Non Ducor, Duco 〈 Mikayuu 〉

❌21- Friendship 101❌

"You think he's targeting you?"
"Yes." I spoke after a brief pause, glancing out my window to the city below.
He let out a shaky laugh that was rather unlike him. Whatever he acted like. I didn't know anymore. Yuu and Green seemed like two split personalities of his. Right now he was somewhere in between.
"Well that's not good. What are you going to do?" He asked, voice showing his exhaustion.
"Nothing. I can protect myself when the time comes." I sighed, stretching my arms above me as a video of the aftermath he had left behind on his first eliminated target. It was messy, to say the least.
He hummed uncertainly, to which I said, "Shut up." Yuu had laughed at that. A fluttering feeling in my stomach appeared out of thin air, and I wanted so badly to tell that weird sensation to fuck off.
"I'm kidding. There's a reason why everyone knew about you before me." He said lightheartedly.
"Other than the fact that I've always been more active than you, there is no other reason. Plus, Alyssum is brash. He doesn't plan things through."
"I think he does. I mean, he has to set them on fire somehow."

"Let's talk about something else." I suggested quickly, a chill running down my spine. Merely hearing about Alyssum unsettled me and I couldn't figure out why.
"Sure." Yuu almost seemed to shrug in his words alone as he proceeded to talk about his work day and of how Cecil kept staring at him with a blank expression every time he wasn't asking about-
He had cut off that sentence. I had a feeling that I knew the rest.

We had talked until Yuu fell asleep on the other end, his calm breathing the only way I could tell he wasn't faking it. I had hung up and gone to bed after. Four A.M. Lovely. Only an hour of sleep. I couldn't imagine what Yuu would be acting like at work.

Answer- insanely positive. He was a sarcastic ray of sunshine the moment we were in the same room. Cecil had pointed out the bags under our eyes with hesitation.
"Oh, yeah, I got so much sleep that they just appeared there." He shrugged. The brunett laughed, but gave me a look of concern. I shook my head. A silent confirmation that I wasn't hurt. That I was fine. That I just had trouble sleeping. His tense shoulders slumped in relief with the mere shake of my head.
"You didn't get your daily dose of a gallon of coffee?" He teased, an attempt to evade any of Yuu's suspicions. The look in his eyes- or eye, actually- told me that it did nothing.
"I forgot, idiot." I hit him lightly up the head. The fake smile on his lips turned genuine.
"I didn't know that it was possible for you, the ever so famous Mikaela Shindo, could forget something."
"Well I did."

As we argued over the reliability of my memory, Yuu had gasped quietly and held a hand over his bandaged eye. Cecil didn't notice. I, however, was instantly at his side.  I'm assuming the reaction engraved into my instincts held origins from the guilt I felt for being the main cause of the injury. The night before I had offered to pay for the surgery to repair it. He had laughed and declined, nervously explaining that he didn't want to burden me or anything. He knew that I made most of my living from the black market jobs. I don't know how or what gave it away, but it seemed obvious in his way of acting and speaking to me on the subject.
"No, I'm fine. I think the doctor missed a piece of glass.." he muttered the last part to himself, Cecil looking perplexed near us, to say the least.
"Doesn't he have a degree?" I asked. He chuckled, left eye staring at me with amusement.
"Obviously. But even professionals can mess up minor things." The joke in that was very clearly a bash towards me harming him.

"Oh, shut up."

"What, too far?"

"Obviously."

"I'm confused." Cecil piped up. We collectively snorted.
"Yuu decided to insult any errors in my work here along with talking about his injury." I explained for him. The clarification of 'here' made all the difference for how he perceived it. Cecil knew that I was Blue, yet he never spoke of it since we broke up nor told authorities. He was held on a pedestal for that good deed.
"Oh. I see. You should probably schedule an operation for it." He suggested. Yuu sighed dejectedly.
"I already did. My wallet weeps. Guess I'll just work more overtime, though." He said with a quick glance to me. I shrugged in a subtle way that Cecil couldn't notice. If we were going to have to work together, that meant overtime for me as well.
"I could help pay if you wa-" Cecil began.
"No."
"Well that was quick." He whistled, amber eyes wide with some sort of surprise.
"I would've taken it." I muttered quietly.
"No you wouldn't." The two said in unison, staring at me with blank expressions.