Archive of Our Own ^beta

Board game club meetings were always much less lively when Idia decided not to show up - though most of the other members would probably disagree with Azul in that regard. The Octavinelle housewarden toyed with the game piece on the table in front of him. Idia had promised to try a new board game of Azul’s choosing today, except then he hadn’t deemed the meeting important enough to show up - not that Azul was particularly surprised, it wasn’t the first time this had happened. 

“Azul Ashengrotto?” The game piece Azul had been spinning on the table dropped flat as he looked up to find Ortho hovering in the doorway to the classroom. “Good. You’re here.”

“Ortho?” Azul stood up from his table to go greet the robot and usher him in the hallway where they wouldn’t bother the other club members. “What are you doing here? Where’s Idia?”

“My brother has currently locked himself in his room and will not come out.” Ortho’s voice came out just as matter-of-factly as usual, though Azul could see the concern that entered his eyes. “I came to inform you that he would not be in attendance at today's board game club meeting so that you would not be waiting for him. He told me that he promised to play a game with you.”

Azul hummed in consideration of Ortho’s words, tilting his head minutely and adjusting his glasses before deciding to ask the question that would no doubt plague him if he didn’t. “Do you know why Idia has locked himself in his room?”

Shaking his head a bit, concern and sadness filled Ortho’s eyes in earnest as he answered, “no, he refused to tell me.”

“Well,” with a determined sigh, Azul held out his hand in a half-shrug, half-gesture to Ortho toward the hallway, “lead the way, then.”

“What do you mean, Azul Ashengrotto?” The way Ortho tilted his head when he was confused had always been rather cute to Azul, like a child who had no idea what you were talking about.

“Let’s go find out what’s wrong with your brother, shall we? Besides, board game club is no fun without him there.” He murmured the second part under his breath to himself before remembering that Ortho was a robot and, thus, definitely heard him. “Don’t… tell him I said that.”

Their walk to the hall of mirrors may have been awkward if Ortho had any capacity to be awkward. Instead, it was pleasantly quiet, save for the random facts Ortho would spout every once and a while if Azul happened to mention anything at all. As they entered the mirror into Ignihyde and Ortho led Azul toward Idia’s room, Azul realized he’d never actually been in the Ignihyde dorm before - it certainly had a distinct vibe, though that was true of all the dorms.

“He was in a bad mood when I left, so I apologize if he yells at you to leave him alone.” Of course Ortho didn’t mention that until they were at his door and the child was already knocking. “Idia! Can you open the door please?”

From within the room, Azul could hear a bit of clattering and grunting before the door cracked open, revealing a sliver of Idia’s annoyed face, clearly ready to tell Ortho to leave him alone. However, when he caught sight of Azul standing behind his brother, his glare gave way and his eyes widened as he released the door handle and let the door open just a tad more.

“Ah – Azul? What are you…? I mean, why are you here?” Idia fumbled through his words the same way he fumbled with the door before his hand came up to tug at the collar of his dorm uniform. Azul simply watched him with a smirk growing on his face. “I didn’t plan for this scenario. Ortho didn’t make you come, did he?”

“No, nothing like that.” Pushing passed Idia’s stuttering form, Azul let himself into the other housewarden’s room, taking a glance around at the piles of games and machinery parts that were strewn haphazardly throughout. “Ortho simply told me you were upset, so I came to check on you.” Finding no extra chair other than the one Idia clearly sat in when he played his video games, Azul decided to settle himself down on the bed as Idia finally turned around from the door, letting Ortho in before closing it again. “Is everything alright?”

“Look.” Suddenly, Idia’s hands were moving just as fast as his mouth as he started rambling the way Azul only saw him when he got extra passionate about something - the tips of his hair turning a light pink as he spoke. “I’m really sorry about skipping out on the club meeting, I know you were excited about that game we were going to play. It’s just, one of my favorite game companies was releasing a new game today and I totally forgot until, like, a couple hours ago. But, it’s one of those party games where you need at least three people to play, and I was so excited about it but I don’t have anyone to play it with except for Ortho. And that’s only two of us so that wasn’t going to work, and the CPUs are always awful with this kind of thing, so I got a little upset and then I started getting more upset because it was a stupid thing to get upset about and then…”

Idia trailed off when he finally looked back at Azul’s fond gaze, causing the Octavinelle housewarden to startle at the realization of his own expression before schooling it into something more neutral. He couldn’t help it if he thought Idia was cute when he started rambling, but it was something the twins teased him about enough that he’d finally started catching on to when he was making ‘the face,’ as they called it. They stared at each other for a moment before Ortho’s voice broke the silence.

“It’s okay to get upset, big brother. I wanted to play the game too…”

“Well,” Azul slapped his hands onto his thighs as he stood up from the bed, causing both Shroud brothers to turn their attention sharply toward him, “how do we play then?”

Idia’s face immediately turned skeptical. “What do you want?”

Azul scoffed, though he knew it wasn't out of the realm of possibility for him to do something like this for his own benefit. “Nothing, Idia. I’m offering this out of the goodness of my heart. Besides, I was planning on playing something with you today anyway, so, this way, I still get to do that. Now, there’s three of us, so what’s this game and how do we play?”

Though the skeptical look remained on his face, Ortho’s excited bouncing seemed to win Idia over as he began rambling his way through the rules and the controls as he pulled out a few controllers and started setting up the game on his television. Azul was, by no means, well versed in video gaming and ended up consistently losing to both of the brothers who traded the first place title back and forth with each round they played. But, he decided, sitting on the floor of Idia’s room in a pile of blankets and getting to watch his smile when he did something cool or won some mini game was worth the embarrassing amount of times he was losing. Azul laughed as Ortho cheered him on for some arbitrary achievement he made that the brothers had both succeeded in almost an hour ago and his face went red when Idia hugged him when they managed to win some cooperative mini game against Ortho. Of course, Idia’s face went pink too, along with the tips of his hair as he pulled away, apologizing profusely and they’d both steadfastly ignored Ortho’s remark about their heart rates increasing after the fact. In the end, Azul couldn’t find it in himself to be upset that Idia had skipped out on their club meeting, spending the time with him and Ortho in his room turned out to be just as enjoyable, if not more so.