When Flowers Bloom | Ayato x Thoma

Chapter 1: The Pact of Our Youth

p.s: spoilers ahead for ayato's story quest if you haven't yet done it!

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By this point in Thoma's life, he was pretty used to receiving random food items as gifts. The more elaborate the meal, the more likely it was to be from some well-mannered Inazuman attempting to get into the Kamisato fixer's good graces. If it veered into the more ordinary side of snacks, then it was probably just Ayaka trying to subtly hint that he should be taking a break from housekeeping. Anything infused with seagrass, lavender melon, or naku weed on the other hand?

Yup. Definitely Ayato.

Thoma sighed, but received the milk from the Shuumatsuban ninja without further complaint. If the odd ingredients hadn't been tell-tale enough that the Yashiro Commissioner was behind the beverage, then a member of the elite squadron of assassins being reduced to a delivery boy sure did it. "Give my thanks," Thoma muttered, tempted to add 'to that asshole' had he thought the ninja would actually pass on the message.

The ninja nodded, bowed deep once, and then promptly disappeared. Thoma was left alone with an open view of Inazuma City from the Kamisato estate's front porch. Koharu and Granny had already gone inside for lunch, leaving just Thoma and a few guards milling around outside whilst he trimmed the bushes - Koharu's duty, really, but watching her fumble around so much with the shears was almost as stressful as waiting for Ayato to come back.

Almost.

He was thankful for the milk as respite from his worrying. Ayato was, at the very least, alive - and thinking of him.

Albeit, sadistically.

The culinary oddities had started off as a joke between the two - off the back of a promise Thoma had made when they were kids and he had nothing except the desire to protect Ayato in any way he could. And that way, so earnest and naively, had been to volunteer as 'poison tester.'

He still remembered the first time he did it. The look on the newly instated Yashiro Commissioner's face when his dinner was late and he'd gone to check on it only to find Thoma insisting he take a bite out of every ingredient first. How it had started with an argument and somehow ended in a food fight, with Granny caught in the middle of the two - trying to drag Ayato off an equally giddy and giggling Thoma.

After that, Ayato had made a deal with him. "Alright. Then you must eat whatever I eat or so choose to feed you."

("But," had been the whispered promise, later at night when Granny had gone to bed, "you must promise to never die for me, Thoma. Your life isn't worth any less than mine."

Instinctively, Thoma had known that not to be true. Even back then, before the Kamisato clan regained its power. "Of course it is. I'm just a retainer. You're my lord."

"You're my blood," Ayato told him. "In a different way from Ayaka's. Your blood is my blood. Your soul is my own.")

Thoma looked past the memory, and smiled down at the little bottle in his hand. "Bastard," he said quietly, his voice far softer and tender than the insult inferred. He drank the milk in one go.

⚜

The Yashiro Commissioner finally arrived a couple days later. He'd come with his usual flourish and scrabble of Shuumatsuban and servants, all in haste to please him. Even Koharu had begun frantically sweeping the front room, determined to make herself look busy. She needn't have worried - Ayato, without a second glance, glided past as easy as water flowed, and quickly gestured for her to leave.

Thoma hovered at the edge of the room, a curious 'my lord?' on the tip of his tongue. Something in his lord's stance, however, pulled it back. He knew him well enough to know when he was in the middle of something - when his posture was tall and unyielding, and his eyes sharp and dangerous as his smile.