Chapter Text
Strings of laughter echo throughout the dark, empty space.
The louder the laughing becomes, the more distorted and inhumane it sounds. The faint ringing of bells accompany the laughter, and swirls of confetti appear out of thin air. Colorful, bright lights light up the area, and then a mask appears in the center of the spotlight. 1 becomes 2, and then 2 becomes into a series of masks and objects covering a silhouette of a man.
Elation takes his final bow, placing his right hand over his chest as he lets out one last chuckle.
“To you, my dear audience, I dedicate my performance!”
And with another series of blinding, colorful explosions of lights, Aha disappears. In place of the aeon appeared a blue-haired man, a perfectly crafted mask—Sampo Koski.
“The Landau family?” Sampo grumbles as he waves around the piece of paper he was holding, lazily scanning over the paper before tossing it onto the desk dismissively.
“These are so boring! Why do I have to read everything about some stupid family when I could just go down to Jarilo VI and learn about them then?!” The blue-haired man lets out a groan as he leans back on the chair, propping his legs up onto the desk.
Sitting on the desk was an intercom, where a voice let out a annoyed sigh.
“..because that is your purpose. In order to play your role correctly, you have to fit into the people without any trouble, which means also knowing the basic family names and their importance.”
Sampo lets out another groan as he spins around in his chair, flailing his hands in the air in annoyance.
“Blah, Blah, Blah, yeah, yeah, I know, I get it—I have to learn everything about this stupid planet to understand my role better. Anything new you need to tell me?”
“Well, we got news of what role you’ll be playing.”
Sampo sits up from his seat almost immediately, as he leans his face towards the communication device to hear better. His face brightened up like a child receiving candy as he scoot towards the desk, chuckling in anticipation.
“Well, now that’s something more fun than reading about some boring people! So, what role will you be giving to Ah- I mean, your pal Koski?”
The voice let out a groan of annoyance, before sounds of paper rustling is heard behind the static. The man clears his voice as more sounds of paper moving is heard, before he let out a cough.
“Sampo Koski. You will be assigned to an area located in Jarilo VI, Belobog. You will live in the Underground city, and there you will be a conman and thief, working against the law.”
“..That’s all?” The blue-haired man mumbles as he cocks his head to the side. What was he supposed to do with a role as vague as that?
The other voice let out a confused noise as more rustling of paper is heard from the other side of the intercom. After a couple moments of silence, the man sighs as he places the paper down on his desk.
“..Yup. That’s all. Not a lot of info, isn’t it?”
Sampo sat still as he stared at the speaker, before letting out a hearty chuckle. He shakes his head in disbelief as he leans back on his chair once more, propping his leg up on the desk and picking up the file he tossed away earlier.
“Well, that only gives me more room to be flexible then! Better for me!”
The blue-haired man snickers as he goes back to reading the paper. He falls silent as his eyes wander towards a certain blonde haired man, who piqued his curiosity.
“You know damn well that our role is supposed to be clear and rigid, not ambiguous! We are not supposed to be flexible at all!” The voice in the communication device lets out a groan, clearly annoyed by the current situation. Sampo, however, doesn’t seem to be listening to the other at all. His eyes move back and forth as he reads the file, before going back to the picture of the man.
“Gepard Landau..” Sampo mumbles as he sits back up straight, seemingly lost in thought as he continues to scan the paper.
“Ah, are you finally reading about the families now? Yeah, Gepard Landau is an interesting one. He’s the only son in the Landau family, as well as being the second child. He just got out of military training, so he’ll be joining the Silvermane guards soon, just like his father has. He’ll probably be the first person you’ll need to avoid since he works for the law, he—“
“..He’s cute.”
A long period of silence is heard between the two men. Sampo just continues to stare at the blurred photo of the blonde, but just by looking at him, Sampo, no, Aha believes that he will be a fun little plaything. The silence is cut off from the other man, who was clearly pissed off and annoyed.
“..I hope you freeze to death in that Stellaron infected planet.” And with a beep, the voice call ends.
“I—hey! Hello? What did you mean by a Stellaron?!” Sampo practically shouts at the communication device, laced with an obvious hint of confusion and worry.
“Elias, don’t leave me hanging like this?!? Elias?!?! Helloooo?????”
Gepard lets out a sigh as he crouches down on the floor, putting his hands on top of his head as he lets out a long groan. He had just joined the Silvermane Guards, but he was already overwhelmed by the duties he had to fulfill. It had been such a long day already, and Gepard just wanted to go back home and rest—he hasn’t slept much at all due to studying.
“..Bad first day?” A voice is heard behind Gepard, who jumps up and stands in an upright position, turning around to look at the person, who was chuckling.
“O-officer Bronya!” Gepard sputters as his face turns red from embarrassment, realizing that to others, it looked like he was slacking off.
Bronya lets out another laugh, before walking towards Gepard. “..you can just call me Bronya, yknow. We’ve known each other for years, there’s no need for formalities.”
“But—“
“No buts.” Bronya lets out a sigh as she sits down on the floor, signaling Gepard to sit next to her. Gepard does as he’s told, which makes the officer chuckle again.
“It’s tiring to be a Silvermane Guard, isn’t it?” Bronya mumbles as she looks over towards the blonde, who stared at her with a surprised expression. “..I get it, you know. When I joined the guards too, I really had no say over it because of my mother, but I knew it was a responsibility I was willing to fulfill. You think that too, don’t you, Gepard?” Bronya gives Gepard a warm smile. “You too are given too much responsibility by your parents, but you’re willing to sacrifice everything to fulfill their wish, am I right?”
“Of course.” Gepard mumbles as he stares at Bronya. He never knew she would be so understanding towards him.
“..but it’s not only just for your parents’ respect, you’re doing this because you care about Belobog. You care about their wellbeing and safety. I know you, Gepard. And I know you’re willing to do all of that for the people of Belobog.” Gepard grows wide eyed at Bronya’s response, astonished by how well she knew the blonde.
“I hit the jackpot, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, basically..”
Bronya couldn’t hold in her laugh as she looks over at Gepard. She gives him another smile, before standing back up and extending her hand out for the blonde to grab. Gepard takes the offered hand as she pulls him up.
“Feeling better?” Gepard nods as Bronya lets out another chuckle.
“..Well! As our newest Silvermane Recruit, I, Officer Bronya, have a quick and easy job for you, Gepard Landau!” She practically beams as she looks over at Gepard, who made a confused and slightly irritated expression.
“..you just came here to comfort me so you can hand me the job, didn’t you.” Gepard grumbles as he looks over at Bronya, who lets out a chuckle, shaking her head in disbelief.
“What? No, no! I was being genuine about trying to make you feel better, it was just the worst timing possible, that’s all.”
Gepard lets out a sigh, shaking his head slightly before cracking a small smile on his lips.
“Alright, so what’s my first mission as a Silvermane Guard? I, Gepard Landau, shall do everything in my power to protect the wellbeing and safety of Belobog.” His voice doesn’t waver as he stands upright, balling his hand into a fist and putting it over his chest as a sign of respect.
Bronya’s smile only grows wider as she hears the blonde’s words.
So, Elias wasn’t kidding.
Sampo grumbles as he looks around the bustling town, surrounded by people walking in and out in an ordered manner, he observed. It wasn’t a joke when it was mentioned that there was a stellaron here—it was freezing cold. It was surprising to Aha as to how these people were even alive despite the eternal freeze existing in this planet. If it weren’t for Sampo accompanying the body of an Aeon, he likely would’ve froze to death due to his..eccentric attire.
The conman has only been here for a couple of weeks, but he’s begun to settle down—strangely enough, running away from the law and working against it wasn’t so bad at all, Sampo thought. And without the script to completely control his actions, he has free will to do whatever he wants, and of course that means he gets to stir up trouble.
Sampo decides to let off his own thoughts and worries as he freely strolls around the overworld, which he wasn’t, since the underworld and overworld was cut off. Yet, here the blue-haired man was, walking around in Belobog as if the law didn’t care to him, which it didn’t.
As the blue-haired man continues walk about on the street, humming a little tune to himself, his peace was abruptly interrupted by a shout from behind him.
“Sampo Koski!”
Sampo whisks his head around towards the source of the voice, and in that moment he thought that time itself has stopped—standing in front of the conman was none other than Gepard Landau, the man that caught Aha’s eyes.
There were only two thoughts that were running in Sampo’s mind as Gepard walked over to him: 1) the blonde was definitely cute, probably even more cuter seeing him in person. And 2), said man was holding a pair of handcuffs. One part of Sampo was yelling at him to run now before the guard catches him, but the other compelled him to stay still, as if expecting for something to occur.
“Sampo Koski, you are hereby under arrest by the silvermane guards.” Gepard said with no emotion in his voice, mumbling in a nonchalant tone as he continued to walk over to Sampo, handcuffs in hand.
“You have the right to remain silent and anything you say and do can—“
“Wow, you really do look cute.”
The blue-haired man’s eyes grow wide as he realized the words slipped out of his mouth.
oops.
Gepard just stares at Sampo with a dumbfounded expression, mouth agape and frozen in shock.
“E-excuse me?”
Sampo just let out an irritated sigh as he ruffled his own hair, looking back over at the blonde and giving him a cocky grin. His tone switched to one of flirtatious, and in a slow, clear tone, he spoke again.
“..cute. I said you’re cute.”
“…”
Now, if it weren’t for the punch onto Sampo’s face that almost caused him to black out, the conman probably would’ve thought he was dreaming, because for a moment he thought his eyes were deceiving him—Gepard’s face was red. Gepard Landau, the indestructible shield of Belobog, was blushing. All from a small comment the blue-haired man made.
Sampo gave out a smirk, one that looked as if a cat had caught their prey.
ring.
The soft jingling of bells is heard. The ringing only grows louder, followed by a series of inhumane laughter.
The laughter echoes in the air and surrounds both men, which catches Gepard off guard. In that moment of distraction, Sampo reaches for a smoke bomb in the back of his pocket, dropping it onto the floor as he let it go off.
“What—?!” Gepard looks around in confusion as his hands reach for his mouth, trying to prevent himself from inhaling the fumes—but it was already too late. His vision was beginning to grow foggy, and the last thing he saw before he blacked out was the blue haired man, bowing down with a dazzling smirk on his face.
“Let’s put on a show for the audience, Gepard Landau. Till we meet again.” His smirk only grows as the blonde passes out, and in swift movements, the conman disappears. When the smoke clears out, the only man standing there was a passed out silvermane guard, as if the blue haired man never existed in the first place.
Sampo chuckles softly as he walks into a dark alley, before realizing that blood was dripping onto the floor. His hands reached towards his nose, and by close inspection, Sampo realized his nose was broken.
“..shit. That man sure can pack a punch.”