A Gentle Break in the Midst of Chaos

They had only traveled for two hours before they needed to set up camp for the night, and one of those hours was spent trekking through the forest for the third time that day, but they had gotten farther than expected which pleased Asterion. They were outside the city of Anscaster and while it wasn’t nearly as popular as Caspia, they didn’t risk going anywhere near the entrance. Instead, the two opted to camp at the foot of the mountain range where it was likely no players would be at that time of night.

Setting up camp took longer than it should have, and it was only a few minutes in that Asterion realized Daffodil had never done it before. Asterion wasn’t that experienced in camping, but he’d done it a few times in other games and once or twice in real life so he knew vaguely what needed to be done.

While it was comfortably warm during the days, nights still tended to be cooler, so Asterion decided to build a fire. The problem was that between the two of them they only had a few twigs and scraps of paper. “I’ll go chop some wood,” Asterion decided. Then he told Daffodil, “You should start preparing dinner.”

Daffodil nodded and Asterion headed towards a small outcropping of trees to collect wood. He decided it would probably be easier to chop as many trees into logs as he could now so that they wouldn’t have to do any collecting tomorrow night. Not having any axes in his inventory, Asterion summoned one of his decently sharp backup swords and started hacking at the trees until they fell. It definitely wasn’t the most efficient way of doing it, but Asterion still managed to collect a large pile after twenty minutes of work. He stored all of the wood and his sword in his inventory and headed back to their makeshift camp.

Daffodil hadn’t done much to prepare dinner, but Asterion figured not much could be done without a fire. He had managed to slice up some raw meat into chunks as well as dice some root vegetables. Asterion quickly assembled a fire, and Daffodil placed the meat and vegetables into a skillet along with some oil and spices. They sat in silence as they watched the food cook. Neither of them really knew what they were doing so they waited until the meat was the same color both inside and out before taking the skillet off the heat and divvying the food between two bowls.

As they ate, Asterion attempted small talk. After everything that had happened the past few days, talking about some random quest he had been working on or a particularly difficult fight seemed pretty unimportant, but Daffodil seemed to relax once Asterion had started a story. In turn, he told Asterion about his latest plans for his gardens, even if it would be a while before he got to enact them. Somehow everything almost felt normal.

While they talked, Asterion fiddled with his hair. It had been slowly escaping its braids for the past few days, and he had no idea how to fix it. When he’d created his character, Asterion had chosen long hair because he thought it looked cool, but now he was realizing how much of a pain it could be. He still liked the way it looked, but he was starting to consider chopping it all off if it meant getting it out of his face.

Asterion must have been messing with his hair too much because Daffodil nodded his head in the man’s direction and said, “Do you want me to braid your hair for you?”

“Sure,” Asterion responded, having no clue what he was doing. Daffodil stood up and made his way around the roaring fire, sitting on the ground behind Asterion. He started by removing the tiny leather strips used to tie the braids and then carefully undid each braid, making sure he didn’t tug on Asterion’s hair painfully as he did so. Once all the braids were taken out, Daffodil started combing through Asterion’s hair with his fingers. Asterion decided he would buy a comb later if he could find one, even if he didn’t mind Daffodil’s touch.

There was a heavy silence for several minutes, the only sounds being the crackling of the fire and the chirping of crickets. Daffodil took a decently sized chunk of hair near the right side of Asterion’s face, sectioned it into three strands, and began braiding. Finally, Asterion couldn’t take the quiet and decided to break it. “When did you learn to braid hair?” he asked as he tried to find a way to initiate small talk.

When Daffodil responded, he sounded like he wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation and was instead devoting all his attention to braiding. He said, “In real life my hair is only a little shorter than it is here. When it keeps getting in my face I braid the front parts back.”

Asterion was about to nod his head to show he was paying attention when he stopped himself. He didn’t want to mess up all of Daffodil’s hard work. “That’s cool,” he said, not really sure what else he could reply with. He was now realizing he knew almost nothing about Daffodil in the real world, not even his appearance. That meant it went the other way as well. Daffodil didn’t know what Asterion really looked like, didn’t know how average he was. What had Daffodil even seen in him?
It had nothing to do with his last question, but Asterion was burning with the need to ask, so he said, “Why do you love me?”

There was a very long silence after that. Asterion first worried that Daffodil hadn’t understood the question and then worried that he had but didn’t have an answer. The longer nothing was said, the more Asterion was convinced that Daffodil was trying to think of one reason for loving him and couldn’t come up with any.

“It’s easy to be around you,” Daffodil said at last. He finished the first braid and began the second before continuing. “Of course I’m also attracted to your strong compassion and confidence in battle, but I think what really made me realize I love you was actually looking forward to spending time with you. I don’t really like being around anyone but it’s different when I’m with you.”

Asterion didn’t say anything. He didn’t think there was anything he could say. Compassion and confidence weren’t exactly traits he was known for in the real world, but just his general presence? That wasn’t something he could fake, a piece of his persona to make people like him. Asterion realized Daffodil didn’t like him for Asterion, the fake identity he’d created, but for the parts of Rei Hasegawa that managed to peek through.

Daffodil really loved him.

“All finished,” Daffodil said as he tied the leather strip around the final braid. He summoned a mirror from his inventory and held it up so Asterion could see his handiwork. Daffodil had taken the strips of hair at his temples and braided them back, attaching them at the back of his head to create a crown. He’d then added a few smaller braids here and there to mimic Asterion’s old hair style.