001
Veronique Pressman is somebody who is extremely important to me.
I feel like I cannot speak of her, at this point, without establishing this right off the bat, so I won't waste any time beating around the bush regarding it when I can save us all some trouble by saying it flat out.
She is overwhelmingly important. More than anyone outside my family-- although you could argue that, with the way our mothers are, she was halfway apart of it anyway.
But still, her importance eclipsed just about anyone you could name, and you could tally up the challengers to her throne on one hand.
Without her, I would not be alive. That's how important this Havenite, hailing from the beautiful town of Crystal Castles in the very center of Mistral, is to me. She literally saved my life and risked sacrificing her own to do so-- that's not something I intend to ever allow myself to forget.
She may be a simple journalist by trade, and is becoming a hunter by profession, but in my mind and heart she occupied a space more like that of a princess: a paragon of the virtues she stood for and a person who, in all respects except in material wealth, stood so far above as to look down upon me and my pitifully common ways—
And one that I would never once hesitate to protect with every fiber of my being.
If she was in need, I would always find a way to help her. It's my sincere belief that, in saving my life as she did, you could not put a price upon the debt I owed her.
Hell, even having the ability to pay it back at all, to still have the opportunity-- that I owed her as well.
This is the meaning of a life debt-- and I didn't know anyone whom I could be more happy to owe it to.
And in the same night, same hour, and even same minute— I very nearly lost that chance. In one flash I was saved, and in the next she was in dire peril. My heart had stopped cold exactly once before then— and I never wanted to let it happen since, so I naturally got very hysterical.
I screamed, cried, raged, and fought— it was utter madness. So much blood rushed to my head that I swear my vision was tinged with scarlet, and I couldn’t say I was exactly all there anymore. The mantra I repeated in my head at maximum volume was a one-worder: Save, save, save.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I would have completely lost it had I been even a second slower.
Not only her death-- it would have been mine, too.
Yet, thankfully, my panicked flailing had just enough direction to snag victory from the jaws of the greatest defeat I could have ever suffered.
This, however, isn’t a story about that time.
For every peak of excitement, for every trough of despair, there must exist a happy medium— a calmness of contentment and rest. You cannot live life on high amplitudes forever.
Yeah, surprise surprise— even a jam-packed summer like mine takes breaks every now and again. It had to--Otherwise, there’s little doubt that it’d be me who was breaking. So without further ado, to wrap up this introduction that I’ve stretched to capacity already—
This is the story of a girl, who, if nothing else, I spoil like a princess.
002
The morning of June the 23rd.
6/23.
Two days removed from the night everything went to hell in a handbasket.
Everything that had transpired felt like it had finally begun to truly sink in.
It was, by all accounts, a quiet morning in the Pressman household. Even disregarding my obviously skewed viewpoint— any morning without April and Dawn nagging you classed as “quiet” to me— there was a distinct stillness and silence that the homey little apartment often lacked.
If you looked in the master bedroom, which was really just the slightly larger of the two bedrooms total, you would find the all-knowing, pants-hating, Shiroyaman-teasing matriarch of my beloved host family, Julia Pressman. Beside her, doubtlessly locked between her arms and held closer than most government secrets, you would witness the eternal youth of Jean-Baptiste Pressman, dropship pilot extraordinare.
The two Pressman parents-- intensely good people, who were too kind by half. While I had admittedly gotten used to and even come to take their hospitality, as my Mistralian hosts, for granted-- they had run themselves ragged yesterday trying to keep everyone I had hauled in on the quickest path to recovery possible.
Since the mess had been my fault in the first place, I begged, pleaded, and supplicated feverishly that evening-- to please at least let me take care of the morning so they could sleep in. To wake them up with a hearty breakfast, both as thanks— and as an apology, for roping their daughter into this hellish mess.
They were exhausted at this point, but still managed to offer some resistance, on account of me not knowing what I was getting into, I was their guest, I had already done enough by bringing everyone home, I’d lost HOW much blood helping the other kids, et cetera, but I held fast. Jean Baptiste acquiesced first—and Julia did soon after, once I let her step on me for it.
Strange lady. Absolutely wonderful as a second mother, but strange. Thankfully, I had achieved my goal of being the only one out here in the kitchen this early, cracking eggs and melting butter with wild abandon, but still...
Normally it’s supposed to me who asks to be stepped on, get with the program!
And, to speak of programs...
If you looked upon the den, a comfy little room of couch, armchair, and television, you would find two of the four most top-flight members of Atlas’s most top-flight huntsman training program doing their best impressions of fallen logs.
Jericho Piper.
Noah Bright.
Half of the Quartet of the Heavens. As their jackets told anyone who knew about Atlas at a glance, Gold Stripes. The cream of the rising generation’s crop in the flesh.
Flesh I had become very familiar with.
When chasing an idiot like me into a coven of vampires thirty freaks strong, even the finest freshmen that Atlas had to offer were in terrible shape. Jericho was forced to break into forbidden territory with Seal Judgement to simply survive, pushing himself well past the point of exhaustion and far beyond his body’s capabilities. Bright had wrecked at least two vehicles in the mayhem, as well as a significant portion of his arms—
If I wasn’t there on the scene, I’m not sure the guy’s shoulder joints would have ever fully recovered, to say nothing of the flayed skin and muscle fibers…
What the heck did they teach at Atlas, to not stop until your insides are liquified?
Ridiculous. Not even I’d be able to get away with it, and my body repairs itself so quickly that it carries the property over to others through my bloodstream… If it was insane of me to do so, what the heck did it make those two?
Needless to say, the immediate answer was no less than “out of commission even after being bathed in Healing Blood”.
What a mess. What an honest to god mess I’d roped us all into.
And to speak of being roped in, as well as speaking of being bathed in blood—
There was another element of the silence. One thing missing that had taken me a mere two days, amazingly, to grow used to. Even fond of.
Giada Fiordilatte.
Atlas’s number one crime against nature.
A fugitive with nowhere to call home—
The Iron Blooded, Hot Blooded, and Cold Blooded Artificial Vampire that I had met and befriended in such a short span. Eternally enchantingly beautiful, eternally wise beyond her apparent nineteen years, and eternally a generator of the kind of corny, horrendous wordplay that I myself enjoyed—
I had not seen any sign of her since we had returned the night of the solstice. Tiredly, she had mentioned to me that even the legendary resilience and regenerative abilities of a vampire, so similar to my own, had their limits; and consequently, when those limits were reached she needed a long, long rest in a safe, safe place.
Naturally, I offered my hospitality, but before Veronique could grind out her concerns, she told me not to worry about it.
That she already knew where to go.
...I hoped she was alright. Wherever she may have been, I sincerely disregarded her reassurances and worried anyway—
I had, after all, regrettably led everyone into hell because of it, but I had been willing to walk into that hell for her sake regardless, so...
How could I not?
Oh, but you’ll be so drained if you worry about vampires all the time, Luca! I’m fang-ful for your concern, but think of yourself every now and again, okay?
I was sure she would retort like that. Probably with smoother wordplay-- even living amongst a family of accomplished writers for a month could only do so much for me on that front, so my best approximation was doubtlessly subpar.
Story of my life...
As I’m sure everyone knows by now. I’ll try not to repeat myself too much. It’s old news. Don’t stop the Press, Man.
Haha.
And of course, I end up going back around to Pressman. My Veronique Pressman. Freshman of Haven academy, source of a million editorials in the Haven Commandment that were my single largest source of media attention anywhere. A magician with her words just as much as with her semblance, with an inscrutable bone to pick with me in her writing—
And an equally inscrutable generosity towards me in real life. The cruise tickets that led to the wild weekend acting as Jericho Piper’s backup in an assassination plot, the infallible support during the properly arranged joint mission afterwards, uncomplainingly accepting our mothers’ arrangement to have the Pressman family act as my hosts for summer vacation—
On paper, these two people would never have meshed. You would think her scathing words and giving heart to be exemplary of some sort of personality disorder.
But.
Amazingly.
Not everything is as it appears on paper.
If there was anyone I was concerned about aside from the AWOL vampire— it would have to be her.
Not because she was quiet—
“Hya!”
But because she was making noise.
I sighed, sliding the omelette onto the plate intended for her bedside, and set the pan back onto the coil before folding my arms and leaning back onto the counter beside the stove.
Sure enough, the muffled source of the noise wasn’t inside her room for very long—
Veronique Pressman was always quick to take the stage, even in an ensemble like her sleepwear. Long, wavy red hair poking out every which way under her worn grey beanie, black tank top rumpled and backless as ever, shorts in similarly worn condition, peace necklace originally given to me given back to her—
Needless to say, I thought it was pretty cute, but I was certain that an aspiring fashionista like herself wouldn’t be caught dead in it unless she really trusted you.
…
!!
And she’s been letting me futon it up in her room for a month!
Aww, I knew you didn’t hate me…
But really, there was no doubt about it— despite the outraged rosy tint on her cheeks that was threatening to reach the same hue as her eyes and hair, and despite how quickly she’d arrived in the kitchen, Veronique Pressman had definitely just rolled out of bed.
“W-What on earth—”
“Shh!” I cut in, pointing over the far countertop and into the living room beyond, where our Atlesian reinforcements thankfully hadn’t stirred.
She flushed harder, being definitely upset with me, and continued her demands in a stage whisper. “What on earth is the meaning of this, Lucas?!”
She thrust out the hoodie she had been clutching in her hands like it was no less than the One Ring. Her glare, the most dangerous part of the pout she was attacking me with, levelled as much of an accusation as she could muster.
I’m a bit late in saying this, but she shouldn’t be awake either.
“Oh, that.”
“Don’t you ‘oh, that’ me!” she managed to shriek at low volume, throwing it in my face. “Why the hell did you plant it on me while I was asleep, stupid boy?!”
“Easy, Easy.” I replied, raising my hands even as my voice was muffled by the thick fabric of the upper echelon of my understanding of fashion. Inhaling deeply, I decided now was as good a time as any to confirm something.
“Huh, Strawberries. So these things do carry scents…”
“Oh my--” she began, before audibly cutting herself off with a sound similar to a choke or a hitch in the breath.
“V-Veronique?”
My attempts at levity were forgotten.
Peeling it off my face, I was dismayed to be greeted with the sight of her swaying woozily a bit before catching herself on the chair of the dining room table, her flush deepening further and now covering her entire face. The exertion? The anger?
Maybe.
Both? When one considered just what kind of state she was actually in, things leapt all the way up to “probably”.
She definitely shouldn’t have been awake.
“Hey, easy!”
I was already halfway to her before she held her hand up, trying to wave me away. “No, no, no, I’m fine--”
“No, no, no, you’re definitely not!”
Her legs were weak, her face was flush, and she was beginning to sweat— Oh there’s no way that’s ‘fine’, Pressman! I know I’m dumb, but even that much idiocy is beyond me!
“You can barely stand, and you’re trying to tell me you’re alright?” I asked rhetorically, grabbing her by the shoulders to hold her steady. “I dunno how to break this to you, but you’re a horrible liar. You should be back in bed, resting! Not,”
I placed my palm to her forehead, and found it to be practically radiating heat.
“Fine”, my foot!
“Running around yelling at me when even standing up’s a chore for you right now!”
Hell, she was flushing even harder! She was practically one of those strawberries she loved so much!
“I'm fine!” She nonetheless reiterated. “I just--just need to have some breakfast, is all!”
...Really?
You really think that's going to work on me?
Like I believe an empty stomach is the problem here! Try flat out exhaustion!
“What did you even cook, anyway?” She changed tacks, nostrils flaring as she sniffed the air.
“Omelettes, just like your mom taught me— Which you aren’t getting until you go back to bed. Doctor’s orders.”
“Who the hell gave you your doctorate..?”
“I inherited the title.”
“That is so not how it works…”
“It is in my bloodline.”
“Rgngh…”
……………….
I chose to believe that it was the continued expenditure of energy on an already exhausted body, and not my tacky joke, that was causing this poor girl physical pain. What an admirable, yet unacceptable ignorance of one’s own limits! Didn’t she know that she was only exacerbating her troubles?!
“If you’re so concerned about it, why not just let me sit down instead of forcing me to walk back?”
“I… Um.”
To tell the truth, that raised a pretty good point. She had been leaning on the chair at the table for quite some time, now, and from a pure, unbiased analysis of the geography of the apartment’s layout, there was nothing so close and as quickly accessed as simply sitting down right there.
It was an obvious solution, actually, and yet even so—
Even so, I couldn’t just accept it. Not in the least because of a denial that it was a very plain and obvious solution—
But rather, because of it.
When faced with a solution that seems obvious and simple, most of the time, most of the people faced with the problem will just stop right there and go for it. They get lulled into a false sense of security by how perfectly the peg seems to fit the hole, and not look at the situation any deeper than that.
Veronique Pressman was suffering from a very severe, unnaturally potent exhaustion; the type that stemmed from a near-complete drain of the Aura reserves that we huntsmen took for granted so often. The obvious solution, with that in mind, was to serve her breakfast after sitting her down in the chair she was already clinging to— thus saving her a trip back into her room. That was where most people would stop their line of thought.
It was where I had for so long, before it burned me. Enchanted by how perfectly the peg slid into the hole—
Without worrying about the shape of the hole beyond the inch or so that I could see. Without accounting for any curves in the path it took within the wall.
She would still need to get up when she was done. She would have the extra weight of the food, so decadently laden with butter as was the Crystal Castles way, sitting in her stomach. She wouldn’t want to move, nobody would, but she likely would anyway.
Either at my behest or in doing something I had forgotten to staunchly refuse. Either getting up and going back to bed— or trying to go about her day like nothing had happened.
I couldn’t lend her my shoulder, either— I would be busy serving breakfast to everyone else, and with my hands full, I couldn’t keep an eye on her to ensure that she didn’t try and wander somewhere else on those wobbly, gelatin legs of hers. Besides, despite me taking some of the weight off, I couldn’t support her entirely like that.
No, that arrangement wouldn’t cut it at all. The crux of the issue— minimizing the amount of work she had to do and stress she put upon herself; it could not be satisfied under those conditions. I didn’t want her to move a muscle more than necessary. I wanted complete control of her path—
And, really?
I wanted this poor beanie-clad girl and her poor beret-clad accent to do herself a favor and just stay in bed.
So, after all that:
“Okay, here.”
There really was only one thing to do.
I should have warned her, but if I did, I got the niggling feeling that she was going to fight me on it— But it was a necessary evil, this surprise attack.
I shifted my weight, dropping down just enough to get below her center of gravity.
My arms lashed out, positions predetermined and already braced for bearing the, admittedly, unimposing load.
One behind the crook of her knees
The other across the middle of her spine.
“Eep!”
And lift. Even if I weren’t a hunter, this wouldn’t be too hard— and not to mention, it satisfied every criteria my analysis of the problem yielded when looking for a solution.
Complete control over her path.
Getting her back to bed.
Not requiring she expend any energy at all.
“I--You--”
Flustering the hell out of her. Not a stated goal...
Well, it was a nice bonus, at least.
“This’ll do the trick.”
The ever-reliable Princess Carry: Always exceeding expectations.
003
Getting her to go along with my plans hadn't been much of a problem after that, and some pouting and fuming and general cute embarrassment aside, Veronique ended up pretty much rolling with it.
Granted, no matter how gently and gentlemanly I proceeded, I hadn't actually left her much real choice in the matter.
It was still manhandling.
But, more importantly than the semantics of such petty things like my gracious hostess and savior’s free will, she was back in bed, safe and sound, and happily munching away at her egg-laden plate.
“I still can't believe you have the gall to toy with a woman’s heart like this.”
Well, more or less happy, at any rate.
“Toy? C'mon.”
“And that you refuse to acknowledge everything you do…”
Veronique grumbled, stabbing the omelette with her fork half-heartedly.
I frowned, not sure what she meant, before burying my face for a moment in the arm I’d propped up on my chair to think.
Like everything else in this apartment, Veronique’s room was small-- in fact, our humble four-man team domiciles in our respective Huntsman Academies dwarfed it in terms of floor space. Dominated by her bed, it was fairly spartan in furnishings by necessity-- although it also probably wasn't unfair to say that I had been rather spoiled by comparison.
What I thought of as a fairly normal bedroom, one I'd called my own and mine alone for eighteen years was completely gargantuan in relation to this. It probably would have classed as the master.
Both in floor space and in decor, as it were… I've never asked him about it, but Mom told me that my father had always said that, had criminal justice not been his number one passion in life, he would have probably pursued interior design.
And doesn't it show, she'd laughed, setting my horizon-styled clock back upon the wall, adjusted for daylight savings time.
But, even without the sheer size and avant-garde sensibility that my room had, Veronique’s was… cluttered, comforting, and… less cramped so much as crammed. Of course, her bed dominated the landscape, with a neat little nightstand and desk on the back wall beside, but aside from that—
Aside from the bare necessities that any proper room necessitated—
Books.
There were shelves upon shelves of books, filling the room with much more knowledge than a feeble mind like me could handle, and yet…
I dunno.
They just seemed to fit perfectly, even ignoring the fact that it was a room housing Veronique Pressman, aspiring journalist and daughter to two accomplished writers. Like the loads of them cramming into every last bit of wall space possible set me at ease. Reinforcing the walls--
Reinforcing the mind. Because sometimes, a good book on hand is a smart way to kill time.
Of course, being a fellow child of the modern age, she’d made sure to carve out a niche opposite of the aforementioned desk to house an old television with a bunch of equally old— we would both argue “classic” as the more appropriate adjective— game systems.
Rotting the mind! Because sometimes, nothing kills time like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater Two!
Incidentally, she was also less of a neat freak than I was— my parents had drilled it into all three of us at a young age that our rooms were to be kept nothing less than spick and span at all times, whilst the Pressmans were much more carefree. As a result, her assorted libraries, gaming and literary, were honestly one-third of the occupants of her floor space. Another third was mercifully clear enough to walk through without issue— and the final third, covering most of the area at the foot of her bed, belonged to me.
Me and my humble, musty floor futon.
It really wasn’t a bad setup at all.
Undeniably lived in.
Less really was more, sometimes…
“Well, if you mean the hoodie, there’s a good reason for that.”
Her frown quirked unreadably for a moment— but it was a short-lived shift, and by the time she’d said “Let’s hear it, then.”, it was already back at the usual baseline pout.
Huh. Really, what was she thinking? Those kinds of shifts in expression only served to heighten my curiosity, but I was already preoccupied with explanations in my own right, so…
Wasn’t like I could ask.
“Simple: You like stealing them from me.”
“N-NO!”
An immediate denial, but she had definitely been caught red-handed.
And not to mention red-faced.
The color of blood… Really, at this point, all you needed to do was take out the whites of her eyes and everything above her collarbone was red.
She definitely had wanted that to stay a secret, that much was obvious. Even without my notoriously self-righteous sense of justice, the same one that was practically woven into the DNA of my entire family, it must have been dreadfully embarrassing to be outed by the victim himself of her crimes.
Nobody wanted to get confronted with the knowledge of their transgressions, and I had a hunch that doing it so casually wasn’t helpful for the poor girl either.
But, it didn’t matter all that much.
“Ahaha.”
“Don’t laugh after making an accusation like that! Libel is absolutely seriou--”
“Veronique, I absolutely noticed when they’ve been worn before I’ve worn them— I do my own laundry, remember?”
I didn’t want to trouble anybody with it.
Also, I wasn’t sure I could trust people in this house with my clothes, but despite the coincidental context I’ve just placed that line in, that wasn’t in regards to the younger of the two women that lived here.
Said woman was, despite being one of the most accomplished wordsmiths of our rising generation already, currently struggling to get anything coherent out of her mouth. Unlike me, who was plainly dim and always tongue-tied already, it must have been frustrating in the extreme to her…
Which in turn made it extremely cathartic to have her cornered like this, as a dumb guy outplaying a smart girl.
“Don’t worry, I don’t blame you.”
“Eh?”
I smirked, knowing that this once in a lifetime beguilement was definitely an event worth savoring.
“Of course not— They really are comfy. Soup sells some quality bra--”
“That store absolutely IS. NOT! REAL!”
Her frustration reached a head, and what traces of her composure that had somehow remained were now gone.
It wasn’t a pout.
It was an open glare.
How scary~!
“Hahahaha! But it is, mademoiselle! You can’t deny it, you’ve worn their line!”
“U G H !”
Of course, the moment she was back up to speed was doubtlessly too the moment where the dynamic between us re-righted itself.
Ah… I guess it’s pretty villainous of me to be taking advantage of a girl’s weakness, huh? Like I’ve become an anti-anti-bully ranger?
Perish the thought. My family would murder me.
“Anyways,”
I had better get back on track, though.
“From what I understand, you’re running on the bare minimum aura stock right now, right? Nearly fully drained yourself and everything.”
“I've had a full day to recover,” she corrected me. “Even if I don't regenerate as ludicrously quickly as you, I'm still doing better than ‘barely enough to function on’.”
...Well, true. But even so, she was still inarguably in horrendous shape-- maybe the problem was something along the lines of an extensive recovery process for going beyond your limits?
Like pulling a muscle by overtraining, and needing even more rest to recuperate from the injury.
Her eyes narrowed, with that shrewd reporter’s suspicion that she was now well known for.
“Even so, what's your point?” she pressed.
“Well, I just figured you needed every bit of help you could get to speed the recovery along, is all. I just cut out the middleman of you needing to skulk and sneak around to swipe one of them from me.”
“How does a hoodie help with recovery?!”
Now, I understand what most of you may be thinking: I'm making up another one of my wacky non-sequitur excuses to do wacky non-sequiturial things.
Normally, you would be right and I would be messing with my dear friend and personal Messiah, but as it happens that deduction is, for just this once, incorrect.
Instead, we're dealing with the weirdness of the world beyond myself, not the one within myself. Rest assured that, if nothing else, I will always take the recovery of those I care about pretty seriously.
“Well, you know what they say about small pleasures. They're good for the soul.”
Aura Drainage. Semblance Overtaxation. She had gotten to such a state by using and abusing Pere Duchesne even after her defensive barriers were overrun. I’d never actually seen this happen before, though I was aware of its existence. Any Hunter, after all, should be. Forewarned is forearmed— but even so, we can’t always expect those warnings to help us when we need to ignore them.
So, knowing what I had forced her daughter into and feeling tremendously guilty, I grilled Julia-san for as much detail as I could regarding how I could help her recover. I owed her that much, after she went that far to save my hide— And from there I received a lesson in the inner workings of the relationship between a Hunter and their Aura.
Her rationale was this— As you know, Koyomin, the Aura is basically the energy of the soul. It’s your spirit, the same kind that every living creature in Remnant has, only as Hunters we know how to train it and control it. So if a semblance is an expression of the aura, and the aura is an expression of the soul, once your aura runs low, doesn’t that mean you’re quite literally in low spirits?
Well, I’m not sure Tanner’d agree… In fact, if it were me in his place, he’d definitely be asking Veronique if something good happened by now.
So with my little Bird’s Eye all tuckered out and down in the dumps after putting so much of her soul out there, I say you should spoil her a little~!
Put your best efforts into the bedside manner, Koyomin~!
She’d told me all of this with that same cheeky smile on her face, the one that grew to become a simultaneous picture of assurement and torment in the month I had spent here.
And, hey, hold on a second— Don’t call me that! Even if I took a vampire under my wing, I’m not a quasi-immortal, and you’re not an overbearing big sister figure with macroscopic plans!
I hope not, at any rate…
In essence, her advice really did just boil down to spoiling Veronique at every turn. Whether it would hasten the regeneration of her reserves of the stuff wasn’t something I was quite sure on how much stock I put towards, in truth.
But.
At the very least.
It was like any other folk remedy— grounded in a nugget of good general practice.
If I was spoiling her, it of course went without saying that she had little else to do but kick back, relax and enjoy it-- which were all helpful towards recovery from most any ailment or injury. Being in a positive frame of mind could have tangible effects on the body's resilience; the power of psychology can't be understated.
Although, by that same token…
A pouty and grouchy Pressman was counterintuitive! Aaaargh! How could I have made an oversight like this?! Quickly, correct course!
“I had figured you liked it, since you appropriate them so often, but if it bugs you this much--”
I reached forward mid-sentence, but before I could retake my hoodie, my hand was met with an empty plate and an accented huff.
“It’s… Fine. I appreciate the thought.”
…………
Despite how much grief it had been causing her, Veronique had nonetheless lied back and pulled it close to her heart, with a long, deep breath.
“Now that I think about it,” she mused, burying her face in the warm, thick fabric, “It actually does feel a bit calming, in a way.”
Looking up for a moment, she graced me with a small, content smile.
“Like I’ve got someone watching over me.”
...Well, you do.
It’s me.
“Aaaaaaaand if you’re giving it up yourself,” she continued, flopping back onto her side and closing her eyes. “I think I’ll see how this theory plays out in the long run. In fact, I daresay you’ll never get this back.”
Wait!!
What?!
“Why not?!”
“Because until you’ve shown me that this ‘Soup’ place exists, this is more evidence of your deceitful ways, cancer cure~”
She was back to namecalling.
Namecalling, through the cotton of my own hoodie!
After all I’d done to try and make her feel better!
Merciless. A splendid example of opportunism.
She only needed one opening.
“Even putting aside the very true fact that it exists…” I grumbled, still reeling from how quickly she’d managed to turn the grouchy tables upon me. “How does that help your neverending case against me? It's a hoodie, not a damning piece of forensic evidence.”
“Obviously,” she began, voice muffled and carrying the smirk that I couldn’t see through the hoodie. “Because you wouldn’t be complaining if you could just easily replace this via a trip to this enigmatic ‘Soup’ location.”
“I definitely can, but that’s still money out of my pocket!”
Did she think I was one of her teammates?!
Really.
Just for the record, Veronique Pressman, the reason I’m so comfortable in your home, aside from the welcoming family and beautiful scenery—
I’m no more of a blueblood than you are. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.
“Ehehehe.”
I sighed.
Well, at any rate, no matter how much I could deny my status, I couldn’t deny hers.
Not lower-middle class— Physical status.
Engaging in nonsensical conversations with me.
Testing me in battles of wits.
Sometimes the grouchy straight woman.
Sometimes the chuckley wise girl.
“Just get a little more rest for me. Holler— No, text if you need me.”
One red eye halfway opened, lazily sliding to meet mine with a hint of concern.
“Will you be busy?”
“I’ll probably have my hands full with trying to keep you and the other two afloat, but besides that, don’t worry about it.”
I’ll drop it and rush over, quick as I can.
“So, really, take it easy for today. Cancer Cure’s got it all under control— So don’t worry your pretty little head about anything, you hear?”
And give me that hoodie back at some point. I really liked that one!
“Mmmm’night!” she relented with a squeak, hurriedly burying herself and my hoodie beneath her covers.
...Yeah, I couldn’t deny it at all.
Sleeping soundly like this— and free to be as wonderfully cheeky, grouchy, or nonsensical as she liked— she was here.
She was definitely here.
Safe.
This was how it was supposed to be.
Nowhere near God in his Heaven.
I traversed her cluttered room on the tips of my toes, and silently shut the door. Leaving her to dream up whatever she pleased.
And all was right in the world.
004
I suppose now is as good a time as any to give a little more of a background upon the family I had been put up by, despite it being more like them putting up with me, for the past month or so.
In a word, they’re a diverse bunch.
Or, perhaps it’d be smarter to say versatile— they come from just about every walk of life. Huntresses or not, if there’s a job, you’ll find a Pressman for it.
For example, there’s Gwendolyn, or as she’s better known, “Wendy” Pressman. Roughly the same age as Veronique and I, however instead of pursuing glory at combat schools, she instead mastered the tweet— She, somehow, managed to become the mastermind behind the Wendy’s Twitter account that was all the rage these days.
Wendy’s.
The Burger chain. Those unfalteringly savage groups of 140 characters or less, carrying the same heat that could grill one of their infamously fresh and never frozen patties were all the brainchildren of one Wendy Pressman.
It was a coincidence that she shared a nickname with the chain— but the mascot’s likeness and the social media boom surrounding it were all unquestionably straight from her.
Again, Veronique’s cousin, Gwendolyn Pressman, is the face of Wendy’s.
Beaming with pride at you every time you exit with a Baconator in hand.
Smugly grinning at you every time you forgot a refrigerated truck could be used to transport meat.
Gleefully inviting the follows and patronage of a significant portion of every internet fanbase you could name— up to and including that of the Monogatari series, thanks to a well-timed photo op during a very well timed lunch run.
She had the decency not to tag me, but apparently I’m something of a loner in not really seeing the resemblance between my likeness and that of Araragi. My feed exploded for a little bit, which felt pretty weird.
Especially when people I knew also retweeted it with 100, ok hand, and laughing emojis.
But, if Veronique’s stories and rundowns are to be believed, she isn’t even the most “out there” cousin— that title belongs to one Marianne Pressman, whom I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet.
I don’t know if it was a translation error or what, despite us both being bilingual to the point of natural fluency in standard Valic, the current lingua franca—
But if I’m recalling correctly, which already should be a warning sign that something in this chain of information has to be dreadfully wrong—
Marianne Pressman, “Marie” to family— Is a “Saint”.
Not a small s saint, as in a wonderful person.
A big S Saint.
As in somebody who is very, very important to the Church somehow.
The big C Church, that is.
The distinction is important, as far as I’m aware.
Although, knowing the family and the glowing way Veronique and Julia speak of her, I was also pretty sure that she was still indeed a very kind young woman, so maybe a small s saint too.
“Oh, Bonjour, kiddo.”
And on the subject of small s saints, before me stood, with a plate full of half-eaten omelette in one hand and conspicuously missing a shirt, probably one of the nicest guys this side of the planet.
“Bonjour, Jean-san.” I replied, returning his warm and friendly grin to the best of my ability before bashfully chuckling as he indicated my attempt at a proper breakfast with an approving thumbs-up.
Jean-Baptiste Pressman. Patriarch of the Pressman household. Standing at a lean 5’11, he had happily accepted me into his already cramped home without even so much as an inkling of trepidation, let alone complaint. Even in spite of the fact that, as far as I knew, his wife and my mother had just sprung the idea upon him out of nowhere— that didn’t matter to him at all.
It was as if it was simply a question of making sure I was comfortable-- and not that I displaced or burdened any of them. The only words of concern I had ever heard out of him were for my sake-- which, in hindsight, should have tipped me off that nobody in the family would settle for me manning the couch at night.
He really did remind me of Dad.
Jean-Baptiste was the only regular member of this apartment that had not awakened his Aura, leaving him, fittingly, in a similar situation as my own father— and like Dad, he was also admirably brave in the line of duty that he chose prior to settling. And, while “SWAT Officer” was likely a bit more immediately dangerous than “mercenary corps dropship pilot”, you had to admit that it was a pretty close second.
Mad Max’s Merry Men. The infamous hell-raisers currently operating in Menagerie, led by the twin minds of Maximilian Sparr and Kol Laurent. Both former Huntsmen from Mistral. Both fathers of Veronique’s teammates. Both Vytal-proven forces of nature.
Both, as it happens, teammates of one Julia Pressman.
“Is Julia-san still asleep?”
No Mister or Miss Pressman out of my mouth was allowed, but I still managed to abuse the aforementioned bilingualism to address my most senior hosts with the respect they were due.
Really, though. I get it, you're friendly, but at least let me be a courteous guest!
“Aheheh, yeah, somehow.” He made a pretty pointed show of stretching his free arm high, loosening up his back. “Though, I gotta warn you, buddy-- after years of sharing a bed with her? Waaaaatch out.”
He drawled the word out lazily, but his grin widened with a sincere air of advice behind it.
“When a Pressman woman wants to grab something and not let go, they aren't letting go AT ALL.”
“Wait, then… how did you get out?”
And when is that warning going to come to good use for me, anyway?
Veronique grabbed my clothes, but never me, after all.
“Trade secret.” He replied coolly through smirking pearly whites, managing to somehow pull the effect off while rolling his stiff shoulders.
“And to speak of Pressman women who have a crazy bear hug-- how's my little girl doing? I can see she's already eaten, so that's a good sign, right?”
“Yeah, but only because I managed to stop her from trying to run before she could walk again.”
“Ha! Gets it from her Mom, believe me. Wills even tougher than their bodies.”
He cut off another piece of folded egg and popped it in his mouth, before turning the fork to point at her door behind me.
“And since it’s all quiet in there and she isn’t out here— I take it she’s back in bed?”
“Yeah— Stole my hoodie, though. Kinda miffed.”
I wasn’t. He smirked knowingly at me, rolling his eyes.
“Sure you are. Well, that’s good news— all three of our infirm charges being out like lights makes for a good day of rest for Juli and I— so now we’ve just you to worry about.”
All three, huh?
Casting my eye over to the living room, I did indeed gaze upon the sleeping forms of none other than Jer Piper and Noah Bright.
Before I knew it, I was standing over them, even whilst under Jean-Baptiste’s curious, watchful eye myself.
They weren’t in the worst shape I’d ever seen, but they were definitely in strong contention for second place, even two days removed from the nightmarish eve of the Solstice. The point that undoubtedly took first.
The only time I had seen either man on death’s door.
Even when I had first met Jericho, bleeding and in dire straits with a knife-made hole in his abdomen, it still didn’t compare. That was one wound that I could seal up easily with my blood. A severe one, sure, but still just one.
That night, there were far too many for me to name. Giada and I both had to pull out everything and the kitchen sink to keep him afloat. We had all but exhausted our abilities on internally stabilizing him and bright, things like ruptured livers and intestinal bleeding…
It was almost easier to name the parts of him that weren’t injured. Everything that was external, we could only make due with some patchwork over the most egregious wounds.
Gigi and I both.
By all rights, if we weren’t there...
His arms really got the worst of it, though. Looking at them now, they were pretty much mummified in bandages, even Judgement— Which, at first, I took a little umbrage with.
Why on earth would you stick bandages over the Gauntlet? Even though you couldn’t remove it from his arm, what help could they possibly have been?
The answer, of course, was something that seemed both simple and simultaneously utterly beyond me.
Because, what they effectively did was— well, sealed Judgement.
No, really.
As it turned out, carefully inscribed into the cloth, in red ink and remarkably fine detail and uniformity, were seals.
Seals, exactly like the kind my vagabond of an “uncle” uses. The same kind as those placed upon the shrines of Shiroyama.
The true specifics of Seal Judgement were, understandably, something none of us were privy to, but at this point it was pretty clear to everyone involved that it had something to do with Grimm.
Grimm in the Devil’s Arm.
Hm.
Anyways, since we were working off the knowledge that there were Grimm in there, Julia-san’s logic was simply that marking the bandages with seals and then wrapping Judgement in them wouldn’t be wasted effort— because, at the very least, they should be able to calm the Grimm aspect within and prevent them from acting up whilst Jericho wasn’t there to consciously defend himself.
Maybe it was something along the lines of hibernation— with the seals absorbing or dampening the negative emotions that Grimm used to sustain themselves, that scarcity drove the Grimm into torpor.
Out of Jericho’s mind, where it turned him into a living incarnation of his hellish moniker. A true devil walking the earth.
I winced.
He had been the epitome of calm, cool, collection— and then I had found him there. Half covered in his own blood, and half covered in that of vampires.
Panting.
Flayed.
Barely alive.
On the couch, Noah Bright had fared marginally better— “marginally” referring to the fact that only his hands, neck, and temple were entombed within bandaging.
The man was probably the closest thing HJNS had to a real boxer, and was their foremost member in the realm of hand-to-hand combat— that was what Jericho had told me, and I was pretty inclined to believe him.
Albinium Knuckledusters were his weapon of choice, and even they couldn’t save his hands from their own power.
Sure, they hadn’t broken, but he had punched for so long, so hard—
The skin hadn’t been able to keep up. Sheared straight off, and the guy was too hopped up on his own adrenaline to even notice.
Amazing.
Terrifying.
His temple had obviously been cut, too, and with head wounds being what they were, that lead to the guy all but wearing a crimson mask.
I doubt that did anything except impede his vision and draw more of the freaks to him.
Extremely amazing implications.
Extremely terrifying ones, too.
Ah, but, thankfully, none of the neck wounds were bites, nor were they severing any major arteries, of course. They were just heavy lacerations and abrasions from claws and seatbelts.
Well, “just” in relative terms, of course. And yes, I didn’t misspeak in saying “seatbelt” there, either.
Some perks of being the transportation guru of a team of Gold Stripes, evidently, was the ability to weaponize an automobile. We had found a wrecked SUV near them, the red of its hood nearly crumpled beyond recognition into the wall.
It was worth mentioning that said SUV was also silver on all the undamaged parts of its chassis.
Really, crashing a car…
For whom?
Well, Jericho…
But, why was he here?
Well.
Me.
“Hey, relax.”
I felt a hand rest upon my shoulder, and was brought back to the world without realizing I’d left.
“Sure, these kids were in pretty rough shape when you got here—” Jean-Baptiste conceded, eyeing the half-mummified Atlesians over himself as he did so. “But, you got here. You all got here. In one piece, too— Well, four pieces, technically, but you get what I mean!”
A squeeze. A shake. My head jerked around a bit, prompting me to frown at him. Did I really look that sullen, sir?
“Don’t look at me like this is coming out of nowhere. I haven’t known your mother for nearly as long as Juli, but I know when a Schwarz is trying to drive themselves crazy all the same.”
That was absolutely not the idea. Not at all. I’d been driven crazy once already this year, and that was more than enough for a lifetime!
“I’m afraid I don’t follow, Jean-san. Does it hurt to check up on them every so often throughout the day?”
“If that’s what you’re doing, no— Buuuuut it’s not.”
Wow.
That was a whole lot of confidence. From somebody who didn’t usually act like he could read minds, that was so jarringly plain that it took me aback. It wasn’t an accusation, or a guess, or anything but the truth to him.
It was like grass being green— he just knew what he saw.
O-Or, thought he did!
“It’s not?”
“It’s not.” He reiterated. Supremely confident. “What you’re doing is getting that faraway look in your eye that your family always gets when they’re trying to shoulder all the blame for something— Even when it’s a blameless situation to anybody that exists outside of their head.”
...Huh?
No, I was just…
“And not to mention, you’re fretting over these boys after we made it specifically your job to focus on our daughter— I’ve never heard of a Schwarz shirking work unless something was in their heads like mad.”
“Have you never heard of me, even though you’ve let me live in your house for a month?!”
Though, he was kind of right, if only due to me proving his point with the example I was going back towards.
After all, I was, of course, thinking of the washout that I’d become in high school. The one I arguably still was today, just with an actual vestige of something resembling work ethic.
But— You could definitely say I was “mentally compromised” in that time, going by what appeared to be Jean-Baptiste’s definition.
“I have, actually— And we both know that I’m not wrong, no matter how much you tell me otherwise.”
His hand drifted up from my shoulder—
And firmly placed itself upon my head.
“You can trust us, Luke. We’re adults— taking care of all of you kids is what we’re here to do.”
“........”
“All of you. Even the one who’s walking around like he’s fine and dandy.”
I…
My head was swimming.
I could hardly follow this. I knew that I should have been able to, but come on, man! How on earth can I not worry?! What the hell did he mean, “like” I was fine?!
I was fine!
In fact, I was about the only one who’s fine!
Jericho and Bright were both laid out and sleeping like bears in the Atlesian winter—
Giada was heavily wounded, missing, and had given a significant portion of her own blood to help me heal them—
For pete’s sake, even your own daughter was nearly swarmed and ganged up upon, after she had exhausted her Aura and Semblance to practically nothing!
Compared to all of them, you had me, the guy who had started the whole debacle and dragged her as well as the first two in after his stupid ass, walking around, fit as a fiddle, not even a scratch on him—
How in the world was that not “fine”, Jean-Baptiste Pressman? In comparison to them, I could go twelve rounds with Brennan Griese himself and come back for more!
In that condition, of course I’m going to worry! I have to worry about everyone!
...I want to worry about everyone.
I’ll get torn to pieces if I don’t.
This is who I am.
What’s wrong with that?
“Jean-san,” I asked quietly. “What do you mean by that?”
“Heh.”
There wasn’t much humor in the laugh, but, as I suspected, the man wasn’t yet showing any capability of being mean-spirited about it, either.
I really did want him to just spill it out, though.
“Luke.”
“Yeah?”
“You haven’t slept more than three hours at a time since you brought everyone home.”
TBC
Life happened. This isn't the full story, but a nice and meaty 8600-word chunk of it. It'll get finished though— Count on it. You all know I hate posting incomplete works.
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