Disclaimer: Last that I remember, I owned no exorcists nor any stories about ones, so Ao no Exorcist and its respective characters belong to Kazue Katou.

Glasses

"What the–?! Chiharu? What are you doing? Why are you even in here?"

"Eh?"

Chiharu froze, caught in action, and spun around to face Rin with an awkward smile and hands behind her back. He had just entered his and his brother's room as he noticed the girl creeping over his brother's desk.

"What'cha got there?" Rin gave her one of his devillish looks which she often received when she was doing something suspicious.

"N-nothing! What do you mean?" Chiharu tried, her hands still hidden innocently behind her back as she carefully sidestepped away. "Must've entered the wrong room. I was just about to leave anyway, ehehehe–"

Slam!

Just as she took a sprint to the door, the dark haired boy shot a hand across her pathway, successfully hindering her mid-escape. Throwing him a quick glare, Chiharu promptly ducked under his arm but was unfortunately tripped before she could continue her dash forward and was pulled up by the arm just as she let out a yelp and lost her footing.

"Well?" Rin stared intently at Chiharu as he held her by the arm, making it impossible for her to flee.

"Uh, I, well, um..." The girl avoided his gaze nervously, cold sweat dripping from her face as she struggled to conceal whatever she had in her grasp, shifting her body to make it hard for him to see.

"Could it be that you took something from Yukio's desk?" The older Okumura laughed inwardly at the amusing thought.

It was strange that Chiharu would be stealing from their room, from his brother no less. It wasn't like they had anything of value, so it must have been some sentimental object. But there was no way the brown haired girl would have any interest in Yukio's belongings, or at least Rin believed so. Did she though? Rin narrowed blue eyes at the girl whose eyes darted from one direction to another, trying very hard to think of a way to escape her situation.

"Wh-what?! No way, no way!" Chiharu laughed awkwardly. "Why would I want anything from that lame four-eyes?! That's stupid, Rin! Hah!" But then her voice died down and her eyes went to stare at the ground, shying away from his gaze in hopes that he wouldn't read through her blatant lie.

"Then what do you have behind your back?" Rin frowned a bit, disconcerted that she would be hiding something from him. If she was playing a prank on his brother, she would have definitely said something by now, which meant that Chiharu really did take something of Yukio's. But why didn't she want to admit it? Could it be that she was ashamed?

"I-it's n-nothing, really, I swear! Forget about it!" Chiharu shut her eyes closed and ducked her head away from Rin's close inspection of her face, feeling exposed.

"Hey, why won't you show me? I won't tell!" Rin made a face, feeling left out. Or at least that was what he thought was going on with him. He wasn't really sure why it was bothering him so much that Chiharu apparently wanted something from Yukio's stuff to take as her own, but he thought that maybe he wouldn't be so hung up about it if she was honest with him, rather than being so shy and secretive, clutching whatever she had taken so protectively.

"What's it to you?!" Chiharu suddenly yelled, finally meeting his eyes with pink dusting her cheeks. "It's not like Yukio doesn't have a whole drawer of them, he won't find out! And I'm just borrowing for a bit, he won't even notice anything missing!"

"What is it? I just wanna see!" Rin tugged her by the arm to himself, trying to reach what she was hiding while peaking over her shoulder.

"No!" The brunette sharply pulled away, conscious of the boy's proximity that was making her face warm up. If he found out...

Already getting irritated, Rin huffed, "Why not?!"

"Because it's none of your business!" Chiharu snapped and tried to pry her arm away from his hold, only for him to tighten his grip and grit his teeth, unfairness growing in his chest when she defiently started trashing around. "Let me go!"

"Just show me! Why are you being so stubborn?!" The demonic boy effortlessly spun her around.

"Ah, no!"

He snatched her fleeting wrist and raised her hand where he would be able to see what she had snuck out of Yukio's desk drawer. When he did though, he took a double take and both of them stopped all sound and movement for a brief moment.

"Glasses?" Rin raised an eyebrow at the brown head below him. "Why would you want a pair of Yukio's glasses? As far as I know, your eyesight is perfectly fine."

With her head hanging low, as Rin still had a firm hold on her forearm and raised wrist, Chiharu sputtered some half-assed excuses. "It's not like that, not what it looks like!"

"What is it supposed to look like?" Rin asked in a roundabout way, curious to what the girl was hoping he would not misunderstand.

Not that he couldn't think of anything, but most of those reasons were silly, far-fetched and fuelled by something foreign and unpleasant bubbling up inside him. Like what if she was secretly obsessed with glasses all this time and made fun of Yukio just to successfully hide that fact. And also did that in turn mean she had a thing for guys with glasses and did it all start with Yukio himself?!

"It's not like I wanted to try them on or anything, so get it out of your head!" flustered, Chiharu muttered to herself, pulling him out of his haphazard thoughts.

"Wha– is that what it was?!" Rin exhaled a breath he was unconsciously holding, all his rather unlikely assumptions vanishing, and let go of the girl to run a hand over the side of his face and trough his dark bangs.

"Huh? Then what did you think I would want these for?" She hugged the spectacles protectively, giving him a doubtful once over.

"Ah, no, no, it's nothing!" He flashed a reassuring grin and waved it off, addressing a more interesting point in her revelation, "But why would you want to try on Yukio's glasses? What's so special about some geeky spectacles?"

Deciding to stare pointedly at the floor as if it was the most curious thing in that exact moment, she tried to hide her visibly flushing face and her panicking green eyes behind brown bangs.

"Hm?" Innocently smiling, Rin cocked his head to the side, peaking under her long strands of hair, oblivious to what could be so uncomfortable.

"B-but you said... yesterday you... Never mind!" Chiharu yelled to the floor, not making any sense to the clearly confused boy.

"Yesterday? Did I say something yesterday?" Rin ruffled his hair and crossed his arms, thinking hard on the previous day and all the thoughtless things he might have blurted out. It was a first that he could actually admit to himself that maybe he spoke too much someitmes, because for the life of him, he couldn't remember half of his conversations with anyone the day before.

Hearing Rin's continuous humming, Chiharu looked up to gape at him, her previous shyness forgotten. He didn't remember?! Now her face took on a different redness, one of frustration and anger, directed towards no other than the forgetful simpleminded half-demon stuck in a futile attempt of recalling all of his shallow statements that he was so sure of the day before.

"You scatterbrained idiot!"

Thunk! Something recoiled from the spot between Rin's furrowed eyebrows and glasses skidded across the wooden floor.

"Ow!"

"You're so not worth the trouble! Go to Gehenna for all I care!"

The poor boy clutched his forehead and opened his eyes to notice Chiharu stomp away, fuming. Only then, maybe thanks to the blow to the head, which may have stirred his brain activity in the right direction, did an episode of the previous day dawn upon him in the form of his own voice ringing inside his head in sync with the throbs of pain between his eyebrows.

"I don't know why you think glasses are the main selling point when it comes to Yukio for Shiemi. But now when I think about it, Chiharu, it's such a waste that none of the girls in cram school classes are bespectacled big-breasted beauties. I would be all over a babe like that! In that case, smart would really be the new sexy. Rawr~! –OW! Why did you hit me all of a sudden?! What did I do to you?!"

Rin sighed. "Guess I deserved that both times..."

- xxx -

Some time later, a very ticked off younger Okumura would be embarking on a quest to end two of his student's excessively carefree lives because of a pair of broken glasses lying around his room.

- Omake -

Rin: Look, Chiharu!

Chiharu: What do you want?! *still a bit mad*

Rin: *has a stupid grin on his face and is wearing Yukio's glasses*

Chiharu: *dull look* Spectacles are supposed to make a person seem smarter but you, Rin, manage to make yourself look like an even bigger idiot than you already are without them. Stay away from me in public.

Rin: *face-fall* Geh! ...women.