Decemberland

Chapter 22: Medicine

Some more awesome fan art for you guys to the side!

Nico in a casual clothing--->>>>

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The wind swept her hair up as she walked into the dorm area next to the school. The air had gotten cold in the late afternoon so Nico bought a small cup of potato soup in the market place before leaving. It was a bit abnormal for her to use her hard-stolen coin on material, but every now and then she had to be seen spending currency or else people would wonder. More specifically, though, stealing potato soup was hard since you couldn’t exactly put it in your pocket.

Arriving at the steps, she met Elliot who seemed to be just leaving, and in quite a hurry as well.

“Oho,” she called, “So this is where you’ve run off to?”

“I know I left from the diner a bit abruptly, but I meant what I said.” Of course, running from the diner wasn’t exactly what she had referred to since the last time she saw him was at the boys dorm only twenty minutes ago, but she left him to his assumptions. “Oh,” he continued, “are you headed back up to your dorm?”

“Yefph,” she said with a mouth full of potato.

“Do me a favor, don’t let Clarity out of the valley. Better yet, don’t let her out of your dorm.”

“What?” she exclaimed, swallowing, “Why is she in my dorm?”

“She decided to move in.”

Nico dropped her soup. Without thinking twice, she dashed up the three flights of stairs in less than a minute, nearly ripping the handle from her door and busting it open. Inside, Clarity had her back turned to the door, playing with a strange light in front of her. When Nico burst inside, she jumped three feet and the light mysteriously vanished.

“Clarity!”

“N-Nico!” she turned around with a nervous blush and her hand scratching the back of her head. “W-What are you doing back so soon?”

“This is my dorm room!” she exclaimed, “I should be asking you the same question!”

“Ah… u-um…” Clarity stuttered, but she was already getting the message. “You know how my dorm room got wrecked?” Nico leered at her silently, making sure she knew to choose her words carefully. “W-Well, there weren’t any spare rooms for rent, and I wanted to remain on campus, so... my only option was to move into someone else’s dorm. A-And I thought that maybe you might like the idea of a friend moving in. Only until the construction in my room was finished, of course!”

It was easy to tell Clarity was nervous to the point of tears. She found it difficult to reject her though. The problem at hand, however, was that more often than not she wasn’t alone. With Clarity moved in, even only temporarily, allowing Trust to sporadically use her couch at night would be much more difficult now. On top of that, it would obstruct Nico’s daily “hobby.” Bringing the groceries home from a long day of pocket-shopping was only really possible if there was a home-base to drop them off at.

Nico sighed heavily. “Yeah, that’s fine, I guess.” Relief came streaming down Clarity’s face in ounces of sweat as she nervously laughed.

“Ooh thank the gods!” She exhaled exasperatingly. It seemed as if she had held in a vast amount of nervous energy before Nico gave her any approval. Not even Clarity was as dumb as she looked.

“Uh, since you’re here, could you help me find something?” asked Clarity.

“Yeah, what is it?”