Chapter Text
What's that one really inspirational poster back on Earth? A 1940s woman flexing with the words 'We Can Do It!' sprawled across the thing. Really inspirational stuff, truly makes you 'believe in yourself'. Except for the part where Yuu doesn't believe in themself, and is now internally screaming at what a stupid idea this is. Posters don't work most of the time, unfortunately.
Yuu looked at the envelope in their hand, now crumpled from the sheer amount of times they'd rubbed their hand against the yellowed-out paper.
Standing in front of a ridiculously pink mailbox, Yuu watched as the envelope fluctuated between entering and exiting the metal cover, eyes scanning the letter as they flipped it back and forth, trying to make sure that absolutely no trace of the sender could be found.
It was approximately T-minus seven days to Valentine's, and Yuu's dearest senpai, Cater had gone off and announced that he would be opening an anonymous confession box throughout the week leading to Valentine's, with a little nudge and wink added when he did announce it.
"It wasn't as if it was strictly for romantic purposes," Yuu's brain supplied. After all, Cater-senpai himself had told everyone it was also fine to put in purely platonic confessions inside, or even just… normal confessions, no that’s not the problem.
Yuu glared at the neatly sealed envelope in their hand.
The problem lies in the contents of the letter.
A three-letter word, addressed to a certain bright, idiotic, lovable blue-haired boy.
Dear Deuce Spade: I love you.
Simple, short, and concise, bam, right at your face bluntness, straight to the point, yet also vague enough to make the idiot think that it might be platonic. But then again, Deuce's just dense, not a five-year-old.
Which then leads to them thinking "I can't do this. He'll hate me, and we won't be friends anymore, and it'll all be my fault."
Ah, love. Teenagers' mortal nemesis. You'd think that in a school where kids literally get possessed by blobs of ink, and a student turning into a wolf is normal, love would not be such a dramatic problem. Unfortunately, as Yuu had noticed beforehand, this universe hates them. A lot.
"I could always help you find out who the sender is, with a price of course~" ringed the voice of one Azul Ashengrotto, and Yuu once again shivered at the offer.
The more Yuu thought about it, the more creases get added to the letter. At this point, they should just go back to Ramshackle dorm, and rewrite it. Which actually, now that they think about it, is a superb idea. They still have time before Valentine's Day. They'll just go home first, maybe rewrite some words here and there, and even if Yuu missed sending the letter, no one would miss it.
"YUU! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" A soft, tiny body crashed onto Yuu's back at full speed, launching them forward.
Several things happened in succession:
One, time moved in slow motion. Every movement was blurred to the teen, their hands and arms seemingly placed behind some sort of screen filter and blurred with every passing movement.
Two, their body was pushed forward thanks to the impact, and towards a very much hard and metal mailbox, with no prior protection whatsoever.
Three, their hand is getting very close to the flap on the mailbox. A hand in which the dreaded letter sits prettily, simply begging to be inserted into the offensively pink mailbox.
Four, Yuu is going to have to make a decision. Spend the rest of the week leading to Valentine's with a bruise on their cheek or something worse because of this damned mailbox, or sacrifice an arm to the cursed pink being to keep them standing straight.
The flap of the mailbox scraped through skin as Yuu's arm barely made it through the (thankfully) large hole of the metal box. With their palm resting against the cool metal, Yuu braced themselves, face turned mere inches away from colliding against the lid of the box.
A huge sigh of relief escaped their throat as their body slumped against the neon pink lid. They pulled their arm out of the hole, twisting and turning their wrist. Yuu winces at the angry pink and red marks littering the front of their arm, long, red gashes that almost made it seem like they had been scratching at it for quite a while.
"Hello?? Are you even listening??" Came the cry of the intruder. Yuu sighed once more, brows furrowing even further than they had. It was one thing to be stressed over a single handwritten letter. It was another entirely to be interrupted in the middle of your crisis stupor by an attention-craving, piece of shit cat who will do anything to get your attention back.
Yuu sighed, "Grim, can you please tell me why you think it was necessary to literally jump up, and basically kick me?"
"Obviously because you're acting really weird!" Grim pointed an accusing paw at Yuu, completely disregarding their previous question, "I left you for one minute, and poof! You're gone!"
"I didn't go 'poof'. Grim, I'm literally the single soul who can't use magic here." They huffed, "And I'm not acting weird."
"Yes you did!!" Grim stomped his foot, "You were so jumpy, and then you disappeared after breakfast! What are you doing here??" A hand raised up to scratch against their skin. Yuu stared at the box standing beside them, "Then why the hell are you here!? Did you write some icky friendship letter or something?"
"It's not icky! I'm a great writer, and-" Yuu paused.
If one hand is scratching their neck at this very moment, and the other is accusingly empty right in front of them, then-
Yuu twisted around, eyes now frantically scanning the ground all around them. What greeted their eyes were simply pavement and grass, and not even a single sight of the yellowed-out paper envelope to be seen. In a moment of panic, Yuu must’ve accidentally dropped the flimsy excuse of a paper into the demon mailbox in exchange for his face escaping unscathed.
Brown eyes widened impossibly at the realization, and a guttural mix of a groan and growl barely escaped their throat before a shout followed.
"No! NO!!" Yuu stared at the now very offendingly pink mailbox.
Oh, Oh. Well, now Yuu is pissed off. Their fingers dug into the palm of their hands, crescent indents now breaking skin and drawing the tiniest bit of blood. The pain from the scratches was no longer burning, now completely swallowed over by the bridling rage swimming over Yuu in a haze.
So not only did Yuu look like a complete idiot, pacing around the mailbox for what felt like half an hour, trying to figure out if what they were doing was right, they were kicked right into the insulting neon pink mailbox, had their hand practically scraped by the flap of the spawn of Satan, and now the letter has now slipped inside it amidst the chaos? If Yuu wasn't so civil, they'd burn it to the ground.
Breathing in, and out, they began weighing their options. Fishing the letter out was a big no-no, someone might mistake them as a creep for trying to take a look at people's vulnerable messages to their friends, and crushes. The second would be—
Yuu grabbed Grim from their head, staring at his eyes. "Grim."
"...I feel very unsafe right now."
"I need you to get in this mailbox."
"Say what?"
Without hesitation, Yuu immediately pushed Grim into the hole. Earning a loud screech from the catlike monster.
"FGNAA?!?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING??" His voice was muffled. But that didn't stop Yuu from basically pushing him even more inside. In Yuu’s defense, it was Grim who had gotten them into this very trouble, it was fair enough that Grim also pitched in to help Yuu out of this misery. An eye for an eye, a paw for a letter. It didn’t matter if they were going to have to shove the cat into the box, as long as the letter came out, everything was good.
"You got me into this mess, you help me out! Or else I'm cutting off your snack intake this month!"
"Yaho~ Yuu-kun, and Grim." A mop of orange hair popped out from behind the box, right into Yuu's vision. "I'm gonna have to ask you to not assault mailbox-chan, ok?"
"GAH-! Oh, it’s just you, senpai." Yuu cleared their throat, "Sorry for the yelling, senpai."
"No worries!" Cater smiled as he placed his elbows on the top of the mailbox. "So are you gonna free Grim or?"
"MRRRFFFF!!!" The pink mailbox growled louder than before.
"Oh! Right!" Yuu pulled Grim out from the flap, his fur all messed up, and his face was frowning mad. As if he had accidentally licked a lemon.
"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?! SHOVING ME INSIDE OF THE BOX!!" Grim started yelling, even as Yuu put him aside on the ground. "HEY, ARE YOU LISTENING TO MY GRIEVANCES?!?!"
Pretending like a small, angry cat wasn't yelling on the ground, Cater's green eyes scanned the shorter student up and down, not so subtly landing on the angry red streaks painted across Yuu's arm, orange brows furrowing quickly, "Oh my, you look terrible, Yuu-kun. What happened? Senpai is here to help!"
Yuu simply stared at the elder boy, forehead scrunching. The younger had, at this point, been brought down to their knees, head slightly raised. Brown eyes bore through Cater's, blank as can be. Right when they opened their mouth, the only thing to come out was a hoarse and broken, "Cater senpai."
"Yes, Yuu kun~?"
Yuu took a deep breath. There was no harm in actually trying, right? Just pop Cater the question, he might be able to help and bring this misery to an end! Then they could wallow in their own self-misery for the rest of the time they get to spend here.
"I need you to get my letter from that mailbox."
"That I absolutely cannot do!" Came the immediate answer from Cater, arms crossing into an X and looking way too cheerful for the situation.
"What?? You didn't even have to think about it!" Yuu stood up immediately, shocked by this supposed cruelty, "Come on, senpai. Please!!"
"I'm sorry, Yuu. But the rule states that once you've put your letter inside, you can't ask for it to be taken out. I'm a Heartslabyul student as well, we don’t break the rules willy-nilly."
Yuu sighed at the inevitable defeat, and the horror that awaits them tomorrow the moment that damn letter arrives at its destination, "Great, just great."
"Man, you guys are such downers," Grim spoke up from below.
"I can, however, provide you a little heart-to-heart!" Cater cheered, immediately standing beside Yuu, pushing them, and Grim towards a nearby bench, "Tell your senpai everything~"
"Sounds like a scam," Grim hopped onto the bench, curling his body around, as he shifted into 'loaf' position.
"I promise you it's not!" Cater feigned an offended gasp. "Yuu-kun, don't you trust me? Don't you want to get that feeling off your chest?"
"I don't know," Yuu sat down on the bench, scratching behind Grim's ears. A happy purr appeared from the feline as he slowly nodded off. "I'm pretty satisfied with just faking it until it passes over."
"Really, now?" Cater tilted his head in disbelief at Yuu's own words, "Who did you write it for? Judging from your expression, it's a confession."
"I-" Yuu shifted their gaze from Cater's face to their own hands that were resting on top of their legs. They could feel the heat and the redness crossing across their cheeks. Flustered, the answer barely come out of their mouth. "Yeah."
Upon hearing the confirmation, Cater's face lit up, like a mother who had just heard that their kid was in love with someone, "Oh my, our Yuu-kun is in love~ who's the lucky guy? Is it someone I know?"
"You could say that." Yuu played with their fingers, avoiding both Cater and Grim's gaze. "I guess you do know him... really well."
"I know a lot of people, Yuu." Cater laughed jokingly, "You gotta be specific."
Yuu's face fell into their hands, embarrassed at the situation they were in. Truth be told, they'd much prefer fighting Azul than having a vulnerable heart-to-heart with Cater. "You're not letting this go, are you?"
"Oh, Yuu. I'm not gonna coerce information out of you if you're not comfortable." Cater cooed, soothing their ego slightly. "However, it seems like you're in need of a pick-me-up."
They muttered under their breath at the (unfortunately true) advice of their senpai. Yuu's hands dropped from their face to the solid wooden surface of the bench, their dark eyes trailing back to the pink mailbox across from them.
"It's Deuce."
"Called it. Trey-san owes me 200 madol, lucky~!" Cater bounced on the balls of his heels, snapping up immediately from his seating position.
Yuu couldn't believe what they had heard as they snapped their neck right at Cater, "You made a bet?!" Their face scrunched up to a sour expression as if Cater had swiped Yuu's favorite food from the cafeteria, "And I'm only worth 200 madol?? Come on, I'm at least worth 1000 madol!"
"Aw, don't be mad~" the orange haired student purred. "Why do you want to take it out anyway? Isn't that the whole point of the mailbox? And why even bother to write if you're not gonna even send it?"
"Well, yeah but-" Yuu stopped, thinking about what to say before they continued, "Midway, I realized that I don't know how he'll react. What if he doesn't feel the same, and he feels bad? What if he already likes someone else, and-"
"I think you're forgetting who your friend exactly is. Deuce-chan is a very kind person. He wouldn't throw away a friendship just because he doesn't feel the same."
"I… I guess you're right. But what if-"
"Yuu, think about the person he really is instead of the made-up one in your fake scenario. Would he actually treat you that horribly?"
"No, he wouldn't... I think."
"See~" Cater smiled, "It'll be ok."
"You really think so?"
"Of course, I think so." Cater dropped his voice into a whisper, "Hey, if he actually does react badly, I'll talk some sense into him." He added a wink at the end of his sentence, making Yuu roll their eyes.
Still, a shy smile made its way to their face.
"Thanks, senpai."