A Series of Rune Factory 4 One-shots

Rest(Lest x Arthur)

If there was one thing that Arthur knew about Lest, it was that he was always working. He would go out of town and spend a whole day, and sometimes more, fighting monsters. Sometimes that was to fulfill someone's request, and other times it would be for his own personal missions. Then when he'd return, he'd get to work on farming, and cooking, and running around trying to greet everyone and keep them happy.

Yes, Lest was always so busy, and he always working. So how could Arthur be selfish and try to ask him to go on a date?

He wanted to, desperately, and he often had to stop himself from saying it. There were days when Lest was just too cute, like when he blushed, or tried on glasses, or when he smiled, or—

The point was, Arthur really wanted to go on a date with him, but he knew that Lest had so many other things to worry about. So he waited  for the day Lest would ask him since that would mean that Lest would finally have some actual free time.

~~~

Lest crouched among his crops, trying his best to get all his work done as quickly as possible. He'd worked all night and postponed doing the new requests for the day in the hope that he could make enough time to finally spend some time with Arthur. He sighed, pulling up the last of the weeds in his farm.

His movements were sluggish, weighed down by his fatigue. Getting no sleep was probably not the smartest a idea, but Lest thought it would all be worth it when he could rest with Arthur. If he could stay awake until then.

He slowly rose to his feet, brushing as much of the dirt off of his pants as he could. He swayed a little as he stood, his mind hazy as he tried to find his balance. He didn't feel good, to be honest, but it would be a long time before he had time off again. Between watering his plants, pulling weeds, and running errands around town, he barely had time to spend by himself, much less with his boyfriend. Everything was work, work, work.

He had the chance to stop by and say hello sometimes, but other than that, they weren't able to spend a lot of time together. And Arthur had his own job to deal with too.

Lest just hoped that Arthur didn't have to work today too.

As he walked slowly in the direction of Porcoline's restaurant, he ran into Leon, who stopped him with a frown.

"Lest," he said, leaning towards the shorter male, "You look unwell." Lest smiled weakly and avoided Leon's gaze.

"Do I?" Leon opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself, his ears twitching. Whatever he had heard, Lest missed it, but it caused Leon to smirk and lean in even closer. He grasped Lest's chin with his hand, and Lest was too tired to push Leon away.

"Hmm, yes, pretty bad. Come back with me and I'll heal you right up," Leon said, still smirking as someone cleared their throat loudly behind him. Leon looked over his shoulder, barely masking his own amusement.  Arthur was staring at him with his arms crossed. Leon was careful to keep his hand on Lest's face, after all, what fun was his little game if he couldn't get the prince to get really riled up?

"Hello, Leon," Arthur said politely, though there was an edge to his voice that showed his annoyance. Leon smiled. His hand dropped from Lest's chin to his shoulder, and the tired farmer let him because he was too distracted by Arthur's presence to notice the fox's actions.

"Hello, Arthur," Leon said, tugging Lest a little closer to himself. Arthur's polite smile twitched, and he narrowed his eyes, letting Leon know that he was pushing the limits. Unfortunately for Arthur, pushing the limits was exactly what Leon liked to do. He'd noticed  how affectionate they had been with each other, and he'd been waiting for his chance to properly tease them about it.

"Arthur," Lest said with a smile, and the prince glanced at him, his gaze softening. He began to speak, but Leon cut him off quickly.

"So, is there a problem?" Arthur's eyes immediately went to Leon's hand on Lest's shoulder, and Leon gave Lest a playful squeeze once he noticed.

"There is actually," Arthur said.

"Please, enlighten me," Leon said with false innocence.

"Well," Arthur began but the words caught in his throat as he looked at Lest's face.

Everyone in town knew their relationship of course. No secret could stay hidden for long due to all the gossip circling around. But Arthur and Lest had never officially said anything or discussed it in public, and now that it was time to, Arthur felt embarrassed.

"Hmm?" Leon's hand drifted a bit lower, and Arthur frowned.

"Lest and I are... We..."

"Lest really needs some rest, so if you're not going to finish your sentence, I'll be taking him," Leon said, turning Lest in the direction of the inn. Lest frowned, looking back at Arthur.

Then he finally had enough.

"Lest is mine, and I would appreciate it if you would take your hands off of him!" Arthur exclaimed finally, though his face was turning redder as the seconds ticked by. Even Lest, who had been totally oblivious up to that point, began to blush. Leon raised his eyebrows.

"Yours?"

"Well," Lest said, speaking up, "he's my boyfriend after all."

Leon grinned.

"Ah, what perfect timing."

After hearing those words, Arthur whirled around and noticed about half of Selphia not-so-subtly eavesdropping on them.

"Does that mean that you're—" Kiel began to talk but Doug quickly came up and covered his mouth from behind. Porco and Margaret has been poking their heads out of the restaurant door, but once they were noticed, Dylas came and shoved them both back inside. After Doug pulled Kiel away, Clorica was the only one left, but without a good escape plan, she stood there and pretended to sleep. After a minute she actually fell asleep.

During the time it took for Arthur to notice all the people who'd been watching them, Leon had drifted away, leaving Lest and Arthur alone—besides Clorica who was snoring softly in the background.

"Lest, I..." Arthur trailed off as Lest approached him, yawning. Lest leaned on Arthur, wrapping his arms around him. There was a moment when Arthur stood still and took a deep breath to stop himself from getting too excited over Lest's cuteness, then he too wrapped his arms around him.

"Arthur," Lest mumbled, gathering up small fistfuls of Arthur's cloak in his hands. Arthur smiled fondly down at him, about to respond when he noticed that Lest too had begun to snore.

He chuckled, running his finger's through Lest's hair.

"Rest well," he whispered, "There's many things I wish to do with you when you wake up."

~~~

Hello and thanks for reading! Hey look guys!! It finally didn't take me months to write something! This one had a lot of Leon because I like to have Leon as someone who messes with couples haha.

But anyway, I'll probably try to write a full fledged story for RF4 pretty soon but it might take a while because I haven't played the game in a while and don't remember all the little details of the plot :p

Just a reminder that I'm always taking requests if there's any sort of pairing that you want to see!!!