|| don't give me false truths. ||

You'd saved his life almost a year ago, and had been tagging along ever since he purged the tyrant raiders who had been antagonizing you for years, feeling like you owed him. Kenshiro had reassured you that you owed him nothing, but after seeing how you wouldn't budge from your decision, he accepted you.

Constantly, you had to stop him so he would eat and drink. His drive and obsession were what would kill him in the end, you had no doubt, but as long as you were there you wouldn't let that happen. And it seemed he appreciated it to some extent.

As time passed, he gradually let his guard down more and more around you, before he finally told you why he was travelling - he was trying to find his lover, Yuria, who had been taken away from him by his rival, Shin. It almost felt like something ripped right out of a children's book, but you kept your thoughts to yourself.

Every time you saw Kenshiro in action, you respected him more and more. He was so strong, so, so strong, continuing forward to find Yuria even if it meant killing him. And whenever he walked away from a one-sided fight, at some point he had begun to ask you if you were alright and if anything had happened to you, even if you hadn't even been touched.

And every time, his eyes grew softer, forever-serious expression holding some levels of concern, relief always flickering through those chestnut irises of his when you said you were fine. "Of course I'm okay," you would always reiterate with a short laugh. "You're with me, after all."

That always made his movements stutter for a short moment, eyelids twitching in response, but it was all so quick that you hadn't been able to catch it at first. This wasn't how he reacted whenever a random stranger thanked him for saving them, this was something you'd only ever seen him do for you. That made you feel a bit special, knowing he had some sort of emotional response to what you said.

But what he'd said that one time, a few months ago, made you giddy and warm whenever you thought of it.

"Yes, I am. And if you'll allow, I'll always be."

Kenshiro would remain beside you, and you to him. That was what he promised. For the rest of your life, you held him to that, and vice versa. At some point within the past few weeks, when you were telling him stories from your teenage years with dramatic and exaggerated hand gestures, you heard a quiet chuckle from his direction.

That made you pause, a little surprised and you blinked, looking over to him. A very soft and subtle smile had graced him, a few more leaving him through his nose in puffs of air. And for a moment, the world felt like it stopped when he looked up, still smiling, resting his chin on grasped hands, elbows on his knees as he adjusted his position on his stone to a more comfortable one. It seemed he was expecting to be staying awake for a while longer.

You'd never seen him look so happy before. He'd only ever been serious, concerned or angry. So seeing this felt like you'd just entered an entirely new world - not that you minded, you thought you were going to enjoy this new plane very much.

"And so?" Kenshiro's voice broke you from your stupor, amused and curious eyes peering at you. "What did she do?"

"A-Ah, right," you stammered, scrambling to recollect your thoughts and doing your best to suppress the heat that had risen to your face, staining your cheeks. He looked...cute when he smiled. It was when that word of all the ones you could possibly have thought up came to mind that you knew that you'd fallen for him, and you'd fallen hard.

Things were harder for you after that, feeling a bit more shy and self-conscious around him than before. You were a bit stiff, scratching your cheek a bit more often, finding it hard to maintain eye contact without getting a bit flustered. But you did your best to keep these signs to the smallest minimum you could after he'd asked you if you feeling alright.