Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Juna Crawford hated Kurt Vander.

She hated how he would always be so dependable all the time.

It all started when the Class VII was left to do some duty without their instructor for the first time. It was just a fetching mission and Rean trusted them to be able to do just that without his aid. Indeed that everything went right… Well, at least until one of the orbal bike broke pretty early on the mission and the five students immediately made a quick halt to the progress.

“Yeah, we done goofed up, man,” Ash said as he crouched down to check the bike. “The damned exhaust is letting out some black smokes, yo.”

“It’s not merely that,” A voice continued from the side. It was Altina, who was pointing at the front wheel of the bike. “The front suspension is also not in the state where it would move even if we push it.”

“Urgh! Why does this have to happen now!?” Juna grunted, her hands on her hips as she watched her friends checking on the bike. “We’re still fifty minutes away from Parm. That, if we were riding a bike.”

Everybody sighed in unison. Well, safe for one blue haired boy. Instead of saying anything, Kurt was being irrationally calm, his hand grazed his own chin as if he was thinking.

“Ash, drive me back into the Sain-Arkh.”

When Kurt finally spoke, that immediately prompted Ash to raise an eyebrow. “Ho? What kind of idea you have there, young master? Let’s hear it.” As always, his grin never left his lips whenever he spoke against Kurt.

“We’re going to rent a horse from Sain-Arkh,” Kurt responded quickly. “The last time we were there, Celestin-san provided us with horses so that means that there should be a horse rental somewhere there.”

Everyone else stopped to consider Kurt’s idea for a short while. It was Altina who decided to speak first, “What about the—“

“I’ve got a spare 1200 mira with me,” the young Vander guessed Altina’s protest correctly and cut her straight up. “Unless the news lied to me, the current exchange rate of Nord’s best horse should be 800 mira by yesterday. Sain-Arkh might be the capital of Sutherland Province, but I am willing to bet that it won’t be any more expensive than that,” Kurt paused for a short while, looking back over his shoulder towards the gate of Sain-Arkh that wasn’t that far off from their current position. “Everything considered, that’d be our best way to reach Parm without wasting unnecessary time and energy. It’s only around seventeen minutes or so to go back and forth from Sain-Arkh to our current spot.”

That explanation provided them enough and indeed, Kurt’s idea was pretty sound.

“Guess there’s no other way, huh?” Ash scratched his hair lazily, before he leapt to the driver’s seat of the working orbal bike. “Hop on, young master.”

Kurt was about to join Ash by jumping to the sidecar, but before he did so, he stopped in his track as if he remembered something. Swiftly dropping the bag from his back, Kurt dug inside of it to take out something that resembled a stick before he passed it to Musse.

“What’s this, Kurt-san?” Musse took a quick look at it, instantly knowing what exactly the thing was. “A flare gun?”

While Kurt did give a nod to that, Musse still continued her question, looking at her fellow female classmates beforehand. “Wouldn’t that be too much? While there are some monsters around this place, I don’t think anything would provide enough trouble for the three of us?”

“Indeed,” Kurt chuckled a bit, making an ease of the subject of the conversation. “Still, you can’t never be too careful,” finally, he jumped to the sidecar. “Remember that if we were to get hurt in the process, Instructor Rean would probably get the flak as well even though he isn’t here. We don’t want that, do we?”

When Kurt went cheap enough to bring Rean and his duty into the conversation, there was no way they could refute that. The three girls discussed something together for a short moment before they agreed to Kurt’s offer.

Well, now that was taken care of…

“Then please wait for about thirty minutes, we’re going to get back here with a horse soon,” Kurt addressed the girls first before he returned his attention to his current bike driver. “Let’s do this as fast as possible, Ash.”

“Well, ya better hold on to something, young master,” Ash grinned as he started the engine. “We’re goin’ to reach Sain-Arkh in five minutes.”

It was at that moment Kurt immediately regretted ever suggesting Ash to go fast. Especially with how Ash was grinning to ear to ear and the way the engine was throttling. Truthfully, Kurt might be feeling some cold sweats starting to drop behind his neck, even.

“Don’t do this.”

“Should have said that ten seconds ago, young master.”

“Ash, I take that back. Please mind the—“

Ash immediately boosted the engine to the max, much to Kurt’s dismay.

“YOOOOOOOOSH-!! WOOHOO—!!”

“—ASH, I SWEAR TO AIDIOS PLEASE CALM THE—“

Kurt’s protest was muffled by the wild combination sound of Ash’s excited yell and the sound of the bike moving as fast as Rean’s Gale. It literally took less than ten seconds before they were gone from the girls’ sight.

“…Boys.” Juna commented.

“Boys.” Altina nodded in agreement.

“Hmm, boys, indeed.” Musse giggled, bringing a hand over to her mouth. “But I have to say, Kurt-san is really dependable, isn’t he?”

“Agreed,” Altina answered immediately. “I still have dozens of questions about his idea, but when I looked at his eyes, he seemed to have prepared the answer to refute me already and I’d end up wasting more time than what was worth of it. Therefore, I had decided to not to.”

Juna looked at the two for a while before a sigh escaped her lips, though it was clear that her lips were forming a small smile soon after. “Kurt-kun is always like that.”

That short answer, much Juna’s dismay, prompted a mischievous smile to form on Musse’s lips. Shifting her hand a bit, she posed as if she was being all dreamy. “Always like that, Juna-san? Oh, how splendid it is… Such strong words for two young teenagers of the opposite sex…”

“I have to agree about that as well,” Altina nodded again, her tone was robotic, if not so matter-of-fact. “I haven’t got the understanding of the entirety of the subject, but I am positive that Kurt-san can be considered as a ‘top-notch boyfriend material’, right Juna-san?”

As Juna looked at her friends, she blinked in confusion at their statements. Once. Twice. Before their implications dawned on her and blushes immediately crept and took over the color of her cheeks. “W-Why are you two asking me that-!?”

“Fufu, nothing, nothing~” Musse kept her mischievous eyes towards Juna’s flustered face. “If I were not so entranced with Instructor Rean, I’d probably be so in love with Kurt-san with how he acted towards me, wouldn’t I?”

Hook, line, sinker. Juna effectively gobbled everything that Musse threw at her.

“W-What are you trying to say, Musse!?” Juna retorted back. “Me and Kurt-kun aren’t like that at all—“

“You two aren’t like that at all?” Much to Juna’s life, Altina once again butted it, her head tilted to the side a bit, gesturing her curiosity. “According to what I’ve observed, you two are as close as Instructor Rean and Alisa-san and they’re this close to tying the knot together. Or was there an err in my observation, Juna-san?”

“We. Are. Not. Like. That.” Juna stressed, emphasizing on every single words. “At. All!”

Though definitely, who was she trying to fool there? If any, Musse’s sly smile was getting bigger. “Oh, Juna-san, you read mangas too, right? That’s what we’d call as ‘tsundere’ these days.”

“…I’m going to hurt you, Musse,” Juna threatened, taking out her tonfas. “Real bad.”

The waiting game for the girls ended up being way noisier than how it should have been.

Although around thirty minutes later, Ash returned with an empty seat on the side car while Kurt returned with a horse, immediately asking Juna to hop behind her like the old times. Still blushing, Juna slowly took his hand as a help to get into the ride with him, triggering another set of snickers from Musse and Ash that she promptly ignored with an ‘hmph’.

Juna Crawford hated Kurt Vander.

She hated how he could just asked her to ride a horse with him when he was riding a white horse like some sort of prince in fairy tale that every girl would always dreamed of.

(But it was very relaxing sitting behind him and latching to him like that. Not that she would ever admit it out loud.)

Chapter Text

Juna Crawford hated Kurt Vander.

She hated how good his self-control was.

The second time the class VII mission without Rean Schwarzer accompanying them had to be on Jurai .The place that was very close to Trista, where the main Thors Academy was and it indeed speak volume already. It was no coincidence that they would encounter the red-clad uniformed students sooner or later. Just like this one time.

“That’s the Vander kid, right?”

“Yeah, from that one rejected family.”

The five pair of feet suddenly stopped as the voice of two main Thors students erupted the moment they walked past them. Their ugly expressions and laughter made it very clear already: They didn’t have any intention of playing it down— They were blatantly mocking Kurt’s family history.

It was, without a single trace of doubt, boiling the anger inside of Juna’s body almost immediately. As per always, she always acted on her impulse, turning on her heels to address the matter personally. In her own way. “Why you—!!“

“—Juna. Stop.”

And as per always as well, Kurt’s reaction was almost as immediate, stopping Juna from finishing her curse. This of course prompted Juna’s to get even angrier at him. “What-!? Are you going to tell me to let them speak like that about your family, Kurt-kun!?“

Kurt did not give any reply. Instead, he continued his walk again as if he was trying to say that nothing actually happened earlier.

“Kurt-kun!? Are you for real-!?”

The pink haired girl stomped, about to march with her disagreement towards her blue-haired partner. However, before she was able to reach her destination, a single, slender arm reached out to her forearm, stopping her from doing what was unnecessary.

“Juna-san,” the owner of the said hand was no other but Altina. “Please calm down.”

“Al…?” Juna’s round green eyes finally managed to avert their attention to the side. From her other side, another female voice joined. This time it was Musse’s.

“I know you are angry, Juna-san,” Musse said. “But please look at Kurt-san right now.”

As the green haired sharpshooter said that, she also raised a finger to point at Kurt’s walking figure. Kurt was being very subtle about it, but on a closer look, literally anyone could tell that his arms were shaking, and he was clenching one of his hands into a big ball in frustration. Hell, he actually looked like he would explode at any given time.

“He’s hella mad right now,” finally Ash decided to speak, both hands in his pants pockets like always. “Dude looks like he would punch you to dead if you bring this shit out further.”

“That is true,” Altina added. “Kurt-san is being very emotionally unstable right now. He is in the worst point that I’ve ever witnessed myself, even.”

“Juna-san, this kind of talk is not unheard of between nobles,” To put a nail in the coffin, Musse continued. True, as fellow nobles from Class VII, Musse knew her things well. Even the good and the bad.  “Although I have to say, in Kurt-san’s case, this is probably not the first time people would speak of his family like that. His family's name isn't exactly under the brightest sun these days.”

Four pair of eyes watched in a short, unearthly silence at the figure of the young Vander walking away further from them.

“Ha, if I were young master, I’d give them their just desert right away. I’m telling you.” Ash commented, his head looking over his shoulders to see the two Thors main branch students that seemed to be unaware of the Class VII’s distraught. “But hey, this is young master for you. He’d do jackshit about it.”

“Oh dear, please watch the language, Ash-san,” Musse returned Ash’s remark with cynical jabs like always. “Kurt-san won’t do anything because he knew they were trying to goad him into a fight to ruin his image even further.”

Even though Ash and Musse returned to their daily issues of throwing insults at each other for the hell of it, they never entered Juna’s ears. Instead, she was silent as she paid extra attentions to both Kurt’s figure and the words that her classmates had said earlier.

This was not the first time people would speak of his family like that.

This was not the first time people would speak ill of him like that.

Still, Kurt-kun never got angry about it. He’d never give any visible response at all because he knew that if he got angry at that, it would only bring problems to both his family and Class VII altogether without any sign of positivity in return. If that was not a commendable self-control, Juna didn’t know what to call it at all.

She still didn’t like it, though. The fact that he would just let those people went unpunished at all.

“Juna-san.”

Juna blinked in surprise as Altina interrupted her train of thought and her eyes immediately met the smaller girls’. Al knew. Al definitely could tell what was going on her mind.

“…I am sorry, Al,” Juna whispered. It was barely audible, but even so, Altina seemed to be able to hear it just right. “I am letting go of your hand, okay?”

“Mmm.”

Altina knew what the deal was and what was exactly going to happen. Her comparably tiny hands slipped out of Juna’s sleeve and the pink haired girl immediately fastened her stride to catch up with Kurt, who was already relatively far ahead of the rest of the class.

…

Out of all the things in the world that would make him angry, calling his family out was the first thing on the top of the stack. So to say that Kurt wanted to punch those people dead was in fact, an understatement of the century.

He wanted to grab his swords and brutally murder them, even.

If he had reacted to their taunt, however, he knew that he practically would have lost the fight immediately. Not only that he would ruin the Class VII’s reputation, he would also damage the Vander’s name’s honor and the Ashen Chevalier’s as well and Kurt definitely did not enroll in the school for that purpose. It had been a lost-lost situation for him. Thus why he had opted to take a series of inhaling and exhaling deep breaths to calm himself down.

But who was Kurt kidding? He wasn’t able to do that. Sure he didn’t lash out anything, but his brain had failed him. His entire body was starting to lose its control and his arms were shaking like some mad pricks that were very eager on thrashing around in uncontrollable rage. And he swore he would lose it at any second now.

A sudden, soft feeling around his hand immediately stopped him from losing control, however. At that, everything in his mind just seemed to shatter like some sort of glasses. Kurt’s blue eyes widened in surprise as he swiftly turned his hand to the side just to see… her.

Juna was there. Right beside him, with her hand subtly slipped inside the grasp of his hand in the most literal way. It took good five seconds for Kurt to realize what was happening before blushes started to creep into his cheeks.

“…Juna?”

“I am here for you,” Juna answered in embarrassment, throwing her head to the side. She knew that she was probably blushing as hard as Kurt already and hence why she refused to meet his eyes. “Everyone is here for you, Kurt-kun.”

That was it. That was the killer response. Whether she meant it platonically or even further than that, it immediately killed every single of angry nerve inside of Kurt. Albeit the fact that he was still blushing madly, Kurt’s shoulder seemed to tense down and relaxed down at Juna’s help. A soft, embarrassed laugh escaped his lips shortly, even.

“Thank you, Juna.”

Listening to his response was already enough to prompt her lips to form the most genuine smile that they had ever formed.

Juna Crawford hated Kurt Vander.

She hated how he would always try to act tough at every single moment for his friends’ sake when he was just as frail as the guy next door.

(But Juna promised at that moment, she would stay by his side regardless of everything. She would not let him shoulder things that shouldn’t be carried by one person anymore.)