by my side | thomato

chapter 1

it has been about two years since i have started living with ayato. we became extremely close, and i met his younger sister ayaka. i was much closer to ayato's age however, and she was a couple years younger.

they treated me like a close friend and they had already felt like my own family. we had both lost our parents at a young age and i connected with them naturally.

ayaka was quiet and elegant and also very kind and gentle. ayato was cunning and pretty and loyal and strong.

ayato, despite his charming personality and likeability, also didn't seem interested in marriage. he turned away every single woman he had met. ayaka and i were suspecting he might be gay and we even decided to confront him about it during hot pot today.

"so ayato, why aren't you going to get married? it'd be a great way of getting money and merging clans. there are many women who like you," ayaka asks.

"i am simply not interested in it. i have no need for marriage."

"are you perhaps.. gay?"

ayato coughs lightly. "whether it was a man or not, i would still turn them down."

"is there really nobody you like?"

"nobody within reach anyway."

and that was that.

rather than spending time on love or people, ayato spent time on his duties. i suppose we were similar in that way, as i was not wedded either and mostly kept to housekeeping since there were people in inazuma who wanted me dead because they still believed i was a criminal. but my purpose was to serve the kamisato clan, the people i trusted most, and ayaka and ayato were like family to me.

...

i sat in a chair next to ayato. he was inking a letter to be sent out to the yae publishing house since they were doing a collaboration for a new novel. though i had never seen ayato professionally write, i was sure that man could do anything he put his mind to.

he looked over at me and smiled.

"good evening, thoma. are you up for a walk around the city later?"

"good evening my lord, and yes, of course. how is your collaboration coming along?"

"quite well i suppose. lady yae and i have been writing to each other for quite a bit now and we seem to have a good plot written out. it just needs to be fabricated into words now."

"i see. that sounds real nice."

ayato laughs.

"sometimes i forget you are not from inazuma and that your dialect differs from mine."

"sorry, it's just habit i guess."

"don't apologize dear. it's actually really nice seeing a so called outlander. you have much prettier features than any inazuman folk i have laid eyes upon."

i smile to myself. "i could say the same about you. nobody in mondstat looked quite like you, either."

we talk a little bit about my home land and i tell him how i used to help my parents out at a flower shop.

"oh, you like flowers yeah? you can do really any typical around the house thing, like cooking, cleaning, sewing, and now gardening. it's an honor to have you as our housekeeper."

"i try my best."

"you'd make a better husband than half of these inazuman slags," ayato teases.

i laugh along with him and he finally signs off his letter and stands up, stretching.