explain it to me again?" Yami asked for what seemed like the hundredth time. Finral felt like he was going to scream. How could it be so hard for someone to understand?
Finral took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"As I told you before when a woman gives a man chocolate on Valentine's day, it means that she likes him."
"I don't believe you."
Finral grunted in frustration. He twisted the towel in his hands tightly in an effort not to scream.
"I mean, I believe you about the tradition and all that. But I don't think that's what was going on with Charlotte. She said it was an extra, why would she lie like that?"
"I don't know, Yami. Maybe she's nervous? Maybe she isn't sure you like her too? Maybe she wants to have a way out if it turns out you don't."
Yami looked at him skeptically over a glass of red wine.
"Regardless, once a man receives the gift, he has to reciprocate. It's a tradition."
"Has to? Even if it wasn't meant to be a Valentine's gift?"
"Yes!" Finral slammed his glass down onto the table and picked up the half-filled wine bottle. He had been amazed when he found it stuck back on a shelf behind some sacks of rice. Vanessa must have not realized it was back there.
"Even if I don't like her back?"
Finral drained the cup and picked up the bottle once more. The discussion had been going on like this for days. Yami's logic, or lack thereof, had led to an ever-tightening spiral of debate.
"Yes. And the gift should be at least as nice as the one she gave. But if you do like her, it should be nicer."
Yami chewed on his lip before finishing off his cup and sliding it over to Finral to pour another glass.
"But that leads me to another question, one I've been trying to figure out for the last few days, Yami. Do you like her?"
Yami blinked at Finral a couple of times before he took a long drink. He placed his cup back on the table and took a cigarette out of his storage pouch. He lit its end and took a long drag, carefully, slowly exhaling and watching the smoke curl toward the ceiling.
"Stop stalling and answer the question, Yami."
"What was it again?"
Finral yelled and threw the empty wine bottle across the room where it shattered against the stone wall.
"Do. You. Like. Charlotte." Finral asked as he gritted his teeth. "And I mean in a romantic, attraction sort of way. Do you like her?"
Yami shrugged, but even in his drunken state, Finral could see Yami was hiding something.
"Let's say, she did like me, and you were right about all of this. What in the world could she possibly want from a guy like me?"
Finral slammed his hands down on the table and stood up. His head swam and he wobbled on his feet.
"I'm too drunk for this shit," Finral muttered as he gained enough stability to walk off. And he did, leaving Yami sitting at the table in the base alone.
Yami took a deep inhale, drawing the smoke from the cigarette between his lips down into his lungs. He let the breath out slowly. Finral had been on him about the incident at the tavern since it happened. He kept insisting it meant more than what Yami had seen on its surface.
Maybe it did, but Yami had no evidence to support the idea.
He stood up himself, leaving the glasses on the table. Asta would clean it up later. He went to his room and landed heavily on the bed. He lay back and looked up at the ceiling for a moment before closing his eyes. He hoped the blackness of oblivion would greet him, only he was not so lucky.
Finral had asked if he liked her. He had asked the question repeatedly, but Yami had no way of giving him an answer. So he found himself, not so much denying the question outright, as deflecting it.
Since their meeting at the tavern, or maybe even before then, Yami had been unable to shake the sight of her face from his mind. Her face greeted him now as he closed his eyes. He wondered how many others her beauty had affected so deeply. He was certain he wasn't the only one. He had stumbled across her likeness captured in illustration or painting more than once in the black market. Some were nice likenesses, dignified and powerful, while others he knew had to be the products of the artists' imagination-or at least he could not imagine Charlotte would have consented to be drawn in such a lewd manner.
He rolled over to the side of the bed and fumbled with some papers laying on a table just barely within reach. Laying back once more, he looked at them. Each one had a sketch of her face. Some of the drawings had her smiling, some her cheeks were flushed, but mostly she wore the scowl of disapproval she seemed to show to him exclusively. His favorites were the drawings he had made after the few times he had seen her hair down. He liked the way it moved and flowed and how it hung around her face. He wondered if it was as soft to the touch as it seemed.
Her beauty had always captured his imagination. She was ethereal and pure. How could a being like her ever stoop to his base, immoral level?
No, he told himself again as he had told himself a thousand times. Whether he liked her or not was of no consequence. She was out of reach.
But Finral's words nagged at him as they had for the last few days. He wouldn't admit it to the spatial mage though. He enjoyed watching him get frustrated too much.
Still, the cake that day had been a blessing in a way she could not have imagined. True, it had been payday. And like every payday, he had spent it gambling and drinking. He usually at least broke even, or close to it. But the goddess of luck had not been with him that day at all. From the very beginning, he found himself losing. He lost and lost and lost. He was thankful for the habit he had developed over the years of stashing at least enough for a cheap meal in his boot, or he might have lost everything. It had happened before and he had ended up cold, naked, and hungry as he made his way home. But it had been fun...
Still, he had lost everything when he walked into the tavern. The bartender did not even need to take his order; the daily special and a stein of the cheapest ale was sent to his table without comment. He had not even noticed the group of Blue Rose Knights sitting a few tables away. He had long learned to tune out the hubbub of places when he was in a funk.
He probably would not have noticed her if she hadn't drawn his attention as she passed him. Her fingertips dragging along the table was enough to puncture the bubble he had built around him.
And when he looked up at her... wow. He had thought she looked beautiful at the star festival-even if he had laughed as a way to save face. But when he saw her the other day he couldn't stop looking at her. As she passed, he followed her until she disappeared. And when she stopped to talk to him, he had to force himself to keep his attention on her eyes.
But the way the dress hugged her body... He hadn't felt such a deeply stirred desire in a long time. Something about the way she stayed covered most of the time made moments where she was on display so much more striking. He wanted to touch her, but he was fairly certain he would have lost a hand if he had tried.
And her eyes too seemed brighter, more open. Everything about her seemed more open since the spirit had possessed her, like something about the incident had changed her, or opened her eyes.
She was always beautiful, always strong, but that day in the tavern, she seemed divine.
Yami brushed his hand over the sketch he had made of her from the other day. Her hair hung down her back, slightly curled and pulled away from her face except for her braid. Her lips were stained red, a look which suited her at least as much as the more natural look she usually had; they were turned up in a small smile. Her cheeks had blushed at something he had said-they often did, he knew, and she had looked away from him. The image had burned itself into his soul, haunting him until he had put pencil to paper.
But it haunted him still as he could not bring his gaze from it.
Had she it meant as Finral said when she had given him the cake? When she had offered it to him, he felt like he had been given a shift in his luck. And it was delicious on top of simply being free. Was it meant to be a confession of love?
He looked at the drawing again, trying to replay the incident which had seared itself into his mind, but he could not remember the details. He could not remember what was said to make her look as she did in his memory.
"Reciprocation, huh?" What could he do to return the admiration?
Finral had made the decision as soon as he had walked out of the base, but once he stood looking up at the Blue Rose headquarters, he immediately regretted the path of action he had chosen. But he still ventured forth for lack of a better idea.
"I should never make any decisions while drunk." he reminded himself, knowing he would likely forget the resolve by the time he sobered up. He walked up to the large doorway marking the main entrance to the building and knocked loudly. A few of the squad members tending a nearby garden poked their heads up to see the source of the noise.
"Can I help you?" A junior member of the squad asked as she opened the door. Her eyes flicked down to the crest on his robe before she met him with narrow eyes.
"Yes, I need to speak to you captain."
"Captain Charlotte is out currently. I'm assuming this is official business?"
"Um, Yeah." Finral lied. As official as matters of the heart can be, he thought. The girl narrowed her eyes somewhat before rolling them and standing aside.
"The Vice-Captain is here. You can talk to her." She said as she motioned for him to follow her.
Finral had to stop in his tracks for a moment as he stepped inside the building. Though it had very nice architecture on the outside, the inside was downright palatial. It reminded him, in many ways, of his father's home growing up, only everything was decorated with a floral theme suited to the squad of knights who called it home.
Finral let out a low whistle as they walked through the foyer into the main part of the building and then through it to a well-manicured garden he had been able to barely glimpse from the front of the building.
"The Vice-Captain is taking her tea in the gazebo. Tell her what you need to tell her and leave quickly. She's a busy woman."
With her instructions given, the young woman turned and left him alone in the expansive green space. The gazebo she had pointed out stuck out like a glistening white jewel against the sea of green shrubbery. Finral walked toward it, realizing with every step his decision to come here had been a terrible idea.
He could just turn around and walk away. He could pretend it never happened and go back to explaining to Yami that he was wrong about everything and how he should take a chance on Lady Charlotte.
"May I help you?" A voice called out from the gazebo when he was just over halfway there. Too late to run now. He closed the distance, not wanting to be overheard on the off chance he had read the signs completely wrong.
"Um, hi, I mean, yes. I... This is going to sound ridiculous," He peered into the gazebo at the short woman sitting at the table. She was the same woman seated next to Lady Charlotte at the tavern. Finral straightened, feeling a little more confident knowing she had also been a witness to the event.
"Oh, good, maybe it won't sound so ridiculous." He muttered under his breath after seeing her.
"Can you please speak plainly?" Her brown eyes were sharp but not cruel as they stared up at him but somehow managed to make him feel as if she were looking down on him.
"Yes, sorry. I'm having a bit of a problem. You see, my Captain, he doesn't believe me when I try to tell him what the cake meant the other day. And I guess I'm starting to doubt it myself."
"You want me to confirm Captain Charlotte's actions?" She looked at him with raised eyebrows.
"I want you to confirm the symbolism of her actions," Finral said with far more confidence than he felt. "Does she like Yami?"
The short woman tapped a pen against the table where she was working while taking her tea and looked out in the garden for a moment. She offered Finral a seat as she looked back at him.
"Charlotte has a great many strong emotions she doesn't quite know how to or want to handle sometimes. Her feelings for your Captain, for example, are especially strong. She tends to wall off such emotions, to hide them from everyone. She only recently told us how she felt."
"How does she feel?"
"She's in love with him. Or she thinks she is anyway."
"You doubt her?"
The woman shook her head.
"No. She feels something for him. Maybe only a lustful attraction, but frankly speaking, she could use a little physical release, if you know what I mean. I've never seen her as uptight as she has been in the past week or so."
"I see. Yami, on the other hand, seems as clueless as anyone could get. I'm starting to wonder if he's ever been with a woman, or if he's interested in women at all."
"Oh, he seemed pretty interested before you showed up."
"Really?"
"Yes, um... what was your name again?"
"Finral, and I never got yours either."
"Mira. Would you like some tea, Finral?"
"Oh, thank you. Frankly, I could probably use something stronger than tea, but considering Yami and I polished off a bottle of wine before I came here, tea is probably the better choice."
Mira chuckled and the facade of the Blue Rose Vice-Captain fell away.
Are all the women here incredible beauties? Finral thought, only to chastise himself. His determination to stay true to Finesse was strong, but he often had to remind himself of it.
She turned over a teacup and poured a swirl of rich, steaming, golding liquid from a small pot.
"You said Yami seemed interested?" Finral picked up the delicate cup and lifted it to his lips. The tea was fragrant, filling his nose with a spiciness he had not expected.
"Well, he did do a double-take as she walked past him before watching her until she disappeared. He even tried craning his neck a bit after she vanished into a hallway. And then when she came back and started talking to him... well, she didn't say anything, I doubt she even noticed, but everything about his body language screamed more than just colleagues."
"And yet I've pestered him about it and he says it's impossible, that they fight like cats and dogs, or can't have a conversation without resorting to insulting each other."
Mira chuckled.
"Foreplay."
"What?"
"They don't realize it, but they're flirting. I can't even count the number of times Charlotte's come back from a mission where they've run into each other. She would go into great detail about what he said to her and how she responded... She could barely remember the rest of what happened though. It didn't make much sense until she finally shared her feelings with us. And now, after seeing them together? Now I'm even more certain."
Finral thought back to the few times he had seen them interact. He couldn't remember many, but during one mission he had gone on with Yami, he remembered them bickering-calling each other stupid and weak, but in the end, Yami said something which had shocked him. He had practically proposed to her. Of course, everyone thought he was joking, teasing, because she been so mean to him earlier in the fight, but now Finral wondered if there wasn't more to his words.
And the Star Festival... He only heard about it after the fact from Asta, but apparently, Vanessa had goaded the Blue Rose Captain into a drinking contest. Neither won, as Vanessa had been too drunk to even start, and Charlotte had not managed to finish her beer. But a part of the tale was a little outlandish to Finral. Apparently, Yami had finished the beer Charlotte could not, taking it from her even before she passed out. But when asked to elaborate, Yami only said he hated to see the beer go to waste. A fair point, but was there more to it?
"You think so?" All the thinking and the potent tea had started to sober him up.
"I can't speak to your captain, but I think at least on Charlotte's part, yeah."
Finral let out a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl.
"Dammit, why does Yami have to be so difficult to make sense of? It's not like I have the time to make him understand... We're leaving for the Heart Kingdom in a few days, and I can't trust him to not screw this up. He'll probably forget all about White Day as soon as I'm gone."
"I hadn't thought about it much, but it might break Charlotte's heart if she never gets an answer from him." Mira sighed as she placed her cup onto the table. "I'm the one who convinced her to give him something for Valentine's Day. I told her she would feel better to know something one way or the other... Only now it seems things have gotten more muddled. And it's all my fault."
"Don't fault yourself for Yami being a dense meathead."
"So what are we going to do? After all, you said you're leaving soon, and it would be rather weird if I started randomly showing up at your base."
"I don't know, but we need to do something. I think if he accepts the fact the cake held a message, he might do something about it, one way or the other, as you said. But he's being so stubborn and I don't know why. Like, this is more stubborn than his usual."
Mira tapped her finger on her chin for a minute as she considered her courses of action. Her eyes lit up and she leaned forward on the table.
"I have an idea. Charlotte might kill me for it, but I have an idea. Stay here." Mira pushed back from the table and darted through the garden to the main building. Finral watched as she disappeared into the structure before sipping his tea. He had finished the cup by the time she returned. She dropped a small leather-bound book onto the table making the teacups rattle on the saucers with the impact.
"I'm sure we can find the proof your captain needs here." Mira started thumbing through the pages. At one point her eyes grew wide.
"What is that?" Finral's curiosity got the better of him and he leaned over the table trying to see on the other side of the book.
"Charlotte's diary and oh boy, I didn't know you were this creative, girl. Some of this is... steamy." She turned the book toward her new partner in crime. "If this is any indication, she definitely has a thing for him. I mean, she uses his name and everything."
Finral blushed.
"I didn't think you could do that with magic."
"I don't know where she gets her ideas, but they are... intriguing."
"Yami needs to see this," Finral said after skimming the rest of the page. He turned to Mira, his face a brilliant red. "If this doesn't convince him, then nothing will."
"I don't know. Charlotte will kill me if it goes missing." Mira closed the book and ran her hand over the cover. "But it is for a good cause." She slid the book across the table to Finral.
Yami walked into his bedroom after a trip to the gambling hall and noticed something was out of place, but he couldn't quite tell what it was. Someone had been in there, he knew for a fact. The whole atmosphere of the place felt spoiled, contaminated as he stepped through the door. Having the room to himself was a luxury he had never thought to have as a kid, so now, he could not stand anyone intruding into his private space. It was bad enough he had to share the bathroom with the rest of the squad.
He unbuckled his belt and removed his sword and grimoire, laying the leather strappings and satchel on a chest against one wall. He landed heavily on the thin bed and was ready to lay down when his hand brushed something which should not have been there. Had someone defiled his sanctum to put it here? He pulled back the thin sheet which had been tossed over it and saw a small book. His brow furrowed as he picked it up. The cover was plain, light brown leather. It was well used, with soft patches worn into it from countless moments of handling. The only adornment was a small black stain on the back, likely from a spilled drop of ink.
"What the hell?" Yami muttered as he turned the book over in his hands observing it once more. He flipped through the pages with his thumb and watched as page after page of handwritten text blurred into black lines before him. He had never seen the book before in his life, but he knew what it had to be. Somehow, someone's journal found its way into his room.
The book had no name or other identifying features aside from the stain.
Yami started skimming pages for a clue to its owner. As he looked more closely at the words on the page, he noticed something strange. He noticed his name showing up. Repeatedly.
He read a little more deeply and his eyes grew wide at the descriptions of physical acts the author wished him to do. Yami had to admit, the descriptions were rather explicit. He licked his lips as he read them, curious now as to who wanted him to do such things to her. As he read, he became more and more certain the author was a woman. He had to admit, some of what she wanted seemed like it might be quite fun and piqued his interest.
He turned the page to the next entry.
Where the previous one had been full of hot lustful passion, the next was business-like, serious and work-related.
And then he knew.
He closed the book and held it between both of his hands.
He was a flurry of thoughts and emotions and he could not quite slow his mind down enough to sort them out. First and foremost, how did Charlotte's journal get into his room? Second, what the hell? Did she really think that way about him? Third, was Finral right?
Yami took a deep breath and let it out slowly before lighting a cigarette. He closed his eyes, letting the smoke clear his mind. One thing he knew for certain, the book had to get back to her. He couldn't keep it. The other thing he knew was most likely a fact is that he was a dead man if she found out he had read it. And it was likely whoever helped it get to him would also be dead.
But how to get it back to her. The stuff in it was unexpectedly racy. Stuff like it could ruin her reputation if it got out. Especially her fantasizing about him of all people. Could he trust one of the idiots with something like this? The kid seemed pretty trustworthy, and Noelle was about as straightlaced as you could get, but both were getting ready to head out for special training or something. Finral could get there quick, but Yami didn't quite trust him, or the others.
Yami sighed.
"What a pain." He stood up, placed the book on the chest, swapping it for his belt. After strapping his sword and grimoire back to his waist, he picked up the book once more. He couldn't trust anyone with this. He barely trusted himself. He wanted to open it again and find another section where he was mentioned. He was curious how many times she talked about him, in a bawdy way or not.
And mostly, he was nervous, given what he had read. He stopped in his tracks and looked back at the scattered drawings on the floor next to the bed and the back to the book in his hand.
He realized she thought about him as much as he thought about her. The writing made it evident. He opened the book to another random page, only to see his name appear there as well. The context was less explicit, but no less in the sense of longing. He turned to page after page at random, only to see the same. He closed the book once more and placed it on the top of the chest. He picked up the sketches and leafed through them searching for the perfect one. Satisfied, he removed one sheet, folded it in half and placed it within the book. The rest of the drawings, he placed on the chest before picking up the book and turning toward the door once more.
Maybe she would scoff at him, maybe they were too different, but if she thought of him as her journal seemed to indicate, she deserved to know he thought of her too.
Yami knocked on the door at the Blue Rose Knights headquarters and was met by a smiling young woman.
"Oh, Captain Yami, what brings you here?" The girl's eyes glittered with excitement. "Are you looking for Captain Charlotte?" Her smile seemed to grow wider.
"I am actually. I have something for her."
The girl bit her bottom lip and made a sort of excited squeal before recovering her composure.
"Come this way please."
He followed her through the ornate interior of the building to a small table in an antechamber.
"Please have a seat. I'll fetch some tea and tell the Captain you're here." The girl scurried off with a sort of skip in her step.
"What is it with everyone and tea. Why doesn't anyone ever offer a nice wine when I drop by?" He muttered without taking a seat. Instead, he wandered the room, clutching the book in one hand. The area was less ornate than the main hall, but it was tastefully furnished in dark woods and rich velvets. One look was all he needed to know the wealth of the brigade which the building housed. The group was older, more established, and a fair bit more orthodox than his ragtag group of misfits, even if they only rarely accepted men into their fold.
He ran his hand over the deep carving in the door frame-a twisting vine of roses creeping to the ceiling, when he felt her enter the room from the other door.
"Yami?" She sounded surprised, but not unhappy. He thought it odd at first, given their usual interactions, but then the corner of his lips quirked upward as he remembered what he had read.
He turned from his examination of the woodwork to face her. She had her hair down as she had the last time he saw her, but she had traded the dress which had shown off her femininity as well as her ample form for her usual armor.
"I, um, I have something I think belongs to you."
He walked across the small room toward her and held out the small book for her to take. She looked at the book in his hand and then back up to him several times with confusion growing ever more evident on her face.
"How?" She started as she took the book and cradled it against her chest.
"I don't know how it got there, but I found it in my room."
The look of shock on her face was priceless but fleeting as anger took over. She muttered something under her breath, too low for him to hear. She pressed her lips into a thin angry line.
"Thank you for bringing it back to me."
"Sure. Um. Yeah." He hadn't thought of anything he might say, or might ask given what he read and now regretted it because now he felt like he sounded stupid. Usually, he didn't let how he sounded to others bother him. Usually, he didn't give a flying fuck.
But given what he read and how she seemed to feel, he suddenly felt the urge to impress her somehow, to show her that her fantasies were not merely products of her imagination.
He wanted to do the things she had written about.
"So I guess I'll go now." He turned to walk away.
"You, um, you didn't read it, did you?" She called after him and he froze. He didn't want to lie to her. He shouldn't lie to her, but he also didn't want to betray her trust. He turned back to her and shook his head.
"Only enough to see who it belonged to. You should write your name in it though." Yami rubbed the back of his neck. His face felt warm.
"This is very personal stuff."
"I only skimmed it enough to find out it was yours. I barely even looked at the words."
Charlotte huffed and tightened her grip on the book.
"Though I did notice my name in there quite a bit."
Charlotte's face reddened and her eyes widened before she looked away from him.
"I must get under your skin sometimes." He kicked the floor with the toe of his boot. "I mean, I do it on purpose, you know."
"Do what?"
How exactly was he supposed to answer that? He silently cursed his mouth for not connecting to his brain and his brain for not having some semblance of a plan before his mouth started moving.
"Oh, you know. The teasing and stuff." He couldn't look at her though he could feel her eyes on him. "You're too easy of a mark, Charlotte. You're always so quick to react."
He felt himself smile. He wanted to look up at her. He wanted to tell her more. To tell her how he couldn't stop thinking about her in the hours after they happened upon each other, either at a meeting called by Julius, some mission or randomly in town sometime. Sometimes she would stay in his thoughts for days until he replaced her with wine or cards. He wanted to tell her how he hid his feelings too, from her, from his squad, from himself, he realized.
But he held back.
"Well, I should go." He turned to leave.
"Yami, wait." She took a step forward. When he met her eyes, she seemed to have unspoken words fighting to free themselves from her lips.
"Why did you come all this way yourself?"
The question was fair. He could have easily had wrapped the book up and sent it over with one of his squad. He should have been able to trust them enough.
"No one else was around." Another lie.
"I... see." She looked down at the book in her arms. "Well, thank you."
"Sure." Yami turned and hurried away, lest he linger too long and he say more than he meant.
Charlotte watched the closed door for a long while, wondering if he might return. Hoping he might turn around and walk through it. He had acted strangely like he knew more than he wanted to admit or that he had more to say than he was able.
"This is silly." She said aloud to herself before turning back to her office. She had a million things to do, and waiting for Yami Sukehiro to figure out her feelings was at the bottom of the list. She was about to close the door when Mira called her name. The sound startled her out of the mental recitation of her tasks for the day. She dropped the journal she hand tucked under one arm. As the book hit the ground, something slipped out of it.
"Don't do that, Mira!" Charlotte crouched down to retrieve the book and the object which had come out of it. The fall should not have been enough to break the binding, she thought as she picked up the sheet of paper.
"What? Address you before talking to you?" The vice-captain asked. Charlotte sighed. She couldn't tell Mira why she had been so lost in her thoughts.
"Anyway. I saw the captain of the Black Bulls leaving. Anything interesting happen? You two talk?"
"If by interesting you mean to ask if he came to confess his feelings for me, I'm sorry to disappoint you. He just came to return this." She held up the book but kept looking at the sheet of paper in her other hand. The consistency of the page was different from the pages in the book. No, she thought, this page came from somewhere else.
So why was it there?
"What's that?" Mira asked, pointing at the paper.
"I don't know. It fell out of the book." Charlotte shrugged as she opened the creased page which should not have been there in the first place. She gasped as she saw herself on it. Mira moved closer to peek.
"Oh wow," Mira said softly. "That's a really good likeness."
"Yeah. It's beautiful." Charlotte was awestruck. The image was most definitely her, but she had never posed for a picture like this. She had not posed for a picture since she had left her parent's home, in fact, and all of those had been paintings. This was more of a sketch, though it was shaded with various colors to highlight her eyes and lips.
"It was in the book, you said?"
Charlotte nodded.
"I have no idea how it got into my journal though."
Mira flinched out the corner of Charlotte's eye.
"Mira? What's going on?" Charlotte may have a reputation as a cut and dry man-hater, but one thing she knew well was subtlety. She may have missed the blanching of Mira's face earlier when the Vice-Captain saw the book, but the recent reaction was one she could read as plain as day.
"What do you mean?"
"Why did Yami have my journal?" Charlotte looked her square in the eye.
Mira chuckled.
"Well, you see, that's a funny story. And I'll tell it to, I promise. But first, who do you think drew this picture of you? It looks like how you were dressed from the other day."
Charlotte glanced at the drawing in her hand and saw what Mira meant. The way her hair was styled and the richness of the lines around her eyes and the color on her lips were all reminiscent of how she had been made up for the failed attempt to confess her feelings to Yami.
"Don't try to change the subject, Mira."
"I bet he drew this. I mean, who else could have? And he had the book last, didn't he?" Mira winked at her.
"I know what you are trying to do. And it's not going to work." Charlotte glared at her, wondering again how Yami had gotten his hands on the journal.
"What do you mean?" Mira said innocently, blinking her eyes before cracking up. "Gods, you are so serious."
"He had my journal," Charlotte said through gritted teeth. "And I'm starting to believe you had a hand in him getting it. There were some very personal things in there."
"Oh, I know there were," Mira muttered.
Charlotte's face flushed red with anger and embarrassment. Mira had admitted her guilt with the utterance. Charlotte pressed her lips together in a thin, angry line and turned sharply on her heel before striding into her office and slamming the door shut behind her. She leaned heavily against the solid wood of the door and squeezed her eyes shut as hot tears slid down her face.
He said he hadn't looked, and she had no reason to think otherwise. She should trust him, but still, she felt betrayed. Not by him, as much as by Mira. Charlotte was sure of it now. Her vice-captain, her confidant, her best friend had betrayed her, and now she couldn't be certain about anything.
She slid down the door until she was doubled over, clutching her knees to her chest. The book, having fallen from her grip, lay open beside her with the folded up sketch covering her writing. Charlotte sobbed into her knees until her eyes burned. She turned her head and pressed her cheek into her knee as she looked at the book beside her. She picked up the drawing and unfolded it. The image looked far prettier than she had ever felt. She wondered if it was even her, though Mira had been certain.
"How did you get here?" She asked the portrait, knowing it would give her no answer.
Yami walked into the house feeling uneasy. Something about the entire situation felt off for some reason, like more needed to be said, but wasn't. It made his gut churn. But then, to be honest, most things did. As he passed through the common room where most of the squad was goofing off on his way to the toilet, Finral called out to him.
"Yami? Have you seen a book lying around? It's about so big," He gestured with his hands the approximate size of the journal. "Brown leather cover, kind of worn? You haven't seen it, have you?" Finral's words were rushed and nervous, more so than usual.
"What kind of book?" Yami took the cigarette from between his lips and blew out a stream of smoke. If the situation made him feel uneasy, Finral's ki made him suspicious.
"I just told you. Sort of small, brown, worn... I think it might have gotten put in your room by mistake."
Yami looked at him. Finral glanced up but withered under the weight of Yami's intense glare.
"By mistake, huh? Was it a novel or something?"
Finral opened his mouth to speak before looking back to the floor. He fidgetted and wrung his hands.
"No, it was... a little more personal."
Yami stared at him a moment longer.
"Alright, fine. It was a journal."
"I never would have pegged you the type to keep a journal."
More fidgeting, more hand wringing as Finral tried to chuckle in a carefree sort of way. He failed.
"I didn't say it was my journal, did I, Yami?" Finral gave a nervous laugh. Yami nodded his head slowly as pieces clicked together in his mind. All the times recently Finral had tried to convince him of Charlotte's true intentions. How he had insisted on not sharing at the tavern and how he had stormed over to the table where she had sat. His furious departure after their shared bottle of wine earlier in the day.
Yami grabbed Finral's arm and dragged him out of the common space. He pushed him against the hallway wall, just out of sight of the door.
"How the hell did you get Charlotte's journal?" He hissed around his cigarette.
"Um, how did you know it was hers? Did you read it? I mean, after all the trouble, I hope you read it." Finral said at a mile a minute.
Yami let him go with a huff. He took his cigarette out from between his lips and blew the smoke into Finral's face, making the younger man cough.
"How did you get it, Finral?"
"If I tell you, will you tell me if you read it?"
Another stream of smoke to the face was Yami's only answer.
"Fine." Finral coughed. "Her Vice-Captain gave it to me."
"Now why would she do something like that?"
"Did you read it?"
"I read enough."
"Did you get to the good parts?"
Yami looked at the cigarette in his hand. Images conjured by the words she had written sprang unbidden into his mind. When he looked back at Finral, the younger man was grinning.
"Oh, you did!"
Yami's hand at his throat silenced Finral's excitement.
"I read enough. Now you're going to tell me why you and the Blue Rose Vice-Captain went through all this trouble."
"Isn't it obvious? It's like I've been telling you since the tavern. She likes you. A great deal." Finral croaked out.
Yami let him go. He looked at his cigarette, now burned to its end, and tossed it on the floor before stubbing it out with his toe. Finral coughed once more.
"Now the real question is, and I've been trying to figure this out for a while, how do you feel about her?"
Yami lit another cigarette, took a deep inhalation on it before blowing out a cloud of smoke in the hallway.
It was a good question. How did he feel about her? She was pretty, sure, beautiful even, but did she ignite his passion as he ignited hers? He respected her, of course, but did he feel something more?
He furrowed his brow as Finral waited with bated breath for an answer Yami could not provide. Yami sighed and walked down the hall to his room. He scrounged around for some blank paper and his pencil. He thought maybe he should get a sketchbook one day as his hand began to fly lightly across the scrap of paper he had found leaving traces, marks, and smudges which eventually formed her face.