Hide & Seek 'Hide Predux' or "Why Shinou Has It In For Me"
Part 1
Yuuri's arms did that flaily-'roundy thing he was so very good at, whirling through the air so fast one could nearly hear them whistle. He stuttered and he huffed, making like a Big Bad Wolf and turning a beautiful shade of scarlet, a shade that contrasted nicely with the sober black of his 'Maou suit'. His long-suffering fiancé would've admired the attractive flush currently running down the length of that tanned throat not disguised by starched stiff collar but he was occupied instead with drumming up a suitable snit. He threw a preliminary Phase I™ glare at Yuuri while the Maou worked on forcing coherent sounds from his flapping mouth.
"Wh-wh-what? Whe-whe-we-we-wed-ding!? Whoa-whoa-ohowooohowohwow-W-Wolfram!"
Well…Yuuri was not so much 'coherent' at this jointure as using his hyperventilating state to his advantage for the purpose of communicating. Rather clever of him, Wolfram noted, but still reprehensible as it could be attributed solely to self-preservation.
"I believe that's what my brother has just mentioned, wimp. Wed-ding. Marriage. Ceremony. Ri-tu-al. Evidently, it's now the time to commence planning."
Wolfram smiled at Yuuri in that terrifying 'you are my fiancé and you will marry me and don't you ever forget it' way he had, appearing quite pleased with this turn of events. Yuuri flinched, cold shivers running the length of his spine, and flailed faster, still gasping—nay, sucking in great gasps of oxygen to counter the odd flatness affecting his chest area. He felt squashed.
"Now, wimp, pay attention for once or I'll make you wear that bearbee costume of Greta's for the ceremony. Gunter, Gwendal—what did you have in mind for the date?"
Dismissing Yuuri's idiocy with a nod, Wolf-chan turned to his fiancé's advisors.
Yuuri wound up his arms again and himself returned to active hyperventilation state, much as if a giant invisible deejay was skittering his larynx across a defective vinyl platter chock-full of authentic Alpine goat-call tracks.
"Wha! Wha! Wha! Hoo! Gah!!"
The young Maou instinctively went up his tiptoes in his distress, seeking some height advantage over the smirking blonde an unkind Fate had deemed he would marry – someday. But that day was not today, for Shinou's Sake!
"Wha-wee-waaaay! Wait-a-minute, wait-a-minute, waitaminute , Wolfram! W-wait just a cotton' pickin' lousy little minute here, you guys!"
Having gotten his wayward tongue under a semblance of control, Yuuri was still a pathetic sight, his striking dark eyes huge and very worried in his flushed face. He jiggled and jerked in a comic manner, twisting back and forth between his preternaturally calm fiancé and his trusted advisors like a marionette in the hands of random string-happy madman.
"I, Shibuya Yuuri, h-have never, n-never, ever agreed to—at least, not so soon— and you know that, Conrad, right? You've heard me—haven't you? Haven't you?!"
The Maou, despite his determination to stand firm and dig his heels in about this whole marriage matter, was still undermined by troublesome facts. He had, actually, proposed to Wolf-chan. Okay, then. Yuuri resorted to puppy-dog appeal, always his refuge in heavy weather.
"Gwendal? Gunter?! I've told you guys, like over and over, till I'm blue in the face, that I'm not ready yet – and, and, anyway, you promised me yourself you wouldn't push this, Wolfram! You practically swore you'd give me more time! I'm not ready to get married! It's too soon!" Yuuri wailed.
"Hmph!"
Wolf shrugged off any silly promises he might have made on the subject – under duress, of course – as so much pointless blather. Yuuri was actually going to wed him – sooner rather than later, thanks to his trusty big bro-ehem, Weller-kyo and Gwendal – and that was more than fine by him.
"No! No! Absolutely not! I am soo not ready for this yet," the Maou warbled frantically, shaking his head back and forth with every negative. He was apparently under the impression that sheer repetition of a phrase would make it so, despite all evidence to the contrary. It was actually rather amusing when combined with the flaily thing and the classic side-stepping 'Yuuri shimmy'; Wolfram nearly lost his patented Impatient Killer Frown™ to laughter.
" –Conrad, I told you that, remember? How I'm not even legal at home to do much of anything and Shori's going to kill me if I go ahead and marry anybody, much less a boy, ohmy!, without his express permission – and then there's Mom – ohmygod – Mom! Mom's never gonna forgive me –never, never, never, ever, d'you hear?—if we do this without her, Wolf—but its way too soon anyway, isn't it? Isn't it? We haven't even found all the Boxes yet!"
Conrad's lip twitched. Gunter raised his ever-present handkerchief to hide a smile. Gwendal, ever the serious one, glowered.
Yuuri had gathered steam as he scrambled for excuses, and was now hopping from one foot to the other in an energetic little dance of denial. 'Blah, blah, blah': Wolfram seemed as little impressed by the Maou's athletic version of clogging as he ever was, even if it were kind of funny. He merely intensified the firepower of his trademarked von Bielefeld glare instead, till Yuuri had turn away completely or risk having a hole bored through his rumpled forehead.
In desperation, the black-haired teenager sidled in the direction of Wolfram's elder brothers and his trusty teacher-mentor, the ever-gushing Gunter, hoping for succor. He opened his black eyes wide, barely blinking, and attempting to appear small, fuzzy and ridiculously helpless.
No use. Conrad, Gwendal and Gunter ceased their quiet discussion of nuptial matters and pivoted to face him, calmly examining the Japanese boy rapidly coming unglued in his own study; grey-brown and navy blue and frosted violet gazes totally bland and unconcerned, full of the certain knowledge that yes, indeed, the Maou had agreed to this, simply and without denial, through the customary mechanism of a well-earned slap across his fiancé's patrician cheek. Thatalone superseded any other objection the hopeful young Maou could possibly think up on the fly. It was clear they weren't planning to be the voices of reason, not even the vastly sympathetic Conrad.
Except… for one of Wolfram's elder brothers; the stern one who despised motivational obfustication of any sort, and especially when it influenced the welfare of his darling little Wolfie. The grey-haired Mazoku General cleared his throat, having successfully withstood all the wistful 'protect me!' glances his Maou was giving him. Even if they were cute and so was Yuuri, this was his youngest brother's happiness at stake here and no Maou, no matter how cute and pathetic—
"A-hem. Yes, well. Let's be very honest and forthright here, your Majesty, for once. You are saying now that you no longer wish to wed our Wolfram, as is honorable?" rumbled Lord von Voltaire, after a briefest of pregnant pauses.
"You want to call off your engagement?" Conrad asked, one expressive eyebrow flying up.
"Heika!?" gasped Gunter, all pale and dramatic.
"Now, Yuuri—" Wolf interjected, and his tone might've been called reasonable and it might've been called autocratic, but the Maou heard something in the brief subtext that closed off that avenue of retreat before it was really even pried open and explored fully.
The boy in black gasped and froze solid, his expression segueing from pleading to horrified in the space of one short second.
"No! No-no-no-no! O-Of course not! I meant –just—just—not… yet."
Gwendal nodded. Gunter cooed. Weller smiled that smile of his, the one that sparkled and melted. Wolf-chan turned his head sharply to one side and snorted.
The Maou wilted visibly under the combined force of so much assurance as to his 'chosen' future. He missed Wolfram's sharp intake of a breath behind him entirely; was blind to the flash of satisfaction that illuminated the visage of the extraordinarily handsome nobleman, replacing the brief flare of panic. Wolfram allowed himself a grin, all toothsome and self-satisfied. Things were at last moving forward.
"Of course not," Gwendal, too, was now something approaching 'smiling', a state that simply did not occur in nature.
"I didn't actually believe you were disregarding your long-standing engagement to my little brother, your Majesty. Not at this point."
"O-of course not!" Yuuri seemed to feel that phrase should be repeated several times purely as a preventative take on deflecting the inevitable Wolfram-blows from his wincing person.
"Right! What you said!"
Still, somehow that almost-smile of Gwendal's wasn't particularly pleasant. The Maou could practically feel his stock as a future brother-in-law dropping like a two-ton boulder – as well as the laser-like green eyes that now sought to pierce mercilessly straight through the back of his skull.
"Yuuri…"
Wolfram stepped forward, the tone of his voice impossible to describe. The Maou wasn't sure if the simple pronouncement of his name was meant as a warning or an acknowledgement, although he did realize that he should say something at least vaguely mollifying to his exceptionally dangerous betrothed – and damn! He'd just made his own stupid bed again, at least figuratively, and now he had to avoid lying in it!
Right. O-okay. Now what? What does one say to a bishounen ex-Prince when one tells him one doesn't want –isn't ready—to marry him?
And what do one do when he kills one?! Dead!
Somewhat daunted by his own gruesome imaginings, the Maou scrambled for an acceptable excuse for his ongoing excuses to avoid their inevitable wedding – one that wouldn't get him skewered alive by uber-overprotective older brothers Gwendal or Conrad (or, most importantly, sizzled to cinders by his terrifying fiancé).
"Erm. R-right. Of course I want to m-marry you, Wolf-chan –I mean, come on, Wolfram," and here the teenager risked a short look over his shoulder at the fuming blonde— briefly, nervously.
"D-darling. It's obvious I was only saying that it's just too soon to go ahead with the whe-whe-wedding, that's all," the shaken Maou stumbled on, whipping his gaze back to the saturnine trio who stood observing, assiduously avoiding his erstwhile fiancé's burning emerald eyes. Yuuri was a bad liar but he wasn't completely stupid—he had to make his story good enough to be believable and then stick to it, come hell or high water. Wolf-chan knew him far too well to be put off by just anything.
"W-we just—we need more time to plan for stuff like this, Wolf-chan. Why, it could take years!"
Yuuri wobbled his mobile hands about, grasping at straws and every shoujo manga plot he'd ever read that involved the details of marriage.
"I mean, weddings are so complicated and you have to worry about all those people you might offend by accident if you don't invite them and there's gifts and halls and rice and, and, b-besides, we have p-plenty of opportunities to get to that sort of thing later, when things calm down, Wolf-chan. I mean, right now there's lots more impor—ack!"
"What, Yuuri? More what?"
Wolf had taken advantage of the Maou's palpable distraction to sneak up on him and now he deftly pivoted the gabbling Yuuri in place and grabbed firmly at his high, tight gakuen collar. With methodical slowness the Mazoku squeezed the stiff fabric just a smidge tighter against the bobbing jut of the Maou's Adam's apple, twisting it within the elegantly long fingers he generally used to hold heavy metal swords. Yuuri went from gabbling to gasping and back again in two short seconds.
"Uh…um, um, more, more, um, erm—'immediate'!? 'Urgent'?" Yuuri offered, flailing once more. He was flushed instead of pale, but this time it was clearly the lack of oxygen affecting him and not just the excessively uncomfortable ambiance.
"Not ' important'!' the hapless Maou immediately backtracked. "I didn't say 'important'! I didn't mean that the wedding wasn't 'important' or anything like that, Wolf-chan—okay? Alright!?"
"Uh, huh."
Twist, tighten. A feeble gasp on Yuuri's part as he practically hung from those vicious fingers. Green eyes aglitter with half-lidded menace, Wolfram applied pressure.
A second took its good old time ticking past and it was apparent to anyone with eyeballs that the very furniture was breathlessly awaiting the unfold of events.
"Stop it, Wolfram!"
Finally, the dark-haired youth gathered himself, hissing, and forcibly wrenched back, shoving a defensive palm against the blonde's shoulder and gaining a few precious inches of personal space. The Maou very seldom used his full magical strength against his fiancé, much less the physical – not even when they were play-wrestling – but sometimes Wolf-chan was just too damned pushy for his good!
And too damned suspicious!
"Important things to do first is what I'm saying!" Yuuri stated, jaw firming as his quivering mind jelled in tandem. He did have a reasonable reason to put this off, he knew it! It'd just taken him a little longer than was absolutely diplomatic to figure it out and present it!
And furthermore, this was one tough audience! Jeez!
"Then we'll think about all that mushy stuff, o-okay? Right? Right? We can't just go getmarried when there's that kind of threat to Shin Makoku, can we? Think, Wolf-chan! The Boxes have to be our first priority! I don't want to go ahead and marry you and then just lose everything we have together because of some stupid old curse! It's not right!"
With this impassioned proclamation, which surely even Wolf-chan had to admit was sensible, Yuuri risked sliding his patented woeful puppy dog eyes straight to Conrad, his usual refuge, silently signaling a cry for 'help!' and reinforcements. The beautiful ex-Prince sneered nastily and said not a word, lip curling the moment Yuuri glanced away, though he finally did ease his clutching fingers the infinitesimal amount necessary to allow Yuuri to breathe comfortably.
T o Yuuri's great disappointment, his godfather-cum-savior only smiled and lifted his straight shoulders in the tiniest of casual shrugs, clearly offering no material aid whatsoever in this exigency. Gunter and Gwendal watched, impassive. The matter was quite solidly in the Maou's court. His funeral, as it were.
"So."
Wolfram rolled the single syllable around his tongue as if it were somewhat bitter. His glare was now leveraged up to a Phase II™ stage, indicating that an explosion of Wolf-chan-Wrath© was imminent.
"So,Yuuri."
The Maou wrenched his reluctant gaze back to his fiancé, black eyes widening at the flat expression that leveled Wolf-chan's fair features. Experience had taught him Wolf-chan only looked like that when something was very, very wrong between the two of them.
" You're telling me that, after we take care of these pesky Boxes and anything else that might arise from the finding of them, and after we deal with any other dangers Shin Makoku might possibly face in the meantime—and there are always dangers, Yuuri, and kindly don't forget that—then you'll finally be ready to honor our betrothal? Is that what you meant by 'important', wimp? Are those bloody Boxes are more 'important' to you than your own fiancé?"
The Maou didn't dare nod at Wolfram's remarkably succinct summary of his most recent raison d'etre to postpone their official nuptials but his dark gaze flickered guiltily.
The soldier's grip on Yuuri's collar tightened again. Out of the corner of one skittering eye, Yuuri noticed Wolf-chan's other hand was resting not-so-casually on the hilt of his sheathed sword. Clearly, the thought of enduring yet another unspecified length of time to finally assume his rightful place as Consort didn't appeal in the slightest to His Grace Wolfram, Lord von Bielefeld, not even if there were reams and reams of 'good reasons' available for Yuuri to offer.
The Maou's situation had apparently just graduated from 'bad' to 'worse'.