Artificial Perfection

Stress.

( RQ. Modern-Medieval AU! Yellow Steves talk really fast when they're excited or worried, and Light hugs people to show gratitude when he can't find words to express himself. I feel like I severely messed up the characters' personalities. Oh well. )

( 🌻 )

LIGHT WAS TIRED. The new weapons a guard designed had been sabotaged and malfunctioning all morning. Seeing tangled wires from day to night and trying to fix that catastrophe became downright irritating, but left his will depleted the moment Light was aware of a traitor within his ranks making the mess worse every time he got close to fixing it. They could definitely be the one responsible for ruining the prototypes in the first place.

He spent three days trying to fix those, and was frustrated. How was he meant to figure out the unknown enemy? New Steves had recently joined the guard, meaning the culprit had to be hidden among them, and they had to know their way around the base of operations well enough to be able to sneak past all the defence systems ― or maybe they were apart of the trusted group who couldn't trigger the mechanisms. How would he know?

Light sighed; for all he knew, there could be multiple traitors, or a whole damn cult of them. Was there a leader, or leaders, pulling the strings from the safety of their house?

Thinking about it was starting to give him a headache. But he had to. It was his job to keep the guard in check, and protect the kingdom ― wait. Were the traitor guards also the guards on duty? Could one of them be apart of the group that plans things? That would cause even more issues. Are there even multiple traitors, or is one person able to orchestrate this by themself??

Light glared at the table, and was about to call it a night when someone began knocking on the door rapidly.

Orange Leader, he assumed, tired. Still, he made his way to the door, opened it, and narrowly dodged getting hit in the face by the leader's aggressive knocking.

It was the Yellow Leader, surprisingly. He looked startled, and his cap wasn't on correctly, which allowed golden tufts of hair to escape while others remained unneatly tucked in. Light's lips were parted in an 'o', and before he could begin to ask if the leader was okay, a string of words flew out of Yellow in a garbled sentence that sounded something along the lines of: "SomethinggrillybodhappenedandthesteaksarebeingattractandIhavenoideawhattodohleasepelp!" followed by a deep inhale and a panicky glance at him.

"..What?? Steaks are being attractive?" he turned the words over in his head for a second, but didn't get to figure it out because he heard a dramatic gasp from the Steve in front of him that stole his attention. "Slow down, Yellow, I don't―"

"Something really bad happened and the Steves are being attacked and I have no idea what to do! Please help!" The sentence was still rather confusing, and Light swore he heard something about Eve's bees, but this time he got the idea of what the Yellow Leader was trying to say. He barely got to wrap his head around it, though, since Yellow had already grabbed his wrist and used his abilities to run so fast that Light saw lightning appear.

The world moved by in a headache inducing blur. Light simply closed his eyes on the trip, and managed to stumble over three rocks and he got his brain shaken loose by a frantic Yellow Leader who still spoke at one hundred words per second.

They arrived at the top of the capital and Light blinked once, twice, and looked around. The way the area was decorated made it seem like it was being prepared just for some people to relax to, with the atmosphere emitting cosy vibes, and the chairs moved away to show four comfortable cushions, two very familiar people conversing and not batting an eye at the unusual setting of the meeting room, and a basket with a plate of cupcakes beside it. It was situated by the window where the blue and indigo thrones should've been.

"Wha―there isn't any―you lied?" Light was extremely confused. He wasn't mad. If the state of the meeting room was something to go by, then what the Yellow Leader told him was a lie, but it also seemed as though he did it with positive intentions.

Light tilted his head slightly and arched an eyebrow, prompting the Leader to explain the situation. "We" ― he made a vague hand motion that pointed in the general direction of his accomplices ― "noticed you seemed kinda off. Like, stressed. And, I'm not sure if you even noticed, but, uh, you've been burying yourself in work so much that we've barely seen you all week, except for when you called a meeting to tell us about the sabotaged weaponry a few days ago, and it made us realise how stressed you were, so, well, Sabre had the idea of organising this to help you destress." The Leader paused to take a breath, and Light was impressed with how he managed to drag out one sentence for a solid thirty seconds effortlessly.

"I know stuff is hard right now, because of all the responsibilities and duties that come with your role, plus the extra addition of the traitors, but just know that we're here to help and you don't need to spend so much time working anymore because you have us and we're here to support you and help with whatever we can. So, relax a little. Please. And.. yeah."

Light wasn't sure what to say, so instead of saying something like "I appreciate it, thanks" or "Thank you" , he just gave the leader a hug before happily plopping down on a cushion and grabbing one of the cupcakes with the first smile of the week that reached his eyes.