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Another long and exhausting day of work has been concluded, and the torture arts teacher huffed - getting up from his desk to stretch after finishing grading a load of papers.
As he sorted through files, he stopped.
“...Hm.”
He felt as if something was missing, but couldn’t quite tell what ; He searched around the room with his eyes for a bit until it clicked.
“Wait.”
He leaned against his own shoulder, trying to get a feel of something.
“...”
His eyes widened, it was then March finally realized what was up; His ‘pet’ centipede he had let stay over his shoulder to occasionally pet as he graded work was gone. And that’s not good in the slightest. If anyone found out he let himself be irresponsible for a split second, he’d be in for a long earful session.
“ Oh no no no --”
Trying not to panic, he set his work aside and began looking around his ‘instruments’, rattling around while calling out for the pet, becoming even more nervous as he tried to find said centipede.
After a second look, he let it set in that it was very likely that at this point, the centipede was probably already out of his office, exploring the big halls of Babyls.
He peeks out of the room, discreetly looking outside and searching a bit more.
As he walked around, he finally stumbled upon the sight of a familiar tail turning into a corner at the end of the hallway.
Getting there, he was met with the unfortunate sight of his centipede crawling up to one of his coworkers, Eito.
Knowing the smoker, he’d guess it’d be fine to just excuse himself and grab the runaway insect, since he wasn’t the scolding type and was usually chill about most things, despite not being a fan of “bugs” himself. At least that’s what he thought.
When he tried to walk up to him, he heard an obvious thundering voice coming from behind; It was Kalego, and as usual, he would complain about Robin and how annoying he was to be around, as he does. And unlike Eito, he’d be mortified if someone like him found out he got caught lacking like this; Unsure of what to do, he quickly turned the corner and pushed Eito inside the nearest room with no explanation, closing the door behind them and placing his hand above his mouth before he even had time to react.
Looking back, he’d wait until the voice became fainter, meaning he was far away enough to not see or hear about his mistakes.
Letting out a long sigh of relief, he finally turned back to the poor, confused demon he dragged into a room with zero explanation and a terrified expression. From Eito’s perspective, March was finally going to “show his true colors” and torture the ash out of this guy for fun.
About to explain the situation, he remembers what he came here for, eyeing around, he figured there was only one possible place the centipede would be as of now, taking his hand off of Ifrit’s mouth, allowing him to talk.
“What--”
…Interrupted again, he gasped as his back hit the wall, trapped by the arms of his coworker.
“...Huh?!”
His expression shifted from one of fear to one of surprise even more confused by the situation at hand.
“...W-What the fuck..?!”
“Don’t move.”
Eito was slightly shocked by the serious tone in his voice, even swallowing before shutting himself up from the sudden command - staying still as it was asked. He wasn’t exactly used to seeing March look at him with such a serious and stern expression, the smile he usually wore on his face replaced by an unknown face he couldn’t tell the thoughts behind.
What he didn’t know is that March was severely concerned, judging by how light the centipede really is, it was fairly hard to notice when one of those would crawl on your back, especially if there was a distraction keeping you away from sensing the presence of the creature.
It was hard to tell from how he pushed back Eito against the wall if it was on his back or near his neck, and that was dangerous. It was docile towards March but still unfamiliar with the faces of his coworkers. Plus, being in a dark environment didn’t help figuring it out either. It’s true that the fire demon was known for his absurd regenerative abilities, but it would still be an unbearably painful experience to be pinched by one of these, and until his body started healing he’d feel every moment of hurt.
March would hover his hand down closer to his waist, and push Eito back to the most he could until his chest was against his’, their faces closer than they’ve ever been - to which the other teacher even held his breath for a second, light purple eyes showing a certain level of unease and embarrassment.
He reassured himself that with him squeezed against the wall like this, the centipede would be unable to move and would be stuck, probably scurrying its little feet to try and move around.
On the other hand, Ifrit was baffled, he still hadn’t gotten a word of explanation from the other and he was left to try and guess on his own! What was he meant to think of this situation? Again, it was pretty hard to tell what were the torture arts teacher’s intentions, was he about to undergo a terrifying experiment or was it possible that he was about to--
“ Please remain still like I asked, Eito-kun, you seem to be shaking. ”
Goosebumps rose all over his spine at the sudden whisper, and for the third time, his questioning was cut. That uncontrollable nervousness took over his body in a way he’s never seen before, not even in the most intimidating fight he’s been into; To be honest, what he might’ve been actually feeling was probably an inner consciousness within him hoping March would do something more, but he’d rather die than admit that out-loud.
And between his rushing line of endless thoughts, out of him was grabbed a more silent gasp as March leaned over his shoulder, right beside his neck, feeling the controlled and steady breath of the other demon.
Seriously, the only possible thing Eito thought about going on is that Marbas is testing out some new weird form of torture, judging by how much this “new method” has been driving him anxious and desperate for at least an answer!
Back to Marbas’ view, he was trying to listen in to any possible noises the centipede could be making by now, listening in closely to anything that would give away the creature.
“....Marbas--”
“ Shhh .”
At this point, maybe we should make a counter of “how many times Eito gets hushed and he backs off like a coward”! This is the 5th time!
Anyway, no sound was heard, and he immediately stepped into the next worst assumption he could make in a situation like this;
“...Eito-kun, can I ask something out of you?”
Ifrit stopped his messy thought process again and finally looked back at Marbas with curiosity.
“...What is it?”
“Can you take your uniform off?”
“What?”
His eyes widened at the request and he immediately became flustered, blinking. Did… Did he hear that right? Ask and you shall receive - Eito thought, he was blushing like crazy and it was as if the cat had truly gotten his tongue, as he didn’t say a word at all after the question.
For March, he couldn’t quite tell his expression in the dark nor could he see the blush on his face; In fact, he was so worried that his centipede was hiding somewhere within Eito’s uniform that it didn’t even settle in how strange of a request that was!
“It’s okay if you can’t, but would you at least let me put my hands underneath--”
“T-THAT’S ENOUGH!!!!”
Eito panicked and shoved his palm against March’s face, pushing him off and getting away, into another corner of the room.
“W-What do you think you’re doing?! Y-You can’t just do something like that..! Especially not here out of all places! Geez, q-quit playing about things like that!!”
Pointing angrily, Marbas seemed to get completely off-guard by the sudden change in Eito’s behavior, tilting his head in confusion - unaware of what could possibly be that Eito thinks he could be playing around.
“...What are you talking about?”
“Haaah?! What do you mean what am I talking about ?! Are you serious?!”
While March stood confused as Eito yelled at him about how he’s “done with his little games” and other things along the same lines, he feels a little something crawling up his leg - and when he looked down;
“Aah, there you are.”
“--Huh?”
Pausing his flustered rambles, he watched as March kneeled down to pick up one of his freaky-looking centipedes, holding it in his arms as if it was a baby -
“Sorry, Eito-kun, I never meant to bother you. It’s just that I was looking for this guy all around and got too carried away and forgot to tell you...”
He bowed in apology.
“Please don’t tell anyone, okay? I don’t want K-Kalego-sensei to find out…”
“ Huh ?”
Oh. Oh my devi. All this time Eito thought Marbas was merely teasing him again but turns out he was just looking for his stupid goddamned bug! He never felt so much embarrassment as he did now.
“..I… I see! Haha, hahaha! Whew uhm-- I was just so caught off-guard when you pushed me in here and--”
The counter goes up to 6 as he’s suddenly kissed without a warning, his tail jolting up in a comically cartoonish way.
“Hehe~, sorry. I’ll make it up to you so you keep this little secret of ours, mhm?”
And without another word, March left with his centipede, very likely enjoying the thought of knowing he did the equivalent of throwing gasoline into the fire to the unfortunate demon's heart - Eito was left in shambles.
As Murmur was ready to go back to the dorms, he felt a sudden weight down his shoulders - his coworker clinging on to him as if he was dying.
“E-Eito?! Are you okay?! What the hell happened?! You’re really hot, you know?! That burns!!”
“ Murmur… Please just walk me back… ”
“You sound like you’re on your last breath!! Do you want me to take you to Blushenko-sensei or maybe even Phis-sensei--”
“ Just take me back to the dorms….. ”
He said, pathetically, still clinging onto the demon’s shoulders as he hid his burning red hot face on his back, ashamed to even look anyone in the eye after what just happened.
It was going to be a long night full of tossing and turning for this guy - there was no telling on how many cigarettes could fix his state, but the answer is close to “not enough ever”.