Chapter Text
It was dark.
Yuuta blinked rapidly, attempting to force his eyes to focus on something or to somehow adjust to the darkness, but there was nothing for his eyes to focus on to begin with. There was just darkness. It was so dark. It was too dark. Too dark too dark too dark.
Yuuta swung his hand out at his side, desperately scrabbling for something—someone to hold onto.
His hand smacked against warm, smooth skin, and he nearly cried with relief.
“Ow! What the fuck!?” Yuuki yelped. Their voice was loud against the silent backdrop of the void, but it was like music to Yuuta’s ears.
“Yuuki!” Yuuta fumbled his hand around Yuuki’s arm, feeling around until he could finally slide their hands together. Their fingers interlocked, the warmth of Yuuki’s palm seeping into Yuuta’s skin like a lifeline holding the two of them together.
“Yuuta!? Wha—where are we!?”
“I’ve got no idea! You just passed out, and then I guess I passed out too, and now we’re here,” Yuuta explained as best he could.
“But where even is here, anyways? If we’re both unconscious, we shouldn’t be dreaming, and we definitely shouldn’t be seeing each other, dreaming or otherwise,” Yuuki said. A strange feeling washed over them, like they’d experienced this before. “This is really weird…”
“—solutely not!” Yuuki and Yuuta’s attention snapped towards a woman’s voice. It sounded like she was yelling, but it was distant, like she was incredibly far away. Deep into the void, a slightest crack of stark white light appeared, like a door opening.
“Those tarts are monstrously unhealthy. I might as well feed you poison!” The woman continued, her voice growing louder and louder as Yuuki and Yuuta drifted towards the light. “Even just a single slice would exceed your recommended daily sugar intake. Now, tonight’s dinner will be a tuna sauté rich in DHA and omega-3 fatty acids. Now that you’re eight, your caloric intake should be exactly 600 kilocalories per meal, so don’t eat more than 100 grams of it. Understood?”
Yuuki and Yuuta floated through the pitch-black door into what looked like a dining room. Though, it seemed as though the entire place had all the color completely sucked out of it. Like a strange, washed-out, black-and-white movie.
At the table, a small boy stared down what looked to be the most miserable birthday cake Yuuki or Yuuta had ever seen. He seemed just as colorless and washed-out as the rest of the room was. He looked so small and so… familiar. The way his two cowlicks hung over the front of his fringe reminded Yuuki and Yuuta of—Riddle! That’s who he was! He was eight-year-old Riddle Rosehearts.
But, then, why were they seeing what seemed to be Riddle’s memories?
“...Yes, Mama,” Riddle murmured. His expression was downcast in a way that made Yuuki’s chest ache, and made Yuuta feel a little nauseous.
They shouldn’t be watching this.
They really shouldn’t be watching this.
The woman, who was apparently the boy’s mother, stood at the head of the table.
Before either of them could get a good look at her face, the scene flickered back to darkness like a film being switched out of an old projector.
“I’d always wanted to try one of those tarts with the bright-red strawberries,” Riddle’s voice—his current voice—echoed in the darkness. Yuuki and Yuuta strained to see where his voice was coming from, but it was too dark to tell if he was there with them or if they were simply hearing him speak like some kind of twisted narration.
Then the scene flickered again, this time to a grayscale scene of that same young Riddle walking past a cake shop. His eyes sparkled at the sight of a stunning strawberry tart in the window.
“The local cake shop had them in the window,” Riddle’s narration continued, “They shined at me like forbidden jewels.”
Once more, everything went black.
Another room lit up, this time a small bedroom that seemed less like an actual eight-year-old’s room and more like a sad, millennial beige furniture store’s interpretation of an eight-year-old’s room. The bed was perfectly made, the bookshelves piled high with perfectly organized books, the desk stacked high with perfectly-ordered textbooks, positioned exactly in front of the window to let the optimal amount of light in.
Riddle sat at the desk. His mother leaned over him, her hand placed gingerly on a book in front of him as he gazed up at her shadowed face expectantly.
“That’s enough classical magic study for today,” She said, “Your homework is to read the first fifty pages of the philosophy of language book referenced in today’s magical philosophy texts. You may now have some independent study time before your potionology lesson.”
“Thank you, Mother,” Riddle responded.
“I have a few errands to run.” Riddle’s mother glanced back as she walked through the door into the deep void beyond the room. “We will reconvene in one hour, understood?”
“I was studying every possible subject, scheduled down to the minute. When I didn’t understand something, the lesson was extended until I did. That was…” Current Riddle’s voice returned.
“...My ‘normal.’”
Yuuki and Yuuta’s attention quickly snapped to the sound of knocking on the window, as did young Riddle’s.
“...Is someone there?” Riddle slid out of his chair and stepped towards the window, cracking it open to see outside.
Surprisingly, rather than the thick void Yuuki and Yuuta had quickly grown accustomed to in this strange dream world, the world outside the window was bright. A white, colorless sun beamed down onto the cobblestone road outside. The monochrome grass and trees seemed to sway back and forth in a nonexistent breeze.
“Wha—!?” Riddle’s eyes widened with shock.
Two children were standing outside Riddle’s window.
“Woah, he heard us!” The first boy said, his equally shocked eyes rimmed by thick, black-framed glasses.
“Hey, hey! Come play with us!” The second kid’s cat-eared face popped into existence right inside Riddle’s window, his body seemingly nowhere to be found.
“Huh!? W-who are you two?” Riddle asked.
“I’m Che’nya!” The second kid said, her face disappearing from Riddle’s window and reappearing—this time attached to her body—back on the sidewalk. “And this is Trey.”
The boy with glasses, Trey, smiled up at Riddle gently.
“Let’s all play croquet! Oh, it’s lots of fun!” Che’nya’s tail was bolt-upright, save for the slightly crooked tip of their tail.
“Croquet?” Riddle leaned over his windowsill slightly.
Che’nya grinned and slipped his hand into the front pocket of his overalls.
“Catch!” He said, and tossed a round object up at Riddle’s window.
Riddle jolted with shock, catching the little thing in his hands with an almost unexpected degree of dexterity.
“A-a hedgehog!?” Riddle sputtered. Cradled in his palms was a tiny, adorable little hedgehog. Despite the spines on its back, it didn’t seem to be unpleasant for Riddle to hold. Yuuki’s hand twitched at their side. The temptation to see if they could pet the little hedgehog was just too strong! It was so cute!
“He wants to play, too.” Che’nya gestured at the hedgehog as Riddle placed it on the windowsill.
“But I…” Riddle chewed at his bottom lip, his eyes flicking back and forth from his desk to the tiny hedgehog. “...I can’t. This is my independent study time, and I’ve got a bunch of homework to do.”
“Independent study time just means you get to pick what you do, right? My grandpa says play is a form of study,” Che’nya reasoned.
“So, wanna come down and join us for a bit?” Trey smiled.
Riddle made a pained noise, as though the mere concept of abandoning his independent study time was dealing him exorbitant amounts of psychic damage, before letting out a soft sigh.
“O-okay… but only for a little while!” He said, which seemed to be a good enough answer for Trey and Che’nya, who both beamed up at him excitedly.
“So, you got a name?” Trey asked as he extended a hand to help Riddle climb out of his window.
“Um, Riddle. Riddle Rosehearts.” Riddle murmured, taking Trey’s hand and allowing himself to be pulled outside.
“I had so much fun with them… We did so many things I’d never done before. They taught me lots of things I didn’t know. And after that, I snuck out every day to play with them during my independent study time.” Riddle’s voice began to tremble as the scene flickered once more.
“Seriously!?” Che’nya exclaimed, looking downright offended at her friend’s admission. “You’ve never even tried a strawberry tart!?”
“Well, mother says sugar is basically poison, so…” Riddle explained, his voice trailing off.
“I mean, you probably shouldn’t eat too much of it, but calling it poison is a bit much, isn’t it?”
Suddenly, Trey’s eyes lit up. You could almost see a lightbulb floating above his head if you looked hard enough.
“Wait, I have an idea!” He continued, “My family owns a cake shop! Let’s all go get a tart!”
“Really?” Just as quickly as Riddle’s smile formed, it faded. “But… I shouldn’t.”
“Just one slice should be fine,” Trey assured.
“Pfft, one slice for you maybe! I’m gonna eat the whole thing myself!” Che’nya giggled, practically leaping off the grass and bouncing around impatiently. “C’mon guys, let’s go, let’s go!”
The scene ended like a VHS tape being ejected from the player, abruptly plunging Yuuki and Yuuta into darkness once more.
“A bright-red strawberry tart on a white plate. To me, it shined more brightly than any gemstone ever could. That first bite was so sweet… it was like nothing I’d ever tasted before. With each bite I became more and more entranced until eventually… I completely lost track of time.”
Another scene blinked into life, this one much darker than any of the others had been. It was clouded with a thick, black vignette that hung oppressively over the young Riddle like a raincloud.
“I cannot believe this! Not only are you cutting independent study time, but when I finally find you, you’re eating a mountain of sugar!? I taught you better than this, Riddle. It must’ve been those two… two hoodlums who incited this behavior! I forbid you from speaking to those two ever again, do you understand me!?” Riddle’s mother scolded, jaw tight with fury as she glared down at her son.
“I-I’m so sorry, mother! Please, I promise it’ll never happen again! I’m sorry!” Riddle sobbed.
“Silence! You’ve broken the rules, and I refuse to hear another word from you. Clearly, you’re not able to handle the freedom of independent study time. I’ll need to keep a closer eye on you from now on.”
“Because I broke the rules, my favorite part of the day was taken from me…” Riddle’s voice trembled, its narration suddenly much less impassive than it had been before. “I vowed never to break my mother’s rules again. After all, she was the most accomplished mother in the city, and therefore, the most correct.”
The dream faded to black once more but this time, instead of shifting to yet another scene of Riddle’s childhood, Yuuki and Yuuta could just barely make out the smallest little sliver of light peeking through the darkness.
“But mom…”
They each squinted, both trying to see what exactly it was that was shining through the thick blanket of void.
“...Why? Why does my heart hurt so much?”
Then the little light grew.
“I want to eat a tart! It's my birthday, so can't I have some just this once? I want to play outside all day long! I want to make lots and lots of friends!” Riddle’s voice cracked, growing more and more desperate.
It was small. A tiny, vein-thin fracture in the infinite black. It cracked again. Another little branch snapping through until, in an instant, the entire void burst into a tree of cracks striking across the void like lightning slamming across the sky. Then, with a noise not too dissimilar to that of a chandelier breaking against an uncaring floor, the darkness shattered into what seemed to be at least a million infinitesimally tiny pieces.
“Tell me, Mom, please… what rule do I need to follow to make this pain go away?”
Yuuki looked down, shielding their eyes in an attempt to avoid the light.
“Oh, fuck,” Yuuki said breathlessly.
“What—oh. Oh no.” Yuuta’s eyes widened in fear as that stomach-turning sensation that often accompanies the drop in rollercoasters made its home in his abdomen.
Yuuki and Yuuta were falling.
They were falling very quickly towards what would’ve been a perfectly pleasant grassy hill, if not for the fact that they were falling from god-knows-high and were very likely going to be turned into Yuuki and Yuuta pancakes when their bodies smacked against that very pleasant-looking grass.
Yuuki grabbed Yuuta’s hand, pulling his body against theirs and wrapping their arms around his body tightly.
It was times like those when Yuuki remembered just how small Yuuta was. So small and skinny. The sort of person you feel immediately inclined to wrap your arms around as you plummet to the ground. The sort of person who can’t really do much of anything to wrangle himself out of your arms.
Not like it was going to do much, anyways. Cushioning someone else’s fall with your body only works in movies and books with happy endings.
Guess they were making good on that deal, huh?
Yuuki squeezed their eyes shut, the wind in their ears like they were standing in a turbine, their hair whipping around their face so hard it stung.
And then, the world swallowed them whole.
Riddle blinked his eyes open, squinting as the sun blared down on him before he had the chance to adjust.
He was laying on his back in the grass, soft green blades brushing against his skin as he looked up at the soft white clouds floating overhead in the perfect blue sky. The sun warmed his skin just enough to be pleasant and the breeze brushed over his cheeks just enough to keep him cool.
“Oh, you’re up!” A voice Riddle didn’t recognize echoed out behind him.
He sat up and turned around to see two other kids, about his age (8, 9 maybe? He couldn’t tell.), looking back at him with wide, curious eyes.
“Want some lemonade?” The first child asked, already holding out a yellow plastic cup for Riddle to take. They had short, choppy black hair that almost looked like it had been ripped to that length, rather than cut. They had two distinctive beauty marks under their eye that Riddle swore was… familiar, somehow.
Riddle stared at the lemonade. He wanted it, but what would his mother say? Was it against the rules?
“It’s good lemonade,” The second child added, apparently noticing Riddle’s apprehension. Their hair was long, and more messy than it was curly. It was half-pulled out of a pair of braids and full of more sticks and twigs than Riddle could count. Their tan skin was dotted with scrapes and bruises and band-aids from who-knows-what. Their hands were curled around what looked to be another plastic cup full of lemonade.
“...Is lemonade against the rules?” Riddle asked hesitantly.
“Why would lemonade be against the rules?” The first child asked, their head tilting to the side curiously.
“Um…”
“You don’t have to have some if you don’t want, but we aren’t gonna punish you for having lemonade.” The second child shrugged, taking another sip from their cup.
“But mother might!”
“Your mom’s not here, is she?”
“No… but she still might know! And I-I’m supposed to always follow the rules! ‘Cause mother knows what’s best for me.”
“Sometimes moms are wrong.” The first child said.
“No! Mother is always right!” Riddle blurted out defensively. “...She has to be.”
“If your mom’s gonna punish you for having lemonade, I think your mom is wrong. There’s nothing wrong with having a glass of lemonade on a nice day, is there?” The second child asked.
“No, but—!”
“Here,” The first child interrupted, “I’ll just set it in front of you. Whether you wanna have some is up to you.”
Riddle stared down at the little plastic cup. The lemonade shimmered in the sunlight tantalizingly, the two little lemon slices floating in the bottom swirling around like little dancers in a ballroom.
“Do you want some?” The second child asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” Riddle admitted.
“So? What are you waiting for?” The first child asked.
Riddle didn’t respond, because he was too busy taking a sip of his lemonade.
It tasted even better than it looked. It was sweet, with the tartness of the lemon coming through just enough to provide depth of flavor.
“Good, huh?” The second child asked.
“Yeah. It’s really good.” Riddle smiled. For some reason, his eyes felt watery, like he was going to burst into tears any second now.
“I’m glad! But, I think it’s about time for you to go…” The first child’s voice trailed off.
“Huh? Why?”
“Your friends, they’re calling for you, I think. Don’t you hear them? They sound worried.”
Now that they mentioned it, Riddle found he could distantly hear a collection of familiar voices calling out his name. They sounded muffled and distant, but the first child was right, they sounded really worried.
“Bye, bye.” The second child waved as Riddle stood up.
“See you soon!” The first child added, their lips curled into a gentle smile.
Yuuta squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to block the light seeping in through his eyelids. His head was killing him. Couldn’t he sleep just a little bit longer? He was so tired, all his limbs felt like jelly, and his chest ached like it was about to burst open like that one scene in Alien.
“Mmgh,” He mumbled. Someone was saying something. Or, at least he thought they were. He didn’t know. His skull felt like it was stuffed full of cotton.
Yuuta winced. Something was pressing into his cheek over and over again.
He tried to swat it away, but it just kept poking at him.
“Ugh…” Yuuta groaned, finally pulling himself upright just so he could get whatever it was to stop. “...Grim?”
“Henchman!” The little cat practically leaped into Yuuta’s lap. “You’re awake!”
“Huh…?”
Yuuta looked to his side to see a very confused, bleary-eyed Yuuki pulling themself off the grass they were apparently sleeping on.
“...Yuuta?” Yuuki’s eyes widened with realization. “Yuuta! Are you okay!? What happened!? You aren’t hurt, are you? Did… did I pass out? Nothing happened while I was out, right? You’re okay?”
“You have grass in your hair.” Yuuta informed them.
Yuuki made a strange, strangled noise and began frantically running their hands through their hair to attempt to shake the grass out of it.
“Other henchman!” Grim cried, wedging himself right between Yuuki and Yuuta like they’d both disappear if he wasn’t holding onto them.
“You’re both up! Oh, thank the Seven…” Deuce sighed in relief.
“You guys scared the shit out of us, just passing out like that! I thought Yuuta was the only one with the weird passing-out disease,” Ace scolded.
“You guys are the worst henchmen ever! How dare you make The Great Grim wait for you like that!” Grim yowled like he didn’t have his little paws fisted in both of their uniforms like a toddler who missed his parents.
Yuuki and Yuuta looked at eachother.
…And immediately burst into a fit of laughter.
“Hey! What’s so funny!?” Grim asked incredulously.
“Sorry! Sorry!” Yuuki pleaded through giggles. “It was just—you guys looked so serious!”
“I mean, seriously! Look at your faces right now!” Yuuta wheezed.
“...I guess this is what I get for being worried about you two.” Deuce shook his head in defeat.
“Ah—Yuuki! Yuuta!” Cater stood up from where they were standing next to Trey. “Are you guys okay!? You both just passed out right after the fight was over! I was scared you’d just keeled over and died, then and there!”
“They seem fine to me.” Ace scowled down at the still-giggling pair.
“Aw, don’t be like that! Where’d all that ‘you guys scared the shit out of us’ from earlier go?” Yuuta teased, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“Pfft, well, as long as you’re both alright,” Cater snorted.
“Riddle!” Trey’s voice cut through the laughter, immediately snapping the group’s attention back to where he was leaned over Riddle’s body.
“Gah!” Riddle shot upright, clutching at his chest like his heart was failing.
“He’s back!” Ace said.
“Well, it’s about time. We were just about losing our hea… ah.” Cater’s eyes widened slightly as their, frankly, rather poor choice of words dawned on them. “Sorry, figure of speech. But seriously, we were super worried. We thought you guys might never wake up!”
“...I—Wh-what in the world happened?” Riddle asked breathlessly.
“A lot.” Yuuta explained.
“Too much, really.” Yuuki added.
“Ah, Mr. Rosehearts appears to have regained consciousness. Excellent.” Crowley nodded to himself.
“How long have you been standing there?” Yuuki asked.
“Since you all decided to lose consciousness.”
“We didn’t really decide that.”
“Don’t worry, Riddle, just try to rest.” Trey said, placing a gentle hand on Riddle’s back and deftly ignoring all the other nonsense in favor of comforting his friend.
“Hey, that’s the exact sorta coddling that got us into this mess in the first place! Now the garden’s all torn up—not to mention we could’ve died!” Ace protested, pointing an accusatory finger at a vaguely confused Trey.
“Glad to see where our deaths lie on your priority scale there, Ace.” Yuuta deadpanned.
“He’s got a point, though. Things were looking pretty rough there.” Deuce acknowledged.
“For cryin’ out loud, when you humans let that stress build up, the result sure ain’t pretty!” Grim said.
“...You know, the truth is, I… I really wanted to eat that chestnut tart.” Riddle mumbled.
“Huh?” Ace uttered, looking rather taken aback at his Housewarden’s sudden admission.
“A-and I don’t care if the roses are white, or if the flamingos are pink, and I prefer honey to sugar cubes in my tea, and—and I don’t even like lemon tea that much anyways, and after a meal I-I want to sit around and talk with anyone and—”
“Riddle…?” Trey worried the inside of his cheek, watching as Riddle very rapidly unraveled in front of him.
“—And I really wanted to play with you and Che’nya more, Trey…” Riddle sniffed a few times, desperately holding back the tears that were quickly filling his eyes. He blinked, a few tears dropping onto the grass, before the floodgates opened and he began sobbing uncontrollably.
“Oh my Seven he’s actually crying,” Cater’s eyes widened, panicking slightly as they very quickly realized they were entirely unprepared for anyone, especially not Riddle to cry.
“You think a couple crocodile tears is all it’ll take for me to forgive you.” Ace said, deeply unimpressed by the entire display.
“Ace!” Deuce admonished.
“Dude, he’s literally crying. Cool it for a minute, Christ.” Yuuki pinched at Ace’s side to punctuate their point.
“Ow! What the hell, Yuuki, I thought you were on my side!”
“I am, but you deserved that and you know it.”
“I’m sorry, Riddle. I knew you were suffering, and all I did was pretend not to notice.” Trey, the master of ignoring bullshit by now, pulled Riddle into a tender hug, letting the boy sob into his shoulder. “So I’m gonna say what I should’ve said a long time ago. Your way of doing things was wrong, and you owe everyone an apology.”
“I-I’m sorry, everyone… I’m really sorry…” Riddle sniffled.
“Y’know, this whole time I’ve been saying I want an apology from Riddle. But now that I’ve gotten one, I have to say… One stupid ‘sorry’ doesn’t even come close to making up for what he did!” Ace snapped.
“DUDE! Way to be a capital-J Jerk!” Cater exclaimed, pretty much perfectly encapsulating the feelings of everyone in the little group.
“And proud of it! Have you forgotten how he made a total fool of me!? Did you just forget how he just threw away that tart we all worked so hard on!? That isn’t something you can make go away with just a couple tears and an ‘I’m sorry’!”
“Wow, he’s better at holding grudges than I am.” Grim muttered.
“Then… then wh-what should I do!?” Riddle asked, rather incredulously.
“Well, I don’t have a birthday coming up soon.” Ace folded his arms over his chest.
“Ace, what are you talking about?” Deuce asked.
“I’m talking about a do-over of the unbirthday party, obviously! Except this time, we ain’t gotta do squat. This time you—” Ace pointed at Riddle. “—have to bring the tart. And no getting Trey to help you make it, either! Then we’ll be even.”
“Didn’t we spend a whole evening helping you make your apology tart, Ace?” Yuuki pointed out.
“Shshhhshhhh hush quiet.”
“Wha—don’t shush me!”
“Silence from the peanut gallery, please.”
“Ace I swear to fucking god—” Yuuki lurched forward to kick Ace in the shin, stumbling on their still-weak legs as Yuuta pulled them back upright.
“Woah, careful!” Yuuta said as he steadied them.
“Well, what do you say, Riddle? We clear?” Ace asked, happily ignoring Yuuki’s half-hearted attempt on his life.
“Yes, we’re clear…” Riddle murmured.
“Ah, yes, compromise is such a beautiful thing. I believe that concludes this matter.” Crowley nodded, as though congratulating himself on doing virtually nothing the entire time.
“Welp, looks like we’ve got a hell of a clean-up job to do.” Cater sighed, their shoulders drooping as they looked out of the completely wrecked Heartslabyul garden. “All that work making the garden perfectly Magicam-worthy, and now it’s a total tire fire. Laaame.”
“I’ll help.” Trey said.
“Nah it’s fine, why don’t you get Riddle to the nurse’s office instead. That was a full-blown overblot case, so we should probably make sure he’s alright,” Cater suggested.
“Uh, Yuuki?” Deuce asked, staring at the concerningly large pool of blood forming underneath Yuuki’s arm.
“Yeah?”
“Is that… supposed to still be bleeding?”
“Uh, I don’t know? Here, lemme just—” Yuuki peeled themself away from Yuuta’s hold in favor of hiking their sleeve up over the cut on their shoulder, finding that their arm was coated in a concerning amount of red. Not only that, but upon actually looking at the laceration, they could just-barely see the little yellow bubbles of fat beneath their skin. “Hm. That’s not good.”
“Yuuki! How did you not notice that!?” Yuuta exclaimed, looking into the large cut on Yuuki’s arm like it was going to manage to open up all the way around and make their arm fall off if he looked away for too long.
“I was a bit more concerned with not dying to the massive fuck-you ink monster at the time.”
“I—uh… Did I do that?” Riddle asked, eyes wide with horror.
“Well. I mean. Yeah.” Yuuki responded.
“I—I’m really sorry.”
“It’s fine, really, I’ve had worse. It’s whatever, don’t sweat it.”
“Yuuki, I think you need stitches.” Yuuta said.
Riddle looked seconds from passing out.
“...I think you should come to the nurse with us, Yuuki.” Trey gave a nervous smile, trying not to pay too much attention to just how much they were bleeding.
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Yuuki acquiesced.
“Diamond and Clover are correct. I will go along with you,” Crowley said.
“Understood. Thank you, sir.” Trey nodded and began guiding Riddle towards the infirmary, with the Headmage, the two Ramshackle prefects, and Grim shambling along behind him.
“Man, am I starved after using all that magic!” Grim complained, shaking his fur like he’d just been doused in water when, suddenly, he bolted off away from the group.
“Grim! Don’t go too far!” Yuuta called after him.
“Guys! Check it out!” Grim zipped right back over to the Ramshackle duo, with a weird black rock in tow. “Look, look! It’s another black magestone! Just like the one we found in the mine!”
The entire infirmary group slowed to a grinding halt to look at the stone Grim had found.
“You’re right!” Deuce said, “But I wonder where it came from…?”
“Just don’t put it in your mouth this time,” Ace warned, earning a few concerned looks from those who had not been there to witness Grim’s first mad compulsion to eat weird rocks.
“No way! After how great that last one tasted, I can’t get this thing in my mouth fast enough!” Grim said, practically swallowing the entire rock whole and earning a chorus of disgusted groans and ‘ews’ from the group as they watched him crunch down on the rock-crystal thing.
“Aaand there it goes,” Ace sighed.
“Oh, Grimmy… have some self respect, honey! That was literally trash!” Cater cringed.
“Ahhhhh! Rich and sweet, but with a complex hint of bitterness in the aftertaste. Equally delicious, but with quite a different mouthfeel from that last one I ate,” Grim described, much to the chagrin of everyone around him.
“Well, I guess this is just a thing now.” Yuuta shrugged.
“If he makes himself sick I’m not dealing with him,” Yuuki warned.
“Maybe since he’s a monster, his stomach works differently than ours?” Ace theorized as he watched Grim stretch, as though the cat had just eaten a can of tuna instead of a literal rock.
“Even still, eating trash can’t be good for anyone,” Deuce said.
“Uh, okay, so I’m gonna go throw up now but…” Cater took a deep breath. “...Seriously, thanks guys.”
“Huh? Sorry, what was that, Cater?” Ace asked.
“Hm? Ah, it was nothing, don’t worry about it.”