despite Yoichi's blatant lie, a very minor part of him wanted it to be true. Just a minor part, he reminded himself.

The athlete labelled this minor want as an excuse 'to not see his shitty master's face'. It was a bullshit excuse of course.

He made no move to apologise to those he bumped into, rather glaring at them and being on his merry way. Those that sputtered hasty apologies were either insulted, scowled at or completely ignored.

Kaiser had somewhere to be, and he needed to be there quick.

When he had arrived for practice after school, he had found himself separated from Ness, in the perfect state to be approached by Yoichi and his goons without the boy being aggressively shooed away.

The despicable boy had told him that maribel, the one in charge of the costumes, was looking for him to discuss a matter surrounding it and Kaiser immediately perked up.

He was slightly disappointed when he heard the reason, but elated to an extent. He then paused and processed the matter, the rational side of his persistent and his pride, that protected him, told him not to go.

So despite the displeasure, he didn't go. That wasn't until towards the end of practice, when they were taking a short break before cleaning up, that he heard Ness grumbling about something. That 'something' being how an impudent girl had the nerve to ask Kaiser to meet her rather than going out to see him herself. Ness' words of exasperation going through one ear and out the other.

Kaiser had abruptly left the field in panic, leaving behind his belongings (except for a kopiko sweet) and running off in his sweaty sportswear, not before ordering Ness to clean up after his mess too, to which the guy, who seemed confused at the abruptness of Kaiser's actions, didn't refuse. Loyal dog shit.

Kaiser made his way through the corridor, and reached for the closed door. He briefly paused and collected himself, wiping off any visible perspiration and sorting out his tousled his hair before pushing the door quietly as to not disturb the occupants.

The occupant, much to his relief, only being Maribel, seemed to either have ignored his existence or just not have noticed his arrival from the noise of the sewing machine. He could only hope it was the latter.

Kaiser internally debated his next move, should he speak to her now and effectively disturb her in her state of concentration or should he wait until she was finished with her work?

If he did the latter, Maribel would most likely rush out of the school building with hopes she hadn't made her father wait outside for more than a minute or so. That's the kind of person she was from what he observed.

He remained conflicted and effortlessly pulled out a chair from a separate table, holding it up rather than dragging it to prevent it from making unnecessary noise that would surely snap Maribel out of her 'zone' state. He placed it down some space beside hers and sat down.

From the way she remained fixated on her work, he assumed he hadn't disrupted her and sighed in relief. Kaiser was grateful for this opportunity. This opportunity that was rarely granted to him, yet always appreciated to the fullest when given.

Placing his elbow on the desk, he leaned his head on his palm and faced her whilst observing with a tilted head as she worked cohesively.

Her feet lifted and pressed on the foot controller of the machine when needed, whilst her hands pinched the piece of fabric in its respective places. She would occasionally click her tongue and stop the routine, removing the fabric from below the presser foot and grabbing the string that jumped loose, trimming the ends, licking it lightly and threading it accordingly only to resume the mundane cycle.

Despite its mundaneness, Kaiser found it slightly enjoyable. It reached a part where he would try and memorise the way in which she threaded it, proving to be hard at first since Maribel was rather agile with it, but overtime he became quite accustomed to it.

He anticipated how long it'd take until she'd notice his presence. Whilst he was quite irritated when she didn't notice him from the beginning, finding the silence to be unbearable, he learnt to accept it and appreciate the comforting solace that was brought along with it.

Hmm? Kaiser blinked. He squinted his eyes to examine the fatigued watering of her sunken eyes and her much more frequent breaths. From his periphery, he noticed an insulated bottle with a few scratches here and there. Assuming it was hers from the large initial 'M' painted on, he gently grabbed it and pushed it towards her whilst also placing the kopiko sweet he somehow remembered to bring in his haste. This time not trying to be quiet since it was about time he acquired her attention.

Maribel made a double take at the sight of the bottle that was much closer than it was originally placed and the sweet that appeared out of seemingly nowhere. Her brows furrowed and she rapidly turned to her right where Kaiser's stupid face invaded her vision.

"...."

"Drink your water." He urged the reminder, crossing his arms and man spreading on the chair.

"When were you here?" Maribel inquired, her heart nearly jumping out of her chest when she realised he was here. Originally, she had thought it was just another club member who entered and payed no mind to it, she had ran out of her social battery for the day and wanted to partake in no interaction.

"Came just recently." He replied before insistingly pointing at the bottle with his chin and leaning his head back, the vibrant blue and blond of his hair falling back synchronously.

"..." Maribel only nodded and drank her hot water that had significantly cooled over the hours from the morning.

Kaiser waited until her thirst was completely sated before speaking, "you called?"

Maribel merely glanced at him before standing up, Kaiser noticing this, immediately sat up alarmed. Is she just gonna leave me..?

Unlike his thoughts, Maribel had only stood up to collect a plastic bag. She brought it to where she originally sat and started folding the toile prototype that she had been working on. "Yeah, it's about the project."

"Oh." Kaiser frowned, so Yoichi did lie to him after all? "Not for the costumes?"

"Hm," Maribel pondered over his words, her mind more focused on tiding up after herself than his queries. "Nah, I just said that since I felt like you wouldn't come if it was related to the project."

"Huh?" Kaiser reeled back, "but I would've come..."

Maribel blinked and frowned at his words before resuming her work. "Anyways, what do you wanna do now?"

Kaiser noted how she disregarded his previous words, but he chose not comment on it. Kaiser wasn't desperate. "About?"

Maribel inhaled and exhaled rather loudly before licking her teeth and clenching them. This, deflecting was getting them nowhere, "we got kicked out the library."

"Right." Kaiser nodded as if she were stating the obvious and repeated, "we got kicked out of the library."

"Yeah, so what do you want to do now?" She regurgitated, before rephrasing her wording. "I mean, where do you want to work on it now?"

"...Some public library?" Kaiser suggested before being quickly shut down.

"To get kicked out again?"

"Okay. Then, I don't know, some coffee shop?" He shrugged, clearly running out of ideas.

"I'm not allowed out like that." She spat, was it not already obvious?

Kaiser glanced at her curiously. He didn't bother questioning why, it wasn't in his place to do so, plus he could already see her mood dampening and decided not further flood it. "...."

"Then it has to be at someone's hou—"

"Not mine." Kaiser interrupted before it could even be considered an option.

"Okay." Maribel answered not too bothered by his response, it's not like she could even go to his house.

a/n: brown gyal things 🤪

"...."

"Then yours?" he queried hesitantly, the fear of being rejected briefly crawling up his spine despite everything pointing 'yes'.

"Then mine.." she confirmed slightly hesitant.

"Okay." He involuntarily clenched his fist in victory.

"Yeah.. um," she sputtered with her words, how could she even explain this to him?

"...."

"If you have something to say raconteuse, just say it." He assured her.

"Not as a boy though..." she muttered.

"....."

"Huh? What."

flashback end...

"You invited yourself in, you fucktard." Her words were slow and patronising, as if talking to an obstinate old man.

"Cause' you didn't reply to my messages?" He pointed out like it was dead obvious before deciding to sit on the spinning chair. "What was I supposed to do? Wait until the project was due to get another earful from you?"

"How the fuck was I supposed to know your user was gonna be 'Yoichi_myinferior_can_5uck_my_Dick_Xx'?" Maribel clicked her tongue when he sat down, in her spinning chair, without her giving the green light.

'Yoichi_myinferior_can_5uck_my_Dick_xx' was Kaiser's finsta, aka his Isagi hate account. During the time when Kaiser had abruptly dropped everything to go see Maribel regarding the 'costumes', he found himself asking for some way of contacting her.

And because Maribel was originally reluctant in giving him her number, they both decided on trading instagram accounts. Maribel also found that to be more effective since she had notifications on for it and it was connected to her ipad that she regularly used.

But since she didn't have data, Maribel went to search up her account on Kaiser's phone. She was confused on why it was already there before she even had a chance to actually search it up and when she made a comment on it to Kaiser, he blanched.

Kaiser shrugged and rolled about in her chair, fiddling with a lock of his fake fucking hair. Right. Also, the tall blond was wearing a wig and posing as a girl behind the back of the woman (her mum) he had buttered up to.

Since it's not like Maribel's parents would let a random vellekaren into the house, Maribel had come up with the genius idea, dare she say, of Kaiser cross dressing to be let into her house so they can get this wretched group project finished. 

Kaiser reluctant at first, the whole prospect a hard hit to his pride, eventually had no choice but to warm up to the idea. Plus, this would give him another opportunity to annoy her.

"And how the fuck did you know you had to take your shoes off in an Asian household?" Maribel was still completely at a loss for words from his previous, Kaiser-like spectacle.

"I do my research before stepping into enemy territory." He teased, pearly whites on boastful display.

"Enemy territory?" Maribel reeled back perplexed, "wait, are you tryna insinuate something you white—"

"Mayil!" The shrill yell of her mum caught both their elusive attention, effectively putting a temporary seize upon their petulant bickering.

Maribel was quick on her feet, reaching for the door before she turned to face him again, "one sec—"

extra: (after Maribel had found out it was Kaiser and she let him in and he took his shoes off without her saying anything)

"Yaru mayil?" Maribel's mother, a plump woman in her mid fourties', called from above to see who had knocked on the door. She slowly made her way downstairs and was surprised to see a modestly dressed girl beside her daughter.

Before Maribel's mother could say hello, Kaiser beat her to it in the most amicable, womanly voice he could muster (not something difficult for the theatre kid) "vanakkam, mami!" Surpringly his tone seemed sincere and even Maribel was unprepared for the spectacle he had planned.

He walked past Maribel like he essentially owned the place and had a conversation with Maribel's mother despite their language barriers. They both traded compliments with one another and it was safe to say her mother was impressed with the vellakari speaking tamil.

Maribel knew she was officially fucked when Kaiser had pulled out a fairly large bag filled with kopiko sweets from seemingly out of nowhere whilst enthusiastically saying it was a gift for her.

What the actual fuck?

𝖴𝖭𝖳𝖮𝖫𝖣 𝖲𝖳𝖮𝖱𝖨𝖤𝖲 𝖡𝖸 𝖬𝖨𝖲𝖲 𝖱𝖠𝖢𝖮𝖭𝖳𝖤𝖴𝖲𝖤:

• her username was already in Kaiser's search history if you couldn't tell, but Maribel didn't clock that because she's as slow as a fucking grandma.

• Maribel's mother was mad at her daughter for not letting her know in advance that her friend was coming, because if she did, she would've prepared something more grande for the blonde. She also felt guilty since Kaiser gave them a 'gift'.

• the gift was Kaiser's collection of uneaten sweets.

• Kaiser's wearing a wig instead of adding extensions and a high neck sweater to cover his blue dyed hair and his tattoo which is basically taboo in an asian household.

• Kaiser doesn't have those language translating headphones on, he actually went out of his way to learn some basic tamil phrases.

𝚃𝚘 𝙱𝚎 𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚞𝚎𝚍 ➪

@𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗼𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗵𝗶𝘀𝘄𝗶𝗳𝗲

𝗩𝗼𝘁𝗲, 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲.

guys i got 14/44 on my maths test.... 🗿 barely scrapped an E, if i had one mark lower i woukdve gotten ungraded 🧍‍♀️

i rememeber our teacher saying if u finished u can just leave n since i wanted to answer all questions, cuz we don't leave any blanks in this household, my teacher asked me if i usually needed extra time, essentially calling me a handicap 💀 so i closed my paper and left

BUT I GOT 32/55 FOR CHEM WOOHOO 🥳 SO IM SO HAPPY GUYS, i got a C n i have never been so grateful 😌

anyways i hope u enjoy this chapter