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Homura let the door slam shut and threw his bag into a corner. Whoever came up with the idea that they should disguise as school boys -- he cursed them from the bottom of his heart. It sucked! Why did he have to learn about plant cells and photosynthesis and all that crap? That was much more Jyuka’s business anyway. PE was okay. He liked training his body. But here in the human world he couldn’t even practice his fire skills. And he needed practice, he was painfully aware of that. When the next confrontation came, he wanted to present his opponent with a better fight. Nobody should ever have a reason to call him sloppy again!
He shrugged out of his jacket and carelessly flung it over the next best chair. The bar was empty, no new client waiting for them. He gritted his teeth. He hadn’t found anyone suitable to collect attachment since meeting his last client, and the others didn’t seem to be doing any better. Even Ranmaru and Uruu, usually so focused on fulfilling the queen’s mission, hadn’t had any success.
A pitiful groan stopped him in his tracks. Confused, he looked around the bar. He could’ve sworn he was alone.
Another groan. The sound came from the utmost corner of the room. Now he noticed the figure slumped over the table there, long, silvery hair spilling over the top and almost reaching the floor. Uruu?
“Hey!” Homura hurried over. Uruu perched precariously on a chair, legs akimbo, head cradled in his arms, hair obscuring his face.
“Is everything alright? Are you hurt?” Homura’s hand hovered over Uruu’s back, unsure what to do. He didn’t like the uptight prick, but seeing him in pain made him feel weirdly protective. He didn't like that, either.
Uruu mumbled something Homura didn’t understand. He crouched down and brushed some strands of hair out of the way. “What?”
“The world is beautiful, but it’s spinning too fast,” Uruu said. His voice was barely audible, his words slurring together.
“Huh?”
Uruu lifted his head, slowly and apparently with great effort. “Heeeyyyy!” he said when he saw Homura. Then he smiled.
Homura reeled back. Uruu smiled. Uruu. Smiled. At him. That was wrong. He didn’t know what had happened, but now he was sure something was wrong with him.
Scrutinizing his face more closely, Homura noticed that Uruu’s cheeks were flushed. His eyes looked unfocused and had a strange shine to them.
“Are you ill? Do you have a fever?”
He put his hand to Uruu’s forehead to test his temperature. He didn't expect Uruu to lean into the touch with his full weight. Homura caught him by the shoulders before he could topple over.
“Hey!” Uruu said again and giggled like he’d just heard the world’s best joke. He ruffled Homura’s hair, undoing his carefully maintained style. Being currently occupied with keeping Uruu from falling to the floor, Homura couldn’t even swat his hand away.
“I lllllike your ha… huh… hair better like this,” Uruu crooned and giggled again.
Okay, this was getting spooky. Homura looked around the bar, hoping against hope to see Takara standing behind the counter. Or at the very least Ranmaru. But they were alone. He didn’t even hear the other fairies anywhere in the house.
“Oi!” He shook Uruu by the shoulders. His eyes had fallen shut.
“Huh?” Uruu looked at him again, blinking owlishly. Now Homura noticed the smell. Uruu’s breath smelled sweet, like overripe fruit, with a hint of something bitter underneath.
“Did you eat something bad?” He managed to get Uruu into an upright position again and leaned him against the back of the chair.
“Cherries,” Uruu ventured.
That didn’t explain anything. “What cherries?”
Weakly, Uruu pointed to a big glass jar standing on the desk. “Sweet cherries. Ta… ha… kara hit them from us.”
A nasty suspicion forming in his mind, Homura got up and sniffed at the glass jar. Sweet and slightly bitter. The smell wasn’t completely unfamiliar. And neither was Uruu’s uncharacteristic behaviour, now that the pieces were falling into place. Homura had smelled something sweetly bitter like this before, when his school mates dragged him to a party. He’d also seen how they lost control of themselves, started to slur their words and did things they would later claim they didn’t remember doing.
He sniffed at the jar again. He was certain of it now. Uruu was drunk.
“Uruu, these cherries were soaked in alcohol. Takara kept them away from us for a reason.”
Seeing Uruu sitting in front of him, boneless and flushed, the hilarity of the situation hit him. The overly correct, by-the-books member of the Aqua Clan was drunk! So much for living by the rules. Homura couldn’t keep his laughter down.
Uruu looked up, a confused smile playing on his lips. His eyes were devoid of their usual hostility, resting on him him with an openness that made Homura feel almost guilty about his outburst of schadenfreude.
“Okay, sorry. But, what happened? Why did you eat that?”
“Because,” Uruu said, stressing each syllable, “Takara only makes curry. Ev-er-y day. Curry. Cuuuu-ryyy.”
“Tell me about it.” Homura put the jar back on the desk.
“Bakkun gets all the sweets. It’s not fair!” Uruu made a rapid gesture with his arms and almost fell off the chair again. Homura grabbed him by the shoulder and steadied him.
“Thanyou,” Uruu slurred. “Mutsuoka found cherries. We de… deshe… deshi… we ate them.”
“Wait, Jyuka ate the cherries, too? Where is he?” If Uruu got that drunk from a few alcohol-soaked cherries, he worried about how the much smaller fairy might feel.
“Got tired. Went to bed.”
Homura let out a breath. Seemed like Jyuka had kept more of his wits together than the water fairy.
It wasn’t really important, but he had to ask. “And you ate the rest of the cherries?”
“Mhm.” Uruu twirled a strand of Homura’s hair between his fingers, seemingly enraptured.
Homura felt dumbstruck. This was absurd. Hilarious, in a way, but also a bit worrying. Fairies weren’t supposed to drink human-made alcohol. He had no idea how it worked on their system. What if Jyuka or Uruu got sick during the night? He had to find Takara and ask him. But first he had to deal with the accidental delinquent.
“Let’s get you to bed, too.” He grabbed Uruu under the arms and tried to lift him off the chair. Uruu pulled him down by the hem of his shirt.
“W-wait!” he said. “I’m drunk!”
“Yeah, that’s the gist of it.”
Uruu’s eyes grew wide and panicked. “We’re not allowed! Law nnnnumber… number… the law!”
Homura shook his head. “Bit late for that, eh?” he teased. When he saw the genuine look of desperation crossing over Uruu’s face, he sighed. “It was an accident. Not your fault.”
Tightening his grip, he heaved Uruu to his feet. “Can you walk?”
Uruu swayed from side to side, before leaning heavily on Homura’s shoulder. “The room’s moving too fast. Make it stop!”
Homura pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting down exasperation. With his arm around Uruu, he slowly began to move. “Come on. Step by step. And don’t throw up on me!”
Uruu grabbed the back of Homura's shirt for balance, clenching his hand around the fabric, and rested his head on his shoulder. His hair tickeld Homura's neck. “But it is,” me murmured.
“Huh?”
“My fault. Should’ve known.” He drew a deep breath. “Will be punished.”
That guy and his issues! Homura rolled his eyes. “No, you won’t. Nobody here will tell on you. Or on Jyuka. Nobody but us will know. Just think about all the things Takara gets away with.”
Uruu was very quiet for a moment. “Oh,” he said then.
Something about the tone of his voice made Homura stop. “What? Do you want to be punished?”
“Have to be pure. And noble.”
Homura huffed. Pure and noble, what a joke. He hadn’t been that pure and noble when he’d whacked his client. Or when he’d been sitting in that chair… but he pushed that image out of his head as quickly as it had appeared.
He started forwards again, opening the door that let to the stairs. Something warm and wet touching his neck startled him.
“You taste funny,” Uruu said and giggled. Then he licked him again.
The warmth and Uruu’s breath ghosting over the wet skin caused his human body to react in an embarrassing way. "Stop that,” he hissed and yanked Uruu through the door.
Manhandling the tall and not very cooperative fairy up the stairs was a daunting affair. Homura was panting by the time they reached their bedroom. Bakkun had already taken bed-shape and Jyuka lay on top of their mascot, sprawled like a starfish and snoring softly, hogging an enormous amount of space for somebody so tiny.
Homura took Uruu to his usual side, left from Jyuka, and let him fall to the bed, not too gently. Uruu landed on his back with a soft “Umph”.
With his hair spilling around his body, clothes in disarray, the hem of his shirt riding up to expose his navel, he once more looked anything but pure and noble. Well, noble maybe, but very much not pure.
Homura ripped his eyes away and bit his lip. He felt heat rising to his face. Enough of that! He had to find Takara and make sure that the two fairies wouldn’t wake up with anything worse than a headache.
He’d just turned to go when Uruu tugged at his sleeve. “C’me here.”
“What?”
“C’me here!” He tugged again, with unexpected force. Homura lost his balance and landed on top of him, barely bracing himself on his hands before their heads crashed together.
“Oi, look out!”
Uruu twisted his fingers around Homura’s necklace and pulled him down until their noses were almost touching. Homura was too stunned to react.
“Hate you,” Uruu whispered.
Irritation soared through Homura’s body, red and hot. “I already got that.”
He tried to get up, but Uruu tightened the grip on his necklace. A strange intensity lit up his eyes. His body surged up, practically melting against Homura’s. He pulled Homura’s face further down, till they were cheek to cheek. “Don't hate you,” he purred into his ear. Then his body grew slack, his hand fell away and his head lolled to the side, eyes closed.
For a couple of minutes, Homura stared at him, not comprehending. What the heck? What was that about? Talk about confusing!
Jyuka mumbled something in his sleep, which brought Homura back to his senses. He scrambled to his feet and hurried out of the room, hoping Takara wasn’t away on one of his trysts.
~
The next morning…
“Aw, just five more minutes… Ou! Ou, stop shoving me!”
“You are sleeping on my hair.”
“Then why didn’t you braid it… oh, right, you were drunk.”
“…”
“How are…”
“Are you done laughing about me?”
“I didn’t…”
“Why have you been sleeping here anyway? Your place is over there.”
“Well, you were drunk, and you’re always sleeping on your back.”
“So?”
“Takara said that if you’d get sick while sleeping on your back, you could choke. So I had to make sure you slept on your side.”
“I still do not see how that let to you sleeping next to me.”
“Uh… I tried to get you to sleep on your side, but you kept rolling over again, so I had to, like, lay here? To prevent you from rolling onto your back?”
“…”
“By, uh, holding you?”
“…”
“Would you rather have choked?”
“I was not drunk enough to get sick and choke.”
“How should I know that? I’ve never been drunk! We’re not sup--”
“I was not that drunk!”
“How do you even want to know?”
“I just know.”
“Well, Takara said…”
“TAKARA!”
“TAKARA!”