choseanidiot | (no subject)

The man was impossible! Apparently not even being adbucted to some strange place was enough to at least have him up at a reasonable time; admittedly, though, Enki had been sleeping late too, this past week, but not this late! And if he didn't sleep until lunch, then Shōryū didn't get to do that either!

Enki was a kirin on a mission, and not even his faintly growling stomach would deter him. Did he look like some babysitter, anyway? In full annoyed mode, Enki barged into the dorm room where Shōryū was still sleeping. Or at least lounging in bed, Enki wasn't sure. And why was that? Because the moment he'd marched up to the bed and viciously tugged the covers off, he'd been hit by a wave of warmth that made his knees weak. Literally.

What the---!

Knees, meet floor. Luckily, he didn't prostrate himself fully, due to Shōryū lying in bed and his feet now being at the same height as Enki's head while kneeling. Taking a deep, quivering breath, Enki tried to get the elation under control.

They thought this was funny huh? Well, even if they didn't, he was sure he knew someone who did.

"Not. One. Word." Enki ground out as he sat up properly.

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"I can tie a knot. What else do you want?" And since Shōryū wasn't moving, Enki got up on the edge of the bed, gathered the hair closest to him and collected it at Shōryū's skull.

Closest hair. About half was still lying over Shōryū's opposite shoulder and back. For all that Enki was in the process of giving Shōryū a hair-arrangement usually meant for girls (especially in modern-day Hourai), he looked very concentrated.

Hey, it's not as if he ties back his mane.

"Right. Should I do the other side too?"

You could have moved, Shōryū. Or perhaps have found someone else to do your hair for you.

He should have expected that. And, in fact, had. So he didn't so much as blink as his hair was gathered into a messy side-tail. Instead, he leant forward, resting his chin on one closed hand.

Enki was too cute when he thought he'd gotten the upper hand.

"I'm afraid I don't have another ribbon."

Annoyed, but now that there's enough space to wedge himself between his idiot of a king and the wall, he did so, and undid the tail. It would probably not end up looking as neat as Shōryū usually wore it, but, well.

Don't expect this sort of treatment regularly, old man.

"You could have said so," Enki grumbled as he redid the tail, properly this time. The ribbon was even tied in a bow, instead of a sloppy knot.

With a sigh, Enki leaned back against the wall, hands behind his head and frowned at the books spread out on the bed. He couldn't avoid seeing them now. He doesn't want to have this conversation.

It's too much like the talk of war and battle he'd always preferred to avoid before.
"... Found anything?" Enki finally spat out, because he's read the rule book, and doesn't like it one bit.

"That whoever created this game has far too much time on their hands."

He shifted to give Enki more room and less temptation to kick him in the back of the head, and then leant over to grab some of the other books and pass them to Enki. "You might want to read these when you have the time," a sentence he said with heavy irony, "In the meantime, we're going to 'upgrade' you."

Too much time, too little respect for life, too enamoured of people as things... So many things to think of this whole thing.

"I've already read the rulebook," Enki protested, though he did take the books... putting them on the bedside table (for now). Whatever else Enki was going to say, got interuppted by Shōryū's last sentence.

"Why?" Enki hissed as he leaned forward, hands on Shōryū's shoulders, though not enough to actually see more than the side of Shōryū's face. Now that Shōryū was here, wasn't it much more logical to just... well.. 'upgrade' his weapon?

His wasn't any good anyway (though he wished it was not a weapon at all), and the only thing he might need was one of the 'abilities'. But he didn't want to think about that. Had steadfastly not been thinking about it this past week.

"It's our best option," Shōryū pointed out, voice slightly edged, "There are abilities in this book that would mean you didn't have to fight, and upgrades are based on our essential natures. The chance that you have at least one of them is too high to ignore."

Of course Shōryū would find something like that. But the point wasn't that he didn't have to fight, the point was that someone else would, routinely, for no reason other than someone's 'pleasure' have to take the pain for him.

He wouldn't have done this to his shirei, either, since one of the abilities his weapon had would allow someone else to more or less function as a temporary shirei. It was just...

"I know I have one. There was that dream, or whatever," Enki muttered as he slid down behind Shōryū, crossing his arms, back against the headboard, and staring at Shōryū's broad back.

"But this is... I wouldn't--- I can't," Enki hissed, but he had a feeling that right about now one of Shōryū's rare 'you will do as I say, because I am king' was going to the smacked on his head.

"But you'd force others to watch you get hurt?" His voice was almost conversational, light and friendly, but there was a hidden blade within his words. He stayed facing the end of the bed, not looking around at his kirin. Almost idly, he opened one of the books and flipped through it at random. "Don't you think that's selfish of you?"

That wasn't--- Enki had been braced for an order, but what came out instead... Eyes widening, he almost reflexively drew a foot back (the space was really too narrow for that, especially as he'd almost curled down behind here). Then slowly and deliberatedly, put that foot down.

"That's not--! Someone would get hurt anyway, and I don't care abou--" Enki's mouth snapped closed, both beacuse of the 'selfish' comment, and didn't that drag up something that was just ancient history, and because he didn't feel like hearing what Shōryū had to say about 'I don't care about me'.

Probably something about chunks of flesh again, and couldn't he come up with a better metaphor?

"There was nothing else?" Insufferable idiot. Didn't even need to use his stupid orders.

At the very least, Enki knew his king. With his effective surrender, Shōryū turned to reward him with a smile.

"We could pray a thousand times that you never be selected as a Player, but I doubt Tentei sees this far."

Cute. Enki rolled his eyes and sighed as Shōryū gave him a smile. He was hardly going to admit that it almost, almost made up for all this crap.

It wouldn't get better, anyway. If he was honest, he was worried Shōryū's presence here would be noticed. As in, noticed by Shōryū not being where he ought to be, somewhere in the twelve kingdoms if not in En.

"I feel sorry for the people here; they're all gonna get tricked into thinking you're this nice and pleasant person," Enki said with a raised eyebrow, mocking that smile just as he tucked it away in the back of his head.

"And it's a ring that I'm supposed to give to a Weapon. They can then wield their own weapon and fight instead of me," Enki shrugged and laced his fingers behind his head, finally bowing to necissity and explaining what his sparkly, special ability ring would do.

Shōryū, at least, definitely needed to know, as he was probably the one who'd be the first to attempt it.

"We need a link charm..."