A/N: This series of one-shots are, well, like what's just said, one-shots, unless stated otherwise. There are possibly one-shots that'll get sequels, depending on my creativity (or lack thereof).

This is just a super sloooooww fanfic describing an event that probably happens in span of fifteen minutes. Yeah I tried… I hate myself but I love my OTP. Crieeess. :')

Bookmark

Tao brough M-21—a little by force, much to the latter's irritation—for shopping after school to a mall not far from where they worked. His reason: M-21 needed to have more clothes for variation, which didn't make sense for M-21, because he thought he had enough clothes? But of course, variation, in Tao's dictionary, means 20 different pair of attire. Of course, Takeo got dragged into their shopping agenda, as well.

"Hey, M-21, this'll look good on you!" Tao lightly grabbed a white shirt with thin black horizontal stripes on it. M-21 glanced at the shirt, quite interested. "How much is it?" M-21 said while pulling the price tag and—

God. Grey eyes widened. This is only a shirt, why is it so expensive?!

"Yeah, no. Not gonna buy this one." M-21 let go of the tag and sauntered away. Tao pouted and went after the man, "It's not that expensive, come on! That's standard price here."

M-21 let out a snort. "We can survey other shops first. I don't really want to spend much money on a single piece of shirt,"

With that, Tao hurriedly walked out of the shop they were in, being sure that M-21 and Takeo would follow him. "Yeah, right, now let's do that. The most important thing now is that M-21 gets new clothes!"

Shaking his head, Takeo went after the bowl-haired man, easily catching up, courtesy of his long legs. M-21 didn't bother to follow them immediately. Instead, he strolled slowly while his eyes flutter quickly on every shop they passed.

He halted when something caught his sight in a stationary shop.

M-21 glanced at the direction where his friends had went off to; apparently he was left far behind because of his slow walking. Deciding they'd just look for him after noticing that he had gone missing, M-21 entered the stationary shop. Without taking a look at anything else, he held the small thing that had caught his attention.

It was an all-metal bookmark clip with a small ramen ornament connected to it with thin, golden chain.

M-21 remembered a certain someone, looking at the ramen charm. He stared at the bookmark for a good minute while he let his mind pondered.

Cadis Etrama Di Raizel. A Noblesse, the strongest noble, who had helped, protected, and taken care of him after he started living in his current home. After all He had done to M-21, the werewolf heart-bearer always wanted to repay him. But he didn't know what to do. M-21 had done his best to protect the Noblesse, but his mere strength was never enough, because he knew the Noblesse's power was far more than his. He knew his presence had meant a lot to Raizel, since He longed for the normal life that He always wished for. He even considered M-21 His family.

But … he never thought that being by His side was enough. He wanted Raizel to remember and know him as more than just a human under His wings, more than just a family like everyone else.

Suddenly, a thought crossed his mind.

The three security guards entered their home. M-21 had two paperbags on each of his hands, while Tao completely wore different attire from his security uniform: a slightly saturated, bright yellow colored shirt and blue jeans. His uniform was in a paperbag he was holding. Takeo didn't shop, instead he visited a salon there to have his hair done.

M-21 exhaled, long. He didn't think their shopping time took much longer than he anticipated. After buying that ramen-themed bookmark, he was eager to go home and give it to the Noblesse, but of course Tao wanted him to buy at least a new shirt or a pair of pants (the tech master even ended up buying something for himself and got himself changed!).

Much to his pleasure, the Man whom he wanted to give a gift to wasn't in the living room. M-21 was too shy and awkward (he hated to admit it, but it was true) to give the bookmark directly to Raizel, so he decided to slip the bookmark on the top, inner corner of the gaming guide the Noblesse always read yet never master. Anything to get everything done quickly. M-21 then took some seconds to decide whether he'd left the little ramen charm dangling outside or put it inside of the book as an unnecessary surprise element. M-21 ended up putting it on the inside of the book. He let out an exhale in satisfactory.

Then he just realized something. How was the Noblesse going to know it was him who gave the bookmark if he left it this way?

I can just tell Him after he saw the bookmark, M-21 thought. But honestly he wanted to see the black-haired noble's reaction first. M-21 hoped that He would be at least a little happy to see a ramen-themed item attached to His favorite book.

Right after dinner time, M-21 finished washing the dishes and sat on the couch, along with the other household members. Raizel was on his left, sitting on a separate couch.

"So, Regis, Seira, I want to know how are you doing in school," Frankenstein the caring and responsible headmaster started a conversation, which Seira gladly—and calmly, of course—replied, "You don't have to worry, I got 100 on my math quiz,"

"Excellent! Seira always got high scores, I'm so proud of you," Frankenstein smiled brightly and gave Seira slow claps. Pinkish shades appeared on the white-haired noble girl's face. She always loved compliments.

After that, M-21 didn't really pay attention to Regis' complaining about chemistry class and his principal's annoyance on his complains. His eyes were too busy glancing at the Noblesse's direction when the Man was listening to His servant's scientific speech.

After a few moments, Raizel's hand began to move, reaching for the gaming guide that was sitting in front of Him. He opened it and M-21 swore he saw His eyes slightly widened by few miliseconds.

Raizel stared at the little bowl of ramen resting in the middle of two pages.

"Oh? Master, what a nice bookmark you have there," Frankenstein noticed the ramen and smiled, concluding immediatelly that his master bought it himself. Tao, who sat on Raizel's left, curiously bending over to see the said bookmark, "Aww, there's a ramen charm attached to it! Where did you buy it?"

Raizel stared at the ramen bookmark for a while. "I didn't buy this. This was already attached to my book before I opened it."

"What? Then that means someone gave it to you?"

The Noblesse took the ramen charm, His finger sliding to touch the small chain connecting the charm, before He made a small, yet pleasant smile. "Yes."

"But who?"

"I don't know," Raizel put his index finger on his chin, the smile still obvious on His face. His crimson pupils flickered through every member of the household surrounding Him. When He glanced to M-21, the modified human shifted his gaze quickly to the charm on Raizel's hand.

Then Raizel looked at the clock. It was 11 PM. "It's time to get some rest."

"Right." M-21 stood up—way too quickly he almost cut the Noblesse's words—and paced to his room after nodded slightly to Raizel. Everyone collectively followed what M-21 did and decided to go to their own rooms to sleep until tomorrow.

The grey-haired man felt relieved, yet internally cursed for not telling the Noblesse the person giving Him the charm. But at least he saw the Man's smile … which meant He was happy, right?

The next day wasn't too different from yesterday. M-21 did his routine of securing the school from any kind of problems with Tao and Takeo, and Raizel was in His class with the children before going out to play in PC Room. Everything went as usual.

When M-21 arrived home, he saw Raizel, already at home, standing in front of his room.

M-21 blinked few times before asking, "Were you waiting for me?"

Keeping His silence, Raizel turned to M-21. He took M-21's hand and put a palm-size, grey paperbag on it.

Grey eyes fluttered, M-21 didn't make any effort to hide his bewilderment.

"Thank you for yesterday."

"…What?"

"The ramen bookmark," Raizel gradually made a warmest smile that the modified human had ever seen. "it was you, wasn't it?"

Widened ashen eyes snapped at a pair of crimson, disbelief clear on his face. "How did you know?"

"I just know," Raizel answered vaguely. "I like the present. But why did you give me one?"

The modified human still wondered how did the Noblesse found out about who gave him the present, but he couldn't help raising both corners of his mouth slightly when he heard the first sentence. But, Why, He asked?

"I'm glad you like it. It's just that…" I'm grateful for everything you did. Before anything else came out of M-21's mouth, he started to feel that his small present for Raizel wasn't near everywhere to repay Him. It was his intention in the beginning, but now he was too ashamed to tell the Noblesse that was exactly his reason. He suddenly thought of Frankenstein, the rich man, who probably already bought Raizel everything. Or made. It was Frankenstein, after all. The man could do anything. But M-21 was not Frankenstein. And a small bookmark with small ramen charm attached to it was just worthless compared to what the scientist had done to his master.

"…I want to make you happy."

M-21 internally cursed himself. What love song did he just quote?!

But there was no respond. All M-21 saw was the seemingly long corridor where they stood, the Noble's stone-stiff body, and the Latter's smile fadening.

The grey-haired man unconsiously fidgeted, his hand moved to hold the other hand. "I—ah, sorry, it's … not good isn't it? The gift?" Or was it what he just said?

Raizel, still stiff and eye-piercing (M-21 wished the Noblesse wasn't so intimidating at this time, because damn he now was nervous as heck), began to relax. A faint blush slowly appeared on His pale-colored face.

At that exact time, M-21 went oh.

"M-21," Raizel let out a sigh, the smile that was gone came back to paint His face, "if I don't like the gift, I wouldn't respond with another gift, would I?"

If not because of Raizel reminding him, M-21 would already forget that he was holding something that Raizel gave him.

"This," The modified human steadily raised the hand with the aforementioned present on it, incredulity palpable on his face, "you gave this as a response to my gift?"

Raizel nodded slowly.

Looking at Raizel brimming with merriment, M-21 couldn't help but to smile too. That was the first time ever for M-21 to see the Noblesse being so expressive in front oh him. The bookmark was just a small gift and him buying it was a spontaneity, but His eyes, His lips, His everything, at all once, smiled at the modified human. It was like that Cadis Etrama Di Raizel unexpectedly received a gift from an unexpected person, or even received a gift for the first time.

Or maybe … He was glad that someone—besides Frankenstein—actually, genuinely wanted to make Him happy?

"Thank you," M-21 finally said. Without realizing it, his face went faintly even more pink.

Raizel nodded.

Both the Noble and the modified human seemed to have an awkward smiling battle for a while before Raizel broke the silence, "You can open it now."

"Huh? Right now?"

Raizel nodded, again.

M-21 oblige and start opening the paperbag—slowly so he didn't make much mess, because it was a Raizel that gave it to him.

The modified human slid a finger inside the paperbag and pulled a keychain.

With a grey half-body wolf charm attached to it.

M-21 went dead-silent. He stared at the keychain—the freaking wolf charm—held in his hand. His expression unreadable.

"You have a werewolf heart, and fight like a werewolf, so I thought I'd give you that." Raizel seemed weirdly too spirited while explaining His reason of giving such present to the younger man.

"…"

"…"

"…"

Raizel's mouth steadily went flat and his brows frowned. That silence was too long…

"…Not good?"

A/N: Raizel, probably some Tao has rubbed on you huh. XD Lmao sorry for the crack end gnjakgneakjnka I am homngry—