#ooh leona wants to kiss yuu so bad he looks stupid rn

[cloudedgalaxies]

One Night Remains

Leona Kingscholar loves sleep more than anything else in Twisted Wonderland. So he is determined to continue sleeping all through the night when he has to host two freshmen crashing in his dorm for taking a rather stupid deal he had nothing to do with. It wasn't his problem.

Yet for some absurd reason, the three nights that the prefect stays in Savanaclaw, he doesn't get a wink.

Chooser, Chosen

(part one) (part two) (part three) (read on AO3)

Word count: 7.7k | (this is the song Yuu sings during that one part :3)

Leona wanted to rip his ears out. As small as Grim and Yuu were, he hadn’t known that they could be so loud. Or so shrill. It could only be called singing by the most insane souls in Twisted Wonderland. Ruggie had almost tried to escape when they’d started shrieking at the top of their lungs, but if Leona had to endure this torture, then so did he.

“Fine,” he finally spat out, sick of covering his already-flattened ears with his hands. Their voices still got through the tiniest of spaces that he didn’t know he wasn’t covering, and he had no idea how. “Quit your screeching.”

Yuu was quicker to stop than Grim. He seemed to be especially enjoying this, Leona found. But a particularly sharp glare shut him up just fine, he also found, and finally, his ears were saved. “You’ll help us?” the weasel asked, voice hoarse from how he’d been belting without a care in the world just a moment ago.

If it was up to him, he wouldn’t be doing any of this at all. But Leona ran a hand down his face, while his ears rang and throbbed even after they’d closed their mouths. “We’ll see. That’s the best you’re goin’ to get,” he added, giving Yuu a warning look as she opened her mouth again. “Give it a rest.”

“Please never sing again. I don’t think I could take it,” Ruggie begged, looking everything like he would ram his head into a wall if they started back up. Leona would probably join him. “You’re a lot crueler than you look, Yuu.”

Out of everything she could have done, the herbivore grinned. Leona almost wanted to ask where the audacity came from, to be that cheeky while she goaded a lion in his own den. “I’m taking Leona’s advice,” she told him, making the housewarden scoff when he heard it. That only made her grin widen, annoyingly. “I’ll use my spine on you, too, thanks.”

“That’s just askin’ to get taught a lesson,” he growled back, but found that she hardly seemed scared at that. What a strange herbivore she was. “You got a plan, or are you expecting us to go in blind?”

It didn’t take her long to make the final touches in her head before putting it into words. She told them all about what she’d gone through the past two days, and what her torture had taught her about the Octavinelle groupers. And as loathe as Leona was to admit after she had nearly rendered him deaf and crazy, he found that her plan could almost work. “Wow.” Ruggie whistled, and Leona could tell that he was seeing Yuu in a new light. Leona was too, if he was being honest. She wasn’t all that doe-eyed anymore, he supposed. “That’s pretty gusty. Sure you can handle it?”

Yuu just shrugged. “I’ve dealt with them for the past two days, and I’m still standing.”

“What’ll you do if it ends up going sideways?” Leona asked.

That just made her grin again. Leona fought the urge to sigh and just go to bed. “Are you saying you think you’ll mess up?”

Again with the spine. Leona couldn’t stop himself from smirking, as his tail swished with something he almost wanted to call amusement. “I can handle the cephalo-punk just fine. I’m sayin’ I don’t exactly have my utter faith in you to make it work. No offense.”

Leona didn’t know how to feel when Yuu’s grin did not lessen. If anything, that same dastardly, twisted glint from her first night there returned, much more visible now than before, now that she didn’t have the same naive look about her. “If I can’t go back to Ramshackle, you’ll just be seeing a lot of me every night,” she told them, even throwing in a cheeky wink as she did right alongside Grim.

His smirk dropped. “Are you threatenin’ me?” Leona was strangely more surprised than angered. Yuu just shrugged. She shrugged, out of all the things she could have done. Leona didn’t know if he’d wanted one answer over the other to be perfectly honest, but the lack of a clear one certainly wasn’t what he’d hoped to get as a response. He sighed the deepest sigh he had in a long time, holding his forehead as his eyes rolled. It was strange how he was trying his hardest not to laugh even though he felt like he should definitely be a bit more offended than he was. “Here I thought you were a goody two-shoes.”

“I’m certainly more of one than most students here. You included, I’m afraid.” Leona had to make himself give her a hard look instead of let that laugh get even closer to finding its way out of his throat. “It’s up to you if you two want to help us. We’re not forcing you to do anything.”

Of course they weren’t. Grim snickered, sounding a suspicious amount like Ruggie while the sophomore sighed instead. “Only for you, you scavengers,” he grumbled, ears flicking as he mirrored the look Leona had. Except, it was directed at his housewarden a moment after he’d shot it at the herbivore. “What’d you tell him, Leona?” He wished he’d said nothing at all, now that it was giving him this much grief. How did everything become Leona’s messes to clean up in the span of one night? 

“You’d better hurry ‘n get some rest,” Grim taunted, a smirk on his face that was much too arrogant for a pipsqueak like him. “This could be your last night of quality sleep, y’know.”

“I’ll get right on that, O Great Grim,” Ruggie leered, shooting both Ramshackle students one last dour look. “Sure glad I ain’t rooming with you guys right now.”

“Says the one who got this all started in the first place,” Leona shot right back, turning his glare over to his dormmate instead of his freeloaders. As Ruggie slinked out of his room, the lunatic grinned at him, giving Leona a wink just as he shut the door. Leona didn’t want to know what exactly was running through the hyena’s head, but he was certain that if he ever found out, he’d want to do more than just beat him in spelldrive.

And then it was just the three of them once again, in beautiful, blissful silence. Only to be ruined once more when Grim started talking again. “You really should be more villainous, minion. It gets stuff done,” he mused, giving her a grin as he hopped onto the couch. Then he yawned, already curling up on the cushions before Leona himself had the chance to make it back to his bed. “I think I’ll sleep, too.”

“You really think you get to, after the stunt you just pulled?” Leona growled, making Grim’s fur bristle as his eyes shot back open at the tone. There were so many ways to make him pay. Leona was having a hard time deciding just which exactly he wanted to execute on the weasel that night.

But then Yuu—stubborn, arrogant, persistent Yuu—just had to smile at him, in a way that was just apologetic enough yet still sure of herself to make his anger dissipate. “We need all the sleep we can get if we’re going to get tomorrow to work,” she reasoned, and Leona didn’t know how to feel about the way he didn’t really want to fight her. “It’ll get us out of your hair, at the very least.”

Leona scoffed, flicking his tail as he rolled his eyes. “This is the last night you’re gettin’ free board,” he reminded, trying to look like he was still irritated more than he really was. “Even if this doesn’t work.”

“Thank you for letting us stay here for the three nights you’ve already let us,” Yuu told him anyway, making his tail swish all the more. “We haven’t been the greatest houseguests.”

“Is that so?” he mused flatly. “Can’t say I noticed.”

She smiled at him again, a little more apologetic than before. So Leona rolled his eyes, dismissing her attempt to apologize when he hadn’t demanded one in the first place. Then she sighed when she turned around, finally catching the way that Grim had taken advantage of her diffusing the situation to fall into slumber. He was already long gone somehow, despite being in the lion’s den that nearly became his grave. Leona didn’t know if it was foolishness or arrogance on Grim’s part, but either way, it wasn’t the greatest testament to prove there was much of a brain in the weasel’s skull.

“One of these days, I’ll beat him to sleep.” There were the hints of a laugh in Yuu’s voice, as she reached out to gently tug the blanket higher on Grim.

“Maybe I’ll get to sleep, too,” Leona added bitterly. It made that laugh become stronger, ringing in his ears despite how quiet it still was. 

“Unless we mess up tomorrow,” she reminded, with that devilish smile that only seemed to get more evil each time she flashed it. “Then neither of us will, ever again.”

That laugh returned, louder now as Leona glowered at her with a swishing tail. Yuu just gave him a grin, so he forced his expression to become even darker. “Why are you helpin’ him, herbivore?” he asked, finding that he wanted to know the answer now, when it was all of a sudden his problem, too. “Helpin’ any of the suckers who made a deal, for that matter. It wasn’t your mess to clean up.”

Yuu shrugged. It made Leona’s glower become a bit more real than it had been. “They made some bad decisions. We all do that. They should have known better, but it isn’t right for them to have to suffer so much for a mistake. And besides, some of them are my friends.” Maybe she was still doe-eyed after all, Leona found himself thinking. She looked up at him with those innocent eyes, and the faintest smile appeared on her face. “Why are you helping me?” she asked, making something weak in him almost startle.

Leona gave her an unamused stare in return. “If you really have to ask that, maybe you’re more dimwitted than I thought.”

She giggled. Leona’s tail swished just a bit stronger. “Of course. I hope the great Leona Kingscholar can forgive my threatening of his sleep.” That was all it was. She smiled at him, in that way that told him she was apologizing silently. 

There were so many levels of disrespect to that comment that Leona didn’t even want to start unpacking it. So all he did was growl in reply, watching with slitted eyes as she crouched to dig through her bag. It was to get her magic potion, Leona realized, as she procured a small vial that held liquid that was an iridescent, shimmering black. He didn’t exactly think it was the safest looking thing to drink, he realized as he glowered at it. It didn’t matter that it came from the headmage—for all the years Leona had been at Night Raven College, he’d known the man to cut corners and skimp whenever possible. There could be a thousand things wrong with that potion, that Yuu was foolish enough to swallow and take without any questions asked.

Before he could school his features back to normal, the herbivore just had to glance up at him, catching the way his eyes smoldered. “Professor Crewel told me it’s safe. There aren’t any lasting side effects if I stop taking it,” she told him, irritatingly guessing the reason behind his annoyance correctly. “Doesn’t stop it from tasting disgusting, though.”

“Whatever you say,” Leona mused, putting the dull tone of boredom in his voice. He still watched as she uncapped the vial, feeling something strange grip his insides as the potion disappeared behind her lips, eliciting a faint grimace to darken her expression. Leona didn’t know how to feel about the way it made something sour his own tongue, as though he had been the one to take the potion instead of her.

He watched Yuu carefully in those first few moments after she took it. If nothing else, it was certainly effective. The air shimmered around her just like the potion in every way it could—it almost seemed like stardust had surrounded the herbivore for a few seconds, as it glittered in the space around her while it did something magical to her scent. It was the same thing that had happened the first night, and the second. But now he was able to watch and study, to see just what exactly the potion did to her to hide her in plain sight.

Only when Yuu gave him a half-uncertain smile did Leona finally realize that he’d been staring. She’d had this happen to her every night since she’d gotten to this world, no doubt, so Yuu was hardly fazed in the slightest. It left her able to see just how Leona watched her, trying to figure out just what it was that was happening to her. “Some potion he gives you,” he mused dully, pretending he hadn’t been caught. “There’s ancient magic in there.”

She hadn’t been told that, it seemed, because Yuu looked surprised. “There is?” Leona hummed as a substitute for a nod. There had to be a jumble of spells and enchantments weaved together to make something that could do so many things at once. For it to be so potent, there was no doubt there were some parts so archaic that Leona was surprised they still existed. “You can tell?” she asked. Her surprise changed to awe as he hummed again, making her eyes sparkle and shimmer like the potion. “Just from seeing it?”

“Isn’t all that hard, once you know what to look for.” Even so, Leona felt the hints of something proud tug his lips up into something of a smirk, as Yuu continued to look at him in that way. “You’re starin’, herbivore,” he purred, finding that he wanted to see if he could get back at her for the way she’d tormented him earlier.

He almost chuckled at the way she startled, blinking hard as she clasped her hands together and stared down at them instead. It let him catch the hints of pink rising to her ears, no doubt dusted on her cheeks as well. “Sorry.”

“Sure ‘ya are.” The pink darkened. 

Worry stung his nose again, but it wasn’t as sharp as it had been before, during the nights when she had been distressed. It was gentle, if anything. It reminded Leona of a fluttering heartbeat, which he wondered if Yuu’s was doing when his smirk deepened. “We should go to bed,” she decided, and Leona wondered what insane part of him it was that almost wanted to stay up just a bit longer.

“Oi. Where do you think you’re going?” he asked instead, making Yuu pause from how she’d nearly joined Grim on the couch yet again. “Come here.”

The herbivore blinked again, that awe swapped out for confusion. “I didn’t think you’d want me to sleep there after I threatened you.”

“So you did threaten me.” Leona grinned at the way that made her face flush once again, changing that pink into a true red. “I ain’t about to banish you just ‘cause you got more arrogant.” Yuu rolled her eyes a little, but she listened anyway, crawling onto the bed alongside him. Even though the potion had messed with the way she smelled, Leona could still make out his scent was on her without much effort, surrounding her just like that stardust had. 

He wondered if it would still, once she was no longer staying in Savanaclaw. “I wouldn’t blame you, if you did,” she admitted. “I wasn’t the greatest of people just now.”

“If you think that was somethin’ real terrible, then you haven’t been in this school long enough.” That got Yuu to smile, the tiniest of laughs escaping her lips. Leona’s ears twitched at it, how it still seemed to echo in his mind without fail. “You gotta earn your place, though,” he told her, smirking at the way that made Yuu look at him in equal parts surprise and suspicion. “Sing something for me, if you like bein’ a songbird so much.”

Her head tilted ever-so-slightly, and Leona found himself thinking that it was almost cute, the way she did that when she was confused. The thought was instantly shoved out of his head with a scowl. “You practically just begged me to not do exactly that,” she reminded, the hints of a disbelieving grin appearing despite the way her brows knit together.

“You’re more delusional than I thought if you think I’d ever beg for anything.” Leona hummed as he laced his fingers behind his head, leaning back to let his back touch the headboard. “That couldn’t have been your best shot. Maybe it was the weasel’s, but not yours.”

Leona’s suspicions were proved right when the herbivore huffed, bringing her hands up to nervously fidget her hair into the beginnings of a braid. Maybe she really was a songbird. She certainly got as flighty as them when she was anxious, always moving in whatever way she could manage. “I haven’t really sung for anyone before,” she admitted. “Except my brother.”

The smirk on Leona’s face just grew all the bigger. “Even better. I’m your first,” he purred, making Yuu huff again and shoot him a glare that wasn’t all that sharp when her face was that flushed. “Shouldn’t have sang anything if you weren’t prepared for the consequences.”

Yuu gave him a pouty look, but she didn’t say anything else to argue with him. A sigh found its way out of her chest as she finished braiding her hair and lost her excuse to stay silent, eyes darting across something Leona couldn’t see. He almost thought she was going to deny him. And something strange and oddly gentle inside Leona told him that, if she really didn’t want to, he wouldn’t press. The next time she said anything to get out of it, he would let her.

But then she took in a breath, parting her lips. And she started to sing, making Leona quiet even his breaths so that he could listen.

 It was different from before, when Yuu had been screaming at the top of her lungs like a banshee. Her voice started off shaky and hesitant at first, almost fumbling over the first few words as nervousness rolled off her in waves. But then it became a little more confident, as she got through the first verse without a single complaint from Leona. It lost the tremble, replaced with something more intentional that wasn’t quite vibrato, but something just enough to make his ears stay pinned on her.

Yuu was not the best singer by any means. Nothing about her singing was remarkable—it was as ordinary as it could get. She didn’t look at him, eyes fixated on something invisible to Leona but almost seemed to act like a lifeline to her. Especially when her face had dusted pink, growing deeper in shade for every note she sang. He decided that was alright, he found. Leona wasn’t sure what he looked like at that moment, when he realized that Yuu’s voice might be one of the prettiest things he’d heard. He certainly wasn’t sure what he looked like when she reached the chorus, words making him almost sit up as he watched and listened.

I've spent a thousand nights

Lost in your emerald eyes

Lost in a place where I know

You can see my soul

Make me lose track of time

You and your emerald eyes

Finally found a place that I can call my home.

The last remnants of the song dissipated in the wind as she finished, as the words and melody echoed in Leona’s ears again and again. She blinked, and it seemed as though she’d come out of a trance when her hands tugged on the shirt of his she’d all but taken at this point, finally mustering a sheepish glance over at Leona. He was staring at her, he realized with a start, flicking his ears as he recollected himself. It was almost hard not to, when he’d realized that the glow of the moon and stars suited her so eerily well.

Leona smirked to hide that fact, laughing silently to himself about how it made her shoulders rise in embarrassment. “Not bad,” he mused, watching as she hid behind the hand fixing her glasses. “Better than your little performance earlier, at least.”

“I’m better with instruments,” she murmured, still fiddling with her shirt. “My voice isn’t the greatest, to be honest.”

Even though he had absolutely no reason to, Leona found his smirk becoming a bit more teasing. “Where’s that spine now?” Yuu rolled her eyes shyly, making his tail flick in amusement. It was only then that he realized it had found its way around the herbivore, curled around her so that the tip rested on her other side. “If you’re going to use it on me, then use it when you have reason to. Like now.”

At least she didn’t seem to notice his tail. So he kept it there. If he tried to move it away, she would just catch sight, Leona reasoned with himself. That would end up causing him unnecessary issues to deal with at a time he didn’t want to give himself any more problems than he had already. “Do you treat all herbivores this way, or just me?” she asked, the hints of a tease in her voice.

Leona’s smirk grew. “Who knows.”

She gave him a look that wasn’t at all sharp when she could hardly keep from laughing. “Fine,” Yuu relented, sighing a little as she tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “Don’t regret that later, okay?”

The second part of what she said almost went over Leona’s head. It was almost impossible to listen, when he found himself the closest to the scar he’d given her than he’d ever been. He could only try to figure out how she hadn’t been keeled over when she’d first gotten it—how she wasn’t in pain even now, when it looked pink and tender while it still healed. But she’d somehow been the first person he saw when he came to, on that spelldrive field he’d almost turned to sand.

Yuu seemed to know that something had changed with Leona. Her smile changed a little too, growing softer and a little smaller. And for some reason, that made him feel like she was reassuring him. “I—” Leona started, then stopped, finding that his throat was strangely dry. Too dry to keep going, with words he didn’t have. He sighed, pushing his bangs up with his hand as unease churned his stomach. Even if he thought about it for longer than he did, he wasn’t sure if he’d been more unsure of what to say. “What did I do?” he finally got out, and he was displeased with the way his voice sounded. It did not tremble—a lion’s roar could never tremble—but it was not sure. It was not confident, like a prince—a king—should always be.

Leona wasn’t confident he wanted to know. It had been intentional, the way he hadn’t asked Ruggie or Jack anything about what happened that day. All he knew was that when he woke up, his body had ached like nothing before, while sand clung to him like a miasma. Yuu had taken up all of his vision, even though scarlet blood dripped from her head like rubies and matted her hair with grains of sand to make them look like golden flecks. And she hadn’t seemed to care in the slightest about what she looked like, because everything about her had been fixated on him when it shouldn’t have. 

Then the herbivore came into his dorm, smiling at him like he was someone worth looking at. She did that even now, when Leona was certain that all she should feel towards him was nothing but hate and resentment. “You made a bad decision.” Leona’s tail thumped on the mattress, certainly loud enough for Yuu to hear. She didn’t look at it. All she looked at was his eyes, with her own that were much too seeing for her own good, even when she was without her glasses making everything clear. “We all do sometimes.”

That was all she said. That was all she would say, Leona realized, as the silence continued to grow instead of lessen. He’d been ready to hear a tale of how he’d nearly turned everyone to sand. How he’d nearly destroyed everything the light touched because he didn’t get his way. How even now, Yuu didn’t trust him not to turn her to dust, and how she’d slink off his bed and away from him in the next moment.

And yet, none of that happened. Despite himself, when Leona next exhaled, it shook ever-so-slightly at the edges. “This might be a bad decision too, herbivore,” he warned, eyeing her and his room and—him, the failed usurper that should have known better than to think that anything could be his. “You got a warning already.”

Out of everything she should have done, Yuu did none of them. She took his hand instead, that had fallen in between them once it had left his hair. Leona was hit again with how much bigger his was, as she took the thing that had left her mangled and twisted and slotted her fingers between his. “You have claws,” she agreed, far too calm than she should have been as she glanced down at what she’d done. “That doesn’t mean they’re always out. And if they are…” Yuu looked up at him then, with eyes that were unspeakably beautiful in the moonlight. And she smiled, something warm and kind and much too sweet to ever be directed at someone like Leona Kingscholar. But there she was, doing just that anyway. “Well, we’ve seen that they can’t stop me.”

Leona stilled. He didn’t know what to do, when he looked at the herbivore and saw the way she looked at him. She was insane. She was annoying, making so many of her problems his without even asking him in the first place. She was an enigma. She was so stupidly, foolishly kind, even to him, even though she had seen just how far that kindness would take her.

And yet. “Big words for such a small herbivore,” he said, trying not to think about how the way her smile grew made something stupidly, childishly warm swell in his chest. 

It only grew when she laughed, still becoming everything Leona could ever hope to hear without fail once again. “You told me to use my spine.” Of course he did. Leona had to roll his eyes, because he wasn’t quite sure what he would have done if not that. “Now. Do you want to spend your potentially last peaceful night sleeping, or are you going to stay up talking to me?” she asked, a tease in her voice.

Leona tried not to think about the way that, strangely, perplexingly, he wasn’t quite sure he knew what the answer to that question was. “That’s rich, comin’ from you,” he huffed, trying not to let his smirk turn into a smile as Yuu giggled. She beat him to lay down first, leaving him to be last when she took second place before he could. And yet, he didn’t quite mind.

He didn’t turn away tonight. Neither did she, even as he made the lights switch off with a flick of the wrist and gave her every opportunity to. Hesitantly at first, Leona let his arm drape over her as he lowered it again—because it was more comfortable that way, instead of crammed to fit on top of his side. And then that same deranged, warm thing in him beat just a little erratically as Yuu shifted closer to him, pressing her scarred ear to his chest. He almost wanted to bat her away so that she wouldn’t hear the way it pounded—like an innocent, doe-eyed herbivore, he grimaced to himself—but found that he didn’t have the strength to. Especially when his ear flicked in the newfound silence, and he realized that when he rested his chin atop her head, that this was the most comfortable he’d been in a long time.

“Good night,” the herbivore whispered, as Leona found his hold on her tightening. He hummed in reply, listening to her faint breaths as she started to succumb to rest. If only he had more time to sleep, Leona mused as his eyes closed. He supposed he just had to make the precious little time he had count.

After three endless days of fighting tooth and nail, Yuu and Grim were finally able to return to their dorm. It was just as dank and decrepit as it’d been when they left, but at this point, they wouldn’t have it any other way. This was their dorm, and despite everything it was, they were proud of it.

“Good to be back,” Grim exclaimed, already relaxing the moment they stepped into the foyer. Jade and Floyd didn’t seem like they had done anything substantial to the place in their absence, at least, because it looked largely the same as they’d left it. “And out of Leona’s room. I still can’t believe you got him to let you sleep in his bed. It’s totally unfair!”

Yuu hummed, finding that she’d given up trying to explain it to him. All that Grim saw was bias towards her, and the one way that would make him forgive it was a few cans of tuna sent his way. “I got you out of the deal with Azul,” she reminded nonetheless, laughing a little at the way he shrugged it off like it was nothing. “And I seem to remember you doing a lot more eating than waiting on tables tonight.”

“I had to do that already. It was time for me to get a break.” Yuu rolled her eyes, though there was a grin on her face. Of course. Grim yawned then, sharp teeth glinting in the abysmal lights of their dorm. “I’m beat, though. I wanna catch some winks before we hafta go back to class tomorrow.”

“Did you remember to do your homework?” Grim’s face dropped at Yuu’s reminder, giving her something akin to a glare as he scurried off in a hurry, trying to outrun the lecture he thought Yuu was going to give him. She decided she’d give him a head start, walking slowly through the halls as the reality of the day seeped into her.

Somehow, they had done it. The odds had seemed a million to one, even with Leona helping them, but they had managed to prevail. Albeit with a few scratches, Yuu found herself adding, as she moved her arm and felt the throbbing pain of her new injury burn her collarbone. It was nothing she couldn’t handle, though. 

Grim yowled suddenly, cutting through Yuu’s thoughts like a cleaver. He didn’t make that noise unless something was wrong. She quickened her pace, feeling her heart start to pound at a more worried rhythm. “Grim?” she called, as she rounded the corner to make it into the lounge.

“What are you doing here?” he exclaimed, his fur bristling while his eyes were kept wide.

It was then that Yuu saw the uninvited guest in their lounge, sprawled on the couch as though he was the prefect and not her. “Pipe down,” Leona hissed, shooting Grim a sharp look. “You woke me up.”

“So what? This isn’t your dorm!” Leona’s gaze turned into a glare as he sat up, resting his elbow on the armrest and propping his head up on a fist. Sleep still seemed to have a hold on him, and yet, even though his eyes were half-lidded, the emerald rings still held so much intensity and fire in them, as he stared at Grim. He did not leave. “Do something about this, minion!”

Yuu, despite Grim’s clear distress, found herself trying not to smile. “You go on ahead,” she offered, feeling that smile become even harder to hide when Leona’s eyes slid to her, the glare dimming somewhat. “I’ll be up soon.”

Grim didn’t need to be told twice. He hardly spared her a glance that was a mixture of appreciative and mournful as he darted up the stairs and out of sight with record speed. Yuu hadn’t even known that he could be that fast.

Leona didn’t seem to mind, content with lazily watching her just stand there. Yuu couldn't find it in herself to, either, when she finally let that smile faintly show on her face. “I thought you were sick of us," she said, finding that smile grow when he hummed. “You have your bed all to yourself now. I don’t think our couch is better than that.”

“It isn’t.” Yuu couldn’t stop the little laugh that got out of her. She winced slightly as it escaped her chest, making her wound throb with white-hot pain. Leona’s gaze changed at that, his eyelids raising ever-so-slightly. “C’mere,” he called, more a soft demand than anything else. She listened, feeling her heartbeat quicken as Leona sat up when she got closer. The intensity of his eyes never let up, even when her expression returned to normal.

His hand came up when she was finally close enough to satisfy him, though it did not touch her. Leona was waiting for her to say it was alright, she realized, something warm and gentle filling her chest when the way he glanced up at her eyes confirmed it. Yuu hummed, accepting his request, and tried not to let her breathing change when she felt him undo the first button of her shirt. Then the second, before he spread the two sides apart.

Nothing met Leona but bandages, not showing even a trace of skin beneath her neck. It made his eyes narrow, especially as he saw that it wasn’t just snow white that he was met with. Crimson blood had left the tiniest of blemishes, three pinpricks that were hardly anything to the eye, but still enough to make him glower. “How bad is it?” Leona still asked, gaze moving to look up at her face. 

Lies wouldn’t go undetected. So Yuu sighed, even though she wanted to shrug it off. But her newly acquired injuries would just make her wince again if she did, and Leona would certainly see through anything else she tried. “I’m on painkillers,” she told him, feeling the warmth of his hand even through his glove and her bandages. “They’ll kick in.”

Even though she’d hoped that would satisfy Leona, it didn’t. He glared at her clavicle as though it had done a great insult to him, even when Yuu brought her hand up to cover his. “You shouldn’t have this,” he eventually said, a growl in his voice as he spoke. “I should’ve been faster. I—”

“I should have been more careful,” Yuu cut him off, making Leona’s ears flatten and his tail thump on the couch next to him. “This isn’t your fault.”

“Sure it isn’t.” The way that he glanced up at her didn’t go unnoticed. She knew exactly where his gaze went, the sight making his lip curl back in a silently snarl directed at only himself. Yuu didn’t know what to do at the way it made his eyes darken, glinting like emerald wildfires in the middle of a rainstorm.

When another moment passed, she decided that she didn’t want Leona to look angry at himself for a second longer. His brow knitted as Yuu’s hand lifted off of his, before his hold on her shirt tightened as he felt her fingers brush against his cheeks. When she finally held his face in her hands fully, ignoring the way his silky hair tickled her fingertips, she tilted it up, forcing his eyes to rip off her bandages to instead look at hers. She knew her plan worked when she watched Leona’s glare become directed at her in his confusion, his free hand coming up to wrap around her wrist to pull it off.

“Leona Kingscholar,” Yuu started, before he was able to rip her hands away, “I have a spine. I have a brain that is not peanut-sized, and it’s telling me that you are blaming yourself that has nothing to do with you.” His eyes narrowed, and she caught the gleam of his fangs when he started to open his mouth, no doubt about to challenge her. “Maybe I wasn’t using it for a moment back there, or back then, but I am using it now. I’m listening to you.”

“You call this listening to me?” he huffed, not convinced in the slightest. “Maybe I was wrong when I told you that. It doesn’t seem like you have any wits sometimes, when you go and make deals with swindlers that get you nothing. Or when you go an’ charge forward to your death when you have no magic to arm yourself with.”

She knew he was trying to hurt her. But even so, she felt his claws scratch her, making something angry bubble up inside her. “Why do you care?” she asked, feeling her own small growl whisper in her voice.

“Because I do,” he hissed, his grip on her wrist tightening. Yuu instantly stilled at the way his eyes flickered, raging like a wild beast. “You went and made things my problem when I didn’t ask. Now this is your problem, herbivore. Hope you’re happy.”

They stayed like that for a long moment, glaring daggers into the other’s eyes with angry snarls draining their lungs of air. Leona was furious. Yuu just didn’t know who he was raging at, between himself and her and a myriad of other people and things it could possibly be. With the abundance of choices he had, she hoped it wasn’t the way he felt about her. Especially when she decided, in her exasperation between how Leona was like this and how the daggers she shot at him were all but dull, it was a smart idea to lean down when his chest swelled with an inhale, no doubt about to continue with another sharp comment. And she gently pressed her lips to his, trying to take the sharpness out of him, too.

Leona bristled, that hold he had around her wrist tightening still until it was almost painful. And for a split second, Yuu wondered if she had just gone too far, and that she had taken everything completely wrong. Maybe she’d be mauled that night in her own dorm, and not in Leona’s room like she’d thought she’d be. Maybe there was the faintest of hopes for her to keep her life, as she started to pull away in order to spew out a sling of apologies at her idiocracy. But then the fist gripping her shirt tugged her right back, practically sending her into Leona’s lap from his strength.

His lips were surprisingly soft, Yuu found herself realizing, as the hand around her wrist came down to hold her waist equally gently in the closest thing to an apology she’d get. It was a dizzying contrast from how rough his voice had been before, as the scent of sun and dust and the faint hint of acacia swirled around her. He kissed her like he was starved, and she’d offered him the first real taste of food he’d had in years. It was all she could do to match him, to tell him all the things she’d wanted to without using words she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to find.

Yuu didn’t know if she even remembered what breathing was as time seemed to stop. The only thing reminding her that she was alive and not just feeling everything Leona gave her was the rapid beating of her heart, which almost threatened to shatter her with how strongly it thudded in her chest. It finally came back to her when her lungs finally burned too hot for her to ignore, making her pull away despite how she longed to burn to ash with him. Maybe he felt the same way, Yuu realized, as she took in how his chest heaved and how he looked at her with eyes so beautiful she thought she might die anyway.

“Maybe I am stupid,” she muttered, finding that she still kept some of the hiss in her voice from before. Yuu found that she didn’t particularly care, especially when the housewarden had the audacity to glare at her again.

“The only way you’re stupid is annoyingly persistent,” Leona growled, before he kissed her again. He was gentler this time, reassured that she cared for him the same way he did for her after she'd kissed him. As if she couldn’t, when she had been hoping that somehow, someway, she could get just a bit lucky for once. She most certainly had, if she was able to be like this tonight, and to have spent the past three nights with him.

It was only after they’d broken apart for the second time that Yuu realized what she’d done. She covers her mouth to make Leona give her a strange look. “I just kissed a prince,” she blurted, almost feeling like she wanted to die when the shock hit her like a wave. She’d probably just crossed so many lines and made so many mistakes in etiquette that it could be a national scandal. Yuu almost wanted to kiss him again, just to get back that feeling of the world disappearing so she didn’t have to face it.

Leona laughed then, the sound filling her ears and making her heartbeat quicken. She adored his laugh, she realized, making her skin turn even redder than it already was after the way he’d taken her breath three times now with that. “You got kissed by one too,” he reminded. Yuu found that she had to hide the entirety of her flustered face, a little too nervous to take on even the room they were in. Leona chuckled, before she felt hands coming up to gently lift hers away. “Don’t go hidin’ on me now, herbivore.” 

She forced herself to calm down when Leona let his forehead fall against hers, letting her fingers intertwine with his. This was the most relaxed she’d felt in a long time, between her deal and her homework and all the little worries rooming with Leona had given her. At least those had been for nothing, she mused to herself, finding she couldn’t help but smile at the way his tail had curled around her leg at some point.

But then of course she had to think of something else, to make her stomach knot and unease seep back into her. Leona seemed to know, by the way his nearly-closed eyes opened again. “Is this really okay?” she asked. “You’re a prince. I’m— I don’t have magic whatsoever. I’m not even sure if I have a legal presence here.”

“Who cares. I don’t.” Leona made her anxious huff turn into more of a squeak when he brought one of her hands to his lips, keeping his eyes locked with hers all the while. “The one good thing being second-born’s given me is the freedom to choose. I choose you,” he promised, smiling at the way that made her blush. “I’m also choosin’ to sleep here tonight. Hope you don’t mind, after I so kindly gave you my room for the past three nights.”

Yuu couldn’t help but scoff in a laugh at the way Leona added that, already yawning as though he could doze off in a matter of seconds. “Out here? This couch isn’t as comfortable as yours to sleep on, unfortunately.”

Leona gave her a look like she was the most deranged person to grace Twisted Wonderland. Maybe she was, she thought with a level of satisfaction she certainly shouldn’t have. She had just kissed a prince. “You have a bed. It works just fine, far as I’ve heard.”

“But Grim’s already there.”

“We can move ‘em.”

She huffed, bringing her hands back up to cup his face in disbelief. “You have to play nice with him,” Yuu told him, even though her feigned sternness was completely forgotten when she watched the way Leona nuzzled into her touch. He looked up at her with half-lidded eyes that were no doubt meant to dissuade her, but she kept firm. “We’re a package deal.”

“Fine. But he’s takin’ up your space, not mine.” Yuu laughed as she nodded, knowing that was probably the closest thing she’d get to him agreeing. “Do I get to sleep now?” Leona asked dully, making Yuu hum as she kissed his brow.

“I suppose, Your Majesty.”

“Good.” Yuu almost yelped as Leona surged up, holding her in his arms as though she weighed the same as a feather instead of letting her drop on the ground. He must have noticed the way she was staring at him, because he smirked while he started towards the stairs. “Maybe I’ll make you sing me a lullaby, since you were so willin’ to last night.”

Yuu almost frowned at him, but then she grinned, making Leona falter just for a moment. “Only if Grim can join me,” she chimed, wrapping her arms around his neck playfully. “I know just the song to sing with him.”

Leona huffed, his ears flattening as he no doubt remembered the wonderful performance they’d given him last night. “Maybe I’ll just drop you instead.”

Her grip on him got tighter in response, just in case he decided he really would. “Don’t you dare,” she warned, only met with an amused hum in response. “You’re evil.”

“Yet you still kissed me. Makes a guy wonder about your taste in people.” Leona’s eyes glinted as Yuu made a flustered noise, hiding her face in his chest. “I’m your problem now, herbivore. Hope you’re ready for what that means.”