Cyhirae lounged in one of the overstuffed armchair reading with Gilese curled up on one of the arms of the chair purring away happily. Good Omens wasn’t a book she would have picked out on her own, but it had been given to her for Christmas and so she felt obligated to at least give it a try.  That had been this morning and she hadn’t been able to put it down since. Thank god she had already finished her homework yesterday or else she’d be in trouble.

A loud, undignified cackle escaped her mouth after reading one particularly hilarious paragraph before she could stifle it gaining her a few weird looks from her housemates.  Shoulders shaking she put the book down and tried valiantly to stop snickering. Gilese mewed worriedly and crawled into Cy’s lap, batting her gently on the chin. Cyhirae took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her eyes, “I’m fine Gilese.”

It was probably the first time since she found out that Juni and Ambrose were dating that the words ‘I’m fine’ were mostly accurate. She had been surprised at how much it had bothered her that he had moved on so soon. They hadn’t really been true boyfriend and girlfriend for a while before they had officially broken up, but she had still been quite peeved when Juni had let her know. Gilese rubbed the top of her head under Cy’s chin comfortingly, as if sensing Cyhirae’s thoughts. She scratched the cat under her chin and was rewarded with the restart of her cat motor. “Well at least I’ll aways have you,” though Cy hoped that it wouldn’t always just be Gilese at her side.

“Wotcha reeeeeeadin’?”


With his usual panache and grace, Connor leaned over the back of Cyhirae’s chair, far enough that his face was level with her forehead. His eyes, from this angle, were very wide, sort of manic, and the teensiest bloodshot. They were also, surprisingly, not trained on his pretty housemate’s bountiful boobage, which was really saying something.

Wild-eyed and wild-haired, Connor blamed it on the weed. It helped him focus, but sometimes – apparently – that was too much of a good thing.

“Suuuu… ah-mO doog?” What. Pulling back just a smidge, he squinted at its cover. Then cocked his head, when that proved less than sufficient. Good Omens. Huh. “Some kinda divination book you got there?” It didn’t look like any book on divination he’d ever seen, with its one bloke chilling on the cover, but to be fair, there weren’t many divination books he’d cracked open in the first place. Any interest he had in the subject had waxed and waned with the arrival and departure of Professor Cosmos, and after the latter it had never returned. He couldn’t even tell you who the current professor was.

Cyhirae, though—she wasn’t as book-nerdy or competitive as Esther, Ronnie or Juni, but compared to the boy she was still leagues more studious than he would ever be, if weirdly grounded in Muggle stuff like the rest of her family. Connor supposed it came from having someone like Professor Trishna as a teacher and a dad.

She was also, he couldn’t help but remember, decidedly single. Not because he had, like, creepy designs or anything, but because she and Ambrose had been a Thing for so long (at least in his mind) that one without the other was—weird, even if they never seemed to have much in common. It struck him that he didn’t really know much about her, aside from the fact that she was the daughter of the teacher he really enjoyed pissing off.

That, and she had what was truly an impressive pair of tatas. Connor took a moment to silently pat himself on the back for his entrance (even if it really, honestly hadn’t been his attention) and casually reached over to give Gliese a pat on the head.

Cyhirae wrinkled her nose at the pungent, skunky smell radiating from Connor and resisted trying to gag, “Ugh, you smell. When was the last time you took a bath?” Cy pushed herself down into the chair trying to give herself some space; she would have pushed him away but she didn’t want to get that stink on her hands. Still, she didn’t move away, even when he reached over her to pat Gliese on her head. His eyes were focused on areas above her neck for once.

Gliese happily accepted Connor’s pats and started purring again, stretching upwards to lean into his fingers. She apparently didn’t mind potentially getting Connor’s funk on her, though given this was the cat who preferred nesting in dirty laundry over the clean stuff it wasn’t that surprising. Cy silently thanked whatever wizard invented the sanitation charm.

Cy eyed him suspiciously before deciding that her annoying housemate was, for the time being, actually interested in what her book was about rather than using it as an excuse for something else. “It’s not a divination book, it’s a fantasy novel. A muggle one.” Connor knew about that kind of muggle stuff right? He was in her muggle studies class, but that didn’t mean all that much at this school given how many different teachers had held the post these past couple of years.

“Basically the Anti-Christ is predicted to bring about the end of the world, and an angel and a demon don’t want that to happen cause the like the world as is and are trying to stop him.”

“It’s really funny,” she added.