⠀⠀⠀Saying "I like you." to him rolled so easily off my tongue. I could say it another million times. Does he believe me? Does he think I'm fucking with him?
⠀⠀⠀I hope not.
⠀⠀⠀Scaramouche seemed lost in space. He was looking down at the water, barely blinking, breathing slowly and not moving almost at all.
⠀⠀⠀"Scara, are you okay?"
⠀⠀⠀Right, he wouldn't reply to that anyway.
⠀⠀⠀"Scaramouche, are you okay?"
⠀⠀⠀He looked back at me and nodded.
⠀⠀⠀"I'm good. I'm good right now." He replied.
⠀⠀⠀"Scaramouche. I need to tell you something."
⠀⠀⠀"What is it, Y/N?"
⠀⠀⠀"I want to go back to Sumeru City... to find the traveler."
⠀⠀⠀After hearing those words Scaramouche froze. His pupils started shrinking and his left eye began twitching.
⠀⠀⠀"You can't." He grunted.
⠀⠀⠀"What? Why?"
⠀⠀⠀"They'll take you away. Away from me." He grabbed my hand in his.
⠀⠀⠀"No one is going to take me away, Scaramouche... You don't have to worry. I don't think anyone has that big of a target on me. In case of anything I'll keep more than one eye out for the Fatui. If you want you can come along. I'll explain to everyone that you don't have any ill intent for now and that we just want to find the traveller. The moment you feel something is wrong you can pick me up and run away, okay? Does that sound good?"
⠀⠀⠀Scaramouche didn't answer. He just stared blankly at me.
⠀⠀⠀"Okay." Was all he said after a second or two.
⠀⠀⠀"Okay. Thank you."
⠀⠀⠀"There's a storm outside. We can go after it ends." He whispered.
⠀⠀⠀"We could take the teleporters."
⠀⠀⠀"I want to stay here more."
⠀⠀⠀"Okay... Sure... We can stay more then. But after the storm stops we're leaving for Sumeru City."
⠀⠀⠀I wanted to see Aether again. I missed him. I still wonder if he misses me too. We fought together for so long... against so many monsters... people... He surely couldn't forget about me that easily... Surely.
⠀⠀⠀"Let's do something. Do we have any games we could play here?" I asked Scaramouche. I sat around doing absolutely nothing for so long... my skin was itching from how bored I was.
⠀⠀⠀"Games? I don't take part in such childish activities."
⠀⠀⠀"Scaramouche come on, it can be fun!"
⠀⠀⠀I got up and ran all around the cave, trying to find something fun to do.
⠀⠀⠀"We could maybe throw pebbles in a basket or something of the sorts."
⠀⠀⠀"Huh? How could that be entertaining?" Scaramouche replied, almost disgusted by my idea.
⠀⠀⠀"The entertaining part will probably be the tension to see who will win!" I said happily, making my way back to the pond with a basket filled with pebbles.
⠀⠀⠀"We each get a number of pebbles. If you throw one of the pebbles in the basket you score a point. After we both finish throwing all our pebbles in the basket, the one who scored the most points wins! Easy to understand, right?"
⠀⠀⠀"Easy enough. Pass me the rocks. I'll win this for sure."
⠀⠀⠀I giggled. "We'll see."
⠀⠀⠀"I say we make this a... challenge... This will make it more entertaining." Said he. "The person who wins gets to ask or get something from the loser." He smirked.
⠀⠀⠀"Oh yeah? Okay, okay. I'm down. Let's do this." I followed, ready to win.
⠀⠀⠀I was glad Scaramouche was invested as well. Though, the more I thought of it, the more this challenge seemed to have something hid behind it. It couldn't be that bad though, I'm sure.
⠀⠀⠀The basket was placed pretty far away. We took turns to throw the pebbles.
⠀⠀⠀ Scaramouche was so easily angered, each time he missed the basket he would go to pick up the rock that didn't get in just to throw it at the wall as hard as he could. It was kind of amusing to see how angry a tiny stone like that could make him.
⠀⠀⠀He really wanted to win. The amount of swears I heard come out of that man's mouth during this whole thing. He degraded those stones like they were people...
⠀⠀⠀I honestly couldn't help but laugh. He was a bit angry at me because of that but I just couldn't help myself.
⠀⠀⠀"Those rocks... they've heard so... so much..." I tried saying between laughs.
⠀⠀⠀"Dumb piece of shit." Scaramouche whispered, throwing a poor pebble at the basket... and scoring.
⠀⠀⠀That was his last stone.
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⠀⠀⠀I threw mine as well. I scored as well.
⠀⠀⠀The game was over. Now we just had to decide the winner.
⠀⠀⠀We calculated how many pebbles we both scored...
⠀⠀⠀... I was short by one
⠀⠀⠀"OH COME ON!"
⠀⠀⠀"Hah... HAHA!" Scaramouche laughed triumphant. "I told you I would win this dumb little game."
⠀⠀⠀I kicked the basket so all the pebbles fall over.
⠀⠀⠀I was competitive. I didn't like losing. At all. Not at all. It was especially worse now that I was short by just one... one stupid rock.
⠀⠀⠀Scaramouche kept laughing for a while. Then stopped and looked at me.
⠀⠀⠀"So you know what that means, don't you?" He said as he got closer to me, his moth slowly formed into a smirk.
⠀⠀⠀"Yeah, yeah, okay. What is it... What do you want?" I tapped my foot on the ground.
⠀⠀⠀"You."
⠀⠀⠀Scaramouche replied, grabbing me by my wrist and with his other hand, he grabbed my chin. My heart fluttered, I tried backing away but I hit the cave wall. Scaramouche followed me closely, his face centimeters away from mine.
⠀⠀⠀He leaned in closer and closer... slowly. I didn't move. I didn't want to.
⠀⠀⠀We kept eye contact. He didn't look away once. My body grew hotter the longer he stayed so close to me.
⠀⠀⠀He chuckled.
⠀⠀⠀Scaramouche moved his hand from my wrist to the wall behind me... Then he came closer once again.
⠀⠀⠀"You..." He started. "What did you do to me..." That...
⠀⠀⠀... was as the last thing he said before his lips met mine. The sudden contact and him whispering his words sent electric shocks up and down my spine.
⠀⠀⠀Fuck. He moved his hand behind my neck and pulled me closer into his kiss. My knees grew weaker and my heart started beating faster. I immediately melted into his touch... into his lips.
⠀⠀⠀I shouldn't have... shouldn't have let my guard down like that but it was all so... irresistible.
⠀⠀⠀I closed my eyes and followed his movements until Scaramouche pulled away.
⠀⠀⠀His eyes locked onto mine... was breathing heavily.
⠀⠀⠀With his lips parted he kissed me once more. This one was shorter than the other but it was softer.
⠀⠀⠀Scaramouche moved away slowly, meeting my eyes once again then looking back down, leaning his head on my shoulder.
⠀⠀⠀
"Hah ... now I just want more."
He said under his breath.
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