A/N:This is the last old short fic! Anything else that comes afterwards will be fresh out of my mind and not a year old! ^-^ Enjoy, though this is probably my weakest one. v-v
Disclaimer: I do not own Noblesse - this is solely for entertainment purposes.
Enjoy~.
Rai was staring out the window as best he could while rain heavily beat against the glass. He could only see silhouettes outside, and anything else was bathed in a dreary, dark gray color. Even so, none of those silhouettes were of people, as no one dared to be outside in such such stormy weather.
Frankenstein soundlessly came out from the kitchen with a steaming cup of tea and gave it to his waiting master. Still without sound, he closed the curtains to the window Rai was peering out of, which caused the living room to darken further. In doing this the obnoxious sound of loud rain was at least partially muffled.
"How come you closed the curtains, Frankenstein?" Rai asked, his gazing shifting from the crimson curtains to the blonde that had seated himself on the couch beside him. Not thirsty at the moment, he set his teacup down on the coffee table to be drunken later.
"It is rather bleak outside right now, Master, and it isn't very pleasant to look at. It may even get worse, as well." Frankenstein reached for the TV remote on the coffee table, turning on the TV so he could browse channels for one that was currently covering the weather.
"Ah..." Now it was the bright TV screen that attracted Rai's eyes. He grew puzzled quickly, since he was now watching a man standing in the rain with an umbrella in one hand and a microphone in the other. The man was wearing a rain poncho on top of a raincoat, and looked very bundled up. What stumped Rai, however, was the fact that it was raining inside whatever it was he was looking at. Rai supposed that if he were to go up to the device, he would get soaked too. So he didn't try. Instead, he asked the technology guru beside him: "Frankenstein."
"Yes, Master?" Frankenstein had finally settled on a good weather channel and placed the remote on the arm of the couch.
"Someone is stuck inside there while it's raining."
It took several seconds of dissecting Rai's statement for Frankenstein to understand what he meant. Did he mean the man was stuck in the TV? Frankenstein immediately regretted having turned on the TV while in his master's presence, otherwise he should have seen something like this coming. He couldn't turn it off either, not because the remote was broken or anything, but because the screen had switched to a weatherman who was saying a thunderstorm would occur any moment. Not very pleasant, but it was what he had been looking for. It was only after he heard this news - and the news that followed saying there would be a possible power outage - that Frankenstein finally addressed Rai's original concern. "Not to worry, Master, he's not actually trapped. That's just a TV, which projects certain images. I won't go into detail, but I shall say that the man you saw was just fine."
Rai came to the conclusion that TVs were too complicated and a force he shouldn't reckon with. And he had no intention of coming near one ever again, anyways. The weatherman on the screen was now covering other places around the region that did not concern the two men. Because of this, Rai asked, "Can you turn the TV off then, Frankenstein?"
"I will, Master," Frankenstein said as he reached for the remote beside him. Just before he hit the power button, the TV, and all other electronics within the house, shut down. With both men quiet and no sound in the room since the TV was turned off, both of them could hear the boom of thunder some ways away. The two had been too fixated on the TV before to have noticed the strike of lightning that had occurred mere seconds ago.
Even though the lightning and thunder only went off occasionally, the violent rain constantly invaded Frankenstein and Rai's sense of hearing. Frankenstein almost had to shout over the combined noise of it all: "Master, I'm going to get some candles to light some rooms up, I'll be back shortly."
Rai, even with Frankenstein speaking loudly, was just barely able to comprehend what he said. He was able to understand a little more what the blone was planning once Frankenstein returned after a few minutes with several candles, a lighter, and two flashlights in hand.
"You'll have to use this for better navigation, Master," Frankenstein said as he tossed a red flashlight at Rai. "I'll show you how to use it as soon as I light candles in all necessary rooms." He started with the living room, and lit a cinnamon-apple scented candle on the coffee table. As he left to the kitchen he already prepared two candles to be placed there: one on the kitchen counter, the other, at the table. After that he put candles in each of the bedrooms and bathrooms and returned to Rai, who was leaning forward to stare intensely at the liquid wax pooling in candle. Suddenly a beam of light struck the side of Rai's. When Rai turned to face the source, he was blinded and immediately shut his eyes.
"Sorry, Master." Frankenstein's voice came from behind the bright light. He pointed the flashlight down at the ground as he approached Rai, and when he sat down beside him, he placed it on the coffee table beside the candle. Now he picked up Rai's flashlight and held it near the candlelight to illuminate its surface. "See this switch, Master? Currently it's in the 'Off' position. To turn it on, push the switch up."
Rai remained quiet, so Frankenstein couldn't tell if he had understood his instructions. Regardless, the blonde handed him his flashlight, and surprisingly, Rai turned it on without command. "Ah," he seemed startled at his own success as he experimented carefully with the foreign object in his hand. Shining it on the coffee table, he found his teacup and immediately reached for it with his other hand, glad to have found it so he could quench his oncoming thirst.
Now with the worry of not being able to see well out of the way, the two were then focused on the storm at hand again.
Their form of "focusing on the storm at hand" was sitting in silence for a few minutes, Rai sipping at his tea while he listened to the booming thunderstorm, while Frankenstein stared at what few rays of light entered through the curtains. During his contemplating, Frankenstein suddenly came to a revelation:
"Master, I think I have something for us to do." He set his flashlight down on the table, still shining, then quickly disappeared into the darkness of the hallway to find what he was in search of. Rai was only left with the relentless sound of rain and thunder to keep him company while he waited for Frankenstein.
It took very little time for Frankenstein to reappear, Rai directing his flashlight towards the hallway to guide the blonde back to the couch. Right off the bat, Rai noticed he was carrying something in his hands, which he then made room for to place onto the coffee table. The raven black-haired male then shone his flashlight on the surface of the item, only to find that it was a box whose face read, "The Game of Life".
Before he could ask anything, Frankenstein said: "The kids were playing this the other day." The blonde then opened the box and set it aside, beginning to assemble the board game. "I thought you might want to try." After he finished, he took both flashlights and set them on opposite corners of the table, facing the board, so that there was some light aiding their gameplay.
Now that he could see it better, Rai took a nice look at colorful mess before him. It looked confusing, with lots of twists and turns along the only path he could discern. It must have shown on his face, because Frankenstein briefly placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, Master. It's actually quite easy to play. Especially if Shinwoo was able to get it."
(IT WAS A JOKE GUYS, A JOKE. Dx I love Shinwoo, don't get me wrong, much love to that cutie)
"Ah," Rai said unconvincingly as his gaze dropped to Frankenstein's hand, which was offering little plastic pieces, each a different color, in the shape of cars. He didn't know what the gesture meant, so he reached his hand out and took all them, not knowing that they were the game pieces.
Frankenstein chuckled softly and reached for Rai's hand, uncurling it from the fist it formed around the game pieces, and holding his fingers so that they didn't attempt make a blockade again. "No, Master, you choose which one you want to use."
That made so much more sense. Why would Frankenstein have given him tiny bits of plastic in the first place? Well now that he knew, the raven-haired male took the red game piece, eyeing it carefully between his thumb and middle finger. Frankenstein took the blue and set the other pieces in the game's box beside him.
Even though he had a game piece, Rai still had no idea where to put it. This whole time, he had been unable to discern where it was the pieces began. So he waited for Frankenstein to put his blue piece down, before the raven-haired male did anything with his own.
Turns out, the game pieces were supposed to be placed where it was labelled "Start". But what confused Rai more was the fact that there were two of these options. One was to start a career, the other, college.
"Choose which one you would like to start at, Master," Frankenstein chimed in, who had placed his piece to begin college.
Rai took no time at all to move his piece beside Frankenstein's.
Frankenstein was unable to stifle the sound of pride he made, but quickly covered it up with, "You can start first, Master. See the wheel with the numbers? Spin it to find out how many spaces you go..."
And that was how the Game of Life continued between the two of them, in the beam of flashlights, with an uncontrollable thunderstorm as their background music.
Rai held his practically full teacup gently in his hands, staring at what was yet another obvious loss for him. Even under Frankenstein's careful instruction, he somehow only made it less than halfway across the board before the blonde had reached millionaire status.
"I'm sorry, Master," was all Frankenstein was able to say as he began disassembling the board and packing it into its box. The storm had lightened to a dainty sprinkle during their game and the house was bright once more.
The sound of sipping (cold) tea was heard before Rai was able to reply. "It's alright, Frankenstein. This was an interesting experience."
"Was it?" Frankenstein asked, now holding the box in his hands with the flashlights rolling around on top of it. He left the living room slowly so they didn't fall, and his reply grew harder to hear which each footstep made: "I'm glad you got something out of it, Master." There was a pause until Frankenstein was seen entering the living room again. "I'll think of something else more enjoyable for you the next time there is a power outage or storm."
Rai readjusted himself as Frankenstein now moved to stand behind him, some feet away and now silent. Noticing there was no further exchange, the raven-haired male looked back at him, puzzled. "Is there something wrong, Frankenstein?"
"Well, I thought you might want more tea, Master. I'd imagine it lacks a good taste now, since it was left untouched for a rather long time."
He had to be honest, Rai, for the first time, hardly noticed his tea had gone cold. Staring into his teacup and only finding his sepia-toned reflection there, he looked back up at Frankenstein with the usual expression he wore: blankness. "If you must, Frankenstein. Please get me more tea."
Frankenstein, having expected this, quickly bowed and hurried over to retrieve the teacup, disappearing into the kitchen. By the time he came out and gave the tea to Rai, the doorbell had rung and he then had to hurry and answer it.
There was no surprise when he saw the group of high-schoolers standing there, Suyi and Yuna carrying umbrellas, while Shinwoo and Ik Han were soaking wet yet smiling broadly.
Both Rai and Frankenstein cast simple glances at each other, well aware that this day would go about as it usually did now that the kids were here, and that the private experience the two of them shared earlier would remain secret and special.