Once all this was done he actually spared a glance for the person who had been in his study for the past half-hour, sitting on one corner of his desk with an air of insufferable patience while reading a book.
Loki eyed him, drumming his fingers on the desk before finally breaking the silence that had been dominating the room as the two competed in their odd contest of ignoring each other because they really had something better to do. The boy wasn’t annoying, sitting quietly on the desk, but Loki did want to get some work done before lunch. “Did you want, something, Kou-chan?” he asked dryly.
The boy turned a page in his book and read for several minutes before sliding a bookmark between the pages. “Good morning, detective,” he said, putting the book in his pocket and turning to look at Loki with a cheerful smile, making no move to get off the desk. “I was wondering if I could ask a favour of you.”
Loki sighed, reminding himself that there were worst people to be pestered by at ten thirty in the morning. Koutarou, at least, wasn’t going to try and kill him. Nor did he come with a psychotic bird, a metal pig, or a strong desire to stalk and molest him. “What kind of favour, Kou-chan?”
“A minuscule one, detective. A favour that will not set you back in the slightest.” When Loki’s only response was a long, slow blink, Koutarou carried on. “I was wondering if you might lend me your butler for an evening, to cater a party I’m hosting.”
“No,” Loki said flatly. “I can’t spare Yamino-kun. Besides,” he added, looking slyly at the boy, “as a member of the Kakinouchi family, shouldn’t you be able to hire the best chefs in Japan to cater your little party?”
Koutarou’s smile twitched in a strained, familiar way. Loki knew similar expressions had crossed his face when another god began getting a bit too close to elements in an argument, or deal, that he’d rather they not know a thing about. “Well, you see, I’ve heard Narugami and Daidouji talk about the cooking your man does, from time to time, and this party is rather independent of my father . . .”
“I see,” Loki said, and he did see. He’d spent enough time in the boy’s company to have a superficial understanding of the relationship between father and son, and normally he would have been happy to aid him in his bizarre passive-aggressive forms of rebellion, since they provided a welcome distraction from the mundane existence of life on Midgard without any other gods getting involved and causing the near-death of he or his sons. Usually. It was an added bonus that the word ‘mystery’ never crossed Koutarou’s lips. However, he was not going to sacrifice Yamino to one rich mortal boy, no matter how amusing he occasionally was. He reached for a book, “My answer remains the same, Kou-chan. Is there anything else I can do for you, or shall I call Yamino-kun to show you out?”
Koutarou sighed very slightly, causing Loki to raise his eyebrows, and slid gracefully off the desk. “Well, if you’re decided you’re decided, I suppose. I can find my own way out. I’ll have to find him on my way out, though, and tell him that you’re not interested in hiring him out for a greater purpose.” Loki narrowed his eyes. “I asked him when I first arrived, and he seemed quite interested, but, of course, he wouldn’t dream of doing anything without your permission . . .” Koutarou trailed off, glancing over his shoulder at Loki.
Loki grimaced. That meant he’d be forced to put up with a disappointed Yamino, possibly for weeks, until something else distracted him or he spent a fortune ordering a collection of completely bizarre and utterly useless cooking implements from one of his accursed magazines. But with Odin’s attacks getting more frequent and ridiculous, he wasn’t sure he felt entirely comfortable being in the mansion with no one but Fenrir and Ecchan. He glared at Koutarou, and the boy smiled in a painfully familiar way. “I understand, Kou-chan, really, but I need Yamino-kun here with me.”
“Then let me host the party here,” Koutarou said, turning and leaning on the desk, smiling hopefully at Loki. “You won’t have to worry about being without your keeper for an evening, and I’ll still have one of the most . . . unusual chefs in the city catering my party. I have no problem paying for all the supplies, and really, it’s a very small party, you’ll never notice that we’re here, I swear it on my honour as a Kakinouchi, detective.”
“I thought you said this party was independent of your father, Kou-chan,” Loki said, his lips twitching slightly as he tried to suppress an amused smile.
Koutarou drew himself up, looking wounded, and pressed one hand over his heart. “You wound me, detective. I am fully capable of having funds of my own outside the realm of my father’s businesses.”
“When is this ‘little party’ supposed to be?”
“Next Sunday,” Koutarou said, the wounded look vanishing as he began to grin. “The twenty-third of December.”
“The guests?”
Koutarou waved a hand in the air vaguely. “Mostly classmates.”
Loki drummed his fingers on the desk again as he thought, staring past Koutarou at the empty doorway. “Is Mayura going to be at this party?” It wasn’t that he disliked the girl; she, too, provided relief from the monotony of Midgard, but that relief invariably seemed to involve some form of life-threatening chaos that Loki could really do without for a night.
A look of distinct irritation passed over Koutarou’s face. “Daidouji,” he said, sounding slightly bitter, “traditionally spends the day in question in the company of my cousin. They go to some old tombs togther, looking for ancestral ghosts or some such nonsense. I have found it impossible to get either of them to devote any time to anything but that at this time of year.”
Grinning, Loki’s hand stilled. An entire evening, perhaps longer, where Mayura wouldn’t be able to disturb him with one of her supposed mysterious mysteries. He could catch up on his reading. Or his sleep. Or both. It would be peaceful. As long as Odin didn’t try sending Hermod or Tyr or another of his idiot sons to Midgard as an assassin, he’d be able to relax, without any distractions. A contented sigh escaped his lips at the thought before he caught Koutarou looking at him with raised eyebrows and a knowing grin. He coughed, brushing his fingers across his lips. “I suppose there’s no harm in it, and if it would give Yamino-kun a chance to try some of his more . . . experimental dishes . . . And I was suitably compensated, of course.”
Koutarou bowed his head slightly. “Of course, detective.”
“Very well, then. You may use my home and Yamino-kun for your party, Kou-chan.” Loki waved a hand at the boy and abruptly found himself holding a stiff piece of paper. “What’s this?” he asked, looking at it and finding, among other things which were of no interest to him, his own address staring boldly back at him.
“An invitation, of course,” Koutarou said, half-way out the door. “See you Sunday, detective.”
When Loki woke up on the morning of Koutarou’s party, it was eight am, a truly ungodly hour to be awake. He was, quite understandably, still in his pajamas. He was also slung over Yamino’s shoulder and his son was halfway down the main staircase.
“Yamino-kun,” he said as sweetly as a god thousands of years old, currently residing in the body of an eight-year-old, and cruelly deprived of caffeine could, “what is the meaning of this?”
Yamino jumped at Loki’s abrupt awakening and swiftly set his father down, brushing nervously at his pajamas, trying to make them look less rumpled, less slept in, and overall, less like pajamas. “I’m so sorry, Loki-sama! Normally I would never wake you at such an hour, and certainly not in such a fashion, but – ”
“The point, Yamino-kun?” Loki asked, pinching the bridge of his nose and massaging his forehead. If someone was trying to break into the house and kill him, he was sorely tempted to let them, without protest, if it meant he could go back to bed.
“Ah, yes, of course, well, you see, there’s, um, these men outside. Rather large men. And they refuse to leave.”
“You could just shut the door and ignore them, Yamino-kun.”
“Of course, Loki-sama, and under normal circumstances I would, but, well, you see, they’re kind of standing in the way of the door being shut. They’re quite large, Loki-sama. And they want to speak with you.”
The morning was not off to a good start. Loki sighed. “Very well, Yamino-kun. I’ll have a talk with these quite large men and you can make me some tea while I take care of them.”
Yamino nodded, bowed, and apologized several more times before hurrying to the kitchen to prepare the tea.
Loki tried, in vain, to rub sleep from his eyes, wished he was wearing something besides yellow pajamas, and went to the front door.
They were, as Yamino had said, quite large. Loki had seen smaller giants. One was standing in the doorway, with one massive foot thrust inside to prevent the door from being shut. They were both wearing expensive suits that looked out of place on their gorilla-like frames, and Loki doubted they would be able to speak words that were more than one syllable in length. “Can I help you, gentlemen?” Loki asked, staring up and up at the one in the doorway.
The giant stared down at Loki, thick eyebrows going up in surprise at being addressed by someone who barely reached his waist. “Are you,” he asked, in careful, almost refined tones, “the detective?”
One of Loki’s eyebrows rose in response, and he nodded. “I’m Loki.”
The giant held a massive hand out to Loki, which the god took reluctantly, watching his tiny hand vanish into the man’s paw as he closed his fingers, shaking Loki’s hand gently. “Excellent. A pleasure to meet you, detective. We were sent by Kakinouchi-san to prevent any . . . undesirables from entering the building. We just wished to ascertain that we had come to the correct house.”
Loki’s sleep-addled brain slowly processed this. “Kakinouchi-san . . . You mean Kou-chan?”
Both giants nodded in unison.
“Of course . . . You’re rather, ah, earlier than I expected.”
“Kakinouchi-san said he was expecting decorators.”
“At eight in the morning,” Loki said, and sighed. “Right, right, please, make yourselves comfortable.”
The giants nodded once more, and the bigger one stepped out of the doorway and back outside into the morning air. As they walked away from the house, positioning themselves in front of the main gate, Yamino appeared from the kitchen and wordlessly handed Loki a cup of tea as the god continued to stare at the giants speculatively.
Loki was half-way through his first cup of tea, sitting in the doorway and wondering if the two giants Koutarou had sent would be able to prevent a delusional god with a metal flying pig from entering when a truck pulled up outside the gate.
It was a large white truck with the name of an expensive but small group of decorators painted on the side in red amongst images of Santa Claus, snowflakes, and bells that would have been festive if it weren’t for the fact that there was a fresh looking dent in the side of the truck that made it look as though someone had shot a cannonball into Santa’s stomach. His eyebrows rose as he took another sip of tea, the steam curling around his face, and a figure got out of the truck, and began unloading it. The result was that a large bag of greenery appeared to be negotiating entrance with the giants and, after a few moments of raised voices, the gate was opened and the bag walked forward, coming to a halt at Loki’s feet.
“Oi, Loki, get out of the way!”
Loki looked up into big brown eyes peering irritably around the bag and couldn’t decide whether he wanted to sigh or snicker. “Hello, Narukami-kun. Is it legal for you to be driving that poor vehicle?”
“Of course!” Narugami exclaimed indignantly, balancing precariously on one foot to poke at Loki with the other.
“And today you’re working for people who sell Christmas decorations,” Loki murmured, finishing his tea.
“All sorts of things for the holidays, really. Decorations, plants,” Narugami shook the bag a bit, “baked goods. That guy didn’t ask for any of the good stuff, though.” He sighed, obviously disappointed at this decision which deprived him of food.
“He asked for Yamino-kun to do the cooking.”
“Really?” Narugami asked, his voice instantly perking up at this prospect.
“Mm,” Loki nodded, slowly getting to his feet and wandering back inside, Narugami following him. He watched for a minute as Narugami dumped the contents of the bag on the floor, a little sea of green leaves, red velvet ribbons, and white berries spilling out, then went back outside. After the third bag of decorations, Loki went to Yamino, instructed him to bring more tea and breakfast to his study, and went upstairs to hide from the mounting chaos for the rest of the day.
When Loki eventually left the sanctity of his study, much later in the day, Koutarou’s guests were already arriving: well-dressed, good looking teenagers who were suitably impressed by the house and by the extravagant decorations that Narugami had somehow managed to put up without destroying anything within Loki’s immediate line of sight. The entire affair seemed to have spread over the main floor of the house, and Loki remained warily perched on the staircase, leaning on the banister, while Fenrir bolted off to beg food from one of the guests.
Loki was seriously considering returning to his study, stuffing cotton in his ears, and spending the remainder of the night reading when the door opened and the one behind all the chaos entered, sparing a brief, smug look for the people and decorations before turning and helping a girl in a red dress inside. He removed her jacket, murmuring something as he did, and gave it to another giant, who had apparently appeared while Loki was in hiding, to take care of.
With one arm around the girl, Koutarou surveyed the scene more carefully, until he made eye contact with Loki and wandered over. “Good evening, detective. Looks nice, doesn’t it?”
“Indeed,” Loki said, eyeing the girl Koutarou had brought with him. She was the same height as the boy, with a pale, lightly freckled face, and short blond hair that just brushed her shoulders. Her eyes were an odd shade of blue and though she was smiling, there was something subtly off about it.. Quite pretty, but that was to be expected with Koutarou. “It’s quite festive,” he added, when he realized the boy wasn’t making any move to leave.
“Well, ‘tis the season and all that.”
“I’m sure,” Loki replied flatly. “Who’s your friend?”
“Ah, of course. How could I have neglected to introduce the guest of honour?” Koutarou smiled, and Loki knew that the boy had been waiting for him to ask that exact question. He rolled his eyes as Koutarou continued, pulling the girl forward, “This is Hilda Gunnarsen, an exchange student from, um . . .”
“Uppsala, Sweden,” the girl replied in a soft, accented voice.
“Sweden,” Koutarou nodded, grinning in relief. “She’s only been in Japan for a few months, and I thought it would be nice to have a little party to make her feel more comfortable, when she’s so far away from home.”
“Koutarou has been very thoughtful and helpful in the past few months,” she said, causing Koutarou’s grin to widen.
“I’ll bet,” Loki murmured.
“Hilda, this is Loki, who was generous enough to let us borrow his humble abode to have the party in. Helps keep it more private this way. More, ah, intimate.”
“How generous of you,” Hilda said, one of her wrong smiles flashing across her face as she held out a hand which Loki, after a moment’s hesitation, reached out to shake politely.
“No problem,” he murmured, staring at the girl.
Koutarou turned, his arm still draped casually across the girl’s shoulders, and waved Narugami over. “Narugami, could you help Hilda to the food, please.” He shot a look at Loki, “Your butler did do the cooking, right?”
“Of course.”
“Excellent. Hilda, Narugami will help you get something to drink. I’ll be along shortly, I just want to talk to the detective for a moment.”
Hilda nodded, still smiling, and took Narugami’s arm when he tapped her hand, causing Koutarou to frown slightly as they walked away.
“She’s blind,” Loki said, when they were out of sight.
“Mm,” Koutarou agreed, leaning on the banister next to Loki. “Makes things more difficult.”
“You organized this ridiculous party in order to seduce a blind girl.”
Koutarou flashed Loki a bright grin. “Everyone likes parties, detective.”
Loki snorted. “Was all this really necessary if she can’t see any of it?”
“Atmosphere. Besides, I’ve read that blind people have heightened senses. Who knows what she’s able to notice.”
“Indeed,” Loki murmured, frowning in the direction Hilda and Narugami had gone.
Koutarou straightened and stretched, grinning down at Loki. “I’m sure it’ll turn out to be well worth the effort, detective,” he said, and wandered down the stairs, apparently heading off to find his victim and get her away from Narugami before anything unfortunate happened.
Loki cupped his hands around his mouth and called after the boy, “They don’t even have mistletoe in Sweden, Kou-chan!”
Waving one hand in Loki’s direction in acknowledgement of his comment while completely ignoring what he said, Koutarou continued forward, and vanished into the crowd that had somehow tripled in size since his arrival.
Loki sighed, sliding down to sit on the step and rest his head against a bannister entwined with fresh smelling ivy and mistletoe, wishing desperately for a drink.
The party carried on in a manner which reminded Loki strongly of Valhalla, as the guests got as drunk as he wished he was and ate whatever bizarre concoctions Yamino had come up with for the occasion without questioning the contents.
At one point, Loki thought he heard a commotion outside the house: a lot of yelling, swearing, and an indistinct “Buhi buhi!” noise. He ignored it all along with the explosions that followed, and eventually it all went away.
As the evening wore on, Yamino braved the crowd of teenagers to bring Loki a mug of something warm and sadly non-alcoholic.
Feeling exhausted, the mug eventually drained, and wiping foam off his upper lip, Loki stood, preparing to go to bed and sleep, assuming he could find big enough pillows to hide his head under and block out the noise. Over the banister, he could see the walls, lined with garlands of mistletoe that draped heavily across each doorway, weighed down by large, glistening white berries. In one doorway, miraculously clear of other people, stood Koutarou and his pretty blind Swedish girl. Loki watched, with a mixture of amusement, disgust, and envy as Koutarou put his arms around the girl, laughing, his face slightly flushed with alcohol, and moved to kiss her. And, out of the corner of his eye, Loki saw the vague purple glimmer of evil aura, hidden in the berries and leaves just above Koutarou’s head.
It only took Loki a moment to summon Laevatein, leap onto the banister, and launch himself in the direction of Koutarou. He swung the scythe up and slammed the tip into the mistletoe, banishing the evil aura and smashing several white berries in the process while the base of the scythe hit Koutarou in the back of his skull, knocking him out.
“You brought evil mistletoe into my house.”
“Oi, Loki, I told you, it was an accident! How was I supposed to know it was evil? You didn’t say anything when I brought it inside!”
Loki massaged his forehead. Things were getting ridiculous. Things had always seemed a little bit ridiculous, but evil, homicidal mistletoe was going a bit too far. Yamino crept into the study, shutting the door softly behind him, and Loki looked up, albeit reluctantly. “Are they all gone?”
“Yes, Loki-sama. Except for the girl.” Loki frowned. “She’s playing with oniisan on the staircase. She’s just sitting there, though, not doing anything. I don’t think she had anything to do with it.”
“And the decorations are all gone?”
“Koutarou-san’s, ah, large gentlemen put them into Narugami-san’s vehicle.”
“Great,” Loki muttered, burying his head in his hands. “How’s Kou-chan?”
“You could just check for yourself, you know, Loki. I’m not a nurse.”
“Narukami-kun,” Loki hissed in exasperation.
“He’s fine,” Narugami muttered reluctantly, eyeing the unconscious teenager lying on Loki’s couch, and carefully moved the ice-pack so it stopped slipping down Koutarou’s face. Koutarou groaned softly. “You must have got him pretty bad with Laevatein, though. Doesn’t look like he’ll be getting up for a while.” Narugami grinned, “Didn’t know you had it in you, Loki.”
“Narukami-kun . . .” Loki sighed, lifting his head to glare at the other god, who shrugged and grinned, unapologetic. Narugami’s sympathies had never been with the rich. He turned to look at Yamino, still standing by the door and hopelessly upset. “Yamino-kun, why don’t you help the girl to Narukami-kun’s vehicle . . . No, you said she doesn’t know anything about it. She doesn’t deserve that kind of torment.” Narugami made a face. “Do you think you could walk her home, Yamino-kun?”
“Of course, Loki-sama.”
“Take Fenrir with you,” Loki called as Yamino left the room, and sighed as the door shut. “Just in case . . .”
“Shouldn’t you be more worried about yourself, Loki?”
“I’d hate for anything to happen to him while I’m not with him. And if someone does try anything while they’re gone, the two of us can probably handle it.”
“Like old times,” Narugami smiled briefly, then looked at Koutarou again and patted Mjollnir absently. “Do you think it was Heimdall and Freyr?”
“No. Although I heard Freyr and Gullinbrusti outside during the party, I think.”
“The Norns, then?”
“It doesn’t really seem their style.”
“Mm . . .” Narugami said, beginning to frown in that way that meant he was thinking seriously about something.
Loki stood up, paced around his desk, and went to the window, staring outside unhappily. “The god Baldr,” he said distantly, “had dreams that foretold his death, and his mother went to great lengths to ensure that nothing bad would happen to him. She got the word of everything that existed, making them promise that none of them would ever harm Baldr. But she neglected one thing, because it was small and weak, and that would be Baldr’s undoing. Baldr was beautiful, gentle, kind. The most beloved of all the gods . . .”
“But when the future is written, it’s going to happen no matter what you do,” Narugami murmured. “Sometimes trying to prevent it is what causes it to happen.”
“Sometimes in the story the trickster Loki causes the death of Baldr, because he’s jealous of the fact that everyone loves him, he’s jealous of the happiness, and he makes a dart of the neglected plant and gives it to blind Hod, helping him aim it and throw it at his brother. It kills Baldr instantly. That plant’s usually mistletoe. And sometimes Hod does it himself, because he’s been given a love potion by an evil woman, causing him to fall in love with Baldr’s wife . . .”
“Loki . . .” Narugami frowned. “Not everything that happens leads back to us, you know. There’s such a thing as coincidence.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re reading too much into this,” Narugami said as he stood, standing behind Loki and putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Maybe.”
“Besides,” Narugami said with a yawn, “we don’t even have mistletoe back home. So that can’t be the one thing Frigg forgot about. The mortals who wrote those books you read must have messed up somehow.”
Loki sighed, looking past Narugami to the unconscious boy on the couch. He rubbed at his eyes. He’d been awake far too long. Koutarou was just Koutarou, after all. “You’re probably right, Narukami-kun.”
Narugami nodded agreeably, and the two gods remained by the window, staring out into the darkness and thinking private thoughts, until Yamino returned and ushered the half-asleep Loki to bed, leaving Narugami to watch his unconscious classmate until the morning.
End Notes:
Thanks to Jinxer for giving the first draft a look, and then beating me for being stupid.
Kou-chan’s weird passive-aggressive rebellious tendencies are from a drabble Meia wrote this summer.
Mayura and her mystery-obsessed friend are off doing something related to this. Thanks to Mari for the idea.
Both Hilda and Gunnar are Scandinavian names pertaining to battle and war. The Blind God Hod, brother of Baldr and son of Odin and Frigg, was associated with war and battle (despite being blind . . .). Make of that what you will.
The possibility that Kou-chan might be Baldr is based on the fact that the kanji for his name apparently roughly translate to “son of light”.
According to my Norse Mythology professor, there really isn't mistletoe in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, or Denmark. As he studied in Iceland and taught in Sweden, I'm inclined to believe him.
Happy snowflake day, kids.