They’d been walking in silence too long.

Gin led the way, steady again but not rushing. He hadn’t explained exactly how he’d figured out Sereph’s path—only that Ain had been “helpful for once” and something in the blood patterns, the residual energy, had aligned with Sereph’s trail. Whatever that meant, Yves didn’t ask.

They passed through long, curving hallways with no doors. The light was strange—dim but shifting, as if the castle didn’t want them seeing too clearly. And even though none of them spoke, their footsteps weren’t the only ones echoing.

It was about ten minutes in when Yves—who had been quiet far too long—cleared his throat.

“So…” he began.

Gin didn’t look back. Ain flicked an ear but otherwise didn’t react.

Yves took that as permission to continue. “I’ve been thinking. About nicknames.”

No one stopped him. Big mistake.

“I feel like Juno should have one. You know, a nickname,” Yves began suddenly, walking a little faster to catch up with Gin. “Something cool. Something affectionate. But not, like… too affectionate. Not weird. I don’t wanna be that guy.”

Still no response.

“But, like… she saved my life. And I’m not just gonna go around calling her ‘hey you’ forever. That’s rude. And cowardly. And I mean—okay, yes—I’m a little cowardly, but not in that way.”

Ain, walking behind him, turned his head with glacial slowness. “Please,” he said, his voice a lazy drawl full of warning. “Go on. I’m enthralled.”

Yves took a breath, puffed up his chest, and pressed forward. “So I was thinking. French. You know, because that’s my heritage—on my mother’s side. It feels… elegant. Romantic. Old-world charm, that kind of thing.”

Gin made a sound. A very faint exhale.

“I tried a few in my head. Like… chouquette. That’s like a little puff pastry. Cute, right? Light, sweet.”

Ain’s expression twisted into something between pity and horror. “You were going to name her after something that sounds like that?”

Yves’s smile faltered. “What is wrong with it?”

“It’s the sound a baby makes before choking on its own spit.”

Yves looked offended. “Fine. That one’s out. I tried bijou, too. It means jewel.”

Ain barked a single cruel laugh. “Ah yes, nothing says ‘casual respect’ like calling your friend a decorative trinket small enough to lose down a drain.”

Even Gin’s shoulders moved the tiniest bit. A suppressed laugh, or maybe a spasm of secondhand embarrassment.

Yves pressed on like a hero through enemy fire. “Okay, yes, maybe some of them sound strange when you say them out loud, but I landed on one that works.”

“Oh, this should be riveting,” Ain purred.

Yves raised a finger dramatically. “Ma chérie.”

Silence.

Ain turned to look at him, very slowly, like he had just witnessed a car accident happening in slow motion. His brows furrowed, nose wrinkled, and his lip curled into the kind of expression usually reserved for stepping in something truly foul.

“You did not just say that.”

Yves rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly sheepish. “I mean… it just slipped out when I thought about her. Not in a weird way! Just—it has a nice ring to it. Like ‘You okay, ma chérie?’ or ‘Wait here, ma chérie, I’ll handle the giant hellbeast.’ Pretty dashing. Right?”

Ain physically recoiled, tail flicking like he’d been splashed with something toxic. “You absolute... degenerate.”

“What?!” Yves’s voice pitched. “It’s sweet!”

Ain flicked his tail with a mocking smirk. “It’s what desperate husbands say when they’ve been married for thirty years and are trying to bribe their wives back into affection.”

Yves gasped, hand on his chest like he’d been insulted personally. “Thirty years?! Thirty?! Who’s to say I won’t be the perfect, charming husband forever? You’re just jealous!”

Ain threw his head back and laughed. “You, the perfect husband! I can’t wait to see you try that on Juno’s face.”

Yves’s cheeks flushed hotter than the torches lining the corridor. He stamped a foot. “Fine! I’ll prove you wrong when we find her. We’ll see if she doesn’t love it!”

Ain absolutely howled. It started as a snort, then built into full-on laughter that bounced down the corridor, unbothered by the castle’s oppressive quiet. He nearly tripped over his own paws mid-stride, wheezing.

“Oh—oh my god—‘Ma chérie’!” he gasped between cackles, stumbling to keep up with Yves.

Yves turned bright red, flailing his arms like he might physically swat the laughter out of the air. “Shut up! Shut up! You don’t understand romance! You’re—! You’re a cat!”

Ain was in tears now, tail lashing with every wheeze. “I’m gonna die. Gin, he’s going to call her that with a straight face! I need to see it—please, I need to live long enough for that.”

Gin didn’t turn around, but his silence was heavy with disapproval. Or suffering. Possibly both.

Yves huffed, his pride bruised but not defeated. “There’s a limit, you know. This isn’t friendship—it’s bullying. And you’re the worst bully I’ve ever known.”

Ain, wheezing now, actually stumbled a step from laughing. “Friendship? Friendship?” he choked out between gasps. “Who told you we were friends?”

Yves’s mouth dropped open in pure offense.

“I literally left you here to die,” Ain added between breathless chuckles. “That should’ve been your first clue.”

“You—! You came back!” Yves shrieked.

Ain smirked, fangs flashing. “I was bored.”

Yves opened his mouth to reply—but then he caught his reflection in a warped patch of metal plating along the corridor wall.

“…Okay, if she hates the nickname, fine,” he muttered, adjusting a lock of hair, “but I mean—look at me. I’m still objectively a gift.”

Ain barked another laugh. “Oh, no. Not again.”

His face was irritatingly pretty. A sharply cut jawline led up to high cheekbones dusted with fading color, while his nose—straight with a faint upward lift at the tip—made him look like he belonged on the cover of some painfully expensive cologne bottle. His blue eyes, bright and unnervingly warm even now, were set beneath strong, expressive brows. They shifted as he tilted his head, studying the damage.

A smear of dried blood at his hairline.

He ran his fingers through his hair—naturally blonde, but streaked in black dye, creating stripes that layered messily over each other. The top layer was choppy, tousled from running and sweat, but the longer strands underneath framed his neck with a kind of low-effort rebellion.

He scowled slightly, fixing the parts that stuck out. “He could’ve ruined me,” he muttered. “That greasy bastard.”

Ain, still snickering under his breath, raised a brow. “Sereph?”

Yves gestured wildly. “Yes! I mean, did you see his hands? Like he moisturizes with motor oil. They’re gross!”

He leaned closer to the reflection, smoothing down a particularly stubborn strand of hair.

“Do you know how hard it is to get black dye to stick just right in blonde hair?” he said, dead serious. “Not all of it, of course. I like the contrast. Just these stripes here—see? Strategic. Took forever to section properly. And the undertones, you can't rush them or it turns green. Green, Ain. It could’ve looked like mold.”

“It kind of does,” Ain murmured, deadpan.

Yves ignored him and continued adjusting the loose, layered fall of his dyed-black strands over the pale-blonde beneath, flicking one piece for effect. “No, no—this is art. The messy part is intentional. You wouldn’t understand. You’ve got fur.”

“I groom,” Ain replied stiffly.

“Oh good, I’ll sleep tonight knowing that.”

A few steps ahead, Gin finally slowed. He didn’t turn, but the subtle shift in his shoulders was enough to pull Yves out of his mirror moment. After a pause, Gin turned around.

He glanced Yves up and down, the single eye narrowing in mild disapproval. “You’ve got a… strange appearance,” he said, voice flat. “That hair, the clothes, and those piercings… What is any of that?”

“It’s called personal style, dude. Eclectic. Avant-garde. You should try it sometime.”

Gin’s lip twitched. “I prefer my fashions a little less… conspicuous.”

Ain laughed, tail flicking. “Oh please, Grandpa. You died in, what, the ‘80s? Your fashion opinions fossilized with your corpse.”

Yves’s eyes went wide, jaw dropping. “Wait… you died in the ‘80s?”

Ain gave a languid stretch. “Yep.”

Yves staggered back a step, staring at Gin in genuine shock. “So you’re—what—like sixty? Seventy?”

Gin stopped in his tracks. His shoulders tensed, slowly rising like a stormcloud building over the horizon. He turned, his eye narrowing with a dangerous glint.

“Shut up,” he said, low and sharp as a blade.

But Yves, undeterred and utterly delighted, grinned wide. “Oh my god. You are like a grumpy grandpa. You even do the scowl! Do you also yell at birds and collect newspapers in plastic bags? Should I start calling you Pépé Gin?”

Gin’s glare deepened.

Yves turned to Ain, eyes gleaming with mischief. “I bet he listens to jazz on cassette tapes. No, wait—vinyl. He definitely owns a record player and says stuff like ‘music was real back then.’”

“Pfft,” Ain chuckled, flicking his tail. “Next he’ll start talking about how demons had manners in his day.”

“Oh my god, yes,” Yves said, voice rising in faux reverence. “Back when Hell had standards.”

Gin’s voice came again, even flatter now. “I said shut up.”

But Yves had fully committed. He raised his hands dramatically, pacing a step behind Gin like a performer mid-monologue. “Back in my day, demons wore full suits and fedora hats! And if you wanted to curse someone, you had to write it in Latin!”

Ain snorted.

Yves went on, ignoring the death glare from up ahead. “And let’s not forget, Juno’s skirt probably gave Gin a heart attack. Like, he probably saw it and thought—”

BOOM.