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Kiran was training with a sword.
More accurately, Alfonse thought, he’d been training for quite a number of weeks now.
When Kiran initially brought up the idea, Alfonse had almost protested it. After all, he was the Summoner, their tactician. Why would he need to fight in the first place?
“Almost” being the key word there. It made sense, why Kiran would want to learn, why it would be better for him to learn. It didn’t mean he would charge headfirst into battle, it was just a means of defending himself when nobody else could.
That. That might have been part of what Alfonse wanted to protest.
But he hadn’t, he held himself back, and now Kiran was training. Alfonse was watching from a window in the library, thoroughly distracted from the important work he’d planned on doing, the books in front of him forgotten as he watched Kiran on the field. Kiran had dragged out three training dummies and was practicing on them, swinging at them like his life depended on it.
The window was high up, and far away from the fields anyway, but Alfonse could still make out Kiran’s smile, and the way his shirt clung to him with sweat due to the exertion.
Alfonse looked away. Fuck, but he was in deep, wasn’t he?
At first he’d tried telling himself that it wasn’t affection. It was just… attraction. It had been so long, after all, years since Zacharias had disappeared, and it was hard for Alfonse to deny that the Summoner was attractive.
He’d nearly convinced himself of it, that it was just want , a desire. Nothing more. He couldn’t-- wouldn’t -- let himself get attached to anyone like that anymore.
And of course, that’s where the trouble began, wasn’t it?
They had to spend so much time together. Between Kiran being utterly new to this world, and his lack of prior experience in war, there’d been a lot that Alfonse took the liberty of explaining or showing to him. Naturally, that led to the two of them getting to know one another, and the more Alfonse learned about Kiran, the more he liked him.
Kiran was sweet, welcoming, and quite charming. He didn’t even mean to do it, the bastard, it just came naturally to him. Had Alfonse been a little bit younger, he might have felt a bit jealous, but he was 20 now and knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that more than anything, he admired Kiran.
Perhaps a bit too much. It was still want , but also so much deeper. Alfonse felt like he was drowning in it, in over his head.
Alfonse glanced out the window again. Kiran had paused for the moment, wiping what was presumably sweat off his forehead with his forearm. He looked up and, catching Alfonse’s gaze, waved. Despite himself, Alfonse waved back before turning his attention back to the book in front of him.
Perhaps… perhaps he didn’t mind the feeling as much as he thought.