Chapter Text
Azul was trying to decide what to have for dinner when Yuu texted him.
“ Hey how much do you know about the whole Hornton thing? ”
Azul tried to remember what they were talking about. They had been talking a lot about a new friend called Hornton at the Mostro Lounge the previous night, but why were they bringing him up now? A memory from the last housewarden meeting he had attended before exams tickled the back of his mind.
“ The weird joke you made about Malleus Draconia having a twin? What’s that have to do with anything? ”
“ Let’s just say I’ve had a Day.
Btw, one of the ghosts found an old board game from when he was a student here
Bring pizza and you can play ”
Azul agreed, and set about prepping one of the Lounge’s signature seafood pies to bring. When he arrived at Ramshackle House, Yuu answered the door, looking at him with red, watery eyes. They said something about having just got over a cold as they waved him toward the dining room and went to grab some plates, and Azul elected not to comment on the tear tracks running down their cheeks. He took a look at the instructions for the game, which Yuu had already set up on the dining table, while he waited. It seemed to be a war game where one player played a magitech automata called an ORC and the other played the human military trying to stop it. He was in the middle of the section on the different units’ movement rules when Yuu returned with the plates, soda and cups, and a freshly washed face. “I don’t know what you like, but I’ve got root beer, cola, and this weird lemony thing I don’t know why I bought. Flip you for the ORC?” Azul won the coin toss and poured himself some Spite while Yuu sorted through the cardboard unit tokens, picking which ones to put in their army.
Yuu had evidently mastered the delicate art of Not Getting Too Much Pizza Grease On The Board. It was something Azul had struggled with since coming to the surface, since all the games he played as a child were necessarily waterproofed, and could be easily cleaned afterwards. He generally dealt with the problem by keeping his food as far away from the board as he could manage, and using lots of napkins. He had initially assumed Idia’s habit of balancing a slice in one hand while he took his turn was just him, but he was staring to think it was endemic to land-dwelling gamers, and the decades old grease stains on the board only proved this theory.
Azul won the first round, but it was a difficult battle, and Yuu made him fight for every single unit he destroyed up until the last infantryman. They still seemed upset about something, presumably whatever had happened with Malleus, and he got the uncomfortable impression that had they been fully focused on the game he would have been crushed. The next several rounds they played, trading turns with the ORC, seemed to bear this out, as the more they got into game and the playful trash talk, the more Azul lost. Despite the obvious glee they took in crushing things with the ORC, they seemed to play much better with the army, winning in fewer turns and losing in far more. The game was relatively fast-paced, but the hours passed the same, and eventually Yuu decided they were staying up too late for someone who had promised to take things easy, and started packing things up. While scooping cardboard tokens into a plastic bag, something bright green caught Azul’s eye, and he turned to see a heavy looking Diasomnia jacket on a coat rack by the front door. It was angled so when he came in he only saw the dark outer layer, and then he’d had his back to it the entire game, but from this angle the lime colored lining couldn’t help but grab his attention. It pushed the question he had debated asking back to the forefront of his mind, and he made up his mind, “Listen, something’s obviously bothering you, and maybe you don’t want me asking, but do you want to explain whatever the Hornton thing you texted me about was?”
Yuu took a breath, “Yeah, that was, uh, this is gonna take a while. Give me a minute to figure out where to start…” They finished folding up the board, and then started to explain while wrapping the leftover pizza in tinfoil. In broad strokes it was what Azul had suspected, Yuu had made friends with the Diasomnia housewarden, who later (albeit unintentionally) broke their heart. Yuu objected to that phrasing because “We weren’t actually dating or anything!” but Azul thought that whether or not any romantic feelings were involved, they had obviously taken things hard.
“So, does this mean you aren’t inviting him to any more housewarden meetings?”
Yuu shot an offended glare at him and shut the fridge door a little too forcefully, “Of course not! Excluding someone from a group activity that he’s required to attend just because it’d be awkward would be beyond immature and petty! I’d like to think I have more professionalism than that!” Azul winced at the pointedness, but couldn’t disagree. “It’s just, I really thought he was different, you know? Like, the way he looked at me, like he really thought I could do anything, that I was special, and that I wasn’t stupid just because I don’t know anything about this world. But this whole time, he was just-!” Yuu let out an inarticulate noise of frustration as they put the last item away, before walking Azul to the door. Just before he left, they stopped him and started rifling through their pockets. “Wait a sec, there was something I wanted to-here!” They held up one of the Free Wish cards he had given them at the Lounge, and handed it to him.
“What are you-?”
“Thanks. For spending time with me, and listening to my problems even though I didn’t ask you to. Consider this wish granted, or fulfilled, or whatever the term is…”
“But this is just- I can’t possibly-!”
“Look I really don’t like having people owe me stuff, so just accept the card, ok?”
Azul accepted the card. Yuu smiled, and they said their goodbyes, and he left for his own dorm, reflecting on what he knew about Malleus. Maybe he should invite him over to Mostro Lounge. Just for a nice, civilized chat with Floyd.