Work Text:
Ashiya was acting strange. Stranger than usual, Abeno mentally corrects.
Even after knowing the other teenager for going on three years now, there was much that eluded him in terms of Ashiya Hanae’s behavioural patterns. Being spontaneous, not particularly bright, and having a tendency to wear his emotions on his sleeve, the raven tended to do things that came completely left-field and even Abeno was left as confused as everyone else when trying to decipher the other teen’s actions.
Abeno supposed that was what drew people and demons alike towards the ditzy employee; Ashiya, an atrocious liar who wouldn’t be able to lie convincingly enough to save his own life (literally), must be a breath of fresh air for those expecting knives in the back.
It was this Ashiya that was currently sending him looks, aiming at him a scowl he probably thought was menacing but had the same effect as a wet glaring kitten, coupled with gritted teeth and—deep, deep inside—some sort of anguish that Abeno honestly didn’t have the energy to decipher.
Knowing that it could be anything from Ashiya’s overactive imagination to, well, Ashiya’s overactive imagination, Abeno dismissed it from mind for the meanwhile, absently rolling a bouncy ball for Hairball to chase.
He could feel the burn of Ashiya’s look at the back of his head.
‘What a five-year-old,’ thought the Master of the Mononokean.
The Mononokean jingles a bell as though reading his mind.
--
Ashiya is devastated.
Fuzzy—his precious little Fuzzy Wuzzy—bounces right past him without a second glance and into Abeno’s lap, settling in and vibrating endearingly with happiness. Abeno, the two-faced love-stealing jerk, doesn’t even halt in reading his scroll as his fingers automatically reach to caress the fluffy demon’s fur. Fuzzy nuzzles his hand with a pleased look, affectionately adorable as always.
Forgotten on the side of the room, Ashiya valiantly tries to hide the dreadful feelings the sight causes in him—in the form of tears beading in his eyes, trembling lip, and unintimidating glare at the blonde—and fails miserably, because Abeno looks up with that preternatural ability to sense Ashiya’s distress and blinks, bewildered.
“What’s up with you?”
“Nothing!” Ashiya shouts back maturely.
He would never voice it out loud, never speak the truth and make it reality.
Because he was not jealous of Abeno at all.
--
Abeno can only stare at the raven who currently has his back to him. He’s pretty sure those were actual tears in the corner of Ashiya’s eyes and though the boy was prone to crying, these ones actually look distressed and, well. Distressed Ashiya is no good. For all sorts of reasons.
(It has nothing with how it makes something clench in his gut, something like anxiety, no, of course not)
He can't make heads or tails out of why Ashiya was relapsing back into his five-year-old self when he had made such grounds to reach the mental age of seven once they became seniors in high school. Hairball nudges him and he reflexively pats the demon before throwing its bouncy toy for it to fetch.
He hears Ashiya huff.
Investigating this, Abeno convinces himself, would take far too much time and was far too troublesome. He decides to wait until this, like most of Ashiya’s moods, passes too.
--
It didn’t pass.
Intuitively, he suspects the Mononokean’s involvement.
--
<Keep it up for a little longer> the Mononokean encourages its little demon kohai.
Fluff-Fluff blinks back and nods dutifully.
--
Ashiya didn't understand.
Usually, he and Fuzzy had a mutual understanding and affection for each other. Even early into their acquaintanceship, Ashiya had always been the first pick to play with Fuzzy, often finding out the little demon smuggled into his home from the Mononokean for a sleepover.
It made no sense why Fuzzy suddenly seemed to barely remember Ashiya existed as he cozied up to Abeno.
He doesn't remember doing anything that would have, perhaps, upset the little fluffball. If anyone would have cause to be upset over the past weeks, it would have been Abeno after that spectacular free-fall Ashiya had after he tripped over one of Fuzzy's toys. It had resulted in Ashiya crushing the other teen after sending them both sprawling to the ground and his bottom lip still throbs from the memory of pain, where it had smashed into Abeno's face.
Abeno had been red-faced, from rage likely, and had calmly threatened him with something only those knowledgeable in the Demon World would have been able to appreciate.
Ashiya respected Abeno, considered him one of his closest friends despite how surly the other teen was—saving each other's lives tends to make one forgive a lot of spats and childishness. Ashiya also knew that Fuzzy adored spending time with the other boy just as much as he did Ashiya.
However, never did Fuzzy downright ignore Ashiya for the blonde. Never did he play with Abeno without Ashiya also joining in, not when he was in the same vicinity.
And Abeno, the traitor, didn't seem to find anything wrong at all.
“Fine, I shall join you in your games,” Abeno acquiesces with a sigh, weak to Fuzzy’s wide-eyed imploring gaze that it has been weaponising for the past few minutes, and he gracefully gets to his feet. Fuzzy wags all three of its pompom tails in excitement at the announcement.
Ashiya crushes the worksheet he had been skimming in his hands.
Abeno, as usual, doesn't notice.
--
It was the exam period at school and as a diligent student, Abeno was studying—with Ashiya, having been cajoled (begged) to help the raven with his own studies. This was due to the other boy's wide-eyed insistence that surely Abeno wouldn't want him to fail and thus require remedial lessons, cutting back on time to be able to work his part-time job? He only needed help with one subject, really, he promised.
'It would make no difference if you were there or not,' Abeno could have said, heartlessly, but he privately admits that it wasn't quite true. Lots of their demon clients have grown fond of the strange, loud human that worked at the Mononokean and Ashiya's brand of intuition became invaluable once the boy gained the confidence to heed it.
He was still a moron, but one that would be missed by many should anything happen to him. Ashiya had a way about him that endeared others to him; Abeno would never admit to being one of the ones caught in his orbit. That way lay madness.
Seeing as this study assistance request was one of the few times over the past two weeks that Ashiya had stopped looking at him like Abeno owed him money—the irony of which was not lost on him—Abeno found himself capitulating far too easily for his liking; he resolved himself to make Ashiya's life harder in the future to make up for it.
However, Hairball was there and his mere presence distracted Ashiya due to his overwhelming affection for the little demon. Every few minutes, Ashiya would look up and smile warmly, dimpling, at the sight of the demon dozing in his sweater and that stupid smile was distracting him and Abeno should have never agreed to this.
Why did he agree to this? Surely friendship wasn't worth this?
Time passed almost comfortably, only the sounds of pencils scratching, pages turning and the occasional jingle from the Mononokean's bell as it wrote encouragements.
Of course, trouble happened during their assigned break-time.
Ashiya had made for the direction of Hairball, a toy already in hand, only for Hairball to blink awake and bound away from the other boy to the direction of Abeno.
“Fuzzy! Why…?” Ashiya drops to his knees, trembling, heartbroken and confused, and Hairball pauses, glances back at him hesitantly—clearly wavering in its resolve. The Mononokean jingles its chime almost menacingly and Hairball shakes itself, resolutely continuing to bounce towards Abeno.
Abeno warily accepts the playful headbutt given to him, can feel a headache forming already, and braces himself.
"What have you been doing to my precious Fuzzy?!"
Everyone in the Mononokean was treated the sight of Ashiya finally snapping. All of these years and it wasn't threats to his life or the danger of being eaten by demons that caused him to break, but this—whatever this was. It would have been hilarious if not for the fact that the teen—was he really 18?—looked genuinely distraught and shaken. But Abeno wouldn't be Abeno if he let that sort of baseless accusation go.
"And what, pray tell, do you think I've been doing?" Abeno's eye twitches, annoyance heavy in his tone.
"You know what you're doing!" Ashiya insists.
A valiant defense from a man-child who didn't understand what was going on himself, thought Abeno uncharitably.
"I have no idea what goes on in that five-year-old mind of yours so either tell me or forever be silenced," he warns, hand already posed to give his utterly ridiculous best friend a well-deserved smack around the head. He doubts Fujiwara had to deal with this version of Ashiya in her friendship with the boy, which was frankly unfair.
Meanwhile, curiously, Hairball and the Mononokean were both tuned into the argument with an air of…two masterminds finally seeing the end of their plot. Abeno blinks. Huh.
Ashiya doesn't seem to notice and continues, "You must have done something! Did you bribe Fuzzy? Threaten? Blackmail? I can't think of any other reason Fuzzy would be acting the way he is!"
What sort of yakuza-esque influence did Ashiya think he had? If Abeno rolled his eyes any harder, he'd injure his skull, so he sets his sight instead on the real criminals, who were innocently staying out of the way.
"Well? What do you have to say for yourselves?" The blonde raises an imperious eyebrow. Hairball hunkers down, shifting guiltily but its eyes remained determined. The Mononokean draws an utterly infuriating 'shrug' emoji, the slash of its smile mocking.
Ashiya tears up. "Fuzzy doesn't love me anymore! Fuzzy likes, likes you more now!"
“Hah?” Abeno swings around to face him again, more incredulous than annoyed now. “How is it even possible for Hairball to like anyone else more than you, idiot!”
“B-but…!” Ashiya sniffs, the dramatic idiot, and that is it.
“Don’t you realize that everyone here at the Mononokean loves you, you moron?!”
Dead silence follows. It's charged with the kind of tension which told Abeno that more than he ever wanted to be known was being discovered by the last person he ever wanted it to be discovered by.
Ashiya is gaping.
The Mononokean helpfully tinkles its bell to break the silence.
“Eh? Did you just…” mumbles the bane of his entire life, astonished.
“Oh my God…!” Abeno covers his face with both hands in despair, backs against a wall, and slides down slowly in defeat. The one time Ashiya chooses to be astute…! The one time he chooses not to be an oblivious idiot…!
<Just admit it already, Itsuki> the Mononokean chimes, making a smug emoji at the end of its sentence.
Abeno groans when Ashiya looks between the Mononokean and him, an uncertain expression on his face.
"Wait…what?"
Hairball chooses that moment to trot to Ashiya, blinking up large purple eyes in apparent apology as he nuzzles the boy's ankle, before nudging him in the direction of the blonde master of the Mononokean who was being played by his employees. Abeno doesn't remove his hands from his face nor leave his spot against the wall. If he prays very hard, maybe his entire confession would be forgotten and he can continue living without feeling embarrassed.
He hears footsteps approach him almost cautiously before he feels a warm body sliding next to his, assuming the same position that he had against the wall. Against his will, Abeno glances at his friend sitting beside him, who was looking as though he had an epiphany. Abeno blames the Mononokean and is already thinking up ways to cover up the situation.
But then Ashiya ducks his head and nervously tucks a lock of his hair behind his ear and that, that probably shouldn’t be as attractive as Abeno finds it.
“Ah…well, I guess I don’t mind sharing Fuzzy if it’s Abeno-san…” murmurs Ashiya to himself, avoiding his gaze.
In a fit of insanity, he says without thinking, “It’s Haruitsuki.”
There was a world of implications behind that statement, none of which Abeno wanted to address, ever.
Abeno feels like dying, he’s so mortified and ashamed at himself right now. Maybe it wouldn't be too late to disappear into nothingness and become another demon folktale for the underworld to gossip about.
But Ashiya—Hanae—slowly, hesitantly, smiles as bright as the rising sun and Abeno has to control the urge to lock him away in the Mononokean forever, because that smile could do terrible things to people and, evidently, Hanae was too precious to the Mononokean group to be clamoured after like that.
Shit, did he really just think that?
“Haruitsuki.”
Abeno breathes in deeply to calm the flutter in his veins and nods decisively.
“Yeah,” is all that ends up coming out of his mouth, slightly breathlessly, and that wasn't supposed to happen. He prays for death.
Hairball jubilantly bounces around and the Mononokean spells out celebratory phrases, a merry tinkle in the air from the bell.
--
Epilogue
<Why don’t you just take Hanae as your mistress?>
Abeno spits out the tea he was in the middle of drinking.
Ashiya, obliviously, plays with Fuzzy without a care in the world.
All is peaceful in the Mononokean.
Epilogue 2 – Several years later
“I heard the master of the Mononokean took a human as his mistress!” was word on the grapevine.
(“I’m not a mistress!!!!” screams Hanae petulantly, flushed red. Itsuki absently tugs his embarrassed ‘mistress’ back into his lap and cards his fingers through his hair to calm him down; Hanae has been reckless with his health lately and required more sleep).
End