Chapter Text
Among the red and white heaps of roses were a plethora of suitcases, some short, some tall, some big and some small. Yuu was pleasantly surprised, though it wasn’t a big shock to them; after all, Spring Finals were over and students of Night Raven College were finally able to go home for the summer. Well, excluding them. It’s not like they had a home, at least not one in this dimension. They supposed Crowley would make them stay at NRC over the summer, but it seemed the bird-brained headmaster had other plans. Oh well. At least it beats being stuck at school for two months.
“Woah!” Yuu stumbled on a patchy red duffle bag, sticking their arms out to break their fall. A pair of hands caught the Prefect just in time from tragically face-planting.
“Oh! You okay, Yuu?” Yuu lifted their gaze toward the blue-haired boy, with teal eyes and a spade painted over his right eye. Yuu picked themself up, dusting off their uniform. “Thanks, Deuce.” Yuu gave him a lopsided smile.
Deuce shrugged sheepishly, “Sorry about that.” He pouted, eyeing the bag Yuu tripped on. “I told Ace not to dump his stuff where people are walking!”
“To be fair, I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“You’re giving him too much credit. Come on Yuu, you’re too nice!”
Yuu smiled, though it was just another reason proving they didn’t fit in. Taking responsibility and therefore taking damage to one’s ego was quite unorthodox at Night Raven College.
“Hey, someone has to be the nice one here.” The Prefect looked around, amazed by the vast amount of luggage. Suspiciously more luggage than one would carry home. Yuu supposed maybe one bag for each student leaving, but there seemed to be twice the amount expected.
“MRAHH!” Yuu’s head snapped to the right, and a tower of books toppled over, the heavy stack landing on their little direbreast.
“Oh, my poor familiar…” Yuu cooed, squatting down to clear the debris off of Grim. He huffed, “I ain’t your familiar!” But accepted the help nonetheless.
“This is more than enough stuff for going home,” Yuu murmured. They glanced at the messy pile of books, the cluster of clothes in the corner, contents of which refused to fit in with the rest of the luggage. A stray toiletry bag laid across the velvet couch. A pair of swim trunks draped over a cheap suitcase. Though barely noticeable, Yuu crinkled their nose.
“Yeah!” Grim exclaimed. “What gives?”
“Wait.” After a quizzical look to the both of them, Deuce asked, “Did we not tell you guys?”
“No?”
“Oh.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Oops. Uh, well—Cater decided we should have a little ‘bonding time,’ and arranged a trip for all of us.”
“All of you?” Yuu cocked their head to the side. “As in, all of Heartslabyul?”
“Don’t be stupid, Yuu!” Grim rolled his eyes, and Yuu simply shrugged sheepishly to that. Deuce smiled. “Nope, just the five of us.” The five of them being, obviously, Deuce, Ace, Cater, Trey…and Riddle. Wait, hold on.
“How did you get Riddle to agree?” After all, there was no way his mother would ever allow it, not with her twisted sense of duty and intense adherence to her rules. Her strictness was beyond all reason.
“We just kinda…didn’t tell his mom about it.”
Yuu and Grim looked at each other. “That doesn’t sound like the Rosehearts we know,” Yuu said. Grim climbed across their shoulders, arrogantly swatting his tail in the magicless human’s face. “Won’t Riddle’s mom be all upset that he skipped out on her?”
Deuce frowned. “Hey, don’t fire your questions at me, I’m just the messenger!”
“Well, whatever happens—!” Yuu interjected, attempting to keep the peace once more. “I—we—hope you guys have fun on your trip.”
Grim gave Yuu a stink eye. “No I don’t.”
“Shut up.”
All of a sudden, a crash upstairs echoed throughout the dorm, making the members of Ramshackle wince and Deuce grimace. “I better check on that.” He turned to climb the winding staircase, already reaching for the iron railing.
“I’ll come with you,” Yuu called, and raised their arm so Grim could (reluctantly) hop into their blistered yet comforting hands.
Portraits of nonsensical things hung on the dark walls of Heartslabyul, painted by who knows and who cares. The more Yuu travelled deeper into the dorm, the more luggage they noted cluttered the halls and made it increasingly difficult to pass. Seriously, how much shit did one student need? It wasn’t like Yuu was taking much, though it wasn’t like they had much to begin with. The most they spared was the uniform Crowley oh so graciously provided them, the Halloween costume draped over in the back of their closet, the little trinkets they’d gained on their adventures, three whole cans of tuna, and their ghost camera. Arguably, the camera was their most valuable item they owned; well, that was what Crowley had said. Grim begged to differ, believing canned tuna was way more a prize than some dumb camera. At least Yuu would be able to take plenty of pictures over the summer.
Deuce pushed open the door to his room, and peering over the boy’s shoulder, Yuu found Ace crushed by a set of rolling suitcases, including a broken shelf popped off its brackets.
Yuu couldn’t help it. Smirking, they took their camera out of the case hanging over their shoulder, and quickly snapped a photo of the helpless redhead.
Yuu watched a tuft of orange hair jut out from underneath the mess, straining to get a look at the culprit responsible for the picture. “Haha, very funny,” Ace’s muffled voice rang from somewhere in front of them.
“Do you need help?” The Prefect squatted down, offering a hand to the sprawled-out arm jutting out from an opening in the pile. It swatted their hand away, mumbling a “nah, I’m good”.
Yuu glanced up at Deuce. “Looks like he doesn’t need our help.”
“I think we should leave him there.”
“I think we should dump more stuff on him.”
“I think I like the sound of that.”
“Okay, OKAY. I’m up!” Ace exclaimed, making an effort to get out of the ruckus with one arm pressed against the floor, and one arm clinging to the side of his bed. He took a single glance at the fallen shelf, and jumped back in surprise. “Yeesh. We better fix this before Housewarden Riddle sees this.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Deuce narrowed his eyes at his roommate.
“We. As in, us.”
“This is your fault!”
“How’d ya even fall?” Grim asked, cutting through the brewing argument between the duo. A sly grin was on his face, thrilled at the situation at hand…though not so thrilled at the thought of Riddle coming for his head by correlation. He immediately pouted at this possibility.
Ace sighed. “Look, I’m not particularly clumsy. If Deuce’s shit hadn’t been in the way of my bed, I wouldn’t have tripped over it!”
“You’re blaming this on me?” Deuce spun to face him. “Like you hadn’t dropped your stuff downstairs where people could have—” Deuce looked at Yuu, and the Prefect exhaled tiredly. “And have walked into?”
“At least I didn’t keep it up here, in a way smaller and cramped space!”
“I’m not finished packing!”
“Alright, shaddup!” Grim cried. “Since no one else has any good ideas, I, the Great Grim, shall lend you a hand in fixing that stupid shelf! Mostly ‘cause I don’t wanna get collared again…” Grim mumbled the last part. “NOW! The first thing we’ll need is some glue…”
“Sevens, Grim,” Deuce folded his arms. “We don’t need to glue the shelf to the wall. We just need…uh….um…” While Deuce struggled coming up with an answer, Ace rolled his eyes. “Dumbass. We need a wrench.”
“A screwdriver,” Yuu corrected him, wondering how exactly they were friends with these three idiots.
“That’s what I said!” And Yuu rolled their eyes at that. Ace groaned. “Why can’t we just fix this stupid shelf with magic?”
“Yeah, and screw that one up too…” Deuce sighed hopelessly.
“I see what you did there.”
“Did what?”
“Is there a toolbox around the dorm somewhere?” Yuu looked around, somewhat expecting a bright red box to appear right in front of them.
“Maybe,” Deuce shrugged. “Though the chances of us finding it are really slim. Heck, we’d have a better shot at just buying from Mister S.”
“Sam’s shop does sell everything…” Yuu murmured.
“And we can’t exactly ask the upperclassmen about it,” Ace sulked.
“Ooh!” Grim squealed with delight. “That means I can get some good ol’ canned tuna! I vote we go to Sam’s!”
“Who said you’re getting anything?” Ace stuck his tongue out, but sighed nonetheless. “Fine. Beats getting in trouble with Riddle.”
“All in favor for Sam’s?” Yuu asked, and the three remaining nodded “aye” in unison.
“Sweet!” Grim hummed, seemingly already tasting the salty tang of tuna on his tongue. He smirked. “Let’s go already! Obviously, Ace is paying.”
The red-head jumped in response. “Hey? And who decided that?”
Yuu shrugged. “You break it, you buy it.” Ace gritted his teeth.
“And don’t even try to skirt out of it!” Deuce huffed. Once he knew his words had (somewhat) an effect on the other boy, he added, “Oh, but some of us might want to stay here.”
“WHAT? Why?!” Grim hopped from Yuu’s arms to the floor, standing on his hind legs to appear taller. Though compared to the rest of them, he was still extremely short.
“Uh…‘cause we don’t want someone to suddenly walk in here while we’re gone?”
“Wow, that’s the first smart thing I’ve ever heard from Loosey-Deucey here,” Ace drawled, making his roommate turn a bright red, nearly as red as Riddle usually got. He stormed up to Ace, jabbing a finger at his chest. “I don’t want to hear it from you.”
“Jeez, get a room…” Grim mumbled.
“Okay, great, let’s split up!” Yuu stood between them, pushing their friends apart before one of them murdered the other. “Deuce and Grim will stay here, and I’ll go with Ace to Sam’s.”
“Fine by me,” Ace already had his hand on the doorknob.
Grim snapped back to action, gawking at his hench-human. “Huh-WHAT? What do you mean I can’t go?”
“Ah, yes. Because I totally trust you alone with Ace.” Chances are–and they were usually the case–the two of them would get into trouble; real, serious trouble. Like fighting each other and toasting another statue or something.
“Well, why can’t we leave Deuce here and us three–”
“Because I’ll need help with cleaning up.” Deuce was down on the floorboards, putting back the suitcases that had fallen over. “C’mon, Grim.”
The poor direbeast genuinely seemed ready to cry. Mumbling something about being hungry, he reluctantly dropped down next to Deuce.
Eventually, Yuu murmured to him, “Okay, maybe I’ll buy you a can or two of tuna.” And whether Yuu wanted to admit it or not, they really did enjoy seeing the little guy so happy.
– ✮ ⋆˚꩜｡ ✮ –
“Alright, what are we buying?”
“A screwdriver. And tuna for Grim, I guess.”
Yuu sighed, slumping over the counter as Trappola roamed each aisle in search of the dandy little tool. Sam had gone in the back to dish out a can of tuna for “20% OFF!!” or so he had enthusiastically claimed. Yuu wondered if the best fish was stored off shelves, or maybe that was an excuse to leave the Prefect while they sprawled around the register.
“Got it!” A voice chirped beside them, breaking Yuu out of their head as Ace set the screwdriver and a box of screws right beside their head.
“You’re exhausted already?” Ace laughed, poking fun at their horrible posture while leaning over the counter. “C’mon Yuu, summer’s just begun!”
Yuu hummed in thought, just wanting Sam to hurry up so they could get back to the dorm. “By the way, where exactly are you guys going?”
“Someplace tropical. I think Cater said it was an island, pretty popular with the tourists.”
“Ah.” Yuu said, knowing well whatever name Ace would’ve given them, they wouldn’t be able to recognize.
“Do you wanna come?”
Yuu gave him a look. “So funny. You just happen to have an extra ticket?”
Ace returned their look with even more dramatic flair. “And what if I did, huh?”
Yuu chuckled, their eyes suddenly softening. “I’ve already got something planned.”
The ginger raised his eyebrows. “Oh? What’s this? The magicless human from another world has something planned? Where’re you going?”
“With Crowley,” Yuu shrugged, seeming nothing of it. Ace’s eyes nearly bulged out his head. “With Crowley. Our headmage. Isn’t that a bit strange of him, bringing along a student home?”
“Oh, grow up,” Yuu rolled their eyes. “He’s basically my father at this point. And we’re not going anywhere near his house.”
“Then…?”
“I was gonna keep it discreet—“ they gave their friend a stink eye. “But fine, me and Grim are travelling with him all over this summer. Lucky us.” When they noticed Ace’s blank face, they continued, “As in, all over Twisted Wonderland, to find me a way back home and stuff.”
Ace’s grin slightly dropped, though to Yuu, it was hardly noticeable. “Oh, yeah, that’s great! Although—being stuck with Crowley for two months?”
Yuu laughed, and it was almost painful to hear for Ace. “At least I won't be stuck here looking after shit like during winter!”
“Hopefully no overblots.”
“Assuming I don’t overblot from pure stress.”
“Hey, if you come back alone it’s safe to assume what happened.”
Yuu took a deep breath, head between their arms and looking up at Ace. “Hopefully we’ll find something.” Yuu frowned. “Or, maybe we won’t…” They cut themself off before they could finish, not particularly wanting to dump this all on Ace Trappola, of all people. “Uh–never mind. Forget I said it. I wouldn’t want to jinx it.”
Ace looked away, Yuu’s distress uncomfortable to him. “You’ll find it,” he said bluntly, as he always did. “There’s gotta be something.” Between Mickey and the Dark Mirror, Ace knew there was only a matter of time.
Time was running out.
“And here’s the tuna I promised you, my little imp!” Sam stormed in from the side door, gently placing a round tin can next to the other items on the counter. Yuu quickly stood up as Sam fiddled with the cash register.
“Forty-five thaumarks, please.” He declared, making the two freshmen do a double-take at the price.
“Forty-five thaumarks?!” Ace cried. “The screwdriver cannot be that expensive.”
Yuu examined the tag on the tuna can, grimacing when they noticed the number. “Oof. Turns out Grim’s tuna is pretty pricey. So much for being on sale...” They turned the can over, slowly reaching for their slim wallet. “I can actually pay for the—”
“I’ve got it, don’t worry about it.” Ace pulled out several bills, parting ways with his depleting savings as he handed the money to Sam. “Pleasure doing business with ya!” The shopkeeper beamed.
“Wow, didn’t take you for the generous type.” Yuu let Ace exit the shop first, paper bag in hand.
Ace palmed the back of his neck, frowning slightly. “Deuce would’ve gotten on my ass if I let you pay. That doesn’t mean you don’t owe me, though!”
“Sure, I’ll pay you back when I get my next two-thaumark allowance.”
“Do you even get an allowance?”
The walk dissolved into silence, and Yuu hummed awkwardly, one hand digging into their pocket and feeling something plastic crinkle under their fingers. A pack of snacks? Huh. Yuu didn’t remember leaving it in their coat. Oh well, guess they’ll save that for later.
Taking their hand out of their pocket, they began to tug on the leather strap of their camera case. They usually liked the silence, but this felt like the staggering period before a final goodbye. Summer was here. School was out, and it’d be months before Night Raven College would be back in session. They’d be a year older. And tomorrow, Yuu will see the world.
“Are you even excited?” Ace teased, noting the dejected expression on the Prefect’s face. “I mean, you’ve been kinda mopey.”
“Oh?” It was no surprise. Yuu wore their heart on their sleeve. “I am.”
Ace wasn’t convinced, though he decided not to push it. “Cool.”
They made their way through the garden’s labyrinth, Yuu failing (once again) to recall the correct path. They climbed the stone steps up to the front door, Yuu all of a sudden feeling light-headed. They grabbed a hold of the iron railing, shaking out of it. It was probably nothing, anyway.
Just as they were about to sneak back upstairs, a harsh voice caught them in their tracks.
“You never informed me you were leaving the dorm.”
Ace and Yuu froze, just only registering that Riddle Rosehearts stood before them, prim and proper as ever. The June sun seemed to do nothing to wear the housewarden of Heartslabyul down, nor did the stress of packing. Riddle stood folding his arms, a calm expression written on his face. He noticed Yuu fairly quickly. “Oh, hello, Yuu. I didn’t realize you’d already come over to visit.”
“Yeah…” Yuu trailed off, already trying to formulate and prepare the lie to save both their asses. And just when they were so close…
“Well, Ace?”
Thank Seven the tools were in the bag.
“Yuu and Grim were helping us pack, and we went to Sam’s shop to buy a few extra things,” Ace quickly jumped to explain, and Yuu was shocked at how fast that fib had come to him. “See? We bought him some…thirty-thaumark tuna.” Ace reached into the bag Yuu was holding, and showed Riddle the short can.
“Is that all?” Rosehearts questioned even after being provided proof. “I find it strange you two would do all this for Grim…”
Sevens damn it. Darn Yuu and their passionate, affectionate bullying towards the direbeast. Riddle knows the two of them would never make the trip to Sam’s just for Grim. There had to be some sort of catch.
“Well…”
Yuu stuffed their hand into their pocket, and—wait a minute.
“We...okay, let’s be real, I bought a snack.”
Yuu was going to be so embarrassed if the thing they pulled out of their pocket was not, in fact, edible.
Thankfully, Lady Luck appeared to be on their side, as they presented an unopened jumbo-pack of chocolate chip cookies to Riddle Rosehearts.
Okay, that was still embarrassing.
Riddle raised an eyebrow. “Ah, makes sense. Is that to share…?”
“Of course. It’s not like I can eat a jumbo-pack by myself!”
They could, and yes, they had done it before.
“Hm…” Riddle seemed in a deep moment of consolation, until he finally relented. “Alright. I shouldn’t be keeping you from packing any longer.”
“Thank you, housewarden!” Ace called, as Riddle let the two of them pass. As the shadow of the dorm head quickly passed out of view, they both released a collective sigh.
“Phew, and I thought we were done for.”
“And I’m supposed to be the responsible one.” Yuu shook their head, though couldn’t keep the small smile off of their face. “I’m just glad I didn’t get executed.”
“But hey, you’re getting better at lying!”
“You’re such a bad influence.”
The door was pushed open, and two heads jutted up, Deuce relaxing as soon as he recognized who walked in. “Sevens. Try harder next time, I don’t think you gave me a heart attack yet.”
Surprisingly, the room was very clean; all that was left on the floor was the fallen shelf. While Yuu apologized for the sudden entry, Ace dug through the bag and brought out the screwdriver and screws. “Alright, let’s bang this out so we’re not screwed.”
“Again, who’s ‘we’?”
“Did ya get my tuna?” Grim scowled, and Yuu smiled. Kneeling down on the floor next to Deuce, they retrieved the tin can from the bag, tossing the fish to Grim’s outstretched paws.
“Ay, you’re not half bad, hench-human!”
Yuu rolled their eyes, folding up the bag while wearing a stupid grin.
“Too nice, I tell you,” Deuce nudged the Prefect. They chuckled. If only he knew about Riddle downstairs.
“And done! Ta-da!”
Their attention was directed over to Ace and the newly-fixed shelf, though it still looked a bit off, as if it were hanging for dear life on its brackets. A tiny part of the shelf was also cracked, though it was barely noticeable from far away; one could only inspect the real damage if they squinted.
“Ace, it still looks terrible.” Deuce could not wait to leave for break, but then again, he was still travelling with this idiot anyway.
“Ah, who cares. At least it’s on the wall.” The red-head slid over to the group already on the floor. Yuu watched for a moment as Grim dug into his snack like some sort of wild animal. Gross. Someone would have to clean that up. Their stomach rumbled, and they took out the cookie pack they had proudly shown Riddle ten minutes ago. As always, they noticed Ace’s eyes wandering over to the wrapper.
It didn’t even take them longer than to open the package before Ace opened his mouth.
“Say…Yuu…since you mentioned it downstairs…”
“Ace...” Deuce already knew where this was going.
“Would you be willing to share?”
“Nope.” Yuu popped a cookie in their mouth, not even stopping to contemplate the thought.
Even the nice one had their limits.