DAZAI ADDAMS: WINTER, 1972
How on earth do you cheer up Draya Matei? Dazai wondered to herself, as she made her way down to the dungeons on Sunday evening. She was alone; Ronan had asked her to check on the potion they were working on one more time before handing it in the next day. She personally thought it was overkill, but was also guiltily aware that Hofer had so far done the lion's share of the work.
Dazai's problem had been ticking away in the back of her mind all day. She sighed heavily, pushing the door to the Potions classroom open. To her disgust, George Yaxley was in there already, stirring his own potion. Their eyes met, and Dazai froze for a moment, before squaring her shoulders, raising her chin and walking straight over to her own cauldron, choosing to ignore the boy.
She couldn't help but notice that her potion was a slightly different colour from Yaxley's, which couldn't be a good sign. Did Hofer add the lavender I told him to? Theirs was a bold, royal blue, much darker than it ought to be. Yaxley had obviously noticed too.
"I think you need to add more lavender." He said, nasally, looking up from his stirring. "At least another teaspoon."
"Yeah, right." Dazai frowned, "S'if I'm going to take advice off you." Dazai hated to admit that she thought the same. She'd wait until Yaxley was gone.
"I'm only trying to help." Yaxley grumbled softly, "You're friends with Mallow, I wouldn't sabotage your potion."
Dazai considered this. It was true that despite Yaxley's generally unpleasant friends, the only other thing the girls knew about him was that he was normally quite nice. It was weird, but Dazai wasn't one to judge anyone for being weird.
She spooned in some more lavender and stirred. At once, the potion took on a paler, sky blue hue, and a lovely dreamy aroma rose from it. Yaxley made a clicking noise with his tongue, and closed the lid on his own cauldron, getting ready to leave.
"'ello Yaxley." a voice came from the doorway, "Oh, Dazai..."
It was Ronan. He looked a bit embarrassed. Dazai frowned, "Thought we agreed I was checking it tonight?"
"Um, yes, we did... I was just... double checking." His usually pale cheeks were bright red.
"Didn't think I'd show up?"
Yaxley snorted on his way out. Dazai fought the urge to throw a spoon at the back of his ginger head. Ronan didn't notice, he had already crossed the room, and was looking down into the cauldron.
"Well, you do get a lot of detentions," he said, diplomatically. George swept out of the room. "Oh wow, it looks much better than it did this morning. Did you do something?"
"Added more lavender."
"Really? Nice one, it looks exactly right now."
Dazai didn't want to mention that she'd already told Ronan to do the same. She couldn't blame him for messing up when she hadn't been involved for half of the process. "Yeah, I thought it needed some."
"Nothing left to do, then. Are you on your way back to the common room?"
"Yeah."
They walked together. Ronan was in a good mood,
"We work quite well together, don't we?" He smiled at her. "It's a nice change from the guys, anyway, you're much more easy going."
Dazai had never thought of herself as easy going before. It was a nice thing for him to say, but then compared to Caliban Leatherwood, James Morningstar-Sanders, and Sviatoslav Atreides anyone might seem relaxed.
