𝒲𝒾𝓃𝓉ℯ𝓇 𝒲ℴ𝓃𝒹ℯ𝓇𝓁𝒶𝓃𝒹： 𝒯𝒽𝒶𝓌 ℴ𝒻 𝓉𝒽ℯ ℱ𝓇ℴ𝓏ℯ𝓃 ℋℯ𝒶𝓇𝓉

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑒𝑟𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐷𝑒𝑝𝑡ℎ𝑠： 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 55

*
"Poor Unfortunate Souls! In pain, in need. This one longing to be thinner, that one wants to get the girl. And do I help them? Yes, indeed."

**
Cafeteria

It was finally lunchtime after a long morning of trailing Azul and watching his every move in class. Azul carried a tray to the catering line, murmuring to himself. "I think I'll have some squid ink pasta for lunch today," Azul says to himself. "Ah, but I do need my vegetables as well. An all-carb meal would be quite nutritionally lopsided..."  He added a salad beside his pasta, muttering darkly, "...and more to the point, it would go straight to my thighs," He pushed up his glasses with a shadow over his face.

"...." Noé and Jack sat at a nearby table, trays in front of them, while Vanitas had Y/n seated snugly at his side, his arm wrapped possessively around her waist. All three boys silently observed Azul wander off with his lunch.

"I'm surprised he doesn't get hungry, eating so little...?" Y/n murmured, glancing after Azul as he carried his modest tray away.

She shifted her attention back to her own table, carefully preparing a bowl for Vanitas. She placed the cold noodles—Bibim Naengmyun—before him, topping them with sliced cucumber, daikon, and egg. Knowing his low spice tolerance, she mixed in only two spoonfuls of sauce. Picking up a small bite with her chopsticks, she held it out toward him. "Is this good for you?"

Vanitas leaned in without hesitation, his lips brushing dangerously close to her fingers as he ate the sample. He hummed softly. "Yes, Mon Cher. It's tolerable enough," he said with a smile that didn't quite hide the faint sting on his reddened cheek—a leftover mark from Y/n's earlier slap when he'd tried prying a poisonous berry out of her mouth during Azul's potion class.

"I see." Y/n calmly pushed her own bowl of bibim naengmyun closer, pouring the rest of the fiery sauce over the noodles. Her bowl held the same toppings, though hers brimmed with spicy kimchi.

Noé blinked curiously, resting his chin on one hand. "But... why would Vanitas want spicy noodles at all? Didn't he once nearly choke on just a sprinkle of red pepper?"

Y/n stirred her noodles with a faint shrug. "He insisted on building up his tolerance so he could eat the food I make without suffering the consequences twice." She pouted while ripping open two more packets of sauce and stuffed an entire kimchi leaf into her mouth without flinching.

"Twice?" Jack repeated, his ears flicking.

"Yeah," Y/n said casually. "Spice hits twice. Once going in... and once going out."

Jack sputtered, coughing on air. Vanitas, too, nearly choked before catching himself, eyes narrowing in disbelief.

Noé tilted his head, still puzzled. "I don't understand. What do you mean, twice?"

Y/n gestured bluntly with her chopsticks. "In, when you eat it. Out, when you take a liquid dookie."

Noé nearly bit his tongue at her phrasing, eyes widening, while Vanitas broke into loud, unrestrained laughter. "Mon Dieu, Mon Cher, only you could say something so outrageous with such a straight face—" His laughter was cut short when Y/n's tail coiled swiftly around his mouth, muffling him with icy finality.

Jack sweatdropped at both the sight of Vanitas writhing under Y/n's restraint and the mountain of sauce she had dumped into her bowl. "That's... one dangerously spicy bowl," he muttered, ears twitching as he eyed the noodles with disbelief.