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“Are you sure this is alright?”
You feel a little foolish with your hands hovering in the air, but you’d feel worse if you didn’t ask. Outside your window, rain falls in a steady sheet, filling the silence after your question with the patter of raindrops against glass.
“I am certain.” Simple and to the point, the words lack any sort of cadence that would indicate Yue wasn’t completely on board with your impulsive request.
Saying anything more would feel too much like stalling, so you allow your hands to do as they wish, fingers sinking into the fall of silver hair spilling down the guardian’s back. Released from its wrappings, it pools in your lap and onto your bedroom floor, silken and soft and impossibly long.
How he remains so unencumbered by its length, even in battle, you’ve no idea.
Must be magic, you think with a wry smile. Since you arrived in Tomoeda, you’ve learned to excuse quite a lot with magic, and who can blame you, after the things you’ve seen?
This feels a bit like magic, too, actually - your fingers shifting easily through long silver strands, unhindered by a single knot or snag and seeming to go on forever.
That sense of awe never seems to fade for you, no matter how often Yue allows this indulgence. There’s a familiarity to it now - the way your fingers curl as they sink into silver hair, the tug of silken strands over your knuckles, the half-doze you seem to fall into beneath the repetitive motions of your hands - but there’s still a part of you that marvels at the significance of the act.
Because there is a significance to it. It’s hard to imagine the taciturn guardian allowing just anyone to touch him this way.
The thought brings a familiar flush to your cheeks, one that you’re grateful Yue can’t see.
“What happened?”
At first you think he must be referring to the warmth in your cheeks, and you gape at the back of his head in something like horror. Can you not even blush in the guardian’s presence without him knowing?
“Your call,” he continues, and you abruptly deflate, though your momentary composure is ruined the moment you glance away from the hair slipping through your fingers and notice Yue has turned his head to glance at you, one deeply blue eye piercing into yours. “It was… persistent.”
The heat in your cheeks abruptly extends to swallow your entire face.
He couldn’t call it anything else? you grumble inwardly. Not that you had a better word for it - the unexplainable pull you two seemed to share, the way the guardian knew exactly where to find you when you needed him most.
You had it to blame for Yue’s appearance here tonight, you were certain. Why else would you have emerged from a much-needed shower to the sound of a knock at your door, and a rain-dampened Yukito Tsukishiro on the other side?
“Sorry,” he’d said, an apologetic smile on his lips as he’d caught sight of your pajamas - the comfiest you owned, pulled on in a last ditch attempt at soothing away the day’s frustrations. “I know it’s late, but he really - “
His words had been swallowed by a burst of light and wings sprouting from his back, sealing Yukito away behind a veil of feathers and giving you just enough time to lament your state of dress before they dispersed and left Yue standing in their wake.
It wasn’t the first time you had - unintentionally! - summoned him to you. You would apologize if you knew how to stop it, but you had just as little control over it as Yue seemed to. You certainly owed Yukito an apology, at any rate, for dragging him out into the middle of a rainstorm. And baked goods. A lot of them.
“O-oh?” you stammer, fighting the urge to press your palms to your cheeks in a vain attempt to chase the heat away. Even your ears feel hot.
Your pitiful attempt at stalling doesn’t get you much but an arched silver brow and an expectant stare, and you hold back a sigh as you duck your head, hiding from the guardian’s piercing gaze.
“It’s nothing, really,” you deflect, because in all truth it really had been nothing, just a series of petty irritants that had combined to turn what should have been a normal day into a terrible one, until you were left fighting the urge to burrow beneath your bedsheets and scream your frustrations into the safety of your pillow. “Just a bad day.”
The moment of silence after your voice trails off is a short-lived one. You can feel Yue’s gaze on the top of your head, steady, firm. “Tell me.”
A sigh catches in your throat, but you do as he asks, recounting the course of your day and everything that had managed to go wrong throughout, from your alarm failing to wake you to the sudden downpour that had caught you unawares on the way home.
Your hands keep moving as you speak, gathering bundles of silver hair and idly twining them into a loose plait. The repetitive motions of your fingers constructing each link in the braid serves as a welcome distraction from the frustrations of your day, softening the blow as you recount every bothersome event that had occurred. Even reliving the moment you’d gotten caught in the rain fails to reignite the misery you’d felt as you’d trudged home with chilled skin and sopping wet shoes, and in fact, you find your shoulders slumping as you finish your tale, lighter for having spoken the words aloud.
Judging by the air of quiet satisfaction about the guardian’s shoulders, that had been his intention all along.
The realization settles warmly in the center of your chest, radiating out into the fingers you comb through Yue’s braid, easing the hair free of its plait purely so that you might begin the process all over again.
“Thanks,” you murmur, silken strands tugging gently at your fingers. “Talking about it helps.”
“And this?” Yue’s head tilts, silver hair tumbling into your lap. Your eyes dart up to catch his, stomach flipping at the intensity of his gaze.
“Yeah,” you admit softly, warmth surging back into your cheeks. “This helps, too.”
Yue doesn’t say anything, merely dips his chin in acknowledgment and turns away, but not before you catch it, soft and fleeting on the guardian’s lips but no less sweet for it.
A smile.