As soon as Ret had finished his flying lesson with Psiksi, he thanked Psiksi for the help, then swiftly made his way to the canteen area. Once he was there, Ret went to the magic food machine and tapped on the little screen, telling it that Ret wanted a cake. The machine did as it was told, and a flap opened up revealing a plain vanilla sponge cake. Ret then asked the machine to give him butter and sugar, and, again, it produced those items.
Satisfied, Ret went to the small kitchen and found a suitable plate and bowl. In the bowl, Ret mixed up the butter and sugar in order to make tasty butter icing. He cut the cake in half, put a bunch of icing in the middle between the two layers, then used the remaining icing to make a heart shape on the top.
Once that was done, Ret headed back up to his room, taking the cake with him. He wanted to change his armour into something much more comfortable before he knocked on Kuta’s door and surprised them. Admittedly, Ret was aware that Kuta may have picked up his intentions, but Kuta was always very kind and tried their best to not spoil surprises.
As Ret opened the door to his room though, something was definitely off. Kuta was lying on their side on Ret’s bed in a seductive manner, with nothing on aside from a stomach wrap and a loin cloth. In Kuta’s free hand, they were holding a cake. A cake almost identical to Ret’s cake, but with a cream cheese icing instead of butter icing.
“Oh.”
“Huh.”
Ret smiled a little, then stepped into his room, closing the door behind him, and placed his cake on the nearby desk, then sat down on the bed next to Kuta and gently played with Kuta’s tail.
“Seems like we had the same idea.”
“We did, yes.”
Kuta used their telekinesis to put their own cake on the desk next to Ret’s cake, then rolled onto their back.
“We have been together for nearly a year.”
“Eleven months, I believe…” Ret tabbed on his wristband. “About eleven months. I am not certain. Time is so weird now.”
Kuta tugged on Ret’s arm, getting him to lay down. Once Ret was settled, Kuta hugged Ret tightly then snuggled up as close as possible. “It is a miracle we are still together.”
“There have been lots of miracles. I mean, we had a big scary black monster attack our entire universe.”
Kuta grunted. “We sacrificed ourselves for others. The Kentron was attacked, there was black stuff climbing the walls and I fought back against the black stuff with a dagger Arkay gave me, while also taking control of the situation and telepathically telling everyone to evacuate and keep on moving away.”
Ret peered at Kuta. “You seem somewhat annoyed.”
“I am. Because I was picking up people’s thoughts. The bastard Master of Generals had considered me a coward and not at all loyal. But then they had a heart attack and I managed to get them to a damn hospital to save their life.” Kuta paused for a moment. “What did you lot do?”
“Kayel and I took shifts between stabbing Corruptions with the daggers Arkay gave us, and filling buckets with our blood so others could coat their weapons with it, while Tenuk turned into a Thraki so he could burn the Corruption, and Nyssi was just generally leading everyone around. Talok also helped, she did evacuations with the shadowjumper Skyans. I also helped save people who were trapped. That was what I was doing before Sini dragged us away.”
Kuta grunted. “I only vaguely recall Sini dragging me away. But I was utterly exhausted.”
“Oh, me too.”
Kuta grunted some more, but their annoyance slowly turned into a grin. “We were heroes.”
Ret nodded. “We were. And I think we still are. There are probably some massive statues made in our honour. Or a park named after us. Or, at least, a plaque or something.”
“There had better be. I saved the lives of half of the damn Below Twenty Generals!”
“I just saved normal people, I guess.”
“Eh. We saved a lot of people, whatever way we look at things…” Kuta tutted. “If anything, it was a good thing that the Corruption attacked during a Below Twenties meeting. It meant I could more easily get people to safety. Especially one of your siblings.”
Ret was about to nod in agreement again, but they suddenly sat up and stared at Kuta. “What do you mean, ONE of them?”
Kuta put an arm around Ret and pulled him back down. “Relkir was on Alsana with General Gath at the time.”
“How comes?”
“They were setting up a Legion to do patrols of the universe’s borders. Gath then decided to take some time off and take Relkir to meet Gath’s parents.”
“Oh. Fair enough.” Ret immediately relaxed a little. “Sometimes I get overprotective and annoying.”
“There is nothing wrong with that, dear. We are Rethans. Protecting things is what we do best. In fact, when I was in the Legion of Hidden Blades, I had to go through special training to alter and loosen our guardian traits so we could actually be assassins and not want to protect everyone.”
Ret paused and sat up again. “So you have actually killed people? It was actually legitimately a legion of murderers?”
Kuta pushed Ret back down. “Yes. But only because they were trying to kill Rethans in return. There are definitely beings, mostly Torr, who wanted to nonchalantly blow up or otherwise kill innocent others.”
“I… I guess…” Ret frowned, but only briefly. “Either way, we ought to be celebrating 11 months of being together.”
“Oh, yes, definitely. I just do not know where to start!” Kuta also perked up. “We should eat those cakes though.”
“We could feed each other cake.”
Kuta grinned. “We could do that, yes. And we could do a lot more things.”
Ret grinned too, then sat up and brought one of the cakes over. “I love you, Kuta.”
“I love you too, Ret-“
Kuta was about to say as they sat up too. But Kuta’s sentence was unfinished as Ret shoved a massive slice of cake into Kuta’s mouth. Kuta swallowed as much as they could, but realized they were now covered in cake.
“Ohh. are you being naughty, my dear?” Kuta asked?
“I am, yes.”
“Well, well, well!” Kuta’s smirk got even bigger. “I might have to… punish you.”
“Sure thing, darling!” Retvik giggled as they fed Kuta more cake. “But we have to finish this cake first…”