disclaimer: My owning Touken Ranbu? Haha. Haha.
damn, it's very hot here.
"You know, Shishiou, I think you're really cool." Aruji-sama says it so offhandedly, so casually – her voice is always so soft that it makes him have to strain his ears to hear it (she may just do it on purpose, though, because he hears her shout at Tsurumaru for giving her nasty surprises.)
"Eh, what?"
Sometimes, he doubts that she has learnt this from Tsurumaru, always saying things at his least expected moment. And it's so rare of her to give a compliment, because all the times she's just 'oh, so you've come back, please take a rest' (the thing that gets her to react is when someone is injured, and Shishiou remembers Aruji-sama dashing out of the door and dragging the injured one into the workshop.)
"Nothing." She snaps, she always snaps, and he knows she has definitely said something.
"Really, but I've just heard —"
"You heard nothing!"
"— that you said I'm really cool. I know, Shishiou-sama is just that awesome." He grins widely, and this time, he doesn't drape his arms around her shoulder (like he always does when he wants to see her flare up, to get some reactions out of her.), but instead look at her. Watches for the rolling of her eyes, a twitch of her lips, for any displays of emotion, anything.
"If you heard, why would you ask?" He has the strangest feeling that she wants to punch him in the face (with the disturbingly blanket face ever), and the moment he looks at her, he kind of understands why — because he wants to do that to himself too. Something in the deep of his core is afraid because she's just a girl – she's young and should be carefree, should not be caught in this spiral —
She's young, her hands are small and her shoulders are delicate —
And she's pretty.
Shishiou knows what's pretty the moment he sees it. He knows that even Aruji-sama likes pretty things, she can't stop saying about how pretty Kashuu is, how pretty Midare is, how beautiful Souza is, how cute Nue is (He doesn't really know about others, but it's enough if she likes Nue.)
And it's silent for a moment – and strange too, when he's standing and she's sitting, and Shishiou suddenly has the weirdest feeling of being in a company of a princess.
It's not like he minds though, because it's as the same as his duty. ("If the saniwa dies, everything will end.")
He definitely doesn't mind being her knight.
(He doesn't want to be prince, because it's Ichigo's job and really — if she knows he considers her as a princess, she won't be happy.)
maybe a knight, yes.
i doubt.