Spring. Flowers. Gifts. II

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Feeling a light slapping on his cheek, Gabriel was forced to wake up from his sleep. 

Extremely annoyed, Gabriel adamantly refused to acknowledge it. He just prevented himself from opening his eyes, trying to get back into his slumber while doing his hardest to pay no heed to the disturbance. If he ignored it, it would go away he said to himself. Though even he didn’t fully believe this statement, he was just delaying the inevitable.

To his surprise though, the slapping stopped.

Instead, a finger landed on his cheek, poking it stick before trailing up his cheekbone to his ear. His earlobe was pinched up, a hot breath flirtatiously huffing onto his sensitive that seemed to scale his skin red— momentarily that is.

Because any sensual atmosphere disappeared as the other took a huge breath and let out a bellow right into his innocent eardrum.

“GAAAAAABIIIIIII!” The voice screamed, “Hey Gabi, get uuuuup~! I know you are awake. pretending won’t work with me, my dear Gabi.”

It was an awfully frivolous voice that belonged to a man, full to the brim with mischief as his slender fingers also gapped his cheeks as they played with his face.

However, Gabriel still refused to respond, stubbornly attempting to fake his descent into dreamland. He had very little sleep for the past few weeks and desperately wanted to catch up— he was not going to let the one pull that opportunity away from him. Not today.

“Hmph,” squeezing his cheeks, the man smiled as he spoke words that shook the duke to his very core, “Gabi, If you don’t wake up, I’m going to go to your dear lady mother and request her to close down all your research labs and barricade the libraries. Then you can sleep all you want, no?”

With such a threat, Gabriel resentfully opened his eyes.

Staring straight ahead, the first thing he saw was a pair of fancy high heels that were surrounded by scattered scrolls and papers. He also saw the bi-products of his research— empty bottles, failed magic charms, and magic crystals— all un-neatly laying on the floor together with the paper.

And yes, he was indeed lying down on the cold hard floor at the moment.

And no, it was not comfortable. However, he was so tired that he felt he would cross over to the afterlife before he got to his bed so it had to do.

Awake now, Gabriel adjusted his golden glasses that were slipping off his nose as he called out to the disturbance in his usual dull tone, “....Lu…..ci……el...”

It was the man who was currently forcing him to wake up, a dear friend of his that had ascended the ranks and now was in charge of some frankly shady stuff. This was the only person he knew that would wear such shoes and speak in such a tone— especially to a Duke of the angel race.

Luciel — no last name.

Hearing his name called in such lovely disgust, Luciel giggled slowly as he dropped down to meet with Gabriel’s stone face. He smiled, taking utter joy at the air of dissatisfaction that hang around the other's face, “Come on, at least be a little excited, I dropped by early this time and this is what I get for a welcome? Our Gabi is a really bad host isn’t he?”

“.....Well…. what did you….. expect…. after..... waking… me….up… like….this….” Gabriel blinked slowly as he did his best to become more awake, gazing at Luciel as he rubbed his eyes. “Since…. You did…… this…… at least….. take me…… to the….. beeeed….”

“Yes, yes, I am extremely sorry for waking up our great Duke but I have some stuff I need to discuss,” purred Luciel with great sarcasm as he returned Gabriel’s stare.

The young man was now grinning even wider at the sleeping beauty, showing off his white teeth in an insolent manner. Because of the grin, his thin snake-like blue eyes were bent into crescents, watching the other in playful Schadenfreude. His skin was very pale as if all his blood was drained— it was also covered with brown-ish moles that added to his somewhat exotic appearance. His long rose-white hair was currently draping over his shoulders onto the floor, although it was clearly styled, such a small thing could not hide its unruly nature. It could also be seen that the man was quite tall. If he wasn’t squatting right now, he would have reached about a meter-nine and towered over the comparatively little duke— not to mention he was wearing quite aggressive heels.

“But that aside, I told you not to go overboard with the research while I’m gone, Gabi. Look, no one was here to tell you off for sleeping in random places… and you know very well the servants won’t do anything about it since you forbade them to,” continued Luciel as he picked up the papers, pens, and other objects that were messily scattered on the floor and put them into their appropriate places with practiced moves. This messy office quickly turned extremely neat and organized: Luciel was an expert in cleaning up the duke's messes. “My dear Gabi, I’m truly worried that one of these days you are going to do this outside and get kidnapped because of this.”

“... you... are….. back?” squeezed out Gabriel as he attempted to push himself off the ground but failed, shakily flopping back onto the floor like a dead fish. Although that attempt failed, because of it, it could at least be seen that Duke had become more awake. “Since when?”

Luciel froze for a second before laughing, “Gabi we just went over this, I just got back.”

he then turned to Gabriel, smiling from ear to ear with a slightly stupid expression that resembled a Samoyed, “Now tell me, dear Gabi. tell me, did you miss me~”

Gazing at that smile for a good couple of seconds, Gabriel’s expression loosened lightly. It was not quite a smile, but his mood was visibly delightful as he gave back a sleepy nod.

“Now this is a much better welcome~” purred Luciel as if that small nod was the biggest fanfare to his arrival in the world. While beaming in joy, he lightly picked up Gabriel with one hand and leaned him on his chest, knowing too well how long it would take for Gabriel to be able to walk at a proper pace. 

As they left the room, Luciel waved and winked to the servants as he spoke with the man who threatened to fall asleep again in his hold. “So? Made any breakthroughs? You said that you will fix my weapons by the time I’m back but I don’t see it.”

Gabriel shook his head.

“Gabi but you promised me~” gasped Luciel with his free hand over his lips.

Gabriel could only give him a half-hearted shrug. “....Artifact…. aren’t my expertise. I still don’t understand…. Why….. won’t you…... ask Maki—“

“Nope,” cut off Luciel, “that’s not possible. Not possible at all.”

“?” Gabriel tilted his head. 

“Ah— you wouldn’t have heard because you were probably locked in your lab or room the entire time,” said Luciel as he scrunched up his face in thought, “Maki —that bastard— how can I say this….. he’s a little cross with me? The whole story is a bit of a mess but in conclusion, our recent mission ended up with me pretending to throw his precious and favorite sword off a cliff. Now he’s so mad that he won’t let me near him nor his smithy… that’s why I asked you to fix my weapons instead.”

“...You threw it….. for real….. didn’t you.”

Luciel didn’t even try to deny it as he grinned, “You bet I did, you should have seen his face. I had the best laugh I had in years!”

Gabriel pursed his lips in disappointment, “It seems I missed something fun,”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take you next time I can. This time it was some top secret stuff again so we couldn’t just take the grand duke of the avem dukedom with us,” giggled Luciel as he winked at Gabriel.

With his words, gloom disappeared off Gabriel’s face as he made a victory sign with his fingers, “but since you threw it off and he lost his cool, it’s our win again…. Maki has nothing on our aged but devilishly handsome gentlemen’s alliance….”

“You said it ahahahaha!” In response to his cute statement, a boisterous laugh rang out from Luciel as it slowly died into a low-energy chuckle. “But….. there is a tiiiiiny litttleeee miiiiiniscule hiccup though.” 

“….Hmmmmm?”

Luciel licked his lips playfully with his long snake tongue as he dropped a bomb, “I was going to go down and retrieve the sword and play the whole thing off for laughs but— it wasn’t there when I went down. Gabi……. I lost it.”

Gabriel gazed toward Luciel with his mouth slightly agape.

“Yes Gabriel, this is not a joke. I lost his precious baby. And I mean like REALLY lost it. I mean— it’s fucking gone.”

“....” Gabriel recovered as the look in his eyes turned complicated, forming the most coherent sentence so far in their conversation “Lulu, aren’t you extremely fucked then?”

Luciel gave a forced smile.”fufufu…. It appears so.”

“For now, elaborate.”

Nodding, Luciel dramatically placed his hand over his forehead as he got into the mood for the retelling of his sob story, “Ah it is fresh on my mind, that fateful day. It was so foggy that afternoon, you couldn’t see more than twenty meters in front of you. As usual, I and that bitch were going through our back and forth when he said something that reeeeeaally irked me— like super irked. Because of my big brain, I figured that the best solution to this would be to assert my dominance over him to win the argument, which I did by pretending to throw his sword off a cliff. Ah, and As you already know, in the end, I actually threw it as I felt it would be more impactful~”

Gabriel nodded, “I figured as much, go on.”

“Well, before we do continue, guess what was at the bottom of the cliff.” 

Gabriel thought for a second, “A river?” 

This was the only reason he would have thought the other lost it.

“Ding~! Right on the money as always my dear Gabi,” giggled Luciel as he snapped his fingers, “There was indeed a river at the bottom of the cliff, one that just happened to flow into the ocean. Thus, in a tragic course of events, the sword was lost to the bowels of Poseidon’s bathtub after my little show.”

Gabriel sighed lightly. “How are you still alive?”

“Ah there is a simple reason,” hummed Luciel, “Just like you, when this happened Maki also assumed that I was joking and was mad at me ‘keeping’ his favorite sword and only forbade me to come within his line of sight. However — and this is the reason I came back so soon — a few days ago Maki discovered that I did indeed lose the sword, and has sworn to have my head go on one of the pikes around his smithy.”

“…I see…...” Gabriel patted Luciel’s shoulder in pity after a moment of silence, “....Worry not….. I will build you a nice grave…. and make sure to offer alcohol every time I’m free.”

To that unexpected response, Luciel’s face went blank.

“If our all-powerful Maki….. wants you dead….. this poor mage can do nothing but wish for your passing to be painless,” explained Gabriel as he put his hands together in prayer, treating Luciel as if he was already waving to him from the afterlife. 

Luciel’s expression scrunched up.

After a moment of thinking, his brows twisted mournfully as if he made up his mind to do something incredibly difficult. “Gabi... if that is the case I have no other choice…..”

“Oh my, it’s going to be hard for me but— I’m afraid I will have to take you down to the grave with me,” sniffed Luciel as he wiped his non-existent tears, the determination in his movements the same determination as a father who killed himself after killing his sinful son.

He put his hand in front of him, copying the prayer stance Gabriel gave him mere seconds ago, “This is tragic, and it will truly break my heart to do this but I cannot bear to leave you alone in this world without my incredibly charismatic and handsome self. You will suffer too much without my awesome presence. Ah and don’t worry, I will get our graves done beforehand, it will be hard but I can also arrange for your mother to bring us offerings of sweets and alcohol to the afterlife as well.”

Gabriel gazed at Luciel who was fake-crying as the gears in his little head turned to overdrive.

Eventually, he opened his mouth with.

“... If that is the case, come hide at my place….. I recently made some upgrades on our hideout….He won’t find you there…..meanwhile I’ll look for the sword. Even if Maki tries anything on me…. I can run away faster than he can chase,” said the deadpan Gabriel with a thumbs up, completely changing his tune.

Luciel made a moved expression as if he did not threaten to kill the other just moments ago, “really?”

Gabriel nodded.

“!!!” Luciel put a hand over his mouth before rubbing his cheek in Gabriel’s fluffy hair. “Oh, I’m soo moved. *sniff* I can always count on you Gabi~”

After completely turning the others' hair into a chaotic mess, Luciel changed topics.

“But my dear Gabi, you really have nothing to show me?” He complained as his expression returned to a snake-like grin, “too bad then, I had a surprise prepared for you but since you have nothing for me, I have no reason to give it to you. I’m a firm believer in equivalent exchange, you know~“

Gabriel raised his eyes in interest as he fixed his hair. “What is the value of the surprise?” 

Luciel looked at him in a provocative manner with narrowed eyes. “The value of it is in your soul.”

“ I have to guess…” murmured Gabriel as he saw the intent of the other.

“Of course.” Giggled Luciel.

Gabriel helplessly exhaled through his nose as he leaned back in thought.

What Luciel was asking him to do was to basically gamble. You see, his gifts could usually be put into two categories: utterly useless garbage or an amazing treasure. He would then ask for a trade no matter it’s quality. The problem is if he didn’t like what was presented he would switch out the gift to a shitty one if it was indeed good. Of course, he doesn’t do it always but ever since he did it once on a whim, about half of his gifts were presented in this manner. In a way, it was a little game created in between them— he did it to Luciel sometimes too.

Gabriel looked at the smiling snake of a man, but his face gave away nothing. With a small internal click of the tongue, Gabriel’s curiosity won over as he took out a thin palm-long bottle of glowing rainbow liquid and shook it in front of the others face, “this mana potion... Exchange for the gift.”

“?!?!?” Audibly gasping, Luciel gawked at the potion as his curved eyes sparkled with the same light one would use if they met their true love. ”Ahh, Gabi you really know what I like don’t you? Oh my, I can smell the mana quality from here. What did you use to make it?”

“....Ground unicorn horn.” Spoke Gabriel with some sadness as he played with the bottle. This was one of the more valuable mana potions he had and it took him forever to make, thus he was hesitant to give it away. But his curiosity for Luciel’s gift trumped his hesitation, he was afraid if he was stingy Luciel would keep the gift and give him something trashy instead.

With the source known, Luciel became even more intoxicated as he cupped his flushing red cheek. “A mana potion made from a higher being! Oh my, no wonder it smells so delectable, Gabi, you truly spoil me! Can I look at it?”

As Gabriel nodded, Luciel swiped the potion from his hand without missing a beat, “what is the surprise then?”

“Hmm?” Luciel raised his brow, “you're agreeing to trade this then?”

Gabriel nodded.

“I see, the deal is done then~! The surprise is in my pocket.” Beamed Luciel as all his attention was focused on the potion.

Seeing as Luciel was too preoccupied to give it to him, Gabriel investigated the pocket himself and fished out a small box. He brought it up to his eyes, turning it from side to side inquisitively as Luciel did with the potion. The box was made of beautifully decorated wood and gold. Giving off both a rustic and elegant atmosphere.

“....?” Intently staring at the small box, his tone heightened in anticipation  “This is?” 

Sadly, as Luciel had found a new ‘lover’, he had no attention to spare for Gabriel. 

Seeing him giggling like a fool to the bottle, being on the edge of kissing it, the duke decided not to pay heed to his annoying antics as he opened the lid of the case himself to see what was inside.

And the content was—

A seed?

“?????????” Gabriel’s brain went into a state of anarchy as he couldn’t comprehend this development.

After the shock, disappointment, and anger flooded in as the realization of the type of gift he got set in. Turning to Luciel, Gabriel opened his mouth to try to talk his way into getting the potion back into his grasp only to be hit with another shocking event— one that was miles much more shocking than the first.

You see, the potion he was hoping to retrieve was stuck upside down in between Luciel’s teeth. The timing of Gabriel’s gaze came just in time to see the last drops of the colorful potion flow into the other's mouth and disappear forever in his gullet.

Sensing the eyes filled with horror piercing his skin, Luciel shot the other a grin with the empty bottle still in his teeth. That very punchable pleased expression told Gabriel that the other already anticipated his response to the gift.

“....” 

Not paying heed to the deadpan duke's little breakdown, Luciel wiped his mouth and nonchalantly swallowed the potion bottle with one gulp. “Waaaahh…. that was wonderful~ I haven’t had mana of that quality in ages. And you made it black avarice flavored as well, Gabi thanks~”

Gabriel took a breath to regain his calm, “A seed?”

“Yes.” Snickered Luciel with curved eyes.

Gabriel leaned his temple on the tips of his fingers, “type?”

“Apple.”

“..... is there anything else for this surprise?” Don’t tell him that he wasted such a spectacular mana potion on an apple seed.

Luci stroked his chin as if he remembered something important. “Well, there are some cakes and sweets baked in the finest of bakeries in the empire.”

Gabriel immediately regained vigor, “Really? Where are they?”

“The journey was long so I ate them.” 

“......” Gabriel took another deep breath to avoid falling into utter depression. “What about... equivalent exchange?”

“What a stupid question,” smirked Luciel, “I only use it when it benefits me, of course.” 

“.....................................”

Watching the stone faced man deflate at a visible rate, Luciel couldn’t hold back the explosive laughter that was collecting at the back of his throat for the entire exchange. At one point, his laugh increased to such hysteria that he forgot to pay attention to his steps, tripping over his own feet and forcing the two of them to splat onto the floor without a single iota of warning.

Flopping on the floor, Luciel made a stupidly stunned expression before breaking out into an even more roaring laugh, wiping the tears that formed from his outburst.

Meanwhile, the other who got unfairly dumped onto the ground surprisingly regained some vigor. Because of the sudden movement, his glasses fell off his nose and now his naked eyes were staring at the seed with slight rapacity.

Without his glasses, although the world was now an indistinguishable blur, he was able to see the mana flowing all around him.

And the seed— it was overflowing with mana that was incredibly pure. It was like the seeds testa was an almost bursting dam for it.

“.... This is not an apple seed,” sighed a relieved Gabriel as he felt around for his glasses.

“Obviously,” nodded Luciel, frowning slightly as he rubbed his jaw that was now aching from laughing too much. “You really thought I would make such a commotion for an apple seed?”

“....” Gabriel moved his blinded eyes in the direction of Luciel, his judging gaze giving the other all the answers he needed.

“You can at least deny it, you know.” Tsked Luciel as he helped Gabriel locate his glasses and handed it to him.

“You’ve made bigger deals… out of smaller things.” Said Gabriel as he put them on, “So... what is it?”

Making a small hum, Luciel rolled onto his back as he casually and smirked, “This? Oh, nothing much……. it’s just an unknown seed— the only thing that can be considered special about it is that it was watered a bit in the diluted sap of the fountain of youth?”

“!!!” Gabriel became visibly shaken as his forever half closed eyes widened, “As in the Yggdrasil’s fountain of youth? The Holy Mother Tree Yggdrasil, Godly Tree of Elderwood and the parent of all nature?”

This wasn’t a joking matter. Anything from the Yggdrasil was absolutely priceless— and that was in the context of things such as flakes of its bark or bits of its leaves. But the fountain of youth— it was like the Yggdrasil’s heart! Forget priceless, this was something that was nigh impossible to get!

“Why are you so surprised? It’s only a seed, no need to be dramatic,” lampooned Luciel as he reached out for the case Gabriel was holding in fingers that shook like autumn leaves, “since you don’t like it, I’ll look for something else that meets our great dukes standards.”

Gabriel hid the seed behind himself in a panic, “you’re being serious?”

“Hmm?” Luciel stroked his chin, “it might be a bit hard but I think I have something—“

“I’m talking about the seed.” snapped Gabriel.

Gabriel was in quite a state of agitation, but Luciel shut up in this exact moment, taking his sweet time to answer his query.

He got up slowly, stretching his back as he ran his hand through his long hair to get it into some order. Only when he felt Gabriel was about to jump up and strangle him by the neck did he open his mouth, “Not a word of falsehood, my dear Gabi. We had a mission in Elderwood this time and I found this while having some fun in their black market. I smelled how good the mana quality was on it and thought I would bring a nice souvenir for the cute duke at home. Ah and before you ask— I did get it appraised. It’s indisputably been in contact with the fountain of youth, I can even show you a certificate if you want.”

Once the confirmation came through, Gabriel choked on his spit and started coughing. When he regained some stability, he breathed out as he tried to wrap his head completely around what he had received. “H-holy Goddess above…. I-I’ve been negotiating with them for years... they never even let me... bring up the fountain of youth in conversation. H-how?”

“Well there is a simple answer,” purred Luciel with a finger placed over his curved lips, “Unlike you who sits on your ass the whole day, I - an incredibly handsome and competent socialite - actually have some good connections, my dear. And of course you are not going be able make any headway by going through those dumb as logs Elderwood royals, that was incredibly stupid from your side. You have to think outside the box a bit Gabi, the only way to get these types of things is by going through the underbelly.”

Gabriel nodded seriously at the advice and he buried his chin in his fingers for a moment.  Making up his mind, Gabriel snapped his fingers.

This was not a communicative gesture as one would expect though, as after a chime of his bell earrings , a mountain of glowing potions ended up in Gabriel’s arms. Not a moment later, he shoved that little mountain into Luciel’s arms as thanks before turning on his heel and bolting before the other could process what was going on.

“Eh?” With a couple of the potions awkwardly falling though his grasp, Luciel stupidly stared ahead as he could not believe his eyes.

He oogled the man who sprinted down the hall— the man who hardly ever moved as he usually defaulted to being carried like a child because he couldn’t be bothered to move on his own. That man even floated and flew a lot of the times instead of committing himself to a walk. Luciel doubted he even remembers if he had ever seen the duke go any faster than a casual walk.

“What the f—“ curbing his shock Luciel carefully placed the rest of the potions on the floor and asked the servants to keep them for him before running down the halls as well— scaring all the passing people silly.

“Oi Gabi! Gabi I swear to the moon dame, you better not be going to research it right now! Gabi— hey Gabriel Avem, that can wait a day can’t it! Gabi, you have to find the sword for me! Masahiko will really kill meeeee!”

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