Chapter Text
“Er, my lord?” Thoma stares down in complete and utter confusion at Ayato, who is currently curled up on the balcony of his room, crying quietly as he looks out at the sea. “Is everything okay?”
Ayato shakes his head mutely, and Thoma kneels next to him. A warmth surges inside him, a pulsing desire to soothe the pain—it’s not every day you see a man whose upper lip is usually as still as stone breaking down like a child, and even if he can’t understand, he can at least try to provide some measure of comfort.
“Perhaps you could tell me what’s wrong,” he says consolingly. “Would you like me to hug you? It’s a thing we do in Mondstadt. I apologise if I was too forward—”
“Please hug me,” Ayato chokes out, and Thoma doesn’t wait a second before engulfing him in his arms. If there is anything he learned from back home, it’s how to hug people, how to make them feel safe and comfortable in an embrace. Ayato shakes a little, still crying, but relaxes into the hug.
“It’s Ayaka,” he confesses, and Thoma raises an eyebrow in surprise.
“The young lady? Is everything alright?”
“No,” Ayato whispers. “No. Everything isn’t alright.”
Alarm courses through Thoma’s veins. How could he not have noticed? There is something wrong with his lady and he didn’t even pick up on it—what’s wrong with him? What kind of retainer is he?
“She—” Ayato continues, voice breaking, “she’s not my little Ayaka anymore and she never will be and—”
“Sorry,” Thoma interrupts, alarm replaced by a chilling surprise, “um, what did you say, my lord?”
“She’s not my little baby sister anymore.” Ayato sniffles. “She’s growing up too fast. That’s what’s not alright.”
“Oh,” Thoma says weakly. “Um. I see.” What… in the fuck?
“No, Thoma, you don’t see,” hiccups Ayato, rubbing at his eyes with his sleeve, and, dear Barbatos, is this why he insisted on all that extra material? Thoma can’t quite believe this is the same man who sparked something so visceral in him that he received a Vision. And yet here he is, his first official task as a retainer of the esteemed Kamisato clan being—well, there’s no other word for it. Cosseting its elegant Commissioner as he weeps over something that seems completely inconsequential to Thoma, indeed rather bizarre if one thought about it. “She put it away. She put her Moriwakamaru awaaaaaay. She—she’s growing up so fast and I—”
Ayato’s words turn into an unintelligible mess as he turns his head to bury his face directly into Thoma’s chest, and sure, in any other situation Thoma might have blushed because he is disastrously bisexual and his superior is by no means not handsome. But right now all he can do is stare up at the sky as he cradles one hundred and sixty pounds of Kamisato Ayato in his arms and wonder at the incredible duality of man because how in Barbatos’ name do you go from being a perfectly poised lordling to… well… the weeping shamble in his arms?
“It’s alright, my lord,” he says awkwardly, patting Ayato’s soft hair. “It’s just how things are meant to be—”
“You’re bad at this,” Ayato whines, but he doesn’t show any signs of letting go. Instead, he wraps his arms around Thoma’s waist and curls in deeper, like a turtle burrowing into a shell. Except Thoma doesn’t remember agreeing to be a shell when he signed up for this job. “Tell me what I want to hear, not reality.”
“Uh.” Thoma fumbles for words. “I’m sure if you, uh, try to let her know it’s okay to be your…”
“My cute baby sister.”
“Your… yes, that.” He is not calling Kamisato Ayaka someone’s ‘cute baby sister’. He’s seen what she can do with a sword. “If you let her know that’s okay around you, I’m sure she’ll relent a little. Growing up is a part of human nature, my lord. You’ve undergone it as well.” At least, you act like it. “She’ll always be your sister.”
“Oh, Thoma,” Ayato bawls, hugging him tighter, “thank you. You know just what to say. You really are perfect.”
“Thanks?” Thoma pats him some more. It seems to be helping.
“That’s my line,” says the young lord, wiping his eyes some more and pulling away from the hug. Thoma’s lungs cry out in joy, finally released from the prison of Ayato’s deceptively skinny arms. “I’ll let you attend to your duties now. Thank you for comforting me.”
Well, at least he’s self aware. Thoma stands, dusting off his clothes, and bows.
“It was no problem, my lord,” he says truthfully and leaves the room. His mind would ordinarily wander to housekeeping, but he’s still recovering from the fact that he just watched Ayato have a breakdown over Ayaka no longer being a child.
“Thoma?” says a light female voice, and Thoma blinks as Ayaka herself materialises in front of him from a cloud of near-invisible snow. Senho —she’s getting closer and closer to perfecting it, according to her, but Thoma honestly thinks she’s already there. “You seem preoccupied. Is everything alright?”
“Erm.” Thoma thinks. How best to not lie, while also not telling her everything? “Well, yes. I was just thinking. I was with the young master, your brother, and he was, er. In a bit of a state.” That’s what they called it back in Mondstadt—’a bit of a state’, whenever those Ragnvindr kids or the Lawrence girl flew into tempers and destroyed trees or whole hilichurl camps. Meanwhile Thoma got scolded for throwing his pillow across his room one time when he was twelve.
Ayaka winces sympathetically, lifting a hand almost like she wants to squeeze his shoulder, then dropping it with a hesitance that seems uncharacteristic of the perfectly-mannered young lady she presents herself as.
“My brother is as wise and strong as they come,” she says haltingly, “but he has his moments. As I have confided in you so many times, you too may confide in me, Thoma. And please…” She looks down. Thoma isn’t very sure, but he thinks there’s a light blush on her cheeks.
“Yes, m’lady?” he prompts, leaning on his broomstick.
“Tell me if there’s anything particularly… out of line he does. In excruciating detail, if you would.” She fidgets, the edge of a certain naughtiness to her usually gentle smile, and Thoma exhales with understanding.
“Younger siblings will be younger siblings, huh?” he murmurs, unable to keep the grin off his face. “No matter what the social standing.”
“Ayato takes after our mother,” Ayaka says, a mischievous spark in her grey eyes. “He’s always had a flair for the dramatic. Sometimes it backfires, and—well, I’m not often starved for entertainment when it does.”
“Ahh.” Thoma nods, shooting her a conspiratorial wink. “I’ll be the first to let you know if I see something… out of line, as you put it.”
“And I, you,” Ayaka returns. “You’ll need it, if you’re to put up with my dear brother for the foreseeable future. Drop by my rooms when you can. I have a few gems that’ll help you get through the month.”
“Thomaaaaa!” calls the Commissioner in a tone that can be described as nothing but petulant, breaking the moment. “Come help me tie this!”
Thoma straightens and shares one last grin with his lady, turning to call back, “Coming, m’lord!” He offers Ayaka a two-fingered salute and starts down the corridors back to Ayato’s rooms, already mentally preparing to have to go fishing for a Butter Crab feast tonight. Not much else can assuage his (un)surprisingly mood-swinging young master.