"Mr. Rogue just... let you take Mika?" Yuu asked in confusion at Cecil's extremely joyful grin.

"My position has power, Yuu," my friend chirped. Next to him, Shinoa was choking on her lunch.

"Why- how- is- he- here?" She asked between gags, before Mitsuba eventually decided to give her friend some water.

"I'm wondering that myself," Kimizuki commented quietly. "You don't even attempt to conceal yourself from the paparazzi."

"You should know the reasoning behind that as well as I do, Kimizuki," Yoichi sighed into his chicken wrap. "He doesn't care about the rumors the tabloids would create, and flaunts his friendship with Mika proudly."

"You know... too much," my friend warily said, although there were no negative intent within. "Almost like you stalk me," he teased, Yoichi flushing a pink.

"I'm a journalist. When I'm not reporting on the criminals, you're all everyone talks about."

Cecil eyed me with a hidden joke that I shook my head to, having thought the same thing myself previously. Of how a member of the black market ended up befriending someone who reports on their every crime down to the smallest detail.

In the corner of my eye I saw Marìa leaning expectantly out of the kitchen, only to be pulled back in by her mother.

"Are you sure you got out without any catches?" Yuu asked, leaning over to whisper in my ear.

"Certain. Cecil's strange. He always manages to get away with things I could never dream of," I murmured back, a hand on his jaw to keep him as he was. But a part of me merely wanted to claim ownership of him through the gesture.

"Like that one time he spent an entire day in his underwear and tried to initiate a water fight with you?" He asked, taking in the hand rather possessively gripping his face with a quick glance.

I laughed against his cheek, kissing it for praise of giving an example I had long forgotten. Yuu happily hummed at the silent praise, still smiling when I pulled back.

Cecil was watching us with a glimmer in his orange eyes, two fingers pressed to his lips.

It took both of us a long while of processing to realize that he was grinning with a proud flush across his cheeks.

"What? Spit it out," I said. He kept his strangely enthusiastic setup as his gaze traveled to meet mine.

"You're a perfect match for each other," he said in a quiet voice that was almost an exclamation of joy.

"My friends would say otherwise," Yuu sighed, gesturing to the four as they fought over the last French fry, all of them freezing to look at us.

"Well, he's not wrong," Shinoa said, blinking without emotion. "They have a lot of tension."

Cecil cocked a brow at that statement, Yuu turning a crimson color. He made a quiet strangled noise that prompted me to elbow him.

"Not like that," I clarified with a deadpanned gaze.

"And it's cliché. I mean, someone dating their idol? How many times have you seen that done?" Kimizuki muttered.

"I think it's cute," Yoichi piped up. Mitsuba shrugged when heads turned to her.

"Doesn't involve me."

"Good way of thinking," Cecil complimented. She grinned smugly, shooting a glance to Shinoa who merely puffed out her cheeks bitterly.

"But your comment," he continued, leaning across the table to Kimizuki. His profile was just as beautiful as he was from the front, which didn't help make everyone else in the room feel better about themselves. "Was interesting. Idol?"

"Oh, yeah, Amane over there's got a huge-"

Yuu's hand slammed on the table as he abruptly stood, a butter knife landing blade down into the table between Kimizuki's splayed fingers.

"Don't you dare."

"Oh, did I piss you off? My apologies."

"You're not sorry."

"Is no one going to point out how accurate that spur of the moment knife toss was?" Shinoa asked quietly.

"We noticed," Cecil said, glancing to me as I stared at Kimizuki's hand, which was pulling away from the butter knife now.

"Just didn't think too much on it," I added, tossing an arm over Yuu's shoulder. "I, for one, have never heard the story you were about to tell us, Kimizuki. Should I allow him to tell me on his own accord, or will you bless me with it?"

"I would tell you first chance I got, but I now fear my own friend around any type of metal cutlery."

I pursed my lips in disappointment, watching Yoichi inspect the area the knife had become wedged in the table while being overcome with awe.

"You're telling me about that later."

"Fight me tonight. Whoever wins gets their own wishes granted. If I win, you learn when I feel like it," he responded quietly with a smirk I knew he used only for me.

"Deal," I murmured, taking his hand beneath the table. Cecil fished out a matchbox from his coat pocket, looking quite appalled when he did.

"Your dad?" I asked, resting my head on Yuu's shoulder.

"No," he said, brows furrowing at the box. "I don't quite know why that ended up there. Someone must have misplaced it."

"Do you have anyone with an arsonist's tendencies?" Mitsuba asked curiously, leaning across the table.

"Uh . . . No. There's only me. I like how it looks."

"But he hates the smell of smoke," I said in unison with Yoichi. There was no way he could have known that fact. Cecil never revealed such information in any of his interviews.

"That was creepy," Yuu mumbled as he shifted in his seat. Cecil nodded in agreement. Marìa was slowly inching by our table, trying to catch as much of our conversation as she could.

"Marìa! Hurry up!" Emiliana barked from the kitchen door. Her slim figure was leaning against the frame, arms folded across her chest although a free hand was typing on her phone. Her dark eyes looked at us with some sort of amused expression.

"For thirty-nine, she's pretty attractive," Shinoa commented before Mitsuba and Yuu stomped on her toes. I looked at her with a bemused expression.

"How long are you going to sit there? I've seen five groups of teenaged girls look at you guys like they're on death row and it's their last meal," she commented in a heavily accented voice that seemed familiar to something else as of that time. "Except every time they looked at Yuu, Mika glared at them. They all looked like they had seen a chupacabra."

"Or La Llorona herself. Now that would scare the shit out of me," Marìa commented lightheartedly as she stacked dishes on a tray.

"Was I glaring at them?"

"You were, and you know it," Cecil sighed, orange gaze knowing.

"I've seen him do that look once because I teased Yuu about how much time he spent on his computer," Yoichi said, shivering has he remembered that day. "It haunts my dreams to this day. Like the eyes of a beast."

Cecil choked on his water at that moment, everyone staring at him in confusion.

All but Yuu and myself.