Usamamo Week 2022: Reunion
@usamamoweek2022 this has to be my angstiest submission yet. Enjoy.
Saving her hadn’t been part of the plan. His orders were to locate the Silver Crystal and destroy anyone who got in his way.
Beryl had even handcrafted a youma just for the occasion, a disgusting orange beast called Kabocha, whose green tendrils each ended in a carving knife like blade.
And of course, they’d chosen the perfect place to search: A gymnasium Halloween party at Azabu-Juuban Highschool.
Except the stupid Kabocha couldn’t keep still while he searched the crowd for a possible target and just started wrecking things left and right.
Why was Beryl even in charge if her own monsters couldn’t control themselves?
And that’s when he’d seen her. Thrown into the air by a careless flick of Kabocha’s tendril.
Shorter than him, round faced, her hair in a ridiculous bun-style and clad in a hot pink playboy bunny Halloween costume. He didn’t really know her or even recognize her (maybe he’d met her somewhere before? Did that many people really wear their hair like that?) but almost on instinct, Endymion had taken a bound across the gymnasium and up to catch the girl bridal-style and landing on a table, which collapsed under his landing and skidding from his momentum until the prince and the girl had slid through the doors leading from the gym into the hallway.
Finally, time to breathe. Finally, time to actually put the girl down and give Kabocha a piece of his mind.
He looked down at the girl, still in his arms, and his entire train of thought ground to a halt.
The girl looked up at him with impossibly blue eyes, her expression a swirl of trepidation, longing, and maybe hope?
Her face (or was it just her expression) caused something to surge up inside him, something that felt… he couldn’t explain what it was, so he dropped her onto the floor and turned to go.
“What was that for?” The girl’s voice made him pause.
He dared not look back. Not when she was… magnetic? Was that the word for it? When you just met someone and you didn’t know how to feel except to just stay with them?
“I don’t know you,” Endymion said.
For a moment, that seemed to have done the trick, until he heard her say in a broken tone…
Every solution he had evaporated the moment it entered his mind. Yelling felt too harsh. Scaring her felt unnecessary. And killing her…
He had to stop right there.
“Listen he said,” turning to glare at her, “if you don’t have the silver crystal, I’m not interested in you. So just… run away or something!”
He turned and ran back towards the gym, resolving not to look back, hoping to never see this girl ever again, lest she bring back the storm of emotions in his chest.
This mission was a bust. The crystal was obviously not here and it was best just to collect the defective youma and leave.
Before he re-entered the cacophony of the gymnasium, he thought he heard the girl say “Mamo…”
It struck a despondent chord on his heartstrings before the doors swung shut behind him and the sound of panic drowned out his thoughts.
