25. Promise

Three months had passed since the fight between the two elves. In those three months nothing much has happened.

They say time heals all wounds, but the scar on Yumino's chest never faded, no matter how many times Velmira would come with new ointments at Nima's requests.

"After all, I'm not a healer," she said after her last trick failed to repair the man's skin.

The medicine the sorceress gave her was already plenty impressive given that she specialized in attack magic. Hence why Nima couldn't ask anything more of her.

Regardless, Yumino didn't mind. Even if his wound would sometimes gift him piercing pains next to his heart—pains which often made him wonder if his end was approaching—he learned to live with it.

"That's so you don't forget our promise!" Nima would say at times, trying to deny the guilt that was gripping at her. She referred to a promise the two made after the fight.

"I won, so you have to do as I say from now on!" Nima said back then, once she was left alone with her victim.

In vain did Yumino try to protest. His wounds kept him barely able to speak. Although, even without the wounds, he still would have had little to say on the matter.

Still, Nima's mask crumbled before long, and she sat herself at the edge of his bed with her gaze fixed on the floor.

"I'm... It shouldn't have happened like this," she said in a low voice.

"I may have gone overboard a little. I didn't expect you to be so agile! I thought I could take you down easily if I trained just enough to get back some of the skills from my adventurer days..."

That was Yumino's sole chance at flipping the tables, and he took it with no hesitation.

"Oh? So what you're trying to say is that... you're sor—"

Sadly for him, Nima quickly shut him up by gripping his leg with all her strength. 

Yumino wanted to pick up where he left off with his teasing soon after, but seeing her teary eyes made him stop.

A lot had happened between the two. A lot of what happened was forced. A lot of it was unnatural. A lot of feelings flooded the room whenever they were together, yet those feelings had no place there.

At first they were shy. They soon went on to be ashamed. Shame brought anxiety. Anxiety brought rash decisions. Rash decisions brought misunderstandings. Misunderstandings brought lies. Lies came crumbling, and when they did, anger followed.

So Yumino had to make a decision. He knew there was no going back from what happened between them, yet he said it.

"Shall we try again?'

Nima's tears did a little dance as her eyes widened at the blunt question. How could this man ask to wash away her efforts as if they never happened? How dare he ask something like that after Nima promised to herself that she would learn to accept, trust, and then fall for him? After all, she wore that dress for him.

She wanted to speak her mind, but nothing came out. Instead, she posed only one question.

"Try what?"

To her question, Yumino smiled and stretched out his hand.

"I'm Yumino. I may look like an elf, but consider me an outsider! Nice to meet you! Let's be friends!"

The girl's anger turned to amazement. Amazement turned to shock, and shock made way for laughter.

Of course, how did she never think about it? Yumino didn't care about that stupid ritual. That dress was just another piece of clothing for him. As long as she accepted that, their friendship could bloom from zero, like any friendship is supposed to.

"Hahaha! You wish!" Nima said in a flash.

That was not the answer Yumino expected. In an attempt to keep his dignity, he tried to take his hand back, but before he could move it, the girl had already grabbed him.

"You wish you could go back to living with a cute, shy elf!" she said, her expression glowing.

"Besides, you still lost the fight. You have to pay the price for it."

More scared than confused, Yumino let his nervous simile answer speak for itself.

"Let's see. Hi! I'm Nima, the fiery beauty you're stuck living with! Oh, and that's not all! By being here, you promise me not to ever run away and leave me behind! You're to stay by my side; no dying, and no running away out of nowhere! Nice to meet you, and good luck!"

Already overwhelmed by the "fiery beauty," Yumino looked at her in a daze. They say a face changes the more you get to look at it, but Yumino had never noticed it before. Now, as he looked at the elf smiling brightly, his heart fluttered more genuinely than ever. Truly, it felt like he had met her for the first time.

*****

Now, three months later, the two were out shopping for warmer clothes.

After weeks of searching for his old world, Yumino decided to take things step by step, and started living a slow life with the elven girl.

"No... That won't do. Look at this ugly color!" said Nima while undressing a tired Yumino.

"Nima, the shopkeeper is right next to us..."

Fortunately, the kind lady running the shop didn't mind. She brushed it off as an elven quirk.

Many of the clothes Yumino chose were recommended by Gauntmere. No major event had taken place in the past three months, so she would rarely come out to give Yumino tasks disguised as "preparations." It was nothing too complex, so he didn't mind.

More often it was Yumino who called out to her. In dreams, he would just chat her up for a bit. While awake, he would ask her basic things like elven cooking recipes and how to sew the dress he'd ripped by mistake while searching for something else.

"Weren't we the other way around?" Gauntmere protested from time to time, annoyed at how the elf would use her for the most basic of reasons, but Yumino always brushed her off, talking about some wheels that keep turning.

In the end, almost every single piece of clothing they came back with ended up being green. Yumino was barely able to sneak in two white sets with the explanation that they may help with camouflage in winter.

"I've been meaning to ask. What was that about you being an adventurer?" Yumino asked seemingly out of nowhere.

"What's this all of a sudden?" Nima turned her head and asked back. But she soon followed with a cheeky smile.

"Hm~? Don't tell me, you're still not over that over that fight?"

"As if!"

Of course, Nima's teasing had also become a matter of fact, having Yumino spend much of his time with the tip of his ears bright red. Whenever he felt like he had gotten used to it, she would find a new method to get him.

"I just felt like asking... You can just ignore it!" he said.

"There's not much to talk about, honestly. I used to be an adventurer back in the late days of Alenrius."

And so, Nima sat the elf down and told him a story.