Chapter Text
Scarabia was holding the party that bittersweetly marked the end of the holiday break. So far, Yuu had counted about five reasons given by Kalim for it being thrown: it was the new year, Jamil had gotten better after his overblot, they had all become friends (Jamil immediately denied that), to thank the Octavinelle trio for their help, as an apology for holding them captive in their dorm…if she asked again, the prefect was sure that the housewarden would give her yet another reason for hosting it.
Instead, Yuu just enjoyed the celebratory atmosphere. She was still exhausted and a little on-edge from everything that had happened over the break, from their long marches to the oasis to tumbling into Octavinelle on the magic carpet, and hoped that this would be a wonderful way to unwind. Ace and Deuce showing up had been a rather delightful surprise, especially after all the not-so-great ones, and after Yuu thanked them by embarrassing them with a hug, the two of them had taken almost instantly to where the food had been set up with Grim, betting each other who could eat the most in the least time.
Kalim had whisked away Azul before long, wanting to repay him by giving the merman an impromptu dance lesson. When the Octavinelle housewarden desperately looked back at Yuu for help, she only grinned and gave him an encouraging thumbs-up. She was certain that she had seen him mouth the words I will get you back, but she just pretended that she had seen nothing and waved.
Besides, she was busy herself. Floyd had practically shoved her into one of the changing tents that the Scarabian students had set up the second he saw that she was free, telling her that she was swimming with him and Jade and not giving her an alternative.
Yuu hadn’t put up much of a fight—it was rather hot, and the water did seem extremely nice to take a dip into. Thankfully, she had come prepared with a swimsuit, a one-piece that had sleeves up to her wrists and covered up until her mid-thighs. It was nothing revealing by any means, and Yuu liked it that way. She threw on an oversized t-shirt while she was on land for good measure, not wanting the fact that she was a girl in Night Raven College to become common knowledge thanks to something as stupid as a swimsuit. Underwater, she assumed it would be fine, since Floyd had already squeezed her more times than she could count and had yet to comment on him finding anything about her strange.
So after tying her hair back in a low bun and taking off her glasses, Yuu dived into the oasis with the Leech brothers. They were surprisingly fun to swim with when they weren’t actively trying to murder her. Floyd liked to splash her in spontaneous play-fights to make her squeal with laughter, and Jade held rather amusing conversations with her under the surface as she tried to see how long she could hold her breath. While in-between seeing how well she could keep up with them as they dived or cut through the water in a way that looked effortless, Yuu had caught both of them almost trying to lazily drag her back under into the depths with the tails they had wrapped around her while she surfaced. So maybe they weren't done trying to kill her just yet.
After playing in the water for quite a long time, Yuu found her energy getting low. There was still some food that Grim and her freshmen friends hadn’t eaten yet—or at least she thought there was, since she wasn’t able to see clearly without her glasses—and after helping Jamil grill it, Yuu wanted to try some before it was gone.
While she exited the oasis after telling the Leech brothers her plan, deciding that a drink of water and some relaxing would be nice, she looked back when Floyd called after her. “Come baaack, Shrimpy,” he whined, somehow dragging himself onto the oasis shore that was barely covered with water to go after her as the level just reached her mid calves. “You’re too fun to let go!”
In his mer form, he looked a little like a beached whale, Yuu thought with a snort as he grabbed her still-submerged ankle loosely. “You’re fun, too. But Floyd, give me a breather,” she added, seeing how his eyes glimmered. That meant he was considering just dragging her back in kicking and screaming. “I’m not used to swimming as much as you are.” The eel pouted, wrapping his arms around her leg tighter.
Jade had swam over to see what was the cause of the commotion his brother was causing. “Floyd, let him go. He’ll be back soon enough,” he reasoned. “Won’t you, prefect?” Even though the smile he flashed her was slightly blurry, Yuu could clearly tell that it meant she really had no other option. She sighed, rolling her eyes at the way these two were.
“Who’s saying I’m not staying on land after I get out?” she teased.
“Us,” both twins said in unison. Yuu blinked at the speed of their reply. Then she snickered at them.
"Fine. I'll come back in a bit," she promised, crouching down to pat Floyd's arm reassuringly. "Let me eat and have a break first though, okay?" Floyd grumbled, but he did release her when she tousled his hair.
Azul and Kalim were still dancing, and while she dried off and slipped her shirt and glasses back on, Yuu decided that she didn't want to interrupt that after seeing how delighted Kalim was. Grim, Deuce, and Ace were sunbathing after going into a food coma, and she gave them a wave as she passed by that only Deuce made a half-hearted attempt at returning. Grim was even wearing sunglasses while he laid sprawled in the sand, which she couldn't help but giggle at when she saw how oversized they were. It was adorable.
Going over to the tables that held a wide variety of dishes, Yuu took a plate and loaded it up with all different sorts of food. As long as there was stuff there, she was going to eat her fill of the free meal. Kalim had said that in a way this was their apology for keeping her and Grim locked up, so after seeing her companion gorge himself, she didn't feel as bad as she would have in other situations.
Yuu was heading back to sit with her freshmen friends before she stopped. There was Jamil, some distance away near one of the palm trees, sitting alone in the shade. While he had tried to insist on staying at the grill to keep churning out food as the Scarabian students consumed it, Kalim and the rest of them had all insisted that he take a break instead, since he was still recovering. The only reason he had agreed was because before leaving, he had instructed a couple of students on exactly what to do, and made them promise to come get him if anything went wrong. Jamil didn’t realize that after he left, the prefect had tipped them off to go to her instead to better let him rest, but what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.
He looked significantly better from when he first awoke after his overblot. Jamil’s eyes were clear and undulled, and there was a healthy flush to his skin to replace the grayed tone it had been that night he lost control. If she wasn't aware of what went down, she wouldn't have even known that he had gone through the things he did just by looking at him. Yuu was glad that he was recovering so well and so quickly.
There was something else however, Yuu realized. Jamil didn't look fully comfortable, chest heaving in a sigh as he watched the party go on. He was watching something with an intense look, and when she followed it, she realized that the target was Kalim. Jamil’s gaze was one that the prefect could tell wasn't sure if it should be resentful or alert for any sign of danger. Things were going to change after the break, that was for sure, but even Jamil had yet to figure out what that fully meant.
Before she could decide against it, the prefect was grabbing two bottles of water and an extra portion of the foods she got. Once she had balanced everything in her two hands, she made her way over, ignoring the looks more than a few Scarabian students gave her when they realized she was making a beeline towards their vice-housewarden.
Jamil didn't notice her until she was next to him, only moving his eyes over as she extended one of the bottles towards him. "You looked a little hot," Yuu told him. As he looked from the water to her, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the amount of skepticism he held in his eyes.
"So you care about me now, hm?" Jamil asked, making no move to grab it. "Not while you're single-handedly ruining all of my plans?"
Yuu shrugged. "I'd say sorry, but you were kind of terrible. The scheme was good though, so points for trying." The vice-housewarden rolled his eyes.
“Your praise utterly elates me,” he said flatly. Yuu grinned. There really was none of his act remaining from when he had been fooling them all. It was better this way, she thought. Snarky Jamil was pretty interesting.
She winked at him, earning a deep sigh in return. “Just trying to make my friend turn that frown upside down,” Yuu replied with overly-exaggerated enthusiasm.
“I have no intention of being friends with you,” he cut back rather quickly. “I never did in the first place, and especially not now.”
Yuu sighed. If the thick skin she had developed over her semester at Night Raven College was thinner by even a fraction of an inch, that would have left quite a good wound to start festering. “Alright, we’re not friends. Happy now?” she agreed. “Your grumpiness only proves that bringing over water was a good idea.”
That earned another look from Jamil. “Go bother Kalim instead,” was all he answered. “He has an endless surplus of energy that he could use to deal with you so I don’t have to.”
“I don’t want to hang out with Kalim,” Yuu told him. She found some strange sort of pride bubble up inside her when Jamil blinked, taken aback by her words. “He’s great, sure, but he’s the kind of guy that I can only take in short doses. There are reasons why I came over to you instead of breaking up his dancing masterclass with Azul.”
Jamil eyed her with even more suspicion after she finished. “Great Seven forbid what they may be.”
“It’s mainly because apparently I do better with people like the rest of you, for better or worse,” she answered. “I didn’t want to be friends with most of the people I’ve met, but look at me now.” She waved the hand holding Jamil’s bottle, gesturing to each of the people that had somehow gotten a place in her heart before holding it out to him again. “You’re all villains to the very core, but I guess there’s something that’s the same inside me for the black carriage to pick me up and bring me here. Even if I have no idea how or why that happened.”
Her memories leading up to when she came to Night Raven College were as hazy as an uncleaned mirror. There were things that she could remember, like that she loved bubble tea, or that she definitely had friends and a life away from Twisted Wonderland. After she moved past those, however, the details of how, when, why, where, and who—or what—she was brought to this world by were muddy. But that wasn’t the topic of this conversation. Yuu would have a crisis over that another day.
“That moving speech you gave me only made this seem like your attempt at friendship all the more, despite me clearly saying I don’t want it,” Jamil stated, unamused as he eyed the water once again. The prefect exhaled through her nose.
“You can take me giving you this in whatever way you want.” Yuu waved the presperating bottle closer to him, her fingers chilled from its coldness. "Just please take it, though. My arm's getting tired."
Jamil sighed, but reached out, grabbing the water from her. Yuu joined him on the sand, setting the plate down in between them. "Did I say you could sit with me?" he questioned, a hostile undertone in his voice.
"Drink your water. I'll only stay as long as there's some left for you to finish." Jamil scoffed, unscrewing the lid of his drink and bringing it to his lips. Yuu was a little surprised he didn't start chugging it just to make her leave. "If you want any of the food, don’t be shy to grab some. You should be able to taste what you made, after all.”
“You took over half of the preparations before anyone called you out on it,” Jamil replied. “You can hardly call it a meal I made any more than one you did.”
Yuu couldn’t tell if he was annoyed or not because of that. Either way, she grinned as she swiped a meat-and-veggie skewer. “Just means my plan succeeded,” she chimed. “There was less work for you to do.” The sophomore rolled his eyes.
“I wouldn’t call that a ‘plan’ by any means.” Jamil paused, his gaze darting down to the plate in between the two students for more than a few seconds. Yuu was quiet as she watched him subtly, seeing how he thought over whether it was worth it or not.
As he finally made up his mind, hesitantly taking a slice of mango from the platter of food, Yuu took a sip from her drink to hide how her smile changed. At least he didn’t completely hate her, if that and the one-fourth part of water he drank were anything.
“While I’m not sorry we stopped you, I am sorry for hurting you," she said as they ate, looking at him. "How are you doing?"
Jamil spared a glance at Yuu, and their eyes met. "As well as I could be, I suppose. I don’t think that there’s a person in all of Twisted Wonderland who would be completely fine after what all happened."
“So you’re not…” Yuu trailed off, trying to think of the right words to use. It was hard to find the right way to phrase it, especially when hardly anyone at this school ever seemed to open up about things.
“Angry at you all?” Jamil finished. “No, I’m livid.”
“Not what I was saying, but that’s understandable.” Yuu knew he had good reason to resent her for many more days to come. “I was going to ask if you were getting any pains, or something like ink showing up anywhere. Specifically here, or your left eye.” She brought a hand up to her head, touching where she estimated the intricate design of blot had appeared on Jamil’s skin.
He had a subtle look on his face that told Yuu he had more than a few questions about the one she asked. “I haven’t.” The prefect nodded to herself—that was good. “Why those places?”
“The blot takes a visual form on people in some places, like a pattern or symbol. It was on those places with you,” she told him. “Describing it is a little tough.”
“And my eye?” he inquired. She brushed back a strand of hair that was sticking to her forehead.
“Explaining that is harder,” Yuu admitted. “Every time I’ve seen someone overblot, one of their eyes has this strange fire to it. I’m not really sure what it is.” After seeing it four times now, she still was hesitant to put a name to what she could call it. “Let me know if anything does start to happen."
Jamil hummed, sipping his water again. “We’ll see.” He looked away as he finished talking. Yuu slid the last pieces of food off of the skewer to eat, relishing how good they were as they fell into comfortable silence.
The sophomore next to her shifted, letting his foot slide a little further down the small incline they sat on. Yuu watched how the grains of sand got disrupted, scattering into different places. “Kalim informed me about your…flight through Scarabia," Jamil muttered. His voice was more reluctant to come out when he spoke that time. It told of what he left unsaid.
"Ah." Yuu swallowed her food. "We were all fine. Nobody got hurt any more than a few scrapes and bruises thanks to Azul and the twins. I got to learn more about how the dorms work too, so that was a bonus."
Jamil said nothing, taking in her words quietly as he watched the oasis glitter like diamonds with the sunlight reflecting on its surface. Yuu paused, looking at him carefully. She knew that quiet well. Each of the other overblotters had had that same silence whenever they asked what happened. It seemed that the trend didn’t have any sign of stopping with its most recent victim.
“Don’t worry about it,” she added softly. “Everyone was okay in the end.” Jamil was still fairly uncertain to her. She didn’t know the best way to reassure him. Yuu instantly wished that she did when she saw the glint of unease spark in his charcoal eyes.
“You don’t—” Jamil sighed, tugging his hood further over his head. “You don’t need to tell me what you think I’d like to hear.” Don’t lie to me. I want to know how bad it was.
“It’s the truth,” Yuu promised him with a gentle voice. She never lied to anyone who overblotted about what happened. “I think the worst injury any of us got from it was me and my skinned arms. Those are healed now, so that says something.” The places where the skidding of sand on skin had been the worst were still a little tender, but Yuu said nothing that wasn’t the truth.
Jamil took another swig from his water, and Yuu decided to do the same, thinking that it was still a little warm in the shade. Although she had stayed in Scarabia for quite some time now, she still wasn’t used to how hot it was. Silently, she admired Jamil for how he was able to withstand it even while wearing the all-dark clothes he wore.
“You were pretty cool, you know,” she mused suddenly. Because she was watching a drop of water roll down the edge of her bottle, she missed the quirk of an eyebrow Jamil gave her. “Over the break, I mean. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who can cook as well as you.” Yuu picked up the triangular slice of watermelon on her plate. “Those plans of yours took a lot of brainpower and smarts, too. I’m pretty sure if I ever tried doing something like that, it would just blow up in my face.”
“That’s exactly what happened to me,” Jamil pointed out bitterly, taking another piece of food. “All thanks to you, prefect.”
He accented her title. It was meant to be venomous, and both of them knew that. But strangely enough, it hardly sounded like it. Jamil decided he would blame it on how he had started to open his mouth wider to take a bite of the food, unable to spit out the word as well as he could have if he hadn't.
It was a nonsense excuse and he knew it.
“Okay, but that’s only because I got lucky and crashed into Octavinelle.” Yuu gave him a genuine smile when she looked at him, tilting her head to rest on her bent knee. “For a guy who says he’s nothing special, you’re really talented.”
Jamil met her eyes, giving her an unamused look. He could only keep her gaze for a few seconds before he coughed, covering his mouth as he looked away. She watched him amusedly, that smile unwavering. “If this is your way of trying to win me over, it isn’t working,” he informed her bluntly. Yuu closed her eyes as she let out a defeated hah.
“Aw. Sucks for me, I guess, but it was worth trying.”
Through the corner of her eye, she saw Jamil set down his water next to him. There was hardly any left, but there was still enough to merit one more sip. It had been like that for a little while now, she realized. But he hadn’t ever swallowed more than a tiny bit of it in the recent times he drank.
“Why would you even want me as a friend?” he asked, clearing his throat.
The prefect shrugged. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t be.”
Jamil answered her readily. “I don’t want to be friends with you,” he said. “You’re annoying, Grim is too much of a hassle to deal with, you ruined the chance I had at being free, I don’t have time to waste on you, nor would I want to spend it with you if I did, amongst many others. Should I continue?”
Yuu couldn’t hold back the laugh that got out of her. “Ouch. You could really hurt someone with all that venom there, Jamil.”
He gave her an icy look. “It’s suspicious that you’re trying so hard. You’re reminding me of Azul, and that is not a good thing.”
“I take that as a compliment. You two looked pretty close on the march here,” Yuu replied, teasing weaved into her voice. Jamil gave her a glare. “I know, I know, ‘you two aren’t friends,’” she added, seeing how he opened his mouth to say just that.
Jamil nodded, smaller than it would have been if he wasn’t unsure if the prefect would refute him or not. The two of them looked over to where Azul was trying to get away from Kalim for the nth time. “That’s something that won’t change. Ever.”
“You just broke all three of his hearts with those six words.” He scoffed.
“Good. I don’t care.” Yuu wondered if maybe, just maybe, that wasn’t the case when she saw how his fingers tapped on the sand. “The less I have to deal with him, the better. Now if only I could get you to leave me alone, as well.”
Yuu hummed as she shifted, bringing her chin to rest on top of her knee. “The break is ending after this weekend, so you'll get your wish then,” she mused. “It’ll be weird to start going to classes again.” She was just glad that she finished the homework. Professor Crewel would not be happy at her if she hadn’t, regardless of how in danger her life had been.
“You had better not keep pestering me after school resumes.” Yuu snickered, looking over at the sophomore.
“What if I do?” she asked jokingly. Jamil smirked, something evil and twisted and all the right things to make his eyes dance with malice.
“Then the next plans I make will be for your demise,” he promised. Yuu just grinned, returning the spark of mischief she thought she had seen.
“I look forward to seeing what they’ll be, then.” As Jamil rolled his eyes, the prefect held her water up in a toast. “To Jamil Viper, the schemer of the scalding sands, and all the ways he’s not-so-terrible.”
He continued to give her a dull look. When he realized that she wouldn’t stop until he indulged her, a frown appeared on his face. “You’re absolutely detestable.”
“Some say that I’m quite the villain,” Yuu agreed lightheartedly. Jamil rolled his eyes again.
Even though he looked heavily annoyed, he did still bring the near-empty bottle up to his mouth and drink the rest when she did. “I finished my water. Now leave.” The prefect grinned triumphantly, and his expression only soured. He looked better than when she had first come over. Yet another one of her plans worked.
“Alright.” Yuu took the empty container from him, putting them on the plate totally cleared of food as she stood. “I’ll see you around, Jamil. Happy new year.” While she walked away, she smiled at him one more time. The sophomore did nothing but let out a breath in return.
But once the prefect turned around, he slid his hood further over his head, hiding the way that he had been warmed by her words.