Author's Notes: I've been sitting on this idea for a while and finally was able to finish it. Contains references to suspiciouspopsicle's Posy and Children of the Lost Moon, and Meredith Ann Pierce's Darkangel Trilogy.
Tales of Vesperia is the property of Namco Bandai.
"W-what's that?!" Estelle cried out.
"It's a mountain griffin!" Karol stated, flipping through his monster book while it was descending on them. "It's supposed to be just a legend, but-"
"Well, whatever it is, it's going down!" Yuri said. He was ready to rush headlong into battle when Judith stopped him.
"Roll to see if the mountain griffin takes damage." She grinned over the trifold cardboard screen that separated her materials from those on the rest of the table. She pointed at his purple twenty sided die.
Dutifully, he scooped it up and blew across its surface before shaking it. His hand flew open and the die dropped with a crack, skidding across the chipped surface of the table before stopping against the edge of Karol's weighty monster manual.
"Fourteen!" Yuri exclaimed, leaning over to high five Karol.
"Is that good?" Flynn caught himself asking aloud from the seat beside Yuri. The collective table turned to look at him and he felt stupid for even asking.
"My rogue's critical attack range is between thirteen and twenty, so if I land this next roll, I get a critical attack." Yuri eased back down into his folding chair, scribbling something on his scratch paper. He rolled the same die again, and it landed face up on what Flynn assumed was another promising number, given how high it was. "And this means that my critical attack landed successfully. If on the initial roll, the die had come up a one, it would have missed. The higher the number, the better the success."
"Okay."
Why Yuri had bothered to drag him along to this was beyond Flynn. He had never been particularly interested in the table top gaming club that Yuri had been a member of since high school, but there were worse ways to kill a Friday afternoon after classes ended. Yuri had been begging him for weeks to come along and to give the game a chance, but Flynn had never been inclined to. He had finally relented though. It couldn't hurt to go once if it made Yuri happy.
He didn't mind tagging along, but this game was somewhat difficult to wrap his head around, between all the numbers and rules. He tried to play by example, watching the others as they all made moves, and keeping his own character in mind when he did.
"Anyone else? The griffin is getting tired of waiting."
"I'll go." Rita sat up, taking up her die. "I cast 'Tidal Wave.'" She didn't wait for Judith's prompt to roll.
The clatter of the die was followed up with a disdainful hiss. "Eight."
Judith rolled her die on the other side of the trifold. "Griffin takes half damage."
"Oh! My turn!" Estelle called. "I cast 'Sharpness.'"
Call. Roll. Hit. Miss. It continued that way for a few rounds, attacks by the party members interrupted by the monster's countering.
"Come on, Flynn. Your turn." Yuri nudged him with a smile and edged a nondescript, white, twenty sided die at him.
He picked it up hesitantly, letting it roll against his palm.
"Just say what you're going to do."
His level two paladin didn't have much in the way of special powers or attacks compared to the rest of the party. "I'll, uh, just attack."
"Go ahead."
He shook the die for a second and let it roll out of his hand and across the table. Whether it had been how hard he threw it or how sweaty his palms were, it rolled between Rita and Estelle and right off the table.
"Re-roll!" Yuri called and dove under the table after it. He surfaced a moment later and plopped it back into Flynn's hand. "Here. Give it another go."
"Okay." Not so hard this time.
"Wait." Yuri stopped his hand and pried open Flynn's fingers to reveal the die. Through pursed lips, he blew cool air across Flynn's palm and the die. "There. For luck."
Flynn felt his face sting red, hoping that it wasn't as bright as it was hot, but that surge of heat crept all the way down his neck and into his stomach. Sometimes his best friend was absolutely, unabashedly weird. But he rolled again, pushing past the overwhelming embarrassment that Yuri caused and that he felt for himself.
The tiny face of the die that peeked up at them when it stopped told it all.
"Critical!"
Hours in a folding chair at a cracked and peeling table in the student center had not been the way he had intended to spend his afternoon. There were bruises on his legs from having to cram himself in a chair that was too small and his hands were still sweaty. But at least Yuri seemed happy, and it was strangely hard to forget the tickle of his cool breath over the die in Flynn's palm.
They walked from the student center of the college toward the apartments where they lived a block over, Yuri a floor above and a building over from him. As soon as they set out, Flynn knew that it wasn't their only stop.
Comet Comics, or The Comet, was Yuri's favorite comic shop and the only one on the way home. He stopped there almost everyday to chat with the scruffy older man who ran the place or pet the dog that napped beside the counter, as much as for anything else. Flynn didn't complain. He liked the place well enough. He had just never quite gotten into the same hobbies as Yuri.
Yuri opened the door and strode in, past the vacant front counter. He went directly to Repede, the large dog that guarded the shop and was something of another friend to Yuri. After a brief round of tug or war with a rope bone, Yuri was allowed to continue into the store with Flynn.
"Thanks for coming and playing today," he said, weaving between the tall, narrowly spaced shelves that were crammed into the building.
"Oh, no problem. It was a lot more work than I expected though." Character creation, stat rolls, complex combat rules. "But I've got plenty of free time, so it's not a big deal."
"That would be because you haven't had a girlfriend since right after high school," Yuri smiled crookedly at him from between a pair of display stands separating the aisles.
"Yeah," he said, with a bit of a shrug. "I just haven't been quite making connections with people the way I used to." He and his former girlfriend, Sodia, had parted on well enough terms and were still friends, but he just hadn't had the chemistry with her to really make the relationship work. In some ways, they were too similar. It just hadn't worked out right, and Flynn hadn't found anyone else yet who it did work out with. Not that he had been making much of an attempt at it.
"Well, since you have so much free time, you should come tomorrow, too. We use the backroom here. Karol is GM and he makes some absolutely wicked campaigns for us."
"I don't know." Flynn still didn't know that table top gaming was for him.
"Come on. You can't tell me that you didn't have at least a little fun. I can't say it'll help your chances of getting another girlfriend, but what else are you doing?"
It never took Yuri much convincing to get what he wanted out of Flynn. This was no exception.
"Okay, okay." Maybe he would have a better appreciation of it a second time around.
"Great." His smile was so bright. He really loved this game. It wouldn't hurt for Flynn to give it another chance. "Let's get you a set of dice for your own, and a miniature. And over dinner, I'll help you tweak your character sheet."
His enthusiasm pulled Flynn down like an undertow, filling him with a fraction of that same excitement. He was just glad he could share in something Yuri felt so strongly about, even if it wasn't normally his style.
Fifty dollars later, Yuri had convinced him to buy a beginner's rule book, a set of sky blue dice with a pouch to store them in, and a plastic miniature figurine of a paladin like Flynn's character. It was more than he had intended on spending for something that he had just agreed to play a second time, but he didn't argue with Yuri. He would play along for now. It had been pretty fun over the embarrassing beginner's awkwardness.
While dinner was in the oven, they went over rules and strategies and abilities. It all left Flynn feeling a little overwhelmed again. There was still so much that he didn't understand, but Yuri was a willing and enthusiastic teacher. At Yuri's coffee table, they sat stuffing their faces full of baked spaghetti and going over Flynn's character sheet. Yuri made notations in the margins between mouthfuls of food, explaining when he stopped chewing.
"You've got a pretty standard paladin here, but there are ways you can improve him."
"Okay." Flynn listened attentively, his attention drawing even sharper when Yuri's hand brushed against his own on the paper. It wasn't deliberate, but something about it made his mouth terribly dry.
"You just got all this experience, and attribute points to go along with it. I'd recommend putting a few into strength, and the rest into charisma."
"What? Why?"
"People like you better, and your paladin skills are more effective. NPCs are more likely to do what you ask or find you trustworthy or believable, and your chosen god tends to favor you better."
"NPCs?"
"Non player characters," Yuri forced back a chuckle. "See. Look here." He pointed down at his own sheet for comparison purposes. "My rogue has high perception/stealth, and high charisma. When sneaking doesn't do the job, lying does. Unless I get a failed roll. But since my luck stat is really high, too, I get a bonus. It's all about playing on strengths."
Flynn tallied out his attribute points, splitting them between strength and charisma, and Yuri helped him place skill and magic points. Yuri flipped open the beginner book and scrolled to the class section.
"Paladins learn spells at a slower rate than Clerics and Sorcerers, but you get to start on your second level spells now. You don't get any attack spells, but that doesn't mean that there aren't useful ones here. Even if something doesn't look useful now, it might be later on." He pointed to a list of icons with names underneath them. "You only get one spell for now, so chose wisely. You already have First Aid and Hymn, which heal and boost your strength respectively."
He read the description for each of the level two spells. Blessing spells, stat boosters, non-combat, support. It was dizzying. The later level spells seemed even worse.
"I'll go with Protection from Chaos."
Yuri nodded along as he made further notations, flipping through the book to point out statistics and lists, things to build and expand Flynn's character. What had been a rather dull, standard paladin was quickly growing into something that was customized to Flynn, someone he was thinking up a proper back story for, and although the setup was tedious, he couldn't deny that he was starting to have fun. It had seemed boring at first, but it brought back to mind days in elementary and middle school when he and Yuri had loved nothing better than to rush home from school and sit down and play video games. This was much more involved, but there was something wonderful about that. He wasn't just going to be playing a character, pre-built, but he was going to be in the game. The story was going to be what he made of it. He had power. This was a lot more fun than he expected. So much fun, in fact, that he almost missed Yuri's clock chime two o'clock.
"Seriously? Jeez." Yuri mumbled at his phone display. "No way it's that late."
"Early, you mean. It's already Saturday."
"It's not Saturday until the sun comes up."
Arguing with Yuri's logic was pointless.
"Well, I better get going," Flynn said, shuffling together his character sheets and all the notes he had written for himself.
"It'd be easier for you to just stay the night."
"I only live just downstairs."
"You're only going to be back over here again tomorrow."
"Yes, but my bed is more comfortable than your couch."
Yuri mumbled something under his breath, just barely inaudible.
"What?"
"I said goodnight."
It wasn't just comfort dragging him home. From the thickness of the beginner manual in his hand, he had a lot of reading up to do, and he wasn't actually dreading it.
It was almost dawn when Flynn made it to bed, and only two hours later, he woke to the buzzing of his alarm clock. His eyes were red and dry from reading and staring at the screen of his laptop. In a matter of hours, he had read through the beginner guide and watched a dozen video tutorials on the subject of the table top role playing game that he was becoming quickly invested in. He was actually looking forward to spending the day with Yuri and his friends, trying to learn the game. It was much more involved than he had expected and required a lot more attention than he had honestly believed Yuri capable of giving. He wasn't quite ready to admit it, but he might have been excited.
Comet Comics had a backroom opened to them for the day, little more than a closet with an attached kitchenette, but it fit the table and the chairs and all six of them plus Repede. Everyone brought something along to eat, between Karol's sandwich tray and a cake that Yuri must have stayed up the rest of the night to bake and frost. Flynn had the foresight to bring a case of soda along just in case. They all settled down with plates of food and their game materials, and prepared for their campaign.
But it wasn't Karol who took a seat at the end of the table with the trifold setup to be the GM, but Yuri, blocking off his bag of dice and sizable stack of notes.
Flynn voiced this. Yuri had specifically stated that Karol was GM today. Why the sudden change?
"We switched. Yuri's been working on this really cool campaign for us, so I'll take my turn later," Karol replied.
"Yes. I'm very intrigued about what sort of adventure he plans to take us on." Judith smiled from beside him. It made Flynn uneasy."But don't worry. I'll help you out if you need it."
"Thank you." That didn't ease his concern. He felt ready to play, he just wasn't sure what Yuri was planning to throw at them.
The adventure began normally enough, the party taking a bit of respite in a town. Their characters were allowed time to interact and get to know each other. It took Flynn time to ease into what seemed strange and awkward at first. He continually felt like he was doing something—everything—wrong, but no one laughed at him or made fun and with that, he was able to relax and become more comfortable with the flow of the game. They did small things about town, buying supplies and chatting. Flynn got a chance to test his boosted charisma to get some information from the locals, and approved of the results. Yuri didn't let the easy part of the game last long.
"Two men approach the party-" Yuri started.
"Fireball."
"Rita, no. Story progression."
"Roll for success," Rita retorted. "Can they dodge?"
"Two men wearing flame resistant dragon armor and with god like evade stats approach the party-"
"Killjoy."
"Don't worry, Rita," Estelle said, rearranging her notes. "I'm sure that you'll get to blow up something soon."
"And they hand a scroll to the leader of the party, Karol."
"What does it say?"
"It's a request from the local magistrate requiring your immediate presence. He wishes to hire you for a quest, but the scroll doesn't contain any details further than his name."
So they played along and accepted the request. They followed the pair to what Yuri described as a stately mansion. The stiffness of his voice and the way his eyes darted down indicated that he was reading off his notes. Finally, he described their audience with the magistrate.
"The greying old man speaks." Yuri tried to imitate a nasally voice with mixed success. "'Travelers, a grave tragedy has befallen me. My most beloved pet has run away.'"
"Are you serious?" Rita scoffed. "A missing pet quest?"
"Let's see where it goes," Judith replied. "And you want to hire us to look for it, Your Lordship?"
"'Yes, that's right.'"
"What does it look like?" Flynn knew that expecting something commonplace was foolish if Yuri had written the quest.
"'Attempts at describing it would be futile for its beauty is too grand. You'll know it by the bell it wears. It is made of fine crystal and makes a sound as clear as daybreak. Here is its match that I used to call my pet.'" Yuri slid a blank, red plastic token across the table beneath the divider. "You may be able to find it with this."
The magistrate then pointed them in the most likely direction, to the local forest, and they were off with the bell in hand. Yuri described the forest, a place where greenery once was in these summer months, there was now decay. Crinkled leaves crunched beneath their feet and plants withered as if it was fall. They tromped through, fighting a small horde of knolls and kobolds and other lesser monsters before they reached the lake in the middle of the forest. Flynn was tallying out what he was going to do with his experience when Judith spoke to him.
"Why don't you try ringing the bell here? The open area should aid the sound traveling further."
Flynn fumbled the token, but finally took hold of it and held it aloft. "I'll ring the bell."
"Roll to see if you attract something."
He picked up his die and rolled. "Six."
"Good job." Yuri smiled and ducked under the trifold. A second set of dice clattered against the table and he peeked back over, wearing a smirk. "Congratulations! You've attracted the attention of the forest hydra."
Karol called to use his monster lore as Yuri described the three headed beast rising out of the water. Estelle was quick to throw up a protection spell and Rita prepared to finally unleash her volley of fireballs.
"Initiative roll." Yuri called, and each of them rolled.
Judith's upped initiative put her ahead of the others, but she didn't call for her ranger to attack.
"I use my 'Animal Speech' ability to commune with the hydra."
She and Yuri both rolled and that quickly, what Flynn had expected to be a knock-down, drag-out fight died down. Judith was allowed to reason with the monster, playfully voiced by Yuri, and although they could hear the dialogue, their characters were as good as mute and had no knowledge of the conversation taking place.
"What did it say?" Flynn asked, and in story, Judith recounted the hydra's tale, telling of a strange creature with an odd mist that followed it, blighting the land. She had not gotten a good look at the creature, but was at least able to tell them that she had heard the sounds of its bell in the forest as recently as that morning.
"The sun is setting now. What will you do?" Yuri asked, eyes glinting over the trifold that hid whatever he was planning.
"We should rest for the night," Karol said.
"Perhaps the creature can be persuaded out of hiding under the cover of darkness in search of food," Judith added.
"Your party makes camp by the hydra's pond. The sun sets and the moon rises, the forest a very different place without the light of day to guide you. Go ahead and eat and do what you want for a while, but keep in mind, someone will have to stay up and keep guard."
"I volunteer for guard duty," Flynn said.
"No problem here," Rita said. The others seemed to agree.
"I'll take care of the cooking then. Yuri has told us too much about your culinary disasters for me to even let you handle food in game," Judith smiled.
Flynn couldn't deny the truth, but this was different. Here, he was somebody else. "Maybe my character is good at it."
"Roll to see if you succeed."
Flynn did just that, with results the painted him a spectacular failure in game, too.
"You handle guard duty. I'll handle the food." With that, Flynn was kept from possibly poisoning anybody imaginary in addition to his real-life accidents. They had been accidents.
The party ate and chatted and Rita and Estelle worked on their spell books and all was calm and quiet. When everyone else crawled into their bedrolls and fell fast asleep while Flynn remained awake and seated at the fire, Yuri went on to narrate.
"The night is dark and eerily quiet. Even the songs of evening birds cannot be heard. A faint breeze rustles through the canopies of the withering trees, shaking dry leaves and rattling branches. The fire crackles steadily, a lone light to comfort you in the darkness as all but the paladin sleep. But then you hear it." Yuri looked at Flynn. "You're not sure what it is at first, but it comes a second time, a sound crystal clear, a sound that cuts the silence of the night like a knife."
Flynn knew that he was really getting into it when the description pocked his skin with goosebumps of anticipation.
"Those who are not awake, roll to see if the sound brings you around."
Four failed rolls.
"Looks like you're handling this one alone, Paladin,"Judith said, resting her chin on the back of propped up hands.
"You hear the sound again, closer this time." Yuri prompted just as Flynn's brain was scrambling for what to do.
"I keep my sword at the ready, but I ring the bell." He rolled a success.
"Just into the area of the fire's light, you see a form approaching."
"What does this form look like?"
"Tall, pale, with long legs and very long, dark hair, split at its temples by a pair of ram's horns. It wears fine robes of dark silk, and around its neck, a crystal bell is strung on a collar. It stops at the boundary of the camp, just past the line of the fire's light, watching you with strange dark eyes."
"Who goes there?" Flynn asked.
"The form rings the bell around its neck and chuckles. It speaks in a surprisingly deep voice. 'I heard the bell to call me, but I never expected a man this handsome.' He steps forward, crossing easily the threshold of the barrier. 'Have you come to take me back?'"
"You're the pet?"
"'Pet? Is that how he referred to me?' It approaches further, straight up to the fire."
"I cast 'Fireball'."
"Rita, you failed the alertness roll."
"Besides, we have to take it back alive," Judith added, gently taking the die out of the Rita's hand and setting it down on the table. She then turned to Yuri. "I use my elven racial ability of Vigilance to waken from my nightly trance."
She rolled and Yuri continued.
"Judith, the elven ranger awakens."
"I wake the others."
"Now I cast 'Fireball.'"
"Rita, no."
Flynn continued, "What are you and why are you here?"
"'I got tired of that old man. You seem much nicer.' The creature brushes the back of a tender hand across your cheek."
Flynn shifted in his seat, his legs aching with the discomfort of sitting for hours and nothing more. But the discomfort didn't end there, and neither did Yuri's narration.
Karol used his monster lore skill to determine that the pet was an incubus. With a quick holding spell from Rita, they interrogated the creature and it wove for them a sordid tale of an alliance between a powerful demon and the magistrate, and the havoc that they planned to wreak together on the countryside. After his story, he proceeded to hit on Flynn's character so hard that Flynn had to physically excuse himself from the game for a moment to get a drink and watch his face in the kitchenette because he was blushing so hard that it was distracting for everyone. He wrote off his being flustered as merely being over-tired. He hadn't gotten much sleep the night before during his reading and research. But Yuri was still being weird. Flynn did return to the game, a little refreshed in spite of the tingling in his stomach not having ebbed, and ready to continue.
Their little buffet and most of the case of sofa disappeared as they sat there at the table, so grounded in the false reality of pen and paper and dice and imagination that the real world stopped moving. For that time, they weren't themselves, but their characters, lost in a world of fantasy as they tore through Yuri's campaign. It was more exciting than he had expected, the twist at the very end especially unbelievable. Each battle was thrilling in a way that he could have never imagined before living it, and that day, parked in a rickety and uncomfortable folding chair, pouring over pages of notes and books and dice, he was sure he was starting to feel at least an inkling of the way Yuri did when he played.
It was after sunset when the game ended and the gaming club went their separate ways. As he and Yuri started back to their apartments, Flynn found himself gushing, talking so enthusiastically about something that he and Yuri finally had in common since their middle school years had given them different interests. But this was something they could connect with.
Over leftovers at Yuri's coffee table, they went over skills and characters and the campaign they had played. He still had a lot to learn about the game, but he was getting there.
Stuffed full, he leaned back against Yuri's couch with a contented sigh. "You never told me how much fun this is."
"Yes, I did." Yuri cleared away their plates, dropping them in the sink before he came back. "I told you back in high school when I started playing. You just didn't believe me." He sat down on the floor beside him, back pressed against the front of the sofa.
"I'm sorry," Flynn smiled. "I remember thinking it was weird that you skipped homecoming and prom for this, but I can see why now."
"Wasn't my only reason for skipping prom."
"What was?"
"Nothing. I don't even remember now."
"Did you even ask anybody to go with you?"
"Nope. Would've been pointless." Yuri busied himself with putting the notes for his campaign away with his set of game master materials.
"Why?" Flynn had never bothered to ask at the time. In fact, he had never even bothered to think about what sort of person Yuri would have asked. He had plenty of attractive female friends, but had never seemed to be romantically interested. He remembered waiting at prom for Yuri to show, watching in vain for his long, dark hair through the gymnasium thick with people in dresses and suits. He had been so oddly disappointed by that, or was it the fact that Sodia had gotten fed up with him waiting for his friend and gone off to dance with someone else? The line there blurred a bit and Flynn couldn't honestly say which one bothered him more.
"The person I was going to ask already had a date."
"You could have asked someone else."
He shrugged and leaned back, staring at the ceiling.
"Was it Estelle?"
Yuri grimaced, coiling back in disgust. "What? No, she's like my little sister."
"Judith?"
"You're wasting your time."
"Just tell me."
"Nope." The grimace turned into a smirk and Yuri shoved him playfully.
That simple motion turned into an all out wrestling match. Flynn pushed the coffee table out of the way before he tackled Yuri. They rolled across the matted and threadbare carpet, pinning and shoving, each fighting for the upper hand. Flynn was strong, but Yuri was fast. With a final shove, he pinned Yuri back against the floor and felt Yuri's muscles, warm and tense with the match, ease. It was over. He had won.
He felt that warmth fill his face as Yuri cupped his cheek in one hand, staring up at him. with eyes like a brewing storm. Every ridge of a finger print brushed over his skin and he was frozen, staring into those eyes as Yuri's hand slid back to cup the back of his neck.
The impact that came next was almost more of a surprise than those eyes had been, but the force of Yuri's head slamming against his threw him back against the floor. By the time he shook off the shock, Yuri was already sitting up, laughing at him.
Flynn brushed it off as Yuri playing dirty as he did sometimes when they wrestled or did most anything else, but it was hard to forget the look in those eyes and the way they made the edges of his memory fuzzy. He tried to brush it off as Yuri just being weird, just being Yuri, but even as he trekked home, that was difficult.
Sleep was elusive again Saturday night and for the whole week following. This was only partly because of reading and internet searches this time, although both of those had turned up some interesting prospects for future gaming. The biggest factor that contributed to Flynn's sleeplessness was the sheer fact that Yuri had been acting weird. The wrestling match and the campaign where Yuri's incubus NPC was continually making passes at Flynn had been the weirdest thus far.
He thought about asking him why he was being so strange, but he knew that Yuri, being Yuri, would simply shrug it off as nothing and then continue with the behavior so asking out right was out of the question. It would come out eventually. He was probably tired from school work or from staring at his dice for too long or something. All those excuses though didn't explain how Flynn was feeling about it. Flustered, yes, although he wondered if partly it wasn't because Yuri chose to do these things in front of other people. When they were alone, though, everything seemed normal, like nothing between them had changed at all. It hadn't, right?
Flynn had been attending the gaming club's meetings for over a week now and was having more fun than he had ever imagined. And he felt like he and Yuri could finally relate to something since they had grown up. It was fun, in spite of how weird his best friend was acting.
He waited for everyone at the Comet, perusing the shelves of the books that he was starting to collect. He still only had a few of them, and those that he had borrowed from Yuri's extensive library, but it was hard to select a new one with so many that looked interesting. He eventually picked one, purchased it at the counter, and filed into the backroom as the others entered. Within minutes, everyone was set up and ready to go with with Estelle as the game master.
The quest this time was a little different from the dungeon crawler quests they had been doing previously. Yuri described it as a 'diplomatic fetch quest', which made Karol giggle. Rather than fight their way through a dungeon for treasure like campaigns Flynn had read about and seen played, this involved more role playing, which was quickly becoming uncomfortable regarding Yuri's character.
"So, my half-elf rogue Irrylath is successfully disguised as the Princess Alerica. Is it good enough to fool her suitor, the over-inflated Lord Vellen?" Yuri leaned back in his chair, ease and confidence as he shook his die in his fist.
He and Estelle both rolled. With all of Yuri's rogue attributes and skill points, his score was astronomical.
"You'd be able to fool your own mother."
"Sweet."
Yuri used those skills to persuade the Princess's suitor to tell him very nearly everything, about the plot against her father put in place by the chancellor, of all people, about the coup d'etat that would take place on their wedding night, about anything and everything else that Yuri asked.
"I use back stab on Vellen."
"Absolutely not," Flynn stated. "I cannot allow this injustice to take place."
"Have you listened to a thing this guy said? He's evil."
"That doesn't make it right to kill him."
"He's a monster who admitted to plotting the murder of innocent people. That's premeditation."
"That's still-"
Yuri interrupted, taking up his die again and looking at Estelle. "I seduce the paladin Fionn."
"Yuri!"
"Flynn, roll to save," Estelle said, ducking beneath her screen as a smile twitched at the corners of her lips.
He couldn't believe it.
"Irrylath successfully seduces Fionn," her face flushed with the announcement, "but fails to complete his back stab on Vellen as he is now distracted." She was quick to carry on with the game after that.
Yuri smirked at him, and they continued to play without managing to kill anybody, but Yuri seemed content with that. Flynn was still no closer to understanding what was going on.
The rest of the game went by in a blur. Estelle's campaign was a challenge, with a surprising boss at the end, but no matter what, Yuri's behavior in character hadn't changed. He was relentlessly hitting on Flynn's character, no matter the circumstances. Several failed rolls gave the members of the party time to partake in illicit activities and questionable interrogation methods while Flynn's paladin was distracted by Yuri's rogue.
In the end, no matter how strange Yuri was, Yuri was just playing his character, and having fun, so Flynn, again, brushed it off. As soon as they were out of The Comet, it was like nothing had changed, like Yuri's bizarre behavior that flustered him so simply had never happened. Everything was normal. Flynn assured himself that he was just imagining things, and ignored the strange crestfallen feeling that came with it. By the time they were walking back to Flynn's apartment, it was just an odd memory, a tightness in his chest, and nothing more.
They ordered pizza for delivery and talked about the only thing they had all week: gaming. Flynn took the opportunity of Yuri answering the door for the delivery to look over his new book. From what he could tell, these were very different from what they currently played. It was less math and more action. Yuri liked action.
"Hey, Yuri?"
"Hm?" He hummed from the kitchen, grabbing them some napkins and a jar of red pepper flakes.
"What's 'LARPing?'"
He padded back into the living room with the biggest grin he could muster on. "Live action role playing."
"Live action? But don't we already?
"Nah. What we play is strictly pen and paper. Larping is a lot of fun, and a lot nerdier. You actually act out your character. Some people even dress up and make prop swords to fight with." He flopped down on the couch and opened the pizza box. He pulled a big slice free and slurped the first couple of bites down before he continued. "There are even parks were you can go and larp for the weekend. It's like a more involved Ren-faire."
"Have you ever larped?"
"A few times in high school The gaming club's third meeting was out first larp session. It's been a while."
"So how does it work exactly?" Flynn grabbed a slice also, chewing as he read.
Yuri went on to explain the basic mechanics between bites of pizza, and fifteen minutes later, Flynn's grasp on the subject was still failing.
"Can you show me?"
"Sure. Let's use the campaign from earlier as a basis for practice purposes. I'm now a half-elf rogue named Irrylath, and you're the paladin Fionn."
"Okay."
"I attempt to seduce you."
"Y-Yuri!" His throat tightened and the heat filling up his face was impossible to ignore.
"Just play along, okay?" There was that look in those eyes again.
"Fine."
"Now, instead of rolling, we play rock paper scissors to determine the outcome." He clenched his fist and shook it between them. "Ready?"
"Yeah."
"One... two... three... Go."
Flynn had been stupid enough to pick rock and Yuri's warm hand fell flat over his.
"Paper covers rock. My attempt is successful." Yuri pressed his fist down and leaned in. The fingers of his other hand curled over the crest of Flynn's shoulder, and they were nose to nose before Flynn had any idea of what was going on. Yuri's breath was warm and soft on his face and his lips against Flynn's even more so, hot as a burning coal that Flynn couldn't break free of. As Yuri pulled away, he opened his eyes, those charcoal orbs fixed hazily on his.
"You're supposed to close your eyes when someone kisses you."
"Yuri!" He jerked back, grabbing Yuri by the wrist. His skin was too warm to contain his blood filled flesh, paper thin, and his insides churned uneasily. He couldn't hold back the question any longer, not when he wanted its answer so badly that it hurt. But the words came out wrong and not at all as he intended, leaving his mouth surprised and edged with worry. "What's up with you lately? You've been acting so weird."
Yuri blanched, pulling back from him and settling on the sofa cushion. He was silent for a long moment while he stared, an endless, frustrating moment that hung thick in the air between them.
"You're an idiot, you know that?"
He stood before Flynn could reply and grabbed up his backpack. Without another word, he left, leaving Flynn there, stunned and alone and trying to figure out what had just happened.
Yuri had gone from weird to weirder. They normally studied together on Sundays, but Yuri didn't answer his phone, or his door, and didn't meet him at the library like he always did. Flynn went alone, but it wasn't the same, and he skipped out after half an hour to go to The Comet. Yuri would likely be there.
But he wasn't.
Something wasn't adding up. If Yuri would just come out and say it, that would be so much easier, but that was wholly unlike Yuri. But so was that kiss, wasn't it? Flynn found that he couldn't just brush it off, he couldn't forget it. Like the sharpness in his chest, the thought of that moment just wouldn't go away. He had been surprised, that was no lie, but maybe he had overreacted a little. It wasn't that big of a deal, right? Being kissed by the best friend you've known since elementary school. Yuri might as well have been family. But there had been nothing familial about that kiss, or the way it had made Flynn feel. The only thing he could do now was to find Yuri and get to the truth.
Finding Yuri was easier said than done. He wasn't at The Comet, or any of his favorite restaurants, or on the campus. The last place he could think of was a walk across town, but Flynn took it anyway. If Yuri was nowhere else, he was bound to be on the roof of their old high school.
And he was there, sitting on top of one of the long broken down air conditioning units, staring out across the adjacent park.
"I thought I'd find you here."
"What took you so long then?"
A fair question that Flynn wasn't capable of responding to. He leaned on the unit beside Yuri and continued. "Look, about last night-"
"What about it?"
"The kiss..."
"Oh, that?" He smiled, but it wasn't quite right. "I was just playing around."
"But you weren't, were you?" The sharpness stung urging him to just come out and say it already, but his lips were dumb and useless.
Yuri fell silent and that halfhearted smile vanished.
"Who were you going to ask to prom?"
"I don't see what that has to do with anything."
"Yuri."
"I told you. I was just joking."
"What if I don't want it to be just a joke?" He wasn't sure why he felt so flustered. This was Yuri, his closest friend, and maybe something more. It was a previously unconsidered possibility, the thought of something more than being friends with Yuri, but the more and more he thought about it, the more proper it felt. Something about this was right. "Who did you want to ask to prom?"
Yuri sighed and sagged, passing a hand through his hair. "Looks like you've got me."
"If you had asked, I would have gone with you."
"You can't say that for sure. You had a girlfriend."
He was right. He was only starting to consider this, and had no idea how the Flynn of two years ago might have reacted to news like this. "I'd like to think I would have."
"I guess we'll never know."
"It can't hurt to try now. If you want to."
His eyes shifted over, scanning Flynn for something, anything that might betray that he was the one joking this time. After a moment, he seemed satisfied that Flynn did not waver.
"Guess there's only one way to decide it." Yuri tilted back and produced from his pocket his shimmering and warm twenty sided die. It rolled lazily across his pale palm. "I hope your luck stats are high enough."
Flynn took the die, a smile tugging at his lips. "I'm hoping my charisma stats are enough to make up for it."
With a gentle nod from Yuri, he shook the die, gently at first, and it felt like the first time he had rolled, awkward and heavy in his clammy hand. A little more force, shaking off his apprehensions and letting confidence build in him. It was all in this roll. This was it.
The die left his hand, sailing through the air and clattering across the concrete rooftop. It skidded to a halt against the lip of the parapet, one tiny face pointed skyward and flashing white in the light of the sun. He moved to check it, hopeful for the outcome, but Yuri caught him by the hand. He pulled him back into the warmth of their second kiss, and as he pulled back, there was only one word on his lips.
"Critical."