Shuriki x Esteban Requests

Awkward Moments

"Does it hurt?"

Shuriki looked up from the shirt she was mending for Esteban. "What?"

Javier was hovering nearby wringing his hands and shuffling his feet. "When you and Don Esteban...when you share your bodies with one another? Does it hurt?"

Shuriki quirked an eyebrow. "When Esteban and I sha-" Her eyes widened when she realized what the boy was asking. "Oh...no. No, it doesn't."

"You sound like it does," Javier murmured.

Shuriki blanched then scowled. "You're supposed to be asleep when he and I-why are you listening to us when we do that?"

Javier shrugged. "Sometimes I can't sleep. Other times I wake up. I'm trying to understand why the two of you do it."

"Didn't your parents ever tell you that it's rude to eavesdrop?"

"I don't do it on purpose!" Javier folded his arms and muttered, "Maybe if you were quieter..."

"We are quiet," Shuriki snapped. "Didn't your parents-"

"My parents are dead," Javier shot back. "Don't talk about them like they were bad people!"

Shuriki went silent. Though the topic at hand had made her uncomfortable, she hadn't meant to upset the boy. He was curious-as any child his age would be-and only asking questions. Then she had to go and get all defensive and bring up his dead parents.

Shuriki wanted to apologize to Javier, but the prodigy ran out of their pavilion before she could get the words out. Part of her wanted to go after him, but there were people in the caravan who still held a grudge against her, and she did her best to avoid them by staying in the small pavilion she shared with Esteban and Javier.

He'll come back, she told herself. He just needs time to calm down.

Javier was a lot like Esteban. He tended to take what others said to heart and it was rather difficult for him to swallow his pride. He found it hard to quell his negative thoughts as well, especially when emotionally wounded by those he cared for.

Shuriki decided to make rabanada for dessert as a way of apology. She knew Javier loved it and the dish was a rare treat given some of its ingredients were now harder to come by due to Vor taking over the EverRealm and hiking the price of everything. Their nomadic lifestyle in the slowly growing caravan made it all the more difficult to get certain things as their skittish group never stayed in one place for long out of fear that Vor or her minions might find them.

Shuriki finished sewing the shirt and went to work preparing supper. Esteban had given her full reign over their tiny pavilion. Esteban protected her and Javier and provided whatever they needed, and in exchange, they did most of the cooking and cleaning. In a way, they'd become a makeshift family. The arrangement, though unorthodox in the eyes of some, worked fairly well for them...most of the time.

Shuriki prepared supper. Normally, Javier set the table, but when the child still hadn't returned by the time Esteban came back from his shift of sentry duty, she began to worry. The boy had never stayed gone so long before. She went to Esteban as soon as he walked through the entrance.

"Have you seen Javier?"

Esteban shook his head. "Not since I left this morning. Why?"

"He and I...we had a bit of a tiff," Shuriki explained. "I didn't mean to upset him. I just...well, he was angry with me and left, but it's been a few hours now, and he still hasn't come home. Javier's never been gone this long before. Esteban, what if something's happened to him?"