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ArabicArknights: The Holy Son's Leisurely Life — Chapter 21
Chapter 21: A Midnight Snack
By the time Lucian chugged his fifth can of beer, the edges of his tongue had gone entirely numb.
He was never the type who could hold his liquor well, but that pathetic scrap of male pride always tricked him into thinking he could keep up. It was an exhilarating, foolish illusion. Across the table, Hoshiguma had already demolished more than an entire case by herself. She had consumed three times his limit, yet her skin didn’t hold a trace of a flush, and her breathing remained perfectly even.
Lucian had never seen Hoshiguma drunk. Not even once.
He really couldn’t compare. He just couldn’t.
Lucian finally waved a hand in surrender. “Hoshi, Big Sister Hoshiguma… Look, I still have a shop to open tomorrow. Maybe we should call it a night…”
A low, airy laugh escaped her. The towering Oni leaned forward, a half-smile playing on her lips, and smoothly slid another open can right into his hand.
The entire room was thick with the heavy scent of malt and alcohol, acting like a potent sleeping pill on Lucian’s fading consciousness. Too hazy to fight back, he obediently raised the aluminum rim to his lips and took another gulp.
Watching him yield so easily, Hoshiguma let out a genuine, ringing laugh. “You’re such a good boy. Just be careful not to get blackout drunk and let someone with ulterior motives take advantage of you, okay? The culture of pressuring people to drink is a terrible habit. As upstanding youths of this new era, we should bravely say no.”
“Those are my lines!” Lucian slapped the table in sudden, sloppy indignation, punctuating the outburst with a soft burp.
The bold, mischievous Big Sister Hoshiguma was someone Lucian had known since his very first days drifting into Lungmen. Or, more accurately, she was the one who had scraped him off the streets.
When Lucian first arrived in the sprawling city, his pockets were entirely empty. He had managed to slip past the borders with great difficulty, but he didn’t know north from south. While the residents of the Slums often looked out for their own, they were fiercely territorial and deeply suspicious of outsiders.
That danger was magnified tenfold because Lucian had Exusiai in tow. Two young, exceptionally good-looking runaway Sankta wandering the outer rings were nothing but fat sheep waiting to be slaughtered. Whatever else happened, Lucian was determined to protect Exusiai at all costs.
Starving and hesitating in front of a brightly lit candy store, debating if he should swallow his pride and beg for food, a towering figure had blocked his path.
“Your judgment in picking targets is absolutely terrible,” she had told him back then. “If you walk into any other shop around here, you’ll just be stripped of your gear or sold off. But if you walk into that one, forget your dignity. They will suck the marrow straight from your bones.”
Lucian only learned much later that the candy store was a front owned by the Rat King. Old Lin was an amiable, grandfatherly figure on the surface, but that warmth was strictly reserved for those who held value. If a desperate Lucian had sought his help back then, the old mob boss would have squeezed every last drop of utility out of him.
Recalling those bitter early days, Lucian shook his head, a fond smile breaking through his drunken haze. “Big Sister Hoshiguma, you were so terrifying back then. A massive, one-horned Oni looming right over me with this super intense glare. That was the first time in my life I genuinely thought a ghost was going to drag me to the underworld. You were way scarier than the Originium Beasts out in the wastelands.”
“Shut up.”
Hoshiguma reached across the table, her fingers pinching his soft cheek with practiced ease. “Don’t call me too tall. You’re just too short. Haven’t you grown a decent amount these past few years? Keep working hard so you can actually look me in the eye.”
Lucian smiled, his words slurring slightly. “That’s a bit of a tall order. But I’ll try my best.”
It wasn’t just a casual title; Lucian truly viewed Hoshiguma as an older sister, leaving himself completely unguarded around her.
Even back then, Hoshiguma had been an absolute powerhouse in the Slums. Nobody knew her true history before she arrived in Lungmen; the only verified rumor was that she had crossed over alone from Higashi. Armed with a massive shield and an indestructible physique, she had carved out her own territory in the Lungmen underworld, establishing an independent faction that refused to bow to the Rat King.
She never bullied the weak. She never crossed the line into true villainy. She was fiercely loyal, deeply humane, and possessed an unbeatable tolerance for cheap booze. She was like a wandering vigilante ripped straight from the pages of a comic book. Thanks to her protection, Lucian had found his footing and secured a safe haven in the chaotic city.
To a boy who had witnessed the absolute cruelty of Terra, the Hoshiguma of that era was a literal beacon of righteousness.
Feeling a sudden surge of warmth, he leaned heavily on the table. “I only drink like this with you, Big Sister Hoshiguma. Nobody else could force me to keep going… Besides, who would carry me home if I passed out? If it were any other woman drinking this much, I’d be lecturing her to stop. But you’re different. You definitely won’t get drunk, right?”
“Oh? Are you actually worried about me?”
Hoshiguma chuckled, casually cracking open another can and downing half of it in a single, smooth motion. “I can get drunk, you know. But if you want to see it happen, you’ll need to bring some actual skill to the table. At the very least, you and Old Ch’en combined couldn’t pull it off. How about next time, the three of us drink together? I’ll help you get Old Ch’en completely wasted, and you can carry her home.”
Lucian jolted upright, shaking his head so violently his vision blurred. “No, no, no, no. I don’t want to die yet. Whether it’s being sliced into ribbons by Madam Ch’en’s sword or getting shot full of holes by Exusiai, I’ll pass.”
“Tsk. Still not drunk enough to take the bait, huh?”
Hoshiguma clicked her tongue, a flash of genuine regret crossing her features. It was a subtly terrifying expression.
Oni traditionally carried a public stigma of being barbaric, bloodthirsty, and impulsive. Their reputation across Terra wasn’t much better than the Sarkaz. But Hoshiguma was an exception among exceptions. She rarely spoke out of turn, maintaining an aloof, almost icy professionalism while on duty. In front of outsiders, she never smiled. Lucian had only ever seen her this relaxed, this utterly unguarded, when it was just him and Old Ch’en.
Being one of the rare few invited into the Big Sister’s inner circle was an honor Lucian took seriously. Even if it meant drinking himself into a coma every time, he would always show up.
After forcing down the rest of his beer, the glowing halo hovering above Lucian’s head began to list lazily to the side.
His tongue felt like lead. “Big Sister Hoshiguma… how are things at the Lungmen Guard Department? Are those suits really not giving you a hard time? If anyone is bullying you… just tell me. I’ll go solve it for you.”
“Oh? Look at you, acting all brave.”
Knowing he was teetering on the edge of a blackout, Hoshiguma propped her chin on her hand, her emerald eyes gleaming with amusement. “I am being bullied, actually. You can tell by the fact that I can only find you and Old Ch’en to drink with. After all, I crawled out of the Slums. My old criminal record is a stain that will never be wiped clean. I’ve been sitting in my current rank for three years without a single promotion, while everyone else from my academy class has either moved up the ladder or died in the line of duty. Care to guess how much the higher-ups hate the idea of bumping me up two pay grades?”
Lucian slammed his fist on the table. “Laterano profanity! I’ll go take care of that two-faced beast Wei Yenwu’s Lungmen slang right now!”
He grabbed his empty can, crushing it in a fit of drunken rage, spitting out curses that his usually cautious, polite self would never dare utter aloud.
Seeing him get so fiercely angry on her behalf made Hoshiguma’s smile widen, softening the sharp angles of her face.
“Wei showed me a kindness, Lucian,” she said, her voice dropping to a calm, measured register. “Allowing a thug like me to climb this far up the LGD ladder is already an act of extreme grace. It wouldn’t matter if he were replaced tomorrow. The department chiefs, the squad captains, the ordinary citizens of Lungmen… my Oni blood alone makes them look at me like a ticking time bomb. If the general public realized I used to run the Slums, the petitions demanding my badge would bury the LGD headquarters. These are the labels permanently stitched to my skin. I can’t wash them off in this lifetime.”
She laid out the cruelest, most unfair reality of her life in the calmest tone imaginable. Even through the heavy blanket of alcohol, a cold knot formed in Lucian’s stomach.
Reality was a bitter pill. Heroes and righteous vigilantes only got happy endings in cheap novels. To the outside world, Hoshiguma’s transition from a gang enforcer to an LGD Inspector looked like a miraculous, meteoric rise. But only those who walked beside her knew the agonizing price she had paid, the pieces of herself she had sacrificed to wear that uniform.
Even now, half the Slums considered her a class traitor who had sold out her found family for a shiny badge and a government paycheck. Unlike Lucian, who had built a warm home in his tea shop, Hoshiguma had no true place left to return to.
The sheer injustice of it all suffocated Lucian. Completely overwhelmed by the liquor and his own protective fury, he raised a fresh can. “Screw them! Come on, Big Sister Hoshiguma! Cheers! Tonight, I am absolutely drinking you under the table!”
“Well said.”
Hoshiguma clinked her can against his, a dark, mischievous glint in her eyes as she continued to egg him on.
…And then, predictably, gravity won.
It wasn’t long before Lucian’s eyes rolled back. The angelic Holy Son face-planted directly onto the sticky wooden table, instantly out cold, his soft snores filling the quiet room.
The moment he lost consciousness, the bright halo hovering above his head flickered, turned a deep, flushed red, and gently dropped onto the table, completely detaching from his body.
Hoshiguma leaned over, poking the detached ring of light with immense curiosity. “Your Sankta biology is seriously bizarre. What exactly is this hard-light construct? Does it actually have a physical texture?”
She stared at the glowing red ring. She hesitated for a fraction of a second before leaning in, sticking out the tip of her tongue, and giving the halo a tentative lick.
Lucian: “…!!!”
Though completely unconscious, Lucian’s entire body violently seized, a violent shiver ripping through his spine before he went limp again.
Hoshiguma’s eyes widened in genuine surprise. “Wow, it really does transmit sensation… So why does it pop off your head? Is this just a ‘you’ defect, or do all angels drop their crowns when they’re wasted?”
Having never interacted closely with any Sankta besides Lucian and Exusiai, Hoshiguma had completely misunderstood the sacred, highly sensitive biological structure of the race. And since she and Exusiai maintained a rather frosty, mutually suspicious dynamic, she certainly couldn’t ask the sniper for clarification.
But it didn’t matter.
Hoshiguma nudged the detached halo aside, watching it slowly dim and dissolve into the air. Lucian’s halo vanished entirely when he was completely intoxicated—a bizarre physiological secret that only Hoshiguma knew. Without the glowing crown, he looked entirely human, lacking any racial traits that tied him to Laterano.
Standing up, Hoshiguma scooped Lucian’s limp body into her arms with effortless ease, carrying him over to her bed.
She dropped him onto the mattress and sat on the edge, gazing down at his completely defenseless, flushed face. She reached out, mercilessly kneading his soft cheeks. “Didn’t you just declare you were going to drink me under the table? So useless. You’ve grown a lot taller, kid, but why does your face still look so soft? No wonder Swire is so obsessed with you.”
Working in the upper echelons of the LGD, Hoshiguma was perfectly aware that the wealthy feline superintendent was completely smitten with the tea shop owner. She didn’t know exactly what had sparked Swire’s intense crush, but one thing was undeniably clear: his face was a lethal weapon.
As for why Hoshiguma understood that appeal so perfectly… it was because she suffered from the exact same affliction.
A low, dark chuckle vibrated in her chest. “Who says only men get to take advantage of a drunken catch? If I snapped a photo of you right now and sent it to Swire, how much LMD do you think she’d wire me to delete it? You owe me a massive debt, Lucian.”
Hoshiguma leaned down, hovering just inches above him. Her long, vibrant green hair slipped over her shoulders, falling like a heavy silk curtain that completely obscured both of their faces from the dim light of the room.
…Lucian’s soft snoring hitched, abruptly muffled.
The quiet rhythm of their breathing tangled and vanished into the heavy silence of the room, replaced only by a quiet, stifled groan escaping his throat as her lips claimed his.
When Hoshiguma finally pulled back, her chest was heaving, her breathing ragged and heavy. “It’s just the alcohol… so sweet.”
Lucian always believed Hoshiguma was a bizarre mutation among the Oni—a flawless paragon of restraint, calm, and pure rationality.
He was terribly, dangerously wrong.
Hoshiguma leaned down to capture his lips again, the heavy, possessive greed in her eyes perfectly embodying the true, terrifying nature of an Oni claiming its treasure.
The night was still very long.
And for Hoshiguma, it was finally time to collect her reward.