Deja Vu || Kamisato Ayato x Reader

Next To Him

cardigan by Taylor Swift
*stan taylor or i will personally make you cry reading this fanfic🔪🔪🔪/j*

Y/N POV.
The sound of the gentle fire cackling outside wakes me up, the tent perfectly aired and cleaned. As I shift around trying to find Ayato, I'm reminded of what happened before I slept. Immediately, I sit up; thoughts not collected, hair tangled, body smelling of last night's activities, and my eyes still half open. The first thing I see is the sight of a half-naked Ayato bending down to pick something up from the floor, the silver metallic button on his pants reflecting the light from the iridescent mushroom outside, and I notice its buttoned whimsically.

That's a nice sight to wake up to.

That thought lingers for a moment before Ayato looks my way with a smile on his face, walking in the tent as he bends down on one knee to check up on me.

"How are you feeling?" He asks, eyes moving around my body that is wrapped in his top, the fabric barely covering my thighs.

"Uhm... A little fatigued but I guess it's because I just woke up," I reply softly, still embarrassed about last night.

"I made some mushrooms from the ones you collected yesterday. Of course, my cooking cannot be up to par with a shrine maiden's but I've had my own experiences in the kitchen," He scratches the nape of his neck.

So that's what he was picking up from the floor.

"Thank you," I say it again and Ayato sighs with a smile.

"You don't have to keep thanking me. I told you last night, didn't I? I'll prove it to you. So, just let me be. Come on, food's ready," Ayato takes my hand, encouraging me to stand. But before I can even stand on my own two feet, I fall limp, Ayato's strong arms catching me right on time.

"What's wrong?" His eyes is filled with worry and concern but I know well enough that the cause of my fragility is most definitely not an illness of any sort.

"It's nothing..." I stabilise myself, my knees still weak and my arms aching painfully. My legs are sore but I don't complain. After all, as much as I don't want to admit, I hope what happened last night happens again...

"Was I too rough?" The palm of his hands on my back suddenly feels evident and I'm taken aback by the casual way he says those words, falling from his attractive lips so easily. It almost feels unfair, at this point.

"No, you weren't... It's just that it was my first time," I confess.

And as if a carriage had run over Ayato, his face pales and he rubs the bridge of his nose as if he realised something that he had missed before. The sheer shock he got makes me think that it was bad but seriously, how can a man react like this?

"What's with that reaction?" I furrow my brows.

"No, no, it's nothing. I just completely forg- No, I mean. You should've told me beforehand. You seemed so experienced that I had just assumed y-" The utter vulgarness in his words make me panic. Never had I expected a sophisticated man such as he would say such words so smoothly.

"Don't say that! What- I thought you were a noble. Do nobles speak this way?" I blurt out.

"What's there to hide when we've already shown each other our most vulnerable states, hm?" He teases, helping me out of the tent with ease as I sit back on my ground, more than ready to try his cooking.

I don't argue back with him knowing that I'm on the losing end and instead, help myself to the "home-cooking" of this charismatic young man who had just made me scream his name last night. As I blow on the starshrooms, Ayato turns away from me to bring more cooked starshrooms to me and I can't help but notice the long red scratches I've left on his back. I gently brush the tips of my fingers across his skin, the scratch marks not going away.

"Oh. You made me quite a mess, no?" He turns back to me, chuckling lowly.

"Well, it's not my fault... technically," I look away, not wanting to show him the pink blush on my cheeks. But, I know that he notices the red edges of my ears because he brushes his fingers across them gently before bringing my chin to look at him.

"Mm... When your legs are not sore and tired, we'll start moving. But, I won't complain if you want to stay here all day," He teases mockingly, and Archons forbid, if he smirks one more time...I give him a small nod before I finally taste his cooking.

Huh?

This is completely unexpected. He seemed so confident when he was talking about his "experiences" in the culinary arts but one can only do so much growing up with a golden spoon, no? Still, it's better than I had anticipated. In fact, it tastes similar to my cooking, if I do say so myself... Growing up with a mother who used to be a shrine maiden had made me master the art of cooking at an incredibly young age and no one has ever been able to replicate my dishes. Yet the moment the starshroom melted on the tip of my tongue, I'm only reminded of the days when I was 14, running in and out the kitchen to help my mother with her dishes.

"It's... better than I thought," I mumble to myself and glance at Ayato who was looking at me, I'm reminded of the dream I had before I woke up at the Sakura tree.

That blue haired man...

I brush it aside.

It's not important. It's just a dream.

"It tastes really similar to my cooking. I'm impressed," I compliment him.

"I learnt how to cook better from someone quite a long time ago... She taught me a lot," Ayato leans on the palm of his hands whilst his elbow is rest on a knee. The smugness of this gentlemen is really quite charismatic.

"Ah..."

How could I it have slipped my mind? The Head of the Kamisato Clan is a perfect bachelor all noble women across Teyvat covet for. I shouldn't be surprised that he's had past relationships before but why does it feel unfair that he's had his share of romance whilst I had none?

"My mother," He whispers softly and it's as if my ears perk up because I turn to look at him, puzzled.

"She was a good cook," He smiles and again, my eyes shift to his beauty mark near his lips.

Oh. It was his mother.

A part of me feels relieved at this revelation for some reason.

"She must've been a beauty. My mother used to talk about her all the time when I was you- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up your mother...," I catch myself slipping. The whole of Inazuma knows the tragic accident which made the very man in front of me step up to be the head of his clan when he was at the young age of 17. Word spread like wild fire and it was plastered across newspapers of every kind as the headliner and cover page, people whispered about it and talked about it over breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I was 13 then, and I was still grasping the basic straws of being a shrine maiden.

I still remember seeing Ayaka praying at the Sakura Tree with tears streaming down her cheeks. That day, Lady Yae closed off the shrine so Ayaka could mourn in private. Only the most trusted shrine maidens were working and my mother told me to go inside the room we lived at the shrine. I had peeked through the gaps of the windows to take a look at the fragile Lady of the Kamisato Clan, her frail body kneeling on the hinoki wood flooring, sobs echoing throughout the shrine. It was also that day that I became friends with her when Lady Yae offered her to eat in case her health was too poor for she was afraid Ayaka was neglecting herself. It was then I learnt that Ayato was so caught up in the affairs of the household being thrown upside down that he didn't even have time to mourn for the death of his parents.

"It's fine, really. I've learnt to get used to people bringing up my parents now," Ayato looks away.

"It must've been hard for you," I look down, hanging my head in guilt of bringing up his parents so lightly.

"What?" Ayato looked at me.

"It must've been hard for you," I repeated myself, looking up to him this time. He only smiled at me before standing up to head over to the tent to put on his top garments. It was slight and incredibly fast, but I saw a hint of grief in his eyes that looked almost hollow like a deep sea when we talked about his parents.

How much pain is this man hiding?