Eternal Lovers

The Time That we Became Friends

I remember the first time we had a conversation just the two of us, it was two days after Aether and Lumine arrived in the palace, I had just returned from Seirei Island, some monsters had mysteriously appeared on the island, this shouldn't be a very serious problem for me, but there were civilians, I knew that if Makoto found out that someone had been injured she would scold me, So while I was protecting the citizens to escape from the danger zone, one of the wolves attacked my arm, it wasn't painful but it was enough to leave a pretty big cut, after killing the rest of the remaining monsters, I left the soldiers in charge to help the civilians and returned to the Tenshukaku.

When I got to the palace there was no one in the throne room, I walked to the room area, it was very quiet, there was no one in any of these, not Makoto, Miko or their temporary guests, when I was about to go to the bathroom to clean myself, I heard a small laugh from the beginning of the corridor, it seemed to come from the kitchen, I walked towards it, when I got to the door, I could see one of our guests, Aether, he was playing with Miko, the little fox was pulling on one of the straps of his scarf while he gently pulled on the other side.

I saw them for a few minutes until the kitsune noticed my presence and dropped the scarf, Aether followed the little girl's gaze and our gazes joined.

"Oh! Welcome back Miss Ei, how di-" The boy's words were interrupted when he noticed the cut on my arm, when I looked down, I could see how the purple of my kimono had turned practically black due to the mixture with the blood "Are you okay miss Ei?! Please let me help you with that" the boy followed closely by the little fox approached me and inspected my wound.

"Don't worry, I don't feel pain, it's just a cut, nothing important" For some reason, I did not separate from him, I let him touch my arm freely, his touch felt warm, something that had never happened to me.

"Even if you don't feel pain, this wound can get infected. Let me help you. Do you know where you girls keep some kind of medical aid kit?"

"As I said before, there is no need"

"Please miss Ei, let me help, you and your sister saved my and Lumine's life, this is the least I can do for you" he was very insistent and it would be a lot of trouble to explain how the archons work, maybe I should let him do it, it would be easier than doing it myself or worse, that Makoto would come back and see it, and also... I would like to feel this warm sensation a little more, it feels... good.

"You are hopeless, very well, I let you patch me up, Makoto keeps one in the main bathroom" he nodded, smiled at me and left the room, me and Miko stayed silent but for some reason I felt that she was looking at me with a different face... did she seem angry? It must be the tiredness that makes me see things, foxes don't make faces, do they? Either way, the silence lasted less than a minute as Aether came back into the kitchen with kit in hand, I sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and he knelt beside me.

"Excuse me miss Ei, but I I'm going to roll up your sleeve"

"Go ahead" That feeling of warmth returned to my body as his fingers brushed the skin of my arm, very gently he folded the sleeve of my kimono until the wound was exposed, now that I can see it well, the cut was not very deep, but it was quite long, enough to almost dirty my entire arm with blood.

"It doesn't look too bad, but we have to clean the wound, this can burn a little miss Ei" The boy took out some kind of transparent liquid and sprayed it on a towel, then slowly he brought the towel closer to my wound, with all the delicacy in the world he placed the towel on the wound, he looked up to see my reaction.

"Do you feel okay?" Aether stared in disbelief at my lack of reaction.

"As I told you before, this is nothing to me but I appreciate your concern" Aether nodded at me and continued to gently clean the wound. As he worked, Miko lay down next to him, her little tail making contact with him.