Sleep Mode

Maybe he would find out at the meeting later that morning...

---

Red eyes narrowed, darting across the meeting table. "Wahl's late."

"That's weird." Ajeel leaned back in his seat and rested his feet on the table. "Doesn't he usually set a built-in alarm for meetings or something?"

"Yes." Invel frowned. "Nevertheless, I'm sure he'll be here at any moment."

"Hey, guys!" As if on cue, the double doors swung open, and Wahl stepped in, clutching a heap of objects. "Sorry I'm late. Decided to bring some stuff with me." He took a seat and tossed the items onto the table.

Silence.

Disgust briefly flashed across Invel's face, but he quickly managed to regain his usual blank expression. Jacob, horrified, mumbled something about "indecency". Irene clamped a hand to her mouth to hide her amused smirk.

A few seats away from Wahl, Dimaria forced a smile. "Wahl, where did you find those?"

"Westernmost area of the palace. Last night."

Several of the others leapt from their seats. "You went into the west area?!"

"Yeah. There's no monster or whatever that whole rumour was about." Wahl shrugged. "All I found was these. Dimaria, this pillow belongs to you, right?"

"Yes." She snatched the body pillow from Wahl, glaring at him. "And I didn't give you permission to touch my things."

Brandish stared at her. "Mari, why do you... have that...?"

"None of your business."

"Where did you get it?"

"None of your business."

"How-?"
"None of your business."

Wahl picked up a voodoo doll in each hand. "What about these creepy dolls?"

"Those are mine," Bloodman answered. "Would thou give them back?"

"No, wait. Don't." Larcade stood up. "Bloodman, have you been using voodoo on us?"

"...No."

Larcade's usual calm smile didn't change, but it was clearly hiding annoyance. "Bloodman..."

Bloodman sighed. "Only when thou annoyeth me."

"Wahl, don't give those back to him." Larcade sat back down.

Wahl glanced between Larcade and the irritated Bloodman. "Okay."

Neinhart smiled, a sheen of sweat forming on his forehead. "That's enough, Wahl. No need to show us the rest of it. We'll just carry on with the meeting..."

"Aw, but that's boring, Neinhart." Wahl grinned and picked up the bundles of paper. "You wrote some pretty good fanfictions."

"...You read those?" Neinhart tried and failed to keep his composure; his face flushed bright red.

"Only some of them. I don't like reading about humans' mating habits." Wahl smirked.

Neinhart sank down in his seat, face burning. All heads in the room had turned toward him, some amused, some horrified, some simply unimpressed.

After Wahl finally managed to stop laughing, he spoke. "Oh, right, and I found this. It looks like a bunch of photos taken by my camera, but I don't remember any of them."

"Wahl, did you open that?!" Invel, Irene, and Jacob all shouted at once.

"Yeah. Duh."

"Ooh. Can I see?" Serena moved his seat closer to Wahl's.

"Sure, take a look."

"No." Invel strode toward them and snatched the photo album. "This thing was supposed to remain hidden where nobody would ever find it. Especially not you, Wahl."

"Huh?" Wahl blinked. "Why me?"

"Because after you took those photos, you tried to use them as blackm-"

Irene's sentence was cut off as Jacob clamped a hand over her mouth. "Don't give him any ideas!"

"When did I take those photos, though?"

"A few months ago," Invel answered, firmly shutting the album. "We had a party to celebrate the anniversary of the country of Alvarez, and everyone but you got a bit... carried away."

"We got hammered," Ajeel said bluntly.

"You, being a robot, couldn't get drunk," Invel explained. "So you spent the night taking pictures for blackmail instead."

"Seriously? Wow, I was a genius a few months ago." Wahl grinned.

Irene sighed. "Anyway, we're going to have to find a new hiding spot for that. Or just burn it."

"Let's burn it!" Serena leapt to his feet and struck a pose.

"Why didn't we just burn it in the first place?" Brandish asked. Her answer was a series of shrugs from the others.

August glanced around at them. "I shall do the honours, I suppose, since I'm the only one who can use fire magic."

"Are you not forgetting someone?" Serena raised his hand.

August quickly corrected himself. "The only responsible one who can use fire magic."

"Uh, rude. I'm extremely responsible for my age, thank you very much."

An awkward silence followed.

"No," Invel said, "you're really not."

Serena sighed and slid back down into his seat.

"And I'm going to speak to His Majesty later about finding some way to keep Wahl out of the west wing. And the rest of you, too." Invel cleared his throat. "Anyway. Dimaria, Neinhart, would you care to remove those from the meeting room? Once you return, we will continue the meeting as usual. I will keep this photo album with me until we have an opportunity to burn it."

"Can I take one last look at it?" Wahl asked.

"No." Invel glared at him.

"Please?"

"No."

"...Fine." Wahl folded his arms and slouched in his seat, glowering at Invel.

Invel turned back toward the others, waiting for Dimaria and Neinhart to return.

The moment Invel wasn't paying attention to the album, Wahl's hand darted out and snatched it from before him. Immediately, he turned and sped away, ignoring Invel's angry shouts from behind him. Grinning, he peered back over his shoulder to find Invel, Irene, and Jacob following him. A few of the others were stumbling out of their seats to give chase as well.

Clutching the photo album, he dashed through the hallways of the palace, cackling.

---

A minute or so later, Zeref was nearly knocked over by the angry Spriggans stampeding past him. Wahl was in the front, cackling and waving some sort of book in the air above his head.

Calmly, the emperor stood up and dusted himself off. He was used to this by now - after all, the Spriggans got up to some very strange things.

Sometimes, they just didn't need a context.