sweetdevil | 3RD ♫ | if you don't get it yet, then I'll just have to teach you

[It's a particularly boring kind of day. Just an average Saturday, with nothing special going on, no one to really do anything with besides the same five brothers that Ichimatsu already does everything else with every other day. It gets tiresome sometimes, seeing nothing but the same face for days at a time... so today he's decided to be a little more adventurous than usual.

At around one in the afternoon, Ichimatsu takes a small messenger bag filled with catfood and dishes and heads out towards a further part of town than where he usually spends his time. He's familiar with all the cats of his part of town, so today he wants to spend getting familiar with the ones of this part of town. Maybe he'll meet a calico, or a tabby... or a mother and her small kittens...

He's excited just at the possibilities.]

[It takes him about an hour to get to this part of town by foot, but it seems to have already paid off -- because there's a small, scraggly looking white cat that catches his attention almost immediately. It turns a corner into an alleyway, and Ichimatsu quietly follows after it, making sure to keep a few feet behind so he doesn't startle it. Though, once he turns the corner... there's already somebody there, at the other end of the alleyway with her eyes on the same cat. She doesn't seem to have noticed him just yet, as she's busy trying to get the cat's attention so he just silently crouches down and pulls out an empty dish, setting it on the ground in front of him before pulling out a can of food.

He feels a little uncomfortable with that girl there -- okay, super uncomfortable -- but that cat looked so scruffy and thin that he had to do something about it... hopefully she won't mind that the sound of the can he's opened has pulled the cat's attention away from her.]

it's 39 day which means it's time for you all to be INCREDIBLY THANKFUL THAT MIKU HATSUNE EXISTS

what do you mean you're not thankful??? of course you are. shut up. let's do dumb birthday shit. this can be texts or in person shenanigans or WHATEVS JUST THREAD W ME

[You know who's not happy today? This little blonde girl. Birthdays suck when you age in reverse. Your own and other people's, because at least they get to be another year older on their birthdays. Which is the last thing Marion wants rubbed in her face.

She's probably been dragged to the party, and reluctantly shoves a small gift-wrapped box at the taller but not older twintailed girl.]

Here. [Just listen to that bitterness in her tone.] Just take it!

[It may or may not be safe to open.]

Oh what, did someone not take a nap today? Jeez.

[ that means 'thank you'. probably.

she takes the box with a little huff and taps at it with her finger. ]

Should I bother opening this now or toss it with the others for later?

[She's the same age as you, you spoiled brat.

... Says the pot to the kettle, really.]

I don't care. Happy birthday, and all that junk.

[All there is in the box is a simple, not too extravagant pair of earrings. Oh, and a harmless little enchantment. Something petty like curling her hair uncontrollably or turning her tongue green.]

There's at least cake, right?

[Maybe this visit won't be a total loss.]

[Souji's friends with Ai, so he's used to this sort of brattiness. All the same...

Here's some homemade crème brûlée, chocolate and caramel flavour, Miku.]

Hey, Happy Birthday! Thanks again for your work in Dancing all Night-- it was really fun having you there.

[ S W E E T S

it's amazing how quick you'll make some of that tsun thaw out when you present her with fancy goodies like that. she gazes at the crème brûlée with stars dancing in her eyes and even though she's talking to Souji she doesn't move her gaze away from it. ]

I was pretty good, huh? That outfit, though! Do you know how hard that was to dance in? I mean, I did it anyway because I'm a professional and everything, but...

[Well, they're all decked out super cutely and there's a spoon already, so if she wants to crack into them and eat it...]

I can only imagine; it was bad enough trying to dance in the, er, beauty contest outfit the director had...

[Though honestly, Kanji and Yosuke had it much worse than him in that regard... especially the 'Birth of Venus' outfit.]

You idols are pretty incredible that way, though; you make it look so effortless- that's real dedication.

[ Ohhh she wants to. She totally wants to. But even if it's her birthday she can't let herself look like a glutton. Especially after just bragging about being professional and all. She's gonna keep staring like a dog with its eyes on a particularly juicy steak, though. ]

It's just something you have to learn. It's never easy, duh, but when was making something look effortless ever easy?

[ she sounds sort of quietly smug about it ]

But no matter what dance or what song or what outfit, you've got to suck it up and smile while you're dancing. Like you're doing it right from the heart. That's what people want from idols nowadays.

[Well, he'll set it down carefully on a table nearby... and then pull out a seat for her to sit if she so wishes.

She is a princess after all, isn't she?]

Practice and more of it. With a good dash of natural charisma, right?

[Buttering her up? Maybe a touch, but it's her birthday after all. She deserves some flattering.]

True, pure idols, huh?

[Natsuru is the exact opposite of Miku. Tall, quiet, meek, organized and neat. It shouldn't have taken long for her to get tired of Miku's consistently spoiled behavior.

There's only one problem. From the moment she saw her, Natsuru was stunned speechless that the gorgeous, fashionable twintailed girl was not only acknowledging her existence, but would be sharing a room with her for the foreseeable future. Sharing a room with any other girl was nerve-wracking enough, but someone like her? She was... quite obviously flustered and embarrassed and awkward about it.

And while they've settled into the beginnings of a routine here, Natsuru's classes and job are still only a brief escape from being reminded that she's rooming with someone so simultaneously perfect and exasperating.

Literally the last thing she wants as she walks in the door, kicking off the heels she wears with her revealing maid-inspired waitress uniform, is to see the worst kind of wreck Miku could turn the room into. It's mostly clothes strewn all over the place, crossing the halfway point between the neater side Natsuru maintains and Miku's hot mess of a living space. If she had to guess, Miku spent a few hours picking an outfit and then rushed out the door earlier...

Of course, she's lounging casually on the bed now, not a care in the world. ... Even now, Natsuru can't help but flush a little when looking at her, and quickly turns away before Miku can notice. She kicks away some clothes on the way to her own bed and collapses onto it with a long sigh.]

Um... hey.

[Smooth, Natsuru.]

[ Miku hadn't been sure of what to expect from her roommate. She's never actually had to have a real one before and putting up with her little siblings back home doesn't count. Having someone so in her space all the damn time would probably be seriously irritating if Natsuru wasn't so very... well. Natsuru. She's all quiet and timid and probably wouldn't say boo to a goose even if it asked her to so she's not quite as irritating a presence as Miku had forseen.

She's flopped on her bed in an oversized hoodie that probably didn't belong to her to start with and generally looks like she hasn't moved an inch since she first landed here. Her hair's perfect though. As usual. ]

Hey.

[ She barely looks up from her laptop as she talks, busily tapping away at the keyboard. She's got a report due and while she's not exactly behind, she's gotten less done than she would've liked to. ]

You're back early. I think? I haven't really been paying attention to the clock.

[But is it Natsuru's hoodie, or someone else's? That's the question.]

Eh?

[A stunned blink, as she glances at the clock. Oh... she is back a little early. And Miku noticed?! She didn't think Miku really paid that much attention to when she was around...]

Only a little bit! We closed the cafe early today.

[She shifts on the bed, reaching under her back for something she'd apparently landed on top of. Her cheeks color when she pulls out a pretty expensive-looking bra that's definitely too small to be hers, and she quickly tosses it into Miku's clothing pile. She'll just pretend that didn't happen.]

... You look kinda busy...

[She was about to vent a little about work and having to walk home in that ridiculous outfit, but... she doesn't want to bother Miku too much. Also she's totally not stealing glances at how cute she looks when she's working. Not at all. ~~Major crush alert...~~]

[ having Eve around is something like cohabiting with a very large, very feral cat. a useful one—she stubbornly insists on snagging all the chores she can before Miku can get to them, is hyper-vigilant about cleaning up after herself and not taking up too much space—but whenever Miku isn't engaging with her she spends the time napping in either curled up little balls or ridiculous sprawls, or trying to sneak out at night to roam around.

...to say that her lifestyle shows is a bit of an understatement. she's not quite as unkempt as she was at the beginning, thanks to actually having access to a shower and a washing machine, but beyond basic hygiene she doesn't seem to make much of an attempt. scruffy doesn't really look too awful on her, at least, even if it does lend to the inhuman air she gives off— but underneath the stitches and the scarring is definitely some potential. what would she look like properly cleaned up...? ]

[ Lilith had been fated to live, but had died.

...it turns out a lot of the people in her life had been fated to live.

it's funny, in an awful sort of way: it turns out almost her entire life is a mistake in the eyes of fate. but it isn't as though she isn't used to thinking of herself as a mistake, and isn't as though mistakes are so bad when it turns out that they can be fixed— when she finally goes "home," it's to find that they have been. her little collection of reminders is empty, and when she finally ventures home (just to check, that's all) the most important part of it is there as though she'd never left.

...she hadn't been able to stay away after all. not after that.

but— a year or so dead changes a person. adds to them, in this case. they're lucky, really; she doesn't have the same kind of raw power the snake skull's previous host had, nor even the innate ability to sense it, but that's fine. in a world where nobody has needed ether the training or resistance against illusions, neither power or finesse is needed to hide what needs to be hidden: her new scars. the lack of her old ones. the snake skull firmly attached to her own.

of course... truth will out itself, and Miku is still Miku and therefore used to seeing right through Eve's bullshit. it slips out, in bits and pieces: too-long hesitations before responding to her own name, offhanded comments made without thinking about them. the way Eve no longer lets Miku anywhere near her face, dodging all attempts with enough nonchalance that it's only after a while the pattern becomes obvious. neither Eve or the snake skull are comfortable with dishonesty, either, and so eventually the whole thing comes out—

and from there one thing leads to another, and... well. when you find out your girlfriend now comes as a package deal with an entirely separate person hanging in her own head—an entirely separate person who also happens to sound like a pretty cute girl in her own right, at least from what little you've gotten your girlfriend to talk about her—

clearly the correct thing to do is for you all to go on a tea party date to get to know each other properly. right? ]

...I'm still not quite sure if this was one of our better ideas or one of our worst...

[ the barely audible mutter is perhaps surprisingly pleased for how embarrassed and self-deprecating it also sounds. pleased or not, though, she's also visibly nervous, playing with her wrist as though it still had stitches around it to fiddle with. that's not surprising, though; she's been pretty cagey about the entire topic of the snake skull, obviously expecting Miku to take off or at the very least have the entirely fair reaction of being incredibly weirded out.

(less visibly—completely invisibly, in fact, since their tea party is in a public park—Samael is just as nervous. there's nothing like meeting what's basically your platonic spouse's love with the full knowledge that if either of you don't get along, you're all going to be miserable.) ]

3RD ♫ | if you don't get it yet, then I'll just have to teach you

I AM HERE FOR THIS TRAINWRECK

SOME SORT OF BIRTHDAY TOPLEVEL

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College AU / roommates / shippy thing? let's do it!

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i'm so sorry this got away from me