Jaya Week Challenge 2023

Day 4: Promise

S6|SFW|Bittersweet Fluff

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream...

He kept repeating the song in his mind over and over. Partially because he was bored, partially to ignore his pain, but mostly to stop himself from always looking towards the girl in front of him.

They were at sea, no land to be seen as of yet, and he was rowing the boat to no end. He hated to admit that he vastly preferred the Misfortune's Keep as a mode of transportation.

Still, they were together. That was all that mattered in the end.

She wasn't really talking to him, still upset about him not letting her row the boat herself. But at that moment, she was the one who needed protection from an evil djinn, and so she took it upon himself to be a gentleman.

Nya didn't dare to rest or even close her eyes for a little while, even when they had been at this for hours by that point. His back hurt like heck, but he didn't give in to the exhaustion.

As they were preparing to leave, he had taken the time to look at himself in the mirror. Without her noticing, he lifted up his gi and rolled up his sleeves. He frowned at the bruises scattered across his body.

He covered himself up before her gaze could catch him. She had seen the way he was limping, the way he was still struggling to row the boat; but she didn't say anything. He didn't know whether she was waiting for him to spill it all out or not.

Nevertheless, he kept on rowing under the blazing sun.

She was messing with a ball of water floating above her hand. With it she made various shapes, from a sphere to a pyramid and even a heart. With that last shape in particular, she brought it in front of her face and then a bit further away. She looked through it. It was perfectly framing her across her. And though his struggle was painful to see, she stared at him through the heart-shaped lens, a battle ensuing within the confines of her heart. In the end, she let herself get lost.

He glanced up at her, and she jumped. In her surprise, she let go of the floating water, and the heart came crashing in onto the boat before he could notice its shape.

He flinched, pulling away. "Nya, I thought we agreed not to flood the boat."

"Sorry," she said quickly, picking the water back up and letting drop into the sea. She looked down and then towards the horizon, hoping her burning face would be covered by the sunlight.

It was far from the first time she had caught herself staring at him. She never stopped doing it, even when she knew that she should have. She knew there was something about him; something she had lost, and something she was too stubborn to get back.

A million words flooded her mind, all the things she wanted to tell him since the moment they first met. But she was never good with words, at least compared to him, and so she let her insecurity take over. She wished she could reach out and just...

No, she wasn't supposed to use that word. As if her internal conflict wasn't enough, she had to have an evil villain chasing after her to make her his Frankenstein bride or something like that. She wanted to bury her face in the water and scream her frustrations out, but even that was an impossible task.

The boat came to a stop without her noticing. The light creak of its planks reached her ears too late, for Jay had already crawled his way towards her, limping as always.

He placed his arm around his shoulder. Her heart began to rapidly thrum. She wanted to run away, to avoid gazing into his eyes till the end of time.

"You okay?" he whispered.