Chapter Text
Yuu was tired.
Hurt, scared, mentally wrung out — the kind of exhaustion that seeped into your bones and set up permanent residence.
Who knew becoming the personal therapist for an entire student body would do that to you?
Certainly not Yuu.
Yuu wasn’t trained in psychology. Or sociology. Or conflict mediation. Or “how to de-escalate a magically gifted teenager having an emotional breakdown that could level a building.”
Yuu was an average farm kid.
Seven siblings. Four older, three younger. Which meant Yuu’s official family title had been Workhorse With Legs.
Go get this, Yuu.
Drive into town, Yuu.
Watch the little ones, Yuu.
Fix the fence, Yuu.
Could you get run over by a chariot and do a crow’s job for him, Yuu—
Okay. Maybe that last one was projecting.
Still.
Yuu had been through the ringer. They had the scars to prove it.
Large rounded scars along their side from Riddle’s rose bush tantrum.
Claw marks carved down their ribs courtesy of Leona.
A healthy fear of the mafia — and sucker scars because of the Tweels and Azul.
Veins still faintly tainted black across their back from Vil.
Burn marks littering their legs and feet from Idia.
Insomnia that clung like a curse, and thorn scars that never quite faded thanks to Malleus.
Yuu didn’t actually know how they’d survived this long.
Probably copious amounts of caffeine and pure spite.
But hey.
They were still alive.
So how bad could it be?
Apparently, that was the wrong mentality to have.
One day after school, Yuu dragged themself back to Ramshackle, fed Grim (who complained like he’d been personally wronged), and decided to treat themself.
A bath. Hot water. Steam. Silence.
And a bowl of ice cream balanced dangerously on the sink because self-care was a fragile, fleeting thing.
Yuu changed into a robe afterward — not scandalous by any means. It covered what it needed to.
It just… didn’t hide anything.
Not the scars.
Not the muscle built from years of farm work. (Yuu was secretly very proud of those. Tell no one.)
They stepped into the living room—
And froze.
Ace.
Deuce.
Standing there.
In Ramshackle.
Uninvited.
The boys spotted Yuu.
They looked at the robe.
They looked at the scars.
They looked back at Yuu.
And then they promptly freaked the fuck out.
For, in Yuu’s humble opinion—
Absolutely no reason.
…Maybe I should consider therapy.
They promptly freaked the fuck out.
For absolutely no reason.
Yuu blinked at them.
“…Why are you in my house.”
Neither answered.
Ace took one step forward.
Stopped.
Looked like he’d just walked into a crime scene.
“What,” he said flatly.
Deuce looked worse. Deuce looked like someone had just handed him a list of people to fight and every name on it was someone he respected.
“…Yuu,” Deuce said slowly, carefully. “Why do you look like that.”
Yuu glanced down at themself.
Robe. Legs. Arms.
Ice cream.
“I bathed?”
Ace made a strangled noise.
“No,” he snapped, pointing. “That.”
He gestured vaguely at Yuu’s torso like he couldn’t decide which injury offended him the most.
Yuu followed the motion.
Oh.
“The scars?” they offered helpfully.
“Yes, the scars,” Ace echoed, voice climbing an octave. “Why are there so many.”
Yuu shrugged.
“Well, it’s a magical school.”
That did not help.
Deuce stepped closer, eyes scanning. His gaze caught on the large rounded scars along Yuu’s side — the unmistakable pattern of constricting vines.
“…Those are from the rose bushes,” he said quietly.
“Riddle was having a moment,” Yuu replied. “It happens.”
“It does not,” Ace snapped.
His eyes moved lower — claw marks down their side.
“That’s Leona.”
“He was also having a moment.”
Ace’s eye twitched.
Deuce’s gaze flicked to the faint sucker scars along Yuu’s skin.
“…Octavinelle.”
“I mean,” Yuu said reasonably, “in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have let the tweels get that close.”
“In hindsight?!” Ace sputtered.
“And Azul was technically very polite about it,” Yuu added. “Businesslike.”
Ace made a sound that could only be described as internally combusting.
Deuce had gone very still looking at Yuu’s back — the faint veins still tainted black.
“That was Vil,” he said.
“Temporary,” Yuu assured him. “Mostly.”
“Mostly?” Ace repeated.
“Oh, and the burn marks are from Idia,” Yuu continued conversationally, shifting the ice cream to their other hand. “That one was kind of my fault. I was standing too close to the blast radius.”
“Blast radius,” Ace echoed weakly.
“And Malleus—” Yuu waved vaguely. “Thorns. Nightmares. Insomnia. You know. Fae stuff.”
Silence.
Heavy.
Awful silence.
Yuu looked between them.
“…Why do you both look like you’re about to commit crimes.”
Deuce moved first.
He grabbed Yuu’s wrist.
Not hard.
But firm.
“We’re going to the infirmary.”
Yuu stared at him.
“For what.”
“For that,” Ace burst out, gesturing again like he might actually vibrate out of his skin. “For all of that.”
“They’re healed,” Yuu said patiently. “See? Scar tissue. Closed wounds. Very efficient.”
Ace looked at them like they’d just said something deeply unhinged.
“Scars,” he said slowly, “are not normal.”
“They kind of are,” Yuu replied. “I grew up on a farm.”
“This is not ‘fell out of a tree’ energy,” Ace shot back. “This is ‘should have died at least twice’ energy.”
Deuce’s grip tightened slightly.
“At Night Raven,” he said through clenched teeth, “scars only stay if the injury was deep enough it could have killed you.”
Yuu blinked.
“Oh.”
Ace leaned in.
“Oh?”
“I thought the healing magic just… missed spots sometimes.”
Ace stared.
Deuce stared.
Yuu looked between them.
“…What.”
Ace ran both hands down his face.
“You almost died,” he said, voice cracking with something dangerously close to panic. “Multiple times.”
“Well,” Yuu said carefully, “when you put it like that it sounds dramatic.”
“It is dramatic!” Ace shouted.
Deuce tugged on Yuu’s arm again.
“Infirmary. Now.”
Yuu resisted purely on principle.
“I’m fine.”
“You are not fine.”
“I am upright and holding ice cream.”
“That is not the metric!”
Ace grabbed Yuu’s other arm.
Between the two of them, they started physically dragging Yuu toward the door.
“Guys,” Yuu protested, shuffling awkwardly in their robe, “I would at least like shoes—”
“No time!” Ace barked.
“For what?! I’m not actively bleeding!”
“That’s worse!” Deuce yelled.
Yuu let out a long sigh as they were hauled off the Ramshackle porch.
Honestly.
They leave two teenage boys alone for five minutes and suddenly everyone’s overreacting.
“…You know,” Yuu muttered, still clutching their melting ice cream, “if this is about the muscles, you could’ve just said you were impressed.”
Ace choked.
Deuce turned bright red.
And neither of them loosened their grip.
Ace stopped walking.
So abruptly that Yuu nearly collided with his back.
“…We were there,” he said.
Not loud.
Not yelling.
Worse.
Quiet.
Deuce’s grip on Yuu’s wrist didn’t loosen.
“We saw those fights,” Deuce added. His voice wasn’t panicked now. It was strained. “We were right there.”
Yuu blinked at them.
“Yeah? You were kind of hard to miss.”
“That’s not the point!” Ace snapped.
He turned, hands shaking in a way he was clearly trying to hide.
“We thought—” He cut himself off. Tried again. “You always got back up.”
“Well,” Yuu said reasonably, “lying down felt counterproductive.”
Ace made a frustrated noise.
“You were covered in blood!”
“Minor detail.”
“You passed out!”
“Briefly.”
“You stopped breathing!” Deuce burst out.
Yuu paused.
“…That was once.”
“Once is enough!” both boys shouted.
The night air went very still.
Yuu frowned slightly, like they were the ones being unreasonable here.
“I mean, you guys were also in danger,” Yuu pointed out. “It would’ve been rude to die first.”
Ace stared at them.
“That is not how that works.”
Deuce stepped closer again, his expression doing something dangerously close to breaking.
“We didn’t know it was that bad,” he said. “The healing magic fixed you. You were walking. You were talking. You were yelling at Grim.”
“I always yell at Grim.”
“That’s not comforting!” Ace shot back.
He ran a hand through his hair, pacing now.
“We thought you were just… tougher than us,” he admitted. “You don’t have magic. You don’t overblot. You just… take it.”
Yuu tilted their head.
“I do not ‘just take it.’ I complain constantly.”
“That’s not complaining,” Ace snapped. “That’s you making jokes.”
Yuu opened their mouth.
Closed it.
Oh.
Deuce swallowed hard, eyes flicking again to the rounded scars along Yuu’s side.
“When Riddle’s vines pierced you,” he said quietly, “you told us it was fine. You said you’d had worse from the goats on the farm.”
“I have,” Yuu said automatically.
Ace whipped around. “That is not reassuring!”
“And when Leona swiped you,” Deuce continued, voice tightening, “you laughed. You said you’d been kicked by a horse before.”
“Also true.”
“And Octavinelle—”
“Okay, in my defense,” Yuu cut in, “the tweels are very strong.”
“That’s not a defense!”
Ace stepped forward again, close enough that Yuu had to lean back slightly.
“You almost died,” he said, enunciating every word. “Every. Single. Time.”
Yuu considered that.
“Well,” they said slowly, “yes. That is generally how overblots work.”
Ace looked like he was about to scream into the void.
Deuce, however, looked devastated.
“We thought the worst injuries were ours,” he admitted. “We thought you just got knocked around.”
Yuu stared at him.
“People were overblotting,” they said gently. “Kind of the main event.”
“That doesn’t mean you were supposed to be collateral damage!” Ace exploded.
The word hung there.
Collateral.
Yuu’s humor flickered for just a second.
Then came back.
“I prefer ‘support class,’ actually.”
Ace made a strangled noise and grabbed Yuu’s shoulders.
“You are not an expendable tutorial character!”
Yuu let out a long suffering sigh.
“Unbelievable. Nearly die a few times and suddenly everyone’s dramatic.”
Neither of them laughed.
And that—
That’s when Yuu started to realize this might actually be serious.