★Twisted Wishes★ | Genshin x Twisted Wonderland

💜Ayaka x Rook💜

Blossom: For those of you who like Rook!

Scenario: Ayaka has been feeling sad.

Cold as ice, beautiful through and through. Perfection.

With a smile that shone like her snow-white hair, Ayaka was the princess of Night Raven College, and all too aware of that. Instead of bread and flowers, she doled out compliments, waves, and demure glances to her adoring subjects from behind her fan.

But what the students didn't know was that their princess had a secret, a deep dark secret that weighed her down little by little. You see, sometimes the princess wanted to collapse onto her bed and cry, or throw her fan across the room. The princess didn't want to try so hard anymore to please everyone. She wanted to hide from all the eyes watching her.

Oh well. Smile and wave, right?

Hiding how she felt was something that had, over the years, become a habit of the Shirasagi Himegimi. She didn't even really think about it anymore. She preferred to avoid her feelings, keep them buried deep like water beneath ice.

Despite this, Ayaka wouldn't have minded being in Pomefiore, except for one issue: the vice housewarden, Rook Hunt. He was far too observant for his own good, and had undoubtedly noticed her dull stares and laughs that rang a little too brightly to be real.

After an especially grueling day of class, Ayaka set off at a brisk pace, hoping to throw Rook off her trail. Her hopes were in vain, though, and quite unrealistic given Rook's hunting prowess. She hadn't even made it down the hallway before he found her.

"A moment, please, Princesse de Glace," he said, using his customary nickname for her (it meant "Princess of Ice").

Rook didn't need to grab Ayaka's arm to get her attention. He didn't even need to tap her shoulder. Because the Shiresagi Himegimi was ever-attentive and considerate, she'd turn if someone so much as whispered her name, and Rook knew it.

Reluctantly, Ayaka turned. "Yes, Rook?"

In response, he inclined his head, and she followed him into an empty classroom. Rook shut the door carefully behind them and said, "I couldn't help but notice that you're unusually distracted as of late, milady."

Ayaka shifted her fan from her left to her right hand, gave a few lazy flicks. "My apologies, Vice Housewarden. I'm afraid you must have imagined it." She used her most charming tone, the one she reserved for festivals in Inazuma.

"Mm, perhaps," Rook mused, clearly not buying the lie. "Or perhaps not. Daydreaming is unlike you, milady."

Daydreaming? Ayaka could hardly muster up a single thought in her mind, let alone daydream. She wanted nothing more than to escape this stuffy classroom and take a nap on her bed, but of course she couldn't do that.

"I only looked out the window for a moment." Ayaka swallowed, eyes flicking to the bookcase on the wall, then the desks. Anything but Rook. "To check... the weather. This week, we've had lovely weather." Lovely weather, lovely clothes. Lovely girl, lovely life, not a worry in her head. Ha.

Oh, Archons. Ayaka felt tears welling in her eyes and tried her best to blink them away. She felt the mask of icy perfection cracking, and in front of the worst possible person, too.

"Ayaka." To her surprise, Rook's voice was gentler than she'd ever heard it. With a gloved finger, he tilted her head so she had no choice but to meet his glittering green gaze. "Are you... okay?"

Ayaka. Not "Reine du Glace," not "Lady Kamisato." Just Ayaka.

It took her a few moments to realize that Rook wasn't dressing up his words in his usual elegant manner. Startled, she looked at him through a haze of tears. "Rook...?"