Twisted Wonderland | Mickey's Print

45. Under the Surface

As night fell, Yuu took a break from doing laundry in Savanaclaw to walk around campus; he still couldn't get what had happened that day in Octavinelle out of his mind and needed to calm down if he didn't want to be awake all night.

Out of habit, he decided to head to the Ramshackle dorm and stopped in front of the gated door, just as close as he was allowed to be near the place.

He looked at the old building sadly; it had recently been renovated inside and out to make it more habitable. And even though it still had many issues to fix, it had been his home for months.

"I only have one day left until they take my dorm away from me..." He thought.

He knew it was too late to regret it, and it was useless to wonder what would have happened if he had taken a different path, but he was running out of time and ideas. Azul made it clear he would take over his dorm to turn it into a new restaurant and force him to work for him as soon as the third sun was down.

The only thing left for him and his friends was a tiny bit of hope that kept disappearing with every passing second...

Suddenly, some strange but beautiful green lights began to float like fireflies, momentarily distracting him from his despair. He took a few steps back to admire them.

"What are these lights? So beautiful!" He thought in wonder.

A dry thud sounded behind him like someone had fallen from a low height.

"Hm? You are..." A calm, deep voice spoke to him.

The lights disappeared, and Yuu turned around to meet that mysterious and handsome fae from Diasomnia he met last month; it was a night like the current one: he was alone outside the dormitory after a bad day, and the young stranger was walking through that place to visit Ramshackle without knowing that it was inhabited, hoping to admire the calm and the ruins of the place.

Even though he had told him that he could continue walking around the place as much as he wanted, they had not seen each other since that curious encounter ended with a handshake.

"Oh, Tsunotaro!" He unconsciously called him by the nickname he had decided for him. "It's been a while."

Completely surprised by that bizarre nickname, the Diasomnia student opened his eyes wide. "Tsunotaro?" He repeated to make sure he heard correctly. "With Tsunotaro... Are you referring to me?"

"My friend Grim suggested that name when I told him about you, and you said I could call you whatever I wanted," Yuu explained cheerfully. "What do you think?"

Deep down, he was nervous about how he would react to being called by a name that literally meant "boy with horns". To his bewilderment, the young man - far from getting angry - snorted in a failed attempt to contain a cheerful laugh: "Ha ha ha! To think that someone would call me Tsunotaro! You really are fearless," he exclaimed, amused.

That human never ceased to surprise him: first, he asked to shake hands for an agreement as soon as they met, and now he casually used such a name for him.

"I can choose another name if you prefer; even I found it strange at first..."

"It's alright, it was I who told you to use a name of your choosing," the newly named Tsunotaro reassured him. I will grant you permission to call me by this curious nickname."

Yuu sighed in relief; at least he had gotten a few laughs from that stoic student.

"You're right: it's been a while since we last saw each other, child of man," Tsunotaro continued. "I've heard the news about your sister, the young human girl who moved into your dorm as a Savanaclaw student."