Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Come on, we gotta run,” aquamarine eyes flashed with concern.

Ugh. She was right. Lumine hated that she was right. Nodding in agreement and swallowing her pride, she hoisted her backpack up before she broke out into a sprint.

Why did she have to do this? Gods only knew. Venom teemed at her tongue as her hefty backpack sagged against her back with every heavy step she took across the university drill field.

“We have two minutes,” Nilou called out from beside her.

As the pair sprinted across campus to their first class of the day, surrounded by the reddening of late-summer trees, a solitary dead leaf crunched underneath her foot.

Heh. Fitting.

They would have ten minutes if not for him. It had only been a week into the semester, a single fucking week, and he had already put her in this position.

Regardless, the fact of the matter was that Dr. Kreideprinz had a strict no-late policy. One tardy meant one letter grade. An unfair rule, but what first year was going to argue against it?

Lumine would have sighed in frustration if she wasn’t already out of breath.

The doors to Rhinedottir Hall flung open and the two first-years climbed the steps to their Physics class. In the nick of time, she and Nilou were in their seats when their professor closed the door to start her lecture. Sweaty, but present. Good enough.

And now Lumine had room to swallow the spite that filled her mouth to the brim.

When starting out at Teyvat University, she thought that she would be able to start over. To leave the ghosts of the past in the past. But all she got was a new monster to haunt her waking hours.

Scara. Her stupid, annoying, arrogant roommate.

When choosing room and board as an incoming first-year, Lumine was over the moon when she learned that she had the chance of living in a suite-style dorm. Two rooms, one common area, one kitchen, and one bathroom. Instead of living in a cramped room with someone else, she could have her own room and a cool roommate. Easy choice, right?

“Disclaimer: Students who choose to enter the lottery for a suite-style dorm will be assigned a random roommate!”

She should’ve read the fine fucking print.

It wasn’t her fault that she was almost late. Scara refused to leave the shower. She waited for what felt like twenty minutes before she started pounding on the door. And even then, he had the audacity to say “five more minutes.” What kind of roommate spent almost thirty minutes in the shower at 9AM on a Tuesday?

What was worse was what happened after he opened the door. Steam rolled out of the bathroom, layering on the ground like liquid nitrogen on Halloween weekend. He took a step towards her—too close—as he secured the towel around his waist. Crystal droplets glistened as they rolled down the curve of his tattooed biceps.

But she couldn’t spare a glance. His cold amethyst sneer matched her hard gaze.

“Can you give a guy some time to shower?”

No, she wanted to say. But before she could even think of responding, he strode past her in a huff and slammed his bedroom door behind him.

Was he doing that on purpose or was he just vapid? If she didn’t have a week of experience under her belt, she would probably choose the latter. But, at this point, she knew better.

“Lumine?” Dr. Kreideprinz’s smooth, melodic voice pulled her from her thoughts.

“Y-yes?”

He let out a small sigh. “What do the m and v in the kinetic energy equation stand for?”

“Mass and velocity.”

“Good.” Before her professor turned away, a scrutinizing glance told Lumine that she was already on thin ice.

Ah, fuck. She held back a groan as her eyes fell to her empty notebook page. She could feel Nilou’s worried gaze planted firmly on her back, but she couldn’t stand to spare her a glance.

Because in reality, this situation was on Lumine. If she and Nilou were late to class, the guilt of being the cause of her loss of letter grade would send her into a different sort of spiral.

So instead of spiraling further, her pencil found her grasp and honey eyes raised back up to the lecture ahead of her.

Lumine set her bag down with a sigh. The orange-blue sunset beyond the window of their common area commended her day of hard work. All she wanted to do was go lay in bed, but the protest of her growling stomach won over her aching legs.

A quick check of the fridge yielded little success. She had picked up some sandwich-making materials over the weekend, so she wasn’t totally out of luck, but her stomach told her that she needed something more substantial.

At least Scara hadn’t stolen her food. Small victories.

Ah, speak of the devil.

As Scara emerged from his room, his ever-present arrogance seemed to permeate the space around him. He avoided her gaze as he moved into the kitchen, grabbing a box of mac and cheese from the cabinet next to her.

Ugh. Why did she feel unwelcome in her own kitchen?

As she closed the fridge in a huff, sandwich materials in hand, she noticed his impatient eyes scrutinizing the side of her head as he waited to get past her.

Without a word, she moved out of his way quickly, squishing up against the counter so that he could slide past.

But as the sleeve of his hoodie brushed against her arm, a spark jumpstarted her heart.

Ah. Surely it was out of anxiety, right?

Sandwiches, she reminded herself. She laid her sandwich materials out on the countertop: bread, onion, lettuce, ham, and mustard. The next thing she needed was a cutting board.

But… hm. When she opened the cabinet next to the stove, it was nowhere to be found. Was that not the place she left it? Or did Scara use it last?

After taking a moment to scour the kitchen, she found it. She would have let out a sigh of relief if not for the way that the cutting board mocked her from one of the top shelves. There was no doubt that Scara left it there. She couldn't even reach the shelf, much less leave it all the way up there.

Fuck. She had to break the silence.

“Can you, uh,” she almost flinched at her own words, “can you grab the cutting board for me?” She pointed up at the shelf, turning to look at him as he filled a pot with water.

And then he met her eyes with the petulance that she had grown to expect.

A hefty sigh escaped his lips—it was like she was forcing him to paint her nails or something—as he closed the space between them. The light scent of his cologne heightened her senses as he stretched up beside her to reach the cutting board.

Too close.

His side brushed against hers for a fleeting moment. It had to be half a second at most, but it was long enough to send her reeling backward. When he held the cutting board out to her, she quickly grabbed it from his hands and murmured her thanks under her breath.

But as she moved back to her sandwich materials, a realization dawned on her. He had to have put the cutting board up there on purpose, right? Just to fuck with her. To cause an inconvenience.

Hm. Well, two could play that game.

Suddenly, she wanted to assemble her sandwich on the other side of the counter. So she walked past him, allowing herself to brush lightly past him as he waited for his pot of water to boil.

He straightened up ever so slightly as she walked by.

Perfect.

“So, how was your day?” She said cheerily.

Scara looked up from his phone at her, his eyes laced with unamused confusion. “Fine.” A single word, flat and dripping with venom.

She smiled as she turned to start chopping some lettuce. “Any tough classes so far? You’re a… biochem major, right?”

He let out an annoyed sigh. “It’s only been a week into the semester. If I had a hard class, I probably wouldn’t know about it yet.”

“That’s fair,” she nodded slowly. “What classes do you even take this semester outside of biology and chemistry?”

“Math.”

“Oof. I hate math.”

“Are you saying that because you actually don’t like math, or because you’re too stupid for it?”

Lumine’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying that because you’re an asshole, or because you don’t know how to talk to girls?”

A beat of silence.

“I’m not interested in getting to know you. Point blank. Okay?” Scara’s voice was low and demanding. Spiny malice lined his words.

“Then why did you come out of your room when you heard that I was home?”

“You’re just making shit up.”

She just laughed wryly. “Okay,” she said as she sliced her sandwich in half and turned to grab a plate.

Footsteps crept up to her side, and when she looked up, he was right next to her. Within arm’s reach.

“Look,” he growled. She looked back at him, and—

Too close.

“I don’t care what you think. I don’t care to be your friend. Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”

She said nothing. Her mouth had run completely dry.

A roll of her eyes was all that she could muster as she grabbed her sandwich, threw it on a plate, and beelined to her room.

“I’m not crazy, am I? Tell me I’m not crazy, guys.”

The dining hall was packed on this Friday night. And, gods, it had been a long damn week. All of Lumine’s professors had begun to get into the meat of their lectures, and after a summer of no learning, the wave of homework was already starting to stress her out. She needed a night off.

And by “night off,” she meant a girls’ night out.

Nilou picked at her salad absentmindedly. “You’re not crazy,” she mused, brow furrowed as she stared off into the distance. “Scara really does seem to have something against you.”

Lumine huffed a sigh of relief.

From her left side, Yoimiya hummed in dissatisfaction. “I mean, that’s pretty clear,” she stabbed a green bean with her fork, ”but why does he have it out for you?”

“He was like this from the start,” she grumbled. “Invited him out to lunch. Asked him for his class schedule. Tried to divide chores. Am I going about this ‘roommate’ thing wrong?”

Her red-haired friend shook her head tentatively. “When you tried to do those things, what did he do?”

“He pretty much ignored me until Tuesday.”

“And what did he say on Tuesday?”

“’Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours,’” Lumine exaggerated his irritating, melodramatic voice.

Yoimiya guffawed. Nilou let out a soft giggle. “Sounds like he’s just a sour person in general.”

“An asshole,” Yoimiya added.

Lumine looked away. That was a fair assumption, but why was he so sour? She refused to take his behavior at face value. She had to live with the guy, after all.

Wait. Why was she even entertaining the idea of empathy when it came to Scara?

Because you can relate, a traitorous voice in the back of her head spoke out.

Against her better judgment, a pang of sorrow resonated from deep inside of her. She felt like being sour sometimes, too. After what happened with her brother, she was sour every day for weeks. Months. It took a complete change of scenery and the distraction of classes to put those thoughts on the back burner.

She would admit, albeit begrudgingly, that she could understand his mood. But there was one thing that held her back from giving him the benefit of the doubt.

“Sure. Let’s just say that he’s a sour person. Would it kill him to do the bare minimum and be cordial?”

Nilou shrugged as she popped a cherry tomato into her mouth.

“You can always just move to a different room, you know,” Yoimiya waved her fork in the air.

Yes, she knew that. But that would mean two things.

Number one: she would be switched into a traditional-style dorm. She wouldn’t have her own room anymore. That alone was enough to oust the possibility in her mind.

But number two was what kept her solidly in place: moving out meant that he would win.

“That’s not gonna happen.”

“Why?” Nilou’s eyes widened.

“Sour people don’t deserve to have it easy.”

At this point, no matter how much sympathy played around the edges of her resolve, she refused to falter in the face of his acts of ill will. Was it immature of her to think that way? Maybe. Would she be better off moving? Probably.

But bitter vitriol made her narrow her eyes at the untouched plate of food in front of her.

When the girls got back to the suite from dinner, a bottle of vodka in tow, Lumine’s mood was at an all-time high. Nilou and Yoimiya were new friends of hers, of course, but she knew by the way they reassured her that they were keepers. That fact alone made her feel a type of giddiness that she hadn’t felt in years. She felt… anew. Eager. Gone were the ghosts of the past, at least for tonight.

But as Lumine opened the door to her suite, she found three people crowded in the common area. Ah. Scara must have beat her to the punch and brought some friends over. A slight inconvenience, but whatever—Nilou and Yoimiya could just drink in her room instead.

Lumine tried to avoid the inquisitive eyes that followed her and her friends as their heels clicked against the linoleum floor. But just as she was about to pass them, she caught the piercing azure gaze of an auburn-haired man. His freckled cheek lifted up in a sly half-smile.

She just rolled her eyes and kept walking.

“Yikes,” Nilou sighed as she shut the door behind them.

Lumine just shook her head. “Yeah.”

“That tension was insane,” Yoimiya grimaced.

“That’s my roommate for you.”

“It’s always that way?” Her friend’s grimace only grew as Lumine nodded. “How do you live with that?”

“I dunno, Yoi. Honestly, whatever that was wasn’t even that ba—”

“Shh,” Nilou cut Lumine off, raising her finger to her lips. Curiously, her ear was pressed against the wall that connected to the common area.

Huh. Lumine furrowed her brow as she tried her best to focus on the muffled conversation coming from the room adjacent to hers. It was just out of earshot, so she and Yoimiya joined Nilou against the wall.

“… all I’m saying is that the blonde girl could get it.” An unknown male voice spoke out. Lumine could imagine that it belonged to the man with auburn hair.

“That’s my roommate, you asshole,” Scara seethed.

“Yeah, and she’s hot.”

“Off limits.”

A female voice scoffed. “You can’t just go after your friend’s roommate, Childe.”

Childe? An odd name.

“Well, she doesn’t live in the same room as you, so it’s fair game.”

“Don’t try me,” Scara growled.

The male voice, Childe, just laughed at that.

And so a bright, shining opportunity landed right in her lap. A devilish grin grew on her face as she leaned off against the wall and turned to her friends. Yoimiya’s amber eyes were alight with a similar mischievousness. It was as if she could read Lumine’s mind.

Nilou was clueless, though. “What? What are we smiling at?”

“Operation ‘Fuck With Scara’ is underway,” Yoimiya sang. “I’ll start the first round of shots.”

Aquamarine eyes widened in understanding. “Y-you don’t think that’s too harsh?”

“I’m not gonna hook up with the guy or anything,” Lumine said in reassurance. “Just… you know, talk to him. In front of Scara. Maybe some light flirting?”

A small smile betrayed Nilou’s considerate eyes. “Okay, fine,” she allowed her concern to dissipate. “We can be your wingwomen for the night.”

“Just as the gods intended,” Yoimiya chimed, passing around shot glasses filled to the brim with raspberry vodka. She raised her glass, “To operation ‘Fuck With Scara’?”

“To operation ‘Fuck With Scara’,” Lumine and Nilou sounded out. The trio giggled as they clinked shot glasses and raised them to their lips.

Lumine just couldn’t wipe the grin from her face as she threw the shot back. The potent burn that seared down her throat and into her stomach told her that tonight was going to be an even better night than she had anticipated.

And so the planning commenced.

Chapter Text

Three pairs of heels clacked against the pavement.

Three tipsy girls were up to highly mischievous behavior.

Yes, fine, Lumine would admit that they waited until Scara and his friends left the suite so that they could follow as quietly as possible.

But it was Yoimiya’s idea. Okay?

As the trio stepped inside the frat house—she had already forgotten the name of said frat—electricity emanated from the music rocking the floorboards. The warm blanket of drunken confidence, along with the contagious thrill of the party’s atmosphere, ousted any semblance of doubt in her mind.

They were there for two reasons: to fuck with Scara, and to have fun while doing it.

And Lumine intended to have a lot of fun.

Flashing lights accompanied the beat that trilled through the house. Heads turned as the girls made their way deeper into the mouth of the party, all the while Lumine made sure to avoid the pointed violet gaze of a certain roommate of hers.

For now.

Suddenly, Nilou turned to shoot her friends a wide-eyed look. “I love this song!” She yelled above the thumping beat. Aqua eyes mirrored her friends’ excitement, and without hesitation, she grabbed their wrists to pull them forward.

Lumine just laughed as she was tugged through the crowd on the dance floor. Sober Nilou was such a level-headed, soft-spoken girl—who knew that drunk Nilou could dance?

Soon, a circle formed around the redhead, capturing the crowd's attention as she moved to the beat. Lumine and Yoimiya shouted words of affirmation at her over the music, and after a moment, Nilou was released from her spell for long enough to tag Lumine into the center of the circle.

Hah. If she was sober, she would have hated this.

But with alcohol rushing through her veins and the beat turned up high, Lumine closed her eyes and felt herself slip into the rhythm.

The electricity of the music coursed through her. Her senses took over and she could feel herself moving to the beat as flashing lights illuminated the space behind her eyes. It was only her and the music.

But even in her trance, she could feel a certain set of eyes watching her.

Shouts of approval permeated her hypnotic state, and after a moment, she felt it was time to drag Yoimiya into the center of the circle.

Heavy breaths turned into laughter as Nilou grabbed her into a tight hug. “You’re a natural!” The redhead shouted. Lumine was just about to express how she should speak for herself, but the words died on her lips as she caught the gaze of a particular set of azure eyes.

Perfect.

“Look at you,” he purred with a childish laugh.

Lumine locked eyes with Nilou, who without another word snapped her attention to Yoimiya in the middle of the circle.

“What do you want?” She rolled her eyes but made sure the corners of her lips were upturned in feigned betrayal of her glower.

“Hey, hey, I just wanna see what’s going on over here,” he met her gaze with a challenging smirk.

Oh, this guy was easy.

“Did you guys, like, follow us here or something?”

“Well excuse me, girlie, but this is my frat. And how come I’ve never seen your pretty face here before?”

Lumine just shrugged. “I’ve been hanging around other frats,” she lied.

“Well, I’ll just have to make sure you have a good enough time to come back.”

“We’ll see,” she met his playful gaze in response.

“Can I interest you in a drink? Maybe some beer pong?”

“Yes to both,” she smiled before turning for a split second to send Nilou a nod. The read head nodded in response before turning back within an instant.

And so the night began.

Apparently, his real name was Ajax. He insisted that she called him by that name, saying that he usually went by ‘Childe with an E’, but she was different. Lumine had to choke back whatever combination of laughter and gagging bubbled up from her throat.

She casually sipped on the overly-sweet-to-hide-the-taste-of-alcohol concoction in her red cup as he pulled back to launch his beer pong ball into a cup across the table. Cheers were had, especially by the guys who Lumine figured were Ajax’s frat brothers. They crowded around him in some sort of primal back-patting, near-dick-sucking ritual. She couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief.

‘The King of Beer Pong’, he was dubbed by what looked like a newer recruit. All the while Lumine cocked her arm back and launched her own ball into another cup.

“You’re insane, Lumine!” He broke from the attention to raise his eyebrows at her.

She shrugged, nonchalant. “I played softball in high school.”

“You must have been the pitcher then.”

“Observant,” she allowed a smile to spread across her own face.

An unfamiliar warmth grew between them for a split second before she broke eye contact. Suddenly, she was incredibly intent on watching their enemies across the table have a go at their own rack of cups.

He chuckled at her side at some imaginary joke before breaking the sudden silence. “So, what did you do to have the misfortune of being Scara's roommate?”

She scoffed. “So it’s not just me that he hates?” She mumbled flatly.

“Oh, no, that’s just how he is.”

Hm. Really?

Lumine turned to shoot Ajax a pointed look. “I don’t want to come off as an asshole, but if that’s the case, how are you friends with him?”

His ocean eyes were upturned in carefree amusement. “I know it’s hard to believe, but the guy isn’t that bad once you get past all… that.”

“You’re right, that is hard to believe.”

He broke her gaze only to miss his shot into the cups across the table. “You seem pretty smart,” he said, and Lumine noticed that his voice suddenly changed. Previously, cheery and nonchalant; now, some sort of detached. She couldn’t put her finger on it. “My advice to you would be to either do as he says and stay out of each others’ ways or observe him and get to know his tells. He has a few obvious ones. You’ll learn to work around them.”

Lumine just nodded at the side of his face. “Tells,” she echoed, allowing the word to solidify as a pit in her stomach. “Interesting.” She feigned the same nonchalance that Ajax held once before, though the hairs on the back of her neck stood straight up.

He laughed in return, thankfully lightening the mood further. “Don’t think too hard about it. You’ll figure it out. After all,” he turned to wink at her, “we still have a full night ahead of us.”

Lumine just smiled along with him. And, in the back of her alcohol-stricken mind, she realized that she owed him an invisible apology. She didn’t expect Ajax to have the mental capacity to carry a conversation, much less give her valuable information. She had to admit that she was utterly mistaken.

And though he seemed like the typical frat bro, she could tell that there was something… deeper there. Something that she wasn’t sure that she wanted to dip her toes into.

But, of course, the alcohol coursing through her veins mean that she wanted all of it and more.

Thankfully or unfortunately, the universe decided that wasn’t going to happen. “Childe,” a feminine voice rang out from behind them. She turned to see a tall, beautiful blonde with arms crossed across her chest and a scowl that could turn Lumine to stone if she was looking her way instead of Ajax’s.

Ah. She knew that blonde. It was Scara’s other friend.

“Oh, Signora,” Ajax’s voice raised in amused surprise. “Lumine, this is Signora! Signora, Lumine!”

“Cut the shit, asshole,” Signora growled. “You’re coming with me.”

And without hesitation, her slender, manicured hand grabbed Ajax’s wrist to whisk him away. “Fu—come on, Signora, I was just about to ask for her number!” Lumine could hear his voice fading in favor of the loud music as Signora pulled him through the crowd.

Hm. Well, that was convenient. So convenient, in fact, that Yoimiya wouldn’t even have to—

As Lumine turned to find her friends, she almost walked smack dab into Scara himself.

Shit.

“Stay away from Childe,” he growled. His lips were taut in a prominent frown, his black lip ring only adding to the scowl that coated his face.

“Why?” She challenged his hardened gaze with her own devilish one.

“He’s not a good guy.”

She laughed wryly in response. “Look, Scara, I’m not here to look for a good guy.”

Scara sighed a breath of impatience. “I’m being serious, Lumine. The guy is a certified sociopath. You shouldn’t mess with him.”

Lumine’s throat went dry for a moment. He must have been just saying that to get her from talking to Ajax, right? But if that was the case, why was his voice so… genuine?

She had never heard him sound like that before. Was it the alcohol making her hear things differently? The music?

Contrary to her clammy hands and rising heart rate, she forced her eyes to maintain their playfulness. “And why do you care?” She countered.

His eyes flickered with a second of hesitation as if he was wondering the same thing. Tension grew between them like a balloon waiting to pop. After a fleeting moment, he opened his mouth to respond, closed it, and then opened it once again. “I—”

“Lumine,” she heard an urgent Nilou from behind her.

Lumine broke Scara’s gaze as she turned to assess the situation. And there Nilou was, accompanied by a wasted Yoimiya leaning against her shoulder. “We need to get Yoimiya home,” her aquamarine eyes were shadowed by worry.

Well, shit.

“O-okay, let’s go home,” she mumbled as she grabbed Yoimiya’s free hand to guide her through the crowd.

And behind her, she felt those too-familiar amethyst eyes boring into the back of her skull.

“… and then we can go to Kaveh’s party. I heard that he goes all out. I met him in architecture class and he invited me! Maybe even Scara will end up there too!”

Late-summer crickets chirped as two mischievous girls giggled incessantly.

The third followed in sobered silence.

In the end, everything worked as expected. Just as planned, Ajax made his move. Just as planned, Scara was pissed. Just as planned, Nilou and Yoimiya whisked her away at a moment’s notice.

But Lumine didn’t account for the abundance of new information that penetrated her once-drunken haze.

“Did you see the look on his face, by the way? He was so angry! What did he say, Lumine?”

Ah. Well, might as well rip off the bandage.

“Uh, apparently his friend is a sociopath and I shouldn’t mess with him.” She winced when her friends whipped their heads around to gauge her reaction.

A beat of silence.

“What?!” They yelped in unison.

Lumine chuckled wearily in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Honestly, I did get that vibe from him. The guy was way too charismatic. Scara just kind of confirmed it.” On instinct, she reached back to cover the back of her neck with her hand. The way that those hairs stood up when he became unusually serious was telling.

The girls were silent, just staring at Lumine with wide eyes.

“Sorry,” she winced, “did I sober you guys up too?”

“A-are you sure that Scara’s telling the truth?” Yoimiya brought up a good point.

Honestly, Lumine didn’t know. “He sounded… very uncharacteristically genuine,” she tilted her head. Her friends seemed to accept that answer, nodding along with concern deep inside their eyes. “According to his friend, he’s a dick to everyone, not just me. So…” she trailed off, shaking her head once more as she remembered Ajax mentioning Scara’s tells. “I dunno. This whole thing is weird.”

Yoimiya hummed after another moment of silence. “It’s funny, though,” she attempted to lighten the mood, “wasn’t he the one to tell you to stay out of his way? He’s not really… staying out of your way.”

Lumine just shook her head in exasperation as she took a deep breath. “Ironic, I know.”

“Well,” Nilou drawled, “maybe this is a step in the right direction!” She clapped her hands together. “Now that you’ve had a decent conversation, you might be able to get along better!”

Hm. Maybe Nilou was right.

The word decent was a stretch, but Lumine agreed. Maybe she did have a shot at having an amicable relationship with her roommate. At the very least, she would like to stop trying to avoid him.

As the three walked side by side to their next party, her spirits were lifted, just a tad.

But that was before 3AM.

Lumine hoped that Scara wouldn’t make it a habit to bring girls over like this. She sandwiched her head between her mattress and her pillow, praying to whatever god would answer her at this ungodly hour to make them fucking finish already.

There was no way that he didn’t tell her to be loud. The girl was practically screaming his name.

And as soon as her newfound respect for him came, it was gone in a flash.

She thought hard about what Ajax said. She thought hard about what Scara said, too. All signs pointed to the idea that he was genuinely looking out for her for some reason. That he wanted to have a more amicable roommate relationship than she expected.

It wasn't like she cared if he brought a girl over. If anything, it was only fair—he probably thought that she was planning on bringing Ajax over. She just... thought that he wanted to be cordial with her too.

But now, that idea had been snuffed out like a dull flame. This act of defiance was like a slap to the face. “Don’t care, never did. Here’s my proof,” she could almost hear him say.

At least she had the newfound knowledge that he was a dick to everyone, not just her. That made her feel a bit better. Right?

Stupid mixed signals. Stupid hope. The only silver lining was that she was able to sleep in tomorrow.

And honestly, hoping was dumb. Expecting anything out of that guy was a recipe for disappointment. Lumine should have never drawn any conclusions from what he and Ajax said, but she couldn’t help it. She just wanted to have a cordial relationship with her roommate. Was that too much to ask for?

Apparently, it was. So, instead of harping on it for any longer, she squished her pillow to her head a bit harder and prepared herself for a bad night of sleep.

And when a too-early morning came, and Lumine made her way to the kitchen for some late breakfast, she saw the asshole in question sitting on the common area couch. Prior to last night, she might have tried to strike up a conversation just to get on his nerves.

But no, not anymore. She made some toast and tea in complete silence.

What was it that Ajax said? “My advice to you would be to either do as he says and stay out of each others’ ways or observe him and get to know his tells. He has a few obvious ones. You’ll learn to work around them.”

Well, at this point, fuck the latter. Lumine chose the former. Laden with morning crankiness, she sipped at her tea as she walked her breakfast to her room.

She would be avoiding him like the plague from now on.

Chapter Text

The following few weeks brought… peace. Tranquility.

Because, albeit begrudgingly, Lumine would admit that Scara told the truth. As long as she stayed out of his way, he would stay out of hers.

All became… quiet.

For instance, she took notice that Scara showered at the same time every day. It had been an annoyance all semester because it clashed with her schedule on Tuesdays. Instead of protesting, though, she decided to get up a bit earlier to shower first.

It was an odd truce. Lumine would go so far as to say that there was some sort of backward mutual respect going.

But, at the same time, she came to notice a few quirks in his behavior that weren’t there before.

When she took up the kitchen as he got home from his Thursday class, he used to grab something from the fridge before eating in the common area. But now, he waited in his room until she was finished so that he could make his own dinner.

For some reason, she just couldn’t shake the idea that something was off.

And, to be honest, in a twisted, fucked up sort of way, she missed the conflict. The back and forth. It added a sort of rigor to her life that she couldn’t get with anyone else.

After a few weeks of the boring serenity, Lumine refused to admit that she resented the calm. She wanted to see the anger in his eyes. Because now, when he walked past her, ignoring her existence, she found herself knitting her brow.

But she didn’t dare disrupt him. She feared that, if she did, she would be like provoking the beast.

“So, Lumi, how did your date with Matthias go?”

“Uh,” Lumine blinked, broken from her mid-lunch daydream. Those had been happening more and more often lately. “Good, I think,” she murmured.

“You think?” Yoimiya tilted her head as the blonde poked at the cherry tomato that refused to be pierced by her fork.

Yes. She thought.

It was only about a week ago when Lumine signed up for Bloom, a popular dating app. In no way was she looking for something serious—she refused to admit that she just wanted to get back at Scara for that night—but a date with Matthias pretty much fell into her lap.

The guy was great; he pretty much checked all the “good guy” boxes as if he was a seasoned veteran. He added just the right amount of charisma, humor, and charm to the conversation. But things just felt a bit… off for some reason.

Was it him? Was it her? She didn’t know.

She couldn’t put it into words, but it was just… missing something. Her eyes flashed to the ceiling where she hoped all the answers hid. “I dunno. He was nice. Brought me flowers. We had a good conversation. But I can’t help to think that it was…” She tapped her fork against her serving tray. “A bit forced?”

Nilou hummed, nodding with wide aquamarine eyes at Lumine. “I totally understand.”

Ah, Nilou. Always the supportive one.

“I mean, we’re first-years, after all,” Yoimiya added, taking a stab at her bolognese. “A guy like that is… like, a life partner. Which, if you’re into that, that’s great. But...” She trailed off, choosing instead to shove a bundle of spaghetti in her mouth. After a moment of chewing, she covered her mouth to add on, “I dunno. Maybe that’s just me.”

“I’m not sure,” Lumine hummed, gaze falling to her stubborn cherry tomato once again. “There’s definitely some sort of spark there.” And then her fork stabbed straight through. “I just can’t bring myself to feel much more than that. Just a spark.”

“That’s just how it goes,” Yoimiya chuckled in response.

She squinted. Did it really have to be that way?

“Don’t worry, Lu. You just need a mental reset,” Nilou added. “Maybe another girl’s night out?”

And to that, Lumine groaned. “As long as we don’t pregame at my place. I’m on such thin ice with Scara.”

“Thin ice?” Nilou eyed her worriedly.

“I-I mean, I think so, at least. He just… won’t acknowledge my existence.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted, though?” Yoi sent her a side-eye.

“Uh… I mean, yeah, I guess,” she mumbled.

And then her friends laughed in unison like they knew something she didn’t.

Whatever.

The rest of the day slid by without too much resistance. Unfortunately for Lumine, her last class happened to be later in the day, so she was on campus until after sunset. She, as well as her laptop battery, were running on 2%. A quick stop at the dining hall before heading home was all that she could muster before practically falling into bed.

Damn. What a long day. For the first time since lunch, she fished her phone out of her pocket to check any notifications that had accumulated. And to her surprise, she had a few messages from Matthias.

Matthias [2:24PM]: Hi! We should grab dinner sometime soon

Matthias [6:32PM]: Hello?

Lumine narrowed her eyes.

Lumine [8:48PM]: hey sorry! just got home from class

Why was she apologizing? Was she expected to be waiting with bated breath for his texts?

Lumine [8:48PM]: we can have dinner soon. how does friday sound?

Matthias [8:48PM]: Yes, let’s do Friday. I’m going to take you to the Italian place off Buer St.

Italian, huh? Sounded… fancy.

And also a bit pushy. But she shrugged at that. If anything, he was probably just enthusiastic.

Lumine [8:49PM]: yeah let’s do that! i’ll text you about it tomorrow. i have physics hw due 9am tomorrow :)

Not only did she need to get started on her homework, but she also just… felt something weird about that conversation.

So with a hefty sigh, she threw her phone across her bed. And tragically, it hit the wall and fell into the bottomless pit between her bed and the wall.

Whatever. She’d think about it later.

After all, physics would have to take up her full focus. It was not a fun class. Before starting, Lumine changed into more comfortable clothes: a simple oversized t-shirt and running shorts.

And when she couldn’t put her homework off any longer, she unwillingly lugged her textbook out of her backpack and flipped to the practice problems. Unluckily for her, it seemed as though a large chunk of work was what was due early tomorrow morning.

So she picked up her pencil, copied the first problem down onto her notebook, and…

The lights flickered once, twice, and then went out altogether.

Huh?

Lumine leaned over to test her light switch a few times before it sank in that the power was completely out. The space around her was pitch-black and eerily quiet; even the streetlights outside of her window had fizzled out.

She sat there for a moment, wide-eyed, staring at… nothing. The wall, presumably?

Her only potential sources of light were her dying laptop and her phone which lay somewhere in the abyss.

Well, she needed to get her homework done. So what options did she have?

Immediately, she went for her backpack to pull out her laptop. It took her a moment in the pitch-black darkness, but she managed. To her despair, though, it was completely dead. Done for.

Damn.

She could try to fish her phone out, but with how her bed was raised to accommodate storage as well as her stubby arms, she ruled that possibility out before it even became a full-fledged idea. She could text someone who lived off campus—fuck, but that would only work if she had her phone.

The fact of the matter was that she was without any sort of electricity in the near vicinity.

She didn’t own a candle.

She didn’t own a lighter.

She didn’t own a flashlight.

The only option was to ask Scara for help.

Gods, no, her mind reeled in fear. She would rather sit in this room in complete silence until the power came back on before she asked for his he—

“Lumine?”

And then butterflies erupted in her chest. She stared into the darkness, wide-eyed with… fear? Anxiety? Anticipation?

… Excitement?

“Y-yeah?”

“Got any candles in there?” Scara asked flatly, unamused.

“No,” she said as she stood from her desk chair and hobbled her way to her door. And on her way to the common room, she smacked straight into what she assumed was Scara.

“Fuck. Uh, sorry,” she murmured, rubbing her forehead.

“I would tell you to watch where you’re going, but, uh…”

She cracked a smile at that. Speaking to him in the darkness felt… less daunting. “Do you not have your phone or anything?”

“Phone broke a few days ago. My laptop is a piece of shit that dies immediately without a charge.”

“Looks like we have similar luck.”

“Shit, he sneered, “I have homework due in the morning.”

“Me too,” Lumine sighed. “I have my phone, but uh, it somehow made its way into the pit between my bed and the wall. And I have short arms.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“Y’know, looking back, throwing it at my bed was a bad move.”

He scoffed. “I can get it for you if you share the flashlight.”

“Uh,” was all she could muster. A bubble of anticipation inflated in her chest. “Yeah, sure. Thanks,” she shifted out of his way, pressing her back up against the hallway wall. “You can walk past me now.”

And then he hesitated. She could tell by the silence that fell between them for a few moments. “I’m gonna have to use trial and error to figure out the path to your bed,” he grumbled.

Oh.

Right.

“I’ll guide you,” she tried her best to keep a calm voice, instead funneling her anxiety into the grimace that she was glad he couldn’t see.

Lumine then stepped ahead of her roommate and reached in the direction of his voice in the hopes of grabbing his forearm. She missed, of course, and instead landed on the toned curve of what she assumed was his bare bicep. Her hand slid down his arm to his wrist, and she encircled it in her grip before pulling him forward.

The whole time she led him into her room, she was screaming internally.

Because gods, he was toned. She could just imagine the sight of him standing there while her fingers slowly slid from his bicep to his wrist. The bands of tattoos beneath her fingers. The slight bulge of the veins at his forearm.

Needless to say, without sight, her other senses had become incredibly heightened.

She almost bumped into furniture multiple times before reaching her bed. And when she did, she hesitated.

Because she just then realized that Scara would have to get on her bed.

No. Don’t think about that.

“It’s right in front of us,” she muttered, guiding his hand over to set it atop her duvet.

Without another word, she heard him hop up on top of it.

Gods.

She stood there idly for a moment before realizing that she should probably be helping. It was her bed, after all. So she hopped up with him, moving to his side and plunging her hand into the tiny space between her bed and the wall. “Find anything?”

“Not yet,” he murmured, almost right up against her ear.

Oh. A shiver ran down her spine like a lightning strike.

Gods. Was it hot in here? Most likely. The air conditioning ran on electricity that they didn't have, anyways.

As they searched in silence, Lumine could sense his proximity. They bumped shoulders once, twice before she finally found the corner of her phone with the tip of her finger. “Found it,” she said hastily, straining as much as she could to no avail. “But I can’t… I can’t grab it.”

Scara wordlessly shifted toward her, pressing his side against hers to find where exactly she was reaching. She could feel the side of her bare breast push into him, and suddenly, all of the nervous anticipation that wreaked havoc inside her stomach was ousted in favor of something… different.

He must know what he’s doing, right? He must be able to feel the softness of her breast pressed against him too, right?

The musky scent of his cologne flooded her senses and took root deep within the pit of her abdomen. She was frozen still in reality, but in her head, she was pushing him down on the bed, grabbing his wrist once more, and pressing his hand against her chest so that he could get a better feel.

In the midst of her daze, his hand bumped into hers once he found the spot where her phone lay. The spark sprung her to life, and she sat up straight, allowing him to move into her spot to grab her phone.

Gods, what had gotten into her?

“Got it,” he said, leaning up next to her to hand her their sole source of light.

And as she took it into her grasp, the phone screen lit up to reveal…

Scara, looking straight at her, their proximity atop her bed far closer than she had anticipated.

His sleeveless shirt left little to the imagination. In the darkness, she pictured the patchwork of tattoos scattered across the tone of his arms. And she had to admit that he looked even better than he did in her head.

Was it just the poor lighting, or was he mirroring her wide-eyed expression?

“Thanks for your help,” she murmured, breaking eye contact to jump off her bed. She hastily turned on her phone’s flashlight, illuminating the space ahead of her with a stream of light.

Better than nothing.

And as Scara stood from her bed to walk to the door, she picked up her textbook and notebook before leading the way to the common area.

When they reached the common area sofa, he borrowed her phone to grab his own homework materials from his room. And at that moment, Lumine was left alone to finally let out the deep breath she was holding.

Tonight hadn’t gone to plan in the slightest, but in a way, she was glad that it didn’t. Something so simple as a power outage had finally broken down the wall between them. The wall that had been put up for a reason that she still wasn’t too sure of.

She wished so much to understand why he was so worried for her that night at the party. That, contrasted by the cold shoulder he had given her ever since, left her feeling a bit empty. But now, she felt as though she could speak to him even more casually than before that night.

Scara soon returned from his room, sitting next to her on the common area sofa and spreading his textbook and notebook out on the coffee table. Lumine set her phone atop a stack of unrelated books to give them the most light coverage possible. And when she turned back to glance at his workload, she realized something.

“Is that a physics textbook?”

“Oh—uh, yeah,” he murmured as he flipped his notebook to a clean page. “You’re in physics too?”

She nodded. “I’m in the 9AM class with Dr. Kreideprinz.”

“I’m in his 10AM,” Scara grumbled. “His homework fucking sucks. It takes way too long.”

Hm. An idea. “Then why don’t we split it up? You take evens, I take odds?”

He hummed in contemplation before responding. “Honestly, not a bad idea.”

Lumine had to hold back a wide smile. “Cool,” she tried to remain casual, “should be much faster this way.”

And then she put her pencil to paper a bit too eagerly.

Why? Because she won. She fucking won.

She had fought tooth and nail for him to simply acknowledge his existence. And now, for the first time, she worked side by side with him. Scara. The impermeable roommate.

She dared not celebrate outwardly for fear of ruining their progress, but the fact of the matter was that a win was a win.

That fact was sweeter than anything else.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Lumine practically tackled Nilou on their walk to class.

“I have big fucking news, Nilou.”

She wasn’t lying. It was a pretty big breakthrough.

“W-what happened?” Aquamarine eyes widened slightly at her the blonde’s early morning peppiness. Fair enough—Lumine was the complete opposite of a morning person, after all.

“I, uh…” where to start? She decided that chronologically was the best course of action. “Did you lose power last night?”

“Oh, yeah!” Nilou clapped her hands together as if she completely forgot about the outage that lasted three—no, three and a half hours. “I was about to go to sleep, anyways. So I just called it an early night!” A wide smile of contentment.

… She went to sleep at 9PM?

Then again, why was she surprised? The girl had her head in the clouds the majority of the time. Lumine found herself envying that trait of hers on occasion.

But that wasn’t a subject for right now. She shook her head of any wandering thoughts, choosing to ask about her friend’s grandma-like sleep schedule another time. There were more important topics at hand. “Scara talked to me.”

“Huh?!” A voice raise uncharacteristic of Nilou set fire to the space around them. Lumine would admit that it made her feel a smidge triumphant.

“Yeah,” she nodded her head, wide eyes reflecting the redhead’s surprise. “Turns out he’s in Dr. Kreideprinz’s class right after ours. We both had homework due this morning, so we shared my phone flashlight and worked together.”

“Ooooh,” Nilou sang, a cheeky smile coating her bright complexion. “Romantic.”

… Romantic?

She had to admit that the word romantic kind of hit her sideways.

Nilou was… sort of right, though. The idea did seem pretty romantic from the outside. But in reality, it was strictly business.

In that same vein, weirdly enough, Scara was a lot smarter than she had anticipated. Of course, he had to be smart to be a biochem major, but in all honesty, the man didn’t scream “genius”.

Regardless, though, he ended up finishing his set of problems far before her and then helped her with her last few.

“No, no, you’re supposed to think of the kinetic force this way,” he drew lines on her paper to help her visualize the problem.

She had expected him to call her stupid and scoff at her, but… no. He was actually helpful.

She really wished that last night would continue. That their coming days would follow in the footsteps of that sense of… camaraderie. But in the pit of her stomach, she knew that the truce between them wouldn’t last. Their chemistry was only visible under the cloak of darkness.

Fuck. She needed to think about something else. There was no point in deliberating it right now. So she strayed a bit from the topic of Scara so that she could let herself cool off.

During class, though, she couldn’t keep her mind from wandering. What if they had ended up in the same class? She imagined the sight of him a few rows down, sitting idly with his chin atop his hand. Bored. Thinking of… other things.

She wondered what occupied his mind. The depths of his desires.

No, she pushed those thoughts into the recesses of her mind. But as she turned her focus to her notebook, quickly flipping to a fresh page, she was met with the haphazard boxes and arrows of Scara’s kinetic energy explanation from last night.

Gods. He actually cared enough to explain the concept to her rather than just begrudgingly doing the problem for her.

What did that mean for her? For them? As roommates? Friends?

Suddenly, her phone buzzed.

And then again.

Ugh. She was 85% sure that it was Matthias.

Another buzz.

Okay, now she was 99% sure that it was him. Probably talking about their date this Friday.

The rest of class was spent flickering between annoyance, wonder, and a horrible attempt at focus on the lecture ahead of her.

Maybe she’d just have to hire Scara as a tutor.

Shut up.

Honestly, what had gotten into her? Scara had given her the time of day once and here she was throwing herself all over the thought of the next time they’d interact. But realistically, that time was probably going to be the last. He’d fall back into his cadence of ignoring her, and all would be… fine. It would be fine.

For the rest of the day, Lumine deliberated just how she planned to act around him now. It was clear that her senses had become heightened around him because of their… proximity last night, but she couldn’t let that show. She needed to be cool, collected, and nonchalant around him. Not the peppy, in-his-face Lumine that she was at the start of the semester. Not the cold-shoulder Lumine she was for the past few weeks. Somewhere… in between.

No smiles. No vibrancy. Maybe just a casual “hey” every now and then? Even that seemed like too much for him.

Gods. Men were so hard to gauge.

So as she got home that night, she decided to let him take the reigns. He’d decide how they’d interact moving forward.

Making dinner was a bit… tense. She kept checking her phone, waiting with bated breath for the time that he got home from class. And when the door to the suite unlocked, she almost froze in place.

Act natural. Act fucking natural.

As Scara walked through the door, a quick peek was all she allowed herself. And he looked…

Off. He looked off. Disheveled at best, honestly. He wore a prominent scowl on his face, but not the usual scowl that she knew so dearly.

And as a matter of fact, his eyes looked different as well. His violet gaze was usually laden with thorns. Sharp. A warning. Tonight was the first time that she spotted something else within them: an unidentifiable sense of melancholy.

The veins in his arm bulged as he gripped the strap on his backpack with one hand and held his phone to his ear with the other.

“No. This isn’t happening again, Mom. We’re not fucking going there.”

And then he slammed his bedroom door behind him.

Oh. Well, now she just felt bad. Empathy flooded her veins, coloring her vision a tinge of blue.

“We’re not fucking going there.” Heh. Sounded like something she and Aether would have spat at each other before he…

Before he left her.

Since starting college, Lumine had been all but distracted from that situation. She made new friends, went to parties, and the gods knew they a certain amethyst-eyed man had been taking up a portion of her waking thoughts, as well.

But Aether never truly left her mind.

It was the same old argument. A full moon. Tears on her pillow. His own pillow, gone without a trace.

Don’t think about it.

Two tablespoons of butter in the pan. Medium heat. Add the garlic and onions.

Anything to get her mind off of it.

From behind Scara’s door she heard a muffled argument. For his own sake and her own, she tuned it out to focus on the recipe in front of her.

Pat the fish dry between paper towels. Season with salt and pepper. Stir the spaghetti noodles into the boiling water.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Good.

Soon, the conversation behind his door died down, and an air of solemnity took its place.

She wanted so badly to reach out and connect with someone who was also going through their own darkness. It just… wasn’t the right time. Maybe it never would be.

She had her qualms and he did too. Everyone did, really. No one in this world was without scars of their own. And each scar was as unique as the diamonds that lined the night sky.

But in the midst of her faraway thought, Scara’s door suddenly opened.

Gods, she nearly dropped to the floor. But she somehow retained her composure.

It was only a few seconds. He made his way to the fridge, grabbed a soda, and then went back to his room. She didn’t dare to turn and look at him, and he paid her no mind.

But even a simple act such as this wouldn’t have happened if they didn’t talk last night. He would have avoided her at all costs, as he had done for the past few weeks.

And though it might seem dumb, that small occurrence meant more to Lumine than she would ever admit.

Because it meant that he was willing to make it work.

The next few days were… a bit better than the last few weeks. Scara didn’t ignore her existence, but he didn’t quite acknowledge her, either. It was this weird, antsy, lukewarm feeling. But it was better than nothing.

Lumine was doing better than expected at allowing him to take the reigns, too. She simply acted like he wanted nothing to do with her, and she was surprised every time he did small things like sit in the common area as she made dinner or brew some tea while doing homework on the couch. And though they were all in silence, the little things were… nice. Cordial.

Yoimiya seemed to love that fact. The drama was a daily subscription she expected updates on, and whenever there was something to talk about, she and Nilou flashed each other a look.

At best, Lumine rolled her eyes at them. At worst, she dismissed their smug looks with a wrinkle of her nose.

“No. Absolutely not.”

Yoimiya just snickered at her. Always the mischievous one.

Friday came around after a particularly slow and lazy week. The clock struck 6PM, and finally (or begrudgingly), it was time for her date with Matthias.

“You look wonderful,” he said as he stepped out of his car to greet her.

Ah. Handsome, check-all-the-boxes Matthias. She had to admit that the man cleaned up nicely—slicked-back brown hair added a formal flare to his rugged appearance, his stubble just long enough to add a five-o-clock shadow to his face. To match her emerald green dress, he sported a deep green tie along with a white dress shirt and slacks.

With a smooth stride, he opened her passenger side door, allowing her in before shutting it with grace.

He used to be her type. He’d be anyone’s type. But why…

“How has your day been, Lumi?”

“A-ah,” she brought herself back to reality with a few blinks at the window ahead of her. “Good! Good. It’s been a pretty chill week.” She shot him a smile.

“Nice! It’s been pretty chill for me too.”

Their conversation continued like that until they got to the restaurant. Good, cordial, but a bit bland. Classes, tests, professors. And then…

“My LapisCoin is through the roof today.” He pulled out his phone to check it quickly. “Yup. Up 4% over the last few days.”

She was all for a man with hobbies, but… not when the hobbies in question took up the majority of the conversation. Their first date was nothing like this. Then again, all of the obvious, school-related topics had already been covered in detail during their first date.

He dove deep into the topic of his crypto ventures, droning on and on about podcasts and “get rich quick” tips they taught him.

Halfway through the date, Lumine realized that they had nothing in common.

A polite smile was plastered on her face. And every time she tried to diverge the topic from crypto to something more her forte, like the podcasts she enjoyed or a funny video she saw the other day, she could see his eyes glaze over. He wasn’t really hearing her, he just nodded and smiled as if he was listening before pivoting the topic back to himself.

It was a huge relief when he decided to ask for the check.

After a few more tangents in the car about his massive LapisCoin portfolio, they finally arrived at her building.

“Can I walk you back to your suite?”

“Sure, I’d appreciate that.”

Matthias followed closely behind, only moving ahead of her to open the door for her. And as they walked, the tone… shifted. Something felt odd.

As she grabbed her keys and unlocked her door, she turned to face him once more to say her goodbyes. “Thank you so much for dinner,” she smiled.

“It was my pleasure,” he flashed a toothy smile. “Though, I was really hoping you’d invite me inside.”

She froze. “Oh, um, sorry, but I’m not comfortable with that. I think it’s best if we say goodnight here.”

“Best for who?” He contested. “I thought we had something going, Lumine.”

“I’m sorry, but I enjo—”

“You enjoyed yourself. Right.” A wry, humorless laugh. “If you enjoyed yourself, isn’t it natural to take it to the next step here? After all the effort I put into this?”

“M-Matthias, I—”

“Something the matter here?” A frigid voice rang out from behind her.

Lumine whirled around to meet a set of venomous violet eyes. But this time, that glare was not for her.

“W-who are you?!” Matthias jeered.

“Her roommate.”

“This issue doesn't concern you.”

“It absolutely does.”

A moment of hesitation. Matthias’ firm blue eyes were set on Scara. She was honestly surprised that he didn’t turn and run with the lethal intent behind her roommate’s glower.

“Scara, I…”

“I won’t twist your head off of your neck because I know Lumine wouldn’t want me to,” he said smoothly. “Make sure that I don’t get a second chance.”

A moment of pause as Matthias weighed his options.

And then he settled on shooting Lumine one last uneasy glare before turning and walking away.

Relief flooded her veins. Time froze for a moment as Scara guided her inside, making sure to lock the door behind them.

Lumine held her hands up in front of her to reclaim herself. To make her surroundings feel more real. So she just stood there, in silence, watching her fingers quiver in fear.

Deep breaths. In. Out.

Don’t spiral into thoughts of the past.

Just think about… better things. Happier things. Like her friends, and… and her roommate.

As her heart rate slowed back to normal, she opened her eyes and raised her head to find herself sitting on the couch and Scara in the kitchen. His fists were braced against the countertop, head drooped as he leaned his weight on his arms. Was he… upset by what just happened?

“Scara,” she said softly so as not to alert him. Her voice was dry, though. Rough. She quietly cleared her throat.

No response.

“I’m sorry about… that. I didn’t want to involve you.”

“Do you have any idea how close I was to pushing my fist through his skull, Lumine?”

Oh.

Oh.

“If you weren’t standing between us, I would have. No hesitation.”

“I…”

A moment of silence as she absorbed his words.

“No need to say anything. I just… I don’t know why I’m saying this.”

“Thank you, Scara.”

“I don’t need your thanks,” he spat.

So Lumine snapped her mouth shut, her gaze falling back to her lap.

Another pause set in between them. And this time, it felt tense. One, two, three seconds. She counted them to keep her mind level, choosing to quiet her breaths as best she could so that she could curl up as small as possible and disappear.

But then, she heard a sigh and a shift from the kitchen. “Want some tea?”

Wide honey eyes shot to meet violet.

“Sure,” she said quietly, nodding in cautious agreement.

He quickly broke her gaze to turn to the cabinet beside him, opening it to reveal an abundance of both his and her teas. “Uh, what are you feeling?”

“I’ll take… the chamomile tea,” she decided. “The purple box on the left.”

Scara grabbed the box from the cabinet, turning and scrutinizing the box with a wrinkled nose. “I don’t know how you drink this stuff. Too… sweet.”

Lumine smiled gently. “You’re going to hate how much honey I add.”

He scoffed with a shake of his head, setting the box aside to fill the electric kettle with water. “I’m Inazuman, so I grew up on tea,” he murmured. “The older I get, the more bitter I like it.”

She hummed in understanding. “I actually have a pretty bitter one in that cabinet,” she mused. “I imagine you’re a stickler for that sort of thing, though.”

“What gave it away?” He looked over at her expectantly.

“You looked at the box of tea like it personally offended you.”

“I mean, it exists, so it offends me.”

“I’ll just take your word for it,” she said with a laugh.

It wasn’t long until the water was hot and the tea was steeped. He walked over with her cup and a bottle of honey, setting it down and taking a step away like he was afraid it’d spontaneously combust. “I’m not going to stick around to see how much of that shit you put in your tea. It’s getting late.”

“Fair enough.”

“I’ll see you around. Oh, and block that asshole from your contacts, okay?”

The words "thank you" almost escaped her lips once more, but she held herself back. If he didn’t want the praise, she wouldn’t push it on him.

So she decided to stick with simplicity.

“Will do,” she said with an earnest smile.

Chapter Text

The look on his face was stuck in Lumine’s mind. Lodged, embedded comfortably into the forefront of her subconscious.

Crackling electricity underneath hardened amethyst. No matter how fast Lumine run, no matter what bogus conclusion she halfheartedly drew, there was no escaping those two distinct looks in Scara’s eyes.

First, it was that bloodthirsty scowl that bore into Matthias’ skull.

Then, it was the equally crazed stare at the countertop while she came back to reality.

But… at the same time, that second look wasn’t a malicious stare like the one he gave Matthias. No, on the contrary, it was pained. It was something that haunted her ever since that night.

Lumine sat awake in bed for the next few nights, these same thoughts circulating through her mind like a goddamn wash cycle. It was the same thing every time: surprise at the fact that he helped in the first place; awe mixed with apprehension at the way he protected her. And with what happened after…

… She would rather not delve too deep into what happened after.

Because, gods, there inlaid the heart of the matter. The truth that Lumine had been sprinting from. The conclusion that she refused to draw.

He cared.

Fuck. He cared.

She couldn’t let herself believe that fact, though. Because what if she was wrong? What if he didn’t care?

Well, she would be crushed. But that’s another layer of “refusal to admit” that she wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

So there she was again, staring at the pitch-black ceiling, Scara’s eyes etched into her mind. His wide violet gaze was lit up by thunder, his lightning striking the field of dark water that his subconscious lay at the bottom of. Jolting him to life, and yet at the same time, pulling him further under what sinister thoughts brew far below.

Lumine wanted to learn more.

More. More. More.

And then her hand plunged underneath her waistband.

Every night, like a wash cycle. She built a tower surrounding her, scaling far above her, blocking out any thoughts of what could be.

And then as the hour of the devil pried at her willpower, as did she with the bricks she had so painstakingly put in place.

It was the knowledge that he sat next to her on this bed during the blackout. It was the knowledge that he pressed against her breast oh so nonchalantly. It was the knowledge that he protected her on instinct alone. It was the knowledge that he made her tea and gave her that fucking honey regardless of hating it himself. It was the knowledge that—

It was the knowledge that he might want her the same way.

The length of his tattooed arms would wrap themselves around her, pulling her flush against his chest as he fucked her from the back. He would run his broad hands along her body, his layered black and silver rings dragging like ice along her abdomen and over her the mounts of her heaving chest. One hand would stay there, admiring the way her breast spilled over his hand. The other would climb higher to grasp at her chin, wrenching it back so that she could look him in those sinister midnight eyes as he ruined her.

Lumine covered her mouth so as to not whimper his name.

But after her body drew taut and her walls coiled around her fingers in a release just as sweet as the last, she lay in bed staring at the ceiling once more.

She never escaped it. Pandora’s box had been opened, and no matter how hard she tried to force it shut, it teemed with emotions that sunk their claws into her without rhyme or reason.

Yearning morphed into want morphed into disgust morphed into curiosity morphed into yearning. Over and over. Rinse and fucking repeat.

But regardless of how sweet those fantasies were, at the end of the night, her thoughts always left her disgruntled as she drifted off to sleep. Because if her fantasies came true, and he did want her the same way, then what of them as roommates? What of the women that he brought over every now and then? Would she just be another tally on his body count?

Then again, it had been a long time since Scara hadn’t brought a girl over. In fact, it had been almost exactly since the incident with Matthias.

Hope bubbled up to the top of her subconscious. Horrible, evil hope. It would be the death of her, surely.

So she took a needle to it.

And so the cycle continued.

It wasn’t that horrible of a cycle, though. On the contrary, playing these games was admittedly pretty exhilarating. She had grown used to the tango that was their relationship as roommates. And, honestly, she would even go so far as to say that she found a way to work around his sourness.

“Scara, want some tea?” She called from the kitchen toward his open bedroom door.

“Uh, sure,” he responded in a passive mutter.

She dampened a small smile as she filled the kettle with tap water.

Of course, he hated the tea. She made him try her most bitter kind—she pleaded with him until he finally scoffed with a venomous “Fine”—and he nearly spat the single sip back into her sky-blue, daisy-covered mug.

“You trying to fucking kill me with this sweet shit?!”

“I mean, if that means that I could live by myself, then probably,” she shrugged.

He just scowled at her as she laughed.

Things were good. Wholeheartedly good. Sometimes they chilled in the common room together, other times they made dinner side by side. As long as she didn’t contest his boundaries, he would treat her as a normal human. And that was good enough for her.

There was that… electricity about the air whenever they brushed past each other, but Lumine tried her best to ignore that.

It didn’t help much, of course, because of people like—

“So, you guys fucking or what?” Yoimiya tilted her head to look back at her as she lagged behind the group.

Lumine narrowed her eyes.

“What?! I can see it in your eyes, Lu. You’ve been talking about him less, too. You just keep saying stuff like ‘he’s fine,’ ‘he’s better,’ ‘it’s whatever,’” Yoimiya lowered her voice in a comical impression of her friend. Well, it would be comical if she wasn’t right.

“It is unlike you,” Nilou said softly, tipping her head to look at the darkening sky.

Another week over with. Another Friday. Another walk from the dining hall to Lumine’s suite.

Tonight, Yoimiya and Nilou were invited to raid Lumine’s closet. It was much easier than having them bring their own going-out clothes, and besides, Yoimiya’s forgetful ass had completely forgotten to bring an outfit in the first place.

“Your boobs are so much bigger than mine,” Nilou wrinkled her nose in envy at the plunging neckline that Lumine set in place around her abundance of cleavage.

“You’re gorgeous, Nil,” she rolled her eyes in response. “And besides, trust me when I say that no one is looking at your tits as you dance. They’re looking at your ass.”

Yoimiya burst out laughing at that. Nilou just spun around, covering her face in embarrassment.

Knowing how Nilou got after a beer or two, though, that embarrassment was soon to be replaced with a plethora of liquid confidence.

So after much back and forth and a near-fashion show in Lumine’s room, the trio emerged with low-cut tops, short skirts, and heels that clacked against the tile floor of the suite’s common area.

Lumine just happened to notice that Scara’s bedroom door was open.

Her mind buzzed with what-ifs.

What if he walked out right now? Would he look her up and down? Would he shove his hands in his pockets in feigned nonchalance? Would he—

She pried the refrigerator door open to hide her scowl. Shut up, she warned herself.

Gods, she hadn’t even started drinking yet.

So as she sat down on the sofa in between her two friends, handing them their respective cans of shitty beer, she decided to quell her racing mind by scrolling through the Bloom dating app.

Ever since the incident with Matthias, Lumine had become apprehensive to hop back onto the dating train. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

The first man popped up on her screen.

Topless mirror photo.

Pass.

Next up was Nikolaj V: Blonde. Biology major. Looked like he was in a frat.

Mm, sure.

Gavin T: Decent profile photo with his family. Nice smile. Description: “My mom > all girls. Sorry, future wife, you’ll always be second.”

Uh, no thanks.

James M: “Only here to spy on my cheating girlfriend.”

Ooookay. That was enough for now.

Beyond the lens of her distraction, Nilou and Yoimiya were having a conversation about classes. Music thumped in the background—whatever bass-heavy stuff Yoimiya put on—while Nilou idly swayed to the beat.

So with a sigh of contentment, Lumine chose to lean back in her seat and bring her beer can to her lips, allowing the liquid to wash over her nerves.

But as she did, a certain someone emerged from his room.

Scara, clad with a leather jacket and dark-wash ripped jeans, made his way over to the microwave to fix his hair in its reflection.

She couldn’t help but take a peek.

Ah, and…

Those black nails would easily grasp the fullness of her chest.

That lip ring would enhance his sinister smile as she rutted herself pathetically against him.

Those studs lining the length of his ears would be so fun to brush her lips against.

Those black and silver rings would jut into her deliciously as he gripped her neck.

Gods, it had suddenly become so hot in here.

Lumine looked away and back to her phone before he could catch her staring—

—But the always-sly Yoimiya had caught on in an instant.

Shit.

“Hey, Scara,” Yoimiya elbowed her lightly, “where are you off to tonight?”

“None of your business,” he mumbled passively as he continued to wrestle with his hair.

Then she turned and cupped her hand over her mouth as she whispered, “Lu, why don’t you ask him? He’d probably answer you.”

As she leaned out, a broad smile coated her face. Amber eyes lit up with half-lidded mischievousness.

Conversely, Lumine’s eyes went wide. “Shut up,” she growled through her teeth. Though Yoimiya’s belly laugh thankfully covered any of her audible embarrassment.

After that incident and until Scara left, she kept her head down and refused to meet his eyes. And as he exited the door, she let out a breath that she didn’t know she was holding.

Another sip went straight to the neat of searing heat that tangled at the pit of her abdomen.

Good.

Idle conversation turned into tipsy laughs, which turned into a group Bloom session. The three crowded around Lumine’s phone, voting yes or no on the profile in front of them. Two yes’ out of three meant Lumine would swipe right, choosing to match with them. If said person already swiped right on her, a notification would pop up on the screen to indicate that they matched with each other. And with that, a congratulatory round of sips would partake.

It was a bit selfish of her, but her heart lit up at the idea. All she needed to do was find another date to put this shit to rest.

“Ooh, he looks cute,” Nilou wiggled in her seat.

Lumine scoffed. “You’ve said that about every guy so far.”

“Nilou is a freak,” Yoimiya chimed in. “I just know it.”

“W-what do you mean a freak?!” Nilou yelped as the other two laughed. Her face turned about as red as her hair, eyes narrowed in the most adorable pout that Lumine could recall.

There was no way that she wasn’t a freak. But they could save that conversation for another day.

“To be fair, though, this guy is kind of a winner,” Lumine tilted her head. One swipe right led to an instant match.

“Congratulations! It’s a match! Click here to start the conversation!”

“Message him, message him!” Nilou sang, bouncing restlessly in her seat.

“Tomorrow,” Lumine rolled her eyes in response. “No drunk texting.”

Her friend just huffed in impatience, bringing her beer can to her lips along with the others.

The night went on like this, the girls finishing a few beers between them in the process.

Left swipe.

Right swipe.

Left swipe.

Left swipe.

Right sw—

Oh.

Her thumb almost swiped as if on autopilot before she could get a good look at the picture of the person front and center on her phone screen.

Scara R.

Oh, gods.

His profile photo was of him in his room presenting an almost aggressively bored look. His half-lidded midnight eyes showed as little care as humanly possible, cheekbone sat atop his tattooed fist as he looked down coldly at the camera. His black button-down was unbuttoned just enough to showcase the beginnings of his chest and neck tattoos.

His description read, “Mommy issues. Only here to laugh at best. I don’t want anything to do with 99% of you.”

Lumine reddened with envy at anyone who had seen this photo before.

Nilou spoke first, of course. “Oh, wow…” she trailed off, pressing her lips shut to keep herself from elaborating more.

“Off limits.” The words escaped her mouth before she could even process them.

Yoimiya just looked at her. Something glinted behind her eyes.

Uh oh.

“Oho? Off limits? Why’s that?”

Her gaze darkened. Eyes narrowed. Blush deepened. “H-he’s my roommate!”

And then she remembered.

It was only a few weeks ago when she, Yoimiya, and Nilou were pressed against her bedroom wall, straining to hear the conversation between Scara and Childe in the common area. On this same damn couch.

“That’s my roommate, you asshole.”

“Yeah, and she’s hot.”

“Off limits.”

Off limits. Both of them were off limits.

But if that was the case…

Lumine locked her phone and tipped her beer to the ceiling, chugging what remained of the magic liquid.

“Shots,” she grunted, leaping up from the couch.

Her friends just snickered from behind. Regardless of what look they shared between them, though, they duly complied, standing up immediately to follow her. It was her vodka they were drinking, anyways.

So they raised their glasses.

“To being off limits,” Nilou giggled from behind her hand.

Lumine didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say. She just clinked her shot glass with the others’, albeit grumblingly, and raised the sinful liquid to her lips.

Anything to keep her mind off… that.

After a night of drinking, her mind was still not off of that.

Lumine laid in her bed, hair sprawled out around her like a flaxen halo, mind still spinning from a fun night with friends.

Of course, men hit on her. Of course, she had the option to get over her roommate by getting under someone else.

But here she lay, in her own bed, alone.

A sigh of annoyance penetrated the thick silence that surrounded her like a humid day.

And it was just that—silent. Scara hadn’t brought anyone over, contrary to what she had convinced herself to believe in her drunken stupor earlier that night. Lumine could remember with picture-perfect clarity the way she stood with her hands on either side of the shitty frat bathroom sink, staring into her eyes and frowning at those deafening thoughts.

Surely he’s bringing someone home tonight, right? With how he looked, there’s no way he isn’t.

Why didn’t he tell Yoimiya what he was doing tonight? Would he have told me?

His Bloom profile said that he didn’t want anything to do with 99% of the girls swiping for him. Does that include me?

She instinctively brought up the Bloom app once more.

There he was, all but scowling down at her. With those delicious, apathetic amethyst eyes. With his cheekbone to his chin in boredom.

Gods, the things she would do to see that next to her right now.

So whether it was her still-drunken daze or the liquid confidence, she swiped right on Scara.

“Congratulations! It’s a match!” Popped up with hearts and stars across the screen. “Click here to start the conversation!”

And then her heart hit her stomach.

Chapter Text

It turned out that drunkenness and heart-stopping surprise wasn’t a very good combination.

Lumine lay awake. Sometimes glancing at her phone, sometimes staring at the ceiling, but mostly just staring at Scara’s picture on Bloom.

The room spun. Gods, the room spun. She wasn’t even that drunk anymore, having sobered up quite quickly from the shock of matching with Scara, but for some reason, her mind just couldn’t let her rest.

It was about time that she admitted her attraction to him. No, it was far past due. She hated him, she hated him, and yet she wanted him so much that it ached. The way those opposing feelings tangled into a mess of right and wrong was absolutely mind-numbing.

But did right and wrong really matter here?

Yes, you idiot, she twisted her face into some sort of condescending scowl at the darkened ceiling. Of course, it mattered. If he wasn’t in bed asleep already, he probably knew of the fact that she swiped right on him. And then what? How could she act in front of him moving forward?

Fuck. There was absolutely no way that she would be able to sleep like this. So with sweat clinging to her skin and the residue of shoddily-removed makeup still caking her face, she swung her legs over the edge of her bed and stood.

Bad idea.

The room tipped and Lumine nearly dipped to the floor, but thanks to the sturdy wood desk at her side, she was able to straighten herself enough to toddle forward. With her hand anchored against the wall, she slowly made it outside her room, across the common area, and to the bathroom unscathed.

Cold water against her skin was a necessary harshness. Sobering, at least to an extent. The bulk of her dizziness was washed away while standing there with water trickling down her shoulders to her collarbones to the rounded peaks of her breasts.

As she stared at the shower floor in a waning daze, she became even more terrified with every passing second. Because as the thin veil of drunkenness lifted from her, she was plagued with the weight of her actions.

She fucked up. It was as simple as that.

It wasn’t just that, either. She had worked so incredibly hard to build a solid foundation in which she could live without walking on eggshells, but a simple drunken mistake bulldozed it to the ground in its entirety. She now stood atop the rubble, hoping, praying that it was salvageable.

Probably not, but…

But what if it was salvageable? What if he wanted her the same way?

He did swipe right on her too, after all. And judging by the fact that there was an immediate “Congratulations!” message after her choice to match with him, she could assume with confidence that he swiped right on her first.

How long ago was it that he saw her profile and thought in his heart that she was worth it? Was it just a cruel joke between him and his friends? Was there something deeper, or was she digging her own grave by igniting her hope ablaze?

Fuck. There really was no way out of this hellhole.

So with a sigh, she turned off the faucet with force.

Maybe a cup of sleep-inducing tea would help. As she stepped out of the shower, finally feeling stable enough to stand without fear of toppling over, she took a moment to wipe the mirror clean of steam.

… Yeah, she looked fucking miserable. Exhausted, dehydrated, anxiety-ridden.

A cup of tea and back to bed, she thought to herself as she tucked her towel above the swell of her breasts.

But as she opened the bathroom door, allowing a stream of steam and bright light to pour over its threshold into the pitch-black common area, she heard a jingle of keys coming from the front door.

Shit.

Unfortunately for Lumine, the bathroom was set directly between the front door and Scara’s room. Even if she did trust her legs, making a break for her room wasn’t an option. So as the front door swung open, she accepted her fate.

A flood of light beamed in from the front door, the harsh brightness perpendicular to the one cast from the bathroom. And there he was, the man who ceaselessly plagued her headspace, still sporting that damn leather jacket from earlier.

Amethyst eyes met golden ones, and surprise morphed into unadulterated amusement. “Just the person I wanted to see,” a playful lilt colored his voice pitch black as the front door swung shut behind him. Gone was the second beam of light that illuminated his features; in its place was the darkness that colored his ambition.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

If she didn’t fight back, she would be done for. If she didn’t say anything, she would be done for.

Thankfully, her time as his roommate had given her a bit of an edge. After all, she wasn’t the doormat she used to be.

So with clammy palms, she decided to go on the offensive.

“What, come to ask me on a date? It could wait until the morning, you know.”

A wry laugh. “Dumb and hypocritical. What, so lonely and horny that you swiped right on your roommate at 2AM?”

Scara circled Lumine like a hawk threatening to descend with talons drawn. Embarrassment flooded her cheeks as she squeezed her hands together in front of her, trying desperately to ignore the downward flash of his eyes.

“Too bad for you, Yoimiya’s favorite drunk activity is stealing my phone,” she replied coolly, standing her ground with a sure tone.

“You’re trash at lying, Viatrix,” Scara spat as a venomous smile grew across his face. “It doesn’t help that your emotions are written all over your face like a goddamn book.”

“Have my face down to a science, hm?” Spite teemed at her tongue. “A bit too eager, aren't we?”

Scara stepped forward, effortlessly closing the space between them. A challenge, she concluded. If she backed away now, he would have the upper hand. And if he had the upper hand, he would surely pulverize her paper-thin guise of tenacity.

But as he took a step into the beam of light emanating from the bathroom, the throbbing heat at the base of her abdomen began to ache.

His electric eyes were eager for war.

Her honey eyes were eager for him.

“Don’t even start that with me,” his mouth was twisted in a noxious smile. “A liar and desperate for attention. A combination perfect for a person like you.”

Lumine tinkered with the idea that he truly did enjoy toying with her. Her stubborn front was delicious for him to break down. Piece by piece, her mask would fall from her face and onto the minuscule piece of linoleum floor separating them.

That was not going to happen.

So she forced her cinderblock feet from the ground as she took a sure step forward. “And what about you, Scara? You swiped right on me first. What, those mommy issues really got you reaching for just about anyone?” A dry laugh bubbled up from her throat.

He didn’t like that. Sadism morphed into a sure scowl. But in a flash, he was back to coy.

Lumine saw it, though. Her eyes dripped with barbarous mirth. “You could call me Mommy if you really wanted to,” she cooed. “I won’t judge.”

“Asking about what I’m into already,” he matched her tone, taking her insult in stride. Once again, he took a step closer, this time forcing Lumine back against the wall behind her.

Fuck.

And even then, Scara pushed her further; he angled himself to hover over her with both hands pressed against the wall, caging her in. “Don’t you think it’s a little soon for that sort of stuff, roommate? What, needy for my cock?”

Alcohol and cigarettes. His breath intertwined with hers in a battle for first place, but it was crystal clear that neither of them were coming out alive.

No, they were descending into the depths of hell together.

“Oh, don’t worry about me, roommate,” she purred. “Contrary to what you’d like to believe, I’m completely satisfied with the dick that I get.”

A bold-faced lie. His eyes crinkled at the corners as a frenzied grin curled the edges of his mouth. “Your friend—ah, what was her name? Yoimiya, right? Naganohara Yoimiya. Think she’d let me hit?”

Her heart plummeted. His eyes grew wild.

She was always just his prey.

“Mm, what’s with the hesitation, Lumine?”

Lumine was near-sober, but the proximity of his nose brushing hers, his eyelashes, his lips—

Off-limits. He was off-limits to everyone except for her.

“I’m not letting my friend fuck my roommate.” Her voice was small.

A low chuckle escaped him as he peeled one hand from the wall. “And why is that?”

“Didn’t you say the same to Childe?” She had regained her footing, her voice teeming with the venom she once harbored. But as his violet eyes flashed from sardonicism to widened surprise, she realized—

Shit.

“How did you hear that conversation?”

Her mask plummeted to the floor.

“You said it while we were walking to my room.”

“You’re shit at lying, Viatrix.”

“I—”

“So you did all of that shit on purpose, huh?” A cheshire smile unfurled. “You tried to get with Childe to get under my skin.”

“Scara, I—”

With a simple push, he lifted himself from the wall, choosing instead to funnel his focus into the phone that he ripped from his pocket. His digits danced across the bright screen as he brought up Yoimiya’s social media page. “Maybe I will fuck her,” his low voice retained its casual tone, though his eyes were hidden from view. “Maybe then we’ll be even, hm?”

“I wasn’t going to fuck him,” Lumine tried—and failed—to retain any semblance of composure.

Drunk. She was drunk on him, she worshipped him, she needed him. She took a shaky step forward; it took everything in her not to reach for his wrist. Instead, her fingers knitted together in front of her.

“I—I swear, Scara, I swear on my li—”

And then in one swift motion, he shoved his phone back into his pocket, backed her against the wall, and caged her in again with a slam of his hands. “Cut the shit, Lumine.” His primal growl was potent with a type of rage that sent lightning down her spine. “You’re starting to piss me the fuck off.”

Lumine allowed a moment of silence between them so that she could find some way to alleviate the tension. Her doe eyes flickered between his from below her lashes; for a stark, silent moment, she allowed her eyes to spill over with emotions she had been hiding this whole time.

“I’m sorry, Scara,” she whispered. It was shaky, but it was sure.

“Sorry for what?”

Her mouth ran dry.

Words had been her downfall as of late; actions were the perfect outlet to express her overpowering thoughts.

She yearned to show him what she was thinking.

So before she could second guess herself, the space between them was closed indefinitely.

Eyes fluttered shut as soft, plush lips pressed themselves into his. He froze against her brazenness, but it was only a moment until he melted into her as she had with him. Feelings flooded to the forefront as if a dam had been chipping away this entire goddamn time.

He tasted of soot and vodka. She drank it in.

Fingers tangled themselves into dark violet locks while headiness blanketed her subconscious. Heavy breaths struggled for air as lips and tongues crashed against each other in a dance, both parties vying for a dominant spot. It was futile, but she wanted to try.

As they battled, Lumine was pressed further against the wall. Her supple breasts swelled against his damn leather jacket; she yearned to rip it off, to press her nakedness against his. She just wanted him to feel her.

Gods, it was wrong. They were roommates.

But the persistent heat that throbbed at the crest of her creamy thighs was all too delicious.

A low moan escaped her at the thought of her soft femininity cradled against him. How he would pry her towel from her, let it drape itself at her feet, nimble digits eager to explore her—

In the midst of her fantasy, a hand of black nails slid down the wall beside her head, grabbed a fistful of wet blonde hair, and pulled. Lumine hissed as her lips were forced to part from his.

“Think you can use that to escape the blame, Viatrix?” Scara murmured in a breathless growl. “Beg me. Beg me for forgiveness.”

Sardonic amethyst eyes flashed from her eyes to her lips to the towel still loosely draped over her full chest.

Ah. Her heart fluttered, bloomed with desire. “B-beg you?”

She knew what he meant. She just wanted him to spell it out for her.

With his hand still seizing a clump of her hair, he leaned in to speak against her ear in a gravelly whisper. “Drop your towel and let me see you,” his lips lined the hollow of her ear. “Bend over and apologize to me.”

She gulped. She wanted to, so badly, but… “We’re roommates, Scara,” her voice wavered under the pressure of his words.

“You can be my pretty little plaything,” he murmured, a wry smile playing at his voice. “I can come and fuck you whenever I want. Sounds fun, hm?”

“Yes,” she breathed before her mind could catch up to her.

And with that, he released his hold on her and stepped back. “Then show yourself to me.”

Electric eyes bore into her golden ones.

Yes. No. Yes. No.

Yes.

Without another word, she released her towel and allowed it to drape in a pool at her feet.

Taut peaks were exposed to the open air, vulnerable to the piercing gaze of the man she displayed her naked body in front of.

And so he drank her in. Moments passed as diabolical eyes flickered slowly over her naked body. They stopped for a moment at her chest, taking in the way her nipples perched perfectly atop her full, round breasts. They then took a trip down her supple curves to her wide-set hips in which he was surely imagining the back of. And then finally, they latched themselves to her cunt ripe for the taking.

She was just an animal to him, a whore on display for his approval.

After he was satisfied, Lumine’s breath hitched in her throat as he made sure steps towards her. But just as she began to salivate once more, he stopped a step short of her lips.

Eager fingers began to caress her, slowly, softly as if appraising her worth. The weight of her breasts underneath his grasp; the dip of her curves against his palms; the plumpness of her ass, round to the touch. He stayed expressionless—focused, even—as he took in her soft, creamy skin against his fingertips.

And then his eyes flashed to hers.

“I’m going to fuck you, Lumine.”

She hated the words that escaped her mouth next:

“Scara, we can’t.”

Mind and heart battled for dominance. She wanted, gods, she wanted, but she couldn’t allow herself to grasp the rose riddled with venomous thorns.

His face twisted into a sneer. “Why not?” He hissed.

“We can still go back to being just roommates,” the steadiness of her voice surprised even her. “If we fuck, we can’t go back. We’ll be in a weird limbo of—of fuck buddies, roommates with benefits…” She shook her head, eyebrows knitting as a feud brewed deep within her. “That’s not something I’m capable of keeping up with.”

Violet eyes hardened in that of acceptance, though he remained silent.

“It’s not that I don’t want you—I-I mean…”

“That’s just it,” he interrupted in a low, serious tone. “Now that we’ve gone this far… now that I know you want me, I won’t be able to stop pursuing you.”

Golden eyes rounded in surprise. “If it’s really that much to ask, then I can… hook you up with Yoimiya,” she muttered against her better judgment.

Ah, there was that scowl that she knew so well.

“I don’t want her, dumbass.”

“Then who do y—”

Her sentence was cut off by his lips.

Gently, chastely, he moved his hands to rest on her shoulders as he leaned in to steal a soft kiss from her. It was innocent, so damn innocent…

… If not for the swell of heat that pulsed between her legs.

With a tug, Lumine pulled him closer before he threatened to move away. She immediately deepened their kiss, intertwining her fingers with his hair once again. Scara grunted against her lips, a confused sort of growl that morphed into to acceptance as his fingers crept up her neck to cup her face in his hands.

It was wrong. She couldn’t entertain something like this between them. But the fruit born from sin was too sweet for logic.

Bodies were separated by a single layer of clothing. She bit back a frustrated groan as neediness took hold; she needed to feel his skin on hers, sweat sliding against each other in a fit of raw passion.

Touch me.

Her hands released her grip against his scalp, choosing instead to grab hold of his wrists and guide them down to her breasts. Another grunt escaped him—an eager one, this time—as he cupped her pliant fullness in his hands. He took his time to explore her, kneading at her breasts before running his fingers over her taut nipples. And as he teased her, a ripple of pleasure coursed through her veins causing a stifled gasp to escape her lips.

More.

In a trance, Lumine’s hands crept downwards as sinfulness budded at the pads of her fingers. So wrong, so so wrong, and yet her dainty fingertips wouldn’t dare to sleep if not to find—

Ah, there it was.

Now it was Scara’s turn to repress a groan as she grabbed hold of his clothed, hardened cock. He broke their kiss for a flash of a moment, his wild midnight gaze drinking in all of her clouded intoxication before diving back into her.

“N-need you,” she murmured against his lips, her trance apparent in her clingy words.

He just chuckled wryly.

As Lumine gripped him, he couldn’t help but roll his hips against her grasp. And as Scara caressed her taut buds, she couldn’t help but grip him harder. Pump him faster. It was a self-fulfilling, shameful, delicious cycle.

And it would only end badly.

In a flash, Lumine ripped herself from Scara’s grasp, as he had done to her before. But this time, she chose to ensure their separation—before she even realized it, the bathroom door was between them, and she was on the cold tile floor.

“Wha—“

“I want to fuck you so bad, Scara,” Lumine called from within the confines of the bathroom. “I—I can’t do it. I can’t keep myself from you.”

“Lumine, we can talk it out. This doesn’t need to happen. We don’t need to fuck.”

Legs parted wide as she slumped against the door. “N-need…” Shaky hands shot to the pulsating heat between her thighs.

“Lumine?”

A hiss of sweet relief was joined by broken breaths as she finally was able to dip her finger into her own slick to coat her sensitive pearl. She moaned out his name in a dry, needy whimper.

“Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer. Hell surely had her in its grasp tonight; shamelessly, she circled a featherlight finger around her clit all the while convulsions wreaked havoc through her body. Her sweet, pathetic mewls of pleasure drowned out logic and reason once and for all.

Would she regret this tomorrow? Maybe.

But maybe not.

“I’m so wet for you,” she cried through her teeth before sucking in a shaky breath.

Scara was silent for a moment, uncertain as to what to do next. But then she felt the door push back against her weight as if someone was leaning on it from the other side. “I can’t fucking believe you have this hold on me, Viatrix,” he muttered.

Yes. “Keep talking to me, Scara,” she breathed.

A stray beat of silence before—

“You are to do exactly as I tell you,” his once-hesitant voice was now colored with authority.

“Y-yes,” Lumine croaked in response. Delicious surprise was like a live wire to her cunt, shocking it into a frenzy of insatiable thirst.

“You’re going to push one finger inside of yourself,” his gravely voice rang out from behind the door. “You’re going to fuck yourself slow.”

She complied with obedience. A moan escaped her through clenched teeth as she fucked herself slowly; it was delectable, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

“I need more,” she whined.

“I would give you everything if I could, Lumine,” he growled. “You have no fucking clue how deep inside of you I would be right now.”

A low hiss rang out from his side of the door—a sure sign that he was copying her movements. She could imagine him stroking himself slowly to the tempo of the sweet, wet sounds echoed by the tile walls of the bathroom.

Her walls ached to be expanded. They were so fucking needy for his cock. “T-tell me more,” she mewled.

“Every time you walk out in some fucking tight going-out dress, you drive me fucking insane, Lumine,” a snarl ripped through Scara’s chest. “And in that goddamn towel…”

He would sheath himself inside of her. He would fuck her until she completely lost control.

“… you have no clue what you do to me,” he continued. “It took everything in me not to rip it off and fuck you on the ground where you stood.”

Breathing hitched. Legs quivered. The fraying knot drew taut.

“Two fingers. And pleasure yourself with your other hand.”

Lumine’s heart bloomed. Her left hand immediately shot to her clit, and as she touched the sensitive bundle of nerves, her hips buckled out from under the waves of pleasure that emanated from her core. Two fingers were still insufficient, but they were a bit closer to the sweet release she craved. “I… I was staring at your Bloom profile a—ah—all night,” she admitted through her trance. “It was all I could think about.”

A rumble of sinister laughter rang out. “So you were the one to swipe right on me.”

“Yes…” a quivering, needy voice gave weight to her remorse.

“I’m going to get you back for that,” acid coated his tone, causing Lumine’s core to flash with heat. “What do you think your punishment should be?”

“N-n…” She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to spare a moment of focus for anything other than the way her cunt throbbed for more.

“I’m going to decimate you, Lumine,” he growled. “I’m going to break you. Now fuck yourself faster.”

She complied with fervor. Moans quickened, legs spread wider as Lumine slid against the door to the floor. “I-I touch myself to you every night,” she was able to choke her words out through her dry mouth and in between cries of pleasure.

But his response wasn’t the reply that she expected:

“I know,” he said, a strained grunt through bared teeth.

She almost lost control of herself right then and there.

“W-wh—”

“You aren’t the quietest person, Lumine,” he purred.

Embarrassment flooded through her veins and colored her with self-consciousness.

But then—

“What if I said I was on the other side of your wall, stroking myself as you moaned my name?”

All thought left her immediately. She was a puddle of sweat and slick on the floor, crying, writhing for him. Intoxicated, needy, craving his lips and his hands and his cock. All of it. More, so much more, until she was the whore he always wanted for himself.

“Cum for me.”

With those three words, stars exploded in her eyes. Walls began to coil and release her knuckle-deep fingers as her hips heaved, bending and contracting with the ripples of release dancing across her slick body.

Scara, Scara, Scara. Whether his name was on the tip of her tongue or just the top of her mind, she was unsure; all she was aware of was the fact that he came with her, his sweet grunts echoing through her mind as her cries echoed through the small room.

And then, taking the place of sweet, sultry mewls was the melody of heavy breaths.

“S-Scara,” she murmured, her heartbeat still loud in her ears.

“Yes?”

Ah. His voice was soft.

“Did you mean the things you said?”

“Yes,” a simple, gentle reply.

After a silent moment, Lumine felt a shift from the other side of the door as he got up. She could feel a split second of hesitance before he moved to his room, shutting the door behind him.

“Yes,” he had said just moments ago. That was the last word she heard from him that night.

Chapter Text

The moment they first met eyes, he could feel something. An itch at his subconscious.

Lumine Viatrix was her name. An annoying name to match an annoying as fuck girl.

But… no, that wasn’t true, was it? If that was the case, then why did he feel the need to steal a glimpse at her when she walked by?

And then another, and then another?

Subtle glances from a faraway electric gaze, hidden smiles at her iridescent glow.

He pushed her away; that was all he knew how to do. He didn’t deserve her, and yet the beginnings of something horrible came in like a trickle. He wanted so badly to seal the spot where emotions leaked into reality, to keep the two from creating a concoction too strong to handle.

And then Childe got involved.

That night, envy blazed through Scara’s alcohol-brimmed veins. Without warning, he was nearly reduced to ash on the sticky frat party floor.

No. He had to remain impassive. He couldn’t let these feelings affect him.

Pathetically enough, though, his stoic front was all but shattered in the face of a playful honey-gold smirk. “Look, Scara, I’m not here to look for a good guy,” Lumine had said under the haze of the frat party’s flashing neon lights. Scara caught her snake-like smile under moments of bright red, then green, then yellow, then stark red once again.

He wasn’t a good guy in the slightest, right? So why did his heart crack just a tiny bit at that retort?

That night, he made sure to bring a girl home. It didn’t matter who she was; all that mattered was that his mind was off of his damn roommate.

He fucked that girl hard. He fucked her loud. He fucked her like he’d fuck—

And then a trickle became a steady drip.

Gods, it was those short dresses that she wore out with her friends on weekends. The way she walked past him, sure to not meet his gaze out of—was it spite? Apprehension? Hatred?

He deserved the frigidity. It was better that way.

Because it would go away, right? The way that every time he fucked someone, no matter how often it was or how inebriated he became, he always saw her beneath him. Yes, the more he diverted his attention, the less he’d think of the waves of pleasure that would ripple over him as she choked on his cock. All of that would go away with time.

Scara began to fall into a steady routine: he caught the eye of a girl at a party or met up with a Bloom date just to bring them home and fuck their brains out. A different girl every weekend, a ticking clock strapped to a bomb. Bound to explode, to rupture his mask of complacency.

And explode it nearly did in the face of that fucking insect disguised as a human.

Matthias.

He would never tell anyone that he still, to this day, kept tabs on that man.

As the crack in the dam’s foundation grew, Scara was forced to acknowledge that no amount of patchwork could withhold the inevitable. This plan wasn’t working; he still saw his roommate in place of every single girl he fucked. He could only feel any sort of release when she was at the forefront of his imagination.

It wasn’t just lust, either. Though he never let it show, Lumine still made him smile like a fucking giddy idiot. He had no fucking clue why. Why her? It was maddening.

So he decided to learn more about her.

They became… acquaintances. That was about as close as he’d allow himself; after all, it was far more than he deserved.

He tried her gross, too-sweet tea. He exaggerated his hatred for it just to see her reaction.

Lumine burst out laughing. Scara was barely able to contain a smile.

He could swear that he had a handle on it. Sure, he was resigned to danger, forced to clutch to a rope over a pit of terrifying unknown, but his grip was firm. It was doable. He could have climbed himself out.

He could have, at least, until one particular night.

Gods, this shit wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t get up to grab a cup of water. He would have been fucking fine.

But as sharks of ice tumbled into his empty glass, he heard something that sounded like…

“… S… —mm, Sca—”

Scara just about dropped it right then and there.

Was she… fucking someone?

At that moment, his mind was thrown into some sort of dazed frenzy. Thoughts somersaulted haphazardly across his mind, crossing and crashing against each other in a delirium-fueled panic with no escape.

She hadn’t invited anyone over, right? No, if that were the case, he would have heard the suite door open and shut. His heart plummeted, his grip loosened, and then—

“S-Scara…”

And then everything halted.

“Scara, please…”

Even if he could, he wouldn’t dare move a muscle. He just stood there, mouth slightly agape, staring in disbelief at the wall that joined their common area and her room.

He just… listened to her. Listened to her soft, hushed cries. Potent lust overwhelmed him, permeated that cruel, thin wall between them.

She needed him. His cock was ripe and ready for her.

He could have burst down her door. No, he should have done the opposite; he should have left their suite right then and there.

But… he couldn’t do either. He stood there, pulled in two different directions at the center of a taut string at his abdomen.

Come closer. Run away.

Apprehension was juxtaposed against ravenous hunger. The angel and devil on each shoulder clamored for first place.

Holiness hissed at Scara’s waning dignity. As if on autopilot, he placed his glass gently on the countertop and walked gingerly over to take a seat at the edge of the common room sofa.

A bad idea.

“… Mm… fuck, Scara…”

Why was he doing this to himself?

It was fucking torturous. He was torturing himself by sitting here, so close to the wall, so close to her sweet, sultry mewls. As he pondered this act of self-torment, his traitorous hand inched down only to hover eagerly over the zipper of his jeans.

A thin wall between them, a thin layer of fabric between him and sweet release.

No.

He quickly caught himself, forced himself from his heady daze.

I won’t.

What would happen to him if he did?

I can’t.

He would lose his battle against the unknown. He head would be forced underneath murky waves of emotion he would never be ready to experience. Could he stand to fall for her even further?

Even further?

Fuck.

I’ve already fallen for her.

As Lumine’s moans grew sharper and more pronounced, the angel on his shoulder began to shrink away against its will.

Lust-bound. It wasn’t even a fight, was it?

The devil had won as soon as he left his room that night.

A quick unzip, a hasty shift of the pants. His hardened cock was released free from its confines, spilling out readily onto his open palm, the needy thing stiff with devilish glee.

Fuck, Lumine.

He was done for.

With some saliva to the palm, Scara began to pump himself slowly to the tempo of her hushed moans. His hand glided along its length, over the curve of its shaft, over the sleek barbell fixed within the small fold of skin beneath its fleshy head.

Body, soul, everything. I will devour you whole.

Desire began to consume, to devour, and soon began to take control.

He needed her on his cock. To swipe his tongue against the underside of her jaw, hands grabbing feverishly at her full tits hanging, swaying for him. To press the pads of his fingertips into her soft skin; to hear her sweet, pathetic yelps as his teeth pressed, sunk, tainted her milky skin with claiming bites and blood bruises.

She was so damn beautiful when she sang. Would she sing even more when he took her to hell with him?

He needed to breathe her in. To breathe the same air as her. To wrap her around him until they were one and the same, a single goddamn body conjoined by slick, sweat, saliva, tears.

He needed her. He needed her.

And… she needed him, too.

Gods.

That night, unbeknownst to Lumine, they came together.

And the night after that.

He hoped that it wouldn’t become a routine.

Ah, but the twisted thorns of fate had other plans for them.

On the third night, something odd happened. It was an average, unassuming Friday night out; Scara was surrounded by friends, blaring music, and the smell of Childe’s shitty Snezhnayan vodka. But then, just as he had fallen into the comfort of habit, he received an… interesting notification from Bloom.

“Looks like Lumine V likes you. Click here to start the conversation!”

Wait. What?

It couldn’t be her, right? No way it was her.

Veins pumped. Heart pounded. Trembling fingers darted to the screen, unlocking his phone in drunken desperation before swiping eagerly to her profile.

Her profile picture was that of a woman with a wide, honey-gold smile. Windswept hair. In the middle of a laugh.

Lumine.

He fell apart ever so slightly.

“I gotta go.”

Childe shot him a sorry look. “B-But we were just about to take shots!” He whined.

Not a chance. Scara was halfway out the door before the idiot ginger even opened his mouth.

And so the lulling sounds of mid-autumn crickets replaced the thumping music still ringing in his ears. As a chill in the air forced its way into his subconscious, Scara readily sucked it in between his bared teeth. “Fuck.”

It was dark, pitch-black outside; all that occupied his intoxicated mind was her, her back against his bed and her spread legs and her arched spine.

An eager tongue darted out to moisten his lips. He was ravenous.

Scara hoped that she was at home. And that she was still awake. And that she was ready for exactly what he was planning in that lust-fueled mind of his.

His head spun with hunger as his feet carried him to their building. A hesitant deep breath was all that was heard over his pumping heart before he fished his keys from his pocket to unlock the door.

And when he opened it, he saw the most delectable sight that he could have possibly imagined.

“Just the person I wanted to see,” he purred.

And so the night began.

Lumine awoke.

It was slow at first; it ached, everything ached, like her bones had been plucked from her body and thrown in without care for her wellbeing.

Morning light trickled through her blinds, an unwelcome neighbor. Ah, her head pounded—at least she could sleep in. It was Saturday, after all.

… Saturday. It was Saturday.

And last night was Friday.

Oh.

Intoxication. Liquid confidence. Bloom. Towel. Bathroom.

Scara.

In an instant, memories flooded back like seawater from her lungs. And with that, red-hot panic crashed in, dousing seafoam drowsiness in tendrils of flame and ash.

What in the fuck was she thinking?

Clammy palms smacked to her face, a feeble attempt to hide herself from the world, from the truth. Thoughts raged like high tide, lurching her brain topsy-turvy until her head landed back onto her pillow. Lumine was matted with sweat, drunkenness, dampened hair, and fear.

Scara.

His amethyst eyes inspected her as her towel pooled at her feet. He touched her, his black-polished nails scraping lightly, tenderly against the underside of her breasts. Against the curves at her waist.

Gods, the two of them nearly allowed their lust to take full control.

Your lust did take control, though.

Lumine bit back a groan and instead opted for a deep sigh. Reality set in like mercury absorbed through the skin, its heaviness extinguishing the waning flames of dismay.

It happened. Last night happened.

… Now what?

The wheels of her mind spun. Forward, backward, sideways, diagonal. There truly was no good answer.

Realistically, there probably wasn’t much she could do to salvage this. Even if there was, was she supposed to casually accept the sense of foreboding that constricted her like a goddamn snake? Gods, it had only been at most five minutes of this new reality and already she was suffocating.

How were they supposed to face each other now? Were they just going to try to go back to normal? Could they?

Too many questions.

But just as she was about to take a deep breath and clear her mind, she heard a voice coming from the common area.

A female voice.

“… your damn bed this time, Scara. You hear me?”

Suddenly, the heat of panic was dialed up to eleven. Searing hysteria was adjoined by something even more sweltering. Envy? Greed? Both?

Fuck.

Lumine had no time to ponder these things. Before she could even begin to process the consequences of her actions, she had thrown on a fresh set of clothes and was out the door.

She felt territorial. She was enraged.

But then when she locked eyes with her mystery competitor, her frenzy was doused by a bucket of cold water.

In the process of closing her roommate’s door was a woman that Lumine had seen before. The woman that Childe had introduced as… Signora, was it? A friend of Scara’s. At least, Lumine hoped that they were just friends.

Suddenly, she felt a bit silly.

“Oh—uh, morning,” Lumine stuttered.

“You better not let that idiot die,” the pretty blonde rolled her blue eyes at widened golden ones. “He owes me money.”

That reply was not what she was expecting. “S—Huh? What do you mean?”

A pause as Signora twisted her face into a repulsed scowl as if offended by Lumine’s reaction. “Are you telling me he didn’t tell you? He brought me all the way over here without even asking his damn roommate for a hand?”

Lumine stood there, brow scrunched, clueless.

Signora heaved a sigh of impatience and shook her head. Sleek platinum waves, surely curled with a professional touch, delicately bounced in place.

How come she looks so perfect at 10AM? Did she dress up for Sca—

“He’s sick,” Signora finally provided an answer. “Dramatic as fuck about it, too. He just about begged me to bring him some food, but since you’re here, I’m pissed that he even had the gall to ask me in the first place.” She sighed once more, carefully manicured fingers touching her forehead in disbelief. “I’m gonna assume you have it covered?”

Yes, she has him covered. Yes, she will take care of him. He’s mine.

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Without another word, before Lumine could even think to backpedal, Signora was out the door. The suite door swung shut behind her with a prominent click.

And then she was left with the short-sighted promise that she would care for Scara. That unnerving reality was met by clammy palms and a silence that was far too loud. She knew that Scara could hear it, too; in fact, he must have heard that entire interaction just then. Which meant that…

He was probably expecting her to knock on his door.

Lumine tried to swallow the lump in her throat to no avail. Anxiety, fear, apprehension were lodged firmly in place.

I could turn away. She could act like that conversation never happened. But…

If she turned away now, when he really did need her help, she would be no more than a coward.

So with balled fists, she walked over to Scara’s bedroom door and placed two firm knocks.

“Yeah?” His voice was scratchy, weak.

Gods.

Both empathy and terror tugged firmly at her heartstrings and in opposite directions. Fists balled even harder—if they even could—but she couldn’t afford to let it show. It would be best to keep the conversation as light as possible, for his sake and hers.

“Heard you’re sick?”

“Yeah,” he echoed, voice just as drowsy as before.

Lumine frowned a concerned frown. “Can I get you some tea?”

“Please,” he rasped. “Could you heat up my leftovers from the fridge, too?”

Hm. Well, that was easy. “On it,” she smiled in relief.

Was it cruel to be thankful for his ailment? It had made the stress of facing him feel so small in hindsight.

In a flash, water was in the electric kettle and heating up. She turned to stare blankly at the multiple boxes of Inazuman teas on his side of the shelf—all of which were genuine Inazuman teas down to the foreign script on the boxes—until she picked out a pack that she had seen him choose multiple times before.

With a smile of newfound zeal, she began steeping Scara’s tea before pulling his leftovers from the fridge. But then her smile faltered momentarily, giving way to a pointed frown at a box of shitty take-out; surely there was something better for him to eat while he was sick.

So she whipped up something of her own.

“Order up,” Lumine called from his door, hands filled with plates of food and a mug of tea. “Can I come in?”

A weary hum of approval was heard from inside. So she gingerly pushed against his door handle, struggling a bit before allowing herself inside.

Dimly lit walls were plastered with band posters. They read of artists like Mahamatra, Elusion, and Marana, all of which Lumine was vaguely familiar with—barring Mahamatra, who she loved.

So this is the room I’ve been fantasizing ab—

Stop.

Those thoughts could wait until later. Or, you know, they could just go away forever. Either or.

Onto more important matters, though: Signora really wasn’t joking. Scara looked positively sallow, hair matted to one side of his face, tired eyes with a ring of sleepless purple underneath.

Lumine tried her best to hide a fond smile.

Of course, Scara didn’t even attempt to hold back his scowl in response. That being said, his usual razor-sharp glare was dulled significantly by drowsiness.

Why was he so… cute?

“If you’re gonna look at me like that, I’m going to kick you out myself.”

That only made her smile grow. She rolled her eyes at his melodrama; if anything, she was just glad that he wasn’t sick enough to lose that quirk. It really had grown to become her favorite one. “I’d like to see you try.”

She froze for a moment, suddenly realizing the double entendre folded within her words, before darting her eyes to the side and moving onto a different subject. “Tea, leftovers, and some eggs. Hope you like them scrambled.”

“Eggs?” He murmured sluggishly. “I didn’t buy any eggs from the grocery store.”

“They were mine,” Lumine responded casually. “Just felt like you needed a bit more than campus fried rice with Thursday’s mystery meat.”

“You didn’t need to,” Scara eyed her with weak protest through a wrinkled brow.

“Shut up and eat,” she pushed the plates and mug onto his nightstand.

She didn’t need to tell him twice. Immediately, he took a plate into his hands and just about inhaled the eggs she had made for him. After coming up for air, he took a sip of the piping hot tea, humming and nodding in approval.

Lumine smiled a genuine smile. “Need anything else?”

“I think I’m okay for now,” he murmured, his voice a bit more alive than just a few moments ago.

“Okay, well I’ll be here until noon, and then I have lunch plans,” she said with a deep breath of triumph before turning for the door. “You can text me if you need an—”

“Lumine?”

She whirled back around at her name from his lips. It sent butterflies ripping through her chest, their wings rapidly fluttering, creating little tornadoes in their wake to steal her breath from her lungs.

“You don’t feel sick either, do you? Since…” a cautious amethyst gaze tapered off to the side.

Oh.

“Oh, uh, no,” she let out a nervous laugh, moving her hands to clasp together behind her back. “I feel pretty normal. Don’t worry about me.”

And then his eyes met hers once more, this time scrutinizing her with the electric gaze she knew so damn well.

Pretty normal. In reality, it was a bold-faced lie.

Foreign feelings boiled, sloshed, bubbled over. She never thought she could feel something like this after the trauma, the brokenness, the loss.

Scara, the man she was falling for, laid there in his bed so damn beautifully. His hands grasped the steaming tea mug, exhausted yet incredulous midnight eyes boring into her golden gaze.

“Good,” he concluded. “Hopefully that doesn’t change.”

She agreed wholeheartedly.

Chapter Text

Lumine let out a warm, hefty sigh into the chilly autumn air.

Somehow, she felt bad for that.

The brisk air was full of anticipation and vigor; it didn’t deserve to be tainted by melancholy.

Five minutes had passed since she left Scara sick and at home in favor of lunch plans, and yet she still found herself pushing against the unabating draw back to her apartment. Gravity was a persistent bitch; no matter how much she fought it, she wanted so badly to stay at home and take care of him. Regardless of how hard he scowled at her, she found it absolutely adorable how helpless he looked laying here, miserable, bundled up in his sheets.

Gods, it was going to be a long day.

Lumine attempted to shove down her bout of yearning with a simple distraction: she quickly whipped out her phone to tell Nilou that she was on her way. And though it didn’t seem like it, she really was excited to see one of her two best friends one-on-one.

Hm. Now that she thought of it, it was probably a good thing that Yoimiya wasn’t included in these lunch plans.

Gods, she loved the strawberry blonde, but the girl could get a bit too spicy for her own good at times. And with what happened last night… Yeah, it would be good to speak to someone who wouldn’t pry her skull open to look at what’s inside.

It was a bright, cloudless autumn sky as she walked to the dining hall. A good day for a picnic, she mused; it would be nice to spread out a blanket and eat under the red-orange leaves of an oak tree. Though, Lumine wondered if Scara was a picnic type of perso—

Fuck.

Another heavy sigh made its way into the crisp air.

She shouldn’t be thinking like this. This chaos that plagued her had seemingly peaked, and yet still it mounted each time she thought of him. It was exponential, it was perpetual. Confusion was matched by longing was matched by infatuation was matched by confusion. With each cycle, the heat of frustration grew.

Was this nagging feeling of infatuation just because of last night, or was this a lasting crush? Was she supposed to ignore these potentially futile emotions, or should she lean into them?

Ugh. Even though they didn’t have sex, the same issues still arose. It was the worst of both worlds; she didn’t get laid, but she still had to deal with the consequences.

Maybe we should have fucked.

At that moment, Lumine almost laughed at the sheer stupidity of the situation.

Thankfully, her thoughts didn’t take her too far, because soon she found herself in the sights of those round, cheerful aquamarine eyes.

“Lumi!” Nilou smiled with iridescence as she ran over for a hug. The blonde’s spirits were heightened just a tad by her friend’s infectious radiance.

“Hey, ‘Lou,” Lumine smiled lightly as the redhead pulled her into a tight hug. “Glad you could make it.”

“I’m glad you could make it!”

The warmth that touched Lumine’s soul was very much needed.

Lunch kicked off without a hitch; Nilou munched merrily on her salad while telling stories of her dance team, and the blonde was happy for the distraction from her own weary thoughts. Lumine nodded along, engulfed in the story of the redhead’s part in one of the team’s routines before Nilou suddenly broke the story off.

“Oh my, I’ve been rambling this entire time, haven’t I?” She laughed airily. “I want to hear a bit about how you’ve been!”

Damn it.

“Oh, I’ve been fine!” Lumine pepped up, willing her voice to brighten as much as she deemed necessary. Ah, it felt a bit too sugary sweet.

“Any news on the roommate situation? Is he still bothering you?” She tilted her head in genuine interest.

“N-not really! We’ve sort of grown into a, uh, routine of sorts,” she stuttered. It wasn’t a complete lie, and yet it felt just as bad as a whole lie.

But then, the redhead paused. After a moment, a small smile grew on her face as she looked down at her fork prodding a perfectly round, perfectly red cherry tomato. “You don’t have to tell me what’s going on, but you’re a bad liar, Lu.”

Lumine’s heart tripped, plummeted to the pit of her stomach.

After a frozen moment, her friend looked back up at her, and suddenly she was met by softness. “Really, you don’t have to say anything. But I hope you know that I’m here for you and won’t judge you.”

Translucent aquamarine. Nilou was telling the whole truth, yet here she sat, mask set in place for reasons unknown. What was her excuse, really? If anything, the redhead was the person she could trust the most in this situation.

So she let her mask fall.

Honey-gold was downcast to her plate of half-eaten bolognese. “I just don’t really know what I’m feeling,” Lumine admitted with wholeheartedness. “Things were good, genuinely smooth, and then we… had a moment last night.” She squinted, abashed at the memory of the cold, tiled bathroom floor.

“A moment,” Nilou mused with a hum. Thankfully, though, she didn’t push. “If I’m honest, Lu, I could see this coming from miles away.”

“R-really?!” Lumine almost screeched, eyes darting back to her friend’s. “How?!”

To that, Nilou laughed a dainty, cheery laugh. “I may be a bit air-headed at times, but I am pretty good at reading people,” she let a proud smile spread across her face. “Firstly, you’ve been avoiding talking about him for a long time. And secondly…”

She took a moment to think through her next words, setting a delicate finger to her chin and allowing her eyes to drift to the ceiling.

“… When we were over at your apartment last night, he kept looking at you while you had your back turned.”

Lumine dropped her fork. The clang alerted the head-in-the-clouds Nilou, whose gaze flashed back to the blonde’s. Round blue eyes crinkled in amusement, but she didn’t utter a word, instead allowing Lumine to process what was just said.

“He was looking at me?”

“Mhm!” A quick bob of red hair.

Just then, a memory of her roommate bubbled up to the surface, “Your friend—ah, what was her name? Yoimiya, right? Naganohara Yoimiya. Think she’d let me hit?”

“How did you know he wasn’t looking at Yoimiya?”

A small, warm laugh. “Trust me, no matter how amazing Yoi is, she’s not his type.”

“How do you know?!”

“I just do!” Another triumphant smile branded her face—she looked like a proud child would at their sidewalk chalk masterpiece. “If I wasn’t sure about this, Lu, I wouldn’t be saying it!”

“Like, how sure on a percentage scale?”

“Uh, like, 96.8% sure.”

“Where’s that 3.2%?!”

“Lumine,” Nilou drawled, breaking the blonde from her stupor. “My point is that I believe in you! I believe in your belief in yourself. Whether you decide that he’s genuinely a good guy, or realize that he’s not for you, I know that you’ll make the best decision for yourself!”

A pang of… something hit her heart from a blind spot. It felt warm, inviting, and yet so much more terrifying. A heavy exhale ousted the majority of the jitters from her body as she assigned a name to it:

Certainty.

The fact of the matter was that Lumine hadn’t felt genuine support from anyone in such a long time. Since Aether left and she went to college, she had been carving her own path from the thicket of horrifying unknown.

Her mind had been plagued with these anxieties, this loneliness, this misdirection for so long.

But now, as she faced the clear, comforting waters of Nilou’s compassion, she was also faced with the heaviness of certainty. Sure, her friend had her back, but as she was guided to face the truth of the matter, a new form of terror began to take root.

There was some sort of certainty that Scara liked her, and there was some sort of certainty that she liked him back.

Was it a fleeting crush? Budding feelings? True love? She hadn’t a clue. All she knew for sure was that Nilou believed in her; that was enough for her to attempt to believe in herself.

As she walked back from the dining hall about an hour later, Lumine didn’t feel nearly as guilty about her hefty exhale into the open autumn air. Sure, she was still tormented by the future too far for her to grasp, but at least one thing was true:

Certainty was on the horizon.

She would have felt good about this conclusion if not for the light, itchy cough that bubbled up from her throat.

Uh oh.

“Open the door, dumbass.”

Too early. “Go away,” Lumine croaked.

“You’re sick, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Need breakfast?”

“No.”

“It’s almost noon, idiot.”

Gods, she hoped it wouldn’t come to this.

After Lumine left lunch with Nilou, she began to feel a bit… weathered. A bit more weighed down, a bit less energized. No matter, she thought. A cup of tea should help.

She, of course, was wrong.

The morning after, she awoke with a full-blown sinus blockage. Sneezing, stuffy nose, the works. Thankfully or unthankfully, Scara heard her wrenching from his room; through his own sick haze, he beelined straight to her door.

“Go away,” she echoed in a whine.

“I hate owing people,” he said through his gruff, sore throat from behind her closed door. “I’m making you breakfast.”

“But you’re—”

“Shut up.” And then she heard him stomp into the kitchen.

Of course, he wanted to pay her back out of spite. Not for any other reason, Lumine thought, her face twisting into a scowl at her closed bedroom door.

She paid no attention to the wisps of mid-autumn sun trickling through the cracks of her closed blinds. Maybe she should have.

Scara practically forced her to allow him into her room—gods, she looked horrible—but nevertheless, she gave in quickly. Whether it was from the streak of guilt borne of the amount of plates and cups clinking in his arms, or the fact that she actually wanted to see him, she refused to pay it any mind. She was sick, after all. Sickness made people think weird, delusional things.

Yes, delusional things, like the immediate jealousy she harbored for his oversized sweatshirt. It wasn’t fair—she wanted it off, she wanted it on her instead. She wanted to revel in his warm scent; the same one she had carelessly forgotten since that night. The despair that reality brought wracked at her aching heart just as this venomous jealousy blazed through her veins.

This pain, this ache, this neediness; all of it was just a sick delusion.

Right?

That morning, Scara made her try his tea. “It’ll open up your sinuses,” he promised through an audible sore throat, trying his hardest to hide the upturn of a smile at the corners of his lips.

“I thought spicy things opened up your sinuses, not bitter things,” Lumine mumbled in response as she took the mug into her hands. Steam floated into the open air of her darkened room—the same room that Scara was currently opening the blinds to—and with a huff from his non-answer, she brought the mug to her nose to take a whiff.

“Holy f—” She reeled backward, sinuses sent seizing at the single sniff from whatever the fuck was in that cup. A set of sneezes came and went, and with that, her sinuses were truly opened up. “What the fuck was that?”

Scara let out a brash, triumphant laugh at her perturbedness. “A special tea that my mother used to make for me when I was a kid. She called it ‘sick tea’. Tastes like shit, smells like shit, but really helps.”

Though she was impressed, she almost retched at the scent clinging to the inside of her nose. “Does it taste as horrible as it smells?”

“Worse,” he claimed with a lilt of nonchalance. With blinds open and an unwelcome amount of light washing through Lumine’s room, he moved back to her side and took a cup of his own into his grasp. “You good at chugging things?” He met her eyes with amusement.

No amount of exhaustion would oust the flutter of her heart at that moment. Her zeal was reflected in, enhanced by his small, challenging smile. “I’ve been known to chug a thing or two in my day,” she upped the ante.

“Then bottoms up, sick girl.” Their mugs met with a resounding clink.

One could imagine the gravitational pull between them at that moment. Between the etching of bitter spice into the back of her throat and the persistent delusions, Lumine was hoping, praying for him to lean into her, to climb atop her bed so that she could taste him on her tongue.

But, no.

Lumine sighed a heavy sigh upon Scara’s departure from her room. It was a sigh laden with confusion, with frustration at these persistent intrusive thoughts. A prominent scowl burned a hole into her ceiling; the same ceiling she had stared at for what felt like eons during nights prior as she fantasized about him and only him.

But now it was bright outside. Now, no matter how sick she was, she was forced to face the certainty of the situation.

If she was smart, she wouldn’t have matched with him on Bloom.

(But then you wouldn’t have found out that he swiped right on you first.)

If she was smart, she wouldn’t have kissed him.

(But then you wouldn’t have found out that he knows your dirty little secret.)

If she was smart, this shit wouldn’t have happened in the first place.

(But then you wouldn’t have found out that he likes you.)

Lumine physically recoiled at that thought, face contorting in disbelief as she threw herself on her side to stare at the wall instead of that traitorous ceiling.

He… likes me? No. If anything, he was horny that night. He would have told me anything to get in my pants. That’s the type of guy he is.

For some reason, that explanation felt like an excuse. Or was it that she wanted it to be an excuse?

She groaned into her pillow.

Somehow, it felt as though she had regressed. She felt so good about her talk with Nilou yesterday, and yet here she was drowning in her own thoughts once again.

But then, she realized that her friend was just a text away.

A support system was an odd thing; when you’re used to having one, it feels like second nature to lean on them, but to Lumine, nothing felt more foreign than vulnerability.

So with what was left of her resolve, Lumine pushed that strange feeling down and picked up her phone to write out a text to Nilou.

Lumine [12:47PM]: loulou

Lumine [12:47PM]: i’m sick. hope you’re feeling okay

Thankfully, her friend texted her right back. Her tension deflated the tiniest bit.

Nilou [12:48PM]: Oh no Lulu!!!

Nilou [12:48PM]: Need medicine? Tea? Orange juice? I got you

Lumine [12:50PM]: aw thank you but i’m okay 🥺 scara made me a late breakfast sooo…

Nilou [12:51PM]: 👀 yeah??? Go on

The curve of a small smile began to form on her lips. She flipped over to her other side as her fingers darted across the screen in a barrage of text.

Lumine [12:53PM]: hahahh…. 😅 yeah he just about forced his way into my room to give me breakfast and this concoction his mom used to make for him when he got sick

Lumine [12:54PM]: he’s sick too so we chugged it together

Nilou [12:55PM]: He’s sick too??? Luuuuumi 😏

Lumine [12:55PM]: UM…..

She kicked her legs and stifled a giggle, rolling around on her bed to oust the butterflies that fluttered against her ribcage.

Nilou [12:55PM]: We’re up to 98.3%

Lumine [12:56PM]: WHERE’S THE 1.7%

Nilou [12:56PM]: LULU ISTG

Okay, that was exactly what she needed. Communication works in funny ways; Lumine thought nothing of Scara making her breakfast until she typed it out to Nilou. As she sent that message, that’s when it hit her: if Nilou claimed that a guy volunteered to make her breakfast, Lumine would roll her eyes and tell her that the guy in question must be completely head over heels for her.

But was that simple? Lumine and Scara had a bit of a past and a rough one at that. Was the conclusion as easy as “he made her breakfast, so he likes her”?

Gods, she was thinking about this far too much. Her sick-fogged head began to pound.

So in place of laying in bed and thinking for the majority of her Sunday, Lumine decided to get up and chug what remained of her sick tea.

Later that night, things grew grim.

It was bad enough that Lumine had to study for a test tomorrow.

But what was worse was that she had to study for a test tomorrow…

… while sick…

… after forgetting that she had a test tomorrow.

Well, to be fair, Scara was in the same boat. It was around 11PM when he let out a loud “Fuck!” from the sofa; Lumine sauntered over from her room only to see him staring at his phone with his head hung in his free hand.

“Did you know that we have a physics test tomorrow?”

“… No.”

“Well, my 10AM with Dr. Kreideprinz has a physics test tomorrow. I’m assuming that your class does, too.”

“Fuck.”

Yeah. Big oops.

Earlier that night, Lumine had forced her roommate to take a shot of liquid cold medicine with her; she told him if his exhaustion wasn’t evident enough, the pretty little bags under his eyes told the entire story. He grumbled something about her being a goddamn flirt before snatching the cup from her hand.

So, needless to say, they were both feeling a little… loose.

Of course, that didn’t take away from the fact that she needed a good grade on this test, so no sleep was allowed for her. She had to remain serious, to cram as much as possible before her 9AM class.

Well, that was until Scara joined her on the couch, of course.

With their proximity, her heart had been sent haywire. Her bare arm was so close to touching the corner of his sweatshirt; gods, she was still so jealous of that damn thing. In her lightheaded haze, she found herself reaching out to grasp at its warmth. She so badly wanted it for herself. She so badly wanted him for herself.

“The law of energy conservation. Kinetic and potential energy.”

Shit. Her hand balled and pinned itself to her side. “Oh, yeah, that one.”

“Dr. Kreideprinz is definitely gonna ask about how it relates to thermodynamics.”

“I, uh, totally stopped paying attention to the class at that point.”

“So, energy is neither created nor destroyed, right? So I could pretty easily just rub my hands together,” he demonstrated, creating heat with his hands, “and do this.”

Broad hands reached out to her wrist, and before she could react, her forearm was encircled by Scara’s grasp. The vines that wrapped around her heart tightened as his grip did, ever so slightly, as if his mind just caught up to what he had just done. Lumine’s gaze climbed from his firm grasp to his eyes, those things soaked in midnight, and that’s when it hit her—

“… Your hands are freezing, though.”

He quickly released her from her grasp. “Shut up,” he scoffed as Lumine just about keeled over laughing. “It works the other way around, too.”

That last part fell upon deaf ears, though. The blonde was still laughing, almost manically so; to say the least, the cold medicine didn’t help her situation. Everything was just so funny—the failed lecture, the feelings that caused her stomach to do somersaults, the tension that ballooned between them. By the time she finished, she felt like putty as she flopped back onto the couch.

“You done?”

Lumine looked to her side to meet his eyes and—

—oh.

Scara had his arms crossed as he usually did—surely he was guarded—but this time, his face didn’t match his posture. Electric eyes shone with radiance, with fondness at her idiocy. They danced with an aquarelle of pastel feelings of which she could count three: amusement, tenderness, and alacrity.

At that moment, he tried and failed to set his mouth in a straight line; that was his last attempt at holding back the waters of devotion because as the dam broke, she witnessed the artistry that was his smile.

And he was beautiful.

With messy blonde hair and owlish honey-gold eyes, Lumine basked in his light. And though she may have gone blind from the brilliance of his smile, she dared not look away, lest it was the last time she saw it.

“Your smile is really nice,” she muttered without thinking.

Scara rolled his eyes and looked away, plunging his red-hot face back into his notebook. “Yeah, and you laugh like an idiot.”

She’d take it.

Energy conservation, kinematics, laws of motion; topics flew like birds around Lumine’s head, eager to be learned, but her mind was quite alright where it was. Though she did ingest a fair bit of information, she just couldn’t let go of the feeling of his arm brushing against hers, or the stray bump of his knee against her leg. The ebbs and tides of this persistent desire were difficult to combat.

“Centripetal force,” she murmured passively. “He mentioned this in last week’s lecture, right?”

Scara hummed a hum of agreement, “He’ll probably throw this one into a trick question or something.”

Lumine shot him a blank stare. Help me.

“Okay,” he sighed, “well, imagine a car doing donuts in some parking lot, right?”

She nodded.

“So the car’s velocity will always be tangent to the path of motion,” he murmured, taking his notebook to draw a lopsided circle with lines growing out the sides, denoting velocity. “If we’re ignoring friction, as long as you’re accelerating towards the center of the circle and your speed remains constant, you’re always going to go in a perfect circle.”

Huh. “How do you know so much about doing donuts in a parking lot?” She quipped.

“Uh, well, experience.”

Oh? Lumine was intrigued. The corners of her lips drew up in interest, prompting him to continue.

“My… friends and I used to cause a lot of mayhem back when I lived in Inazuma City,” he looked off to the side as the memories came to him. “I’d say it was the typical teenager stuff, but I’ll admit that it was a little unhinged.”

Sounds like Aether. “I’ve seen my fair share of mayhem from the sidelines,” she shrugged. “Maybe I should have applied physics to it all.”

“It definitely helped me transition from the degenerate lifestyle, at the very least.”

Hm.

She yearned to ask further about his life before college, but right before she was able to attempt, he changed the subject. “We have to finish at least section 8 by the end of the night,” he heaved a sigh, flipping through the hefty textbook sat upon his lap. “What’s the next topic? More shit about harmonic motion, right?”

Damn. Though Lumine knew it wasn’t the right time and place, she wanted desperately to learn more about Scara’s past life in Inazuma. She felt that she could somehow relate to the brokenness that he tried so hard to keep behind a mask; heh, unfortunately for him, she had long since learned his tells.

Like, for instance, he fidgeted a lot when he was nervous. His eyes darted around the room when he wanted to avoid a topic. He scowled when anything was averse to the way he wanted things to go.

Gods, she was falling for it all.

Surely he was tight-lipped for a reason, but she hoped so dearly that he might want to open up to her someday.

Nonetheless, Lumine had to keep focus. Her willpower was quickly fading, and as the clock struck 2AM, she was all but slouched against the back of the couch. Somehow, though, Scara was keeping her going. He spoke as if sleep wasn’t a number at all, frequently including her in the conversation to keep her awake, rattling off and explaining each topic thoroughly.

Gods, he really was a genius. He was a biochem major, right? How was he so good at physics when the topic of study didn’t even relate to his major?

“… And speaking of energy conservation…”

… and then he hesitated for the first time in hours.

Lumine’s attention was piqued at the sudden silence, causing her eyes to lift from her notebook to meet his.

He was looking back at her.

Amethyst eyes were narrowed, brow furrowed in some sort of internal debate. As the quarrel within him raged on, his gaze licked down her collarbone, tracing something invisible to Lumine, before he seemingly made up his mind. Because when his eyes darted up to hers for just a lone moment, black-painted nails dipped to her chest, gliding, grazing against porcelain skin. In a flash, he had picked up the long chain of her necklace into his hand, holding it up in front of the both of them. The pendant at the end dangled to the beat of her pacing heart.

“Pendulum motion is very similar.”

Wh—

Scara swung the pendant into motion and then allowed it to sway in his grasp. “Both gravity and the force of tension are acting on the pendant. As the tension varies, the pendant bobs back and forth.”

A good explanation, but what?! Surely he was completely out of his mind at this point.

Between her silence and furrowed brow, he spoke once more. “What, you hypnotized or something? Gonna finally do something I want for once?”

A 98.3% chance.

Unamused golden eyes flashed to meet equally and oppositely as amused midnight ones. “You’re a dumbass,” she grumbled, though her reddened complexion surely betrayed her attempt at a hardened resolve.

He just laughed merrily, allowing her necklace to fall back to where it once was. “Just trying to be a good tutor,” he claimed with nonchalance.

Lumine had never seen her roommate this laid back—this happy. It took everything for her not to betray her current grimace and break out into a wide smile; even then, she couldn’t help but crack a small one. “Fuck you,” she said, allowing herself to laugh along.

“Ah, if that’s all you wanted, you could have just said so,” he sang.

All she could do was roll her eyes and swallow the words she so badly yearned to say next. In all honesty, maybe she should have spoken those words, but somehow she knew that she would oversleep and miss her test if she had sex while sick at 2:30AM.

Maybe next time.

The rest of the waning night had been spent that way: joking, teasing, and Lumine would go as far as to say flirting. And though her sleepiness and sickness could have been fucking with her mind, she began to give into the fact that it felt good and it felt right.

They felt right.

She nearly failed her physics test the next day, but she gained something much more valuable than an A:

She gained a clear sense of certainty.

Chapter Text

“Kunikuzushi.”

“That’s not my fucking name anymore.”

Every goddamn time.

An impatient sigh. “It’s the name I gave you, so it’s the name I’m calling you.”

“You lost that privilege when you abandoned me, Ei,” Scara growled.

The beginning of another argument. Another cycle of the same conversation, bound to repeat for all eternity.

“Do you understand how disrespectful it is to call your mother by her first name?”

“You’re not my fucking mother anymore.”

“I’ll always be your mother.”

No, she wasn’t. They had been down this path countless times before. Ever since that day, she rescinded that title, voluntarily or not.

“Why can’t we have a decent conversation for once?” The voice on the other end pleaded.

Oh, well that was a fucking question for the ages. Why couldn’t they have a decent conversation? “I’ll give you a couple reasons if you’re really asking.”

“Now, Kuni—”

“Treat me with some respect and call me by the name I chose for myself,” Scara spat.

Shouldn’t she be proud that he shed that name? The name tainted with misery, pity, sin? It’s not like he had much of a choice, anyway. He was forced to take on a new name, a new face, a new mask. Would she ever accept that? Would she ever be proud of the man that he had become, compared to the person she found useless enough to abandon?

Conversations were always like this. Ei didn’t have enough respect to call him by his new name, so he refused to respect her enough to call her anything other than her first name. It was only fair, after all.

Once Scara hung up the phone, he leaned back with an audible sigh.

“Mom acting like a cunt again?” A familiar mass of red hair—dude really needed a haircut—piped up.

“Yup,” Scara took a swig from his beer.

“I mean, I don’t even blame you. What she did was beyond fucked.”

“Maybe I should just stop humoring her and just block her ass.”

“I mean, I think the both of you need major family therapy, really,” Signora chimed in.

Scara rolled his eyes. “Who asked?”

“You when you took a phone call from your mother at the pre-game,” the blonde enunciated in all of her venomous prissiness.

Another audible sigh escaped Scara as he tilted the beer to his lips once more. “Why don’t you go back to your little boyfriend from Mondstadt instead of ruining another fucking mood, Signora?”

“Maybe I will, you fucking bi—“

“Speaking of landing a fuck buddy,” Childe interrupted, more than amused as to what was transpiring but not without the knowledge that things would grow nasty if left unattended to, “Scara has been more than attached to his phone lately.”

Something within Scara’s stomach lurched.

While Childe was completely correct (the fucker was too goddamn observant), there was no way in the seven hells that Scara would ever tell these fucks about… well, uh, recent events. Recent discoveries. He refused to leave any room for them to squeeze any blackmail material out of him.

“Found a steady fuck. So what?” Ah, he nearly winced there. He could only dream of making Lumine his, and even if he did, he would never in his wildest dreams call her something so pathetic as a ‘fuck buddy.’

No, she deserved far more than that.

Suddenly, he was more than a bit distracted. So distracted, in fact, that he missed the look that Childe and Signora gave each other.

“The roommate, right?” Signora said through a snake-like smile.

“Totally the roommate,” Childe echoed.

“Wh—huh?! What the fuck do you mean, ‘the roommate’?!”

“Deeefinitely the roommate,” the redhead sang.

“Scara, you literally have her picture added to her contact on your phone,” Signora deadpanned.

Fuck. How did they notice?

“On top of that, she looked really worried for you when I was over that one time. Remember the weekend you were sick?”

“I—“

“Yeah, well, I haven’t seen anyone that worried for you. Like, ever. Plus, she looked like she wanted to murder me for being in your room,” the blonde’s crystal eyes crept up to the ceiling as a devious smile grew across her plastic features. “Territorial one. Would be fun to steal her.”

It was good that Scara was too elated to hear that last remark, lest another catfight break out. Instead, what took over his mind were memories of the worried look on Lumine’s face, the jealous glance to the floor when she would ask about Signora, each and all of those little signs that he repeatedly refused to acknowledge. Once and for all, they… they finally seemed valid. Hope bubbled up to the surface, giving his face and eyes an uncharacteristic glow.

Not only that, but he didn’t quite catch the fact that Childe sang out, “Tried that. You ruined my plan, remember?” And Signora replying, “That’s because you were being a fucking creep, Ajax.”

But then, they turned to face him. “See? His face lit up,” the blonde snickered. “Last time that happened was when Dottore got his leg snapped in half.”

And then it fell back to his characteristic scowl.

“Aaaaand there it goes.”

There truly was no digging himself out of this one. Scara had no clue what to say, how to justify himself before Signora piped up once more. “You know, I think finding someone you like might be good for you,” she shrugged.

Childe looked at her like she had ten heads. Scara just contorted his face in disbelief before drowning himself in his beer once more.

“I’m being serious, though,” she doubled down, eyes growing wide. “You need some stability in your life. If you find someone who you care about, and who cares about you, I think that could be a big period of growth.”

A beat of silence.

“… Since when did you become a therapist?” Childe said jokingly.

A huff. “It’s called emotional intelligence, asshole. Something you have none of. Your brain is a quarter the size of your dick.”

“Okay, but my dick is massive enough that my brain is normal size, though.”

“That’s grotesque, Childe.”

Thank the gods that he wiggled himself out of this conversation for now.

Big red numbers, side by side. One paper with red checkmarks down the page: 94%.

And the other…

Well, we don’t talk about the other.

“I guess my tutoring sucked,” Scara mumbled.

Hardly the case. It wasn’t the style of his tutoring, it was more like…

Well, she was straight-up distracted the entire time, really.

Lumine should have been embarrassed that she got a 75% on the last-minute Physics test. But honestly? She didn’t give much of a fuck. She passed, and that was all that mattered.

“Really wasn’t your fault,” she mumbled, matching the passive tone that her roommate exerted, glancing over at his 94% once more. “You’re just… naturally smarter, I guess.”

To that, he huffed a dry chuckle. “Never been told that one before.”

Piqued golden eyes flashed to the side of Scara’s face. His eyes, however, were turned away just enough so that he couldn’t render any reaction. “I mean, you seem to know what you’re doing a hell of a lot more than I do, especially for someone whose major doesn’t even relate to the class material.”

A nonchalant shrug. “Eh, kinda does.”

She knew enough about him to not push him further.

Over the past week or two, Lumine had really gotten good at finding the limit to her roommate’s patience. Even if she did push her luck a bit, Scara seemed a bit receptive to humoring her intrigue. She just… she really wanted to learn more about him.

And once she realized that there was no more room to fool herself.

She liked him. Lumine likes Scara. Nilou was on the task of ordering the clown makeup, while Yoimiya was tasked with tracking down a clown nose. And speaking of that, once Yoi found out about this trade secret, as one could imagine, all hell broke loose.

“Fucking fiiiinally,” Yoimiya had groaned. “So have you guys fucked yet?”

No. It was comical to admit, but as the weeks passed, they grew further and further from where they were that fated night. Crazy, right? Masturbating to each other on either side of the bathroom door, and yet right here and now, she couldn’t feel anything more than… roommates.

Lumine almost laughed. For so long, she wanted to be cordial roommates with Scara, but now, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Fuck.

“Something wrong?”

The blonde blinked and looked up to see Scara’s eyes latched to her face, hardened midnight flickering between hers to gather any intel that he could amass. Surprise lined her pupils, intrigued as to why he would even ask that question to begin with. Was it because he ca—

“Oh, no, I’m good,” Lumine replied quickly to quash any ounce of hope. She ripped her eyes from his to look at something, anything else, until she instinctually tapped on her phone screen to reveal a few notifications: two from her text group chat with Nilou and Yoi (lovingly named “Disaster Crew”), three from Bloom matches (an app she really needed to delete from her phone), and one email.

But then… something else caught her eye.

And then she recoiled, flinched inwards, and gasped.

Somehow, unbeknownst to her, her clammy hand found her mouth.

October 22nd.

It was October 22nd.

“W-what’s wrong?!” A faraway Scara exclaimed, very obviously worried for his roommate’s wellbeing. Maybe he cared. Maybe he felt the need to make her feel better.

But that didn’t matter.

Everything around the blonde felt like… like soup or something. Was it more soupy, or more floaty? Did it matter?

Did anything matter?

It was exactly one year ago that Aether had left her. No, it was more than that. It was one year ago that her life shattered into a trillion goddamn pieces, never to be whole again.

When the twins were young, Aether used to push his sister on the swing. When the twins were young, Aether shielded his sister from their parents’ continued abuse. When the twins were young, Aether and his sister promised to be each others’ rocks as they ran from home.

When they were young, Aether broke that promise.

Maybe it was because he took the abuse for the two of us. Maybe it was because I didn’t appreciate him enough. Maybe it was because I allowed him to stray down that path.

Lumine had lived all of these “maybe”s and “what if”s hundreds of times before. But the numbers “10” and “22” never felt the same since she found a note scribbled in blue ink:

‘Don’t come and find me.’

And then a warm hand wrapped around hers.

“Lumine,” Scara croaked. “Is it about the test? A 75 really isn’t that bad. The mean was an 82. You weren’t even the low—”

“Um,” was all Lumine could muster after prying her hand from her mouth. She shook her head vigorously, coughing out a weary laugh at her own pathetic little self. “I’m fine,” she lied, avoiding eye contact at all costs, moving to stand before being yanked back down by the hand that she forgot was on hers.

“No you’re not,” her roommate growled. It was as if he was angry at her—her golden eyes, sparkling with unshed tears brimming at the edge, flashed to his—before she realized that everything lining his amethyst gaze was stone-cold hurt. Pain.

Did I hurt him?

“I-I’m sorry,” the blonde murmured in some mixture of bewildered dismay, eyes not leaving his as if encapsulated by the emotion that she had never seen from him before.

“You’re sorry?” His head shook in disbelief. His eyebrows wrinkled, hooding his irises with confusion.

“I, um,” Lumine blinked. “You looked like… like I said something that hurt you.” She only realized how ridiculous she sounded after the words tumbled from her mouth.

“What’s hurting me is that you’re hurt, Lumine.”

“I…” honey eyes trended downcast.

And then the floatiness began again.

10/22. October 22nd. The twenty-second of the tenth month of the year. No matter how she put it, everything about this date left her with an overpowering sense of grief.

You know how dates can be milestones? Well, the Lumine of the past had marked today as some sort of… I’ll-be-cured-of-this-pain day. For so long, she was reaching for today; it had gone so far as to become some sort of twisted coping mechanism. “I’ll be happy a year from now. I’ll have moved on from Aether.”

Her brother couldn’t even spare more than ten seconds on that damned note, smudging it in the process—since he cared that little about her, it should be easy to move on, right?

Oh, how wrong she was.

Feelings of worthlessness had lurched from that wretched date on her phone screen and clung to every blood cell in her veins, tainting them with inky black molasses. It was as if her heart was pumping too slow, yet too goddamn fast all the same.

Breathe.

Her brain was starved of oxygen, yet completely drowned in each and every pang of pain that she felt exactly one fucking year ago today. Bleakness, black and white. Everything was drenched in grief, worthlessness, sorrow, guilt.

Breathe.

How could she have forgotten what this pain felt like? It was as if nothing else mattered—not the paper with a big red 75 on the table, not the fact that Nilou was blowing up her phone about a Bloom date that went awry, not the fact that she had homework due in the morning. Everything was masked with that black inky sorrow.

It was prevalent now more than ever that Lumine’s future wasn’t hers to cling to. Where was she in life if not by her brother’s side? She was selfish for daring to abandon their town for college. Stupid for not finding him, shameful for not trying hard enough. Everything about her was positively vile.

But then she remembered that there was a hand clasped around hers.

Thankfully, Scara understood that she needed time. Lumine sat there, unmoving, staring at the wet spots that quickly began to wash over her jeans. His hand only left hers briefly, but not without reason—”I’m going to get us some tea,” he murmured softly—until it found hers once again.

The earthy scent of fresh Inazuman matcha brought her back. It was a scent that reminded her of her roommate, after all.

“I…” Lumine opened her dry mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came out. She blinked her tears away, trying to clear her vision, though flashes of her brother’s face clouded her subconscious still.

“Breathe.”

Heh. Was he reading her mind? Lumine always had to remind herself to breathe, lest she pass out from the stress and lack of oxygen. She took a deep breath through her nose and released it out of her mouth.

“Good.”

After a moment, her vision prickled with little stars as the flow of much-needed oxygen was reintroduced into her bloodstream. She blinked them away, continuing her breathing before leaning over to grab her cup with her free hand.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Scara murmured with as much passiveness as he could muster. Lumine knew better, though—she heard the concern that lined his last few words as he trailed off back to his own train of thought.

He cares.

Her gut told her so, and with all the grief crowding her mind, she allowed herself to believe that, just this once.

“It’s… it’s about my brother,” Lumine muttered, voice gravelly.

And so it began.

Scara twisted himself so that he was completely facing her on the couch. One leg was bent in front of him while the other tapered off to the side. It didn’t look comfortable in the slightest, but she appreciated the attentiveness. “I didn’t know you had a brother,” he mused.

“And this is why I don’t bring him up,” the blonde laughed weakly, raising her cup to allow her roommate to soak in the totality of her raggedness. He shot her a sorrowful look, to which she deflected with a small smile. “It’s… fine. Well, no it’s not, but…”

“I understand.”

“I hope you don’t,” she laughed once more, though she could catch a hint of raw empathy in his voice. Nevertheless, she continued. “He… well, long story short, he left. A long time ago, he and I ran away from our parents when we were,” she scrunched her nose for a moment as she thought back, “around 15 or so. We worked odd jobs, just skating by to make rent after school. And then, on this day last year…” her somewhat-lighthearted explanation quickly grew tarnished with the impending grief that she knew would come.

Scara asked no questions, and instead began to rub his thumb on the back of her clammy hand still clasped within his.

So she took a deep breath and continued.

“He left me. He left a note telling me not to look for him. And, like, fuck that, right?” She laughed aloud, bone-dry, “Why wouldn’t I look for my goddamn brother? I searched up until the day that I left for Teyvat University, but he was just… gone without a trace.”

Scara hummed. “Was he…” he trailed off for a moment, very obviously trying to choose his words carefully. Lumine nodded her head as if to guess the words he was about to say, “Yes, he was mad at me.”

Now, this was the hard part.

A sip of matcha was a miracle to her dry mouth before she continued, “We had been at odds for about a year before he disappeared.” Eyes began to moisten once again, so her eyes turned downcast to hide her shame. “It was… very hard for two high schoolers to find end’s meet. He always wanted to protect me, so when things turned south, he turned to… less conventional means.”

She could feel Scara’s grasp tighten for just a moment. A flinch.

“He joined a gang,” Lumine continued wearily. “He told me it was easy money. That I could quit my shifts at the grocery store after school. I begged him to stop, but…”

“Once he’s in, he can’t leave,” Scara finished.

The blonde almost leaped out of her skin. Scara’s voice was that of a growl, something demonic and through gritted teeth. Golden eyes stared back at lightning-struck ones; the static electricity sent a jolt up her spine.

“Yes,” she whispered, mouth dry once more.

She then paused, mouth half-open—she had seen this look from Scara before. Lumine was immediately brought back to the night that he protected her from Matthias. Protected. She always needed protecting. Useless.

Don’t spiral.

A deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

“Ae—” fuck, she couldn’t get herself to say his name out loud, “My brother chose the gang over me. That’s… that’s all there is to it.”

Worthless. A leech. How pathetic it was that she could barely walk on her own two feet without his shoulder to lean on.

Don’t spiral.

“A year ago today?”

“Yes.”

So fucking deplorable. She shouldn’t be on the ground like this again. Shattered like this again.

She was spiraling.

“I just feel…” the tears began to fall once more, “I feel like…”

“Lumine,” the bells of a light, gravelly voice brought her tear-soaked eyes back to her roommate’s.

All thought left her.

“If it hurts you, you really don’t have to… explain your feelings,” Scara played with her fingers out of nervousness, taking her index finger between his and flexing it. “Sometimes it just hurts to exist, right? I get it.”

Lumine nodded weakly.

“U-unless you want to explain how you feel. I mean, that’s fine too. I guess I just assumed that it hurt more to explain it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want you to explain it, it was more that that’s how I would fee—”

As he scrambled to explain himself, Lumine couldn’t help but notice that he looked… beautiful. The layers of his outer shell had been peeled back to reveal something bright and open.

So she smiled.

“What?!” Scara’s pale complexion was coated with a fresh, rosy blush as he scowled back at her sudden grin. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything, Scara.”

Immediately, his hand left hers as he turned to grasp his tea between his palms, leaning his cup back to take a large, ‘I’m not continuing this tangent’ gulp.

“I appreciate it, though. You’re right.”

Still, no response. He grunted at her, though, so at least there was that.

Ah, he was so cute. She couldn’t help but let out a giggle that caught in her throat.

Gods, how the hell was she laughing right now? It was as if the grief was washed away for a moment, and instead, a frothy feeling of brightness bubbled from within her chest. Butterflies fluttered, ever-present and only growing since she admitted her feelings to herself.

And though everything was wrong, everything was simultaneously right. She was in a comfort zone that she never realized she had taken hold of: here with the boy she had grown to appreciate through and through. He was truly more than she ever could have guessed. Caring, understanding, smart, handsome…

“You’re cute when you’re pissed,” Lumine admitted through a stuffy nose and puffy eyes.

A roll of the eyes. “Oh yeah, it’s gonna be real cute when I shut you up.”

“Ooh, I’d like to see that.”

“I’m slipping some of my bitter-ass tea into yours next time you need a cup.”

“Wait, hold on—”

“Nope, you’ve dug your own grave.”

“I take it back!”

“Oh, so I’m not cute?”

“I mean, you’re totally cute when you’re pissed, but—”

“You’re gonna find some nasty ass herbs under your pillow when you least expect it.”

“Wait—Scara, come on, I—”

The rest of the evening was spent that way. The day grew dim, and without much warning, a mid-autumn early darkness took hold over the apartment. Streetlights illuminated the space outside of their window, and the coziness only grew from there.

In a surprising move, Scara ordered them shitty takeout for dinner that night. “Food is the last thing you need to worry about,” he grumbled, trying so hard to remain passive; the effort put in made Lumine’s cheeks warm.

I want to learn more about him.

The two ate side by side in silence, but gods, the room was so loud.

I want to depend on him. I want him to depend on me.

A pipe dream, but did Lumine even dare to dream?

Would he leave me like Aether did?

The blonde blinked her misty eyes dry as she focused on her next bite.

Is depending on people something that I should even consider? Shouldn’t I just rely on myself and myself alone?

“I can hear the gears turning in your head,” her roommate mumbled out of nowhere, causing her to flinch and almost drop her fork. “They sound rusty as fuck.”

A sigh. “Too much thinking.”

“Your brother?”

“Pretty much,” she lied. Okay, it wasn’t really a lie, but—

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Lumine hummed, weighing her options. “I think I’ve had enough waterworks for tonight.”

“Fair. Anything else on your mind?”

You. “Some Bloom date was a dick to Nilou, so she walked out at dinner.”

“The redhead?”

Lumine turned to see Scara positively bewildered. Her eyes crinkled at the corners, “Yeah. Why so surprised?”

“She always seemed like a doormat to me.”

“A ball of sunshine, yes. A doormat, well… sometimes.”

“Exactly.”

“She called us in the bathroom. Yoimiya convinced her to walk out.”

“Ah,” Scara surmised. “That makes sense.”

A memory splashed to the surface. “Yoimiya, right? Naganohara Yoimiya. Think she’d let me hit?”

Though her roommate already denied that he actually wanted to fuck Yoimiya, Lumine still felt a pang of jealousy at that moment. “’That makes sense’? How well do you know Yoimiya?” She turned back to her food and shoved a bite in her mouth, lest she embarrass herself even further.

Scara clicked his tongue at that. “Still not over it?”

Gods, even mentioning anything from that night sent tingles down her spine. She chewed slowly as an excuse not to respond.

Thankfully, he humored her. “She just seems like the type to cause that sort of chaos. Do you not remember how much she was teasing you that one night before…” he trailed off. “You know what? Yeah. Let’s not have this conversation right now.”

Not right now? So we’re going to have that conversation at some point?

“Encroaching on dangerous territory,” Lumine mumbled through a half-full mouth.

To that, he laughed aloud. “Something like that.”

And so the rest of their dinner was spent in electric silence.

Chapter Text

“Yeah, fine. I’ll go. Fine,” Lumine grumbled over the phone.

Of course, it was Yoimiya practically begging for another girls night out.

Over the past few weeks, Lumine had no time nor will to brave the party scene. Midterms were being strewn left and right, and on top of that, she had a crush budding and blooming as quickly as a cherry blossom in early spring.

Well, it was mid-autumn at this point, but you get the idea.

The point was that Lumine didn’t want to go out, really. She had been braving a ton of new, scary emotions as of late. Not to mention the last time she got wasted, she ended up swiping right on her roommate.

Well, it couldn’t get much worse than that, right?

Either way, though Lumine sounded disgruntled when she caved to Yoi’s pleas, she resigned herself to accepting the fact that a night out was probably a good idea; it would be a refreshing return to the norm, right? The clean, cold air against barely-covered skin would be just as exhilarating as it had been before, right? Lumine tried to work herself up to excitement by allowing these sorts of thoughts to fill her mind, but why did they sound… half-assed?

Whatever.

A deep breath of bone-chilling air was inhaled and exhaled before she made her way into Yoimiya’s apartment.

“Lulu!” Nilou exclaimed as she ran over to nearly tackle the blonde in a bear hug.

“Nilou—are you drunk already?!”

“Yes,” Yoimiya piped up from the bathroom—probably still getting ready.

“No, I’m not!” The redhead pouted. “I’m just so glad to have a girls night again!”

“You and me both, Lou,” Yoimiya made her way from the bathroom, mascara wand in hand, smiling merrily. “Drinks are in the fridge. Drunky drunk over there already cracked open a bottle of wine. Have at it!”

“I’m not drunk!”

“It’s good to see you all dressed up again, my little ball of sunshine,” Lumine smiled before setting a soft pat on her friend’s head of red hair. With a giggle, Nilou ran over to the kitchen to pour Lumine a glass of wine.

And so the night began.

Lumine could practically count the minutes until Scara was brought up. Thankfully, though, she didn’t feel any need to be secretive about her crush. After all, the cat was out of the bag, so to speak.

“So, how far have you guys gone?”

Well, mostly out of the bag.

“We haven’t done anything,” Lumine lied for what felt like the 500th time, rolling her eyes.

“But you’re sure he likes you, right?”

“I’m the furthest from sure, Yoimiya.”

“Ooh, I’m sure!” Nilou raised her hand, eyes sparkling like the sun upon the ocean.

Both Lumine and Yoimiya turned to raise a brow at their redhead.

“What? I told Lumine. I’m good at this stuff.”

“Okay, but how good? Where are your creds?” Yoi challenged, and honestly, Lumine was thankful that her friend dug at least a little bit. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was wondering that, too.

Nilou rolled her eyes, an uncharacteristic smugness spreading across her face. “I’ll make you a deal. If Scara doesn’t like Lumine, I’ll pay you 5,000 mora.”

“But if he does?” Yoi challenged.

The redhead scoffed. “I’m not going to make you pay me for that! We all want Lumine to win, right?”

“So you’re just going to bet on a complete loss?”

“Mhm.”

“You’re that confident?”

“Yep!”

Nilou looked positively prideful: her hands were perched atop her hips, chin tilted upwards, eyes closed with the biggest smile across her face.

“To each their own, I guess,” Yoimiya laughed before taking a swig of her wine. “That’s the most sure I’ve seen anyone about anything.”

Lumine, who felt as though she was watching a sitcom, smiled as she watched her two friends continue their friendly banter. She especially enjoyed it when Nilou’s eyes suddenly widened as if realizing something. “Wait, you better not sabotage their relationship for mora, Yoiyoi!” The redhead wagged her finger at the strawberry blonde, and to that, Yoimiya laughed. “For 5,000 mora? That’s as much as a shitty sandwich at the dining hall. No amount of mora would keep me from wanting to smush them together.”

But suddenly, just as Lumine was falling into some sort of slightly alcohol-induced catharsis, her phone atop the counter buzzed.

And the name on the text read ‘Scara’.

Oh, fu—

Of course, nothing got past Yoimiya. In a flash, a grin was firmly in place. “Ooh,” she jeered.

“Lu, you need to read it to us!” Nilou pleaded.

Okay, this shit was such a sitcom. With a grumble (even though she failed to hide a small smile), she unlocked her phone from the countertop, allowing her two friends to crowd around and read at the same time.

Scara [9:44PM]: Hey

Scara [9:44PM]: My friends are pregaming here. You gonna be around?

“Holy SHIT,” Yoimiya put her hands to her head and turned to take a walk as if that single text had blown her mind. “There goes my potential 5,000 mora!”

“I told you, Yoiyoi!” Nilou jumped up and down like a rabbit.

“Wh—huh?!” Lumine gawked.

Yoimiya shot the blonde a deadpanned look. “He literally wants to invite you to pregame with them.”

“Untrue,” Lumine narrowed her eyes at Yoimiya’s audacity. “Do you remember what happened with Childe? Or Ajax? Whoever the fuck that guy was? Scara just wants to make sure I don’t have to be in the same room as him if I don’t want to be!”

“Okay, so respond, then!” Yoi urged, arms crossed. “See what he says.”

Lumine’s face contorted into something of disbelief before she turned back to her phone.

Lumine [9:47PM]: i’m at yoi’s pregame rn, you’re in the clear

To her chagrin (read: to her elation), he responded almost immediately.

Scara [9:48PM]: Aight well

Scara [9:49PM]: We’ll be at Sigma Chi later

Scara [9:49PM]: Warning or invitation. Whatever you want it to be

“Do you see now?!” Nilou slammed her hands against the countertop, beaming rays of sunlight directly in Lumine’s direction, so bright she was nearly forced to squint.

“Wh—”

“So, yup, we’re going to Sigma Chi,” Yoimiya, without a single care about what Lumine had to say, turned to her phone to type the frat’s address into Waypoint, their local rideshare service. “Let’s say… pick-up in twenty minutes?”

Fuck. Lumine threw back an oversized gulp of her wine before even attempting to face the severity of the situation; Gods, she needed about four more glasses of wine to be ready for this. “Fine,” she grumbled.

Yoimiya laughed, “Lu, don’t act like you don’t love it.”

“I will because I don’t!”

“We know you better than that, Lulu,” Nilou sang.

They were totally right, but in no way did Lumine want to admit it. With a sigh, she made her way to the bathroom to contain herself, check her makeup, as well as to send a secret response while in the bathroom:

Lumine [10:04PM]: we’ll be there 👀

Yes, the ‘Eyes’ emoji was necessary. Tipsy Lumine made sure it was there.

Unfortunately for her, though, she wasn’t nearly tipsy enough to quell her nerves by the time their Waypoint driver dropped them off. “Okay, but what do you have to worry about?” Yoimiya wrapped an arm around the blonde as they walked towards the persistent thumping of loud music. “You’re the hottest girl here.”

“We haven’t even walked into the frat house yet,” Lumine grumbled, bare arms shivering from the nerves and the cold.

“I’m psychic. So what? Also, why are we ignoring the fact that he literally invited us here?”

“You’ve got this, Lu!” Nilou grabbed Lumine’s hand.

A deep breath was all she could muster before they walked in.

Loud, energetic, and disorienting. If there were three things to describe any frat party at Teyvat University, it would be those. That being said, though, there were many more terms to be used as descriptors: floor-thumping, alcohol-ridden, and… sticky. Very sticky.

After adjusting to the sudden atmosphere change, Lumine beelined to grab a round of drinks for her and the two girls that trailed behind.

As per usual, their cups were filled with a suspicious red liquid that was surely a batch of mystery liquor along with some powdered drink mix. It tasted like pure fruit punch, pure enough so that any alcohol was drowned out by the sugary sweet flavor. Perfect—in Lumine’s opinion, the best part about getting drunk is not having to taste the liquor. She turned to her friends, passing out the round of red solo cups, a small smile attached to her face as the nerves finally began to slide off her shoulders.

Though that was true, a little voice in the back of her head reminded her of her current situation.

What if he’s here now? Is he coming? Why isn’t he here yet?

As the three began sipping on their drinks, dancing, and laughing, Lumine couldn’t help but keep her eyes about her. Of course, she caught a stray look from a frat boy every now and then, but it wasn’t until she caught a perfect head of blonde hair peeping out from above the crowd that her heart began to thump.

That had to be Signora, right?

Play it cool.

She turned back to her friends who, to her benefit, seemed sufficiently tipsy up until now. But though Yoimiya was thoroughly distracted by some guy, Lumine quickly noticed Nilou’s eyes were fixated on her.

Shit.

“You look like a deer in the—uh, what’s that saying? Headlights?” Nilou put her finger to her chin. “Yeah, headlights! Did you see Scara?” She waggled her fingers in front of her like her roommate was a ghost coming to haunt her.

“No,” Lumine grumbled; it was the truth, but it came out sounding like a lie. So much so, in fact, that Nilou began to look around for herself, and unfortunately for Lumine, she caught the eye of a familiar mess of red hair.

And then her heart plummeted. And flew to her throat. And did flips.

“Hi!” Nilou yelled, waving her arm frantically to a smiling Childe.

“Well, look at who we have here,” Childe laughed a boisterous laugh. Slowly through the crowd, the man walked; behind him was an ever-prissy, ever-bored-looking Signora, and…

And her roommate wasn’t with them.

Where’s Scara? Before thinking, those exact words had tumbled out of her mouth. Her eyes almost widened, and her face almost dropped, but by some unknown force, she was able to hold herself together.

“Scara, hm?” Signora smiled some snake-like, predatory smile. “He actually stayed back to grab us some drinks. We just got here. What, you wanna go see him?”

“Nope.”

“You sure? I’m pretty sure he wanted to see you, actually,” Childe joined in.

“Why’s that?” Lumine contested.

“Just a hunch.”

Damn. Of course, Scara’s friends would want to make it as difficult for him as Lumine’s friends wanted to make it easy for her. She tipped her drink back to her lips so as to shake off the judging eyes of Signora, and thankfully, that ended up working. In fact, Signora had since turned to Nilou and Yoimiya, nodding and laughing as if Yoimiya told some devious joke that actually was able to melt some of her icy exterior.

“Perfect,” Childe smiled broadly, turning to Signora and giving her a nod. “Either way, we’ll probably be seeing each other far more often from now on, so it’s probably good to start this now.”

“Why, you think it’ll take a while?” Nilou tilted her head.

“Depends on a lot of things. But—” Childe stopped as he noticed Lumine’s listening ear, “Enough of that. What are you guys drinking?”

“Just whatever the Sigma Chi boys mixed up,” Yoimiya sloshed the red liquid in her cup, crinkling her nose slightly. “Probably powdered Fonta mix and… uh, Everclear?”

“You think those guys can afford Everclear?”

“Everclear is like 15,000 mora for a handle, is that not cheap?”

“Yeah, well, we’re talking about Sigma Chi here,” Childe laughed.

Lumine found herself engrossed in whatever conversation was transpiring between the two unlikely groups of friends. The nerves that had heightened, melted away, and heightened again, began to melt away once more. Part of her fear in the first place was that she expected the conversation to be awkward, but she had forgotten just how charismatic Childe was. The man was definitely too charismatic for her liking, but it fit this situation pretty perfectly, so she couldn’t complain. It wasn’t long until she was genuinely smiling and adding to the conversation, but—

But when a familiar head of midnight hair made his entrance, she found that her throat was unreasonably dry and needed quenching now.

Oh, gods. Oh, fuck. Oh, shit.

“You fuckers chose the middle of the party to stand in?” Scara grumbled, shoving cups into Childe’s and Signora’s hands. Lumine couldn’t see him beyond the top of the cup she was chugging, but she knew exactly the expression that adorned his face.

That imagery alone made her heart rate speed up.

Unfortunately for her, she couldn’t act like she was chugging her mystery liquid forever. So she lowered her cup, meaning to avert her gaze, but her damn brain forced her eyes to the exact spot where she heard him speak.

And then she froze.

The world seemed to darken at that single moment, and for that split second, it was just the two of them.

Scara was wearing the same leather jacket as the night she swiped right on him. Upon his face was his trademark scowl, but his amethyst eyes told a different story: they were latched onto her just as hers were to him, they were soft for her as hers were for him, and they were hungry for her as hers were for him.

Lumine had gotten quite used to holding a conversation with Scara when it was just the two of them, but the fact that they were among friends was a different story. Would he act differently? Would he return to the same cold, unforgiving roommate she had at the beginning of the semester?

“Hey,” he murmured to Lumine and Lumine only, just loud enough to be heard above the music, but just low enough to be heard as a grumble.

“Thanks for inviting us,” Lumine said with a small smile.

Midnight eyes flickered with a bright sky, once, twice, and only for her.

On the other hand, pointed looks between friends were promptly ignored by both of them.

Thankfully, the conversation returned to normal after that. The topic had shifted multiple times, from the horrible drink selection (”I saw nothing but this fruit punch shit,” Lumine claimed, which was immediately backed up my Scara, “Yeah, their entire fucking fridge is completely cleared out already”), to majors, to classes.

“Yeah, that physics test wasn’t that bad,” Nilou tilted her head.

Lumine grimaced, “Yeah, tell that to my 75.”

“Oof,” Nilou winced. “Still passed though, right?”

“We both completely forgot about that test,” Scara chimed in. “We roughed it trying to cram. She was sick as hell.”

“To be fair, you were sick too, and you got a 90-something,” Lumine countered.

“You were way more sick than I was at that point.”

“I was loopy off my ass on cold medicine, too.”

“Honestly, a 75 is fine considering the circumstances,” Scara surmised, shrugging with a small smile.

“Since when were you being serious about classes, Scara?” Signora pushed her way into the conversation, grinning mockingly at the man whose smile immediately faded at that moment.

“Since when did you begin to give a fuck about my academic record?” He countered, rolling his eyes before downing the rest of his cup. Smooth, but unfortunately not smooth enough. The smiles shared by the rest of the group—excluding Lumine, of course—were sirens and red flashing lights to the fact that they definitely had something planned.

And then Childe spoke, “Oh, shit, I’m out of mystery juice!”

“Wait, same!” Signora.

“Me too!” Yoimiya.

“Wow, me too! What a coincidence!” Nilou.

They weren’t even trying to hide it, either.

“Let’s go scavenge for some secret beers or something. I have connections so some brothers in this frat!” Childe smiled, eyebrows raised while nodding to an overly enthusiastic Yoimiya. “Yeah, and it would be good to be backed up by some girls, too! To, uh, have a better chance at convincing them to give us some hard liquor! Let’s go!”

The fuck kind of logic was that?

Before Lumine could even think about calling them out, they were gone, leaving her and Scara by themselves.

Alone.

At a party.

How the fuck did it come to this?

“No fucking way,” Scara grumbled under his breath.

Lumine sighed, “An award-winning acting job.” She turned to her roommate, very painfully aware of the fact that he was averting his eyes on purpose. The scowl that creased the space between his eyebrows was as annoyed as it was contemplative as if he was thinking the exact same thing she was: what the fuck was she supposed to do? What was she supposed to say?

Wait, why was he even here, anyway? “Do you even like frat parties?” The words spilled out of her mouth as if on instinct—after all, he really didn’t seem like the type.

“I used to,” Scara said, electric eyes floating upwards in a reflective manner. “I guess I haven’t put much thought into it, really.”

“Honestly, same,” Lumine sloshed the red liquid around in her cup before downing the rest of it in one gulp. “I can’t really put my finger on it, but something about this type of scene doesn’t appeal much to me anymore.”

A bluff, of course. She knew the exact reason why.

“Yeah, I feel the same way.”

Did he know the reason why?

Could he read her mind?

And so in the middle of a crowded room, Lumine and Scara stood alone together.

The concrete floor under her feet was slightly sticky. Deep electronic bass rumbled the ground under her feet, reverberating through her legs, prickling up her spine like thorned vines. Cheers of drunken laughter and the greens, yellows, and reds of strobe lights were muted beyond the lightning flashing within the eyes of her roommate.

Lumine tightened her grip slightly, bending and popping the empty red solo cup in her hand. The sound was so crisp, so damn clear, as were the thoughts she would dare to say they shared.

They could have been inches, feet, miles away from every other person in this room; none of it mattered other than the fact that they were there, together, alone.

Suddenly, Scara broke eye contact to throw back the rest of his drink. “I have a bottle of wine in the fridge if you’re down to ditch,” he said swiftly and nonchalantly, crumpling the cup in his hand.

Lumine’s heart just about exploded. Without any sort of doubt, she nodded, an elated smile overtaking her face at an embarrassingly rapid pace.

“Wanna walk home?”

“Sure,” she murmured.

“Cool.” Without hesitation, he turned, put out his hand for her to grab, and began weaving through the crowd.

Lumine would never forget the distinct weight of the devil on her shoulder as they made their way toward the exit. She knew full well that the timer to the apocalypse had begun to tick down—no, it had admittedly begun ticking long ago—but the moment her hand met his, she felt it speed up tenfold.

Lumine wasn’t a fool, nor was she even that drunk; she knew what she was getting herself into.

She was ready.

As the two slipped out of the party, Lumine looked back to green lights flashing from the windows of the frat house.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Scara was being far too cruel.

Lumine wriggled in her seat, furrowing her brow at her sheer loss of words. Before her was the man who had been at the forefront of her mind for many weeks now, once at the tip of her tongue, but never at the apex of her thighs. She pressed them together, suddenly keenly aware that they needed spreading.

Scara, on the other hand, wore quite the sardonic grin. He was leaned against the back of the couch, his lip ring teasing her; she was so fucking jealous at its proximity to his lips. It was as if the man had no care in the world and all the patience, with eyes trained on her and a hum escaping him. He carefully observed, filled to the brim with the knowledge that she was right where he wanted her.

“Are you just going to keep staring at me?” Lumine grumbled, averting her eyes.

“I’m thinking.”

“Thinking about what?”

“About how I’m going to make you spill.”

Lumine stilled. He was right; though she was willing to tell him everything, her subconscious was stuck firmly in the way. It would hold back, dull down these devilish things she had been yearning to tell him. So, in other words, he was thinking about how he would break her. At that realization, her mouth filled with saliva. She swallowed hard.

But then, his eyes lit up. “Mm, I know,” he murmured, shifting to stand and walk to his bedroom to fetch something ambiguous to her. He was all too calm, collected, it was driving her insane. It prickled at her skin, sending her mind through hoops and hoops of Oh, gods, there’s no way out, is there? It was as horrifying as it was delicious.

None of this could come soon enough. The spotlight was on her tonight, on the thoughts and fantasies that she had been harboring for too damn long. Under the light of day, they had been locked behind a cage; only at night and in the safety of her bedroom were they to come out and play. She thirsted for him to tear the words from her mouth, to show her what desire meant.

She couldn’t wait for him to break her in.

Lumine tilted her wine glass to her lips, chugging its last contents before placing it on the coffee table ahead of her. She waited impatiently, her eyes set on his bedroom door, her heart pounding at the memories that had been wearing her ragged for so many moons.

Yes, that one fated night so long ago, Scara had become very well-acquainted with her body. He had the ghost of her breasts, her nipples, her ass in his memory and atop his fingertips. It was unfair; he had touched her that night, but what did his cock look like? Feel like? She could only imagine, and oh, did she imagine.

As he returned from his room with a piece of cloth in his hands, though, she knew what was about to happen.

It was a blindfold.

How cruel it was to hide himself from her any longer. But as that thought bubbled up to the top of her mind, he reminded her that she had been far more cruel: “Are you ready to tell me what you’ve been hiding all this time?” He held out the cloth in front of him, standing directly in front of her as she sat on the couch and oh gods he’s so close oh gods she’s salivating for his cock at eye-level with her.

All she could do was nod.

“I’ll take this off when I’m sufficiently satisfied,” he murmured, his voice far too soft for the undertones that lay beneath. It was like he was teasing her, assuring her with gentle words when they both knew what was about to happen. The last thing she saw was Scara’s upturned eyes lined with electric sardonicism; he leaned in, her eyes fluttered closed, and her vision went black with the thick, dark cloth that was tied around her head.

Senses heightened in its place.

Lumine felt him take the seat next to her, where he had been prior. She turned her body to face him—though she couldn’t see anything, she wanted to appear open, willing to be dragged to hell at the flick of his wrist. Yes, he was the puppet master and she was his eager little plaything.

A sly chuckle escaped him, alluding to her that he was satisfied with his decision. Surely, he was taking the sight of her in right now, but whether his eyes were on her face or her breasts or her waist was so deliciously unbeknownst to her. Her lips parted, taking in a smooth, deep breath.

“No need to be so nervous, yeah?” His words flowed like silk, like he had done this many times before. “All I have is one rule: no hesitating.”

“Or what?”

“Well, you’ll see,” he answered, a sure smile lining his lips.

Lumine gulped. If she was to push him further, what would he do?

“First question,” Scara purred, shifting in his seat next to her. “What did you think of Childe?”

Lumine gulped. She had to respond quickly, or else…

Or else what?

“Too charismatic,” she murmured against her wandering mind. “Frat boys are never up to any good. Some like it, I guess.”

“Do you?”

“Not into massive egos.”

“Then why did you go for him that night?”

“It was Yoimiya’s idea.”

“Not an answer.”

Yes, it is. Those words danced on her lips—it genuinely was Yoimiya’s idea—but then she found herself lagging behind the tempo of the conversation for just a moment. Her mouth hung open, unable to find the words. As silence set in, she knew she was done for.

Slowly, Scara leaned close. “Do you need help unzipping your dress?” He purred, his lip ring grazing the hollow of her ear. “Looks uncomfortable.”

“Never pegged you for a gentleman.” The words flowed from her lips without effort; something within her took over, adding fire to her veins, causing the devil to tighten its grip.

“I can be, given the chance. Maybe I’ll take you on a date sometime soon.” Lumine’s heart fluttered at his words and the fact that his voice was at her back now, as were his hands. One hand grasped at her shoulder and the other began to pull the zipper of her dress down; as he did, a lick of electricity was sent streaking down her spine. Her innocent little white dress and his innocent little words fell at the command of his hands.

Tonight, she wore no bra. It must have come as a surprise to him to see her nude back, to imagine it in his line of sight as he plowed her from behind. Surely, his thoughts were coated in those inky fantasies. They were once her own, and now they were his to share. For a moment, he lingered there, the heat of his eyes burning at her milky skin, his fingers brushing down her shoulder blades to the curve at her waist. It was all so delicately sinister, so tender and so evil.

“Now, answer the question.” His lips were at the nape of her neck now, like a vampire heady with hunger, patient for his chance to strike. There was no emotion in his words, but his heavy breath against her collarbone told her otherwise.

Ah. Right. This was her punishment, wasn’t it? To be stripped bare and not to be able to witness his reaction. It was so cruel, but above all, it was so delicious. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad punishment after all. “I wanted to see your reaction,” she admitted, her voice breathy and small. “I wanted to get a rise out of you.”

Scara hummed, mulling over her words. He shifted to a stand once more, circling to take his seat in full view of her. He gave her no signal where his gaze lay, whether it was upon her naked breasts or her hands clasped ahead of her. It was frustrating.

“And were you satisfied?”

“… Yes and no,” she murmured. Before hesitation could take hold, she continued, “Yes, because I did get a reaction. No, because you kept me awake fucking some girl at 3AM.”

To that, Scara laughed. It was a haughty laugh, one with purpose. Surely, she had answered to his liking.

But then, the air in the room shifted as he asked his next question. “Did you feel it too, when the lights were out and I was helping you find your phone?”

Funnily enough, it felt a lot like this: blacked out from vision yet the tension between them was palpable. “Yes,” she said, voice soft as it was sure.

“What were you thinking?”

She thought back to that night. It felt so long ago, the night where they first began to break down the walls between them. “I guided you to my bed, and you were pressed against me, and…” She shook her head at her thoughts, willing them away lest she tumble further into desire. She had nearly forgotten that her breasts were bare before him.

There was a zip, then a shift. “Go on.”

She swallowed hard. “Did you just…”

“I won’t ask you twice.”

“I wanted you to push me down, to get on top of me.” As the words flowed from her mouth, an all-too-familiar heat began to pulsate between her thighs. She yearned to reach her hand over to feel him, to find what he had just unzipped. “You wanted nothing to do with me back then, and I didn’t really know what I was feeling. The way you pressed yourself against me… did you do it on purpose?”

“Perhaps.”

Lumine pressed her lips together, then opened them to speak once more. “Why won’t you touch me?”

“You don’t deserve it yet.”

Her mind swam, needy and touch-starved. Back then, she thought it wrong to feel the way she did right now. To want her roommate, the same one who she thought hated her. She thought all of those emotions were figments of her imagination, but… “It was the first time I realized that I wanted you. I could never shake it.” A breath snaked from her lungs as her hand raised of its own volition to her breast, needy to roll her taut nipple between her fingertips, but then it was caught midair by one of his.

“Not until I tell you to,” he warned.

“But—”

“Tell me what you were thinking when you touched yourself to the thought of me.”

Lumine bit her lip. There were so many fantasies that danced in her head, the visions heightened by the blindfold allowing her mind to slip into daydreams. Before she knew it, she was surely hesitating.

Scara guided her hand downward to something fleshy, something long, something thick. Realization flooded her with heat, her cunt constricting around absolutely nothing, and gods, it wanted this so fucking badly. “I want you to make me your plaything,” she breathed, her fingers moving to grip his cock and feel its length. “I want to do whatever you tell me to do. I want you to break me.”

He let out a grunt through clenched teeth, his cock twitching in her grasp. He said nothing, but maybe it was better this way, because now Lumine could take her time feeling his length and running her thumb over the piercing right beneath its head. She mapped the slight curve of his cock in her mind, seeing visions of what it looked like, what it would feel like nestled inside of her. Her breaths were quick now, saliva filling her mouth, needy to please him. Needy to wrap her lips around him. “I’ll be your toy if you want me to.”

Surely, this was more than he had bargained for. It was as if the roles had reversed and now she was the one calling the shots. He’d have to pull the reins back over to his side, right? Regardless, she pushed the envelope even further, sitting atop her knees to lean toward him. “Can I suck it? Will you please let me?” She begged without an ounce of shame. She could feel her breasts droop as she leaned forward, her lips reaching for him.

And then, in an instant, she was pushed onto her back. Her mind was spinning, rattled by the fact that his cock wasn’t in her grasp anymore and she needed him and Oh gods he’s probably mad. Scara spread her legs wide, pulling her panties to the side to expose her to him. So unfair, so unfair; he was able to see how slick she was for him, but she couldn’t even imagine what twisted expression lined his eyes.

But then all thought left her as his cock pressed itself against her aching cunt, lining itself up to be pressed inside of her. She yearned, she needed; “Please,” she whimpered, wriggling her hips in a desperate attempt to make him want her more.

“You’re pathetic,” Scara muttered, voice seeping with venom. A hand was in her hair, then, pulling her head back, exposing her neck. “You don’t deserve it.”

Her heart plummeted.

“You moan my name every night for days, maybe even weeks, and then you shut me off when it comes down to it. You couldn’t even admit that it was you who swiped right on me.”

Lumine gulped.

“Remember when you said that you were ‘completely satisfied with the dick you get’?”

“It was a lie.”

“Touch yourself,” Scara said, his voice even-keeled and cold. “I’m right here watching you. Really sucks when you can’t see what I’m doing, doesn’t it?”

Lumine reached for her slit, slickened and pulsing to his every word. A single swipe of her finger against her clit sent a jolt coursing up her spine, causing her toes to curl and her back to arch. Gods, she was so sensitive for him, so ready to provide. Why couldn’t he just give it to her?

“This is how I felt when you were moaning my name on the other side of the door,” he grunted through his teeth. Surely, he was stroking himself to her, wasn’t he? “I could hear everything. I’ve only been able to imagine it for so long.”

“I-I’m sorry,” she said, her mind far away from her. She was being driven insane by the thought of him hovering over her, his amethyst eyes watching her come undone by her own fingertips. Her imagination was taking over in place of her lack of sight, with visions of these fantasies seeping into her bones, into every word and every mewl.

Oh, gods, she was coming undone.

His name was hot on her tongue, and she hoped that it was enough to deserve him. Her back arched, breaths grew heavy as her heat constricted around nothing and gods she wished it was him and—

“Not yet.” Suddenly, her fingers were pulled from her clit, sending a bout of disappointment through searing her veins. The blistering denial was almost as potent as her desire, causing her teeth to sink into her bottom lip.

“You’re making a fucking mess, did you know that?” His hand went to her breasts, his broad grasp palming at her. He grunted, clearly restraining himself; “What I would give you taste you,” he mumbled, voice low and subdued.

“I’ll give you anything,” Lumine pleaded. “I’ll tell you anything.”

“Have you told your friends about that night?”

“No,” she admitted. “I just… kept it pushed down for so long. I didn’t want to face it.”

He chuckled, and now his voice was suddenly at the crest of her creamy thighs. Her hands went clammy, her fingers tingling and itching to pull him toward her. “And now?” He purred, his breath fanning across her cunt.

“I’ll tell them that I’m yours.”

“Good girl.” The next thing she knew, his tongue was against her clit. A moan escaped her, out of surprise and desire and fucking finally. Greedy hands shot to his head, tethering themselves within his locks to pull him closer. She ached, she needed, she yearned; anything for the release that had loomed over her for what felt like forever. Her own fingers couldn’t do much for her anymore, nor could any other man. Scara was the only person fit to pleasure her.

Yes, she was his. She would do anything to come undone for him and only him.

His tongue was so delicious against her heat, so drenched and needy for him. The tip of his tongue rolled against her, flicking with expert precision; gods, what she would do to have this every day, to wake up to him lapping at her sweet juices every morning.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you the night I found y—ah—you on Bloom,” Lumine breathed, her mind too far gone to filter her words. Her hips jolted under the control of his tongue, of his fingers pressed into her waist. “I—I just kept thinking about how you hadn’t brought anyone over in weeks, and how you saved me from Matthias, and how you… and how you…”

Out of nowhere, his tongue left her. She was about to whine for him, to let out pathetic little words of revolt, but then the blindfold was suddenly removed from her line of sight.

Ah. Scara was hovering over her, his midnight eyes brimming with snake-like desire. He was hungry, needy as she was; this wasn’t the first time she had seen his eyes so ravenous, but it was the first time they had been so unrestrained, so unadulterated. “Scara,” she breathed, her voice shaking, though she didn’t know why.

His shirt had been removed and cast somewhere across their apartment. Toned, tattooed shoulders led to bulging biceps as he held himself above her, just a hair from her lips.

“Do I deserve you now?”

He answered by closing the distance between them. Lips and tongues tangled together, battling for control, though she knew this war was futile. She had already begun the process of melting into him by pressing the pads of her fingers into his back, betwixt tendrils of dark hair. Did she deserve him? She was so incredibly needy, her senses heightened, her heart racing.

Scara’s fingers drifted low to caress her folds once more, causing her to jolt and writhe. Against her lips was a sardonic grin, she just knew it. He broke their kiss, leaning his forehead against hers. “Are you going to cum for me this time?”

“I’ve been cumming for you for weeks, Scara,” she rasped in response.

“You’re too cruel.”

With that, he shifted to stand. And, gods, he was gorgeous. Lumine’s first look at his cock was from below, as she lay on the couch and he was standing at her side. Never had she been so hypnotized by anything in her life. She needed it in her mouth, in her cunt.

“Sit up for me,” he murmured, his voice brimming with nonchalance. It was as if he could easily ignore how her eyes sparkled at the sight of him, as if he had seen this same look before. She was jealous; she needed to perform for him, to be used, to appease him. She sat up just enough to level herself with his cock, looking up at him with doe eyes. With pleading eyes.

He liked that.

His arm wrapped around her, tugging her hips toward him so that he could reach her glistening slit. The other hand was against the back of her head, guiding her to take his cock into her mouth. Her plump lips parted, planting kiss upon kiss against its head, reveling in the way he twitched against her teasing caress. All the while, he teased her right back; the pads of his fingers brushed against her cunt, that of which was so ripe and ready for his fingers. It was only fair, she gathered, though she needed more and she needed it now.

So she gave him what he wanted.

Lumine wrapped her arms around him, pressing him into her as she took his cock into her mouth. His length filled her up, flooded her with these heightened feelings, this neediness. Scara grunted against her readiness; in turn, he pressed two fingers inside of her, causing her eyes to roll back into her head if only for a split moment. Her head bobbed, her tongue and lips suckled at his length, desperate to please him. Golden eyes were trained on his face, on his furrowed brow and closed eyes and grunts of pleasure. It was all so delicious, so horrible, so perfect.

His fingers pushing themselves deep inside of her were quickly dragging her into uncharted waters, a place unbeknownst to her. She had never felt this way before; never had she been so hungry for someone, so pathetic and needy to pleasure them. Scara finger fucked her fast, causing her legs to spread so that he could gain more leverage. She couldn’t fight the tears that prickled at the corners of her eyes, the concoction of saliva and precum that trickled from her mouth down to her chin. She was a mess, she was his mess.

It wasn’t long until the coil of heat at her abdomen began to constrict. He felt it, too; it was then that he began to speak to her, to coax her further into her drunkenness. “I’m going to fuck you, Lumine,” he purred against the waves of pleasure that twitched at his cock and fingertips. “I’m going to brand you.”

Please, she wanted to say, but she was too busy drowning in him. She yearned so badly to be his, to hang from his cock and from his lips. To be by his side, to please him, to fall even further in love with him.

He was absolutely decimating her now, his fingers causing every semblance of sanity to evaporate from her body. She couldn’t feel herself unlatch from his cock nor did she notice her eyes roll back into her head; the way she fell limp to his control was something she had never thought possible. Stars contorted her vision as the white-hot coil of desire snapped, drawing her body taut and quivering. Scara, Scara, Scara; whether she was just thinking his name or if her prayer escaped as sweet little mewls of release, she hadn’t a clue. But as sure as the sky, as sure as midnight eyes were trained on her face, she came undone against her roommate’s touch.

She came to at the feeling of his tender hand against her cheek. She reached to hold it there, to grasp at his wrist. With eyes blinking, she took in the sight of his face with a pleased expression, something very unlike him. “What I’d give to see this every morning,” he murmured, his gaze fixed on her face.

“You can,” she breathed, her chest still heaving from the release and the fall.

What was in store for them tomorrow? The day after? She hadn’t a care prior, between the alcohol and the sex, but now those sure emotions crept in like blood through frozen veins. Lumine was sure that he felt it too, because in one swoop, he leaned down to take her into his arms. All of her nakedness and yelps of protest were his, cradled against his chest as he carried her into his room.

“Wh-what are you doing?!” She shrieked, being pulled from her afterglow into midair.

“Stealing you,” Scara murmured, unfazed. “Consummating our relationship.”

“Relationship?” She didn’t mean for it to come out like that, like she was disgusted by the notion—she was just genuinely surprised that he would be the one to breach that topic.

“Yes,” he said matter-of-factly. “You’re my girlfriend now. Any objections?” He stopped at the foot of his bed, looking down at her with unreadable eyes.

“No,” she breathed, golden gaze wide and owlish.

“Good.” And then he placed her atop his bed and crawled on top of her like an animal.

The mood had shifted again and shifted quickly. The heat of what happened just moments ago flooded her once more, filled her chest with the flutters of butterflies rapping against her quickening heart. A haze dawned upon them, descending as sure as Scara was upon her lips. It was their first kiss as boyfriend and girlfriend, and gods, it felt so sweet as it did sultry.

He was spreading her legs far apart, taking his cock and lining it up to her cunt as he had before. But this time, it was real. She could feel it in his kiss, in the way he nipped at her bottom lip. His hunger had breached its cage, its carefully placed guise of complacency. She deserved him now, and he would reward his pretty little toy with exactly what she needed. “Need… need you…” she moaned against his lips, her heat so desperate to be filled, for her walls to be pressed apart to make room for him.

Scara leaned out just to press himself inside of her. He wanted to see her reaction, to watch her face contort and her head to lean back. Surely, he was more than pleased by her reaction; as he filled her up, her fingers and toes were sent twitching, curling and releasing, grabbing for him. Gods, having him connected to her, finally, finally, felt so much better than any other man.

Lumine writhed, sweet little mewls escaping her as he began to fuck her hard. He spared her no space for her to get used to his cock; he had waited for so long for her, surely he was just as ravenous as she was, if not more. His hand was in her hair, pulling hard to expose her neck. It was too fair for his liking—without notice, he latched onto her and sucked hard, leaving his brand upon her. He did this over and over as he fucked her, ensuring it was clear that she was his territory, his plaything, his whore. She would wear his marks with pride.

Everything melded together in a haze of them and them and them. Scara was flipping her onto her stomach, mounting her, pulling her ass toward him. Lumine was grasping at the bedsheets with pretty little tears prickling at her eyes, mind spinning and falling and ascending. His lips were descending onto hers, silencing her whimpers, her sobs of pleasure and headiness.

Theirs was such a mess of love and lust, with one emotion peaking and falling just for the other to take its place. Their hands were in each other’s, and then her nails were clawing at his back. Their eyes were meeting with such sweet fondness, and then he was leaning down to take a peaked nipple into his mouth. It was intoxicating, the tangle of feelings and words and thoughts that were never voiced, but that they both shared regardless. A heady sort of telepathy.

Lumine cooed and whimpered and cried his name over and over. It was her prayer for tonight, for the days ahead. Damn anyone who would dare to say otherwise, to stake a claim on the man on top of her; she would fight for him until the end, until they were one and the same, until they were connected like this once more.

That night, Scara came undone for her. Of course, it was sultry and perfect and filled to the brim with passion, but there was also an air of vulnerability beneath it all. They lay there together, breaths hot and heavy, staring at the ceiling together. At that moment, their fingers were intertwined.

Things had changed between them tonight; there was no going back, but that fact was far from at the top of their minds. Because tonight, they lay atop Scara’s bed, naked in more ways than one. Lumine was so sleepy, her eyes nearly closing, but still she spoke to him. Their thoughts and secrets floated to the ceiling, coating it with stars, with memories that she swore would never leave her. His arms encircled her as she fell asleep that night; she could almost feel the chaste kiss set atop her forehead as she drifted off.

Their souls had become intertwined, sure as their bodies just were.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

“I love you. You know that, right?”

Lumine’s eyes welled with tears, blurring the image of golden eyes and disheveled blonde locks ahead of her. These tears weren’t fleeting, nor were they rare; they were the tired kind, the ones that filled to the brim before spilling over. Tears of disappointment, betrayal. She said nothing; all she did was stand there, staring ahead with her lips pressed together and that familiar feeling of rawness creeping up her throat.

“I’m sorry, Lu,” Aether said, his gaze downcast. “This is the only way we can both stay in school and reliably make rent.”

“I can just get a third job,” she said, her voice hoarse and pained.

“I’m not going to let you work yourself to the bone. You know that.”

“How can you say that, but expect me to allow you to join a fucking gang?”

“You don’t need to worry about me. Really,” Aether put his palms up to her, his eyes glowing with conviction—a stark, glittering gold to contrast her shadow-coated ones. “I have friends who will never let anything bad happen to me.”

“Do you hear what you just said? What if I were the one trying to join a gang, Aether?”

“That would never have to happen,” her brother responded, his voice grave. “I will always be the one to protect you.”

Lumine’s fists balled, her clammy palms pressing so hard into her nails she could feel the skin break. Her mouth opened and brain racked at what to say, but she then realized the simple, hopeless truth: nothing she could say at this moment would matter to him. Her brother was a one-track man, through and through; once he decided on something, no one could ever sway him otherwise. Logic, at this point, was a foreign concept.

Grief, though, was never a foreign concept to either of the twins. And unbeknownst to Lumine, in the years to come, she’d become acutely familiar with the emotion.

White ceiling. Heavy breaths.

Another intense dream.

This wasn’t the first time Lumine had woken up this way; over the past week or so, on most days, she’d wake up covered in sweat and with her brow creased at the middle. Strangely enough, though, she’d have no recollection of why she felt so fucking forlorn. It was frustrating. It was concerning.

She had enough on her plate, though. It would be a goddamn luxury to be able to worry about one more thing.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Lumine’s hip had functionally healed. The week ended and a new one began, forcing her to class for the first time since… everything.

It was almost comical how her mind worked. On the walk to physics, she thought, “Last time I walked this route, everything was normal.” When she arrived to class and sat at her desk, she thought, “Last time I sat here, everything was normal.”

She had to tell her mind again and again: the word “normal” was dead.

Something, something, neuroplasticity. Her brain would figure it out, it would just take time. A sigh escaped her lips when she realized that it had only been a fucking week; it would take far more than just one to create a new normal.

Nilou watched Lumine from a distance through her round, concerned aquamarine eyes. The blonde always adored her friend’s expressiveness, but now was not the time. She just wanted everyone, everything to act like normal.

Fuck. There was that word, again. Normal.

On a happier note, Lumine and Scara were falling into a healthy cadence. Or, at least, she would dare to call it healthy. Deep conversations were sometimes held by candlelight, other times by a glass of wine, but always sitting side by side. As he spoke, telling her little by little about himself, she studied him like a piece of art; his jaw would tick at a distasteful memory, his throat would bob when he felt resentment or regret, his eyes would grow wild at the more traumatic moments.

She learned how and when to stop him if he began to spiral.

Tonight started off strong: side by side, they talked his induction into the Abyss.

“I was… fuck, uh, 13?” Scara muttered, squinting his eyes at the wall. “My mother left a few months beforehand. I had a few friends who were into the shit you’d expect—drugs, gang activity, whatever. I was never stupid enough to get into hard drugs, but I was stupid enough to be lonely.”

“Not stupid,” Lumine challenged. “You were a kid with nowhere else to go.”

Scara chewed on the inside of his mouth, humming, mulling over what to say. “A bit of a tangent, but would you prefer me not to get into my feelings about Aether? I don’t want to… muddy the waters,” he murmured, looking over at her.

Lumine cracked a scoff of a laugh. “’Muddying the waters’ is one of the reasons Signora told me absolutely nothing about your past. But, fuck, I just want other peoples’ opinions,” she grumbled, pulling her knees to her chest. “I can only get so objective about this situation without driving myself insane. So, please, muddy away,” she waved her hand. “I crave subjectivity.”

Scara nodded, starting his sentence slowly and meticulously, “Well, I didn’t really like him before I knew you. I’ll get into that, of course, but comparing how he and I both started, I’m just so… jealous of him, I guess. I went to the Abyss because I had nothing; he had everything—he had you—and he chose to leave it. I fucking hate it.”

Ouch. Lumine bit her lip hard to will away the stinging at the corners of her eyes.

“If I had a sister like you, I’d protect her with every fiber of my being.”

“That’s what he said he was doing. Protecting me.”

“The fucking hypocrisy. Putting you in the line of fire while claiming to do the opposite,” Scara seethed, shaking his head. But when he refocused to find Lumine struggling to grapple to reality, with honey eyes distant and glassy with tears, his fury went cold. “I, uh…” He swallowed, reaching a hand out and then pulling it back.

“It’s fine,” Lumine murmured, her voice and gaze still far removed from reality. “Having someone agree makes me feel more… sane.”

Scara nodded, his midnight eyes still shadowed with concern. After a moment of contemplation, he decided to continue; this time, though, he was far gentler. “I first met him very soon after he became the Abyss Prince. I had been leading the Inazuman faction for… around two years before he joined, I think. He was—well, he was not the same Aether that showed up at our door. He was very cut-throat, even more so than I was at the time.”

“You were even more cut-throat when you were in the Abyss?” Lumine’s interest was piqued, leaving her prior grief behind, if only for a moment.

Scara cracked a sly half-smile. “What, couldn’t handle me at the beginning of the semester?”

“I can barely handle you now.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Lumine rolled her eyes, a half-assed cover for her smile. “Anyways,” she drawled.

“Anyways. Uh, right. You could probably deduce this yourself, but he gave absolutely no indication that he ever had a sister, much less a family. That’s why we were all so surprised that you two were related.”

A curious hum bubbled up from Lumine’s throat. Maybe Ae used a vindictive persona as a front for that exact reason: to protect her. He put her in the direct line of fire by joining a gang, but abandoned her to protect her, causing her entire life to turn upside down without him, but put on a dictatorial, cut-throat mask to protect her. The lines blurred, causing even more confusion than before this conversation began.

“I remember the first time I met him in person. He had only joined shortly prior and rose the ranks faster than anyone I had ever met. I was skeptical as to why, but when I met him, I instantly understood. He was… the perfect leader.”

A hard swallow. That was the first and possibly the only thing that both she and Scara agreed on: Aether was a natural-born leader. Practical, driven, goal-oriented…

To a fault.

“Under his leadership, we grew faster than ever before. I know the numbers firsthand; the Inazuman faction alone doubled, and our territory tripled. We stomped out a slew of smaller organizations, too. The Abyss was—well, is—a well-oiled machine because of him. I remember—”

Wait. “Is?”

And then Scara turned to stare at her with an owlish gaze. A silent moment descended as he sat there searching her eyes for answers. But when he didn’t find them, his lips parted and brows drew together. “He didn’t tell you, did he?” he asked quietly.

“Didn’t tell me what?”

“Aether never left.”

Those three words may as well have been branded into her heart with how much they hurt.

Needless to say, it was a long night after that. Lumine felt embarrassed to lean on Scara—she had just put up a thick wall of boundaries earlier that week, after all. This was an emergency situation, though. She decided first and foremost to be gentle with herself.

These questions, those pesky little flies that had been buzzing around her head for the past week, came out in a waterfall of words and tears and feelings.

That wasn’t the worst part of it all, though. The worst part was that she wasn’t surprised.

Scara held her that night. She was weak; maybe she should have called Nilou instead, or maybe she should have shut herself in her room. But above all, boyfriend or no boyfriend, the fact was that Scara understood her situation better than anyone else on the planet. Not only was he there to witness her trauma, but he also knew Aether better than most.

Lumine didn’t dream that night. All she felt was a terrible mixture of hatred and sorrow with appreciation for Scara.

The next day, though, that appreciation was surely tested.

“You can’t just keep me from going to class, Scara.” Lumine crossed her arms over her chest, her keys jingling between her fingers.

“I’m not trying to,” he said, pressing the heels of his palms into his shut eyes, pacing about the apartment. “When Childe says there’s shit going on, there’s shit going on.”

“Since when did you believe anything that came out of Childe’s mouth?”

“He was the head of the Snezhnayan faction. And the Snezhnayan faction specialized in surveillance. He may not be book smart—or smart in general for that matter—but he is incredibly street smart.”

“Are you sure he’s—”

“When Aether showed, I had Childe keep an eye on things. The campus, mainly. He flagged me early this morning. Something is going on around campus. There are eyes—enemy eyes—where there weren’t eyes before.” He sat down from his prior bout of pacing, taking a deep breath.

Scara’s visible stress made Lumine’s brow furrow. She didn’t want to be the typical rebellious damsel, running into the arms of the enemy, but something just felt… off about this.

“I just want to make sure you’re safe, Lumine. That’s all.”

Ah. There it was. Scara sounded exactly like her brother before he left her.

Lumine knew it was irrational to feel this fury bubble up from her stomach to her throat. But nonetheless, there was a persistent, budding heat spreading through her veins, making her want to say things she’d surely regret later. So she settled on a quiet plea: “Can’t I just be independent for once?”

Scara’s eyes flashed to hers just as the anger set into her balled fingertips. She hated the way that unadulterated, wild concern swam across the surface of his midnight gaze. It made her feel like a monster.

She closed her eyes to shut out the guilt, drawing in a deep breath. “I know it’s stupid to say this. I just… I’m slowly discovering that Aether used the idea of protection as a front to do whatever he wanted. It feels like you’re trying to lock me in a padded room, just like he did.”

“I’m not trying to do that at a—”

“I know, I know. But what would you have me do, Scara?” She opened her eyes once more, her heart sinking at the sight of the continued worry that cast shadows across his gaze. “Stay in for the next two weeks? Fail out of a semester that’s nearly over? Or maybe you want to walk me to every class?”

She paused to let him respond, but he just sat there, silent. Just as she opened her mouth to continue, though, he spoke. “Can I tell you a story?” he asked, his voice quiet.

Lumine hadn’t a clue what was in store for her. And judging by the look in Scara’s eyes, it was heavier than she could imagine.

He began simply: “There have been many promises made to me, most of which have been broken. That’s beside the point, though, and has nothing to do with you.” His eyes were glued to the wall ahead of him, refusing to break focus; the viscous memories that plagued his headspace seemed irremovable just by the distant look on his face. “I once had a friend named Niwa. He was only a few years older than me when I joined the Abyss; I was just 13 at the time, so someone around the age of 16 felt incredibly mature to me. He was like my older brother. Taught me the ins and outs of the org, how to climb the ladder, how to stay out of trouble.”

Scara sat back in his seat, his head resting against the back of the couch. His gaze tilted toward the ceiling, his face a contradictory placid when juxtaposed to his words. It was as if he had lived these memories thousands of times. Like they were comfortable to recite. Like he had compartmentalized the trauma.

“We were… best friends for years. He became the only person I had, truly. Not even the Abyss felt like home. My mother didn’t, of course. Niwa was all I had.

“He became the head of the Inazuman faction, and I backed him to the end. But I didn’t really know what ‘the end’ meant until it happened.” He sucked in a slow, deep breath before continuing. “I was told that he left the Abyss. That somehow, he made it out. Made a better life for himself. But the real truth was that he was abducted, tortured, and killed. I… don’t want to go into the specifics,” he murmured, his voice quiet.

Silence descended upon the room like a blanket of pure, harrowing snow. It did well to dampen all semblance of sound, only leaving room for the pounding of Lumine’s heartbeat in her ears.

It all made sense—he just didn’t want her to be exposed to the possibility of the same fate. In no way did he second-guess her individuality; it was the world around her that he abhorred.

“When Niwa died, I was the obvious replacement, seeing as that I was his unofficial shadow for all those years. I didn’t realize it until the title was practically shoved in my face.”

“Did you leave the Abyss for him?” The words bubbled up before she could even think through whether it was a good idea to ask.

Thankfully, though, he didn’t seem jarred by her question. Scara’s eyes sparked, his head lolling to the side, and his gaze flickering to where Lumine stood. “Partially,” he murmured, his voice much softer than before. “Partially because my mother said she’d fund my education. Mostly because of Makoto.”

Makoto. His aunt. It was right before Aether showed up at their door that Lumine learned about her.

“‘Kunikuzushi, there will come a day that you need to choose to fight or to rise above it. I know you will choose the path your mother failed to choose. Your heart is full of love and potential.’”

Makoto was right. She was always right.

Lumine remembered with excruciating precision the image of Scara lying next to her in bed, his hair so beautifully disheveled, with the back of his hand strewn across his forehead. At that moment, he told her about Makoto out of confidence that their relationship was strong enough to be worth the painful recollection. At that moment, his amethyst eyes weren’t shadowed by pain, or guilt, or suffering; they were ready to forgive, glimmering like a new dawn on the horizon.

Gods, she wanted to see him shine again.

Lumine clutched her keys in her hand, swallowing hard. “I…”

“I need you to know that I’m not being protective because I don’t think you can handle yourself. You’ve proven to me time and time again that you’re beyond capable of being independent. I just…”

“I get it.”

Midnight eyes turned inquisitive. “You do?”

Of course, she did. “Scabs take time to heal. And even then, they leave scars. I’ve been learning how to heal lately for what really feels like the first time, and it’s made me realize just how much of my trauma I’ve projected onto you without noticing it.”

Scara took a moment to absorb her words, his eyes flashing with some indistinguishable emotion. Some sort of tension took hold in the space between them; it was as if both of them were on opposite sides of a tug-of-war, unable to approach but unwilling to give up.

I’m so in love with him.

She hated it. She hated that she hated it.

Though her mouth was unbelievably dry and her heart was unbelievably timid, she decided to be bold. Then budded the blossom of growth, a distinct moment where the scab fell and the scar shone underneath, ready and willing to heal. She opened her mouth to tell him—

—And then her phone rang.

Fuck. For a moment, she considered ignoring the buzzing of her phone on the kitchen countertop to her side. But after that stark, tense second, she decided to pry herself from Scara’s gaze. One quick look at the caller ID sent her heart plummeting—she still hadn’t gotten used to seeing her brother’s name. “It’s Aether,” she murmured, her voice just a touch dejected.

“Maybe he has some insight as to what’s going on around campus.”

Lumine nodded—she hated that Scara was right, because she wanted an excuse to ignore her brother’s call. Nonetheless, she convinced herself at that moment that she’d be betraying her commitment to her growth if she shied away.

With a sigh, she swiped to answer the call.

Golden eyes reflected a whirlwind of emotions: devotion. Purpose. Fear.

Those were Aether’s. Lumine’s only shone with fear.

It was only hours later that her brother sat where Scara had just been. Feelings of resentment, sorrow, and yearning fluxed through her stomach and up to her chest. It was an uncomfortable sensation to have Aether sitting on her couch. As if he belonged there. Just another fucking Tuesday.

The last time she saw him was when he punched Scara in the face in her apartment doorway, and now he was here, relaxing.

Venom teemed at her tongue, but at the same unfortunate time, there was a sort of tenderness to it all. Lumine wanted so much for her brother’s affection, for his approval. Only with him looking at her with this devotion did she truly feel at peace. It felt like the first time in eons that she had achieved true neutrality.

Ah, gods, she hated it so much.

“I don’t mind if Ku—Scara’s here, you know.” He winced as he said Scara’s name; she understood, considering how foreign it must have felt to him.

“Scara has a lot of… strong opinions. He thought it best to leave.”

“Strong opinions?”

Surely, he was fishing. Fine, she’d take the bait. “He finds it reckless for you to be waltzing around campus, especially in or around our apartment.”

“Fair.”

Lumine didn’t know how to respond to that. She just narrowed her eyes at the man ahead of her, the blonde with the sharp tongue and cat eyes. Those eyes were once round and starry; that tongue once stumbled over words. Did his laugh still sound the same? Did he ever laugh? “Since when were you okay with Scara’s existence, by the way?” What sort of character development was this?

“He and I talked.”

Talked?

“I’ll admit that I had a hard time accepting his existence in your life. And by ‘hard’, I mean, I pretty much went through an internal crisis.” Finally, he admitted something deeper than surface level. It was oddly comforting.

“The bottom line is that I trust you. I trust your judgment. And though he and I will never be able to see eye to eye, I can find it in me to put that to the side.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Balled fists grappled so tightly to all the reasons she had to hate her brother. But the rope began to fray once those words escaped from his mouth: words of approval and acceptance of her individuality. Words she always yearned for; words she never got to hear until now.

Aether was always a one-track man. His mind was determined, steadfast, stubborn. Very few times did he change his opinion in favor of hers.

Why now?

“This is so unfair,” she murmured through clenched teeth and a shaky voice.

Aether’s honey eyes grew owlish. He sat up straight, hovering his hands toward her. “What do you mean?”

And so the dam broke.

Tears began to flow. She didn’t care anymore. A waterfall of emotions gushed through her voice, the waves of her words breaking and wavering as she spoke, “You abandon me without any notice. You choose the Abyss over me. Then you just come waltzing back into my life and fucking punch the one person I had grown to trust in any capacity comparable to you.

“Then, without notice again, you come and sit on my couch and tell me how you trust me. Like nothing ever changed between us. You’re a different fucking Aether every time I see you.” Lumine stood from her seat, choosing to pace as she continued. “The key phrase: without notice. Nothing you ever do includes my opinion until you can use it as fucking leverage.”

“You know that’s not the case, Lumine.” His voice was low, calm, chiding.

Lumine turned to face her brother, standing with her back straight. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m completely wrong. But how can I know that when I don’t trust you?”

Silence. Aether watched his sister through a gaze she didn’t recognize. It was as if he were half Abyss Prince, half her brother. Through the gossamer of unshed tears, his eyes could slice her like a knife.

“Why is it that you haven’t left the Abyss, Aether?”

And then he looked away. In some twisted, fucked-up way, that was all the answer she needed. “It’s nearly impossible to, in my position.”

“So you just put me in the heart of danger by showing up at my doorstep?”

“Even if you can’t trust me, believe this: I can cover my tracks.” His voice was sharp. It crackled like a whip. If Lumine’s heart wasn’t broken before, it surely was now.

A bout of silence set in. Lumine stared at the side of Aether’s face; he surely felt her gaze burning a hole into his cheekbone, but nevertheless, he refused to meet her eyes.

“How was it so easy to leave me, but now it’s so hard to leave the Abyss?”

She knew it wasn’t that simple. She knew this question was unfair. She knew that there were far too many underlying variables at play that caused her to feel this aching pain rotting away the fragments of her heart. It was her clear expectation for him to explain just that: to describe the nuances of a potential gang exit rather than touching the root cause of her desolation.

But she didn’t expect him not to say anything.

Aether sat there, staring at the wall with his elbows on his knees and his hands wrung together. His mouth opened, then closed, unable to grapple at the right words. Then, in a signal of defeat, his blonde braid draped over his shoulder and down to his knee as he hung his head, shaking it once and sighing.

Calmly and resolutely, Lumine turned, grabbed her keys, and walked out the door.

One, two, three steps down the hallway. It quickly occurred to her that the last time she saw her brother, she turned and left just like this. Only that time, she was much more disheveled and much less informed. That night, Aether chased her to the door so that he could assure her that he loved her; it stung when she didn’t feel his presence behind her as she pushed herself into the brisk winter air.

She was truly alone this time. There was a sort of numb placidity to it—at the very least, now, she knew it for sure.

Huddled deep into her winter coat, Lumine’s heels hit the pavement just as the sun began to set. It was still quite early in the day—she hated how early things grew dark this time of year. A gust of wind nearly knocked the hood off her head, but she pressed on in the direction of her favorite dining hall for a snack to elevate her spirits.

Lumine thought to call Nilou or Scara in this scenario, but a part of her just wanted to be alone for once. That desire came as a surprise to her—she was always one to enjoy company, but the concept moral support was only as fuitful as the clarity of her own thoughts. And right now, they were everything but.

At the very least, she had herself to lean on this time.

With a soft sigh exhaled as vapor into the winter air, all was still for once. There was a sort of peace in trusting herself. Shoving her hands in her pockets, she stood still for a second, closing her eyes, daring to capture this memory.

Without any notice, she was grabbed from behind. For a chaotic moment, golden eyes flung open, urgently searching for a presence ahead of her that didn’t exist. Blood pumped through her veins, screaming at her to flee; someone was behind her, pressing a cloth into her nose and mouth, smothering and restraining her as she struggled to breathe—

Only a split second went by before everything went dark.

Chapter Text

“She’s not here. Aether, she’s not fucking here.”