Chapter 7: Awkward

Nothing had ever gone right for him. He really was born under an unlucky star. Yuri bitterly thought while tossing another record back into the shelf far more misplaced than its original position. Quickly flipping through another record, he felt himself getting nowhere. Yuri had been searching the personnel record shelf ever since he found out the fact that his father actually used to belong to a guild. Although which guild he belonged to was still a mystery.

Yuri had been at it for two hours continuously, despite how much effort he threw into the task he was trying his best to do, he found nothing. The sun was busily setting when he searched his way through half of the shelf. The fainted orange rays of sunlight graced through the glass window, attacking the raven-haired man's eyes in the process. The whole room sank in a deep orange glow, and his eyes hurt from reading too much. He decided to take a break from it. A nice and delicious dinner would do the trick.

Lifting up his numb body up wearily, due to sitting in one position for too long Yuri groaned at the suddenly stiff pain at his back. He gave off a little cursed noise as he carefully managed to move himself away from the stack of messy records build up and up, one after another. Carefulness was not always high on his personalities list. But today was different.


Yuri spent the rest of his way to the dining room thinking about his father. Einar Lowell was a man of justice and courage. He had a strong and fierce bravery, yet not lacking a passionate loving heart. Yuri remembered one time when he was attacked by a rhinosuss, at the moment when he thought his life was over; his father was the hero in shining armor to save the day. For a brain of five years old boy, defeating a rhinosuss in one blow was way beyond incredible. He always looked up to him, and tried his best to follow his father's footsteps. Now thinking back about that, a rhinosuss was not really a problem for an adult who knew how to swing a sword without actually dropping it. Yuri bit down a small curse. No matter how heroic his father was, he still abandoned his duty as a father and a husband. For that, Yuri would never forgive him, but he couldn't bring himself to hate him entirely. He just couldn't, after all he was his father.

Keep getting lost inside his own little world; Yuri didn't realize he already passed the dining hall. Not until he felt a light tap on his shoulder that he finally got back to his sense, and recognized he almost pumped his face into a nearby pillar. He turned his head around only to be met by a worried-looking yet beautiful Krityan. Judith had her elegant blue hair tied up into a ponytail that hung naturally against her waist. Her face under the beam of moonlight reflected a perfect affability. Much to Yuri memories, the Krityan always looked beautiful even with her clothes dyed in blood of the enemies.

"What's wrong with you Yuri? You had just almost gave the blond a heart attack if he ever heard you cracked your head open because you were spacing out." Judith waved her hand in front of him as if to check whether he had waken up from his dream or not.

His heart skipped a beat when an image of Flynn in his mother hen mood dashed across his mind. Yuri brushed her hands away, assuring her that he was okay. Although by the way the Krityan looked at him, he knew that she was not going to be bought as an excuse. However, he had no intent of telling her about the reason that busily kept him from noticing his surrounding properly. Instead of answering her question, the swordsman turned around and walked back to the dining hall, with the Krityan trailing closely behind.

Judy was always a delicate and understanding person; therefore, it wasn't hard for Yuri to deal with her. She was sensitive at noticing and observing others' feelings. She would never press someone too far just to make him or her spilled out what she wanted to know. Thought it didn't apply to bad guys or in emergency cases.


The dining hall was well lit by yellow bud-shaped lamps hung around the hall, inches away from each other. The members seemed rather excited with their meals or chatting with their fellows. None of them actually noticed the presence of Yuri-the second highest boss of the Guild, yet alone someone would stand up and give him a proper greeting. It wasn't like he expected to see anything so stuffy and knightly like that. The Guild had its own rule and freedom; the members didn't have to pretend to be too busy to even notice a senior knight was walking toward just because they hated that person. No endurance, no extreme formality, and no such thing as absolute order nor 'above' and 'below' power are needed. This Guild is an ideal organization that he imagined, although this was still far more from perfect.

He grabbed a stray and began walking towards the waiting line of people, with Judy trailing behind him still. She also picked up a similar tray to him, and waited patiently behind him. Although he didn't want, he had to admit that whatever kind of eyes Judy was giving him was not pleasant. Yuri shifted uncomfortably, against the food counter as the cook lady served him one of her so called special menu. Well people need food to live, not the other way around.

Settling himself at an empty table near the window, Yuri felt a little bit relieved when he saw Judy made an attempt of joining him but then a group of female fighters persuaded her to come over. They probably wanted to ask the Krityan for a few advices on fighting techniques. A disappointed look crept across her face, as she let herself be pulled away reluctantly. Yuri knew how much she cared for him or others, but right now, all he wanted was being alone. The aloneness was granted as Yuri found himself thinking about the Capital and the Lower Quarter. The flow of his thought carried him from his rented room back in the quarter, then to the castle, and finally landed on the window of the Commandant's private chamber. The very same window he used to make his epic entrance, which in return earned him a yelling lesson about using the front door by the owner's of the said room. He could pictured the blond sat on his chair and busily signed a whole stack of paper under pressure from the Council and probably some from Sodia too. Hell, they had been putting the blond under more than necessary stress lately. The whole Knights just seem so useless; they did not know what to do if there wasn't someone to give them order. If he just gave them a few minutes alone then they would be running around like chickens without their heads. As his friend, Yuri had not done anything at all to help him recently except bringing him more troubles as gifts. The raven-haired pierced a slide of meat with the fork and mercilessly threw it into his mouths. The wind outside kept changing its direction in the tenebrous night.


The commandant didn't feel comfortable, Flynn Scifo didn't feel comfortable. Each steps his metallic boots connected the floor rang off an alert to those he past. Having a friend, who was the second highest boss of the Guild didn't allow him to earn an easy look from the guild's other members. THe Guild and the Knight doesn't always get along well with each other. It was just the nature of the two forces, stubborn from head to toes. As well as the leaders of them. Well, Flynn would never admit he was obstinate, but he knew sometimes that it took a huge amount of efforts to make him change his mind completely. He would be the first and probably the last one in this world that was capable of changing Yuri's mind. Ironically, the same seemed to apply in his case as well.

"What business do you have with our guild?" A girl stepped out from the crowd as she raised her voice a little bit too menacing, yet with a little more serious than needed. Her blond hair swung softly as she cocked her head to the side, allowing her to have a better access of observing the mighty Commandant. Not that Flynn usually thought of himself as a mighty leader, but the expression in her eyes actually proved that point. No, he must be modest.

"May I speak to your leader? The boss of Brave Vesperia Guild."

The girl stood in silent for a few seconds then motioned him to go with her by waving her hand. As Flynn followed her lead, the other members slowly returned to their current work. But none of them seemed to forget to shoot him an annoying glance when he walked past them.


The torches hung along the wall timidly lighted the hallway. Although it was not such a great idea, but Flynn once lost in an argument about whether they should use torches or the spirit lamp. According to Flynn, spirit was way much better and safer, but the hard-head of an idiot wasn't willingly to take his advice, yet again.

"Hey boss, you have a guest." The door of the library swung open. This was the sixth time Flynn set foot inside the Brave Vesperia Headquarter, but the last time he was here, the leader's office was not- according to his memories, the room was supposed to be at the western part of the building not the opposite direction-inside the library.

The image of the huge bookshelves of books and documents greeted his eyes. Although it was not as big as the library of Aspio once was. However, the library of Aspio had gone, now this one would most likely become the biggest library in the entire world.

"Hey boss, are you here?" the high-pitched voice of the girl echoed throughout the room calling for her leader. They walked for a few more minutes before the person Flynn didn't expect to see decided to make his epic appearance.

A loud noise of fallen documents destroyed the sacred quietness of the space. A few nerds shifted their attention to whoever dared to disturb them from studying. Inside the mess, a certain raven-haired crawled his way through the swarm of papers and data. At first, his head was the only thing acknowledged his existence, and then followed by an arm and a curse. Flynn could not make out the entire sentence, but knowing Yuri, he was probably using his favorite phrase. As he moved on his feet to help his friend got out from the mess.

"Honestly Yuri, I do not know what you are trying to do. But getting buried by books and die is the one of the most ridiculous causes of death in history. Can you do the world a favor and just be a little bit more careful with your doings?" Flynn could obviously hear his voice sounded a bit higher and louder than usual. Yuri once teased him about how it is easy for him to go into his mother hen mode but the thing is Flynn has to do so because the man who was in front of him right now was a magnet for troubles.

"Man, you sound exactly like Estelle, you know. Mother hen!" Yuri snapped back half-consciously. His eyes were still a bit dazzled. Letting out a small groan, Yuri stroke the back of his neck to soften the pain he knew was existed inside his head. Damn those documents were so high up and there wasn't any damn chair around.

"But someone has to make up for your lack of carefulness." Flynn shot back, holding no intend to lose this argument.

"Jeez, it is not big of a deal." Yuri yelled back, a little pissed off added in his tone.

"If I'm not having an important mission to report to your boss, you will not get away with this." Flynn turned his head towards the guide girl, and then said, "Please continue leading the way."

The girl looked back at him, amusingly. Her gaze shifted from Yuri then to Flynn, as she let out a small chuckle, "You said you have business to do with our leader right? There he is, the man who is standing in front of you is this Guild's boss. Only for now I guess."

What did she just say? This man? The boss? Of the Brave Vesperia? This magnet for trouble? No that was of course possible. Yuri after all was one of the first members, who responsible for the founding of the Guild. It was no doubt to put him into one of the leading positions.

"You mean Yuri is the leader of the Brave Vesperia? But the person I met last time was…" According to Flynn memories, the person greeted him last time was a respected man, whose bravery and courtesy were just as noble as Flynn did not expect from a leader of a guild. Well, the man himself was around forty years of his lifetime; his appearance would earn him respect from the Knights, and the way he spoke was so formal for a person who was born and raised inside the Den of Guilds itself.

His best friend snorted at that, wriggled his index finger playfully, "I know I'm not that trustworthy as the old man, but at least I know how to take responsibility and play with it until the end."

"He is right. The current boss left us two weeks ago to go on his so-called journey in order to find a new path for the Guild to walk on. I doubt he would actually come back with some decent results though. Anyway, for being the second highest boss around here Yuri is the for now boss." As the girl spoke, her face bore with an amusing expression. Despite how much the other members dislike the Empire and the Knights; she couldn't bring herself to hate the Commandant in person. He was after all an interested person to observe and the way the two of them easily got into an argument over such trivial things was as true as the rumors. Childhood friends, the guild and the Imperial Knights, huh? How would the two manage to keep up their friendship with the raising tension between the two forces that they were leading? Interesting matter for observing indeed.

Flynn titled his head a little and abruptly opened his mouth with a speech in such a knightly tone that Yuri always hated to hear, especially from his best friend's mouth, "I am Flynn Scifo, the Commandant of the Imperial Knights. I am here to ask for assistance from the Brave Vesperia Guild on the matter of extermination of a swarm of new formed monsters in the Aurnion vicinity."

"Got it, we will send our men to Aurnion right this evening. Eerie, you go and inform those who are on the list of involvement in this fight immediately pack their things and be ready to leave."

"Roger!"

The girl quickly left the library as soon as her order was placed on her. Before that, she turned and gave Flynn a thoughtful smirk that made him curiously wondered what did that for.

"Your Guild has the Imperial Knights' appreciated gratitude." The blond bowed his head, in which left Yuri felt a bit annoying.

"Alright, you can drop that stupid formality, there are only us now." Yuri scratched the back of his neck wearily and began cleaning the mess of documents and papers lying mercilessly on the floor. 'This gonna be a pain.'

Flynn bent down also to offer him a hand, "Let me help, you alone will make it even messier." A satisfy smile painted the blond's lips as he felt he had bested Yuri in this argument wondrously. Well, the Commandant had to have a win once in awhile.

After a few minutes of organizing, they finally managed to pull things off together, although the correct order would have to rely on the librarians to check though. Nothing they could do more about this anyway.

"Say Yuri, what are you doing here? Since when did you have interested in books? It must be an influence from Lady Estellise?" Flynn started the conversation after a long amount of awkward and discomfort silence between them. Both of them now retreated to the central area amid the shelves, where there were a couple of empty tables were available for them to settle down.

"Nah, I was just trying to find some information about… something." Nonchalantly Yuri replied. His gaze focused on a group of fighters outside the window. They were practicing their combat skills by fighting each other. However, it was such a bad idea to have a training ground next to the library where required extremely quietness and peace. Again, his eyes wandered back to the Commandant, who was also looking at him, fixedly. Those blue eyes reflected a certain questioning feelings. What was it that bothering his best friend? Wait! Surely, Flynn was not thinking about that, was he?

The blond continued staring at him still. His mouths muttered something that Yuri couldn't quite catch it. Something between, 'No, it…' and 'But he'. Okay, this was getting weirder and weirder. Although he could guess what was it that the blond was thinking but, he dared not to say it out. Leaning on the table with one hand, Yuri reached out to brush away a few strand of hair attempt to conceal those blue, beautiful orbs that was always Yuri's most favorite part to gaze into, subconsciously. However, Yuri hadn't realize how stupid his act was until he registered the expression on the said Commandant's face. And his face was just as the same.

Few faint strands of red shade painted the blond's cheek as he stared at the other man, not fixedly but surprisingly and the look on his face was indescribable. Although, it was a shame that Yuri actually had his face just as pathetic. His first attempt was trying to make the blond stop fixing his gaze at him, and the second he knew, he did something that he was not supposed to do. The awkward silence occupied the air around them as Yuri shifted in his chair uncomfortably. All right, one way to get out of this was being sarcastic and Yuri-ish.

"What is it Commandant? You do know that you're very easy to blush, don't you?" He faked the most sarcastic smile he could pull off. The priceless look on the Commandant face was truly something. Yuri would rather keep the image to himself though, since he had no interest in sharing this with the others.

"Yuri…you…" It seemed the coherent part of his brain only allowed him to form just that. Now a realization hit him, he wondered what was wrong with Flynn that he blushed so hard just by a single and simple touch. Could it be that…? No, Yuri snapped at himself, there was no way the blond would actually aware about his feeling. And it didn't look like the others would go and babble things into his ears. Now on the second thought, the old man might have done something.

"No, never mind." Flynn finally managed to shake thing off. "I need to go and prepare for the trip tomorrow." He stood up in a somehow unsteady posture and started walking towards the entrance as Yuri followed closely side by side. Flynn could feel the raven-haired fixed his eyes on him, but decided to keep silent following him all the way back to the chamber that was reserved only for guests and visitors.

Flynn brought out his hand in attempt to turn the knob but Yuri walked past him and yanked the door open none too casually. The boss stumbled onto the only one bed in the room as he wrapped himself around the pillow, enjoyably. A relaxing sound escaped his lips as Flynn couldn't help but raising his voice again, "Yuri, must I remind that this is suppose to be my room? If you want to sleep, why don't you go to your own one?"

"Sorry, but I have none. The only place for me to sleep is that boring library. But I don't feel like sleeping inside that stuffy place after spending almost four hours in it." Yuri lazily replied. His head ducked deeper into the pillow, letting his yawn went distortedly into the soft matter. It was a terrible excuse, he knew, but part of it was true. He tired of sleeping with books as his pillow and documents as blanket, surely a real bed and mattress was way much better. He closed his eyes, as sleep slowly occupied his mind, and Yuri plugged himself in a blissful darkness.

Flynn gazed down at his best friend's sleeping face; the mirth and playfulness were replaced by calm and innocent curves. His breathing was even and peaceful. The Commandant intended to yell at him for not sparing him any room, which caused him to end up sleeping on the sofa. But after seeing his best friend like this, he didn't have a heart to do such thing. Flynn took off his amour, slipping himself out of heavy boots as he settled himself down sofa opposite the bed. His eyes quickened a glance at the raven-haired as the smile slipped from his face, 'Yuri, when will you stop hiding things from me?'


The thought of Yuri being so unpredictable and mysterious kept bothering him during the long distance traveled to Aurnion. It followed him and his knights when they boarded the ship, gathering information about the attack from the local residents and distracted him from concentrating on his fighting.

Flynn raised his sword up in defense with the metal crashed against sharp claws of the enemy, as one of his knights slipped behind the brutal creature and sent it to hell mercilessly with a fatal stab from behind. He smiled in thanks to the knight as he promptly himself to focus on yet another beast. There were large numbers of them that needed to be taken care of. Then at the time, he would take a quick break just to register the current formation into his head, and watched Yuri, making sure that the man was not going to try anything stupid and end up losing his life for being so reckless. Flynn sometimes found himself wondering about the lady he met at the restaurant that night, and how much he felt attracted towards her. Even Lady Yuria didn't make him feel this way nor any of the girls he had met during his life up until now could make him feel this way. Then why did his heart beat faster and his stomach flipped oddly just by looking at the girl? What the hell happened to him?

"Oi Flynn. Behind you." Flynn snapped back into reality as he sidestepped just in time to dodge a monster that was charging towards him. He was just spacing out and almost losing his life. Yuri ran up and checked on him, smirking at him for a moment but then backed down because he showed no reaction towards the teasing. He muttered a small 'thank you' then went back to his mission. He could feel Yuri was staring at him, concernedly. And he felt ashamed of himself, for no particular reason.


With the help of the Brave Vesperia, the swarms of monsters were perfectly wiped out. The casualty was none while only exhaustion and minor injuries tortured the knights and the guild's fighters. The healers from both armies were running around, treating wounds and scratches diligently. Flynn felt proud of himself and his men, also feeling grateful for the participation of the Guild. They would not be this lucky if the other force wasn't here.

After casting a healing spell on some small cuts and bruises for himself, Flynn started walking around to check on his soldiers and the treating process. Then he realized the curiously absence of a man called Yuri Lowell, thus making him wandered around the campsite and asking for Yuri's whereabouts. Some of the Guild's members refused to give him direction; some just looked away or pretended to be busy when they saw him approaching. He had no choice but to get the information from the locals at last.

With Yuri being a famous swordsman and having a unique appearance, Flynn needlessly put too much efforts into learning the raven-haired current whereabouts. Following the direction a woman gave him, Flynn made his way towards the western part of the town, where he and Yuri used to help each other polishing their swordsman skills.

From a distance, he could see the said raven-haired, who was leaning his back against the wooden tower used by the people to keep watch, with his hands folded across his chest. It was hard to make out Yuri's facial expression, but by the way of his posture, Flynn confidently believed that he was not pleased, and somewhat pissed off. When the distance became closer, close enough for Yuri to hear him and the other way around, Flynn opened his mouth, calling out for his friend. But then, no word was coming out, and surprisingly Flynn found himself hiding behind the nearby stone wall.

"Long time no see, Yuri." He knew this voice, this gentle and silky tone.

"What are you doing here?" This owner of this voice was also familiar, too familiar to him that he was surprised to feel why Yuri's voice sounded so serious and…dangerous.


Yay, I finally managed to update with all the renovations of my house (which leads to the disconnection of internet) Anyway, Hope you guys like this one.

A/N: My school wants to change uniform, my friend and I decided to show them the school costume of the Brave Vesperia with of course different in some parts (due to the copyright things), and the Mr. Head of the School is considering to actually have it as our school new uniform. *squeal*-that means there will be a lot of Flynn and Yuri walking around the school for me to look at. Gosh! XD

Anyway, thanks for reading.