The Vigilant Yaksha

Chapter 63

"Why are you limping? Are you hurt?"

Not exactly the questions she wanted to receive from the person closest to a brother to her, and the words caused her to press her lips together in a hard line, awkwardly staring away at a painting on a far away wall.

"I'm fine- Xiao and I trained a lot yesterday. I sprained my calf muscle, I think-" Abruptly, she cut herself off with an awkward cough, casting her gaze over to the nearby bar tender who was serving the other patrons their drinks.

Aether had wanted Vena to meet him for lunch in a restaurant in Liyue. Usually they were together every day, doing commissions together or helping out people in need, gathering ingredients or just simply exploring and looking for treasure, but yesterday was the first day they hadn't seen each other in a few months, not since back before they'd leave her under Xiao's watchful gaze at the Wangshu Inn while they took care of business in Liyue.

Vena assumed it had probably made the boy anxious, considering she was the one person in this world she knew and felt as if she could trust besides Lumine, and maybe that had formed a link between them of codependency. Of course, she'd felt it too- Xiao had just happened to distract her from it yesterday.

Her prior occupation in her home world had been a nurse, sure, but it was often she dealt with mental health and many of the various things related that she could usually digest a person's situations or feelings well enough if she decided to think into it for a moment. The ability was definitely a strong-suit of her's, and she wanted to start trying to use it again more. Observation can help immensely, and she was all about improving herself in any way possible lately.

"Is your neck bruised too? Man, Xiao's really cranking up the difficulty of your training too, huh?"

Oh boy, was he oblivious sometimes. Although that was to Vena's relief, until her hand unintentionally shot up to try to pull up the collar of her shirt to cover them, her heart beat increasing as the thoughts came rushing back.

AETHER PLEASE. RELAX.

"Oh- yeah! I'm getting better so I asked him to let loose a little-" She couldn't help but flinch away from his gaze, finding it hard to lie to him even though it was only a little white lie. He didn't need the details, it would be better if she spared him the truth.

"... Your face is red."

A E T H E R.

Why was he so interested? Why was he pushing it so hard?

Cerulean eyes flicked to meet his own, taking in his empty expression, which was likely actually genuine confusion. It was often Aether was either expressionless or softly nice, usually being one or the other. So sometimes that was hard to read for others, but not so much to her. She assumed here it was simple confusion considering Xiao would more than likely be the type to never put Vena in a situation where she could be harmed, even if it was a small bruise.

After moments of silence between the two, his expression drastically changed, the situation clearly dawning on him now as his lips pressed into a hard line, his eyes half lidded and focusing elsewhere, just like she had done before.

It was almost comical how many little mannerisms the two shared because of their close bond.

Aether's lips parted to speak, only to press closed once more, clearly not knowing how to dodge this awkward conversation now that he had accidentally dug this far into it.

"I'd rather not know-"

"Yeah let's just-" The two spoke over each other, clearly both wanting to just push the subject under the rug and never talk about it again.