Chapter Text
Malleus was not sulking. Nor was he moping, angsting, brooding, or whatever Lilia had said when he didn’t attend dinner. He was merely contemplating . He had been turning the last text from Yuu over in his head all day now, but he wasn’t really accomplishing much besides feeling awful. Maybe he really was brooding. Whatever it was he was doing was interrupted by a soft knock on his door, and Lilia asking to be invited in.
“Sebek finally told me what happened. Well, most of it anyway. He and Silver are being oddly reticent about something or other, but that’s probably unrelated.” He sat down next to Malleus on the bed and continued, “I don’t want to turn this into an ‘I told you so,’ but we both know that they were going to figure it out sooner or later, what matters going forward is-“
“They already knew.”
Lilia raised an eyebrow, “Well then, I really did tell you so. What’s actually wrong, then?”
“I was trying so hard not to scare them away, or be too much, to be Hornton and this whole time it was completely unnecessary because they already liked Malleus! Worse than unnecessary, because now they think that I think they’re unintelligent, because why else would anyone take that farce seriously!?” Malleus fell backwards onto his pillows, pointedly ignoring how Lilia scoffed fondly at the dramatics. “And now they probably hate me.”
“Come on, you’re not stupid, just straightforward. They said they believed something, and you took them at their word. It’s not like they had anything to gain from pretending, after all. That said, you should have cleared the air rather than try to further the misunderstanding. Personally, I hope you both learn a valuable lesson about communication from this. Have you thought of how you’re going to apologize?”
Malleus sighed, “More or less. I’m just not sure they’ll want to hear it. They haven’t texted since this afternoon.”
“…Malleus please tell me you’re not waiting to be invited to make a apology.”
Malleus avoided his unimpressed stare, “Not as such, no. I just don’t want to intrude if they don’t want to hear from me.”
Lilia huffed something like teenagers , shifting to face Malleus. “I understand, but I seriously doubt Yuu will want to reach out first. And not because they’re going to hate you forever or anything, but because they probably think if you didn’t mean to insult them like that, you wouldn’t need to be prompted to apologize! You’re going to have to go to them, and be the one to invite them to listen.“
Malleus started to get up, “You’re right, I should go-“
“Not now! It’s late, they’re probably already asleep! Go tomorrow, but don’t delay any longer than that.” Lilia got up, smoothing the blanket under him. “Now, I’m going to make sure Silver got to bed before he fell asleep. Good night, and good luck.”
The next day, when Malleus finished planning what he was going to say and left his room, Lilia had already left. When asked, Silver shrugged and said that Sebek had wanted knife training for some reason, and resumed his lunch. He had planned to talk to Lilia before he left, but as he finished his own lunch without any sign of either him or Sebek, Malleus could feel his resolve to go at all start to falter, so he prepared to teleport to campus before he lost the nerve entirely. He considered arriving just outside the Ramshackle gates as he usually did, but Yuu might not welcome that. Instead he chose to appear closer to campus, so they could see his approach out the window and decide whether to drive him off.
It was just his luck that this led to him being intercepted by Ashengrotto and one of the Leeches. They were walking toward the Hall of Mirrors, and when the eel-Malleus wasn’t sure which he was-saw him he poked Ashengrotto’s shoulder and pointed. The two marched straight toward him, and he noticed the twin was carrying a shovel. Ashengrotto spoke first, “What luck, we were just about to try to find you! You know, for someone who supposedly went home for break, you always seem to be on campus somewhere, teleportation must be so convenient.”
Malleus looked down at him. From his posture and expression, he seemed to be trying to be intimidating, but the image was spoiled by the sweat beading against his brow. “Can this wait? I have a very urgent matter to attend to.”
The twin balanced the shovel across his shoulders. He did not seem particularly nervous, but he wasn’t any more intimidating than Ashengrotto, and the gardening implement wasn’t helping either. “Yeah and so’s this! We wanna talk to you about Li’l Shrimpie.”
“He means Yuu,” supplied Ashengrotto.
So they had heard, or Yuu had told them, or this was a weird coincidence. “My matter concerns Yuu as well. I have an apology I would rather not delay any longer. Can this wait ?”
For a moment, Ashengrotto seemed to overcome his obvious terror with sheer surprise, “Wait, you’re already about to apologize? We-uh-we don’t need this talk after all, sorry for stopping you! Come along Floyd!”
Floyd lowered the shovel, disappointedly, and followed Azul. After a few steps he stopped and turned back, “By the way, you’re going the wrong way to find Shrimpie, they went to the kitchens. Said they wanted to have something other than leftover pizza or Crimes Against Broth for lunch.” Malleus winced, thanked Floyd, and turned back toward the main school building.
As he approached the kitchens, he could hear a whole crowd of people, talking and preparing food. Malleus considered his approach. He would check if Yuu was still there, and then he would ask to speak with them. Privately, since he doubted either of them wanted to have this conversation in front of what sounded like an entire dorm if people. If Yuu said no, he would- he would ask if they meant “not now” or “not ever” before he ran away, supplied a part of his brain that sounded suspiciously like Lilia. He was just outside the kitchen door, and he could hear Yuu raising their voice.
“Seriously Jamil, I’m not-“ they caught him out of the corner of their eye, and turned. Malleus watched surprise and anxiety flicker across their face before they settled on irritation.
No backing out.
“I apologize for the interruption. Can we talk?”