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“Mahiru.”
The tone was less of a shout and more of a loud complaint. Mahiru looked up from the textbook and papers and notebooks on his desk, aiming a glance at the door, like he’d be able to see the source of the groan from where he was sitting. He waited a moment - two moments - before another whine called out.
“Mahiru!” the flat voice called.
Mahiru shot an annoyed look at the hallway through the crack in the door and turned back to his desk, tapping his pencil against the wood surface. It was Sunday and he had a big exam tomorrow. He had holed himself in his room for most of the morning to study and practically all of the afternoon. It was about 4:00PM now, he’d guessed.
“MAHIRUUUUuuu!!”
Mahiru grit his teeth as he stood up, pencil in hand, and stormed down the hallway to the living room, only to find his unfortunate roommate on the floor on his stomach, playing a game on a small handheld console. Upon hearing the Eve, the vampire looked up to see his companion, and then rolled over on his back and put his hands in the air, coiled as if to look like paws, and plastered on puppy-dog eyes like he was begging. Or, rather, cat eyes.
“Can you go get ice cream? I’m hungry…” he muttered under his breath.
In one swift motion, Mahiru launched the pencil in his hand at the vampire’s head. It popped off Kuro’s head, Kuro letting out a grunt, and left a bump on the Servamp’s forehead.
“Ow! So mean…” Kuro grumbled.
Mahiru shook his head in disbelief, and sighed, “Can’t you tell I’m studying, Kuro? I need to make sure I get a good score on this exam, and I can’t have you distracting me.”
Kuro stared at Mahiru for a moment, then sat up and pointed at the Eve. “You… haven’t eaten much today, have you?” he asked innocently, giving Mahiru a careful look, like he didn’t want to anger his Eve.
Mahiru paused. Oh. Kuro was actually right. Mahiru had only eaten half an apple and some juice this morning, wanting to hurry up and get to studying. And he hadn’t eaten anything for lunch, either. He recalled Kuro wandering into the bedroom in his cat form and mewling something about food then too, but Mahiru had just shooed him away to leave him to study. That was unlike him, Mahiru thought, to forget to eat like that. He frowned at his own embarrassment and shame to let something like that slip his mind, and the low rumble of his stomach said that another minute of studying wouldn’t be appreciated.
Kuro took this pause to chime in. “Mm, see? You’re so troublesome. You left your precious cat alone almost all day, acting like you didn’t need him when you can’t even take care of yourself. How sad,” he said, shaking his head in mock disappointment.
“Oh, don’t give me that!” Mahiru snapped, but cracked a grin. “You’re right though. Sorry, Kuro. I’ll get changed and we can go get some food.”
Mahiru disappeared into his room and came out wearing a light gray hoodie, finding Kuro laying on the floor yawning. He kicked him gently in the side.
“Come on Kuro, let’s go.”
He turned to leave and Kuro reluctantly stood to follow. As Mahiru opened the door, Kuro turned to his cat form in a small puff of smoke and climbed up Mahiru’s shoulder.
“You should really be thanking me, you know. If I hadn’t pulled you away, you might have kept studying until you passed out and I would have had to deal with you…” Kuro murmured in Mahiru’s ear.
Mahiru huffed incredulously, but said nothing as he walked down the stairs from his apartment. Kuro was probably right again. It wasn’t usual for Mahiru to get so caught up in his work, but the vampire had helped by pulling him away. This was the first time he had actually stood up, let alone leave the house, and it felt good to stretch his legs and get some fresh air. Admittedly, Mahiru kind of wanted to spend some time with his companion for a bit, as he had neglected him for most of the day.
“Alright. Thanks, Kuro,” Mahiru said softly as he started walking down the sidewalk.
Mahiru felt Kuro tense up slightly on his shoulder and tilt his head toward Mahiru’s cheek, as if the cat didn’t expect the response. But after a moment, he relaxed and moved ever so slightly closer to Mahiru’s neck.
“Mmhm,” he muttered sheepishly.
The late afternoon summer heat was still lingering. It didn’t take long for Mahiru to roll up the sleeves of his hoodie and regret even wearing the thing. The sun was dipping below the cityline, just dark enough for Kuro to revert back to his human form. Mahiru lazily swayed on a swing in an empty playground taking small bites of banana popsicle. Kuro sat contently on the swing next to him with a pile of frozen treats in his lap.
“Kuro, your ice cream will melt if you don’t eat it quickly,”
“Hmm, I should have gotten one of the strawberry shortcake popsicles…” Kuro was mumbling to who Mahiru could only assume was him. He didn’t acknowledge Mahiru’s warning at all.
Mahiru deadpanned and groaned, “I paid for all of them.”
“And I’m eating all of them, so your contribution was not wasted.”
Mahiru rolled his eyes and took another bite of his ice cream.
“You know, I heard Licht has a piano concert tonight,” Mahiru said, kicking off the ground slightly so that he swung lowly.
Kuro raised an eyebrow at him. “What, you wanna go?” he grumbled in between bites of ice cream.
Mahiru shrugged slightly. “I thought about it, yeah. You don’t?”
“It wasn’t exactly my evening plans, no.”
“Then what was?”
“Playing video games peacefully on a full stomach, and then sleeping,” Kuro deadpanned.
“Of course,” Mahiru sighed resignedly. “Well, it’ll probably be on tv anyway,” he said, mostly to himself.
“I’ll let you play with me,” Kuro offered.
Mahiru scoffed. “You better let me play. It’s my house after all.”
Mahiru stood up from his swing, lapping up the rest of the popsicle on the stick before it dripped on his clothes. Kuro watched him for a moment before standing up as well, carrying his ice cream in his arms.
“Mmm… we never bought groceries…” Kuro mused, carefully balancing his ice cream in one arm so he could pick out a popsicle with the other.
Mahiru sighed. “I’ll do it tomorrow. This heat is making me more and more exhausted,” he said.
“Ah, did I rub off on you?” Kuro asked around the popsicle hanging out of his mouth.
Mahiru shot him a look, but grinned.
When they arrived at Mahiru’s apartment, Kuro stopped at the door outside, already finished with all his ice cream. He had a look in his eyes that Mahiru recognized as wanting to talk. Mahiru noticed Kuro’s avoidant gaze and how his hands were stuffed in his pockets, all the tell-tale signs of his discomfort with confrontation, and Mahiru worried something was wrong.
“Th-...thanks… for the ice cream…” Kuro muttered, trailing off at the end of the sentence so that Mahiru had to take a moment to register what he had said. He seemed to pull his hood further over his head, hiding his face and slouching even more, like he was trying to make himself as small as possible despite being almost six feet tall.
Once Mahiru had the sentence in his head, he let out a small laugh and beamed.
“Seems like I actually rubbed off on you, huh?”
The next morning, Mahiru had woken up to the small cat sleeping next to his head on his pillow. He had fallen asleep before Kuro had, and he had actually remembered passing out on the couch…
He had woken up much earlier - about 2 hours earlier - than he’d needed to walk to school, and he considered getting up to do some chores. But the way Kuro was purring, and the coziness of the blankets were sucking him in, and the way the sun was warming up his sheets…
Well, whether or not the vampire was, in fact, rubbing off on him, it’d be alright to take a page from Kuro’s book every now and then, right?