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Affection didn’t come easy to Gauche. He had watched the world turn its back on his family, betray them, and then throw him and his baby sister out of their home.
Gauche had been fairly young when he realized that nothing mattered other than survival. That the only person he could count on was the only person he still had in the world, and he made sure to give it to her. Everything that she deserved. Because she never deserved this.
Marie was the only one who could get his affection. She was his light. The center of his life. She was everything and perhaps even more. He protected her, took care of her, mostly because there was no use for him if he didn’t.
He got himself locked away.
And then, Gauche broke out of jail. Some questionable foreigner took him in, and Gauche accepted because it was a job and Theresa said she wouldn’t let Gauche see Marie unless he ‘got his shit together’. Surely being a Magic Knight was part of it.
What Gauche hadn’t anticipated was the idiots he’d meet there. From the big guy exhaling smoke to the scary mumbling ghost (the reason why Gauche had a lock set up on his door room in the first place), there wasn’t one normal person in this squad. Affection, was it? What he felt for them? Unclear. But he didn’t hate them and Gauche thought that was a start.
One night, Gauche went down to the kitchen. Just for a glass of water, nothing much. He found himself in the living room because the damn hideout layout made no sense to him. And in that living room, there was a redhead just mulling over something as he finished a cup of coffee at two in the morning.
Gauche sat down. And he guessed that was how it started.
Affection didn’t come easy to Zora. His mother left when he was very little, and his father had always been more of a big brother to him than a doting, cuddly dad. When Zara Ideale died, he took with him the little warmth Zora had left.
The years after his death were a blur. A montage of scrambling around, trying to get by while enacting a vengeance Zora liked to think was righteousness. And it was. If no one was going to beat down those so-called magic knights, Zora would.
Zora did. All day, every day. He was relentless. He let violence take over because that was all he had left. He let violence take over because it was better than grief. He was avenging Zara. He was avenging his dad. He used it as a weapon. A justification, too, maybe. For all the anger that had replaced the warmth.
One day, Zora was given a robe. It wasn’t until a few years later that he decided to wear it. When he moved into the base, he didn’t think he’d stay. But it was a warm bed, warm water, and three warm meals a day. All for free. Or, well, in exchange for being a magic knight. A real one. Lead by example, right?
Zora wasn’t sure when he started seeking that warmth at night. He wasn’t sure when he started going out of his room in hope of finding someone. He wasn’t sure when he stopped trying to annoy Gauche but instead talked to him, listened to him, and held his hand. But it happened.
Affection didn’t come easy for either of them and they weren’t sure how it happened. But they learned it along the way.