Opening Up

"I am home!" An announcing Nagisa entered and Emi welcomed him shyly with a subtle nod.

"Wel-come… ho… me…" Emi mustered up the courage to vocally speak and her cheeks blushed.

Nagisa approached the kitchen in the right upper corner, immediately upon his return.

"You can relax around me. You are no longer a slave, remember? Dinner will be ready in just a bit! Some steaks are fine, right?" Nagisa calmly spoke.

Emi instantly put on a much heartfelt smile after hearing Nagisa's reassuring words and also the mention of them having more meat for tonight's menu.

"Okay!" Emi cheerfully replied.

It was for the first time, Emi spoke in a clear and non timid voiced tone. Her tail wagged the entire time that she was watching Nagisa. Following him side by side in the kitchen once she had decided to join him as he prepared and cooked their meal.

The entire endeavour made Nagisa resume his normal laughter of Emi's unwavering anticipation of meat. The two of them enjoyed the dinner together at the table that was stationed next to the balcony window, a bit further from their bed and closer to the kitchen.

The steaks were gulped down most hurriedly by Emi's appetite. In the midst of her enthusiastic devouring, she had somehow managed to both bite and burn her tongue more than once.

Her appetite had not stopped her from being careless and accidentally biting her tongue from eating too quickly. In addition the amount of heat accumulating after each bite of steak building up on the inside of the mouth while it was still hot had made her tongue burn as well.

Nagisa tried his damndest to withhold from laughing by covering his mouth discreetly with the tablecloth and do it silently. Once tonight's course was finished, he looked at Emi more intently, but in a gentle way to make sure to not approach and spook her.

"So… what are your plans? Is there any way of returning you back home now that you are free?" Nagisa addressed the issue at hand, a recurring thought prior to the examination.

"My home is gone… the outer wall fell four years ago… and us lower level warbeasts got separated and hunted down by demons from outside… then I got separated once more… and later… captured…" Emi began sobbing.

She explained her situation as best she could and managed to open up, to tell Nagisa the cruel truth about the events unfolding prior leading to her capture.

"It is okay to cry, you are safe now. This, no, I will be your new home for as long as you want it to be. Until we can bring you back, okay? Nagisa comforted Emi and went over the seat to hug her tightly.

The embrace was just in the same fashion Risa had comforted him on his first day of arrival. Emi began sobbing her sorrows away loudly. Once she settled down, Nagisa hesitated for a second, then looked at her again.

"These walls… how did they fall, if I may ask?" Still hesitant whether he had stepped on a sensitive topic, Nagisa patiently waited for an answer.

Emi broke away and stole Nagisa's seat to sit across him, with a more serious look on her face. She dried her eyes with a fancy pink-colored and kitten animated handkerchief which she pulled out from a special "in-between" place of her outfit. Nagisa spurted out his drink.

"... Is that another thing she bought for you?" Nagisa calmed down.

Emi nodded excitingly. Nagisa could tell by the fabric and design alone it probably fetched a hefty cost.

"Ah… it is cute!" Nagisa chose to compliment her in picking it out.

He tried to put on a smile while envisioning his walled shrinking and becoming much thinner.

"I know! Right…" Emi immediately agreed.

However she then quickly reverted back to a slight timid response in being too excited over the handkerchief and its cuteness. This time around Nagisa could not contain his laughter in how endearing her actions were.

"Stop laughing!" Emi protested, while slightly pouting and barraged him with light punches across the small table.

"What is so funny?" She kept hitting him.

"Ah… I am so sorry! I just find both you and your actions to be really cute!"

Nagisa accidentally let out the truth without much thought to his reply.

Emi immediately stopped punching him and her cheeks became flushed red.

"C-uu-teee?!" Emi shrieked.

Nagisa became slightly embarrassed himself after his own remark and the two faced away from each other. Never in his life had he called someone cute, even Risa, he dared not tell her up front, and this time around he told it to a girl much younger than himself. Nagisa began bashing his mind in an obvious agonized expression.

"Th-thanks…" Emi thanked him.

She took full notice of his irrational behavior and decided on thanking Nagisa to try and bring things back to normal. This made Nagisa instantly look up and find her genuinely smiling back. They both shyly looked away when their eyes met again, looking out the balcony window.

"The stars sure are something else tonight!" Nagisa arose from his seat and opened up the balcony door to head outside and Emi trailed closely behind him.

"Mmm! They sure are!" Emi nodded and broadly smiled.

Nagisa was infatuated by her smile once more, there was something about it. He shook his head to snap out of it.

"You see this star, and that one?" Nagisa began pointing out different constellations that he had learned from studying this world.

It appeared to soothe Emi, just as he had been soothed gazing upon them during his first night in Ashen.

"The walls…" Emi began opening up, revisiting an older topic at hand while gazing up at the stars.

"From what I had been told by my mother, when I was scared at night to sleep. There were but two ways of breaking them. The goblet coating, and the portals appearing from within to overtake and bring the walls down. However she always said the goblet and our guardians would protect us…" Emi tried to explain the best she could, while putting up a brave front.

The entire topic was hard on Emi. Unpleasantly remembering things that she would rather forget. The information coincided with the one from the library back home.

Humanity was not the only race that managed to create cities and protective walls. This surely had to be more thoroughly covered behind the Shadow Tournament if he could access the school's library records.

"That is enough, thanks Emi," Nagisa patted her head.

"Did I explain any good?" She locked eyes with him.

He nodded in response, "Could not have explained it better myself! As a reward, is there something you would like to eat for tomorrow?" Nagisa asked.

A smiling Nagisa ensured Emi that her explanation was meaningful and her face lit up upon the compliment. It lit up even more when the reward was mentioned.

"More steak!" Emi cheerfully spoke out immediately upon hearing the reward.

Nagisa grinned at the obvious reply. Both of them lingered a while longer, gazing at the stars before heading to sleep.

"Eh… So what do we do now? Nagisa scratched his head, remembering the one bed issue and that two of them had to share.

Emi began to blush and gazed hastily away a few times and then intently stared at Nagisa with her hands held up.

"I will do my best!" Emi declared with a serious face

Nagisa did not know how to react.

"Never say that out loud to anyone! Actually never say that again regarding this matter!" Nagisa firmly tried to remove any possible future habit.

"Why? I thought I would try my best to not disturb you while sleeping beside you, am I not allowed in bed?" Emi began forming slight tears of misspeaking, thinking she had overstepped or done something horribly wrong.

"Ahh… no… of course you are allowed! I thought you meant…" A quick Nagisa attempted to soothe her and misspoke as well.

"Meant?" She touched her right cheek and tilted her head upwards, assuming a confused pose.

"AHH… Nothing… nothing! Let us go to sleep shall we?" Nagisa eagerly moved away from the topic.

Emi nodded and dropped the matter like it was nothing with a new smile. Nagisa turned off the lights shaking his head. It was too early for Emi to know what he thought that she had meant initially.

"Hah-ha… what is the worst thing that could happen anyway?" Nagisa quietly laughed.

Nagisa took the left side of the bed while Emi occupied the right one. Back home, Risa always slept on the left side. However Nagisa dared not tell Risa that they both preferred the left one.

A strong ray of sunlight, much like the mornings back home, beamed through the windowed curtains to signal morning had arrived. Nagisa yawned then felt a strange, yet soft and small feeling towards his back, something that felt scarily familiar in an unsettling sense.

"It is okay, Nagisa… it is okay…!" he deeply breathed in and then out.

"We were both wearing pajamas... and she most likely grew fond of me which made her assume her usual sleeping posture, as she would have with her mother… presumably… right? It cannot be that bad…" Nagisa cracked a laugh.

Nagisa carefully removed the covers to slowly turn towards Emi, to see the pressing issue at hand for himself.

"AHHH!" A scream was let out as soon as Nagisa had slowly and fully turned around.