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Girl, you know I want your love
Your love was handmade for somebody like me
Come on now, follow my lead
I may be crazy, don't mind me

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01. celebrity blind date

What Wil knew about her was what most guys with a healthy interest in supermodels who walked runways in fancy lingerie knew. Her name was Maika Giuseppe, she was a Vocaloid's Secret Angel, and she was one of the hottest women in the world.

On their date, though, he learned far more than just how amazing she looked in an exotically designed pair of panties, bra and wings.

For example, she didn't eat nothing like he would have expected her to. They ordered at the café, partially because he felt bad for sitting at one of their outdoor tables without actually buying anything while he waited for her, and partially because it was a pretty quiet but good looking place. Charming and rustic and all that. The kind that wasn't mainstream but picturesque enough to be a good tourist trap.

Instead of ordering a salad or sipping idly at some drink like tea, she ordered a slice of decadent, flourless double chocolate cake, complete with whipping cream and chocolate syrup.

Wil must have stared, because Maika caught his eyes and gave him a wink and a sly smile. "Surprised to see a model eat?" she asked, digging a fork past the whipping cream so she could reach the midnight-dark cake.

"Well," he said intelligently, "yeah."

Then he kissed his chances with her goodbye.

Maika, however, only laughed. "You're the first one to be honest right off the bat," she said, still amused.

He shrugged. "I'm blunt," he said, just in case she hadn't noticed.

She looked at him with those famously intense eyes and his breath caught. "I like that," she said, and her voice dropped ever-so-slightly.

Then, without breaking eye contact, she ate another mouthful of cake, leaving his mind completely blank.

No, blank was too generous of a word. More like she had dropped a bomb of pure, concentrated sexiness and wiped his brain of every remote thing that made up Wil Zola.

He managed, somehow, to pull enough of himself back so that he could finish . . . whatever it was that he had ordered, and then pay for both of them despite her protests before they left the establishment.

"Would you like to go for a walk in the park?" Wil asked, before he remembered that it was Maika f-ing Giuseppe he was talking to, and a simple walk in the park wouldn't be good enough.

She surprised him, however, by readily agreeing. "But first, we better get our civilian identities on," she said.

He didn't quite understand until she pulled out a pair of sunglasses large enough to cover half her face and slipped them on. Then, realizing the joke, smiled just a little too late.

Luckily for him, Wil got his chance to make up for his stumbles through the rest of the date. They talked, first about their jobs –

("I mean Gensou Airly is great, don't get me wrong, but I'd really like it if some other artists got a chance to perform in the Vocaloid's Secret show, you know?"

Wil didn't tell her that ZOLA was dying to attend the show, as a performer or just a guest. "Aren't some of the models dating members?"

"Meiko's marrying the bassist, and Miku's been dating the blue-haired one.")

to their hobbies –

("You play OakStory? I love OakStory! I suck at it but wow!"

"What character?"

"Angel Blaster. I'm only at Level 175, though – I know, it's been like seven months since she was released but I'm not a good gamer, and I don't get to spend much time raising my character."

"Angel Blaster's a character that's best used if you have unique-ranked items because of her special ability. I'll send you a custom blaster if you want."

"I love you."

Wil wouldn't admit it to anyone until the day he died, but his heartbeats remained erratic for a good minute after that.)

To family stories –

("My sister's a songwriter, but she's not very well-known. I don't think you've heard of her . . ."

"Ona Giuseppe, right? The one that wrote 'Soledad'?"

She gasped. "You know her?!"

"Yuu is a big fan of her work. So far what she's written didn't fit with the group image so we didn't get a chance to contact her, but he wants to work with her and sing her songs if he ever releases singles of his own, without ZOLA."

Maika put one hand over her mouth, beautiful eyes wide. "Oh, just wait until I tell her. She loves you guys, and Yuu especially. She's going to cry.")

And now, to who was a bigger fan of who.

"So you knew me before we met?" Maika's eyes were cured slyly. After coolly admitting that she'd loved ZOLA since their second album, and that while she liked Yuu the best because he was adorable – something most fans had in common, because Yuu and his eternally youthful face was Yuu – Wil's voice was the one that drew her the most, she'd turned the questions on him.

He felt the tips of his ears burn, but tried to keep it cool. "I think every guy in the world knows you."

She stuck out her tongue at the answer, like she was pouting. "I bet you'd say that to all the Vocaloid's Secret Angels."

"I haven't met any, but that's probably true," he said. "But you were my favorite."

Maika stumbled, and Wil moved to offer her a hand. She didn't need it, but she took it and thanked him nonetheless.

"You're very honest," Maika said after a moment, her cheeks pinked.

"I get told that a lot," Wil replied. Mostly by his manager, who probably spent half his pay on blood pressure medication from all the mischief ZOLA liked to get up into. What with Yuu adopting every other animal with a sad story, to Wil bluntly speaking while a camera rolled, to Kyo being, well, Kyo twenty-four seven, their manager was always busy cleaning up after their messes.

"So," she said, drawing out the sound slightly. "Past tense? Does that mean I'm no longer your favorite?"

Wil smiled. "Just the one that's more than a VS Angel to me now," he said. Because he couldn't just look at a picture of her and see 'sexy woman modelling sexy clothes' anymore. She was flesh and blood, who was born to look like a sexy seductress but had a secret love for a cheesy fantasy online game, and liked to listen to pop music by ZOLA while running in baggy track pants.

Just thinking of her as a VS Angel didn't do her justice enough now.

Her grip on his arm tightened. Before Wil could ask her if anything was wrong, she exhaled loudly and then laughed.

"Give me your cell phone?" she asked, and though he was confused, he unlocked it and handed it to her.

When the date ended, he had a brand-new number in his contacts, and six months later, he had a girlfriend who was his date to the awards.

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02. demon sacrifice

Maika woke up to the sound of something breaking. Something like a china dish, maybe. She would know – she had somehow managed to break a large one on her first day living in this mansion.

Wil hadn't minded then, and simply cleaned it up after checking that she wasn't hurt.

But it wasn't her that had broken it this time, and there was no one in this mansion except for the two of them, and the occasional shadow servants that Wil created to do the chores when he didn't want to do it. And since the shadow servants never did something that wasn't perfect . . . .

Maika kicked her covers back, ignoring the protest her suddenly cold legs wailed about, and pulled a shawl around herself before she left her room and began padding towards the place she guessed that the sound had come from, barefooted. Her toes sank into the thick, luxurious carpet, masking whatever sound she would have made.

At the end of the corridor, she paused. Wil could be either in the kitchen, the parlor, or the dining room.

She decided to check the kitchen, guessing it to be the most likely location. Wil had been gone, on yet another expedition to fight in the war of humans, and if he had returned late, it only made sense that he wanted a snack or a drink before heading off to get some sleep.

Maika found herself to be correct when she walked in on him, staring down with empty eyes at the shattered remains of something made out of glass.

"Wil?" she called softly. He seemed to be in a trance, almost, as he stared at the broken pieces. The kitchen floor, elaborately tiled, was wet, and she guessed that the bowl had been filled with water.

He looked up, and despite the fact that he was a demon, he looked so brokenly human that Maika stepped forwards.

"Hey, it's alright-" she began to say.

"Don't," he said, and she stopped. Right. She was overstepping her boundaries. He probably didn't want her to comfort him. Heck, he probably didn't need comfort. And how did she know it would be alright? She didn't even know what this 'it' was.

Wil stepped over the broken remains, and herded her away from the sight, large hands gently set on her shoulders. "You're barefoot," he said quietly as he snapped his fingers to summon a shadow. Without even needing an order from its master, the shadow began clearing away the mess. "You'll cut your feet on the glass."

Oh, right. There was that too.

Feeling relieved that her boundary overstepping hadn't been the thing to upset it, it was now her turn to lead him towards the parlor, with a gentle touch on his elbow. She gestured towards his favorite seat, a mahogany sofa with red velvet upholstery.

"What's wrong?" she asked him quietly, in the least intrusively curious tone she could manage. The last thing Maika wanted was for Wil to feel that she was being curious for the sake of getting some drama.

He stared down at his hands for a moment, "Do you know why my brothers and I demanded sacrifices in exchange for our services in the war?"

She hadn't even known that the other demons had been his brothers. "No," she said. If he wanted to talk about why she was here, she would let him.

He let out a shuddering sigh. "We're not demons," he said, like he was admitting a great secret.

And maybe it was. Maika blinked in surprise, because them being demons had always been the fact to her – like the sky being blue, or ice being cold.

"We're just cursed," he spat out the last word. "To be like demons until the day either we or the man who cast the curse dies. And for the longest time, that was alright. The entire world hated us, shunned us, but as long as we had each other, we were fine. We could get through it."

But his brothers weren't here with him right now. She was.

"And then one day the curse got worse," he confessed. "The closer we stayed to each other, the more it would progress, until we lost our humanity and souls. The only way to slow the progress while we tried to outlive the sorcerer was to stay apart from each other, without even communicating or writing letters to one another."

That was a cruel curse, Maika thought. To first turn the world away from the brothers, and let them recover from the blow by leaning on each other. Then, when the three of them accepted reality, rip their new world apart by forcing them to be truly alone – to rob them of the one fleck of warmth they had found in each other.

"Is that why I'm here?" she asked.

He took a shuddering breath in. "We asked for sacrifices to be given to us because we were lonely," Wil admitted. "Because to be alone was something all three of us couldn't bear. The thought of being robbed of each other's presence was too much, and to fill that void we demanded that others give up their lives and come to us."

"Why are you telling me this?" Maika asked. It was clear from the way he was speaking, confessing really, that he felt immense guilt towards her – guilt she didn't fully understand, because she hadn't lost all that much coming to him.

Wil didn't meet her eyes. He couldn't – one large hand was draped over his eyes. She had to repeat the question again two more times before he would answer. When he drew in his breath to, however, it was a shuddering sob, and Maika realized that he was crying.

"Yuu contacted me," he said, voice rough with tears that he wouldn't show her. But she didn't need to see the actual tears to know that he was spilling out the pain in his heart with this confession. "He's the youngest out of all three of us. He's a sweet boy, kind-hearted and considerate. Before the curse, he couldn't even kill an insect without crying for it."

And now he was a demon fighting a war that had nothing to do with him. Maika's heart broke for the sweet boy Wil described. Even in his sobbing voice, she could hear the compassion and love Wil had for Yuu.

"The girl that was sent to him killed herself."

It took a moment for those words to make sense to Maika, and when they did, she was surprised to find that her first emotion wasn't pity or shock, but rather anger. Wil had never treated her with anything but respect, and even a sense of camaraderie and friendliness. She doubted that Yuu would have been any less kind, and for someone to kill herself in response to that was –

Maika tried to calm herself. But then again, her life hadn't exactly been good. She had been an orphan with no real education or prospects. She would have either scrounged in poverty or been forced to resort to prostitution to live day to day had she not been approached by the villagers and 'volunteered' as the Bride.

For Maika, this had been an amazing chance at a new life, far better than anything she could have imagined.

Still, if Wil was reacting like this . . . .

"Yuu was heartbroken," Wil said, and his voice had slightly evened out. He was getting himself under control again. "And we couldn't even be at his side to help him. He's all alone there and I can't do a thing about it."

Maika wasn't a being cursed into being a demon. She had no powers, no skills to solve this problem.

All she could do was offer a listening ear and a shoulder to lean on.

And that felt powerless. She imagined this was what Wil felt like at the moment, so she reached out and patted the back of his hand.

It still felt like too little, so she held on tight to his hand, cool and ashy as it felt.

Wil's breathing hitched slightly, and when he spoke again, his voice was rough once more. "Would you like to go home?" he asked.

Maika, surprised at the offer, stopped patting his hand for a while. Home? As in, return to town?

Where she had been nothing, where there had never been anything for her? Where it had never been home, not to her?

"I'm already home," she answered honestly.

Wil lifted his hand away, and looked at her in astonishment. She saw why he'd been hiding his face from her when he started to shed tears – his tears were bloody, and made for an almost gruesome sight, staining his cheeks and the area around his eyes red.

But maybe they were also a physical representation of the pain he felt right now.

Maika pulled her sleeve and wiped at his face as best as she could.

"I won't kill myself," she promised him as she cleaned his face. "I like it here. You're nicer than I ever expected, and it's nice to have you as a friend. I enjoy your company, when I'm in the garden and you're reading even if you're silent. I like that you sometimes make jokes and then have a face that's so solemn and serious that I know it actually isn't. I appreciate that you try not to let me see the shadow servants because they scare me, and you let me do pretty much whatever I wanted here so I'd feel more at home. This is home, Wil."

Then, because he still looked so flabbergasted and that expression was quite the funny sight, she smiled slyly. "Besides," she said as a joke. "I'm a gold digger. We gold diggers don't leave our victims until we're satisfied."

That seemed to shake him out. He cracked a smile that twisted his face, chuckled dryly a few times, and then wiped off the last remaining traces of his 'outburst' from his eyes.

"Sorry for waking you," he said, voice returning to its quiet, even tone. "Go back to bed, Maika."

She wrapped him up in her shawl. "You too, Wil," she told him firmly. She had a feeling that he would sleep on this sofa instead of going to his room, and she didn't want him cold.

Before she walked away, however, she paused. "Wil," she said, and he looked up. "You gave me a future, a life and a home when I had nothing. I'm a pretty good listener, so you're always welcome to talk to me. Don't bottle it all in, because it'll hurt you more in the end."

Wil was quiet by nature, but the quiet ones were the ones who always bottled it up within.

And when you didn't treat a wound but kept it hidden, it festered and became worse. She couldn't do much, but listening, she could do.

"I-" he began, but then closed his mouth. "Thank you," he said instead.

She smiled at him, and then returned back to bed. The blankets were beautifully warm around her body, and they felt like home.

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03. the lady's favour

Between the three of them – the prince and his two retainers – Wil wasn't one for talking. It would be Prince Kyo making the orders, or Yuu smoothing things over.

Wil would stay silent, observing and listening, but never quite talking.

"You're a man of few words, Wil," his liege and old friend had told him one day, as they looked over lances. "But that's why we trust you so much when you speak. When you have so few of something, it automatically becomes valuable. For you to break your silence to speak? It speaks volumes of the message's importance."

That wasn't why he spoke little. He just wasn't comfortable with speaking.

But being silent and unseen gave him advantages – allowing to listen.

Wil kept his ears open, which was why he quickly learned of malice or dislike directed to his liege. The Third Prince had no chance at the throne, but his birthright alone was a threat, and his life was as in danger as a candle in a storm's path. It was easy to gain favor from both the First and Second princes by using Kyo as a scapegoat, and many did just that.

But Lady Maika, daughter to an ailing, widowed countess, didn't. She was one of the few in the court who didn't.

Knowing all Kyo wanted was to live a peaceful life away from the throne and all its drama, Wil kept his eye out for any possible means of helping achieve that. Marrying into a House without much power or riches would assure his brothers that Kyo was giving up his birthright to the throne, and Lady Maika's position in the court was perfect. Her family was old, but not rich, or wielded no great political power, and couldn't be a threat if they tried. As a person, she wasn't greedy or ambitious, and he heard no bad word about her disposition.

They may not have loved each other yet, but Wil believed they could grow to. Kyo's presence could breathe some more life into her House, and she would let him appear docile. It was a perfect plan to keep Prince Kyo safe from political problems.

But when Wil suggested the idea to Kyo, the prince refused.

"I think," Kyo said cryptically. "That you should consider it some more before asking me to marry Lady Maika, friend."

Wil didn't understand, but he obeyed his liege's suggestion. Did he find something about Lady Maika unpleasing? She was beautiful, and kindhearted, but beyond that, she was also talented in the art of healing. She knew of herbs and flowers that could soothe pains and illnesses, and often made flower arrangements for the princess who suffered from headaches.

She was also strong, at the core. To not fall and bow under the peer pressure of the court and treat the powerless prince with disdain showed a strength in her character and beliefs that few could uphold. Every last characteristic about her was admirable, and the more he observed and listened, the more Wil didn't understand what it was about her that Prince Kyo found unsatisfactory.

So it was Wil, listening intently, who first learned of Lady Maika's kidnapping. On a warm, summer day, while keeping watch over Yuu as he went over Wil's estates and tax forms, his ears picked up the sound of a commotion below, in the courtyard. A hysterical lady-in-waiting – Lady Aria, also one of the ladies-in-waiting to the princess – was stammering out the story of a rogue knight snatching away her friend from the fields where she'd been picking flowers for her sick mother.

He knew of only one friend of Lady Aria who would pick flowers for her sick mother.

Wil felt his heart drop to his stomach, and he had no time to think before jumping to act.

"Yuu," he said, grabbing his sword and attaching it to his belt. "Inform His Highness that I'll be back in a few hours."

"What? Why?" Yuu looked up from his papers. "Wil, wait -"

But Wil was out of the room, and halfway to the stables by that time. There was no time to demand a suit of armor, so he settled for the ankle protectors and chest plate before he took the horse the stable boy saddled up for him. His sight burned red, with an anger that rarely boiled up within him.

Somehow, he managed to track down the kidnappers, and kill the ones holding her hostage without getting her hurt. He didn't realize he was hurt, however, until Lady Maika, pale with worry, pointed it out to him.

"Thank you," he said, accepting the ripped sash she offered him to staunch the bleeding.

She laughed, a huffing sound that was high-pitched from worry and yet relieved. "I think I should be the one saying that to you!" she exclaimed in a shaky voice.

Relieved as well that she was fine, he helped her onto the horse. "Pardon," he said quietly, and climbed on after her. With her in front of him, head of flower-scented hair between his arms sending his heart racing in a different way as they rode back to the castle, he went over his thoughts.

Had he ever been this worried before, feeling like his feet had lost their grip on the solid ground and fell through to the bottom of the earth? With his heart stopping in a chilling moment?

Only once, when Kyo had been poisoned and wandered the borders between life and death for three days, fighting to keep his soul attached to his body.

Did he have a reason to worry about Lady Maika as much as he worried about his friend and liege, though, if she wasn't to be his lord's wife?

No. And even if she was to be married to his prince, Wil wouldn't have been as worried as he had, or as relieved as he'd been when he found her.

After being confronted with a situation where she was in danger, and holding her now in his arms, Wil came to a conclusion.

Somewhere, over the observing and listening, he'd found her special, holding her in a way he held his liege.

He laughed silently at himself, and at his wise prince who knew of how he felt before Wil figured out his own emotions.

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04. meeting the brothers

When they finally managed to leave (read: escape) the house, Wil loaded their bags into the back of the car, and then clambered into the driver's seat so he could begin bashing his head into the wheel.

Maika gently placed her hand between the steering wheel and his forehead, preventing him from killing himself by bashing his skull into the wheel's frame.

Wil settled, and stayed still when his girlfriend withdrew her hand from under his head. "I'm going to kill them," he mumbled, the leather wrapping the wheel sort of cool against his feverishly hot forehead. His face and ears were still burning from embarrassment from the last story his brothers had managed to squeeze in before he had all but yanked Maika out of that madhouse.

Maika laughed softly as she buckled herself in. "They weren't that bad," she protested, although out of the corner of his eyes she saw her mouth turned up in a wickedly sly smile.

"I'm going to kill them," Wil repeated. "They won't even see it coming. I know where they live and what their habits are. They'll never know and no one will suspect me."

He could sense his Criminology-majoring girlfriend about to speak up and contradict him, so he lifted his head up and started the engine. The radio turned on to the middle of a Miku Hatsune song, and Maika was distracted by the singer's words for a few minutes while he drove out of the driveway and began heading back to their apartment.

When the song ended, and ads began playing, Maika turned down the volume. "They weren't that bad," she repeated.

He eyed his steering wheel, wondering if it would be a good idea to hit his head against it once more.

"Don't," Maika warned, correctly guessing his intents.

Yeah, that was a bad idea. It wouldn't be safe. If he wanted to kill himself, he wouldn't take Maika with him.

His brothers, on the other hand, were an entirely different story.

"But really," she continued on, snapping him out of his stewing in plots to silence his brothers permanently. "I thought it was cute. I only have Ona for a sister, and she and I have never really been close, so I was a little jealous that you three had that bond."

Right – Maika's womanizing dad had two daughters (that he knew of) who were both awkward around each other due to coming from different mothers.

Well, now he felt like a dick.

When he said that, Maika giggled. "Blunt as usual," she said. "But I guess that's what I really like about you."

"I thought you said you liked my voice," Wil said.

Maika pretended to consider it. "That too."

Despite the trying day he'd had thanks to his brothers, Wil found himself grinning. "And my dashing good looks."

"I think your brother rubbed off on you," Maika deadpanned, and he flinched in horror at the thought of being like Kyo. "But yeah, that might play a part."

The streets were empty, and straight ahead. He snuck a glance at her and raised an eyebrow. "How big of a part?"

"Pretty big," she said, popping the 'p'.

Alright, so it was a mistake to glance at her. Now he wanted to kiss her.

But then she grinned. "So you actually tried to flush yourself down a toilet when you were eight years old?"

He groaned in embarrassment. Yup, he was definitely killing his brothers.

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Say, boy, let's not talk too much
Grab on my waist and put that body on me
Come on now, follow my lead
Come, come on now, follow my lead

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an i: tbh when i was originally writing the second part to this i was thinking 'no talking' by lucas dipasquale would be the song used, or another sia song (like 'cheap thrills'). but i can't find the lyrics for the former, and then ed sheeran's 'shape of you' fit even better so . . .

an ii: to auntie wishie, who isn't dead.

an iii: deleted that part about the robot cyborg because i had no idea how to continue.

an iv: Q - is there a part three? A - idek man.