Vanitas × Noé

Not Friends

"I take it Vanitas is upstairs?" Dominique stated, slipping into her seat in the hotel dining room.

"Yes," Noé replied, sitting opposite her. "He thinks it would be better not to see you, he said you have a difficult relationship and he doesn't want to upset you at the moment. Or come between us, whatever that means."

"Ignoring my own feelings on the man it seems you've found quite a good friend in him."

"No, we're not... friends."

"Noé, mon chéri, if you aren't friends then what is the meaning of all that carrying on you two do?"

Noé stared at her.

"We're not," he repeated.

Dominique frowned but didn't push any further. "You should be more careful with that man, friend or no, he's... unsettling."

"He's just a little strange."

Dominique barked a laugh. "That's quite the understatement."

"...Maybe, but he's not all that bad. If we discount his personality at least."

"You are hopeless," Dominique reached across the table to clasp his hand, "I'm glad I dropped by, it's nice to see you. Would have been interesting to see Vanitas as well if he'd deigned to meet me."

Noé laughed. "Next time I promise I'll drag him downstairs. I'd like the two of you to get along, and he still owes you an apology for how he's treated you."

"I've forgiven him anyway," Dominique huffed. "I'm a gracious person, even if he doesn't deserve it. Besides, as you said, you want us to get along. I want to build a decent relationship with your not-friend."

"How's Jeanne holding up," Noé said abruptly, steering the conversation away from Vanitas.

"Jeanne is wonderful! You know, just yesterday-"

The conversation continued on for a few hours before Dominique had to take her leave. Then Noé headed back up to his room. When he entered Vanitas was nowhere in sight. Of course Noé knew where he was anyway. He climbed out the window to find Vanitas sitting in his usual spot, wind threading through his long hair. Vanitas didn't acknowledge him.

"Vanitas, we're not friends," Noé said suddenly.

Vanitas turned to him, brows pinched together. "Of course we're not. What makes you think I needed to hear that?"

"Domi said we were friends."

"Well, like you said, we're not. And she should know that."

"What are we, Vanitas?"

Vanitas paused for a few moments, piercing blue eyes holding Noé's in their magnetism. "I... don't know. Colleagues maybe."

"Colleagues?" Noé grinned, sitting down beside Vanitas and letting his legs swing out over the edge. "I don't think what we do is nearly professional enough to be classified like that."

"You may be right on that front."

"How about acquaintances?"

Vanitas raised an eyebrow. "I'm acquaintances with Dominique de Sade, not with you."

"All right then, partners. That's what you called us when you introduced me properly to Dante."

"Would you say our relationship is the same as it was back then?" Vanitas leaned forward a bit, playfully, resting the side of his head against his knees to better look up at Noé.

"Certainly not. But partners wasn't true back when you first said it, I could barely tolerate you."

"Regardless, partners feels too ambiguous while also too definite a term. We aren't partners, not exactly. We're not even working towards the same goal."

"What would you call us then?" Noé nudged him with an elbow.

"Nothing at all. I can't define it, I don't think there even is a word for it. People can say we're friends, colleagues, acquaintances, partners, husbands, whatever, none of it's right. You're Noé and I'm Vanitas and that is enough."

"Where did husbands come from?" Noé blinked, almost entirely unphased.

"Dante," Vanitas scowled. "He started calling you my husband during our trip to Gévaudan and he's taken to it now. I think it's revenge for calling him Baldy."

Noé hummed in acknowledgement. It was amusing if nothing else. Vanitas was probably right about there being no one word that could neatly encapsulate whatever it was they were. Noé wasn't sure he'd be able to describe it even with every word in the dictionary at his disposal. Still, some words appealed more than others, and Dante had presented an intriguing, if impossible, option. Other than that Noé privately still believed partners suited them best. The ambiguity Vanitas had maligned was a significant part of the appeal. Partners could mean any number of things, and that's what they were - a number of things. The past, the present, the future, the unspoken potential of things changing and blooming. Partners fit just fine, if not perfectly.

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Thanks for 100k views on this book I guess. Most of you must have come from the anime, because I think about 85% of those views existed only after the anime. Hope you enjoyed.

Oh, and for the husband line that's because in the Japanese version Dante calls Noé Vani's husband not his sugar daddy. I've kind of become more attached to husband as a translation so that's why I wrote that.