Far From Home [A Honkai: Star Rail Friend Insert] (2024)

"Wes."

He yawns, managing to square off the last of their expenses for this week, before shutting off his tablet and chucking it on his work desk. "What?"

"Your entrance to Penacony is in less than a week." Elio notes, flipping pages in their notebook before letting out a hum, quickly scribbling a note by the margins. "Have you considered what you'll be wearing? It'll be your debut to the wider universe, after all."

"I don't really care." Wes yawns once more, hearing his friend's chickenscratch slowly scribble to a stop. "I'm just there for a few scenes anyway -- it's not going to be all that important."

"Wes." Uh-oh. He knew that tone. "Need I remind you that the Astral Express will be there?"

And? Himeko had been pleasant enough to not bring up the bathrobe. That was the first test, and she passed with flying colors.

Elio sighs. Wes yawns once again, before deciding to call it quits for the night. "See you tomorrow, buddy."

"Of course..." Elio trails off, even as they reach out for a new notebook and a thermos full of coffee. "... Have a good night, buddy."

​

][​

Wes' eyes snap open, to reveal that he has a burlap sack over his head. "What the f*ck...?"

He tries moving his arms and legs, only to find them tightly bound by rope. "What the f*ck."

He begins flailing his limbs around, only for said flailing to be cut short, as he feels a familiar sword dropped on his stomach, the prodigious weight preventing him from moving. "WHAT THE f*ck?!"

"Kafka, he's awake."

"I can see that, Bladie."

Traitors. Betrayers. Turncoats. Quislings. On and on Wes went, rattling out each and every synonym that he could muster in his mind, before the burlap sack over his head is finally taken off by one irate-looking Firefly.

"Good." He sighs, holding up his bound hands to the young lady's direction. "Now if you could burn my bindings off, then I'd appreciate it--Hmmph?! Mmph?! Mmph!"

"Took you long enough." Silver Wolf chimes in, popping her head out of a glitching portal while giving him a peace sign. One that Wes returns with a middle finger. "Least I can finally watch the show without his yapping getting on my nerves."

Wes had words to say about that particular remark. Words like 'mmph' and 'hmmph' and 'rrrmngh'.

"I doubt that you'd be annoyed as me." Kafka replies, gesturing towards Yingxing --his own son -- to haul him up, and his traitorous son does so without even a single complaint or use of Spirit Whisper. It was maddening. "Elio had to bribe me with a new coat just for me to even consider thinking about this."

A new coat? With their current expenses being as shifty as they are?! "MMPH!? MMPH! RRRMPH?!"

There'll be hell to pay once he got out of these bindings. Each and every single one. Salt water and sugar water for a week sounded good. Yes, Wes was imagining the looks on the rest of his family's faces already.

"Now, then." Kafka drawls, beginning to walk around him with narrowed eyes. Even then, she still kept some distance -- some good precaution on her part, given that he was absolutely going to throttle her as soon as she got within range. "I like to begin by making my clients dress up in whichever style that they want first. Get a baseline for their style... or lack of one."

Wes glares, watching as Kafka plucks a string out of the air to take the gag off his mouth. "Now then, Wes. Either you can cooperate, or--"

"EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU CAN GO AND SHIT THEMSEL--MMPH?!"

"--The hard way it is." Kafka sighs with a put-upon expression, a few glowing strings wrapped around her right hand that she uses to constrict his throat just hard enough that he'd have difficulty speaking. "What a shame. Firefly, you're up first. Make it pretty."

The gag is put back on, even as the door opens and Elio wheels in a veritable hoard's worth of a wardrobe. Firefly stares at him, causing Wes to glare back, and the sickly young lady immediately goes for the pile of clothing to fish out... fish out...

"These should do nicely." Firefly chirps. The fact that Silver Wolf starts laughing was the first and only warning that Wes would get.

​

... Wes had to admit, Firefly's choice wasn't all that bad.

He'd have to apologize... if it wasn't for the fact that it was her fault that he was currently gagged and unable to speak in the first place.

"Ah. Wait." Firefly mutters, reaching up and taking the hat off his head. "... Better."

He liked the hat, damn it.

"A good choice." Kafka chimes in. "It seems like we're off to a great start."

"Can I go next?" Silver Wolf asks, and their resident assassin lets out a considering hum before turning towards Wes.

She takes one look at the twitch in his brow, and turns back towards Silver Wolf. "... Sure."

One thing was for sure. They're all dead, once he gets out of these bindings.

​

][​

Silver Wolf lets out a cat call, taking pictures all the while. Firefly begins coughing and wheezing at the sight, turning away from Wes. Yingxing saw it better to pat Firefly's back rather than meet his eyes. Elio was furiously scribbling into their notebook, and Kafka...

"My, my." She drawls. "I think I like you better this way, Wes."

He glares, eyes burning with iridescence, as he tries to kill her with his mind. If only Ena were here, then he could... Wait, where was Ena? They should've stopped these idiots from dressing him up in a maid outfit in the first... place...

Wes gapes. Stares. Past Kafka, past the rest of the Stellaron Hunters, as he watches a coffee-soaked mantle slowly slithering out of Elio's room as if it knew that it was guilty of something. And it was.

He glares at his mantle, watching as it stands straight to attention... before it begins wobbling in place a second later, its surface beginning to shimmer with naked amusem*nt.

Betrayed by his own mantle as well. Unforgivable.

​

"Bladie..."

"What?" His little Yingxing speaks, taking sips out of his coffee.

"I told you to dress him up in something that would fit him." Kafka sighs. "Not to make him wear an extra set of your own clothes."

"It's comfortable."

And it was. Wes didn't know where his little Yingxing's clothes came from, but he'd like to pay them a visit for a new, even pink-er bathrobe sometime in the near future.

Or it was more likely that after the trauma of having to wear a maid outfit, this was infinitely more tolerable.

"... Men." Kafka sighs once more, shaking her head as she rises out of her seat. "No wonder Elio asked for my input instead of yours."

That, Wes could sadly agree with.

​

][​

The suit felt fine. Now if only Kafka would stop trying to figure out which tie fit him best -- it was a piece of cloth, damn it! Hell, if he had to wear a tie, then why not just get a clip-on instead--!

"MMPH?!"

"Oh, sorry." Kafka hums, quite unapologetic as she withdraws her heel from stomping on his foot. "I thought that you were thinking of something stupid. My apologies for assuming."

Wes glares. It still doesn't stop Kafka from continuing to fiddle with the tie around his neck. "In any case, color me surprised that you actually bothered to ask for help with that excuse of a wardrobe. And here I thought I'd never see the day..."

"... Still, it does beg the question as to why." Kafka muses, undoing whatever eldritch abomination of a knot she just did with slow, methodical movements. "You never seemed the type to go and dress up, so color me curious."

If she was trying to interrogate him, then removing the gag over his mouth was a good start, no?

"Hm, it really does feel weird, to receive no brainless blathering in response." Kafka pulls away the gag from his face, and Wes takes in a sharp breath of that sweet, sweet air. "There we go. Feeling better?"

"SHIT YOURSEL--Hrk?!"

"I'm being cordial, for once." She drawls, tightening the tie around his neck as he begins to gag. "I suggest you do the same."

Kafka loosens the tie a second later, before giving him a look. "... So, this trip of yours to Penacony. I wonder what happens there that you saw it fit to dress yourself up?"

"This was all Elio's idea." Wes replies, turning to glare out the dressing room door to where the rest of the Stellaron Hunters were waiting. "I was just planning to go to Penacony in my usual digs."

She clicks her tongue. "It seems they made the right call. Think of our reputation if words come out about your status in Penacony, and they find you looking like... that."

"Relax." Wes rolls his eyes. "I'm not planning to be found out in the first place, but it might be useful if the script calls for it."

"Yes. If the script calls for it." Kafka narrows her eyes. "... But this isn't just about the script, is it?"

His eyes glance to the side. Purple eyes begin glaring into him a second later. "Meeting someone, then. Who."

"No one important." He deflects, trying to not let the nervousness show on his face. "Just a few people that I need to make sure that we don't go insolvent, is all--"

"It's her, isn't it?" Wes doesn't respond. Whichever way he answers was a death sentence, and even keeping quiet wasn't even a surefire way to get out of this situation. "... Tsk. Should've known."

Kafka pulls, and Wes winces as he feels his throat tighten, courtesy of the damn tie around his neck. Just enough to make him uncomfortable, but not enough for him to actually start being out of breath.

"Do have fun once you get there." She drawls, slithering out the door with a scowl. "I'm sure you'd do well, what with your dancing skills being as lacking as they are."

Wes stares as the door to the dressing room is shut with more force than necessary, before he stares down with a bit of sheepishness, trying to untangle the gordian knot that was his tie to no avail. Still...

"She didn't have to insult my dancing..."

​

"Had enough fun?" Wes dryly asks, holding up his mantle like an unruly cat, and watching as it shimmers in a variety of colors. "Yeah, thought so. Now help me pick."

Ena begins pointing at the various apparel in the pile, and Wes gathers up the clothes and begins to shuck them on. All in all, it only takes a few minutes before he is finished, his mantle settling around his shoulders as if it always belonged there, before he goes and exits the dressing room.

The Stellaron Hunters go quiet, with almost all of them staring at him with looks of surprise. His little Yingxing, however, was more busy refilling his thermos by the coffee machine.

"Color me surprised." Elio speaks for all of them. "You clean up nicely."

"I can dress well, you idiots." Wes snaps, his withheld annoyance finally coming to the fore. "I just choose not to."​