Fight or Flirt

There was a long pause at the table.

Vil slowly set down his fork. “...Rook.”

“Oui?” Rook blinked innocently, eyes still soft with adoration.

“What. Did. You. Do.”

Epel leaned forward. “She looked like was gonna die of embarrassment. She’s kinda like me with poetry. Too much makes her wanna keel over.”

“‘Gonna,’ and ‘Wanna,’ are not words, Epel,” Vil clipped. “Well?”

Rook folded his hands primly on the table. “It was not poetry, mes amis. It was fate! A divine moment pardon, Epel, did you say ‘she?’ You were aware, then, that the Prefect was female?”

Vil glared. “This had better not be going where I think it is, Rook.”

“Yeah, I knew,” Epel replied, shrugging. “Softer features. Lighter bone structure. Completely different center of gravity. Thought it was obvious.” He glanced between Vil and Rook. “Was it not?”

“I did wonder. But it would be rude to assume. I take it you did not even question, Rook…until recently?”

Rook shook his head, shrugging. “It was revealed to me quite suddenly! I heard a sound of distress from the lockers yesterday, and to my surprise, it was just the Prefect. Steam curling like the breath of destiny, and there she stood—sunlit, startled, and—”

“Rook,” Vil cut in, voice a few icy notches above freezing, “Are you saying you walked into the shower room and saw the Prefect—”

“Entirely by accident!” Rook held up a finger. “There was a yelp, a cry of possible distress! I responded as any noble soul would—with haste, concern, and unfortunately—”

“Eyes,” Epel muttered. “You responded with eyes.”

Rook nodded sagely. “She was beauty incarnate, a water-nymph caught in mortal time. I was undone.”

Vil looked like he was physically holding himself back from lunging across the table. “You absolute imbecile! That’s why she shoved half a bakery into your mouth!”

“I thought that was a symbolic offering of peace,” Rook said, utterly baffled.

“It was symbolic, all right. Of murder,” Epel deadpanned, completely unsympathetic. “Southern-style.”

Vil pinched the bridge of his nose. “You need to apologize, Rook. Immediately."

“But for what?” he asked, genuinely confused. “She is glorious. Why should one so lovely be ashamed?”

“Because she’s a young woman, you melodramatic cheese wedge!” Vil snapped. “She’s not a goddess emerging from a divine hot spring—she’s a person who got walked in on while naked, by you!”

“She probably thinks she’s gonna end up painted in a portrait next,” Epel added, shoveling mashed potatoes into his mouth. “With grapes and everything.”

Rook pressed a hand over his heart. “I would never paint her without permission.”

“That is not the part we’re focusing on right now!” Vil hissed. “You are going to find her. You are going to apologize with dignity, grace, and none of your usual nonsense, or so help me, I will confiscate your hunting hat and make you wear a bucket.”

Epel snorted. “With a flower in it.”

Vil snarled. “I would certainly consider it.”

Rook sighed wistfully, gazing in the direction Yuu had fled. “Très bien… If I must grovel, I shall grovel.”

“You are going to grovel with restraint,” Vil snapped.

Rook stood, fixing the collar of his coat. “Restraint is subjective.”

Vil looked at Epel like he might scream.

Epel shrugged. “Don’t look at me. You might want to give him more instruction, though—”

But, Rook had already gone, setting off down the corridor like a knight embarking on a quest. Behind him, Vil muttered something truly unprintable into his iced tea.

*

The next twenty four hours felt like an exercise in just how red Yuu could get before combusting like a space heater in August.

Yuu managed to escape the cafeteria with a half-eaten biscuit, a wounded ego, and the hope that if she could just get to Grim—to her friends—then she would be able to laugh this all off as nothing more than one of those memories. Those things ‘that happen.’ She’d rank it right below her minor bloody scrape with the razor, and forget it just as fast.

She was halfway down the hallway when she heard it.

“Ma chère!”

No.

She walked faster.

“Mademoiselle!”

Faster.

“Shower Sprite of My Dreams—!”

It was the sort of line that sounded better-placed in her nightmares than coming from the usually-dignified (or if not dignified then at least more tasteful) pronunciations of Rook Hunt. He was either not real, or was coming unhinged, and she didn’t want to deal with either, thanks.

She broke into a sprint.

Rook, unbothered by dignity, propriety, or the laws of gravity, caught up in precisely three bounds and slid to a dramatic stop in front of her, arms flung open like he was about to stage a Broadway confession.

“I made these for you,” he said, and thrust a cloth bundle into her arms.

She blinked. Then slowly unfolded it.

Inside were six lovingly wrapped handmade soaps—each with little tags.

“I’d hoped to present them to you under better circumstances; however Vil and Epel have informed me that I have committed a faux-pas more extreme than I was aware—”

She started to read the wrappers aloud, but the actual words strangled themselves on her dignity on the way out once she saw what they said.

“Cumin Hither”

“Soapera Seduction.”

“Steamstruck Sighs”

“Basil Instinct”

“ConditionHer.”

“Midnight Madness.”

She stared at him.

He’s French, she told herself resolutely, willing the pink dust of mortification to leave her cheeks alone. He’s French, and this isn’t even that scandalous for him. He probably didn’t even think of this that way.

He clasped his hands, the picture of innocent sincerity. “I worked all night. To replace the ones that might have escaped you thanks to my blunder.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“You—” She opened and closed her mouth like a fish gasping for logic. She made a strangled noise and looked wildly around the hall for someone to save her. Anyone. Even Crowley. Even—no, not Crowley. But someone.

“Rook, it’s…it’s fine. Really. Thank you for the replacements, but I’d really rather just put this whole thing behind us, don’t you think?” she responded, very proud of herself to have formed words.

“Oui, oui! It is all in the past!”

*

After the Soap Confession Incident™, she swore on the last shred of her dignity (which at this point was about the size of a melted mint) that she’d never shower in the same building as Rook Hunt again.

So she planned. She coordinated. She memorized his class schedule like a hunted animal.

Shower Room A? Too close to Pomefiore. Shower Room B? Rook appeared with a towel over his shoulder and a smile that spelled danger. Shower Room C, located halfway across campus and used almost exclusively by alchemy students who hadn’t touched soap in weeks?

Perfect.

Or so she thought.

She’d just lathered up—arms deep in coconut-scented peace—when she heard it.

A whistle.

A melodic, suspiciously theatrical whistle echoing down the tiled corridor.

Yuu froze. So did the shampoo in her hair.

"...No," she whispered to the gods. "No. He wouldn't."

“♪ C’est le parfum d’un mystère… ♪”

HE WOULD.

She turned off the water, dripping and foamy, slapped on a towel, and stormed out of the stall like the vengeful ghost of bath bombs past. SHe never ran into him, but somehow, there were still signs of him being THERE. Not watching her, just far too close for comfort….

*

“So, you apologized for her loss of toiletries, and not for the actual intrusion,” Vil said to Rook between classes, on the verge of an aneurysm. Or a coronary. Or wrinkles.

“Indeed!” Rook reported proudly. “She was quite receptive. Said that the whole thing was fine.”

“And you’re wondering why she’s still avoiding you,” Vil groaned into his hands. “Exactly HOW are you still wondering this?”

“I cannot fathom what is wrong. If she said—”

“She was lying,” said Epel from behind his history book. “She just wants to forget the whole thing and go back to normal.”

“Mon dieu, young pommette! I had no idea you were so well-versed in the inner thoughts of the fair folk.” Rook made the pronouncement without a hint of sarcasm, sounding genuinely sincere, and admiring, and just the slightest bit threatening.

Epel rolled his eyes. “I’m not. I have girl cousins, and I grew up knowing they were human—are you?”

“No need to be rude, Epel,” VIl dismissed quickly. “Rook. I swear. You are going to put me into an early grave, so if you PLEASE, just do this right.”

*

The next ‘apology’ attempt was left in her desk.

Yuu entered professor Trein’s glass, Grim, Ace, Deuce in tow, and sat in her usual seat, only to have sentient origami animals come pouring out of the under-desk compartment the moment she sat down.

“Whoa, there, human! What’s this!?” Grim yowled in surprise, jumping from her lap to Deuce’s desk, and spilling his textbooks on the floor.

“Watch it, watch it!” Deuce complained, while Ace snickered.

“Real talk, though, Yuu. What are those?” asked Ace.

Yuu pinched one of the flailing paper animals between two fingers like she’d just caught one of Ramshackles bugs.

“I don’t know,” she hummed suspiciously. “But I have a hunch…”

Unfortunately, she was right. The only way to get the little creatures to stop wriggling around and vying for her attention was to unfold them and read the notes that had been penned there—in increasingly familiar handwriting.

“Sorry, mon trésor. My timing was worse than a leaky faucet.”

“Call me Rinse Charming. I promise to knock next time.”

“Please don’t shower me with silence.”

“I was struck by your naked honesty… and now I’m soaked in regret.”

The heat in her face was rising once again, and she crushed the papers into one fist…but not before Ace, Deuce, and Grim had caught some of the animals for themselves, and were parading them across their desks.

She slammed a hand onto them, and carried as many as she could to the trash.

“Hey, what gives!?” Grim whined. “We coulda played with those in class!”

“No,” Yuu snapped. “They’d get you in trouble.”

So much trouble.

“Let’s just get ready for the quiz, kay?”

That got their attention, and the terrible trio turned to studying—at least until Trein walked in and began the lecture—only to have one of the little paper animals start SINGING loudly. Yuu only just managed to crush it before it started spilling its little paper guts out to the class about showertime regrets.

“Detention, Yuu,” Trein snapped coldly.

Yuu wanted to crawl into a hole. Or take revenge. Could that even be done from a hole?

*

When classes were done, Yuu returned to Ramshackle as quickly as her legs would carry her, and promptly deluded herself that she was safe within the confines of her room.

After a normal evening passed, with normal ghost activity, normal Grim complaints, and normal homework, she was nearly asleep, when she heard it.

There was lute music coming from outside her window, and the worst caterwauling she’d ever heard. At first, she thought it was a dream—some off-key night bird warbling in pain. But no. The voice crescendoed, and then—

“You bathe in moonlight, my shining dove, like a bar of rose-scented regret!”

She sat up in bed, heart stopping.

No. No, no, no.

She dragged herself to the window in her slippers and peeked through the curtain. There, in the ghost-haunted yard of her barely held-together dorm, stood Rook Hunt, dressed in a dramatically ruffled poet’s shirt, holding a lute he definitely didn’t know how to play.

“O fairest bather of the east wing showers, thou art the loofah to my soul!”

“Rook!” she hissed. “What are you doing?!”

He beamed up at her, radiant. “Singing of my shame, filou! May the stars carry my apology on the wings of—”

She tossed a pillow at him. It fell two stories short.

“Rook, please just go to bed!”

“But that would be too soon, mon ange! At least a song, first!” He cleared his throat dramatically.

“You’re making this worse,” she said flatly, face already turning crimson.

Behind him, one of Ramshackle’s ghost residents floated by holding a sheet with “WRAP IT UP, ROMEO” scribbled in haunted red letters.

Yuu groaned into her hands. “I will forgive you if you stop singing.”

“Truly?”

“Yes.”

He tucked the lute under one arm, eyes sparkling. “Then consider my soul unburdened, but if I may—”

She slammed the window shut and turned around to find Grim blinking at her from the bed.

“…You should’ve let him finish,” he mumbled. “It was gettin’ juicy.”

“Go back to sleep, Grim,” she grumbled.

Outside, Rook had begun singing again.

She sighed—a deeply weary, sort of sound that carried her out of the room, and down to the lawn where he stood.

In a baggy t-shirt and shorts, she usually would have felt exposed in front of the other house-wardens, but with Rook, well, he was just lucky she hadn’t called for reinforcements—yet.

Yuu, arms crossed, jaw tight, finally snapped, “Rook, please. Enough with the singing.”

He grinned, unabashed, and she could tell that he was about to start again, and raised her pillow for a finishing blow.

But, it never landed. He caught it effortlessly, and used it to tug her a step closer.

“You are forever pushing people away from you, ma chere,” he said, rather seriously. “Are you so afraid of being seen?”

She gaped at him. “You have seen me. Too much of me. Listen, Rook. What do I have to do to get you to treat things as they were? Can’t you see that bringing it up like this is only making things worse?”

“Would it help things to reverse the roles?” he hummed, teasing once again.

When she realized what he meant, she blushed, winning herself a laugh from him.

“Oh, I am only kidding, chere. But you are right, now is probably not the time to be making jokes. I truly am sorry for the mishap.”

“Like I said,” YUu sighed, trying unsuccessfully to tug her pillow from his grip—who knew what madmen did with pillows these days, and she actually needed this one. “Like I said. You’re forgiven. I know you weren’t exactly trying to be there. Let’s just…please go back to how things were. You have vice-house warden duties. I have ghosts to keep from destroying the campus—”

“WE HEARD THAT,” a ghostly voice boomed from overhead. She ignored it.

“We have plenty to do,” she finished firmly.

He still hadn’t let go of her pillow, keeping himself grounded less than a pace from her.

“May I…” he said hesitantly, apparently unaware of her insistent tugging, “may I see more of you?”

She blanched.

“What?”

“Oh, non! Not like that!” he backpedaled quickly under her glare. “I merely noticed that you are struggling in potions, and it happens to be my best subject. I would love to have a partner in the subject a bit more daring than my other contemporaries, and it would be an opportunity for you to study with an upperclassman.”

“Trey got tired of the explosions?” she asked blandly. “Hang on. How did you know I was struggling in potions?”

“You’ve been carrying too much on your own, ma chere,” he said, neatly dodging the question. “Is it not alright to accept assistance where it is offered?”

She shivered when a cold wind rustled the trees around them, and he stepped into it to shield her from some of the chill.

“The thing is,” she said cautiously, “that help here is rarely offered without a price in this college.”

“I merely wish to spend some time with you,” he said boldly. “I am…curious.”

Fair enough… she thought grimly. And, he had her….she really did need help.

“Ground rules,” she said firmly. “No more midnight serenades, animal attacks, paper or otherwise. And Rook?”

“Hmm?” he grinned at her, happily.

“I’m going to need this pillow back.