Thank you to everyone who responded to the interest check poll! We now have a date: January 19-January 25! Please mark your calendars and get excited! Reblogs on this post are appreciated!!!
If you're having trouble reading the prompts on the banner, here they are as text:
day 1: guilt/grief/hydrangea
day 2: ocean/good and evil
day 3: alternate universe/crossover
day 4: gutter/stage/talent swap
day 5: secret/masked/facade
day 6: restless/rain
day 7: free day
Banner was drawn by the amazing prawn_draws on artstation!
Rules are below the cut! The tags for tumblr are #Areivid Week and #Areivid Week 2026.
The primary focus of this event is to depict the relationship between Arei Nageishi and David Chiem. While “ship” tends to bring to mind romantic relationships, the host of this event does not want to limit the creativity of any participant. As long as these two characters and the relationship between them is the main focus of the work, any depiction of the relationship between these two is allowed. (Platonic, revulsion, lovers, enemies, etc…) You may include other pairings in your works as well, but please make the focus of your work Arei and David.
All kinds of original transformative works are allowed for this event. This includes fanart, fanfiction, music, videos*, critical analyses, cosplay, comics, fiber art, recipes, dramas, sculptures, and more. Please see the point below this for further elaboration. Derivative works may be created for this event, but the original fannish work must be your own(e.g. You can make a translation of a fanfiction into a different language, but only if the original fanfiction already belonged to you.) Examples of derivative works are translations, podfics, and direct drawings of sculptures. Crossover works/aus/etc. are fine(as seen by one of the prompts). If you are going to remix someone else’s work(e.g. a fanfiction of a fanfiction), please be certain that the creator of the original work is fine with this.
All fanworks for this week must be created entirely by yourself. Unless you are planning to create a collaboration work, all material for this event must be created by yourself. This means that if you would like to make a video, all the art and script used in the video must be created by yourself. So something like a sprite edit video/meme using DRDTdev’s sprites would not be allowed. *If you use background music that is not yours for a creation, be sure to credit the original artist.
No plagiarism, tracing, edits of any work that is not your own, or generative ai may be used for this event. Do not repost anyone else’s work for any reason.
All works used for this event may not be used for any monetary profit.
Please do not reuse old works from any past events/zines/etc. you may have participated in!
Nsfw is allowed, but must be properly tagged as either nsfw or drdtnsfw. Any previews must be sfw. This account and the related account on Twitter will not promote your work unless the appropriate warnings/tags are on it. Please use the appropriate discretion as necessary when choosing trigger warnings for your work if it contains triggering content that is extremely graphic or violent. If you are unsure of how to tag a work, feel free to reach out. Tl;dr, as long as the characters involved are all fictional and the work is tagged/warned properly, anything is allowed.
Please be respectful to all participants. If you see something you don’t like, just scroll past it.
No works created with the explicit intent to hate on other characters or pairings will be promoted, even if the negativity it is not focused on Arei and David.
Failure to comply with any of the stated rules means that the areivid week accounts will not help promote your work.
Please understand that the host of this week will not be actively checking or promoting works on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and Tik-Tok(this is just because the host doesn’t have an account for those social media platforms for this event). Thank you for your understanding.
Lastly, please note that the prompts are simply there to help creatives have a common theme to enjoy each day. You do not have to follow the prompts if you don’t want to, and you don’t have to create something for every single day. The host also understands that it may not be possible to make pieces on time, so feel free to post your work at any time throughout the week. Late submissions are also allowed, and this account will keep checking the tags for newly tagged posts up to two weeks after the last day of areivid week. If this account misses something, feel free to submit an ask to this account!
Thank you so much to everyone who participated in this week! I had a great time seeing everyone's fanworks celebrating areivid. I won't be checking the areivid week tags anymore now that the late deadline has passed, and this blog will now be on hiatus, serving as an archive for all 2026 entries. You can still submit fanworks, and I will still reblog them.
I will very likely not be running areivid week next year. However, anyone else is still free to run areivid week whenever they like if they want to! If needed, @ this blog if you won't be running it from your personal blog and I will switch the blog name to avoid any confusion for future event runners.
Below the cut are notable statistics, if anyone who runs fangan fanwork events is interested in hearing how this event performed:
In the interest check phase, this blog received a total of 10 responses, which included some volunteers, but excluded the host. I received more prompt suggestions than room for prompts in a week.
This week performed around even in terms of total submissions on twitter and tumblr. Excluding the host's own submissions, twitter skewed more towards fic fanworks, while tumblr exclusively consisted of fanart. This is more likely a quirk of the pairing areivid than anything about the posting platforms of drdt digital artists.
Excluding the host, cross-posting on different platforms only occurred once.
Based on post caption evidence, fanart was *mostly* produced spontaneously throughout the week, while the overwhelming majority of fics including the host's were created in advance and posted on a schedule. This may be something to keep in mind if you are planning a fanart or fanfic exclusive event.
Excluding my 60 day countdown fic to promote the event on ao3, there were 23 fics on ao3 in the Arei/David tag. After the event, there are now 42 entries! Wow!
For the final day of areivid week, I wrote the precanon fic below the cut.
Thank you so much to everyone who participated in this week! I will be keeping my eye out for further submissions for up to two more weeks. It was great to see everyone's love for areivid on twitter, tumblr, and ao3.
link to this fic on ao3 if you'd like to leave a kudo or comment.
“Were you an orphan, Arei?”
Arei wrinkles her nose. “That’s a weird question to ask. Answer my question first: Why do you think so? And if you say it’s because I remind you of Xander, I’ll smack you right here in public.”
“…Because you love attention. And you won’t share your snacks with me, which I’ll remind you, I paid for.” Wisely, David does not include because your innate tenderness reminds me of Xander. He reaches his hand into the bag of chips she’s holding and is met with a slap to the back of the hand as she pulls the bag away. “See? … Ouch, that kind of hurts, actually.”
“Quit being dramatic.” She waggles a greasy chip in front of David’s face before popping it in her mouth. “And no, I’m not an orphan.”
“Can I have one, please?”
“No.”
“Damn, okay. You would be a shitty orphan anyway.”
“There’s a standard for orphans? And I’ll just tell you so you can move on—I was the youngest.”
“Ha, I see. You do have that sort of brattiness about you.” David flicks Arei’s braid gently. “I would bet you that you turned out like this because you weren’t able to get away with it in the past.”
Something flashes across Arei’s face before Arei smothers it. David almost doesn’t catch it. “If you wanted a chip, you definitely aren’t getting one now, no matter how much you beg.”
“Pweeeease?”
“Ew, those eyes are disgusting! And get your paws down, you’re gross.” Arei munches loudly on a handful of chips before she says, “I bet you wish you were an orphan. You seem like the type.”
“Do I really come across as that edgy?”
“Yes? David, have you looked in the mirror when you don’t have that pasty makeup on your face? Besides, you seem like the type of kid who liked The Ugly Duckling.”
“Haha. Truly?”
Arei crinkles the bag she was holding and tosses it into the trashcan. It lands perfectly, given that it’s a throw from Arei. “Only kids who wish they were parentless like that story. And oversensitive kids that think the world’s so terrible, but are only mildly lonely and oh so very obnoxious.”
“I take it you don’t like that story.”
Arei sniffs. “Your misdirection skills could use some work. And I don’t like that story. It’s really impertinent to assume that you’re so beautiful and special, just in the wrong place.” She flexes her hands, the most important part of her. “Maybe you’re just an ugly duckling after all. And if you’re ugly, you should make your own place, rather than cry about the beautiful.”
David whistles. “Impertinent. Wow. Big words, coming from you.”
“Shut up. Let’s go get a boba.” She yanks at his arm. “Hurry up, ugly.”
“If I’m ugly, you’re glutton. Is that why we’re friends? So the gluttonous can steal from the ugly?”
“Yeah? What else are you good for besides your money?”
David shakes his head and laughs. “Too true, Arei. Too true.”
link to this fic on ao3 if you'd like to leave a kudo or comment.
day six. restless.
nostraightanswer's album — specters — has been important to me since its release, so when I saw the prompts I knew at that instant I have to draw day six to the song "sleepless".
The host's Day 6 submission for the prompts Restless/Rain is under the cut. Pre-canon.
link to ao3 if you'd like to leave a kudo or comment.
Arei is wet. It’s… disappointing. She’s not even half as hot with her clothes clinging to her body as David had hoped she’d be.
“Then stop staring and help dry me, idiot,” Arei grumbles. She loosens her braid and twists the rainwater out of her hair, then sneezes. “God. It’s so cold.”
David stops in front of the paper towel dispenser. “Is that a command to go faster, or …?”
“You suck so bad. I hate you so much.”
Then, a meow from under the sink. The reason Arei is soaking wet? Our culprit, right here.
“No, not you,” Arei coos. She bends down and strokes the cat’s head. “Don’t worry. You could never be as useless as David here. At least you’ll always be cute.”
“Hey,” David protests, and puts on a show of being affronted. “It’s unfair to pit my cuteness against this little guy. Couldn’t I compete with Ace instead?”
Arei rolls her eyes. “Come on. Anyone could beat… actually wait… it is you…”
David winces. “Yeeeesh.” He eyes the animal again. It’s settled on Arei’s lap like it belongs to her now, belly up facing up towards the sky and not even sparing David a glance. He hands Arei a bundle of paper towels. “I suppose the animal concurs that I’m not noteworthy enough to look at.”
“Yeah, a looks competition between you and Ace would just be the whole trash versus garbage thing, but worse, because your personalities are both awful too.”
“...Thanks.”
“Certainly.” Arei gently pats down the cat’s matted fur with a tenderness that David has never seen before. Of course, David gets why someone wouldn’t exactly act softhearted when you’ve got people like Veronika and Ace running around the place, but David knows this girl is a piece of work.
That’s why he never would have expected her to have dashed out from underneath his umbrella to climb a tree for a cat. David hadn’t even noticed the cat from the angle of the umbrella. But when Arei saw it, she hadn’t even told David what she was going to do before bolting out into the pouring rain. She hadn’t come out unscathed—beyond the whole getting soaked thing, there were minor cuts on her arms and legs from the tree itself. Of course, she’s a better fit for the job than David anyway given how nimble she is, but her behavior, her lack of hesitation, almost heroic…
It makes him wonder, in his moments of weakness, why Arei thinks she and David are of the same caliber. They’re not even remotely close.
David could never do anything truly selfless to help anyone.
From the angle of the bathroom door, David casts a dark shadow over Arei and her new companion. It’s still raining… cats and dogs outside, showing no sign of letting up. David would like to make it back to the dorms before it gets dark, but first, they need to figure out what to do with this creature. Ideally, since it’s out of its predicament, the animal would’ve left by now, but David’s life can never be easy. And so long as Arei wants to stay here in this dirty, dingy public restroom petting this furball, David can’t leave either. He could physically, but you know.
This is what friends do.
“I didn’t know you liked animals so much,” David comments. “I mean, I wouldn’t have left the cat up there either, but there’s no need to pamper the thing after the fact.”
Arei scratches the cat’s tummy and huffs. “David, this is why you get no bitches. Don’t you know that the girls love a guy that can treat a cat well?” Almost as if in response to her words, the cat mewls loudly. “Alright, alright,” Arei laughs, resuming her rubbing.
She’s smiling at this weak creature.
Arei’s expressions used to be simple. Faces are puzzle pieces. Information can be gathered from each piece. The whole face is the big picture, but there’s a lot you can get out of each piece—squinting eyes, eyebrows tilting upwards.
She used to be an open book to him. Her face still is, but his chest twists into knots thinking about the ways in which she can continue to defy his expectations.
It’s not that he’s scared she’s a good person. He knows that already. That’s why he loves her.
What if, someday, she does something she regrets? What if she disappoints him?
He shakes his head. “Okay, okay. I’d like to get back before the cafeteria closes its dinner service. Soooo… ideally soon.”
Arei looks at him, then looks down at the cat, then pouts. “Noooo… I want to stay longerrrr…”
“In this smelly, disgusting place?”
“You can go on ahead without me, if you want.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t have an umbrella. I wouldn’t do that.” He flashes her the smile he’s spent his life’s work crafting. “Besides, you don’t plan on keeping it forever, right? When we get back, you should give it to Nico for a check-up at least.”
“Haha… you’re such scum, but you know that, don’t you?” She picks herself up off the ground, and holds the creature gently against her chest. “I get it, I get it. I wouldn’t be able to take care of anything well.” She smiles too—look at that! Award winning as well! “Let’s go home.”
link to ao3 if you'd like to leave a kudo or comment.
For Areivid Week Day 5, I did the Facade prompt! fic below the cut. no killing game AU. ~1k
link to ao3 to leave a kudo or comment
“Hey come on, I know you’re selfish, but I didn’t take you for this selfish.”
Arei’s voice cuts through the din of the bar. His classmates shuffle in and out and around them; a circle of hawks, all of them. Only Arei has decided to settle next to him. “Seriously, enough. Do I have to tell the bartender to cut you off by playing up what a big, bad man you are?”
David groans. “Arei, I’m tired.”
“Bitch, I stayed up all night picking out a nice dress for this, I’m also tired. If you mean I’m heartbroken, then yeah, it’s super obvious. You don’t need to say that out loud.”
In the distance, David hears Xander’s exuberant laugh. He should be happy. Really, he should. Xander, his hero, the one person he wants to be happy more than anyone else, is getting married to the love of his life.
And that person isn’t David.
“I didn’t take Xander for the kind of guy that would get married. Heck, I figured he’d be six feet under by now.”
David puts his head in his hands. “Arei…”
“Who are you kidding? I’m right and you know it. His second spouse is Teruko, and his first spouse is justice. With the two of them combined, how he’s still alive is a total mystery.”
“Arei, please God, shut up.”
“Begging yes, I like begging. No for real,” Arei says, then pulls his cheek, which has gone numb at this point. “None of us are really made for love.”
He cranes his neck to face Arei. She’s totally blinged out, with a pendant that draws attention to her scandalously low neckline. “Nice boobs,” David blurts out, half drunk and half desperate to just get punched so he can be knocked out for the rest of the night.
Unfortunately for him, Arei just smirks. “See what I mean? Not made for love. The only people in our class that seem to know what love is are Eden and Hu. Everyone else is like you—we can’t seem to handle anything that lasts for a really long time up close.” In one swift motion, she rips the shot glass he just ordered from him and downs it one go, making a bleh noise afterwards. “Anyway, you don’t have the right to be so miserable. Even if Xander hadn’t fallen in love with Teruko, you know you’d never have confessed to him anyway. You’re like, a gigantic fucking pussy.” She makes a disgusted face. “God, that shit you ordered was really fucking nasty. I kinda regret that.”
She’s right, like she usually is when it comes to him. And he wants to say leave me alone, but saying that to Arei of all people is just asking for her to make you miserable all night. “What, you don’t like the taste of misery whiskey?”
“Your literal tears would’ve tasted better. Ick.” She shakes her head, her long locks swaying with her movements. The years have transformed her into quite the beautiful woman, with her hair the same length and no longer bearing the traces of the violence inflicted on her by the people that should’ve loved her, but inside, even with those big boobs hanging out, she’s still that same little girl—never comforted, never learned how to comfort someone else. That in itself is comforting, in its own way. “Isn’t it kinda embarrassing that we still huddle up together, moaning about how much we want to change and never actually doing anything?”
“Speak for yourself. You’re always the one that comes to me.”
Arei hums in assent. “Fine, you’re right about that—Get your hands down!” She slaps his quivering palm down. “If you’re so drunk that you can’t give your best man speech, you will literally never hear the end of it from me.”
Now that is scary. “Didn’t know you cared about them so much,” David grumbles. “Since when do you care about Xander… or Teruko that much?”
“I don’t. Well I mean I cared enough to show up, but… I’m talking about you.”
David blinks. “What?”
Arei frowns, and she somehow still looks gorgeous. “Is that really so unbelievable that I give a shit about my friend?”
He doesn’t… “Me?”
“Ugh, now I’m actually happy Xander isn’t marrying you. Your ass is so unbearable.” She kicks his shin. “Get it together. Don’t you love him?”
“That’s why it hurts.”
“What a fucking baby. You always tell me about all the shit you hate. I hate lying to people. I hate liars. I hate myself. I hate Xander. I hate my classmates. I hate I hate I hate…” Arei pauses. “But you still get on stage and always do the things you need to do anyway.”
In that moment, David realizes:
Arei has long eclipsed him.
He remembers their school days; her shaking body resting against his. Her angry tears, resilient to love.
All he said back then was:
Try again.
It’s too late for David to try again. “No do-overs, huh?”
“Yup.” Arei flags the bartender down and orders a glass of sherry. “If you really love Xander, send him off with a smile. Even if it is with Teruko.”
So he stands and tries to smile. Arei laughs.
“It wouldn’t be you if you weren’t a little corny and fake, anyway.” Her smile looks fake as well. That’s why they’ll never be together in any life, but somehow, David is alright with that.
“By the way,” David says, pointing at the drink Arei just ordered. “If I do a good job, can I have some of that?”
Arei pouts. “What’re you, twelve? You need your good boy treat afterwards?”
“No I mean, it looks pretty good.”
“Not my fault you want to drink piss swill all the time.” But she raises her glass and flicks it with her fingers, imitating a clinking sound. “But alright. Break a leg, and we’ll see.”
For Day 4 of Areivid Week, I wrote a fic for the Secret prompt! Fic below the cut. ~800 words.
The week is going by fast! Remember, late submissions are fine.
link if you'd like to leave a kudo or comment.
David thinks Arei looks surprisingly cool when she’s bowling. This is the most tame, innocuous secret that David has. It’s embarrassing and corny, not because calling a bowler cool is weird(though it absolutely is, it’s just rolling a ball) but because David knows he feels the same whenever Xander looks up to him like David holds up the stars in the night sky.
That’s just branding. He knows Arei is the same—it’s not enough to just be the best. She has edges.
Come on. They’ve all got dirty secrets. Min is smart, but she’s exceptionally unremarkable. That’s the ultimate student? As for Arturo, who lets a thirteen year old near a scalpel?
Laaaaame. He can hear Arei’s voice in his head, mocking him. He smiles. There’s branding everywhere. Branding is patterns, like a star hair clip. Branding is predictability. That’s something to like in its own way. Arei looks cool, but he likes her because she might call him lame, and he knows she’s just as lame.
***
David is involved in an operation that might strip away years of Arei’s hard work. This is a secret that he keeps from her not out of fear of what she might say, but because of where she is in the pecking order.
At the top is Xander. And if Xander needs a secret kept, well…
Nothing to be done about it. The Ultimate System is a structure from an antiquated time. Mai’s role in this operation admittedly makes him question Xander’s judgement, but that is a secret with regards to Xander, not Arei.
When the title of Ultimate is associated with corruption rather than talent, what will happen to Arei? David tells himself that he has the money to keep both Xander and Arei safe in the after, but he knows this is nothing more than his mind’s fanciful dream. He knows Arei is a hard worker. If the Ultimate System was what saved her from an unhappy life, she’ll never forgive him. He’s choosing one of them over the other.
The real secret here—he’s not sorry. He’s never been sorry for anything, with one exception—he wishes he could apologize for his own existence. He lies instead.
***
David loves Arei Nageishi. He also hates her in equal measure. This is the most painful one for David to admit to himself.
It’s not her fault—David has been broken since birth. Well, a little bit of it is her fault. She is annoying and self-centered, no one can deny that.
But David just can’t help himself. It’s the same thing he thinks about Xander—if I could trade my life for yours, I would. You can do more for the world than I ever could. Soothing people ultimately does nothing. It resolves nothing, it’s a lie, it’s all a lie…
“It’s kind of a relief actually,” she’d said. “That what glitters isn’t always gold. Dressing yourself up to look more valuable—why’s that so bad?”
He’d wanted to bark a laugh. He’d wanted to kiss her. He’d wanted to strangle her and kiss her lips as they bruised from peach to plum.
She held his hand and told him to try.
Not together, of course. The end goal was the two of them being good, but they wouldn’t walk the same path. No, of course not, because Arei had this resolve already in the depths of her own heart. He didn’t pull that strength out—she did that. Words are nothing without action. And now she tells him that his rotting, tepid heart could do the same.
An imitation will never become the real thing. “So?” Arei laughed. “What’s the difference?”
This is why he will never stop loving her. He’d never love someone like Xander again. She’ll never be him. This is why he will never stop hating her too.
***
A hidden fourth, more monstrous secret—now that she’s dead, a sick part of him is relieved. Relieved of the burden of being good. Relieved of the burden of being human. Relieved of the burden of waiting on her inevitably disappointing him.
He buries that impulse somewhere deep—but like everything else, that exists within him.
And it will come out someday, surely. After all, it’s just like Arei to hold him to his implicit agreements, is it not?
Arei, slowly but surely, is digging his grave. When he smiles, her ghost pulls his jaw down. David can’t say it brings him anything but pure, unadulterated joy.
Here's the host's Areivid Week Day 3 submission for Alternate Universe/Crossover. Fic below the cut. I chose a Witch's Heart AU. There are no spoilers outside of a vague reference as to what an important item is and demon worldbuilding.
link to ao3 if you'd like to leave a kudo or comment.
Hearts are fickle entities. They love, hate, crystallize, form spaces of their own. They absorb others; their pain spills outwards, flowing like a river.
At Hope’s Peak, broken hearts tend to gather. It is a natural space for this, after all. Talent is natural, and excessive accomplishments at a young age are unnatural.
And unnatural people create unnatural places. It should not be surprising, then, that supernatural singularities are born from the pain in their hearts. From pain springs wishes, and from wishes, well…
Happiness is not guaranteed even from a granted wish. Isn’t it the process that brings joy, not the end result?
But we are not here to discuss the grand tale. A thousand loops that have ended in tragedy is actually particularly boring. That’s why even the hater demons often choose to reset their memories as well. Even if it means remembering their true nature eventually, experiencing your favorite story for the first time is temporary heaven.
Now, for a moment from a particular loop.
There weren’t a lot of things for a teenage girl to do in Hope’s Peak. This might sound strange when the tulips sing as you kiss them with water, but when that teenage girl is Arei, things made sense. When her demonic instincts weren’t screaming her pain out, she was a precocious creature. She loved to talk like the column of a gossip rag, even though no one truly paid her much mind. Arei was an expert bowler, having qualified for the Olympics by the tender age of eighteen, but had no one to play the famous group sport with. She loved sugary sweets and ate crêpes meant for two by her lonesome. Such was her life, enjoying teenage girl things without other teenage girls.
Glowing lights streaked the dimension with rainbows. Other demons were prancing to the beat of a heart. They would occasionally croak sounds like wher—eeer and wh-eyeee, indecipherable garbled moaning. When Arei poked one in the eye, it bled all over her hands. She sneered, wiped the fluid on its back, and shoved it over.
Arei waited for it to get back on its feet and fight. Sure, the ugly thing wouldn’t stand a chance, but at the Veronika’s Rose Bar, anything went. It could get in a good burn or two if it wanted, but instead it quivered on the floor for her mercy. How dull. That useless do-goodyness and lack of resistance reminded her too much of Eden. Clicking her teeth, she spun around and took one of the keys off the wall for her own private room.
In the demon dimensions, shame was rare. And it was not as if Arei faced much discomfort for her day-to-day behavior. But even so, singing karaoke by herself in one of the private rooms, she couldn’t help but think:
Damn, I really am pathetic. Alone on a Friday night and singing pop songs by myself.
At least a sprout demon with a red bud on its head seemed to be stamping its feet along to the melody of the song outside her window. Those demons rarely ever blossomed. They weren’t the hater demons. It was only natural that their love could never metamorphosize into despair so easily.
***
At midnight, her second-ever human friend strolled into the bar. He was soaking wet and smelled faintly of salt. Arei wondered what he would report, rather than what he was doing. There was only one reason you’d seek out a demon, after all.
“Hel-lo~” Arei sing-songed. In front of her was a half-nursed virgin pina colada topped with a perky cherry. She never shared David’s penchant for beer and alcoholism. Maybe it was just an adult thing to an eternal teenager; parfaits to coffee, like growing out of old shoes. “Took a little trip to seaworld?”
David shook the water out of his hair like a dog and plopped himself down a respectful two seats away from her. “Ugh. I never like it down there.”
“You don’t like it anywhere.” She snorted, and though she remembered her true nature at this point, it lacked the disdain typical to demons of her nature. “Did you get what you went there for?”
“In a sense,” David answered. He would be irritatingly cryptic if Arei didn’t know everything. He squinted. “It’s always too bright in here.”
“Of course it’d seem that way. You’re not charmed by the attractions of life.”
“As if the dimension created by a purebred could ever understand real worldliness.” That was the funny thing about an arrogant prick like David. He decried the evils of life while seeking out a wish-granting device. Of course, whether or not he knew it could only be used for lesser ignoble temptations wasn’t any of Arei’s concern.
“Isn’t there something nice about such naivety though? Ah, what a shame about Eden. To think, she was human all along and I could never even physically be on her caliber. Ahhhh…”
“Arei…”
She twirled a straggling lock of David’s hair around her finger and blew on it. The tips began to burn, and he yelped. “Best not be regretting your choice to make me remember things now.” She smothered the magic flames with her fist, tugging his head towards her. “If you dare to waver on things now, I’ll kill you.”
His eyes narrowed into delectable self-loathing, and he laughed. “You’re so attractive, you know?”
The roses resting atop the colorful saturated glasses that surrounded them began to swim in circles deliriously. Stay! Stay! Stay Arei’s light blue eyelashes fluttered. “You’d be better as a hater demon. Ah, I really should kill you…”
It had been an accident. It had been ruled as an suicide. A prank gone wrong. Who would suspect anything other than a suicide when it came to poor, miserable, useless and friendless Arei? But she’d been able to come back as a human, even trick herself into believing it for several years, until David was one of many seeking the jeweled heart.
Yes, allies are good. Knowing that David’s persona had been nothing more than a facade was simply electric. He really, really, really would be better on her side… “It’s too early. " He grinned. “But you can have me after my wish is granted.”
“And not a moment too soon.” She smiled. “Well, your hint tonight is under the champagne tower.”
“You hater demons have such a yearning for destruction.”
“Of course you would think the only way through a wall is by punching a hole through it,” she teased. “Go on. Take the art apart one by one.”
David moved by his wish, climbing up to the top and taking the first glass off the tower. Some of the golden liquid trickled down his wrist towards his ankles. The red petals floating inside the glasses seemed to melt. Red and gold. Ah, could it be any more obvious?
The glasses clinked as David tore down the tower. Arei couldn’t help herself. “You met Hu in Seaworld, didn’t you?”
There was a strangled pause. “Your information system moves quick.”
“And? How does your competition look?”
“…If I need to, I’ll do what I must. For Xander’s world, I’ll bear that sin.”
“Soooo melodramatic.” She smiled. When he inevitably realizes his conclusions are wrong, and that the Witch’s Heart does not exist in Mai, but his other savior, that enmity will lead him either into pure despair or Arei’s embrace. “It’s bad to underestimate nice girls, you know? Maybe she’ll win.”
She never has. Hu has always been just like David; utterly hopeless, down to her very core. That was what made her such a good candidate to take the Witch’s Heart alongside David. No one would suspect a girl with such pure love for the world could truly curse it as well. Because, this meant she couldn’t truly possess either trait. Like David, like Arei, so self-absorbed.
And that’s why David, even in the timelines when the heart ends up in his hands, never truly wins either. His true, deepest wish is long since been out of reach at that point.
Under the final glass was a newspaper clipping. The title read:
MYSTERIOUS ILLNESS OVERTAKES SMALL TOWN. MANY BODIES UNACCOUNTED FOR
David grimaced. “Quite the bad joke.”
“Would I do that to you?”
You’ll do it to yourself. She couldn’t help but snort when David whistled in response. “Is this genuine?”
“Demons don’t go back on their word. I’ll do anything for you, Eden! How simple things were back then. But I’m still bound to that promise so long ago.”
“It hasn’t been that long.”
“Mmm, I guess it hasn’t, has it?” Compared to all that time David spent yearning and Arei spent pretending to be human… “But this hint is real.”
David made an ugly expression that fit an useless boy. “I guess there’s only one thing left to do.”
He didn’t know. How cute. “And I’ll be in class tomorrow like always. If you need my help…”
“No need. Xander and I will be seeing Mai later. I…” David silenced himself. “If it comes down to it, I will…”
It won’t be that easy. Teruko will desperately attempt to protect Mai against her half-demon nature. Really, what progenitor of hers decided to mix with a purebred demon? Demons can only curse the world. Teruko would be forever bound to her suffering of being unable to bring any net positivity to anyone. Ah, but that’s only human too, Arei supposed. What difference does it make to be human or demon?
And Xander will probably attempt to protect Mai as well. Arei wanted to collapse into a fit of giggles, but it was too early. When the irony killed David, Arei would be there to lovingly bury him once more as Teruko made her wish again.
The lights of the bar seemed to swell. A gangle of bud demons flooded the room, their bare soles squeaking against the constellation sky floor. “Look, we have guests!”
David looked at them with expectant curiosity. They began to shake, dancing to Veronika’s violin sonogram recording like a wave. Some grabbed the wine glasses and watered their buds. Some blossomed. Anemones, roses, daffodils, the like. Some continued drinking the Xander and Mai colored champagne. They spun and kept drinking until those flowers began to wilt from overwatering. The prime of your life is the moment when you are least aware of it. Too much of a good thing, too much of a florid-haired savior, and that happiness will kill you. After all, a bud must be full of self-hatred, shying away until it blooms.
“How sad and adorable,” Arei lamented, while gazing right at David. She grabbed two glasses and gave one to her second best friend. “Come, we mustn’t lose our opportunity!”
David’s grip grew tight around the glass. He stared into the clear liquid, his own grey eyes dirtying the beautiful golden hues. “Even if Hu and Teruko try to overcome me, for Xander’s sake, for Xander’s ideal world, I will…”
“Cheers!” Arei finally let out the first of many laughs to come, clinking her glass against David’s still one. She watched the tender column of his throat as he downed the liquid until there was nothing left. “To a beautiful partnership, to David’s beautiful friendships!”
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Today's prompts are Ocean/Good& Evil. I chose to do the Good & Evil prompt. No-kg au. ~2k
Fic below the cut.
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Xander slipped into a coma on an unnoteworthy Thursday, and David slipped into insanity on benign, moonlit Friday.
A pity, Arei thought, but nothing else followed. It wasn’t as if she had no sympathy at all for Xander; he was—still is, technically, a friendly guy. She wasn’t sure what he thought of her, but to Arei, Xander was simply that—Xander. And Xander was the guy who occasionally bought her food and sent her a check-in text. It’s that simple—Arei can’t think of people outside of transactions. She tried to be a good girl once, to be like Eden—but only Eden can be Eden. Only good people can be good people.
The scent of isopropyl made her nose twitch. Arei didn’t like hospitals. Her last hospital visit felt like a lifetime ago—Arei buried that sobbing and weak middle school girl a long time ago. She didn’t look like one either; after her breakup with Eden, Arei finally rid herself of that awful, mawkish braid. She didn’t need to keep holding onto anything that reminded her of pain. Not Eden, and not Mai.
David looked appropriately terrible for a man that tried to off himself. “Trying to kill yourself because your boycrush is taking a fat nap is actually just pathetic,” Arei commented to the bedridden man, now forced to listen to her. “And need I remind you, your boycrush isn’t even a taken man yet. Attention-seeking much?”
Her maybe-only friend blinked slowly; whether it was from the meds or him trying to hallucinate Arei away, Arei couldn’t tell. “Please tell me you’ve never been employed by the suicide hotline,” David croaked. “I know that getting people really mad is a legitimate method, but with you, I think you’d just push people to kill themselves faster just so they don’t have to live in the same reality as you.” His eyes kept flickering towards the door behind Arei. “Did you see Teruko?”
“Why the hell would she want to visit you?” The analog clock on the wall ticked in the momentary silence. “If you mean to ask if Teruko visited Xander, I wouldn’t know. I don’t keep up with anyone but you anymore, and I never went to see Xander.”
David bristled. “You haven’t gone to see him? Not even once?”
“David, it’s only been two days. Xander wasn’t even announced to be, like, brain-dead or anything. Chill your guts.” Being the weak little prisoner to the patient bed that he was, David couldn’t resist when Arei ruffled his disgusting hair further. His hair was surprisingly soft, but it was still ruined by the sensation of grease. It felt like running your hand through an oily rug. “Besides, I figured you’d want to see someone when you woke up, given how embarrassingly you ruined your suicide attempt. Come on. How do you mess up slitting your wrist? That’s like, option number 2 when it comes to the easiest ways to off yourself, right after taking a leap of faith off a building.”
“Would you believe me if I said I wasn’t trying to kill myself?”
Arei snorted and threw her hands up. “Not in the slightest. And you know, an accidental suicide attempt still counts as a suicide attempt. But go on, I have all night.”
David swooned. “Aw. All for me?”
“All for the pathetic baby. Does it have something to do with the fact that you asked about Teruko of all people?”
“Something like that.” A frozen pall settled over David’s eyes. “When everyone in the class chat got the… news yesterday, I was the first here.” He ignored Arei’s noise between a laugh and a huff, continuing: “So I got to see everyone that came to visit. Eden, Hu, Min, Rose, and Charles were all here. Charles said something interesting to me. He asked if Xander and I were a pair now. I said no, of course. Then he asked me who reported about Xander’s mysterious condition. Confused, I inquired a little further, and Charles told me that he’d asked one of the higher-ups if there was a way he could help. Since Xander… has no family, Charles had sorted through the public contact information Xander had listed. I think that violates several medical privacy rules, but… anyway, he told me that whoever called the ambulance for Xander was never spotted at any point. Xander lives completely alone and was reported inside of his home, so it didn’t make sense.”
Arei couldn’t hide her befuddlement. “And you think Teruko’s the one who dialed him in?”
“I’m almost certain. I’m technically Xander’s first publicly listed contact, which was probably why Charles asked, since I have a spare set of his keys. I don’t know why Xander chose me and not someone like Eden or Charles, but… I went in and investigated. Teruko left in a hurry. Her clothes are still in a bag in the living room, and I found her hairbrush. I think unless Xander’s suddenly developed a taste for older folks—” Arei couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her lips. “I don’t know of anyone else with graying hair at our age besides Ace. So Teruko’s the only reasonable option.”
“Besides the very interesting idea that Xander might have been getting laid by a cougar, this story is taking too long. Can you hurry to the part that leads to you almost getting an accidental amputation from your ‘not suicide attempt?”
David ignored her and continued, “So I spent the rest of the day looking for clues as to where she might have gone. I…” David’s breath hitched. “Someone has to take responsibility for this.”
“David, you’re losing what few marbles you have left. Not that you had many from birth.” Arei shook her head. “Look, I don’t have the highest opinion of Teruko either, but I really doubt that she intentionally did this. She wouldn’t have tried to save Xander otherwise.”
“It’s not about what Teruko intended,” David spat with so much venom that it actually startled Arei. “Someone… the world needs Xander.”
Arei was not the best when it comes to people, but she knew what he meant.
I need Xander.
As what Mai would have done, Arei held her tongue. Not out of kindness, but because being good means being unequivocally not wrong. That was how Mai maintained her own form of goodness. Eden might have said something, but Arei didn’t have that kind of good in her.
“...The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had to do something. You know… how things with Teruko go. I packed my things, and… that’s how I ended up here.”
Of course, leave it to David to waste your time and leave out the actual story. Unfortunately, Arei knows David a little too well. “You packed a weapon, didn’t you? A knife.” She wanted to smack him. “And she turned the tables on you. You idiot.”
His smile looked like it was trying to hide itself, almost clandestine as his mouth subtly twitched. “You’re smart.”
“You’re stupid. A gigantic fucking idiot. What were you even going to do? I really doubt you thought a knife alone was going to kill her. She…” Arei debated saying something superstitious like she can’t be killed, and instead said, “Two negatives don’t make a positive here. First of all you don’t even know where she is now, and second, you…” she swallowed. “You can’t do that to yourself.”
“I’m touched,” David said, voice hard as stone. “But my life isn’t what matters. It never has.”
Arei bit the inside of her mouth and tasted blood. How many times has Arei thought that in the past? How often does she still think that, even now? That’s why she can’t bring herself to say it:
That’s not true. You mean something to me.
It isn’t out of embarrassment. It isn’t because she would cry. It’s because she knows how David’s mind works.
There are the pagan gods, the people. He thinks of himself as one. Falsely worshipped, because David doesn’t believe in the power of trying. Of desire. Only in action. Therefore, Arei is among them as well.
But not Xander. She’ll never be as important to David as Xander, because Arei isn’t a good person. Arei intimately understands this. Until she goes out into the world happy to help it for its own sake, Arei will never be elevated to the same level as Xander.
And Arei was fine with this, until now. It wasn’t like she tried hard to dethrone Xander, since love is transactional.
Why then, did this despair move her so?
“I won’t try to stop you.”
“Is that so?”
“So.”
Don’t say it.
Don’t say it.
Don’t say it.
“What will you do now?”
David hummed and pretended to give the question some thought. His fingers drummed against his bedside, as if reaching for a weapon that would not obey him over Teruko. “I’ll have to make a public statement later. They think I attempted suicide?”
“Yeah, some idiot intern at the hospital spread the word, though it’s hard to blame them. I still don’t really believe your story, besides you being a nitwit as usual. You should fire your publicity manager. They clearly don’t do a good job keeping shit under wraps.”
“I’ll think about it later.” Mercifully, he did not say it. She already knew how this would end. He didn’t have to say it, it won’t spare her the pain of not being worth enough to live in Xander’s place. “Say, everyone brought Xander flowers; not that you’d know, since you didn’t go to see him.”
“Don’t sound so salty about that. I’ll go check on him when he wakes up.”
When. Not if.
David hummed again. “Eden brought him daisies, the yellow kind. Min brought these orange gerberas. Charles brought orchids.”
“A very nice thing to do for someone that won’t see them before they wilt.”
“Indeed, that’s how it is. But they did it anyway. Meaningless gestures.” David’s smile was wry. “They’d never give him flowers when he was awake. Not that I have a right to complain, since I wasn’t very good to him either.”
“You still have a chance, you know.”
A chance to treat him well.
A chance to walk away from this foolishness.
But to truly say David had a choice was a lie. It was a lie that Arei would have liked at this moment though, because she and David were both bad people. But David loved the idea of Xander too much to give it up. Xander was a good person. Teruko then must be...
“Yes, I know,” David lied. “Come here.” Arei moved closer to him, and David kissed her on the cheek. “When you leave, throw out the flowers I brought to Xander’s room, okay?”
“Okay.” Whether she was saying that to David or herself, she couldn’t tell. “Okay.”
Later that night, as dawn was breaking through the horizon, she entered Xander’s room. He was asleep, but his rest did not appear restful. Pain marred his features, and she wondered if he instinctively knew that the peace between the people that he loved the most was falling apart. As awful as it was to be evil, being so good must be frightening as well. White light began to flood the room from the sunrise, and David’s flowers came into view.
They were a suggestive shade of pink. It figured. David wasn’t indecent enough to bring red roses, but this inched close enough to the line. “Because he won’t see them in time, is that right?” She tried to laugh, but it sounded as hopeless as David. “You’re such a coward, making me clean up after all your messes.”
She grabbed the flowers in a bundle, and upon leaving the hospital, stomped David’s feelings into the dirt. Good and evil, they both never change.
Here is an absolutely breathtaking animation I've been given permission to share for today's prompt! I'll share any kind words you have with CopperPrawn, but please consider leaving a kind comment on either YouTube or ao3!
Below the cut is the host's day 1 submission. I chose to do the guilt/grief prompts.
approximately 2.7k words, features character death and a short description of canon typical violence.
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David died. Ace killed him yesterday.
And Arei is just… baking cookies with Eden.
All Arei can think is: This is disturbingly mundane.
On her right, Eden is happily humming away as the dough flattens under her rolling pin. Whether it’s defending you from scary jerks like Arturo or baking some stupid fucking cake…I’ll do it. I promise.
Arei doesn’t know why, but she’s struck by an eerie sense of wrongness about all of this. It’s not anything Eden is doing; guileless and beautiful, Eden moves by acknowledging sorrow and shaking off the past. She isn’t like Arei—she doesn’t get hung up on others, doesn’t overthink it, doesn’t wonder—
If maybe she should’ve stayed with him that night. If she should’ve been more realistic, a quality that she claimed to have with gusto a mere two nights before their last meeting. If she had told him not to try, but to be good, with no exceptions.
(But what haunts her the most was the hope on his face. The faint glimmer in his eyes, that same thought—
—Maybe I’m not alone after all.)
It was the same pensive hope that Arei held before she defended Eden.
“Arei?” Eden calls, with a hint of worry in her voice. Arei turns to face her. “Are you okay? You don’t look so good. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
Arei hears: You don’t have to do anything that doesn’t serve you.
“No, no! I mean yes, ugh—I was just lost in thought.” She’ll get powder all over her face if she tries to slap herself awake, so she just tries to send Eden a patient look. Or whatever that means.
Really, she just ends up giving Eden a weird smile, but Eden smiles back. “What were you thinking about?”
And just like that, the smile disappears. “Ah, um…” Best friends don’t lie to each other. That was one of the rules she’d read long ago. In truth, Arei doesn’t actually really give that much of a shit. She’s never had a friend before, but even she understands that friends don’t need to know everything about each other. But curiosity tugs at Arei’s heart—a longing. “I was just thinking about David and Ace. It just feels…weird, you know?”
Awful. It had felt awful, but it would make Eden suspicious if she said that. Her new friend frowns sympathetically. “It’s terrible, isn’t it? All of them were our friends, and because of this situation, they…” Eden looks like she’s about to cry from just that little bit of talking. Arei wants to snap back, Speak for yourself. Ace was your friend? Really? He wanted to murder you. But she doesn’t, of course.
Because even in the moments after Ace’s heart stopped, she hasn’t stopped thinking about David once.
“I mean, I was wondering why he went after David. He switched it up a bunch of times—first it was you, then it was me, and then it was David.” Bitterly, Arei realizes that Ace going after David was the best outcome for Arei’s changing heart—ah, she’ll never be good after all. “Was it really just an opportunistic kill once I left David alone?”
“Opportunistic kill,” Eden repeats, looking queasy like she did when she found his body. The color had long since left his face, body ice cold—Arei doesn’t want to think back to that moment. “I want to get out of here soon…”
“Me too,” Arei freely admits. She tries to shift the topic. “Say, why are we making sugarplum cookies anyway? Just for fun?”
“In part for fun, and in part because I want Arturo and Levi to have a snack later once they’re done. Oh, but we’re going to have some too, of course!”
For Arturo and Levi. Even after Arturo held a scalpel to her throat and Levi’s heartless fixation on Ace’s motivations, without a single acknowledgement of David being Ace’s unfortunate victim, Eden still cares. Arei knows she’ll never be Eden, but it hurts to hang out with her and always have it be confirmed.
So optimistic as well. She doesn’t even know if Arturo is competent enough to save Levi. Would Arturo even care enough to save Levi?
(Funny she should think that. She hasn’t cried for David at all. He’s been ceaselessly haunting her thoughts, but she hasn’t wanted to cry at all. That stinging sensation hasn’t even made her eyes water once. It’s the truth. Funny indeed.)
“That’s nice,” Arei says, desperately keeping the edge of contempt out of her voice. “Sorry. It’s pointless to get hung up about the why. Ace had said it—he’d just wanted to escape. There’s nothing more to it.”
No more second chances. No more getting to be good. No more wailing about incompetency, impotence, being too bad to ever turn good. A pig can’t even become a butterfly. A miserable wretch like Ace could never be good because even in his last moments, he couldn’t confess how much Levi had meant to him while Levi was still able to hear it.
Levi bleeds out in her mind's eye. Ace had screamed, and then died some kind of hero. It was so fucking undeserved.
And she thinks this, but really, David had his moments of unearned good too. Hadn’t she said as much, even though he started it all with the motives and outting Nico?
It’s just what you deserve. Those words flash through her head, utterly intrusive, before she pushes them away. Which one of her sisters had put that in her head? Ugh, now she’s angry, even though she doesn’t even know who she’s angry at.
“Yes,” Eden agrees. “Wondering why is good, but I don’t think any answer Ace could give would’ve made us feel better anyway. And David… I’ll miss him. I know his secret sounds bad, but I remember how he treated us. He was always thinking about the others. He might’ve made some mistakes, but … maybe that’s just who he was in the past.”
It occurs to Arei that she never told Eden who caused her change of heart, but the words don’t come to her. David’s secret thrums in her soul. She doesn’t know how to tell Eden that his secret is true without stomping on David’s grave. Even Ace of all people hadn’t done that. Arei lets Eden leave with the cookies, feeling stupid and impotent like Ace.
***
With Nico avoiding her and that problem child Ace gone, Hu has taken to babying everyone. Somehow, this includes Arei. Maybe Hu’s just found the next victim of her emotions, of that need to be needed. It’s annoying, but Arei can’t say she doesn’t understand at least a little.
“Would you like some tea or coffee?”
Arei rolls her eyes. “Both of that shit is nasty. Just get me whatever.” Hu hands her a cup of tea immediately—of course she’d have both drinks prepared beforehand. Always gotta look perfect, that girl. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. And of course, thank you for the sugarplum cookies.” Hu takes a petite bite out of Arei’s gift, somehow looking delicate while eating something messy like that. Ever focused on perfection, that Hu. “These taste wonderful. You’ve rather changed, haven’t you?”
Arei does not miss the tactless implication of her phrasing. “Yeah yeah, you’re welcome as well. God, you’re so stiff. It’s a miracle Nico ever put up with you.”
Arei’s remorseless heart fills with glee at Hu’s flinch. “I should’ve tried to be more accommodating to Nico—and to Ace. I sincerely regret my misstep.”
She can’t help herself. “Do you know what the fuck your misstep even was?”
“Being too needy.” Of fucking course her answer was focused on herself, but Arei can’t say she wouldn’t say the same about herself with Eden. “I let myself be too absorbed in my own needs, rather than asking Nico what exactly I should do to help them.”
You were too transparent, Arei wants to say. But that moment of transparency, that moment that David promised, even as a lie to simply placate Arei, was what got him killed, because it worked on Ace. A transparent lie, as contradictory as that sounds.
Or perhaps that vulnerable expression was simply real. That would be the worst of all. “Sure, let’s go with that. Hell of an overbearing mom is what you are.”
Hu hums, letting Arei’s insult roll over her. “I regret not attempting to look after David as well—I really let myself be taken in by the fact that he never seemed to need help.”
It really is unsettling how much that earnestly reminds Arei of how happy she herself had been when Eden told Arei she’d rely on her, so she swallows down an insult. “Yeah, I guess. Though his insistence on sharing secrets probably helped push Nico over the edge.” She twirls her side braid, nervous. “Maybe David wasn’t so good after all.”
“Arei!” Hu gasps. “How could you say that?”
“I’m not gonna apologize for saying what I think. Bet he didn’t even apologize, did he?” Hu’s expression twists subtly, pushing Arei further and further down the path of truth. “Maybe that’s why Ace killed him. David tried too hard to be good, then got caught being a phony. Being a greedy good person is worse than being a bad person.”
Hu stands abruptly, causing the plates to rattle. “I think that’s enough. I’ll take my leave now. Thank you for the cookies.”
Yet again, Arei is left behind.
***
At night she dreams. She dreams of her words. Maybe the two of us can be a little less shitty. Maybe she shouldn’t have said maybe. Maybe she shouldn’t have tiered her friends, called him second place. Maybe he was like her, having never been anyone’s first choice. Maybe she should’ve been her demanding, bitchy self, and forced him to follow her and make things up to everyone.
She couldn’t have saved him from Ace either way. It’s just a thought.
***
Eventually the ghost of David settles into something cold in Arei’s chest. For a day, Arei manages to avoid thinking about him at all.
(That’s a nice smile, Eden had said. And thanks for helping me clean after lunch!)
Her attempt to move on was swiftly crushed the day after.
“Levi’s awake,” Arturo announces, looking like a drained and disheveled doll with wide eyes. “He’ll be slipping in and out of consciousness. If any of you buffoons see him attempt to get out of bed, you have my permission to kill him for being stupid.”
A clamor rises amongst Arei’s classmates. She hears Whit say something along the lines of Let’s go see him… Cece. And of course, groan. Most of them leave, but Arei stays grounded in the auditorium where she is.
So of course, she’s left alone with Nico of all people. “You’re… not going?” They ask.
“Fuck no. Have you been in the infirmary? It’s way too tiny.” She rolls her eyes. “I’ll go see him later when the crowd’s gone, I guess.”
A lie. The fewer reminders she has of Ace, the better. “Oh,” Nico responds, oh so very intelligently. “Um, well…”
“Just to let you know, if you tell me to leave I’m going to beat you up.”
“I wasn’t going to say that. It’s just… I was going to say that you took David’s death better than expected.”
“No fucking thanks to you,” Arei snaps, enjoying Nico’s delightfully guilty face. “What the fuck do you want?”
“Nothing, I promise!”
“Bullshit.” Arei doesn’t know why she’s lashing out like this. It’s not really Nico’s fault that David is dead. Nico was the one that was wronged… initially, anyway. She can’t fault Nico for having a bad opinion of him. And she knows Nico’s a killer too. It’s a bad idea to provoke them. “You’re trying to say something about me and David, aren’t you?”
“No, it’s just… your expression—“
“What?”
“When you were telling us about how you confronted David about his secret, everything about you sounded normal, but your eyes looked so sad. You were lying about what happened, weren’t you?”
“Fuck this. I’m not going to listen to you lie, or pretend you care, because nobody ever gives a shit about me anyway—“
“Arei, I wasn't—"
“Why are you acting like you aren’t happy?!” Like a rushing river, the truth starts spilling out of her. “Two of the people you hated most just got brutally killed, and you’ve got the gall to pretend you care about me? You don’t give a shit about anyone! You only care about yourself, acting like you’re so good, so pitiful, just a pretty, innocent victim of bullying, and now your bullies are dead. Now what? You want to start making things up because you happen to think I cared about David? You make me sick!”
How much of that rant was simply self-serving? She doesn’t think too deeply about it, or rather, doesn’t think at all, moving on instinct as she socks Nico in the face. They yelp, falling back. She pounces on them, her movements the violence of years of repressed grief at the things she couldn’t have. Nico’s right. Why does she care? David never got the chance to be a real good person, and only good people are missed. That’s why Hu and Eden even feel any bit of sorrow, however artificial. If they knew what he was really like, it would just be Arei that cared again, and…
That’s…
Someone grabs Arei by the shoulders and pulls herself back. In her animalistic thrashing, she attempts to wrestle out of their grip, but they’re trying really damn hard. “Chill the fuck out,” Teruko commands. “Or we’re going to have another murder on our hands. Not that I also don’t want to beat them up for what they did to Rose, but violence won’t undo anything.”
Again, nobody cares about David. It’s rather pathetic to give up so easily, but Arei allows herself to sag in Teruko hold. All she ever does is hurt people or attempt to help people and fail pathetically.
“Arei!” Eden calls from the entrance, sounding winded. “Are you—oh my goodness, both of you...”
Now she’s really done it. Eden will never want to be her friend again, and all Arei will be left with are what-ifs. “I’ll help Nico,” Hu says, sounding firm and without sparing Arei with even a mere glance. “I know you’re not too fond of me, but I’ll just escort you to the infirmary and ask Whit to help you. After that I’ll leave you alone, I promise,” she says to them. Unsurprisingly, Nico doesn’t put up a fight.
To her surprise, Eden bends down. “Arei, are you okay?”
“Huh?”
“You’re crying,” Eden says, extremely soft, so simply. She presses a gloved hand across Arei’s cheek and it comes back wet. “Arei…”
His death is sad, that’s true. And Arei shouldn’t care that much logically. They only had two moments together.
But David’s true nature, David’s real smile, David’s fears—she’ll never be able to tell anyone else about it. That David will haunt her for the rest of her life, and she’s all alone again in a way that more friends and time will never cure.
And like that, Arei falls into her only remaining friend’s shoulder and cries.
***
“I hear you’re going on a trip to Japan with Eden.”
“Wow, the rumor mill spins fast, doesn’t it? I should know, I used to run mine at my old school. Anyway, I’m just accompanying her to see her grandparents since I’ve got nothing better to do on New Years. Maybe I’ll try my hand against Japan’s former Ultimate Bowler.”
David laughed. “Isn’t he fifty-something at this point? Go easy on him.”
“Bet you’re jealous.”
“Very,” David admitted easily. “In fact, I’m tempted to crash there on a return flight after my speech in Hong Kong…”
“Ew! Just don’t do it before New Years. I want Eden all to myself. After that… we’ll see.”
David chuckled. “Let me know if you decide to actually enter a competition there.” He smiled and winked. Maybe it was real. Maybe it was fake. “I’ll come cheer you on. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
***
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