SGE His Darkened Heart (A Japaric Fanfiction)

CHAPTER 7 Lying Love

It was one particular day though that Japeth and Aric found themselves in Aric's room to have a study session after lunch break was over. Rhian and Kei were partners for their own project Dean Burnhilde had assigned all her students. Luckily, the two imps had gone outside to work on their assignment, leaving Aric and Japeth alone in each another's company.

"How does an infestation of rats relate to the first FoxWood King's reign?" Japeth huffed, flopping on Aric's bed with a sour look on his cold face that made Aric's lips quirk up in a smirk of amusement.

There were dozens of articles scattered about on the floor before Aric as he shuffled through them, trying to find more information on the topic they were researching. Usually, Aric wouldn't give a damn about homework (he usually skipped on classwork or bribed Hemwa or Asmodeus into doing his work for him), but Japeth had insisted they do it, saying if they ever wanted to leave Arbed House, they'd have to start getting to work. If Aric flunked all his classes, than there was no way he would ever be graduating from Arbed with the Dean's mark of approval.

"In the black era, King Rockfilnt the first had his crowning ceremony a week before his wedding to countess Millanie, later deemed Queen Millanie of FoxWood, aka the mad Queen," Aric read aloud, lazily flicking his pencil at Japeth's nose who swatted his hand away. "But his coronation was unexpectedly disrupted by an army of rats converging into the kingdom from the Endless woods. The rats caused financial crisis with the amount of damage they wreaked on the palace and village and it took almost two years for the infestation to be cleared completely."

Aric tore his gaze away from the paper in his hand to find Japeth watching him from the bed, his elongated scims wriggling across his skin as if they were entertained by Japeth's relaxed posture, squeezing tighter along his rippled torso like frenzied children. Japeth complained to Aric of his issue with clothes because apparently wearing them only restricted his scims' movements, so Japeth had taken his clothes off as soon as the two friends had gotten into the room. Now, the only thing covering Japeth's body was hundreds of Scims wrapped about his torso and arms, occupying every inch of his body in a suit of scales.

Aric found himself studying Japeth's scims as if they were strange beings from another realm, fascinated by the way they twisted this way and that and how their black scales glinted in the candlelight of the bedroom.

"Something you like?" Japeth asked playfully, noticing Aric's sudden lack of studying.

Aric feigned a sneer across his lips and swung away from Japeth to look back at the paper clutched in his hand. But than there was a soft thud as Japeth rolled off the bed and slunk towards Aric from behind to tackle him without warning. Aric felt Japeth's weight slam into his back and he staggered forward and before he could spin around to defend himself, some of Japeth's scims had launched themselves at him with low squeals.

Aric ducked to avoid one aiming at his head and when two of them attempted to stab at his feet from both sides, he leapt upwards to see the two scims run into each other with surprised gurgles. But while Aric was distracted by the three scims recovering to tear at him again, he didn't see Japeth lunge at him with the dagger in his hand.

Aric raised his arms to block his face from Japeth stabbing at him, and caught Japeth's wrist in his fist. He managed to get a hold of Japeth's other wrist and planted his feet firmly to the ground to keep Japeth's weight from pushing him backwards. Both boys were breathing heavily, Japeth's blue eyes dancing with mirth and Aric's lips twitching upwards to form a playful smile across his hardened features.

"So...a bunch of rats basically ruined the King's whole coronation?" Japeth purred as the two boys each attempted to shove the other one backwards, arms locked in an un-relentless tussle.