Chapter Text
“Captain Yami!” exclaimed Finral as he suddenly appeared through a portal in the wall. Yami huffed and narrowed his eyes.
“We talked about this, Finral,” he grunted though Finral’s confused expression did not inspire the slightest bit of confidence that he remembered. Yami tilted his head pointedly towards the door. “Knocking…”
A faint blush filled Finral’s cheeks as he shuffled his feet almost sheepishly. “Sorry… I did knock a couple of times, but you didn’t answer.”
Yami’s brow furrowed. “So you just came in anyway…?”
Finral stared intently at the floor and leaned forward—seemingly curling in on himself. “Sorry, Captain…” he began to apologize again. Sighing, Yami shook his head. This kid would apologize for breathing if he let him. Yami didn’t think his squad members’ pasts were any of his business, but he did occasionally wonder what kind of hellhole Finral had come from that made him feel like he had to apologize just for existing.
“We talked about this too, Finral,” he said with a pointed tilt of his head. Finral’s eyes widened, and his face flushed.
“Sor—” He stopped abruptly. He must’ve remembered at least one of their ‘stop it with the excessive apologizing’ talks. “Um…” Fidgeting, Finral’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “I…uh…didn’t mean to interrupt, but it was important.”
“What’s important?” Yami asked against his better judgment and instantly regretted it as Finral began twisting his hands almost nervously.
“Well, you know Vanessa—”
“Finral,” Yami interrupted with a huff. “Aren’t you two supposed to be friends now? I thought we were past all this…” Or at least he had hoped they were. Perhaps his relief that Finral and Vanessa had seemed to reach some sort of understanding was a bit premature, but in his defense, Finral hadn’t brought any more flowers into their hideout or otherwise tried to flirt with the poor girl in weeks—naturally, he had hoped this signaled the end of that drama, or at least his involvement in it.
Confusedly, Finral tilted his head and blinked at him. “Past what, Sir?”
Yami quirked an eyebrow at him and debated whether to respond or not. The last thing he wanted was to be caught in the middle of whatever Finral had going on—or perhaps more accurately whatever Finral thought he had going on—with the newest member of their squad, again. He was their magic knight captain not their parent for crying out loud—was it too much to ask that they work these things out on their own without involving him? However, if he knew Finral at all, he knew that he was just going to tell him anyway so they might as well get it over with.
“Just spit it out, Finral.”
“Did you know it was Vanessa’s birthday last week?” Yami’s eyes narrowed. This was not what he had been expecting…
“Her birthday?” he repeated. “How do you know that?”
“Well I heard her telling some guy in the market how old she was, and when I asked her about it, she said her birthday was last week so she’s older now.” Finral paused and sighed. “We completely missed it, Sir. We didn’t even have cake.”
“And Vanessa’s upset about this…?”
Finral shrugged. “I don’t know…I don’t think so. She didn’t act like it was a big deal. I don’t think she’s ever celebrated her birthday before.”
Yami twisted his mouth to one side. Finral had a point. After all, the poor girl had been locked up in a cage when he had found her—he couldn’t really imagine the Queen of Witches bringing her cake and presents once a year, but… “Not sure what we can do about that now. We’ve already missed it.”
“Well, what we if celebrated it late? We could get a cake and some decorations.”
Yami snorted an almost guttural laugh. “Decorations? Who’s decorating? You?”
“Gordon has some ideas…”
“Gordon?” questioned Yami raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, he’s—” Finral paused, and his face flushed. “Oh shoot, he’s waiting out in the hallway. I completely forgot.”
Before Yami could protest, Finral had rushed over to the door and ushered Gordon into the study. Mumbling quickly and indistinguishably, Gordon handed Yami a piece of paper with a long list of items beginning: decorations, cake, presents…
“You think we have the money to pay for all this?” Yami huffed, and Gordon immediately set a pouch of Yul on the desk in front of the Captain murmuring something Yami couldn’t quite decipher but assumed was probably encompassed in Finral’s next statement.
“If we all pitched in, we could put together something nice, right?” With a slight shrug of his shoulders and an earnest smile, Finral pulled out a bag of Yul from his pocket and put it on the desk beside Gordon’s money. “And we could use a lot of what we have already. Gordon has lots of craft supplies, and we should have most of the ingredients to make a cake, I think. The only thing we’d really have to buy is a present and if we’re missing a few ingredients or something…”
Yami’s brow furrowed. These dumb kids… they made it sound so simple—conveniently forgetting the fact that they didn’t know the slightest thing about decorating and could probably burn water on a good day. Yami couldn’t imagine what they’d do to an actual cake.
“Please, Sir,” continued Finral. “It wouldn’t have to be fancy or anything, maybe just a nice dinner with cake—but if Vanessa’s never celebrated her birthday before, we really should try to do something for her, shouldn’t we?”
Finral fidgeted with his hands, but he and Gordon both stared at their captain with an almost pleading earnestness. Yami shook his head. Knuckleheads…both of them…
Shifting, Yami raised a questioning eyebrow, but his mouth twitched in the corners just barely. He sighed.
“Alright. Fine,” he conceded. “But you morons had better not burn the place down.”
Finral and Gordon visibly brightened as Yami pulled out a small bag of Yul from one of the desk drawers and added it to the growing pile of Yul on the desk. “I’m putting you in charge of shopping”—he held out the money to Finral—“Remember this doesn’t grow on trees, got it?”
Finral nodded solemnly though his face was bright with a wide, excited smile. “Yes, Sir.”
“Gordon will stay here and decorate, and I’ll fry up some meat for dinner. As soon as you get back here, we’ll all try our hand at that cake…”
Before Finral and, probably Gordon too though Yami couldn’t understand him most of the time, could start with their reassurances that surely, they could manage baking a cake, there was a knock at the door. Finral jumped but quickly calmed himself as an apologetic Vanessa appeared in the doorway with pink in her cheeks.
“Um…I’m sorry for interrupting,” she said with downcast eyes. Yami sighed. Between her and Finral—and for all he knew, Gordon too—he ought to make an apology swear jar…
“No. No, it’s fine. You’re not interrupting anything, and you don’t need to apologize,” Finral hurriedly interjected. “We were…um…just…um…talking…”—he nodded repeatedly as if trying to convince himself— “about…um…you know…guy stuff…”
Blinking, Yami shook his head at the ever-reddening Finral. He had at one point rather foolishly wondered if his influence might make the kid a better liar, but he seemed to be getting worse and Vanessa seemed to be a getting a bit wise to it.
She furrowed her brow and tilted her head inquisitively at Finral. “Guy stuff?”
As Finral rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and stumbled his way through some “Um…well…uh…”s, Gordon stepped into Yami’s line of sight and started whispering something or other and pointing at a line item on his list that read, “Get Vanessa out of the house so we can surprise her.”
He placed a hand on Finral’s shoulder, and Finral looked up at him with wide, grateful eyes—clearly indebted to him for saving him from further shoving his foot in his mouth. “We were just talking about how we need a few things from the market.” Yami waved his hand almost dismissively. “You wouldn’t mind going to pick up a few things would you?”
Vanessa brightened. “Not at all. I’d be happy to go. What do we need?”
“Leeks.” Yami resisted the urge to roll his eyes at a blushing, fidgeting Finral who, naturally, decided to try to salvage his faux pas by adding, “And…and soap.”
Yami shut his eyes and took a deep breath. This kid was a lost cause. He opened his eyes to find Finral staring at him seemingly realizing, in some mixture of horror and confusion, what he had had just said. As he began to mouth Sorry… Yami glared at him, and he shut his mouth abruptly. Yami sighed.
“Yeah…leeks and soap…also some milk.” He quirked an eyebrow pointedly at Finral before turning back to Vanessa. “Pick up some cheese if you want some too and uh…”—Gordon held out the paper to him again and Yami read aloud—“Strawberries.”
If Vanessa questioned their impromptu shopping list, she didn’t show any indication of it as she repeated back to them, “Okay so leeks, soap, milk, cheese and strawberries. Anything else?”
Yami whipped around to glare at Finral as if to make doubly sure that he would not be adding any other random items to their shopping list. “Nope. I think that’s it.” He gave a handful of Yul to Vanessa, mentally lamenting how much they were going to spend on groceries they didn’t even need. What the hell were they even going to do with those leeks?
“It looks like it’ll storm later,” he continued glancing out of the window at the few clouds in the sky. “So take a magic item with you and give us a call when you’re ready to come back, and we’ll have Finral open up a portal for you.”
Luckily, Vanessa didn’t seem to pay much attention to Finral was gaping at them, Yami assumed, in awe and amazement at the ease of his captain’s lie, and she didn’t seem to notice Yami’s pointed tilt of his head and glare which was directed at the young spatial mage until he finally managed, “Yeah. Um…no problem. Just let me know when you’ve finished shopping, and I’ll come pick you up so uh…you don’t have to walk home in the rain…?” His tone lifted and his voice squeaked as if he was asking a nervous question, but it was too late to worry about that now.
Vanessa blinked at him. “Okay…but I really don’t mind walking.”
“But the leeks—the leeks could get wet,” interjected a fidgety Finral. Vanessa’s brow furrowed, and Finral’s face flushed as Yami, once again, resisted the ever-intensifying urge to roll his eyes. “And you—you could also get wet…and…um…just please call…please…”
“Okay,” answered a visibly confused Vanessa. Yami honestly felt bad for the poor girl. It was a wonder she wasn’t onto them what with Finral’s extreme inability to keep a secret.
Gordon handed Vanessa the wicker basket they often took to the market to carry their groceries and promptly ushered Vanessa out of the room, clearly confused to say the very least.
As soon as she was gone, Finral, still red in the face, sighed with relief. “Well…that could’ve gone worse…”
Yami narrowed his eyes at him but huffed. “Just get going. We don’t have a lot of time until Vanessa gets back.”
Finral nodded as he opened his grimoire and made a portal for himself. “Yes, Sir.”
“And Finral? I hope you like leeks because you will eating them until they are gone.”
Twisting his mouth to one side, Finral nodded apologetically before he disappeared through the shimmery portal.