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“Is parting ways truly the best option for us?”
Walter, who suggested the idea in the first place, glanced up from his meal to where Jonathan sat uncomfortably on the barstool next to him. Truthfully, he had been hoping for some support from Flynn or Isabeau on the matter, but neither was currently paying any attention to his fretful comment, instead discussing which quests were the wisest to take at their level of skill while looking at their gauntlets.
“Well, what would you suggest? Splitting ourselves in half to get all these quests done?” Walter scoffed, clapping Jonathan’s back heavily enough to make him gasp. “With all the worrying you do, I’m surprised you aren’t already sprouting gray hairs. Don’t you think we’re strong enough to handle it?”
I should have expected such an answer from Walter. It seemed strength and obtaining more of it was all that mattered to him nowadays. But Jonathan persisted. “We’re quite powerful as a group, yes. But the two of us exterminating a horde of demons?”
Jonathan didn’t like the glint in Walter’s eye. It was the same spark that lit up whenever they came face to face with a foe even more daunting than the last, whenever he threw himself into the middle of unknown forces they had never even seen before.
He sighed. It also meant there was no talking him out of it.
“At least tell me before you decide to do anything brash.”
“When do I ever not?”
One group of reinforcements. Thankfully, Jonathan noticed them easily while beheading the demon closest to him. Still, he cursed under his breath. Were all his fellow samurai there to lend a hand, there was no doubt the quest would be over already. But now, they were indeed split up – and Flynn and Isabeau completing a delivery in Ginza, many miles away from where he and Walter were in Shibuya.
“Jonathan!”
There was a clash of claw against metal. A short distance away, Walter grappled with a demon of his own, but instead of focusing on the battle at hand, he was looking over his shoulder at something else. Following his eyes, Jonathan felt his heart sink.
Two groups of reinforcements.
“About time we got a real challenge!” In the midst of Jonathan’s dread, Walter was battle ready as ever, leaving one of his own demons to take his place as he charged head on at the next group.
Jonathan glared at him a moment longer. “I told you to inform me when you were planning to do anything–”
“Master Jonathan, one of your demons is down.”
Burroughs’ ever calm voice was a strange juxtaposition against the snarls of their demonic foes. A short distance away, Jonathan saw the body of his demon, Silky, collapse right on cue. Walter had already left many of his demons laying lifeless around them but – unlike Walter – Jonathan refused to let a moment go by while one of his allies fell serving him. Even if they were demons.
Summoning Principality from the stock for support, Jonathan rushed toward his fallen demon. Distantly, Walter’s shout rose over the roar of a Chimera, but he could not dissect the words from the white noise.
Pulling medicine from his satchel, Jonathan assessed her wounds and cursed again. Neither of them had the time to deal with this, and –
A rush of air whisked past Jonathan’s ears, through his hair. Before he could move, before he could think, everything seemed to happen at once.
“JONATHAN!”
The heavy weight of something living and breathing slammed into him, although it seemed to be holding back – not the actions of a demon who wanting nothing more than to rip the flesh from his bones. Instead, it pinned him to the ground, shielding him with its body. Blinding light crackled, the electricity of a high leveled Zio spell, through the space where Jonathan used to be crouched beside his demon.
Jonathan’s heart pounded in his throat. Oh.
Walter was the one on top of him.
The sounds of battle had started to die down (or maybe it was the ringing in Jonathan’s ears drowning it out), but Walter remained where he was. He drifted his gaze away from the dark sky above their heads toward Walter’s face as best as he could, but his fellow samurai’s eyes were still tightly closed, head rested in the space by Jonathan’s neck in his attempt to protect him. “W…” Jonathan tried to speak, but the impact had left him breathless without noticing.
The atmosphere changed.
“Congratulations on completing the quest.”
The chime of Burroughs from his gauntlet finally seemed to jerk Walter back into action, his whole body visibly relaxing. A deep breath escaped him (tickling Jonathan’s ear, making his skin prickle in a strange sensation he didn’t expect), and Walter lifted his head, his wild hair brushing Jonathan’s cheek in the process.
His dark eyes blinked open. Jonathan stared back.
Jonathan knew that Walter was by no means weak – in all honestly, Flynn was probably the only one among them that rivaled him in strength. Even by appearance alone it was apparent, with how Walter wore his uniform with abdominal muscles bared for the world to see. But now, he was made completely aware of just how strong Walter was. How the arms planted on either side of his head flexed with the effort of holding himself above him, the firmness of his legs against his own.
Finding his mouth oddly dry, Jonathan swallowed.
“You tell me not to do anything dangerous,” Walter narrowed his eyes, “and then dash off without warning to revive a demon that would’ve been cut down again anyway?”
…That’s all Walter had to say?!
“E-excuse me?!” Jonathan sputtered, shoving at Walter’s shoulder to allow him to sit back up. “My demon wouldn’t have been struck down if you had just gone along with our initial plan to keep watch over each other's backs in the first place.”
Such fighting was not uncommon to them, especially when it came to situations like this. But the flush on Jonathan’s face left him thoroughly confused. Was it just because of the shared body heat of being so close?
Getting to his feet and brushing himself off, Jonathan let go of his frustration and offered his hand to his fellow. Giving him one last, heated look, Walter relented and allowed Jonathan to help him back up.
“I’m sure Flynn and Isabeau must be waiting for us by now.” Jonathan turned away to start returning his demons to the stock to recover. “We should hurry.”
As he turned back to Walter, he just barely noticed how quickly his eyes shifted to Jonathan’s face, as if he had been looking at him the entire time. But… why? What had he been looking at?
Jonathan recalled how he had admired Walter similarly just moments before, a thought that now embarrassed him to even think about. But… could he perhaps have been…?
No, of course not. Why was he even wondering about it?
“To Shinjuku, then?”
It was late when Jonathan heard the knock at his room’s door. Regardless, he opened it and paused.
“Walter?”
“Hoy, Jonathan… Pardon my intrusion.”
“Are you aware of the time right now? Is there something amiss?”
“No, you see… It is hard to explain so quickly. May I come in?”
Jonathan wondered why he hadn’t turned him away already. Why he shifted his weight to let him in.
Why his heart had suddenly started to race at his request.
“You may.”
He closed the door, just as quickly found himself willingly pinned against it, and thanked God that the walls were made of stone.
Jonathan was late.
If it had just been Walter, Isabeau would not have been surprised in the least. He was never a morning person, regardless of his Casualry roots. It was nearly a running joke at this point – Walter arriving to the Terminal with his lazy gait and bedhead (hard to tell it from his usual hairstyle, quite honestly), Jonathan reprimanding him for the umpteenth time about the importance of their mission, the importance of having a regular sleep schedule…
But Jonathan always waited for him. Isabeau frowned.
Flynn stood by the door to the Terminal, hand rested on his sword hilt with his eyes to the clouds moving slowly above. “Should we go?”
Perhaps they should. Isabeau bit her lip. “Wouldn’t they tell us if they weren’t well enough to travel?”
Sharing a glance with Flynn, she sighed. Already, it was approaching noon hours. The sun did not shine in Tokyo, but it wasn’t as if they could go on without returning by night to rest. Shelter in Tokyo was scarce, and Isabeau much preferred sleeping somewhere that wasn’t filled to the brim with demons.
“Jonathan’s here.”
Jerking Isabeau from her thoughts, she looked at Flynn again as he spoke but now his gaze was focused on something behind her. She turned around, but she heard his frantic footsteps before she saw him. Sure enough, Jonathan was rushing toward them likely as fast as his legs could carry him. Isabeau exhaled again, this time a sigh of relief.
As soon as he got close enough, he gasped out an apology. “P-pardon my late arrival…” Trying to catch his breath, he ran a hand through his messy hair. “I, ah… There was…”
As Jonathan continued to stutter out nervous, incomplete excuses, Isabeau started to realize something was… off. His usually pristine uniform was disheveled just enough to be strange by Jonathan’s standards. Even his scarf was loose, and – was that the edge of a bruise peeking through on the side of his neck?
“Hoy!”
Jonathan’s whole body grew noticeably stiff, eyes looking everywhere but at his fellow samurai as Walter sauntered up beside him. There was a wide grin on his face, and he took a moment to stretch his back with a satisfied groan. Jonathan’s whole face went a rosy pink at the sound. “Wonderful morning so far, wouldn’t you agree? So, what’d we miss?”
While Walter’s expression could only be described as smug, Jonathan looked mortified, as though he wanted God to take him then and there. Isabeau glanced between them for a moment, everything coming together like one big, messy puzzle. “Oh, God.”
Pleadingly, she turned to Flynn for some kind of support or escape, but he was already walking away. “I’m heading in.” Was all he said before entering the Terminal room.
She looked back at Walter and Jonathan, the latter now staring at her in what she was sure was a silent plea not to say anything. Hiding her face with one hand, she could still feel the blush burning to the tips of her ears. “Let’s… let’s just go. Before we waste any more time on this.”
Briskly, she hurried after Flynn, but she could still just hear the two of them as Walter began to speak. “You know, Jonathan, you really did a number on my back with those nails of yours…”
There was the audible sound of a fist connecting with his stomach. Walter’s pained grunt was the last thing Isabeau heard before entering the Terminal.