Chapter Text
Jamil stared at Yuu, Grim, and their impromptu plus-one, trying to keep the disbelief off his face. “Let me get this straight, you just started dating in the five hours between texting me that you were coming tonight and now, so you decided to bring him with you, with no prior notice?”
“That is correct.”
“Sorry I forgot to tell you.”
They both looked impressively straight-faced given how ridiculous their story was. Besides the, well, everything, there was one big thing that was bothering him. “Weren’t you dating Malleus?”
“What? No, we’re-”
“THEY ABSOLUTELY WERE NOT!”
Or perhaps their story was true, if Sebek was that insecure about Yuu’s friendship with the fae prince. Not that Jamil didn’t understand. Even if he had the time for romance, he definitely wouldn’t date anyone who was also friends with Kalim. Though admittedly that would be more because of what it’d say about his partner’s taste. Speaking of, Kalim had just arrived, throwing any chance of convincing Yuu that they just couldn’t accommodate another guest on such short notice out the window.
“Yuu! We all missed you at the last housewarden meeting! How’ve you been? Oh, is that Sebek? It’s kinda weird to see you without Silver!”
“Hi, Kalim! Been doing a lot better lately. Also I’m dating Sebek now! I hope inviting him along isn’t too much of an inconvenience.”
“Congratulations! And don’t worry, Jamil always makes a ton of food, it’ll be fine!”
Kalim and Yuu started chattering up a storm, and Jamil left to get an extra place setting. He had, in fact, cooked extra, but the presumption still grated. At least he would be done with Kalim soon. Yuu’s “date,” if that was really what he was, complicated things, but not beyond recovery. Not yet, at least. As he finished preparing the feast, he kept an eye on the group and listened in on their conversation.
Kalim was incredibly eager to hear all the details of Yuu’s new-found love life as soon as humanly possible. Yuu and Sebek did their best to deflect and keep the conversation on Kalim and his decision to stay on campus over break, but they couldn’t last forever. “C’mon, you gotta tell me something ! Like, how did you two meet?”
“He broke into my room and I threatened him with a knife.”
Sebek spluttered, “That was-there were circumstances-it’s not what it sounds like!”
“Yeah, for starters he was looking for Malleus.”
Even Kalim was starting to look skeptical, “And why did you start dating again?”
“I admire his dedication to protecting those he cares about,” Yuu replied with the cadence of someone reciting from memory.
“They were very insistent.” Sebek, at least, sounded sincere.
Jamil chose then to announce that everything was ready for dinner, taking Yuu’s audible sigh of relief as a point in his favor. Kalim was initially disappointed at the interruption, but quickly pivoted to bragging about Jamil’s cooking. As if that, too, belonged to Kalim. Ugh. He caught Yuu looking at him with an expression of slightly quizzical concern, and quickly smoothed his expression out, back to its usual placidity. It didn’t seem to stop their concern, but then Sebek accidentally served himself the chicken Jamil had prepared for the Scarabia students, not the less spicy one for the guests, and started yelling, and Yuu was distracted laughing at him. Despite the mockery, they did get him extra milk to wash down his throat. And then he served himself more of the Scarabia chicken, on purpose this time.
This time when Yuu asked about Kalim’s winter break, he answered eagerly, telling them all about their recent defeats in Spelldrive and exams, and the training camp he was running. Jamil mostly just let him talk, only interjecting to clarify a few points and to play the role of the devoted but long-suffering servant. Yuu and Sebek bought it completely, based on their expressions. They were both utter fools, and deeply insufferable ones at that, albeit in different ways.
First off, Sebek just. Would. Not. Shut. Up about duty and loyalty and all that crap. Every time he opened his mouth, it was about how praise-worthy his devotion to Kalim was, or how he wished he had accompanied his own master from birth the way Jamil did. And the worst part was how completely sincere he was about it. The idiot honestly thought that spending one’s whole life under another’s heel was somehow aspirational. Jamil had thought his parents, who couldn’t conceive of a life free of their bond to the Asim family, lacked vision, but the loudmouthed freshman couldn’t even see the chains of his own servitude to Malleus for what they were!
Yuu, on the other hand, was thankfully much quieter, but that just made them more unnerving. It wasn’t obvious at first. From the way they engaged with Kalim, with the other Scarabia students, and with Jamil himself, as if they were all equals, he thought they were simply oblivious in the same way Kalim was. The way that came from having such privilege that one couldn’t see the hierarchy they sat on top of. Except, there was the staring. Every time Jamil said anything, they would look straight at him, as if in that moment he had their pure, undivided attention. As someone with an eye-contact based signature spell, he never thought he’d ever meet someone who stared too much . And it wasn’t just Jamil, they stared at everyone. Whenever anyone spoke, they would stare straight at that person and only look away when someone else picked up the conversation. It added another layer to their casual affect that took Jamil a minute to place. Approaching everyone informally was one thing, but they looked at everyone the same too, in a way that was difficult to fake.
They didn’t seem to come from a rich background either. For instance, the seam on their left shoulder had been repaired by hand. Not well, but much better than he would have expected Kalim to manage on his own. In addition, when Kalim brought everyone to the treasury, he could practically hear their eyes pop out of their sockets, and caught them muttering to Grim about how a particular tapestry was probably worth twice as much as their childhood home. So, it wasn’t that they were never taught that some people were above them, they were just too stupid to care. Somehow, that offended Jamil even more than Kalim’s casual obliviousness.
As they returned to the lounge, Jamil thought over his plan. Both Yuu and Sebek seemed to be picking up on at least some of the hints he was laying down, but they were easily distracted, and kept halting conversation to argue. Maybe if he found a way to shut one of them up, and deliver some extra exposition to the other? He would have preferred to deliver it over several days, to make it seem more natural, but it had taken longer than he expected to convince Yuu to visit, and time was running out. His mind made up, he pulled Kalim aside.
“A moment, please.”
“Hm? What’s up, Jamil?”
“The one you behold is your master. When I ask you a question you will answer. When I give you a command you will assent. Snake Charmer.”
Even with alterations, his plan was foolproof. By the time those idiots realized what was truly happening, it would be far too late.