Block A 「Nishimura Riki」

26

"Good morning."

Eiko hates how bright the sun's rays are even in the early morning, never sparing her eyes for at least a day. She squints, trying to focus then the view in front of her clears out, away from her bleariness. Riki has a kind smile and a warm gaze, glancing down at her with his hair dangling in front of his face.

Her heart swells.

"Good morning," Eiko roughly responded, stretching her arms out briefly. His smile widened, a childlike crinkle welcoming his gleaming brown eyes as he moved a couple of hair strands away from her face. "How long have you been awake?"

With a groan, he shuffled off of the bed. His black jacket was zipped up and loosely hung onto his lean figure, he slipped his hands into his pockets. "I woke up an hour ago. Did you sleep well?"

Eiko affirmatively nodded, tugging the blanket above her shoulders. "For sure."

He huffed out a small mirthful laugh. "I'm going out, do you need anything?"

Eiko instantly answered no without giving the inquiry a thought. Having just woken up a moment ago, she didn't want to wake her mind up fully to answer a question just yet.

"What about your arm? Does it hurt?"

At the mention of the wound she hurriedly yanked her arm from below the covers, as if she had completely forgotten that she had it or at least didn't know she did. It looked pretty bad, they were quite literally holes after all, but it didn't hurt even when Eiko curiously pressed the pad of her thumb on the skin around it.

"I'm good, but maybe we should get a bandage for it? Just to keep it covered," she suggested, looking up to meet his eyes as he quickly agreed. Assuming his curiosity, she sat up and showed Riki her forearm. "It's really not as bad as it looks, though."

He carefully puts his hand around her wrist, distancing his touch from where the wound was, and examines its appearance. His lack of any statement kept it quiet for a while.

"You sure?" he then asked, eyes expressing worry and apology, the guilt written all over him. Eiko took his arm in her hand and carefully goaded him to take his hand off. She firmly nodded, murmuring something along the lines of it's fine. He faintly giggles, analyzing the feeling of her hand in his when he momentarily slots them together. It's undoubted that Eiko was flustered. "Your hands are warm."

She instantly yanked her hand away, almost instinctively burying herself under the blanket to hide from the attention. "Don't you have someplace to be?"

"Okay, okay. I'll go get the bandages and I'll be back in a bit," he mumbled, straightening his posture. "Don't make a mess."

"You say that as if I'm a child," petulantly groaned Eiko.

He raised an eyebrow at the irony, giving Eiko an absurd look she didn't quite catch. "You're younger than me," he said.

"You're 17, too."

"You're still younger."

"Yeah, by a couple of weeks?"

"You might as well be a 06. You're barely a day away from January first anyway," Riki bickered. He crossed his arms and stuck his chin in the air, haughtily. "You're a kid."

"Doesn't matter," she bickered back, more amused than actually indignant. "We would be the same age for months anyways. Sucks to be born in December, huh?"

"You were born in December, too."

"You're more of a kid than I am."

"I'm going to let you win this one. I don't have time to argue with a kid in the morning."