Chapter 470: Recordings
"Miss Araceli, I made this video especially to show you that we didn’t do anything to you."
Cecilia sat on the closed lid of the toilet, her back against the cool bathroom wall, Eastiel’s phone clutched in both hands. The screen glowed, and there he was, her lion-eared boyfriend, speaking directly into the camera earnestly, decided to document his own virtue.
She had locked herself in the bathroom. It was the only place she could watch in peace, away from the chaos of the living room where Arkai was cosplaying the thinking statue and Oathran had given up on the remote and was simply staring at the ceiling as though hoping it might collapse on him.
Momo and Bunny already called it a night and returned to their own apartment upstairs, leaving with a chuckling laugh.
On the screen, Eastiel continued his narration. The video was clearly the latest, and she had scrolled through the thumbnails of more, stretching back two years, each one labeled with dates and titles like "Oathran’s Crush Part 1" and "Arkai’s Crush Part 2."
The sheer volume of documentation was both impressive and deeply incriminating.
"Cecilia—please, come out..." Eastiel’s real voice came through the bathroom door, muffled and desperate. "I-I didn’t mean to record most of it!"
"Lies." Cecilia didn’t look up from the screen. "You must’ve recorded these to gain advantage over your elder brothers, right?"
The silence on the other side of the door was deafening.
On the video, the camera showed her, Cecilia, lying on a plush sofa inside what looked like a private room at the back of the club.
She was clearly unconscious, her hair fanned out across the cushions, her face slack obliviously.
The Eastiel in the video narrated, "You suddenly fell asleep after vomiting on those dangerous looking guys. Don’t worry! We took care of them!"
"Maybe she’d drank too much," Arkai’s voice came from off-screen, clearly worried.
The camera shifted, and Cecilia watched as her recorded self stirred slightly on the sofa. Beside her, Oathran was carefully, almost comically carefully, patting down her coat’s pockets. His hands staying strictly at the edges of the fabric and his expression one of intense concentration.
"Oh! Oathran’s not trying to grope you or anything, I promise!" Eastiel’s narration rushed to clarify. "H-he’s just... ah, trying to find your ID so we can send you home!"
"Stop it, man." Arkai’s face appeared in the frame now, his wolf ears flattened with secondhand embarrassment. "You make us look even more suspicious..."
"No! This video is proof that we’re gentlemen, okay?" Eastiel’s recorded voice was full of conviction. The camera shook as he gestured emphatically.
Then it happened.
The camera shifted again, just slightly, and the background came into view. The recorded Cecilia was no longer unconscious on the sofa. She had woken up. Or perhaps she was still asleep, but moving unselfconsciously, wrapped her arms around Oathran’s neck.
She was pulling him down toward her and kissing him.
Eastiel and Arkai’s faces filled the frame, still looking at the phone screen. Their eyes widened in perfect synchronization, then their heads whipped around at exactly the same moment.
"OATHRAN!"
"WHO SAID ABOUT BRO CODE EARLIER, HUH?!"
The camera swung wildly, and there was Oathran, pulling himself away from the sofa, his hair mussed, his McKing uniform collar askew, his expression dazed and blinking... like a man who had just been struck by lightning—"What?"
Eastiel turned back to the camera, his face full of horror. "G-goddamnit—this becomes crime evidence!"
The video cut to black.
"AHAHAH—aha—AHAHAHA—!"
Cecilia burst into laughter. It was not a polite laugh either. It literally came from somewhere deep in her belly, making the egg inside her kick in a surprised response.
She doubled over on, her wheezes echoing off the bathroom tiles.
"CECILIA, PLEASE—" Eastiel’s voice came through the door, which only made her laugh harder.
In the living room, the atmosphere was considerably less joyful.
Arkai knelt on the rug. He could no longer remember how to stand. His hands rested limply on his thighs, his wolf ears drooped at angles that defied physics, and his eyes stared at the blank television screen with the hollow emptiness of someone who had just witnessed his entire dignity evaporate in real time.
"It’s over," he said. His voice was flat, devoid of hope. He was a man reading his own eulogy.
Beside him, Oathran had abandoned all pretense of composure. The white dragon lay on his side. He stared at the wall with unblinking grey eyes.
"Everything," Oathran whispered, his voice barely audible. "Everything means nothing anymore. In that phone is every lame side imaginable—"
"The farthest pissing challenge too—" Arkai added, his voice cracking on the last word.
Oathran’s body went rigid. His head lifted from the floor, his mist grey eyes blazing with sudden fury as they fixed on Eastiel. "EASTIEL, YOU DIDN’T RECORD THAT SHIT, RIGHT?"
Eastiel, who had been pressing his forehead against the bathroom door in a futile attempt to telepathically convince their girlfriend to stop watching, turned around with the expression of a man who had already accepted his fate. "OF COURSE I RECORDED WHO PISSED THE LONGEST AND FURTHEST!"
"YOU STUPID DUMBASS—" Arkai lunged from his kneeling position, his wolf instincts overriding his existential despair.
Eastiel scrambled backward, his lion tail puffed to twice its normal size. "IT WAS A HISTORICAL MOMENT! WE SET PERSONAL RECORDS!"
Oathran didn’t get up from the floor.. "I want to go back to the rift," he murmured. "It’s decided. I’ll live in the rift from now on—"
From the bathroom, Cecilia’s laughter rose in pitch.
"CECILIA—"
***
One video was dated two years ago.
It played out, the frame a little shaky, the lighting dim. Arkai sat on the sofa, loosening his tie after what must have been a long day. He didn’t seem to know he was being recorded.
Eastiel’s voice came from behind the camera, casual and needling in the way only a younger brother could manage.
Then...
"I met her at the purification technology convention," Arkai said, sounding reluctant after being cornered into sharing. "She’s asking a lot of questions to the corruption waste management expert, you know, the one I just hired?"
"And you let her think you were a plumber?"
Arkai’s wolf ears twitched with irritation. "Listen, even if I said I’m Arkai Dawnoro, there’s no picture of me anywhere. How would I prove it? Creepily show her my ID?"
"You just don’t want to. Are you ashamed or something?"
"Shut up. My sister’s scandal is bad enough. You want me to show off now?"
"And you didn’t ask about her name?"
"Just gave her my card." Arkai looked away, toward the window, his expression unreadable. "The one with just my phone number."
"Dumbass."
"If she needs a plumber, I can see her again, alright?"
The video ended.
Then, another video a year later... opened on Eastiel’s grinning face. Behind him, Arkai was mid-eye-roll. The lighting was warmer this time.
"Say it again," Eastiel’s recorded voice demanded. "Say what you just said."
"Why? Are you recording?"
"Come on! This will play at your wedding!"
The Arkai on screen paused. His wolf ears, which had been flat with irritation, lifted slightly. When he spoke again, his voice was different. "...you think it’ll go that far?"
"Bro, you’ve been talking about that convention over and over again. Let me record this one, alright? Tell me what you just said!"
A long sigh. Then, "Well... fine... so, she finally called my number, alright?"
"Then?"
"I brought my team and she did need a plumbing team. But it’s for her office. She works in a lab."
"You got her name now?"
"Yeah."
"Good job, man!"
But suddenly, the camera jostled violently. Arkai’s hand filled the frame, and suddenly the perspective flipped. Eastiel was in full view now, caught off guard, his lion ears swiveling with surprise.
"Your turn," Arkai’s voice commanded from behind the camera. "Tell me about the girl you’ve been talking about since six months ago too."
"What? Nah..." Eastiel’s face was already flushing, his tail twitching with visible discomfort.
"You want me to let you record shit? You record it too."
"...fine."
"Go on, it’s still recording."
Eastiel took a breath. He looked down at his hands, then up at the ceiling, then somewhere to the left of the camera. "So... in this library, right..."
His voice had gone soft, the teasing bravado stripped away. He looked almost shy.
"Yo, what are you guys talking about?" Oathran’s voice intruded from off-screen, and the camera swung to catch him walking through a doorway, his McKing cap still on his head, his eyes curious.
"Ssssh—Eastiel’s gonna tell us about that girl he mentioned."
Oathran’s expression shifted. His eyebrows rose and his mouth curved into something that was almost a smile. He crossed the room and settled into the frame, his posture attentive.
"Oooh, yeah. Speak."
"But you too, Oathran. You said this McKing customer is out of this world pretty."
"You first."
"Ah, promise me first!"
"Alright, I promise. Right after you."
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