Chapter Text
Wolfram throws the goblet of wine in Yuuri’s face and Yuuri catches it like a baseball. The Maou looks down at the liquid sphere in the palm of his hand, mildly impressed with himself. Then he lobs it gently underhand onto an empty plate on the banquet table. It dissolves back into a puddle once it leaves him, sloshing over the sides and soaking into the pale linen table cloth.
“Oops,” Yuuri says sheepishly.
Wolfram, very white in the face, turns on his heels and stalks out of the hall.
“Your Majesty,” Gunter blubbers, ruining his nice face and impressive figure by turning into a simpering mess whenever he gets within ten yards of Yuuri. “Do you know what you have done?”
“Kinda,” Yuuri admits. “That’s breaking an engagement, isn’t it?”
“It would have been, if you let it hit you.” Conrad explains helpfully, handing Yuuri a napkin to dry his hands and tucking it away again afterward.
“It’s a new tradition! A response personally tailored by the 27th Maou, oh where is my diary, I must record this for posterity…” Gunter searches the background fretfully.
“I weaseled out of a break up, huh.” Yuuri muses. “Seems a little unfair to Wolf.”
“You could give him another glass and hold still this time,” Conrad reminds him.
“Nah.” Yuuri grins. “But I better go check on him anyway.”
~~
Yuuri finds Wolfram in the Maou’s quarters even though Wolfram has his own perfectly good rooms per usual. He hasn’t changed into the frilly nightmare fuel of a dressing gown at least and just sits at the vanity in the corner in his dress blues, looking intently into the mirror. It would be an understandable thing to do in any circumstances, what with Wolfram being so unfairly good looking and all, but that’s not why he’s doing it. Ever since Shinou spirited the boxes away, Wolfram’s been like this.
“You’re missing your party,” Yuuri says gently and Wolfram glances up, annoyed.
“It isn’t my party.”
“What do you mean? What is it, then?”
“My wake.”
Yuuri falters. “C’mon, isn’t that a little too dark…?”
Wolfram ignores him. Fair, it was a stupid thing to say.
“Sorry.” Yuuri sits on the edge of the bed. Wolfram shrugs. Good enough.
“Why’d you throw your drink at me?” Yuuri asks.
“Why did you avoid it?”
“I’m a catcher, I catch things,” Yuuri says evasively.
“And now?” Wolfram swings around, grabbing the pitcher from beside the bed and hurling the contents at Yuuri in the blink of an eye. Yuuri makes a gesture and the water stops midair, suspended like a crystal pane between them. It wouldn’t have counted if it did go through and splash him - it isn’t wine and it isn’t the ballroom with six or more witnesses of noble blood, as per tradition. That’s not the point. Wolfram drops the pitcher on the floor.
“Go for it,” Yuuri says with a crooked grin. “I need to work on my fastballs anyway.”
It’s almost nice to see the fury rising red in Wolfram’s face, a sure sign of his temper. It’s cute, even, to see him losing it when there’s no risk of getting barbecued along the way. Three magic boxes were made for three brothers who paid the price to open them: eye, arm, heart. Yuuri’s Maou magic had done what it could, but magic has limits. Gwendal still wears glasses when he’s reading small print. Conrad switches his sword arm right to left. Wolfram had watched the last of his magic leave when the boxes went away - right along with most of his lifespan. His heart had been wholly Mazoku, and now he is human.
And leaving.
“You don’t have to do this,” Yuuri says for the umpteenth time, leaning down to pick up the pitcher and put it back on the nightstand. With a flick of his eyes from one corner to another, the water politely settles back into the vessel.
“Afraid I can’t handle your primitive human world?” Wolfram asks, green eyes mocking.
“No,” Yuuri says honestly. “I’m worried you’ll hate it and you’ll miss it here and you’ll feel stuck like you can’t ever come back.”
It hadn’t been that surprising when Greta had devoured the manga his mother sent through the portal and fallen in love with the idea of Yuuri’s world. She wants to ride a train and eat mochi and go to Disneyland. Yuuri wants her to do those things too - to have the kind of normal, every day life that makes kids happy the way he was happy, but he’s sixteen now. If he’s going to be Maou, he has to mean it. He can’t take off and have adventures all the time anymore, at least not till things are stable. Someone had to go with her.
And Wolfram had volunteered.
“It’s only three years,” Yuuri says with forced cheer. “She’ll be busy with middle school and I’ll be learning the ins and outs under Gwendal… and you were right I guess, someone needs to help Greta prepare for her… uh… debit…”
“Debut,” Wolfram corrects, voice dripping with condescension. “She’s the Shin Makoku princess, even if she is your human ward. Her debut into society will be the talk of the season.”
“Like yours was probably, huh? I guess I don’t get it.”
“No, you don’t.” Wolfram stands up.
“Are we going back to the banquet?” Yuuri asks hopefully. “I’m still kinda hungry.”
“Sure,” Wolfram sighs.
~~
Yuuri has a stack of textbooks eight feet tall about time differentials and the quadratic equations needed to calculate exact equilibrium of two points in space but he doesn’t actually get it until Wolfram and Greta come back for spring break.
“Has it really been a year?” Yuuri asks Murata. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
“Ten months,” Murata says, giving him that awful sideways look that means I know something you don’t know.
Greta comes through the portal first in her spring uniform. Yuuri draws the water out of her sailor suit and lets it fall back neatly into the temple pool before wrapping her in a hug.
“You’re all grown up!” Yuuri says, and she does seem older in the uniform with her curls pinned back from her face with bowed barrettes.
“You’re the same old Yuuri!” Greta beams.
“Ugh,” someone says behind them. “You couldn’t wait till after the entrance ceremony ended? Now everyone is going to think I fell in the fountain like a miscreant.”
“Hey, I fall in the fountain all the time,” Yuuri complains, turning around.
“I know,” Wolfram smiles faintly, pushing his wet hair out of his face.
“Uh,” Yuuri says stupidly.
“Well?” Wolfram raises an eyebrow and holds out his arms. Does he want… a hug? Yuuri hesitates and then Wolfram turns away, holding out his arms and legs to be dried. Yuuri uses his magic and a flick of his wrist to send the water back down into the sacred pool which he absolutely always meant to do from the start. Wolfram straightens out his clothes and hair.
“That’s a school uniform, isn’t it?” Yuuri asks like he doesn’t know.
Wolfram taps the emblem on the front of his blazer. Murata leans in to see it better and then whistles. “Whoa, you go there? That school’s stupidly hard to get into.”
“I had a little assistance,” Wolfram admits modestly, emphasizing the little.
“Did you get taller?” Yuuri asks abruptly.
Wolfram brings a hand up to the top of his head like a salute, then passes it straight over Yuuri’s head - and smirks.
“Bob pulled some strings, huh?” Murata asks, walking circles around Wolfram and admiring the uniform: dark blue blazer and pants, white shirt, matching tie. So like Wolfram’s Mazoku troop uniform and yet so… wrong, somehow.
“Shouri, actually.”
“That’s surprising, I thought he hated you for stealing his baby brother away,” Murata laughs. “But I guess if he’s looking for an assistant it helps you to have the right background.”
Wolfram’s expression goes sharp and a little too-knowing.
“You’re not staying,” Yuuri says and then everyone is looking at him. Had he shouted? He hadn’t meant to. “You’d have to stay on Earth if you were going to work for my brother. You’re not staying for that, right? You’re not. You’re not.”
“Right,” Wolfram says, at a loss. “I’m not.”
“Right.” Yuuri nods, grabbing Greta’s hand. “Let’s go back home, then.”
~~
Greta quickly reclaims her spot as castle pet, crunching down on strange-yet-familiar Shin Makoku cuisine and regaling everyone with tales about sports day and culture festival. Gunther mocks Wolfram’s tie for its inelegance compared to Yuuri’s gakuran so Wolfram takes it off, rolling it up and putting it in his jacket pocket. He looks a little more like himself without it, and from across the long dining table, Yuuri can hardly see the school emblem or notice the height difference… so long as he doesn’t look too closely.
“You’re quiet,” Conrad notes. “Did the summoning take too much of your energy?”
“Maybe,” Yuuri sort of lies. It’s not the magic-drain that leaves him bedbound for days anymore. It’s a different kind of tired, one he can’t explain. He ought to be feeling nostalgic and weepy over Greta but the feeling is more like seeing a younger cousin you’re fond of doing well. He wants to buy her presents and help her with her homework and see her again next summer sometime. It occurs to Yuuri that a seventeen year old probably isn’t much of a dad.
“What do you even do over there? How do you fritter away your time?” Gwendal asks disapprovingly, which is really audacious coming from a man who spends around twenty hours a week knitting ugly plush dolls.
“I don’t have an excessive amount of free time,” Wolfram says honestly. “There’s a lot of exams and more than one kind of human language there. Even I have to study sometimes.”
“More than one?” Gunther asks, astonished. “How fascinating. Two or three?”
“A dozen, maybe,” Wolfram answers loftily. “Only an elite like myself could dream of trying to master so many.”
“Try thousands,” Conrad corrects, smiling. “Too many to learn even if you stayed a hundred years.”
Yuuri frowns at that.
“Did you make any friends?” Cheri, overcome by emotion, throws her arms around her youngest son and pulls him over into her seat. Yuuri notices uncomfortably that since Wolfram’s grown, he’s barely able to fit on the corner. “How many have confessed their love? I bet you’re driving the whole school mad!”
“They call him the Wolf Prince!” Greta pipes in, enjoying the chaos.
“And how would you know that, young lady?” Wolfram asks, annoyed.
“Maiko’s big brother goes to your school. She says that he says all the girls are in love with you and you got the most Valentine’s Day Chocolate in the history of ever,” Greta explains with the same lofty tone Wolfram used earlier.
“Stirring up jealousy! Oh I hope no one challenges you to a duel,” Cheri says. The again is implied. “What about your little friend, Maiko?”
“Maiko doesn’t like Wolfram,” Greta says, clearly grossed out. “She likes Takuya in class B.”
“Of course,” Conrad murmurs, hiding a smile.
“Maiko’s brother does, though.” In the brief amused silence after that, she slurps her soup.
“No slurping,” Wolfram reminds her, rapping his knuckles gently on the table in front of her to get her attention.
“But I always slurp my ramen, Grandmama told me that’s how to do it.” Greta pouts and Wolfram calmly hands her a napkin.
“Yes, but that is Japan and this is Shin Makoku. Manners are like a language. Speak Japanese in Japan, Spanish in Mexico, and Makokuen in Makoku. A princess does not slurp her soup here. It’s about respect.”
“Okay,” Greta says sensibly, then drinks the rest of her soup much more quietly.
“My little Wolf,” Cheri says, eyes warm. “That place has been good for you.”
Yuuri stands abruptly, pushing his chair back from the table. He isn’t thinking; the rest of the party stand too. They have to. He’s the Maou.
“It’s okay,” he says, stumbling toward the door. “I’m just tired, so - keep eating, or finish up, or… you know. Goodnight!”
He spends a long time in his private baths, soaking in the hot, pleasantly scented water till his head clears. When he goes into the bedroom, Wolfram is sitting at the vanity, looking at himself again. He’s still in his uniform and it’s like last time, except… it’s different, isn’t it? His face is a little different in the mirror. His expression definitely is.
“We should go to sleep,” Yuuri says, laying down to keep from looking at him.
“Do you want me to sleep here?” Wolfram asks, subdued. Is it a real question or an invitation to fight if Yuuri says no? He’s too tired.
“Does it matter? It’s weirder if you don’t. You’re only here a couple days anyway.” Yuuri hopes the pillow muffles how bitterly that came out.
~~
Murata and Ulrike have been working on something, passing it back and forth the last few trips anyone has needed to take between Yuuri’s old world and this one. It’s not exactly a mail service, the messages are short and piecemeal code like old world telegraphs - but it’s enough for basic travel coordination. The next time that Greta and Wolfram come back, it’s with advanced notice. Each of them carries a small rolling suitcase wrapped in black plastic trashbags. Greta is cute and happy, fresh from a school break trip to Tokyo Disney. She models her mouse ears for the assembly and everyone claps.
Wolfram is still the shortest of the three brothers, but that’s not saying much, Gwenal and Conrad are huge. Yuuri would have to look up into his face now and so he just sort of smiles vaguely in the right direction instead. So what if he got taller. Yuuri’ll get taller too, one of these days. Shouri and his Dad were tall. It would just be kind of unfair if he was always this small. They had notice so they’re not wearing their school uniforms today. Wolfram’s casual clothes are cool. The colors are bright and the patterns a little girly - pink rose riot print dress shirt, camel colored chinos, white sneakers with a rose motif on the sole, definitely his mother’s doing. Yuuri tugs idly at the high collar of his own set of royal clothes. Based on his first year high school uniform, it suddenly feels childish.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Wolfram says.
“What?” Yuuri asks, distracted. “How do you even know that saying?”
“English idioms are on the third year exams,” Wolfram says. “Also I was trying to be cute.”
“You’re too tall to be cute,” Yuuri mutters. There’s a small pause. Maybe that had been rude. Yuuri sticks out his hand, palm up. “Penny first,” he says, being cute right back to compensate.
Surprisingly, Wolfram deposits something in his hand. It’s small and round but too large to be money. Yuuri looks at it carefully.
“Wait a sec, what is this?” Yuuri steps out of the temple and into the light to see better. “Is this Eiji Sawamura?!”
“It’s only a menko, and a sixties reprint,” Wolfram warns. “It’s not worth much, not like American ones.”
Yuuri holds the small round baseball card up to see it better and then turns around with a grin. “They’re more rare, though. I only have a couple from my dad. This is amazing, you really found this for me?”
“Your mom said you’re supposed to bring souvenirs when you come home from a trip,” Wolfram explains. “And she said you’d been to Disney before.”
“I still want a cookie,” Yuuri admits. “But this is way better.”
“You can have a cookie too,” Wolfram says. “Since you’re paying attention to me for once.”
~~
Yuuri tags along when Wolfram goes to dump the rest of his bag out in Anissina’s lab in a cacophony of banging metal and scraping cogs. He finishes his cookie and wipes the crumbs off absently against his pant leg.
“What even is all this?” Yuuri wonders. “It looks like you just cleaned out a junk shelf at the second hand store.”
Wolfram looks aside, pretending that is not exactly what he did.
“A busted fitbit… wireless headphones… a toaster?”
“Why would you encourage her madness?” Gwendal sighs, face going pale at the prospect of whatever the witch would devise for her experiments now.
“Because this kind of thing helps when you don’t have demon powers or magic stones,” Wolfram says shortly. “It’s stupid to ignore what could be a strategic advantage later on.”
“For you? For the Captain?” Yozak asks where he’s still strapped into Anissina’s latest invention, Make-Me-Beautiful-kun. The powder puff smacks into his face at regular intervals, sending a cloud of white misting the air with each violent thump. Yuuri can see why Yozak let himself be caught for this one, but it is not at all his color.
“For humans?” Anissina asks, voice a little sly. She’s prised open the cover of a solar-battery charger meant for camping and is touching each component with the side of her littlest fingernail. “I could, you know. Magic lines and electrical lines are fairly similar when a genius like me is able to draw parallels. It’s a near perfect substitute. Humans could use this power as well a Mazoku. You’re fine with that?”
“Yes,” Wolfram says, daring them to say anything else.
~~
Yuuri sits on the floor and watches Greta unpack her suitcase. It’s full of little things - picture frames, origami, keychains. She arranges them with excruciating exactness all around the room, and when she is able to set a small stuffed Duffy Bear on the very tiptop of her bookshelf without Yuuri’s help, he feels a small pang.
“What’s this?” Yuuri asks, spying a small stack of magazines left in the case.
“I don’t know where to put them,” Greta explains. “Because I’m not supposed to show you, so they have to stay hidden.”
Yuuri’s eyebrows shoot for the roof. “I’m your father, you should absolutely show them to me. They’re not from Shouri are they?” She shakes her head. “Did someone say not to show me? I’m the Maou, I’m using my veto.”
“Ok~ay,” Greta sings, sitting down beside him and grabbing the magazines. “I guess if I have to nobody can get mad at me.”
Yuuri has the distinct feeling that he’s been played.
It doesn’t seem terribly scandalous. Most of the magazines are local publications, some for larger brands he recognizes. They’re fashionable clothes, the kind Yuuri doesn’t care about yet because they don’t hang right on his skinny shoulders yet. Greta doesn’t say anything and it takes Yuuri a moment to realize what he’s looking at.
“Why is Wolf in here?” Yuuri asks. It’s a stupid question, he has eyes. “He’s not in all of these?”
“I like this one best,” Greta says, opening another: Wolfram sprawled on a couch in three sweaters layered artfully. He’s wearing eyeliner, a pretty girl in a ballerina skirt and platform heels on the floor at his side. “And this one, too.”
Yuuri closes it.
“Greta. What is this? Since when, why?”
“I dunno. He said no a lot at first but Grandmama said he should, so he did. His agent’s really nice.” Greta carefully sets the magazines onto her book shelf. “Here, I have two of these,” she says, holding out a small postcard sized print.
“I don’t…. I wouldn’t…” he tries.
“It’s okay, I’ll keep it safe for you,” Greta says placidly, putting it back on the shelf. “It’s here when you want it.”
In a daze, Yuuri steps out of the room and leans against the door. From here he can hear voices coming in through the half open window from the training grounds.
“You were surprisingly modest,” Conrad is saying. “I thought you would have more to say before the match.”
“I still lost, Weller,” Wolfram says sourly.
“But you lost differently. Some of those moves were-”
“Clumsy?”
“Clever. Can’t I compliment you once as a coming home present?” Conrad asks, only a little teasing.
“Never.” Then, a moment later. “I wasn’t confident.”
“Is that so?”
“Don’t sound surprised, it’s insulting. I’m busy, and anyway, the swordplay they have there is different. Fencing and kendo - I didn’t know if it would be of any use.” Wolfram’s voice has a single shining note of uncertainty.
“That’s improvement in itself. You just need a little more practice.” Conrad’s tone soothes.
“Right. Just a few hundred years or so,” Wolfram responds drily.
~~
“Why’s this laid out?” Wolfram asks, surprised. He’d followed Yuuri back to the room when he’d announced it was time for bed without comment, but the pink bit of sheer fabric draped across the comforter clearly catches him off guard. He touches the corner of it like he’s never even seen it before. That’s so stupid. It hasn’t even been two full years since he wore it last. He used to wear all the time.
“It’s yours, isn’t it?” Yuuri asks gruffly, changing for bed while facing the wall. After a pause, Wolfram does the same facing the opposite way. They lie down in the bed side by side not touching. He’ll wake up with an elbow in his gut or a foot in his face, probably, but this is fine.
“Have you had anyone stay the night over there?” Yuuri wonders aloud.
“I’m not a cheater,” Wolfram hisses.
“Not like that, like - like friends in the same room. Like soldiers in the barracks or something.” Yuuri says, curling into a ball to avoid a pillow assault. Mollified, Wolfram thinks it over.
“I would not invite overnight guests into my host’s home. That would be rude in any world. But… we went to Hokkaido for the school ski trip last winter. We shared four to a room.”
“How was it?” Yuuri asks enviously. “I’ve never been.”
“It was cold,” Wolfram allows. “But I’m not sick on planes the way I am on the sea. It was tolerable despite the company.”
“That bad?” Yuuri snickers.
“Two of them snored.” Wolfram sounds disgusted. “The third was caught sneaking into the girl’s room. Your world is full of degeneracy.”
“Did you like it?” Yuuri asks. “Did you have fun?”
“It was good exercise. I liked the hot sweet drink with white… mallows.”
“Hot cocoa and marshmallows,” Yuuri says. “You don’t remember the names?”
The fabric next to him shifts as Wolfram shrugs. “There’s a lot to remember. I can’t be beholden to every little detail.”
“But you still remember here, right?” Yuuri’s arms are at his sides but his hands curl into fists. “You didn’t forget anything here? You still remember all the holidays and names of things you like and things you hate, and all the people that you worked with?”
“Of course I do,” Wolfram says sharply. “I grew up here, it’s my home.”
“Right,” Yuuri says, voice breaking on a quiet sob. The sound gives him away in the dark and Wolfram sits up too quickly to turn up the lamp. There’s a sound of tearing fabric.
“Sorry,” Wolfram says, bewildered. His right hand is across his chest, holding the nightgown together at the shoulder where it’s come apart. “I guess it doesn’t fit anymore.”
For the first time since Wolfram’s left, Yuuri really looks at him. His hair is cut in a stylish way - a little long, but more K-pop cool than feminine like it used to be. He isn’t just taller, his whole shape has changed. Wolfram isn’t a big teenager, he’s practically a grown man. His shoulders are too broad for a stupid pink nightgown he borrowed from his tiny slender mother to get Yuuri’s attention, even if her chest is huge. The skirt rides up above the knee. It should look stupid or funny or maybe hot in a weird kinky kind of way but it’s not any of those things, it’s fucking scary. Wolfram is growing up and Yuuri hasn’t aged a day since his magic unlocked at fifteen.
Wolfram looks like Gwendal and like Conrad and like an adult who is going to graduate high school soon and Yuuri can’t stand it. Wolfram doesn’t look right, he doesn’t sound right. It feels like someone slapped him in the face, like someone kicked him in the stomach, like he’s getting beat up in the girl’s washroom all over again.
Yuuri reaches out in a blind panic, clawing at the mattress, the covers, until his hold on Wolfram is strong enough that he can pull himself up to sitting, throw himself as close as he can get. Wolfram’s arms come around Yuuri to keep him from sliding backwards and it’s all Yuuri can do to just cling and cry as Wolfram leans down and kisses him.
Instead of calming his panic, Yuuri explodes. He pulls at the nightgown, not caring when it rips even more, not sure what he’s doing except that he has to remember this, memorize this exact time and place because he’s losing it -
“You can’t,” Wolfram says kindly, leaning back a little to look Yuuri in the face. He snaps out of it. He’s in Wolfram’s lap. Wolfram’s hand is on Yuuri’s, keeping him still. Yuuri’s hand is halfway down Wolfram’s underwear.
Yuuri freezes.
Wolfram maneuvers him easily like this, settling him back onto the bed on his back. Wolfram stays sitting up for so long that Yuuri worries he’s going to leave. He reaches out timidly and tugs the torn hem of the nightgown back towards the bed. Wolfram lays back down, not touching him.
“I thought you wanted to get married,” Yuuri says after a while.
“Well, I thought you would die first,” Wolfram muses. “I’d have been the only one for you because I’d outlive you. I guess I thought it would be romantic.”
“That’s weird.”
“Possibly. I thought you’d give in eventually, but this is cheap. You’re just being weak. I’m… limited edition, like that Eiji Sawamura’s baseball card. Even if we do this, I’ll still die after and you’ll find somebody else that you really like. I hate that.” Wolfram’s voice is low and detached, telling secrets at a slumber party.
“What? But… if I died first, I’d want the person I love to move on. I’d want them to be happy.” Yuuri insists. “I’d want you to move on and be happy.”
“I don’t care what you want, wimp.” Wolfram rolls away from Yuuri to face the dark.
“Selfish,” Yuuri murmurs before falling asleep.