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Everyone knows that Shikanoin Heizou is an infallible detective.
Despite his young age and low rank of Nobushi in the Tenryou Commission, he is a respected sleuth with a keen instinct, who can solve any case with his outside-the-box methods.
He tracks down clues with flawless precision, and plays circles around allies and foes alike in order to claim absolute victory over criminals.
Shikanoin Heizou does not make foolish mistakes.
"Don't touch me!"
Expecially not foolish mistakes that get people hurt.
Expecially expecially if those people are people he cares about.
And yet. Why is Lumine bleeding? Why is there blood on her head? When she presses against the rock wall to keep herself on her feet, the spots she touches come out stained a wet brown. Why is that?
Why why why.
"Heizou!," comes from somewhere to his left, "did you catch the leader? He could send reinforcements if not! Lumi's hurt! We gotta get out of here!"
He can't get the words out. His mind is drawing a blank. Leader?
Ring leader. Children smuggling circle. Yashiori Island.
Right.
"Lumine," the name leaves his mouth, slightly breathless, "we need to get you to a healer, come with me."
And then he makes the mistake of grabbing her wrist. Next thing he knows, Paimon is shoving him to the ground as a sword slices the air, where he was standing.
One.
Two.
Her eyes look around unfocused. She's bleeding from the head. Sight impairment. Possibly a concussion.
Heizou has to really concentrate on his breathing; it's ragged and sporadic, and if he weren't using his vision to force air into his lungs he might have passed out by now. A myriad of useless procedure names flit through his head relentlessly, and it's really starting to hurt. Focus. Focus.
Damage control. Right. He can do that.
He holds his hand with his palm up, as if to pacify a cat.
"Lumine," he calls, and gets her to look in the direction of his face. She doesn't attack again. Maybe she can recognize him from his colours? Can she hear him?
"Lumine, it's Heizou. I'm here. Y-you're really injured. We need to find a doctor for you." He ignores the way his voice shakes and his hand shakes and his whole body trembles, completely out of his control. And the blurred parts of his vision as she stands there, unresponsive.
"Please."
She blinks once, and he feels the warmth of her hand, smeared in blood and mud, on his own.
Everything that happens after is sort of hazy. He remembers all of it, the way he led her back to the Kujou Encampment on Kannazuka, and Paimon filling in the silence, but it all feels. Distant? Foggy? Like he heard the story from someone else rather than having lived it himself.
And it was even more jarring when Kujou Sara showed up with two oni in tow, to aid her in "escorting" the ring leaders back to Narukami Island, and asked them to follow her to give her the whole story. Lumine waved her off, from her position on a rock where she was nursing some stew with star-shaped carrots. He just couldn't help but think the carrots really stood out against the colourless stew. Paimon said they'd meet them back at the Police Station in a few hours.
Sara passed her a pouch of medicine, looked Heizou over. He expected her to say something, now that his mind had started to clear, but she didn't. He turned to valedict the traveler. The red matting her blonde hair made his mouth shut with a distinct click.
And here he is now. Giving his recount of the events. The traveler ended up on the case he was investigating by following the commission of a missing child, and the clues they found together led them to Kannazuka. Lumine's propension towards beating the answer out of the vagrants saved them precious time, as they had little propension towards listening to what Heizou had to say anyway.
They chased the criminals past Nazuchi beach, but were hambushed. It seems all their most capable fighters stayed behind to get rid of them, while the main leaders fled to safety. Lumine stayed behind to fight off the attackers, while Heizou chased the leaders. They agreed it was the best course of action.
With all the capable fighters left behind, even Heizou was capable of rounding them up and capturing them, as unsatisfying as having to use brute force felt. But the children were more important, and some of them had been missing for days. He had no time to think about his pride.
But when he got back. Well. The pile of unconscious Nobushi extended all the way to Nazuchi Beach, but the traveler was in no better shape than them.
Why did he think a single woman could take on an army by herself? With an injured left arm, of all things, from shielding him from the first attack.
An egregious miscalculation on his part, that would have costed anyone else their life. If he were able to spell the demise of the traveler that survived the Musou no Hitotachi not once, but twice, the he would...
He would...
.....
"Thank you for your assistance as ever, Traveler. Your efforts are the main reason they weren't able to escape. Someone is taking care of the Nobushi as we speak."
And oh, would you look at that. His headache is back with a vengeance. Sometime Heizou hates having a moral backbone. Guilt. Ugh!
"Heizou," Kujou Sara now regards him, an unreadable look as her eyes flit between him and the traveler for a second. Huh.
"Hi Heizou! Looks like everything solved itself, huh? Thank goodness! Paimon was getting really worried! Why don't we celebrate our success over a good meal? Hotpot sounds gooooood!! Oh, but then again, it's a pretty hot night, so maybe something cold would be better..."
The hungry rumbling fades in the background as Heizou and Lumine share a glance. The majority of the blood has been washed off in the few hours they haven't seen each other, and he can't see any of the injuries she was sporting previously. Her eyes appear clear, is it possible to heal from a concussion that quickly?
"Heizou," the traveler regard him with a nod. The two oni pass by them with the kids in tow, making a ruckus. They loudly salute them as they leave, and Lumine waves at them with a smile. She's still smiling when she looks at him, "good work out there!"
Good... Work?
It's really hot tonight, just as Paimon said. There's a knot in his stomach. He's going to vomit. The traveler frowns as her eyes rake through his body. He can hear Kujou Sara and Paimon shuffling nervously next to them, unwilling to stay in the suffocating silence, but too awkward to move.
Lumine spares them but a glance before grabbing his wrist, the same way he'd done, and dragging him behind the police station, outside the reach of indescreet eyes and ears.
"Okay," she turns to him with all the determination of a dog ready to pounce, "what's up with you? Did you get hit on the head?"
And now she's grabbing his face and messing up his hair to look for injuries, and no no no, this is all WRONG.
"It's you." He grabs her wrists and pushes them away from his face, "you're the one that got injuried! All that blood..."
"Most of it wasn't mine-"
"Even just a 1% of it being yours is a problem!"
He doesn't know what takes over him to shout like that, and it doesn't look like Lumine knows what to make of it either, if the look on her face is anything to go by.
"Heizou, I... I'm sorry you had to see me like that."
Sorry? SHE is sorry!?
"No! Dammit, I'm the one who should apologize! I let you get hurt! I put you in danger! I... I'm supposed to make flawless decisions... No one was meant to get hurt."
He lets go of her hands with a deep sigh, feeling weary all the way down to his bones. If he could just be done with today and wake up tomorrow to a day without any complications, that would be great.
"Sorry," some part of him nudges him and reminds him that they've been silent for a long time now, "sorry, I shouldn't have yelled. It won't happen again."
He turns to leave, but the traveler grabs his arm, and he meets her golden eyes before he can do otherwise, looking more brown in the reddish light of dusk. He shouldn't look her in the eyes after today, but he can't look away either. There is a puzzle of complicated emotions in those irises, and he can't look away.
"I don't want that."
Huh? "What do you mean?"
"For it to not happen. You let me see how you feel because you trust me, right? You said you did. So, if you get angry, or frustrated, or worried, and you feel like screaming or bursting into tears, that's fine. That's more than fine. Just don't push me away."
He can practically taste the blood in his mouth with how hard he's biting down on his lip. Damn it all... When he finds the words, his voice is softer and more frail than he's ever heard himself sound.
"Travel- no, Lumine. Lumine, does your head still hurt? Please be honest. Please."
She blinks, like she's amazed that he asked. She grabs his hand, thank God the gloves don't cover that part as well, and puts it on her hair, where he remembers seeing the stain.
"It's all healed up. You can kiss it better if you don't believe me."
Her hair isn't silk smooth. It's rough from adventuring mishaps, and there's a slightly charred patch near the back from a recent accident involving Yoimiya's fireworks, and Lumine's been waiting for it to grow longer so she can cut that off. He doesn't taste blood or feel wetness anywhere. Could it really have been someone else's..? But no, she definitely couldn't recognize him.
He kisses a trail down her left eyelid, then to her right, and down to her cheek, near the jaw, and she giggles with ticklishness. And then she whispers his name and looks at him, and kisses him like she took a master's degree in making out.
And if a few tears fall down and some embarassing moans slip out, well... That's nobody's business but their own now, is it?
Although the tengu that has been waiting to lecture them on the shamefulness of sucking face against the wall of the police station might think otherwise.