The sound of children playing in the streets of the lower quarter could be heard through the open window. Usually, he would sit on the sill and watch them play—or maybe even join in whatever game it was—but not this time. No, this time he was sitting in bed, back to the wall, letting his thoughts wander. He was not sure where the thoughts went, he was more concerned with not thinking about the present. His thoughts went to his childhood: when Flynn and he ran around doing errands to get enough Gald for a wooden sword, when they walked around the other quarters of Zaphias to see what they were like, when he had started feeling resentment towards the nobles and knights for treating everyone from the lower quarter like dirt on their shoes.

He thought about cooking and how he picked up a discarded cookbook one day and decided to try to replicate it; then Flynn wanted to try too. Their first attempts of cooking were hardly anything nearly as nice looking as the pictures in the book—nor did they taste as delicious as they were meant to. However, with continued attempts at cooking he seemed to improve, while Flynn somehow managed to get worse.

When Repede laid his head in his lap, he thought about his early days in the knights; hand absentmindedly reaching to pet his friend. Back then, he was mostly charged with watching the dogs, grumbling about it the entire time. He wanted to go out and help fight the monsters, help all the other soldiers protect the cities. In hindsight, he was glad to have been assigned dog-watching. He would have missed out on a close friend otherwise.

"Y-Yuri?"

His hand paused its petting in surprise, apparently his reminiscing distracted him to the point of not hearing his door open or the clinking of armor denoting the person he knew better than himself.

"Greetings, Mighty Commandant!" Asking why he was there was pointless, Yuri knew exactly why Flynn was taking time out of his busy schedule to walk all the way down to where he was—or run, actually; he could hear Flynn panting.

"Lady Estellise told me," Flynn paused to take a few slow steps toward the bed. "She told me you got hurt."

"Mmm, yeah. Got roughed around a little, but Estelle patched me up well enough." He smiled, "Just been Repede and I all day, though. I could walk around and stretch my legs."

"Yuri! How could you be so calm about this?" The blonde took a seat on his bed. Yuri could hear him taking off his armor and his face softened. Flynn looked really great in his Commandant gear, but it was always a treat to see Flynn a little less formal. It was a bummer he could not see it more often. Oh well, he would just cherish the few times he saw it.

"What's done is done. Getting emotional about it isn't going to make anything better."

Flynn sighed, "Even so, I was expecting a bit more of a reaction."

"I'v had enough time to process it all." He felt Flynn scoot closer, "The faster I get used to it, the better for everyone." He inhaled and felt his body relax at the comforting scent of Flynn filling his nose: his natural forest-like scent as well as the metal of his armor. It was his forest scent that brought feelings of relaxation and contentment to Yuri; as if nothing mattered because they were together, and if anything did happen, the two of them were more than capable of handling it.

A touch to his face made him jerk away in surprise. "Sorry! Sorry, I just," Flynn took a breathe, "I just wanted to touch."

"It's okay." Yuri took some deep breathes to calm his racing heart. "Just," He swallowed, "warn me beforehand." Getting startled sucked, but getting startled when completely relaxed was worse; Yuri was finding it difficult to calm his body back to the warm contentedness it was in just a minute ago.

"Alright. I'm, I'm going to touch you now."

He nodded in confirmation and soon felt warm fingers on his shoulder for a moment before they reappeared on his cheek. Leaning into the touch, Yuri felt the fingers trail up to the bandages wrapped around his head. "Does it hurt?" Flynn's voice was quiet, sad. "Can I?"

He nodded, "Go ahead." he answered just as quietly. Flynn started undoing the bandage, slowly unwrapping it from around Yuri's head. "No, it doesn't hurt anymore. Estelle healed it well enough. The bandage is mostly for the scratches she couldn't get to." When the bandage was completely off, he opened his eyes out of habit and felt his throat tighten. He felt Flynn's fingers trace each wound on his face, the scratches left by monsters ambushing Brave Vesperia while they were already battling a group of monsters. Luckily they were close to Zaphias and after Yuri got wounded, managed to get him in the city and call for Estelle. They probably would have been okay with calling a regular doctor, but this way Estelle would know what happened sooner and she would have insisted on healing Yuri anyway.

Flynn's fingers traced his eyes—eyes Estelle healed from their bloody, useless and torn apart sockets—lightly, so lightly, as if pressing too hard would cause further damage. When he was done, Yuri felt Flynn's head fall to his shoulder and heard as much as he felt Flynn release a sigh, body relaxing in the process.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Flynn inhaled deeply, as if he were taking in Yuri's scent to further assure himself that the long-haired man was in fact there, "When I got back, Lady Estellise told me and I just had to make sure you were alright."

Yuri set his hand on Flynn's head, brushing his fingers though the short blonde hair—a move he made absentmindedly, this was what Flynn did when he was tired with everything and needed to confide in someone; growing up together, Yuri was very familiar with how his closest person worked and had to comfort him many times in the same way.

"It's not too bad. I'll get some cool battle scars, for sure. Maybe now I'll look tough." He chuckled, "She said she fixed my eyes. Do they look alright?"

Flynn lifted his head from Yuri's shoulder and instead rested it against Yuri's forehead, staring deep into dark eyes that used to sparkle with mischief and express Yuri's emotions beautiful; but now they were dark and blank, void of any light. "Yeah, they look alright." He paused, "Except for..."

"Me being blind."

"Yeah."

A moment of silence occurred, both thinking about how real it was now that it was out in the air. It was broken when Yuri moved both hands to Flynn's face, gently running his fingers all over—tracing Flynn's jaw, ears, nose, lips, eyes, eyebrows—seeing Flynn's face the only way he could now, and applying that to his memory of Flynn's face.

"Estelle was really upset when she couldn't fix my eyes completely." He mentioned as he continued touching Flynn's face. He was never one for awkward silences, after all. "Kept apologizing, even though I told her it wasn't her fault. But she did make them look normal, at least. Judy told me what happened and it couldn't have been a pretty sight."

"That sounds like her." Flynn idly commented on Estelle's determination to help her friends.

"Yeah." Yuri cupped Flynn's face, stroking the blonde's cheeks with his thumbs for a moment. Then he tilted his face up to meet Flynn's lips with his in a soft kiss. Flynn's arms wrapped around him and he deepened the kiss; tried to convey to the blonde that he was there, alive, and not going anywhere. One of his hands moved to run through blonde hair and something in him relaxed in the comforting presence of Flynn, stable Flynn—Flynn who was always there for him, his support, his foundation. Anything and everything he did could be done because every time he would look back, Flynn would be there for him. And because of Yuri's actions, Flynn was able to rise in the ranks as he did and help bring peace to the world.

Slowly, gently, Yuri pulled back from the kiss, a soft smile on his face. He felt Flynn start playing with his long hair, brushing fingers through it, twisting strands together, and brushing them again.

"Remember that time you tried to make curry?" He spoke quietly, not wanting to disrupt the peaceful moment between them.

"You mean when I gave you food poisoning and had to take care of you until you got better?" Flynn cringed. That was definitely not on the list of his greatest achievements.

"'Had to' take care of me? If I remember right, a certain someone felt so bad about almost killing me that he wouldn't leave me alone." Yuri snickered. Flynn had always been a proper goody-goody, despite being best friends with troublemaker Yuri Lowell.

"And your point is?" He would probably always feel embarrassment for that mishap, as well as the genuine fear he had when he thought his best friend was dying.

"It was kinda nice, being taken care of by you." Yuri pinched Flynn's cheek, hard enough for him to feel it, but soft enough it did not hurt, "I could have done without the lectures, though."

Flynn batted the assaulting hand away from his face. "I wouldn't have had to lecture if you didn't keep sneaking out of bed!"

Yuri laughed at the other's disgruntled expression he knew would be on Flynn's face. Sure enough, when he traced the blonde's face with his fingers, he felt the crinkled eyebrow and the disapproving frown.

"Let's take a walk."

He felt Flynn's eyebrows raise in surprise, "What? But, Yuri-"

"I'm blind, not an invalid. I'll still have to learn how to move around and why not do it with someone with me so I don't get laughed at for running into a building? Besides, someone's baking something that smells great across the street and I'm hungry."

Flynn heaved a sigh and agreed reluctantly. "Fine, fine."

With Flynn's help, Yuri managed to get out of his bed, out the door, and down the stairs easily enough. After they ate some freshly baked goods, they walked around the town—Flynn making sure everything was well and Yuri learning to orient himself by hearing, smell, and touch only. It was a severe handicap, not having his eyes, but he would adapt and soon be just fine without them. It was unfortunate that it happened at all, but at least he was still alive and mostly whole. He had Flynn beside him too, helping him whenever he needed.

Because together, they could do anything.

A/N: I saw a prompt on imagineyourotp involving someone being blind and my thought process was 'ohey yuri, you're up. let's roll' and this happened. yuri's a complicated character with a lot of feelings he doesn't quite convey, and even then, he shows his emotions through his actions more than anything. I tried to keep him as in character as possible... did I succeed? let me know, and thanks for reading!