Are you a beast?!
"You fight with Laris and my sister, and now you mark me? How are you going to 'merge' our families if you keep angering everyone, including me?!"
The ends of his mouth curl up for a second, clearly not getting my sarcastic remark, before going down. I realize that I may have sounded eager being in the same family as him. I was about to defend myself when he retorts.
"But you marked me first." Obrecht pouts.
"I didn't—"
He raises his arm, pulling back the sleeve to show his bicep riddled with simplified runes of my name, wrapping around like white vines on his arm's tanned skin. At its origin, near the elbow, is my rune. The same rune that represents my name. The retort on my mouth dies then and there.
For his whole arm to be covered like that, it's almost as if screaming that this man is mine, like a primary student writing his name in all of his belongings so other people don't take it—it's the proof of ownership that married Wraiths do. Mother had the same thing; she had Father's runes lining down her arms, with the same white color for the non-Wraiths.
The only time that I... when we were night watching while camping, that time we went out of Lumea to search for Aovialutre's temple?
That's the only time it could have possibly happen, but even so, I only playfully traced my rune on his arm with a finger, I never... I didn't even know how to mark my rune like that, neither before nor now.
It took a long time before I could speak, "That rune..."
He proudly wears my rune, making my extremely flustered inside. "I'm already marked, but it's unfair how you're not. I can't even put a rune on you like how you did to show I'm yours." My heart starts throbbing as we cross gazes. "Are you still my person, Videre? If you're really mine, you wouldn't have run away before, even if we argued.
"If you run away again without me, I think I'll get angry. Ah, but I can't hit you. I guess I'll just bite you. I think kissing you is better, what to do?" He looks genuinely troubled, like a kid who can't choose between two flavors of a lollipop. "If you resist, I'll tie you to the bed."
"That's—that's unfair!" It's the only reply I could think of with my nearly short-circuited brain. My cheeks heat up.
No wait, shouldn't I be saying that it's not right?
"Why? What's unfair? If I'm not holding on to you like now, wouldn't you run away?"
I can't deny it, but before and now are just two different things!
"Videre, you're the type of person that if allowed, would run away instead of facing things, aren't you?"
"Yes, I run away. Is it so bad to run away from the things that hurt?" I snort softly. "You're awfully knowledgeable about people's emotion all of a sudden. I didn't think that someone who's having trouble with emotions would be able to say that." I meant to say it to spite him, but—
"Of course. It's the husband's job to the things that the wife doesn't like doing." He smirks.
"..." Husband?
Embarrassed and caught off guard, I forgot to yell 'idiot' and simply threw the pillows on the bed at him to appease my frustration. Action speaks better than words anyways!
"Wah—!" My head hits the bed shortly as Obrecht grabs my foot and pulls hard. I slid off the bed, dragging anything and everything in a useless attempt to stop him from pulling me into his arms.
The both of us ignore the mess of bed covers and pillows scattered on the floor around us.
Obrecht tightens his arms around his waist, my hands unconsciously squeezing his shoulders in nervousness.
"Is this a pillow fight? Are we pillow fighting? Oh. An angry face. Videre's angry face. So adorable~"
I start hitting him, too embarrassed and angry to utter an argument.
"Hehe~"
"..." Don't you 'hehe' me! I'm angry here!
"Okay, okay. I'll stop laughing." He kindly says, but his pleased face and laughing eyes says otherwise.
Knock knock—
"Have you made up already?"
Vera?
"We haven't! Come back after four hours—no, six!" Obrecht tries to bargain.
"Don't be unreasonable, Obrecht! You're not the only one who wants to see Videre!"
The door swings open, and a young brunette with short hair and brown eyes enters.
"Oops", she let's go of the broken knob. "I really have to watch out for this. They're so fragile! Videre, how have you... been." She glances at the mess of pillows and sheets on floor, including our position on the floor. Vera gently tries to keep the knob-less door shut, and with a neutral voice, she says, "You're really so unreasonable, Obrecht. Just say 'we're busy, come back tomorrow morning'."
"Oh", Obrecht replies. "We're busy. Come back tomorrow morning."
"Sure~" The mirth in Vera's eyes is so obvious as she closed the door after her. I look at the man in front of me and then back at the door.
"Ah!" No wait, Vera, come back, this is a misunderstanding!
I struggle out of Obrecht's arms.
"Hold on!" The door slams open once more. Vera pulls it to a near close again, as if shielding her innocence, before inserting her head in the door's slit of an opening. "I forgot. I was supposed to bring you out to eat dinner."
Obrecht looks at her grumpily, but loosens his hold nonetheless.
"I'll come talk to you later", Obrecht says as we head to the dining hall. I don't ask when this 'later' is. Part of me is a bit too wary to ask.
"You look relieved", Vera teases, poking her elbow at me.
I smile at her. I really am relieved. It's good to know that Vera is fine, after all, when I left, she was still unconscious. I couldn't help but blame a bit of myself for bringing her and Krael with us that time. If I had insisted, we would have still stayed peacefully in Inferis.
"Go away~!" Obrecht gestures at Vera with his hand, shooing her away and pulling me on his other side so we walk with him in the middle.
"You're so stingy! Hmph!" Vera stomps her foot and walks ahead of us. We follow suit.
"What happened to Vera isn't your fault. None of it is."
"..."
I look up at Obrecht's side profile. He grabs my arm and pulls me along.
"After dinner, let's talk like we used to?" He turns his head, smiling at me. "There's so much I want to tell you." He doesn't wait for my answer before looking back ahead of us.
Arriving at the dining hall, I am astounded by the lack of long tables for the food. Rather, there are small tables filled with dishes. Each table sits only one person, equally distributed in a circular fashion from Lady Amani who's sitting in the middle of this circle.
"What's going on", I ask.
"They're about to play the next round of Lady Amani's game." Vera smirks, leaning her elbow at Obrecht's shoulder while trying to get a good view of me behind Obrecht.
Obrecht grabs her face and points back in front, "You've looked enough."
I press down a laugh, huffing out once. I'm pretty sure Obrecht has an eye at the back of his head.
Seeing me like that, Obrecht finally had gotten into a good mood, and asks Vera, "You're not playing?"
"I've already played. I won on the first round!" She thumps fist on her chest. "I'm always the first to get out."
"Weren't you just cheating with Aovialutre's memories?" Obrecht doubtfully looks at her.
"I wasn't! Anyways, it's not fair if we're the only ones to play. You didn't even join us the first time we played. I lost that round to Krael." She sighs. "I can't remember that secret he defended to death, but I do recall getting flustered about something."
Oh, I think I have a clue on what secret that is.
The door to the dining hall suddenly closes behind us. Their imposing heaviness makes it feel like we just got lured into a trap.
"Why don't you eat dinner first?" Lady Amani greets us, and gestures to two small tables with steaming meals just placed on them. They weren't there before when I looked. There's even a small stone in a stand along with the food.
Is this a mike? Are we in a senate meeting? Are we discussing something important?
My intuition tells me there's something going to happen as soon as I take my seat. I glance at Tukare, who is strangely quiet tonight. Even Letitia and Laris are sitting tensely as if they're at a war meeting. Laris sips his tea gently, a look of warning in his eyes. When Lady Amani traces my line of sight and glances at him, Laris had already looked back down at his cup of tea, not uttering a single word.
What's going on? Why is it awfully quiet?
"Now, why don't you eat before the food gets cold?"