A/N: The next instalment! - Mufin
Warning: K+ . Some censorship of one swear word, but it is censored, so still K+.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail. Also, I have nothing against the colour brown. I really don't. No offense is intended nor implied. I also don't dislike Ichiya, his sparkliness is… something else.
Series of oneshots
Page 12 ~MufinXoxo
02: Brown
The Blue Pegasus guild was calm. Most people were on missions, and Ichiya revelled in the opportunity to develop new perfumes without their unappreciating comments and pegs clamped over their noses. He rarely had the whole guild hall to himself, with just Master Bob sitting behind the gleaming counter of the bar and reading. Everyone else suddenly had pressing matters to attend to when he showed up with his kit.
Ichiya's setup was similar to that of a mad scientist's laboratory, with flasks, pipes and distillation equipment set up on the lounge table, a Bunsen burner on low heat causing substances to separate as they evaporated and travelled through the glassware. A pestle and mortar, painted green by the poison ivy it had crushed, stood forgotten next to a wooden chopping board littered with petals, whilst a bouquet of beautiful flowers stood in the centre of the table.
"Ah, men..." He sighed, twirling a rose between his fingers as he delicately sniffed it. "What a perfect fragrance…" He ceremoniously plucked a red petal and crushed it between his fingers, before adding it to a conical flask filled with a questionable brown liquid. He sniffed it. Now it would just need to develop for a few minutes and it would be complete.
Ichiya's newest masterpiece.
According to him, at least.
"Ichiya!" Guild master Bob called, passing through the bar as he approached the perfume man, "I have something for you. Something you should probably see."
Ichiya looked up, striking a pose with his hand under his chin and gazing up to the heavens, "Anything."
Bob giggled, "You're in a good mood, a new perfume, I presume?" He placed his hand on his cheek in an affectionate manner, gazing at his hard working guild member. They were all so cute, Ichiya with his determination most of all! He was a good influence on the Trimens... no matter what he had read.
Should he not show him the article?
Master Bob's smile faltered. But Ichiya deserved to know, lest he found out from a different source.
"Well, don't let this get you down." Bob told Ichiya, handing him the magazine. "There is an article about you, shortly after page 12."
"Well," Ichiya muttered, flipping through the flimsy pages, before loudly exclaiming "Men!", as his eyes landed upon a rather impressive picture of him under the influence of his power perfume, but the whole image was completely... dark orange?
Brown
/braʊn/
adjective
1. Of a colour produced by mixing red, yellow, and blue, as of dark wood or rich soil.
2. A description pertaining to some perfumes of a certain mage.
Our elected brown mage is none other than Ichiya Vandalay Kotobuki, and this is hopefully not surprising for a few reasons.
"Men...?" Ichiya trailed off, looking confusedly at Master Bob.
"I'm afraid so—" Master Bob began, but was loudly interrupted.
"Aniki!" All three of Ichiya's disciples burst into the room in unison, getting stuck in the door as they waved around the papers in their hands. They struggled for a while, whilst Master Bob just sighed. Children, always in a rush.
Eventually, Eve gained the upper hand in the squabble, purely due to being the slimmest and somehow managing to squeeze through the gap he found himself in more proficiently than the other two. Off balance, Ren and Hibiki flailed, both landing on the Holy Night who had advanced only a few steps, and squishing him flat.
"Weacashntleshhimshsheeit." Eve valiantly tried to get out.
"Huh?" Ren asked.
"Never mind, sorry Eve to interrupt, but Ichiya-san, don't read the magazine!" Hibiki implored.
"Men!" Ichiya boomed, looking each of his team members in the eyes, "We should not distance ourselves from the feelings of women! And a woman has written this article!"
"We don't know that," Hibiki pointed out, desperately trying to save Ichiya heartache, because they could all see the tears glistening in his eyes. And that was only because of the colour, not even the actual article. "I don't have any information on this writer in any of my archives." He admitted begrudgingly.
"Canyoushgeoffmee?" Eve tried.
"Huh?" Ren asked again.
The main reason for this nomination is that all of Ichiya's…creations… are brown. We have been carefully observing the process for years now, and undisputedly, the final liquid ranges from dark sienna to tan to beige.
Ichiya glanced at the conical flask, a dark orange (aka brown) smoke drifting upwards through its narrow mouth. Was that colour really brown?
Otherwise, the argument for this case is short and not-so-sweet.
He didn't even get a lengthy article for the popularity demise this was sure to cause him among women?
As a member of the Trimens, Ichiya is that brown blemish on the couch, in what would otherwise be a swoon-worthy ensemble. Even our generous Erza thinks of him with disdain, and his womanising tactics are always ineffective, unlike those of his team members.
A recent reader poll revealed that Ichiya's chin is the facial feature that most of our readers would gladly fund magic plastic surgery for.
"Don't believe what you are reading," Hibiki interjected, seeing the tears flowing freely down Ichiya's face, "You are the most handsome out of all of us!"
Now, the not so subtle final point.
If we at the weekly sorcerer are to be completely honest, Ichiya's perfumes all smell like... a certain ... substance... most people leave it in their toilet.
Needless to say, this substance is brown.
(Despite this, apparently, not being the case for the Pain Relieving Perfume, our reporter from the time who experienced this 'aroma' begs to differ.)
Ichiya glared at the magazine, appalled.
"Is he in shock?" Sherry voiced what everyone else in the room was thinking, watching Ichiya stand paralyzed as the magazine slipped from his grip and fell to the floor. She had just entered the hall, looking for her beloved Ren, only to find him sprawled on the floor, squishing Eve into a pancake shape with the help of Hibiki.
"I mean, the articles are mean." She sighed dramatically, flicking her hair over her shoulder, "Why am I not pink, with my lovely locks, like Juvia is blue with hers? But the articles are also so true, my former love rival and that dragon slayer do fit together so very well…"
Ren groaned at her unhelpfulness, although he was secretly proud of her quick romantic deductions.
Ichiya's vision started going hazy as a distinct light-headedness overwhelmed him.
"Men..." How could they-
"Ishiahshan?" Eve (tried to) ask tentatively, as he had giving up on the prospect of ever standing up and talking normally again. Hibiki and Ren were heavy. Needless to say, as no one could understand him, they ignored him.
"MEN..." How dare they-
"You're turning blue, Aniki!" Hibiki cried in a panicked voice.
"MEEEENNNN!" His perfume, his smell-
"Aniki? Ichiya-san!" Hibiki and Ren called out in panic whilst Eve hopelessly flailed with his arms, for Ichiya was no longer breathing normally.
In comical slow motion he keeled over, hitting the chequered floor with a resounding thunk.
"Oh dear…" Master Bob trailed off. Maybe ignorance was bliss sometimes.
Unbeknownst to the others, Ichiya had been accidently knocked out by his newest perfume. The only one, coincidently, out of his whole assortment, that didn't smell like s***. His breath left his body and his lungs resumed their normal function, much to the relief of everyone else in the room.
Until, when the panic had passed, they noticed a sweet scent pervading their noses. Smelling oddly like...roses.
"I feel dizzy…" Sherry swayed and made sure to faint on top of Ren, so he could hold her.
Eve let out a pained grunt.
"Sherry?" Ren almost let go, but she was asleep so he could admit to loving her. She wasn't paying attention, so he was not breaking his tsundere vow. He tightened his grip, and also slipped into sleep.
Master Bob, finally made aware of the smallest of the Trimens' plight by the grunt, fluttered over to pull the sleeping bodies off of him. Hibiki was also starting to doze and in no condition anymore to pull himself up.
However the older man could also feel the lethargy starting to overtake him. Maybe just a little nap wouldn't hurt…
Eve's eyes bulged out of his skull with the added weight of his guild master to the pile. He could envision himself as a post stamp in his future and saw a bright light up ahead, before he too, passed out.
All that could be heard in the halls of Blue Pegasus was a light snoring.
A/N: Poor, poor Eve… - Mufin