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"Shiva’s tits, Cor, thank you." Clarus moaned openly, poised with chopsticks ready to pounce. He'd flopped bodily onto the couch of their hotel, boots shucked off somewhere around the door, book already retrieved and open on his chest. They'd been working all day, Regis’ little outfit, clearing the plains of Duscae of monsters that threatened the tranquility of some of the smaller hamlets. Exhaustion had hit the men almost as soon as rest was in sight; only Cor, who seemed to be wound like a spring most of the time, had energy enough to pick up dinner.
He doled out the takeaway tubs to his comrades - kimchi chigae for Weskham, yuk whe for Regis, and bibimbap for himself, Cid and Clarus. The Shield popped the lid and inhaled deeply, spicy red dressing mixing with fragrant rice."So goooood," he said, pulling a clump of rice away from the bowl. "I owe you big. Take my first born."
"Second born," Weskham chimed in, soft white tofu halfway to his mouth. "He can take your second born."
"Yes, Clarus, please don't give up my child’s Shield over a bowl of rice." Regis gestured at the food with his free hand, gathering strands of meat with his chopsticks. "Not that you're even close to having one. Have you asked out that girl yet?"
Clarus huffed and shovelled rice into his face, cheeks pinking. "Second born, then." He glared at Regis over his bowl, vision misted by steam. Cor glanced between the two warily, and realised that what he'd mistaken as animosity was nothing more than deep-seated fraternity. "M’just waiting for the right time."
Cid shifted in his seat, the meat picked from his bowl. "You talkin’ about that sweet thing with them big eyes and the butt like jelly?" He let out a whistle through his teeth, corners of his mouth quirked up in a grin. "Clocks tickin’, Clar. I’ve seen plenty of boys sniffin’ round. Girl like that won’t wait around forever."
"What fun you’ve got to look forward to, Cor," said Regis, who, it had been rumoured, had been betrothed no fewer than six times by his eleventh birthday. "Just imagine: in a few years, we could be relentlessly teasing you."
Cor paused, food halfway to his mouth. He’d definitely noticed girls, of course, and he’d gathered vaguely that sometimes they noticed him. But he’d had little opportunity to interact, beyond a few enforced soirees and meetings that left him feeling distinctly uncomfortable. Occasionally, he was presented with a living, breathing girl outside of elaborate nighttime fantasy, and at these moments he was left so stricken with momentary idiocy that the only sounds he could make were dry rasps of "hi".
"Where’re you plannin’ on findin’ these girls that can keep up with our Cor, huh Reggie?" Cid was dejectedly stirring his bibimbap, looking for more scraps of meat even though he knew there were only veggies left. Cor, pleased to avoid an awkward line of questioning, slipped a few over from his own bowl.
"Cid’s right, you know," Clarus said gently, and Cor looked up to meet his eyes. "I haven’t met a single girl who I’d approve of for you."
"What?" croaked Cor, finding his voice at last. He smirked. "I have to have your permission now?"
Clarus snorted, reached out and cuffed him gently on the cheek with a knuckle. "Wouldn’t be the worst idea you’ve had."
Weskham had unfolded his long limbs to stretch, catlike, across the sole double bed. "We’re your friends, Cor," he said, warm and dozy. "We want you happy."
"Gimme time, guys," he responded. "I’m fifteen, not fifty." But still he smiled, as Regis clapped a hand onto his shoulder and squeezed.
Cor was fifty, and he still wasn’t sure that Clarus would approve.
Of Iris’s ability he had no doubt. She was strong enough to face him down, and quick too; despite his having three decades and nearly a foot over her, she easily held her own. She’d even bested him, once or twice. Cid had grunted in vague approval at Iris once, when she’d been introduced to him by his granddaughter Cindy. The dark had brought out a meanness in the flesh, and Iris’ young softness was gone, replaced with wiry arms and legs that were coiled to pounce.
Weskham was gone, of course. The incident at Altissia meant he was lost before Cor could ever seek his opinion. But Weskham had wanted him happy, and that’s how Iris made him feel.
Regis surely woud have been delighted. He’d been a big sloppy romantic behind the public facade, had teased Cor about women for the decades they’d been friends. Although Cor had never had anything serious, Regis still would give him The Talk at each breakup: " I didn’t like her anyway. She wasn’t good enough for you." None of them were ever good enough, in Regis’s eyes. "Y ou need someone," he’d say, palming Cor’s heart, " someone who’ll love you as much as we do." That nobody had come close to replicating that bond until Iris came along was enough for Cor.
Clarus, though, was different. Cor hadn’t the guts to think about how Clarus would react.
When Iris was younger, Cor had only been aware of her on his peripheries. Occupied with training, with Lucis, and latterly with her brother, Cor had little time to spend on his friend’s children. Still, there was an attempt at birthdays. Photographic evidence existed, if it had survived, of Cor sitting on a small child's chair wearing a brightly coloured party hat and being served a slice of cake. But he'd never been fully in Iris’ life until Altissia, which had made the slow realisation that he loved her easier to accept.
At fifty-four, he considered again. Despite the come-ons and various attempts at romancing by younger men, Iris had stuck with him. She was, he'd realised, a resolute young woman, and he wondered how much of that was down to her circumstances.
Once, having turned away no fewer than three suitors in an afternoon, she held up the back of her hand to him. "If only there were some way to signify that I’m yours. Hmm. Can't think of anything at all." She'd laughed as she'd teased him, but he'd reddened and spent the afternoon fingering the place where a ring would be, if he were a braver man.
Then Noctis came, and the Dawn happened.
Three years were lost to grieving: for Noctis, mainly, but for those who’d been lost to the war, and all who’d been swallowed by the Scourge. Insomnia was habitable, but there were swathes of the city that were no more than ruins. Cor threw himself into the rebuilding; when he wasn't planning movements of refugees or organising the city’s infant guard, he was physically on site, breaking ground and directing men.
The world had survived without government through the darkness, but with the Dawn came opportunity. Ignis made a capable Prime Minister, and it came to some surprise when he asked Iris to head up his Cabinet. Together they made a plan for Lucis, and it soon appeared that Iris had a knack for knowing what resources were needed and where. With time, citizens began pouring back into Insomnia. The first school was opened when Iris turned 29, and it was with some trepidation that she cut the ribbon, knowing that it was her own niece and nephews who would soon be terrorising the staff.
It was some weeks after this that Cor found himself idling one afternoon. It was early in the summer, and sunlight was hitting the black pitch of the roads and making the air shimmer in front of him. Works had recently completed on an apartment block, hastily constructed for the swathes of families returning to the city, and Cor found himself protesting only weakly as he was turfed out of the shitty temporary office he worked out of.
There were apartments at the Citadel, scores of them all perfectly serviceable, but there was little appetite for sleeping at a murder scene. Instead the building had been preserved as a museum of sorts, a memorial for the dead. A white wall had sprung up, names of those lost carved into its face and painted gold. At first, hundreds of names were added weekly, and new sheets of cement pulled up to accommodate them. Now it was a rare name, only two in the past year, belonging to people who had too few left to remember them.
It was here that Cor inevitably found himself drawn, as usual. The city was bright and buzzing after ten years of night, and he wasn’t sure he was quite used to it; the memorial, with its cool stone wall blocking out the world, was the only place in the city for some peace. He paused at the gates, looking back at the life blossoming around him.
A few cafes had opened up around the entrance, mostly old proprietors who’d thrived during the dark with creative takes with weird ingredients. There was a new coffee shop, too, and Cor was sure it was set up solely to take advantage of Ignis’s close proximity. Next to it, a greasy spoon advertised a full Lucian breakfast for a few hundred gil, no doubt in a bid to appeal to the people working on the city’s construction. And then besides it, a dark entrance with a black awning, the sign a pair of silver chopsticks swaying in the breeze…
"Hey, stranger,” purred a sweet voice somewhere around his shoulder, and Cor spun round to find Iris beaming up at him. She slid her arm around the crook of his elbow and drew him to her. “What you doing here, sweet thing?"
"I could ask the same of you. Council out of session?"
"Yeah, all done. Besides, it was too nice a day to spend inside a stuffy office. Even if we weren’t finished, I’d have insisted we left for the day."
Cor gave her what passed for a smile, a small quirk around the corners of his lips. He gestured across the street. "Have lunch with me?"
"Ooh, a date!" she squeaked, clutching his arm and leaning on him heavily. She felt like silk against him, cool and soft and light. "Don’t mind if I do. I’ve heard good things about this place." She led him over to the dark cafe, and Cor was able to make out the name GAMA above the door before Iris dragged him inside.
The decor was dark inside too, with wood stained nearly black and lighting sparse. It was a relief to Cor after the blinding light outside. They took a table by the window, feet tangling as they faced each other.
"Hey, Cor," hissed Iris, her eyes meeting his with urgency. "Secret time."
"Safe with me, Bean," he whispered back, and she lit up at his stupid pet name for her. "What is it?"
"I have no idea what anything on the menu is."
Cor scanned the menu for her and almost grinned, because he knew almost everything on the menu, had ordered it hundreds of times four decades ago after Regis found it was his favourite food ever.
"There’s bulgogi, it’s a meat that’s marinated in soy and sugar and--" Cor cut himself short, seeing that it wasn’t up Iris’s proverbial alley. Not nearly enough carbs. "Or there’s jap che, which is noodles and veggies and a bit of meat? It’s pretty good."
"I’m in the mood for something spicy, Cor. What’s this one like?" She pointed at a picture of a stone bowl filled with meat and rice.
"Order it. If you hate it, I’ll eat it."
She narrowed her eyes, because if there was one thing Iris didn’t do it was sharing food. “I better not hate it,” she growled, after the waiter took their order. Cor said nothing, because he knew she’d love it.
Soon enough the crackling sound of frying rice filled their ears. The waiter approached with a black bowl spitting steam, filled with small portions of vegetables and raw meat. A golden egg yolk was cracked on top, and the whites seeped through the rice to the hot sides of the bowl and began cooking. Iris let the waiter mix in the offered sauce and politely waited for them to leave, before diving in with a spoon.
Her eyes widened as she took in first the crispy rice, then the barely-done strands of meat, then the sweet spice of the sauce. "Fuck my life, Cor," she breathed, "this is so gooood."
He laughed dry and deep, and a real smile filled his face now. "Your father said that, too."
"He did?!" Iris lurched forward, nearly upsetting her tea in the process. "When was this? Tell me!"
Cor paused to take a sip from his water, trying to hide the tremor in his jaw. "We always ordered from these janky little cafes whilst we were on the road, and Regis - his Majesty - he realised he loved this dish they serve. Some kind of raw meat, egg, and pear." Iris made a face and he shrugged. "I thought so too at first, but hey, they must know what they’re doing. Turns out it’s delicious."
He took a moment to spoon over his rice, his soup too hot to drink from. "Clarus was really into getting big at the time, was just so focused on his role as Shield. He’s like your brother that way. Was like your brother. So he asks them for the most carby, proteiny dish they can do for him." He gestured at Iris’ bowl. "There you have it, bibimbap. He thought it was the greatest thing to have ever been imported into Lucis. Whenever we ordered in, he ordered that. Got us all into it, actually."
Iris scraped absently at her bowl, folding rice over itself and bringing meat to the surface. It was rare for Cor to speak for so long, and she sensed he wasn’t quite finished. She waited patiently, running her little finger over the soft inside of his index finger.
"It’s kind of funny, actually," he started, and she glanced up from looking at his hands to see him pinking, an actual blush spreading across his face. "Your father kind of…" Cor gestured ambiguously at her, not quite able to articulate. She observed him, mouth lifted on one side in amusement. He realised Iris wasn’t going to give him any free passes here, and felt his words slide out of him. "He kind of promised you… to me… in exchange for bibimbap."
Iris snorted, spluttering rice and tea into her clenched fist. "You what?! No, no, you have to tell me this story. Please."
"It’s pretty much as it sounds," he said, sagging, because for some reason this had been more intense for him than that first I love you . "I was so eager to please, so excited to fit in somewhere and have friends, so I’d always offer to pick up dinner for everyone. One day we came back and Clarus was dead on his feet from fighting. I grabbed the usual, handed him this bowl--" Cor held up his hands to size the bowl for her, roughly a handspan apart. She took his rough fingers in hers and rubbed her thumbs over the his palms, skin calloused and hard. "This tiny little bowl of food for this giant of a man, and he practically inhaled it and offered me his first born child as thanks."
"Ah, so here we see the crux of the problem. Not sure if you can work it out, but it’s Gladdy you’re owed. I’ll call him for you."
"Hey, I’m not finished yet," he grumbled at her, and she smirked. "Weskham - you would never have met him, but he ran a bar in Altissia for a few years- he pointed out, quite rightly, that your big brother was already lined up and promised for someone. So…"
"So you got me," said Iris, her eyes darker as she looked up at him. "And yet… I noticed you’ve never actually filed that claim, Cor."
"Ah, yes," he said, "that I have not."
"Mind if I ask why?"
He ducked his head then, staring into water that was starting to go luke-warm. "I don’t know if your father would approve."
Iris tilted her head to meet his eyes, averted though they were. "Cor, I’m sorry to tell you this, but Dad would definitely not approve. In fact, I’m pretty certain he’d kick you in the balls."
He blanched then, pulling his hands away from her. "I’m sorry--" he began, but she smoothed her hand over his cheek, tugging his chin back up to look at her. "Only ‘cus you’ve made me wait for so long, you doof." He tore his eyes away from the dark wood of the table, forced himself to look at her face. Iris was all gloss and smiles, radiant with love.
"Would you… If I were to--" he stuttered.
"Yes," she responded. "I would."