It’s A Wonderful Life - Volume 5 Chapter 43

Silas lived in a manor. It was an old-fashioned manor, classically Japanese. It was surrounded by a large garden all around and a high wooden fence. When the car Ira was passively sitting in drove through the gate, he made sure to take lots of pictures of the peaceful view.

Usually, such excessive beauty would make him nauseous, but this place instead evoked a soothing feeling in him. He liked the calm of the colors and that there was nothing flashy about it.

Silas was sitting right next to him in the back of the car.

It had taken them ten minutes to drive from Ira’s mediocre apartment to this huge manor, which he supposed explained how they ran into each other at the grocery store. But considering how much bossing his minions around that Silas had been doing during the packing, Ira kind of wondered why Silas was even there himself and not a minion. Surely he could just order them to go pick up whatever he wanted?

His hand twitched in Silas’ grip as Ira leaned further toward the window and stared with unblinking eyes at the large mural painted on the ground they were driving over. He could only see part of it, but it certainly looked very cool.

The car slowed to a stop and Silas stepped out first. He pulled Ira after him and held tightly onto Ira’s hand as Ira climbed out as well. Ira rolled his eyes at Silas’s weird need to keep holding his hand. It wasn’t as if he was going anywhere.

Dozens of men lined up outside of the main building as Ira and Silas approached the door. They stood with their backs almost painfully straight and stared straight ahead. Then, at some unknown signal, they all bowed ninety degrees and shouted together, “Welcome home, oyabun!”

Silas nodded sharply once at them and pulled Ira into the house.

Ira threw a glance over his shoulder at them and saw them still standing there, utterly still and staring into thin air. He frowned and glanced over at Silas.

“Oyabun?” he asked, quirking his lips up slightly.

Silas barked out a short laugh and let go of Ira’s hand, only to put his arm around Ira’s waist. “It’s no big deal, we’re not even a big gumi.”

Ira hummed and let the matter go.

They wandered out onto a porch and followed it along the wall until they entered another part of the house, this one not visible from the gate entrance. Silas led the way as Ira followed along sedately, taking pictures as he went. Ira was humming a little under his breath during the mini-guide, having fun despite everything.

Finally, Silas stopped at the door to another section of the house. He looked back at Ira and once more switched his hold, going from holding Ira’s waist to clinging onto Ira’s arm.

“This is the private section. Only we two are allowed back here, so you can rest assured you’ll have privacy. You’re bedroom is right next to mine, come bother me at any time if you need anything at all.” Silas insisted and gave Ira a harsh look.

Ira sighed and deadpanned, “Yeah, because I need your help.”

Silas winced and then smiled back at him, something sappy blooming in his eyes. “Just because you don’t need it doesn’t mean you don’t deserve it. If you want me to do something, just ask. I promise I’ll help.”

Ira looked away, no longer able to handle the mushiness in Silas’s expression. It was simply too gentle for him.

“Whatever.”

He ignored the way Silas hugged his arm tighter and made a happy sound. Instead, Ira concentrated on taking in what was his new home. There was wood everywhere. It seemed like they were currently in a parlor, as there was both a TV and a wide, low couch spread out in front of it. Ira shook off Silas’s grip and stalked over to the couch, throwing himself down on it as if he was a sulking child.

Ira crossed his arms and bit his bottom lip, hating himself a little. H was acting like a child, worse, like a sulking one. What was wrong with him? Just because Silas was in a mushy mood, Ira started acting like a spoiled brat?

He leaned back against the backdrop of the couch and his eyes grew half-mast as he got lost in thought. It wasn’t like he was against acting like a spoiled brat, it was a fun way to annoy his more persistent Hosts, but he usually had a bigger reason to act like one. Not just…. reacting to weird amount of feelings thrown his way.

Although, to be fair, sometimes his Hosts could be full of hatred for him because he’d metaphorically and one memorable time literally thrown them to the wolves.

He heard Silas laugh at him. Silas dropped a hand on Ira’s shoulder and before Ira had the chance to shrug it off, Silas had already removed it. As Silas left the room, he left behind the sentence, “I’ll go get started on baking those cakes you want.”

Ira twisted and just managed to watch him disappear through another door. He huffed and leaned back on the couch again, curling his legs up next to him. He leaned his head on his hand and his eyes drove over the rest of the room. There was a surprising number of paintings littering the walls that he only just noticed. They weren’t visible from his previous location.

He threw his head against the backrest. Staring at the white ceiling, he sighed deeply in an effort to convey his dissatisfaction to the universe.

The sulking mood he had just been in the middle of disappeared as quickly as it came. Ira had the sneaking suspicion that it was because it was Silas that he had reacted so strongly, a suspicion he didn’t like at all. Didn’t that mean that his feelings regarding Silas weren’t the ordinary feelings he had for annoying humans? Didn’t that mean that Silas somehow stood out in some manner to him?

Didn’t that mean that Silas could disappoint him?

…Ira pressed his hands over his eyes in a disturbingly human gesture. It disgusted him so much that he then hit his own forehead and tried to forget he’d ever done it. Instead, he focused on his Host.

His Host was watching some kind of sappy romance movie with his roommates and eating ice cream. They all looked weirdly serious as they occasionally pointed at the TV scream and made commentaries. Ira wasn’t interested in this at all, but the alternative was thinking of Silas and he didn’t want to do that, so he persevered.

In order not to die of the loathsome action of his Host getting comforted about something he that had fully set out to do and accomplished pretty well, Ira focused on the movie.

It was some kind of clich cheesy movie with a two unrealistically beautiful leads, who probably only looked so good (bu human standards) because of photoshop. Whether one could photoshop movies or not was irrelevant, the point was that it was weird. Ira settled back on his couch and watched the movie despite his misgivings. He didn’t have anything better to do, after all.

His mood evened out and his strange thoughts about Silas left his mind as he watched the female lead in the movie (who might be played by a male omega, Ira honestly couldn’t actually tell, they were so androgynous) run after the male lead’s car as it was driving away from her (or him).

It looked hysterical.

Ira’s mood improved even more when they got run over by another car.

He laughed and hugged his knees. The female lead was brought with an ambulance to a hospital, all the while the male lead was completely unknowing of the incident. The paramedics had to tear apart their shirt in order to get their heart beating again and so Ira could finally refer to them as male.

After they arrived at the hospital, the omega required urgent surgery and an organ transplant.

Of the brain.

This was the moment when Ira realized that it wasn’t a movie, it was a soap-opera.

It probably wasn’t even the first episode. He saw the doctor arrive at the scene only to sound horrified as she whispered the man’s name in despair.

There was neither rhyme nor reason to the actions that then happened on the show. Ira watched on as the male lead was revealed to be the female lead’s half-brother and also the female lead’s (but not his) mother’s lover. Then the male lead’s assistant was revealed to be giving company information to his own lover, the director of the hospital the female lead was at.

Which made no sense, because the male lead was the owner of a spice company. As in, they just imported and exported spices worldwide.

For that matter, why was there a ten minute reveal of the backstory of a bartender who didn’t seem to have any connection to the main story at all? And then there was the janitor who was revealed to be gay, which in this world apparently meant being attracted to someone of the same secondary gender as oneself.

Which was apparently beta and seemed like a severe scandal according to the show.

Ira did not understand omegaverse worlds.

The show ended on the reveal that the accident had never even happened and it had all been a dream of the female lead. Because of this, none of the reveals during the show mattered.

Ira felt cheated.

His focus shifted back to his Host as the credits flashed over the TV screen. Ira saw that his Host had apparently managed to fall asleep while watching this show and thus decided to stop observing him. With naught but a thought, Ira blinked his physical eyes open and stared with a dismayed expression at the wall across from him. The soap-opera was unexpectedly fun, in that it went all out on ridiculous plot lines and if there was one thing Ira loved doing, it was criticizing bad writing.

Also, the characters were somehow both dull and uninteresting at the same time, which was a big accomplishment.

That show really sucked.

He wondered when the next episode would air.

Ira stretched his back and cracked his neck, unfurling from his weird position on the couch. He sighed and threw his gaze around the room to find the TV remote, something he hadn’t bothered to do earlier.

Once he found it, he reluctantly stood up and fetched it. While doing so, his sense of smell was assaulted by the scent of chocolate and Ira perked up.

A few minutes later, while Ira was only barely able to concentrate on the TV, Silas entered the parlor. Silas’ snazzy suit was covered by a frilly pink apron, his head had a weird piece of fabric tied to it and his hands were covered y bright red mittens as he carried over a tray of still steaming chocolate chip cookies.

Ira’s mouth watered in anticipation and his mind lazer-focused on the cookies.

“Here,” Silas said and settled the plate on the coffee table in front of Ira. “I’ve already started on my side of the deal.” Ira’s eyes followed it greedily and as soon as Silas stepped a millimeter back, he snatched a cookie off the plate.

It burned in his mouth, but before he could turn off his ability to feel such things, Silas had already grabbed his head and twisted it.

“It just got out of the oven, it’s still too warm to eat.” Silas admonished him and handed the glass of milk from the tray.

Ira gulped down the whole glass in one try and then attempted to get another cookie. Even if it was warm and burned his mouth, it was chocolate chip cookies Silas had baked for him and Ira was going to eat every single one.

As soon as Silas gave them back to him.