Chapter 3

Furina woke up refreshed the next day. She went down to the kitchen and had her favorite cake for breakfast while singing one of her favorite chansons. Then she looked around the house, and it struck her that it was a complete mess. "How could I even live like this?", she asked herself. The plates were stacked in the kitchen sink, some moldy, others still with pieces of burnt macaroni glued to them. She had always boiled the macaroni in the same pot, which now had a strange color around the edge and smelled funny. Her clothes were piled up high on a single chair, some with cooking stains, others were just her beautiful costumes that she had no idea how to wash. Speaking of washing, did she even take a shower yesterday? She must have, right? But then, where was this odor coming from? Could Aether smell it the entire time? She blushed, even though she was alone. She rolled up her sleeves and got to work.

Furina had heard that people hate chores and household work. But somehow, she was enjoying tidying up the house. Maybe because she was doing it for the first time ever. Or at least she couldn't remember the last time she had to clean or wash everything herself. She was finally done in the afternoon, and she was pretty happy with the results. The dishes were clean and stacked on a drying rack (those pesky burned macaroni crisps took forever to scrape off), the clothes that needed washing were neatly folded in a basket, separated from the elegant suits that she still had no idea how to clean, and the remaining cake was put away in a glass cupboard that she found appropriate. The only thing was that now she was feeling beaten up. Her hands were hurting from the scraping and were dry from the manual washing, and sweat was running down her whole body. Aether would come soon, but she absolutely had to take a shower.

Thankfully, he didn't come while she was still in the shower. Furina dried her hair and put on one of her nicest blue suits, then looked around the house again. Everything looked much better, but she still couldn't shake the feeling that she was forgetting something. But before she could figure out what it was, someone knocked on the door. Excited, she rushed towards the door. Her heart was racing. She looked through the window, and there they were: Aether and Paimon, waiting for her to open. "OK, Furina, don't let them see how excited you are; it's not proper!" thought she to herself, smoothed out her clothes, smiled, and opened the door.

"Ah, I'm so glad you made it! Welcome and come in, please, in my humble abode!"

"Hi, Furina!"

Both Aether and Paimon gave her a hug at the same time. Furina didn't know she would be so keen on hugs, but now they made her feel so nice inside.

"Sorry we're late," started Paimon. "But we had to wrap up a commission for some Fontemer Aberrants around the city, and it took forever, and... woah, Furina, the house looks much nicer! And you smell a lot better as well!"

"Archons, Paimon, you can't just say that to someone," tried to interrupt her Aether when he noticed how much Furna blushed, but Paimon mercilessly continued.

"Except for the floor, it's still as dirty as yesterday."

"Ooh, the floor!" sighed Furina, disappointed. "I knew I was forgetting something..."

"It's ok, don't worry, that's just Paimon," Aether tried to laugh it off. "Don't think too much about it. She's just joking, right, Paimon?"

"Uhh, yeah, hahaha, sure, Paimon's just joking. Besides, it's ok; we've slept outside a lot of times, so we're used to funny smells and dirt!"

"Paimon..." sighed Aether.

But Furina had other worries on her mind. Her excitement was suddenly completely gone. Only now did she realize she was looking forward to Aether and Paimon coming here, but now that they were here, what were they supposed to talk about? Come to think of it, she only knew of their adventures, but she didn't really know them that well. She didn't really want to talk about the past she was trying to recover from, and Aether probably said all he wanted to tell her yesterday, so... what was she supposed to say?

"So, uh... are you guys hungry? I can cook something quickly."

"Sure!" Paimon immediately jumped at the opportunity. "What do you have?"

Furina opened the cupboards, as if she were expecting to find something that she knew wasn't there already.

"There's some... macaroni. I can offer you tomato sauce or Bolognese to your heart's delight!"

"Uh, Furina," said Paimon, who was now peeking in her cupboards. "Is macaroni... all you have?"

"Well, I'm... finding that simple, traditional food can be delicious too, now that I lead a simpler life..."

"But don't you get sick of macaroni every day?" asked Aether.

"Not at all! I can have macaroni with tomato sauce for one meal, and then macaroni with Bolognese for the other..."

"You don't know how to cook, do you?" said Paimon.

"Ah, the audacity! How rude to question my cooking skills! I am sure I could master "La Lettre a Focalors" or "Blubber Profiteroles", if I ever felt so inclined! Well, maybe not yet, but..."

Paimon turned to Aether and said, "Traveler, maybe we can cook something tonight. He's really good at cooking Furina, don't worry. Oh, Paimon knows! Maybe you can cook some regional specialties for Furina! Maybe something from Mondstadt, or from Inazuma, or from Sumeru... Oh, Paimon's got it; let's cook all of them at the same time!"

"Paimon," said Aether. "I will have to cook all of this, and I absolutely can't cook it all at the same time. Uh, you know what? Fine. Furina, can I please use your kitchen?"

"You don't have to cook for me, you know," said Furina nervously. "I mean, you can use the kitchen if you want, but I... I..."

"Wait here then; we'll just pop off to buy the ingredients."

Furina just sat and waited. She wasn't sure how she felt. On one side, she was so embarrassed that she couldn't seem to do anything right. She knew she didn't have to present herself perfectly as she had before, but she still didn't want to seem inept. On the other hand, Aether doing things for her felt... really nice. But what if he was doing it because he was just pitying her? He did admit that he felt sorry for her the day before, and that's not what Furina wanted. She could just tell him that she didn't want things done for her out of pity, but she also didn't want to appear rude. After all, he was putting in effort.

Consumed in thought, Furina almost didn't notice how much time went by. Half an hour later, Aether and Paimon came back with several huge bags of groceries.

"Are all these ingredients necessary for what you're about to cook?" asked Furina, shocked.

"Well... no, not all," answered Aether. "We just... uh, saw a lot of good-looking produce and couldn't stop ourselves from buying it. But we'll just leave them here for you."

Furina got kind of embarrassed. She could shop for herself, at least; could she not? But just as she was about to say something, the Traveler unpacked the bags and said, "We've decided to make goulash, a delicious Mondstadt dish, and on the side, a Satisfying Salad, my specialty. Do you want to watch how it's made, Furina? You can also help if you want. Paimon's not going to help me anyway."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean? Paimon helped," exclaimed Paimon. "Paimon gave us inspiration for what we should cook based on Furina's cake preferences!"

"And how are you supposed to know what someone likes based on their cake preferences, hm? It's just what you wanted to eat, isn't it?"

Furina wasn't dumb. She knew that Aether didn't really need her help, and she was just asking for it, so Furina feels like she's doing something useful. Plus, he probably just wanted to show her some cooking basics in practice but probably felt uncomfortable saying it directly. And the bags of fresh groceries were, of course, so she doesn't eat just macaroni every day. But even though she saw right through him, she still appreciated his efforts. And... well, she had to admit that she had an appetite for something that wasn't macaroni. "Of course," she said. "Naturally, I'll help".

At first, she was afraid she would mess everything up, but Aether turned out to be a good teacher. He was patient with her, waiting when she was slow and explaining everything. He and Paimon—well, mostly Paimon—were also chatting the entire time about this or that, so Furina never felt awkward. By the time the food was finished, they were all starving. Furina was pretty proud of her work. She knew it was silly; after all, that was all Aether's plan, and he was intentionally giving her a cooking lesson, but Furina just couldn't help but feel good about how well she had done.

When they all sat around the dinner table, however, Furina's fears resurfaced. What were they going to talk about now? Would they ask her questions she wasn't ready to answer yet? Or would they talk about the rather depressing recent events? Or maybe they would ask her what she was planning to do in the future—something she didn't even want to think about and couldn't possibly answer.

But it turned out that these fears were also ungrounded. Aether and Paimon told her about their adventures, the wonderful places they visited, and the amazing people they met. Even though they did most of the talking, they still made her feel like a part of the conversation; they answered her questions and commented on her remarks. Furina found herself enamored with their tales: Mondstad's wide plains and snowy peaks; Liyue's bustling port and adeptal mysteries; Inazuma's tragic wars and calamitous history; and Sumeru's deep jungles and unfathomable desert. She had visited the neighboring nations many times, of course, but almost always on diplomatic or trade visits, and even though she had seen the main attractions, she never managed to explore them as the Traveler did in all her 500 years. Hearing the tales, she almost wished to also go on an adventure with them.

Time went by so quickly that they didn't notice that it was already late at night by the time they finished. Before they went, Aether helped Furina gather the dishes and bring them to the kitchen while Paimon was recovering from her mild food coma. Furina used this opportunity to talk to him and say what's been heavy on her heart most of the day.

"Look, Aether, you don't have to babysit me. I appreciate what you're doing, but you don't have to feel like you owe me something or pity me. I can manage on my own too, you know."

"Babysit you?" Aether seemed a bit surprised. "That's not how I see things, Furina. I know that you can do everything on your own. No one who knows what you went through could doubt that. All that I feel I'm doing is... helping out a friend in need."

Furina did not expect to hear this answer, nor did she expect to feel so great about it. She felt so... warm inside, and the doubts that had been eating away at her the entire day vanished in an instant. "A friend in need," she muttered more to herself than to the Traveler.

"If... if you consider me a friend, of course," continued Aether. He seemed kind of nervous.

"I... don't really know, I mean-"

"Well, it's ok if you don't, no worries." Aether smiled, although he seemed a bit... disappointed, maybe?

"But I'd like us to be friends," added Furina quickly, smiling.

"Great!" said Aether and smiled back. "I'd like that too".

They made their way back to the table to see that Paimon had mostly recovered. Come to think of it, Furina was amazed—Paimon probably ate as much as her and Aether combined!

"Furina," started Aether. "We must go, and we have a lot of commissions to handle tomorrow, so we won't be able to visit. But earlier today we bumped into Clorinde, and... Well, I hope you don't mind, but we told her that she could visit you together with Navia. So, they'll come around tomorrow. Of course, you don't have to do anything with them if you don't want to. But they really are concerned, so just say hi if you can, alright?"

As she leaned in for a hug, Furina answered, "Ok, I'll talk to them. Thanks. Oh, and thanks for today too; the food was delicious. And thanks for the cooking lesson."

"Cooking lesson? What lesson? He didn't teach you anything." said Paimon, as confused as always.