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Kohane didn’t complain when she got paired with the blue haired swordswoman. Not because the swordswoman—as the guildmaster insisted—was a seasoned adventurer, from whom the newcomer Kohane should be glad to learn her first steps. Well, not just because of any learnings this pairing could bring.
The thing is, from the moment Kohane first laid her eyes on the ombré blue locks dancing in the wind as she waited outside of the tavern; on the little star-shaped pins that made the woman’s hair resemble the nostalgic clear night sky Kohane would often see in the countryside village of Vina Temeria; on the smile adorning the woman’s face as she hummed songs and held her sword in... questionable ways, at least as far as Kohane’s understanding of swords went—which, as a healer, wasn’t very far.
From the very first moment they met, Kohane had fallen for the swordswoman.
Later she learnt that the woman’s name was An. Kohane was in love with An. Well, perhaps “love” was a strong word at that point. But Kohane wanted to learn more about her partner—and maybe, eventually, call her a different kind of “partner”. Which is why, as the two descended through the mountainous trails that led to Misa Palmia, Kohane tracked behind, observing her partner happily swing her sword around towards nothing in particular and hum a little song Kohane hadn’t heard before.
The reason Kohane had not joined a party before was exactly this: she was shy. Very shy, in fact. There was no way she would just start talking or showing her talents among a group of stranger. But, for some reason, she felt oddly at ease around An. Not in the sense that she’d become instantly talkative and outgoing, but rather that she didn’t feel as pressured to fit some “idealised Kohane” image when she was around An. Kohane had been wondering about that since the two left Lake Elenia in a train and hopped off in the middle of nowhere a couple of hours ago.
“Ah, Kohane,” An sheathed her sword and turned around abruptly, which made the other girl stop on her tracks as well, eyes wide open in surprise and flushed cheeks. Their faces remained close like this for a moment, until An averted her eyes with a soft chuckle. “Ahaha, sorry, sorry,” she rested her right hand over the handle of her sword, and allowed Kohane to collect herself, which included letting the healer take a couple of steps back and shake the pink off her cheeks. “It should be around here, right? The place the guildmaster mentioned?”
It took Kohane a few seconds of awkwardly staring at An until she registered the question. “Oh... Oh!” She reached inside of her bag, hurriedly, producing an old piece of paper from it. A map, which she perused for a few more moments, looking at the markings she did as they collected information along the way—well, An collected, mostly.
“It’s...,” Kohane continued, a bit unsure, looking around the surrounding woods for anything that would serve as a landmark, eyes eventually resting on a big old tree in a clearing, not too far from where they stood. “Yes! I think we’re in the right place.”
Kohane’s beaming smile was met by An’s attentive eyes. The swordswoman took a step forward and brought her face closer, while Kohane closed her eyes, braced herself, unsure of what was to follow. There was a tight pressure around the healer’s waist. When Kohane opened her eyes she found herself within An’s gentle, if mildly muscular arms, and also found it difficult to keep her face from warming up, her heart from beating too fast, her arms from just hanging in the air.
The hug didn’t last that long in reality. An pulled back, brushing her hair awkwardly with her hand. “Ah, sorry,” she started, looking at a confused Kohane, who still hadn’t quite decided what to do with her arms, but was now covering her face with both hands. “I guess hugging you that suddenly wasn’t very considerate of me.” An lowered her hand, twiddling with her sword’s handle. Then she paused for a moment, and continued in the same apologetic tone, “you just looked so cute for a moment there— I mean, not like you didn’t look cute before,” she waved her hands in front of her face with exaggerated motions, and continued, raising her voice a bit in panic, “I mean, you look really cute—”
Kohane let her fingers spread apart a bit, just in time for her eyes catch a glimpse of An’s blushing face. The swordswoman, who had by now collected her breath and managed to calm herself a bit, continued her previous apology, “What I mean to say is, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I won’t hug you again, if you don’t want me to.”
An turned around, away from Kohane. The healer felt her chest tighten. She saw An’s feet lifting from the ground as the swordswoman prepared to walk away; or maybe tried to focus on the business they were there for, Kohane wasn’t sure. What she was sure, however, was that she didn’t want to let go of An. She didn’t want An to avoid her. And she didn’t want to miss An’s hugs in the future—even if Kohane wasn’t as great at returning them, particularly when taken by surprise.
By the time An had taken a couple of steps towards the clearing, down the path they had been travelling, Kohane finally managed to move again. She darted towards An, her hand seeking the swordswoman’s, intent on pulling her closer and putting all that was going in her mind at the moment into words.
But it didn’t play the way she expected. As her hand reached out to An’s, she felt An push her back abruptly. Kohane lost her balance and fell to the ground. And then watched An unsheath her sword and swing it, decisively, towards the place Kohane was rushing towards. There was the sound of a blade tearing through skin. There was a high pitched cry. There was the body of a white wolf finding the ground, not far from where An stood.
And there was An turning around, a panicked expression on her face. “Kohane!” she yelled, running towards the healer on the ground and extending her hand towards Kohane. “Are you hurt?!”
“Ah... no,” Kohane managed, as her mind rushed to process what had just happened. “No, An. I’m fine. Thank you,” she said, accepting An’s hand and allowing An to help her back on her feet. She patted her dress to get rid of the debris that stuck to it on her fall, before turning back to An, “that was scary! It just jumped out of nowhere... Are you alright, An?”
The swordswoman put her arms behind her back, pulling her right arm slightly with her left, then smiled at Kohane in the same way she usually did. “Oh, me? I’m fine, I’m fine.”
“An...,” Kohane hesitated for a moment, but courage found its way to her voice in the end. “An, let me see your arm.” There was an unusual seriousness to Kohane’s expression, but it was the concerned tone that disarmed the swordswoman. She extended her right arm in front of herself, now with a small red streak descending towards her hand. Kohane could only yell, “An!”
“Oh, it’s just a scratch. I get these all the time. Nothing that needs that much attention, really. Besides, w—”
Kohane, who was fiddling through the items in her bag, now had a handful of utensils ready and was looking at An, pressed eyebrows and all. “These ‘just a scratch’ can get a lot worse if you don’t treat them properly,” she talked in a stern tone, but the hand that held An’s arm and guided the swordswoman to sit at the side of the path was far gentler. “And you’re my partner, An. Please let me support you in what ways I can.”
An fell silent for a moment. Kohane proceeded to clean the wound, and stopped almost immediately, not really because of the momentary painful expression taking over An’s face. “An!” Kohane yelled, concerned. “An, this is a deep cut, why did you say it was just a scratch!?”
The swordswoman brushed her hair awkwardly, apologetically. Kohane sighed, before continuing cleaning the wound. “I will need to stitch it together. It will hurt a bit,” the words came out as a matter of fact, and An didn’t protest further. “I also have a concoction of herbs that should help it heal faster, but you’ll need to be careful with it for the next few days.”
At this point the healer had finished with cleaning and was preparing the needle. An turned her face away, slightly. She seemed less worried about appearances at this point, but not enough to drop her “cool” facade. Kohane hide a subtle giggle behind her hand, and then continued with the stitching business, tying it and cutting the extraneous thread swiftly. She was skilled at it, coming from a family of doctors, but this was her first time trying it on an actual person, and she had already found enough things to improve—things she wished An wouldn’t notice.
Then Kohane rinsed the wound with her concoction, and wrapped it tightly with clean bandages to keep it from getting infected. And she caught a glimpse of tears welling up in An’s eyes.
She had always heard her father tell his patients that stitches would hurt a bit, and the way they reacted to it always suggested it was quite a little more than “a bit”, but Kohane didn’t really know what the pain felt like. She knew she was worried about An, however, and she wanted An to feel better.
“Ah, An,” it took a couple of moments for the swordswoman to face Kohane, and it drove home the feeling that she was just holding back any complaints or tears. “There’s one more thing, but...” Kohane hesitated. She couldn’t say it was entirely a healing technique, but her mother would often treat her this way. “You have to promise not to laugh.”
“What?” An let out a confused noise, but she reconsidered upon meeting Kohane’s serious eyes. “I would never. You’re my partner, I trust you.”
Kohane felt her heart racing, more than she could have expected. She was happy to hear those words from An, even though they had only been travelling together for a couple of weeks, and her heart remained a mess of doubts of how true they were. She took a deep breath, prepared herself mentally. “Okay, here it goes,” and saying that she took her face close to An’s arm, where she had bandaged it, laying a soft kiss at that spot, and placing her fingers gently on top of it. “May it heal soon.”
When she brought her face away from An’s arm, she was a bit hesitant to meet her partner’s eyes. The two stood there, in silence, as their gaze eventually met and quickly diverged, faces warming and cheeks blushing.
They didn’t say much else at that moment, but they weren’t in a rush.