”
She noticed a small bead of black pooling at the corner of Azul’s mouth as he was quiet. Slowly, he moved one finger away from the mark it was covering, still staring at it with eyes as turbulent as the ocean’s waves in a storm.
A human should only have one heart.
“We’re the farthest thing from even,” he muttered, shaking his head slightly. “I— I hurt you.” Yuu gave the hand she held in her grasp a squeeze, and she could tell that he had no idea what to do with it. He didn’t know if he should pull away or cling to that hand.
He badly wanted to do both.
“Azul.” She saw the onyx bead become larger. Yuu only realized that it was ink as she brushed it away with her thumb, now stained black, too. “Everything turned out okay in the end," she said, hoping that he believed her. "I’m fine with getting a little roughed up if that means you’d still be alive.”
She kept her hand there, cupping his cheek as though he were glass that would shatter if she didn't. Yuu felt how he almost unwillingly leaned into her hand, his eyes closing only by the slightest bit as they never left her heart. At another time, in another place, she would marvel over just how fascinating Azul Ashengrotto was.
But that time and place was not now. Now when he was like this, so close to cracking that Yuu was worried he would break again.
“We could make a deal to remove the scars.” Azul offered it quietly. She wouldn't have heard it if she wasn't so focused on him. “I wouldn’t ask you for anything. I wouldn’t hold it against you, either.” He slowly moved the finger covering the left scar to the center, where the three that had been hiding them were only covering one heart now.
Azul supposed that a prefect like her had two hearts, for all the things she felt with them.
Yuu only gave him a soft smile. “That’s okay. I like the scars.”
He practically gaped at her as she said that, glancing away from her hearts. “They remind me how strong you had to be to overcome your overblot," she continued. "And I would be lying if I said I hadn’t been wanting some scars for a while. I can diss Ace for trying to be cool with these.”
Azul was quiet for a while. She could see just how intently he thought, how carefully he poured over each and every word running through his head. Then, finally, he came to a conclusion. Yuu felt Azul’s hand have a tighter grip on hers as he made up his mind.
He wanted to cling to her. He didn’t want to let go.
“Thank you,” he said, for a thousand different reasons. There wasn’t any one in particular he wanted to voice just then.
"I'm glad I could help." There was something different in Azul's eyes, and she supposed that there probably was something new in hers as well as she squeezed his hand back. "You're someone I think deserves a little world of your own for all the things you've accomplished."
She felt a spark of something come to life in her chest as Azul's eyes calmed, even having a small gleam thanks to her words. “You really don’t have to butter me up so much, prefect.”
"It's nothing that isn't true."
Azul sighed softly as he let his fingers slip down just enough to reveal the last of the three marks. “If, for whatever reason, you change your mind, that deal is always on the table,” he told her.
Yuu just smiled. “I won’t. But thank you, anyway.”
She had three hearts. The amount an octopus had, a creature that had as many emotions as it was intelligent.
Azul looked at them for a bit longer, thinking over the countless things in his head before the two oceans cast their gaze at Yuu. She felt her chest warm a little as he smiled weakly.
It would still take a long time for Azul to be able to face those scars and not feel a pang of guilt every time he did. But it was a start.
The four of them stayed like that for a long time, each one a nameless comfort for the other to have as they stood firm against the swaying of the tides.
~
She reluctantly took her hand away from Azul’s cheek as she yawned, covering her mouth before either Leech saw it. Whenever she yawned near them, a sort of mad glint came into their eyes, and she would rather not see that just a few minutes before what she hoped was bedtime.
“You tired, Shrimpy?” Floyd asked as she rubbed her eye underneath her glasses. Yuu nodded.
“We’re probably the only ones still awake on campus.”
Azul scoffed, some of his confidence restored from earlier. She was glad it was. “Hilarious. I’d bet a few good Thaumarks that Idia is still up at this hour, gaming away on that one he plays nonstop.”
If it wasn’t as late and Yuu wasn't trying as hard to keep her eyes from closing, she would’ve asked him who Idia was. Instead, the twins somehow let her up out of their hold on her and Azul let her hand slip away after one last squeeze as she grabbed her glasses case out of her bag.
“How are we going to do this?” she asked.
Yuu’s question was met with a nonverbal answer. The four of them began to move seamlessly, taking turns using the bathroom to brush their teeth before getting the last things ready. Floyd, being insufferable, wouldn’t stop pestering Yuu, and as a result, she ended up brushing his teeth for him. Then Jade wouldn’t stop making fake sniffles over how unfair it was that she had brushed Floyd’s teeth and not his, so she was forced to brush his, too.
Azul and Yuu put their respective glasses cases on the free area of the safe, both disarmed of their spectacles before climbing into bed where Floyd was already waiting. He took up about the same amount of space Azul and Yuu did combined, and it was a wonder how Jade joined them comfortably after he came back from turning off the light.
Their final sleeping position wasn’t bad though. Azul and Yuu were between Floyd and Jade, the former on Azul’s right and latter on Yuu’s left. After a little bit of adjusting, it was obvious that they weren’t going to be able to fit with all four of them lying flat on their backs, and tried to compromise instead.
Floyd had an arm draped lazily over Azul, practically framing the housewarden as they both slept on their same side, hooking a long leg over his. Yuu had Azul in what both of them would call a friendly hug instead of what it actually was as he became wrapped in her arms, one that he returned back with a shy hand on her side. Jade almost seemed to mirror Floyd, though he was much more polite about it, using his own legroom and keeping his hand at a respectful location on her waist.
“This is comfy,” Yuu muttered, half sarcastic and half serious. In the darkness of the room, she heard Floyd’s giggle just barely away from her.
“Are you content with this, prefect?” Jade asked. Even though she could occasionally feel his exhale on the back of her head, she hadn’t realized that his voice would be so close to her ear. “If not, we can always readjust.”
His hand hadn’t moved, but she could practically feel him pulling her towards him in a phantasmal way. “This is fine,” she told him, a little worried to find out what he meant by that. “Are you okay, Azul?”
“Yes.” His answer came back quickly. Azul was incredibly thankful for the darkness of the night, so that none of them could see just how hot his face was. He thought it would practically start glowing if it was any more flushed. He had not a clue how it had come to this, but being in the prefect’s arms was far too comforting than he would admit to even himself.
“I’m good, too,” Floyd said before Yuu could ask him. “This’s great. I get to squeeze you all night, Azul!”
“Do that, Floyd, and I’ll change Yuu’s dishwashing penalty to yours,” he warned. The eel just made a hum Yuu knew came with his signature ‘I’m not listening to you’ grin.
She smiled as she closed her eyes, snuggling deeper into one of Azul’s pillows. Octavinelle definitely still scared the daylights out of her from time to time—especially when she cracked an eye open a few minutes later and was fairly certain those two glowing orbs were Floyd’s eyes staring into her soul—but she felt herself relaxing in the embrace of an octopus and two eels, little by little.
When she finally fell asleep, it was the best she had ever slept for a long time.
~
Yuu didn’t want to wake up. But when she did, she was the most comfortable in her life she had ever been.
She never wanted to sleep in one of Ramshackle's dusty beds ever again after getting to sleep in Azul’s.
It was strange for the first few moments she was getting her brain to start plugging itself back in, because she had no idea why Azul was in her arms and why she was in Jade’s, or why Floyd’s arm was draped over both her and Azul’s thighs.
But then she remembered. And she smiled a little, her face warming as the housewarden stirred, snuggling closer to her as he dreamt. At this point, he was using Yuu more as a pillow than one of the ones underneath his head, his cheek pressed against where he could hear her heartbeat. It made her think that Azul was a lot more darling than he wanted to seem.
There were too many things she felt for these mermen.
Yuu was pretty sure that she was the first one up. Jade’s breathing was still even, and if she was quiet enough, she was almost sure that Floyd was snoring just the softest bit. She held in her laugh at that.
Azul’s room was relatively lit now, thanks to the sun that had risen beyond their reach from the depths of the Octavinelle sea. She could see each of the mermen’s faces when she looked over at them, though she had to be quite careful with Jade. She was pretty sure that even a single blink she took wrong would wake him up, and honestly, it was crazy to think that Jade Leech actually slept.
For a good while, she had really started to believe that maybe he got energy from the sun or something else, like a leaf and photosynthesis. But there he was, eyes closed and possibly even dreaming as he lay there. He looked more peaceful than she ever thought he could.
Even if she wanted to get up, there was no hope in doing so without waking up the other three of them. So Yuu somehow got even more comfortable than she already was, bringing her hand up to gently play with a few locks of Azul’s hair. Her eyes turned up, looking at the glass ceiling above them as she studied the deep blue.
That night, she had an odd dream. Yuu was trying to not think about it, but it was hard not to when she was surrounded by the three people inside it and she didn’t want to use more than the sliver of her brain that was functioning then to recall other things she could think about.
Inside her dream, the four of them had visited a beach, combing through the sand for shells. With her luck, Yuu had found none that merited any praise, even when the sun began to set over the water, though she had found more than a few pieces of pretty seaglass. But the rest of them had beautiful shells, some of which she wasn't sure were even possible to find outside of staged photos.
She was surprised when they brought together their best ones and made them into a necklace, and Floyd put it around her neck before she could even stop him. All four of them had stayed even after the sun departed, watching as the stars began to twinkle like little gems in the sky’s sea while the ocean that spread out before them lapped at their ankles.
Yuu wasn’t quite sure how it had happened anymore, since after waking up the details were becoming blurry, but one thing led to another, and she was kissing the three of them again.
Except this time, it wasn’t just on the cheek.
When her mind began to replay that, Yuu instantly shoved it out of her thoughts. That was too weird to remember, especially when that was fake and the three in front of her were real.
Although, if it happened, if… how would they respond?
Before her definitely not lovesick brain continued to dive deeper into the what-ifs and scenarios her overthinking mind was always privy to, whether wanted or not, a sharp-tooth yawn caught her attention.
Floyd hummed, still half-asleep as he cracked open an eye. “‘S that you, Shrimpy?” he asked. “Or am I still dreamin’? ‘Prolly not, since you were a real shrimp in my dream.”
“Good morning,” she said softly with a humored smile, not wanting to wake the two who were still asleep. “I was a shrimp?”
Her heart lurched when the delirious grin on Floyd’s face appeared. “You were cleaning my teeth all nice and gentle like last night,” he told her. “It felt great.”
Yuu decided to take that as a compliment instead of whatever else it could be. “That sounds like a fun dream,” she said. Floyd nodded.
“Next time we do this, you’re coming over here and sleepin’ with me.” His grin widened as his eyes closed again, sighing a little. “Then I can squeeze you whenever I wanna.”
She chuckled a humming laugh at that. “We’ll see.”
Jade stirred this time, all the noise waking him up. Yuu felt a little guilty, before realizing that he was bound to wake up sooner or later after Floyd had. The two of them had a connection as twins that let them know things about each other she wasn't sure could even be possible until he met them.
He inhaled deeply, the waking breath everyone took, and Yuu felt his hand on her waist shift. It had changed someway through the night, making it so that he had held her closer than he had when the night began. “There will be a next time, won’t there?” he reminded himself softly, remembering the deal that Yuu and Azul had made only a few hours ago.
"Sorry for waking you," she said, and he hummed. He didn’t sound as sleepy as Floyd did, but there was an obvious sluggishness to his voice and movements. Especially as her skin felt him exhale through his nose when his head moved closer to the place her shoulder and neck met.
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep so quickly,” Jade murmured, quiet enough that Yuu wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or her. “Something about your presence disarmed me though, despite my best attempts to avoid it.” Something ghosted the tip of her shoulder, and Yuu almost thought it was Jade’s lips. “I wonder what it could be.”
Knowing him, he already knew exactly what it was. But he loved toying with his favorite human. Maybe she would indulge him just a little and play coy.
Azul made a small sound that was nothing short of adorable, the hand on Yuu’s shirt clutching a little tighter as he woke. He didn’t want to let go of the embrace just yet. Neither did the rest of them, if their unwillingness to rise from the bed was any indication.
“What time is it?” he muttered, though his voice was muffled as he kept from opening his eyes. He was still almost completely held by sleep’s lulling embrace, and nearly returned to it as he exhaled.
After a little coaxing, Yuu got Jade to hand her her phone from where it had been next to her glasses case. Her eyes squinted as she pressed the power button, reading the numbers as they focused in her vision.
“Ten thirty-three,” she read. They had missed breakfast.
Azul groaned. “I have to get up,” he lamented. “There are invoices I need to look over.”
None of them made a move to start untangling themselves. “Such a diligent student,” Yuu praised, running her fingers through Azul’s hair one last time in an attempt to make him stay for a little longer.
He said nothing, but the hand holding her shirt gripped just a bit tighter. “Maybe just a few more minutes,” he finally caved. Yuu smiled triumphantly.
“Of course, Mr. Ashengrotto,” she cooed, knowing that a few minutes would be much more than a few. He let out another small noise in retort.
Knowing that he would’ve whined about her lack of attention given to him if she hadn’t, Yuu reached over and gently tousled Floyd’s hair. He practically purred as she did, tucking the longer gray strands behind his ear. Not wanting Jade to feel left out, she let one hand slide down to where his was, softly lacing her fingers between his. Her heart skipped a beat when she felt him flex his hand for just a moment, only for him to properly seal hers in a gentle fist.
“I will blame you if I get no work done,” Azul warned. She just hummed.
The more feral eel gently chomped on her finger as she moved her hand back, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. “And I will take full responsibility and help you finish it.” Azul grumbled, voice muffled. He muttered a string of words she brushed off, too quiet for her to really hear, until she snagged something that caught her attention.
“Angelfish?” Yuu repeated, and she amusedly watched his almost-closed eyes widen again as his face warmed. “Was that what you called me?”
“Nothing,” Azul said quickly. “I didn’t mean to say that.” The prefect just breathed out an airy laugh, watching as he struggled to brush off his own words.
“It’s fine,” she told him, smiling as he let out a less-than-subtle sigh at her response. “Call me whatever you want. I like that, though. I think it’s cute.”
One of the Leech twins snickered. It was fair game to bet for either. “His ears’re all flushed,” Floyd teased, squeezing the tip of one of Azul’s ears between two fingers before the housewarden smacked his hand away.
“I’m going to alter the clauses of the NDA you signed so that you can’t say things like that again.” Floyd and Jade both laughed this time, and Yuu couldn’t help but smile. How strange it was, for her to see things happening between the three of them that others wouldn’t ever think could. She just thought that they were three friends, brothers, even, teasing each other about things any normal college student would.
Would there be a future where she was with them again, where they would wake up on another morning like this?
She nearly groaned just as Azul had when she saw that her idiots had texted her. “Grim's wondering where I am,” she sighed, reading over the messages.
“He can’t take Shrimpy back yet,” Floyd pouted. His brother hummed, either too far back asleep or not wanting to bother enough with a worded agreement. Yuu couldn’t blame him—it was too comfortable to use any braincells. If Jade was anyone else, Yuu would have called what he did burying his face in the crook of her neck after he made the sound. She hummed, giving his encaged fingers a small squeeze of reassurance.
She texted them with the one hand she still had. “That’s what I’m saying.” It was slow, and there were more than a few typos, but it was still sent.
[Deuce]:
Where are you? Are you okay?
Should we get Riddle to let us storm Octavinelle to find you?
[You]:
Im ojk/ Stilknin bef w/ them
[Menace 1]:
stop being soft towards three fish
they literally tried to murder us
[You]:
:)
[Deuce]:
I feel like we should tell you that Grim broke a ton of rules yesterday
[Menace 1]:
riddles mad af lmao
[Deuce]:
You broke those rules too, Ace
[You]:
:(
Slepeing agin
Gnight
That was not good. Yuu knew that she was going to be in for a world of hurt later when Riddle lectured her about Grim’s terrible manners. Maybe she could get Floyd to distract him so that he forgot about it.
Now wasn’t the time to think about those things, she decided. Yuu just let her phone drop underneath a pillow as she turned off the screen, closing her eyes again as she enjoyed her time under the sea.
~
The ‘few more minutes’ Azul had agreed to stay in bed for turned into another half-hour. By the time all four of them finally agreed that it was too late to keep lounging in bed—though they knew that it was never too late when it was with all of them—it was 11:08.
Yuu was lazy and didn’t want to have to deal with all of the parts of her school uniform, so she just replaced the shorts with her uniform slacks, keeping Jade’s shirt on instead of changing back into her own. She took out the braid she had slept in and donned her regular hairstyle, and taught Azul how to braid hair when she caught him staring at her a few too many times than he’d like her to have noticed.
Jade’s eyes glinted when he saw that she had stayed in his clothes, and told her to not worry at all when she promised him she’d return it washed. The Octavinelle students themselves got dressed in their dorm uniforms, though Floyd had been eager to wrap his scarf around her shoulders, and she had swiped Azul’s fedora before he even tried to put up a fight against it.
Since they had missed breakfast and Floyd was threatening to eat Azul if he didn’t get food soon, they decided to make a humble meal in Octavinelle. Jade had taken to the kitchen before any of them could speak, and although they had all insisted Yuu do nothing to help since she was a guest, she stayed right at the Leech’s side while they cooked.
Honestly, that made both Azul and Floyd sigh with relief. She could ensure that they didn’t become victims of another secret mushroom-feeding.
Little did they know, all she had done was ensure that whatever Jade put it wasn’t going to give them any weird side effects. Yuu turned a blind eye when she caught a glimpse of a sliced fungi going into the pan, and humored him when he swore that she must be mistaken when she slyly asked about it.
Jade was pleasantly surprised to find his new favorite cooking partner in the prefect.
When they ate, Yuu bore witness to Azul in his natural habitat. Even during breakfast, he was already scheming, planning up how he could make the Mostro Lounge’s sales increase this week. She chimed in a couple of times, and although her ideas were hardly as wonderful as Azul’s, she was always met with a fix of his glasses and a stutter in his next sentence.
After all of them had finished their food, Yuu washed the dishes, figuring that since she had lost all the bets last night, she had best get started on her punishment. It was a surprise when Floyd joined her, and it completely turned into a game when they started to blow bubbles in the other’s face. Azul gave them a disapproving look when they emerged from the kitchen, looking fully like two creatures from the depths, but they just laughed at each other as Yuu combed out the last couple suds from Floyd’s hair and he wiped the bubbles off her cheek.
Finally, they went slowly as Yuu gathered all of her things, accompanying her as they walked to the Octavinelle mirror. Floyd made one more attempt for her phone as she texted Ace and Deuce she was on her way back, but she dodged him, dropping it into her bag before he could take it.
As a retort, she was carried like a sack of potatoes for a few minutes, slung over his shoulder. Though she looked at Azul and Jade for help, the former just reminded him to be gentle with her while his brother smiled. She huffed, but didn’t really try to get down until she realized that Floyd’s longer legs made them move faster.
They were at the mirror now. Yuu didn’t want to take the couple of steps forward in order to go through it. “Well,” she said, looking back at the three of them as she grinned. “Thanks for not murdering me.”
“Don’t be silly, prefect,” Jade smiled, bringing a hand to his chest. “That isn’t until the fifth time.” She would have laughed if she knew for sure he was really joking.
“You do have a shift later today at the Lounge,” Azul reminded. “Make sure that you’re here for it. We’ll be relatively understaffed, so your help will be most beneficial.”
Yuu nodded, not missing the hints of a smirk that always came when he talked about profits and the Mostro Lounge. She stepped closer to him, taking the hat she had stolen from him off her and putting it back on Azul. After being careful she didn’t mess up his hair—which she took he appreciated by the dusting of blue on his face—she gave it a playful tilt on the top of his head, tapping the rim when she was finished.
“Don’t forget your promise either, Shrimpy,” Floyd said, picking her up one last time in a tight squeeze. Not tight enough to break a rib though. He had been careful about that after it happened once. “I get to squeeze you all weekend!”
She gave his arm a pat, too constricted to be able to return it more than that. “Come over anytime,” she told him, though as she looked at both of the other mermen present, they knew that the invitation extended to all of them.
As Floyd set her down again—but not before she made him grin as she returned his scarf to him—her bag bumped against her leg. It reminded her of what was inside. Now was as good a time as ever, she supposed, since she wouldn’t have to stick around in case this flopped.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, digging inside it to carefully produce three boxes identical in size, big enough to fit inside a palm. “I got you guys something. It isn’t much, but it’s just as thanks for helping me out when Grim and I were in trouble in Scarabia.”
Each box was a different color. Jade’s was gold, Floyd’s was gray, and Azul’s was lavender. She wasn’t ashamed to admit her heart was racing a thousand miles a minute when each boy looked at their box with a curious expression. Floyd opened his almost instantly, letting the cover clatter to the ground as he disregarded it. Azul held the cover in his other hand, while Jade fluidly slid the cover off the top and onto the bottom to hold onto carefully.
The contents were the same for all of them—a bracelet with a single charm resembling the ghost camera. “Sorry if you aren’t jewelry people,” Yuu continued, fiddling with the strap of her bag anxiously as they studied their gifts. “My friends back home and I all got each other a bracelet, then we each added a charm for ourselves on all of them.”
She tried to hold in the relieved sigh that came up as Floyd grinned. “That sounds fun!” he told her. “I’ll do that with ‘ya, Little Shrimpy.”
“As will I,” Jade agreed. “I’m honored to receive a gift from you, prefect.”
Floyd was already trying to figure out how to undo the clasp and put it on his wrist. “You’re too kind, Yuu,” Azul said, though the smile on his face was genuine. “That selflessness will only get taken advantage of here.”
She just shrugged. “I’ve been fine so far. That was the reason why I met you guys, anyways.” The hostility they had held towards each other felt all but in another lifetime compared to now.
His smile turned a little sweeter as he nodded. “If you ever feel like you’ve drawn the short straw, come to me. We’ll make sure that you get what you want out of a deal.”
Her heart wasn’t the only thing that felt warm as she beamed at him. “Okay.”
Azul’s eyes sparkled as radiantly as a shimmering sea, the most extraordinary shade of blue she had ever seen. Yuu thought that they were nothing less than stunning. She could drown in those deep seas if she wasn’t careful.
There was something else. Something she wanted to say to all of them. It bubbled to the surface suddenly, and for a second, it felt like what had happened last night, in the moments where all words spoken would be the truth. This was her second chance to use it.
Maybe she would throw caution to the wind after all. “Um, I—”
“Yuu!” She froze, her head instantly whipping over to see Jack on the other side of the Mirror, Grim on his shoulder. “We gotta go,” he ushered. “Ace and Deuce are in trouble. They need our help.”
“Again?” she groaned. It explained why they didn't answer her most previous text. Jack just nodded, and she sighed. Grim had a relatively smug look on his face, and she knew that it meant he had escaped whatever fate he should have shared with them.
Before she could rationalize against it, Yuu turned back, kissing each one of the sophomores on the cheek again before giving them all a wave and a grin. “Thanks for letting me sleep over,” she said as she stepped through the mirror. “I’ll be here for my shift.”
She followed Jack out of the Hall of Mirrors, going through the hallways of Night Raven College. When she finally looked over at him, she realized that both he and Grim were giving her an identically repulsed look. “What?” she asked. Their disgust deepened. “Guys, what?”
“I don’t wanna know if they really taste like fish,” Grim told her. Yuu sputtered, falling a few steps behind them as Jack kept speeding ahead.
Jack barely spared her a glance, even after she caught up to him. “I’m not gonna judge, but Yuu, you could do better.” Yuu rolled her eyes, now going in front of him as she went faster. “No, I’m serious,” he continued. “Why them? They're still as terrible as the day we met 'em."
“They’re still terrible, yeah.” But Yuu couldn’t stop the giddy smile on her face even if she tried. “We’re friends though, I guess.”
Jack scoffed. “Sure. You’re just as much friends with them as Ace and Deuce are to each other.”
“They're all but dating,” Yuu shot back. It took her a few seconds to realize that was the point. “Oh.”
Grim just groaned. “Please don’t date any of ‘em,” he begged. “They’re scary enough as is when we got joint classes. I don’t need Ramshackle bein’ shark central.”
“I’m not dating anyone. All of you are too crazy for me to deal with.” Neither of them looked convinced, and she rolled her eyes. “What happened with the idiot duo? I heard Riddle’s mad.”
“That’s an understatement,” Grim said, far too pleased about it. Yuu sighed, feeling whatever restfulness she had gotten in Octavinelle seep away as she could only imagine what atrocities awaited her to fix.
~
When the situation was taken care of, Yuu showed up at her shift. She was even five minutes early.
She did not bring back Jade’s shirt. That was hers now. He had already realized that from the moment he let her wear it the previous night. They just gave each other a smile when they saw each other, and Yuu felt lighter when she saw that it even reached his eyes again.
Yuu would pay him back for the cost of it though, tucking a few Thaumarks into his coat when she passed him. But it had been a futile attempt, because she found those same Thaumarks in her pocket without knowing how or when Jade had slipped them back to her. When she approached him about it, he just smiled, telling her that she need not repay him. It was a ‘gift,’ but something about the way he said it made her wonder just what his real reimbursement was.
Floyd had not, in fact, brought her over to the dark web. When she was browsing through her phone, trying to find out who to call in order to resolve the issue with her freshmen idiots, she saw that there were three new numbers put into her phone. Now all there was left to do was to get contact pictures for them. Yuu was already atrociously giddy as she brainstormed the ways she could get that done.
The prefect was the one to initiate the squeeze that was becoming so common that it happened every shift they were together now.
Azul’s deal with her was more than just in words. When there was a lull in the customers, he took her into the VIP Room, and it was just her, him, and a contract. She signed it the moment she thought it was safe, which was almost instantly. After she had gave them both the extra challenge of switching glasses—Yuu thought that Azul looked cute with hers on—she learned one of the many, many secrets there was to the strategies of card games, with the promise and plan that they would continue her lesson next Friday, and her stay at Octavinelle would include the same lodgings that she had the previous night.
When she saw each one of three Octavinelle men, she noticed something that made her hearts feel like mush. What was on all three of the trio’s wrists were the very same bracelet that she gifted them.
Honestly, she had thought that they would have just left it in the box, or maybe put it on their desks at best. But they hadn’t. They were wearing them. Yuu was not the only one smiling for the entire shift.
Two days later, she added three new charms to the bracelet that was always around her wrist: a mushroom, a rather stylish shoe, and a contract scroll.