You've begun to feel like home. Xiao x Aether.

Friendly Yaksha.

After a rather chaotic morning, Xiao decided to accompany the boy to complete his everyday commissions, as he said, "it would clear your mind from all the fights with the abyss monsters to do something more casual". His duty of protecting the city from the sudden appearance of the monsters from the domains still was hanging like a cloud above his head, as he remembered his promise to Zhongli to clear them all in the near future, but the boy knew that Aether wouldn't accept the answer "no" for the second time. moreover, as much as the Yaksha wanted to reject it, he actually needed to take some rest from constantly fighting all day and all night, his karmic dept was getting more troublesome, and putting the mask on yet another time would definitely have severe consequences on the Yaksha. In addition, after Xiao faced the truth about the blonde's injury, he couldn't let him be outside surrounded by monsters on his own. Knowing how independent he acts, Aether wouldn't even think about calling Xiao by his name whenever he encounters danger, which only meant that the Adeptus should see by himself how the boy manages to complete his "usual" tasks on his own, just to make sure that he is alright and he wouldn't get into troubles by overestimating his power. Obviously, this is how Xiao pictured his reasoning inside of his own head – the truth was that the dark-haired felt guilt for not checking up on his state earlier, and he was worried that something similar to the stormy weather that day would happen again. And, just to small degree of course, he wanted to spend time with the traveler, as after his arrival they didn't get the chance to talk properly.

Just like that, the two of them were already heading out to complete one of the requests of a weird researcher from Sumeru to return the relicts she found back to her. As the girl specified, the treasure hoarders have been following her to get them and they needed to take everything they stole from the thieves.

- It seems like they were actually following her, look, their camp is just few steps away. – Aether lowered his voice as he slowly approached it. Xiao simply nodded and followed him. – Phew, it seems like there's not bunch of them, so we should finish quickly. – the blond sighed positively and looked at Xiao, who was getting ready to start fighting with them.

- This mortal was so incompetent, how couldn't she notice them before? Tsk. – the Yaksha murmured annoyingly, although it really seemed like the easy case to be solved, he still wanted Aether to stick to non-physical tasks, like talking to people or preparing food for the citizens.

- Don't be mad, she was just scared, people don't usually get involved in situations like this. – Aether tilted his head to one side and looked at the Yaksha's eyes. – And don't underestimate humans like this, sometimes it takes more courage to ask for help than to try to solve your problems on your own. – Aether slightly smiled to his own words and turned to look at the location of the treasure hoarders once again. Aether just silently glanced at him in return, knowing that the blond knows this firsthand and maybe even blamed himself for not telling anyone about his problems. – Okay, let's... - before Aether could even finish his words, the other one jumped towards the treasure hoarders, already dodging an attack on them. win a simple second, most of them were already running away from the scary Yaksha attacking them, leaving all the artifacts they stole at the camp. – go... - the blond finished disappointedly, while raising his hand to the bridge of the nose and rubbing it.

In a few seconds, there was no one in the camp anymore, but Xiao, who was silently standing there looking at the relicts without any interest.

- Xiao! – the boy appeared behind his back. – I thought we were going to work as a team, remember? Don't just leave me standing there and watch you do all the job by yourself. – Xiao wasn't surprised by his words, in the end, he heard them already too many times during their past travelling experience together. Regardless of the notations about the "teamwork" and its importance, the dark-haired felt satisfied, that he could let Aether out of fighting with enemies today. – hey, are you listening?