Cobalt stared hard at the multiple scraps of paper lying on the coffee table in front of him. Over by a mug of tea that had long since gone cold, he could see the stack of Language assignments that he was supposed to be grading, but for some reason, the Incubus just couldn't concentrate on schoolwork for long enough to actually get anything done. No, occupying his mind was nothing but thoughts of the Hellhound.

Who was he? What happened when he was still around? Why was his existence more or less erased?

The mystery was starting to consume Cobalt, and he could feel his nerves suffer for it. He was already floundering as a teacher; any more and Viola would be right to let him go. He had to get his act together, and soon.

Taking a deep breath, the Incubus gathered his accumulated notes on the Hellhound up and pushed them to the far side of the table.

"Come on Trayer... They put work in these, I'm sure..." he mumbled to himself as he pulled the stack of Language assignments over to the middle of the table.

He had given his class a creative writing assignment in the hopes of squeezing their best work out of them, and here he was, barely able to even get started with reading them. How hypocritical.

As he began to skim over the first few pieces, however, Cobalt began to relax. Surprisingly, his entire class had deigned to actually turn something in, which was more than could be said about their attitude towards schoolwork at the start of the year. Maybe he was finally getting through to them?

Most of the pieces were simple stories written by mediocre hands, but they held up to the basic rules of storytelling that Cobalt was looking for, so they were easy to pass. Lottie Deyeyr's was something of a rambling mess that constantly switched perspective, tense and even entire plots, but if the excited shakiness of her handwriting was anything to go by, the enthusiasm was certainly there, so she got a pass as well. Whitney and Karazelle both submitted some excellent prose that explored the concepts of nature versus desire, though they were eerily similar, so somebody definitely copied somebody else. As for Quinn, her story was just a blatantly plagerised version of a common Imp folk tale, so Cobalt was forced to fail her.

Reaching the final two submitted pieces after a good hour of reading and correction, the Incubus found himself gazing at Jelli and Izzbelle's works. He frowned.

"The whole thing, really...?" he sighed disappointedly, squinting at the Glutton's story.

'Blau und Grün', an extensive story spanning four or five pages, penned entirely in German. True enough, there was nothing on the assignment saying it couldn't be written in another language, but that certainly made grading it difficult. With a heavy sigh, Cobalt set Jelli's piece aside for the time being and moved onto the final assignment; Izzbelle's.

He had expected her to write something violent or action-focused.

What she actually submitted was a love story.

Cheeks going red, Cobalt squinted hard and brought the page close to his face.

"Oh my... This is..."

Izzbelle's handwriting was messy and her handling of emotional storytelling was tenuous at best, but Cobalt could practically feel the passion with which she wrote her piece. It was a short story regarding two heirs to opposing crime families forsaking their heritage and running off together, like a retelling of Romeo and Juliet with less tradgedy and more tommyguns.

Swallowing hard, the Incubus glanced over at his book shelf. Sure enough, there were a fair few gangster novels gracing its shelves.

"She certainly knows her audience..." he muttered, uncapping his pen in order to correct the myriad of spelling mistakes the Oni had made.

Someone suddenly knocked on his dorm room door, startling the Incubus. He glanced at his clock. It was nearly ten at night.

"Uh... Hello?" he called, raising an eyebrow.

"M- Mr. Trayer...?" responded a muffled voice.

His eyes widened.

"Jelli?!"

Rushing over to the door, the Incubus turned the lock and pulled it open, revealing the rotund form of Jelli Pharmine, somehow looking more flustered and less sure of herself than usual. She was shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she stared at the ground, her tail sweeping behind her.

"A- Ah... Hallo..."

"Jelli, this is the boys' dorms! You can't be here!" Cobalt whispered urgently, frantically looking around the darkened hall.

Her cheeks flushed.

"I- I know, I promise I'll go straight back! I- I just need to ask you, um... ask you something!" piped the Glutton.

With a nervous sigh, Cobalt stepped aside and gestured for Jelli to come in. She stood frozen in place for a moment, holding her breath like she scarcely believed what was happened. After some silent encouragement from her teacher, however, she scuttled into his room and placed herself in the centre of the floor, gazing at her surroundings with widened eyes. As Cobalt shut the door behind her, it suddenly occurred to him that he had never actually had the Glutton over by herself before. This only served to make him feel nervous as well.

"Jelli, I don't want to rush you, but you really must make this quick. It won't be good for either of us if someone finds out you were here," Cobalt said softly, planting a hand on her shoulder.

She yelped and flinched at his touch, knocking Jelli off balance and causing her to almost fall to the floor, if it weren't to Cobalt's intervention. He quickly bent a knee and held onto her tightly, stopping her from smacking her head off the side of the coffee table.

"Woah! Are you alright?"

Her face was beet red, only growing more flushed as she noticed her own Language assignment lying unmarked on the table.

"A- Ah... Meine Hausaufgaben..." she murmured in a high-pitched voice.

"I will need a translation for that later, but that can wait. What do you need at such a late hour?" asked Cobalt, setting his student back on her feet.

Clasping her hands in front of her stomach, Jelli turned her large eyes down to her feet.

"Um... M- Mr. Trayer, would it be okay if, um... I- I..."

She looked up. Tears were already starting to form.

"W- Would it be okay if I asked you to go out with me tomorrow?!"

Cobalt just stared at her for a moment, silently letting her words play out in his head. Glancing over at his calendar, he saw that tomorrow was Saturday, and that he had hoped to spend it scheduling the next week's classes. There were experiments that he needed to do with his first-year Science group, as well as a couple of different assignments that he had to give his third-years, considering how close they were to their final exams. Swallowing hard, the Incubus eased himself down onto his couch and took a deep breath.

"I don't know, Jelli. Tomorrow is kind of a busy day for me," he said, gesturing to the pile of assignments.

Blinking the tears out of her eyes, the Glutton nodded shakily.

"I- I understand, but um... Th- This is really important! I- Izzbelle was supposed to go with me but she had to cancel, and I get why she would but I don't wanna go on my own and I really don't think I can-"

As she rambled, the Glutton began to hyperventilate, startling Cobalt. He leaped to his feet and immediately guided her over to the couch, holding her shoulders as she tried and failed to calm herself down.

"Easy there, easy. What's happening tomorrow?" he asked in a gentle voice.

She gulped and tried to still her breathing, only to wind up choking on her own spit as she realised just how close she was sitting to Cobalt.

"I- It's kind of embarrassing, b- but I can't do this alone! I already booked time at the Baths and if I don't do this now th- then I'm never gonna do it and... and...!"

Wiping her face, Jelli looked up at her teacher with wet, reddened eyes.

"Please sir...!" she squeaked.

Cobalt frowned. The Brimstone Baths was a leisure centre as far as he knew, famed for its high quality services and wide range of activities available, from tennis courts and gym equipment to jacuzzis and - its point of pride - large swimming pool. What was so urgent that Jelli needed to be there tomorrow?

As a teacher, it wouldn't be right for Cobalt to accompany a student there on a private outing.

But as her friend...

Slowly, the Incubus took a deep breath.

"Alright, alright. I suppose I could join you tomorrow if I get up earlier to sort all of this out," he said, nodding to the stack of papers.

Almost immediately, the Glutton's face lit up with equal parts joy and relief. Without thinking, she lunged forward to hug Cobalt, only to freeze up as soon as she locked her arms around him.

"Um, Jelli?"

She recoiled back.

"I- I- I'm so sorry, Mr. Trayer! I- I didn't mean to-!" she gasped.

Cobalt raised a hand.

"It's alright, don't worry about it. Just go back to your room and get some sleep, alright? I'll see you tomorrow."

Jelli nodded and stumbled back to her feet. With an awkward bow, she turned on her heel and scuttled back out into the hallway, her furiously-wagging tail thumping against the door as she did so. Cobalt sighed and shut it behind her, wondering whether he should have stood his ground and declined her request.

"No, a man cannot be so cruel," murmured the Incubus, locking the door and returning to his couch.

Sitting back down, he eyed up the stack of papers. If he was going to be spending the afternoon with Jelli, then it would likely be in his best interest to get started on his preparation work now. Sleep can wait, he was sure...

 

-----

 

Cobalt couldn't remember the last time he had been to the Brimstone Baths. It was in the upper-class side of town, and you could definitely tell it belonged there simply by looking at it. It was an expansive building made from white stone, decorated with tall columns and proud archways, each carved by hand. He gazed at it as he sat on the bench just across the street, nervously tapping his feet as he rested his sportswear bag on his lap. He had forgotten to ask Jelli just what they were doing at the Baths, so he had packed an assortment of clothes, just in case.

Frowning, he glanced down at the casual clothes that he was currently wearing. The Incubus spent so long in shirts and other formalwear that it felt just plain weird to be out of them. Not in a bad way, mind. Perhaps he had just been overworking himself lately...

"S- Sir!" called a voice from somewhere to his left.

Turning his head, he saw Jelli approach down the footpath, holding on to the strap of her bag with one hand as she held an ice-cream cone with the other. With a smile, Cobalt gave her a wave, prompting her to do the same.

The ice-cream tumbled to the ground, landing with a soft splat.

"A- Ah... N- Nun ja..." she said, attempting to force a smile despite the obvious upset in her already welling eyes.

Aiming to draw her attention away from the dropped ice-cream, Cobalt gestured to the open spot on the bench beside him. Nodding, Jelli jogged over and planted herself next to her teacher, only to quietly gasp and scooch away, believing herself to be too close.

"Settle down, Jelli. We haven't even crossed the threshold and you've already worked yourself up into a sweat," he joked nervously.

She smiled, but it was strained.

"S- Sorry sir..."

"No no, it's alright. How about we just take a break here before we go inside?"

"O- Okay."

She kicked her legs and fidgeted with her sweater, doing everything in her power not to look directly at the Incubus.

"Are you alright?" asked Cobalt, raising an eyebrow.

"Y- Yeah, it's just that I've never done anything like... this, before. I- I- I never really thought I'd have a f- f- friend to do this with. I- I mean there's Izzbelle, but she, um..." she answered, making rapid gestures with her hands.

The Incubus just smiled and laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder, causing her cheeks to go all the redder.

Rather than force conversation, he decided to just sit back and look out over Brimstone, given the vantage point the upper part of town afforded them. It was an old settlement, so it lacked the uniformed architecture of newer cities. Every building was different, and some even showed characteristics of eras gone by. Some had floors that got increasingly larger like a medieval townhouse, some had Gothic spires and buttresses while others had the columns and arches of ancient Greek buildings. It was a historical citystate, which is why so many tourists from larger cities like Furnace came to visit each year.

"Cobalt?"

He returned his attention to his companion, who was surveying the local architecture alongside her teacher.

"Yes?" he answered.

"Wh- What was your hometown like?"

He smiled and gazed upwards at the bright red sky.

"It's faraway, out in the countryside. A rather conservative town named Phrodival. It was... difficult, growing up there. I mean, being one of the only men in a town of Succubi, my family had to do a lot to protect me. But at the same time, I really liked it there. There wasn't as much technology to go around, so most of our days were spent outside, playing in the fields."

He smiled dreamily.

"But after my sisters enrolled in B.I.D., we moved permanently to Brimstone so I could enroll as well, when my time came. If I stayed in Phrodival once I came of age..."

The Incubus shivered.

"I can only imagine what the Matriarch would have done to me," he said.

Jelli's eyes went wide as her cheeks went red.

"You mean she would have-?!"

"That and much worse. I'm talking being made a communal husband for the whole town. It's happened before, apparently," continued Cobalt, casually arching his back.

Her jaw dropped open.

"I- Is that even legal?" she breathed.

"Like I said, it's a conservative town. They still use old Succubus laws there. I mean, you're not even allowed to enter unless someone in the town vouches for you."

"W- Wow..."

Cobalt laughed and gently patted her head, causing the Glutton to yelp and blush harder.

"But enough about that. Are you feeling any calmer?"

She nodded slowly.

"J- Ja... Dan- erm, thank you."

"For what?"

"T- Talking with me."

"But-?"

"L- Let's go!"

Already working herself up into another fluster, Jelli quickly grabbed Cobalt's wrist and pulled him across the street, causing a number of oncoming cars to lean generously into their horns. Giving them apologetic waves, the Incubus just slung his bag over his shoulder and followed his student into the leisure centre.