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“Ah!” Illumina’s cry echoes off the walls. “No! No, get off! Get off!"
“Surrender, and this won’t get worse for you!”
“Never!”
The shout as Illumina’s attacker relaunches his attack is lost as they both break down into giggles. Illumina slumps back down to the ground, his hand falling limp as Fruit pries the paper out of it and looks at it.
“This is you? You were so…” Fruit stifles another snicker. “Cute.”
“Fruit,” Illumina says, mortified, moving his arms to cover his face in embarrassment rather than trying to get up even though Fruit is already on his feet.
“No, seriously. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, you were adorable,” Fruit insists. The wide grin on his face makes it hard to believe him.
In Fruit’s hand is a sketched portrait of Illumina from several years before, from the time before he’d taken up wearing his mask even outside Runs. Illumina sighs.
“Yeah, yeah, get the jokes out now.”
“I didn’t even realise you had a picture of you as a kid.”
“It’s the only one I have,” Illumina admits. He’d commissioned it from a traveling artist when he’d defeated his first Ender Dragon, proud of himself for getting that far. It’s a little embarrassing looking back on it, but it means a lot to him.
Fruit stops in his tracks. “And you just… You just keep that shit in your pocket?”
Illumina sits up, looking sheepish. In response, Fruit raises an eyebrow.
“I don’t know where else to put it.”
“Motherfucker, we have a house,” Fruit says, his tone incredulous, “You have a whole-ass room you could put it in!”
“I don’t want to leave it out in case I get something on it,” Illumina mumbles.
“It’s getting crumpled to shit!” Fruit cries in exasperation.
Illumina shrugs helplessly, and it seems that the conversation is over. As much as the elder doesn’t know it, though, Fruit keeps mulling it over in his head. It reaches a point where Illumina is mildly concerned that he’s done something wrong, because Fruit just isn’t in the house the majority of the time. One day he’ll be quietly mumbling to Couriway as they stare at sheets of glass, the next he’ll be muttering with Fulham and examining different pieces of varying types of timber. Any time Illumina goes near them, Fruit will clam up and stop talking. Whoever he’s with at the time will go quiet too and it’s making Illumina slightly anxious. It all comes to a head about a week and a half later, when Fruit walks into their shared house and Illumina starts talking immediately.
“Did I do something wrong? I just… If I did, I’m really sorry.”
Fruit looks immeasurably confused. “What are you talking about?”
“You haven’t been in the house when you’re not sleeping for days, you stop talking when I’m nearby, I just…” Illumina trails off, waving his hands for emphasis.
“Dude,” Fruit says, “No. Holy fuck, no. I, uh… I was just… Well. Here.”
He reaches into his inventory and pulls out a rectangular package. Illumina’s brain stutters to a halt.
“I… What?”
“I didn’t do it on my own. Couri helped with the pane of glass, and Fulham helped pick the wood, and Fein did the cutting and Reign and Tek did the fittings, but I actually assembled it and… Just open it.”
Fruit thrusts the parcel into Illumina’s hands. The paper is relatively flimsy, but the object beneath is very definitely solid, and even without the details Fruit’s already given him, Illumina would have now been able to mentally rule out a new mask or anything similar. He peels open the wrapping to reveal an elegant frame, made of wood and varnished so that it shines. There’s a glass pane in the centre to protect whatever goes in the centre, and Illumina blinks at the object in his hand.
“It’s, uh… I though you could put your picture in it,” Fruit says, shoving his hands into his pockets awkwardly, “So it won’t get damaged if you leave it out, but it won’t be getting creased in your pocket when you Run.”
Illumina can’t help the way his eyes well up. “Fruit… Thank you so much.”
“Yeah, dude, of course. It wasn’t, like, difficult, I guess,” Fruit dismisses, clearly deliberately minimising what he’s done.
Illumina places the frame down carefully on the table, then tugs Fruit into a hug, The next time he Runs, his picture remains in their shared house, framed and waiting for his safe return.