Messenger

Chapter 20

Piko swore that this night would be the death of him. Hime and Len were reaching new levels of evilness by sending him into this hallway with no warning leaving him pretty much needing to pick his jaw up off of the floor. A heads up would have been nice.

He did have to hand it to whoever decided styling for the group. Yohio had something in a similar vein as his normal wear in soft shades of gray that made his pale blonde hair stand out with more jazzed up decoration that mirrored Piko's while Maika was given a rosy pink gown with fitted sleeves and a full skirt in large contrast to her usually practicality, but worked well. Although, all of that was a distant second thought.

Flower also seemed to be looking over the people around her, hopefully causing her to not notice Piko going as red as Fuka hair. She had been given a long scarlet-colored dress with a wide neckline showing the hem of a cream underlayer leading to bunched sleeves ending at her elbows. Maika also brushed back her hair into a set of pins and somehow convinced Flower to use a small amount of make-up to even her skin tone. What was slightly more surprising was how Flower didn't look like she knew or cared that she was about to walk straight into a fancy warzone as she was way more preoccupied with explaining things to her children. That alone deserved huge amounts of respect.

"Ok, we need to get in there. Remember, as much as you may want to smack people for ignorance, that is in no way an option." Maika briefed concerning Flower, having more than enough awareness of her typical antics.

Flower eyed her, annoyed. "Have some faith in me. Also, the three musketeers need to stay out of this area."

"But, what about getting food?" Hime asked pulling their puppy eyes out nudging for Oliver and Mikoto to back them up.

"I'll sneak you some later, so please limit the snooping." The smaller ones glanced at each other before appearing to accept the deal. "Great. With luck, we'll see you in an hour."

Sadly, Piko knew that this whole thing wouldn't be that easy, but he didn't feel like being the downer to point that one out. Who knows, maybe it'll fun. Piko would be lying if he said that he wasn't at least curious about the infamous food and who knows what other good things could happen.

"Does everyone remember the seating arrangement?" Yohio questioned seeing as the group was just about ready to go in.

"Yep." The first part of all of this was what would be the hardest for Piko to pull off; dinner. One would think that eating food is the easiest thing at a party, but the catch was that there were so many little etiquette rules that everyone else had been practicing for most of their lives meanwhile Piko was given a chaotic crash course in a single hour. It'd be a dead giveaway if he messed that up with no way to hide in the crowd.

The two advisers move in front of Flower with Piko bringing up the back, him being careful to leave enough space as to not step on her dress. "Good luck out there."

"You got this." Flower whispered turning behind her.

"I really hope so."

The door at the end of the hall opened slowly filling the room with golden light from the ballroom as they were all led down the grand staircase opening up to lined banquet tables already seating guests. Piko's stomach churched with nerves, yet the others continued forward. It took all of his willpower not to duck his head, but there was a very specific rule to not shy away due to that only drawing more attention. As Flower put it, you're with the needlessly fancy people, act like it and no one will question.

By now, the only goal was to not trip like an idiot and get to the chairs without faceplanting into the floor. How anyone with gowns managed the task was completely beyond Piko. Based on the appearance of his cohort, somehow the three of them were keeping those sorts of worrying far out of their visuals, staying aloof expression wise with heads held high though it was clear the Flower wasn't as calm. If there's one thing Piko's learned from helping the occasional person getting fitted by Miki, it's that there is a definitive difference between relaxed posture and 'get me the heck out of here' posture.

Now, the true obstacle was within view. King Howard was given the head of the center table as his place with Maika and Yohio seated on one side of him and the two teenagers being across from them. Despite how all of them had something they were supposed to do at the moment, the first thing that Piko noted was how the King was reaching new heights of extravagance that shouldn't even be possible. Nearly everything on him was in some shade of gold with dark purple serving for accents under finary that had to weigh more than Piko himself. All things screamed, 'I'm way richer than you, peasant' with absolutely no shame.

As Piko was taking a second to figure out what the sparkly monstrosity before him was, the advisers had already moved to their side of the table, Yohio pulling out Maika's chair as a formality. It was then that the still-functioning part of Peeks brain realized, hey, I need to do that too with the whole sitting next to the fricking princess thing going on.

Flower was really trying to hold back her smirk. "Wow, what a gentleman."

"No comment." Did Piko say that this night was going to be the death of him because he now knew he was 100 percent wrong. Flower was going to be.

Beside them, a loud-ish cough was heard drawing attention back to King Howard as he was just barely signaled to stand and say a few words "Good evening, my fellow guests. Before we continue, I would like to propose a toast to our lovely hostess, Princess Flower, and her advisers for their hospitality." He held up his glass of red wine prompting the others at the table to do the same only for both Flower and Piko to see that one out of the three glass cups at their spots (Seriously, why three cups per person?) also had a pool of alcohol in it and another had water.

Seeing as two seventeen-year-olds weren't about to be trying wine for the first time that night, Piko glance over to find Flower going for her water glass letting him know to do the same. With nearly rehearsed gracefulness, everyone brought the cups to a level just above their shoulders before taking a sip of varying sizes.

"Water buddies?" Piko whispered as the food was starting to come out stealing the peoples' attention.

Flower smiled now holding her glass at the height of the table. "Here's to being able to walk later."

"Does it get that crazy?" Piko's only dealt with a Fukase that snuck one too many free beer samples before, so his experience with drunk people was pretty low.

"For some, now cheers before the audience stops staring at a butchered pig." The small clink went unnoticed amongst the shuffling dishes, but it still lightened the tension lingering in the back of Piko's mind.

Conversations cropped up within the groups of guests making Piko feel like maybe he can get away with joking a bit with Flower, but the person on her other side had other plans. "You appear to be enjoying yourself. This is a very nice venue." The sickly sweet politeness caused Flower to tighten up again and harden her expression.

"I can hardly take credit. Lady Maika and Lord Yohio did most of the technical planning." The unspoken words being 'so why don't you talk to them.'

"I would believe you to have some hand in it knowing your certain style." The King stated, grinning much like how nobles were eyeing the main course. This guy really didn't know how to take a hint even when it's moments from smacking him upside the head.

Flower definitely seemed to take notice yet, by some miracle, held her impartiality together. "It's not exactly my area. Others have a much better sense of design."

"If you insist. Whoever chose your wardrobe must have known your taste very well. You look quite charming." And somehow, he got creepier. Flower looked seconds from gagging and Piko was right along with her.

Finally, Maika swooped in to save them. "I'll pass along a good word to our seamstress." She launched off into her own questions about his attire hopefully stopping his idea of chatting, understanding that this was a person the would love nothing more than to explain why he got all the jewels from even if it meant not being a total creep for two seconds. Suffice to say, this'll be a long night.

I think I did the most actual research for this chapter, so that's pretty neat. Also, I'm really hoping that my school's censoring program won't flag me for typing stuff about alcohol on a school Chromebook.  Those things can be touchy. I don't have much to say this week, so remember to take care of yourselves and stay safe.

-TheLavenderNarwhal