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“Professor!”
Byleth had only taken a few steps away from his dorm room when he heard the cheerful call behind him. He turned around to face Ashe, whose bright green eyes lit up upon meeting his gaze. His very presence seemed to brighten up the cloudy morning. The young man picked up his pace and came to wait at the teacher’s side.
“Ashe,” Byleth greeted formally, nodding and picking up a relaxed stride with him. “Good morning to you. How are you today?”
The archer smiled brightly and brushed back some of his grey hair behind his ear. He stood almost as tall as Byleth now and carried himself with a steady, confident posture. Byleth couldn’t help but admire how much the young man had grown in the last five years. In fact, all of his students of the Blue Lions had grown considerably through their own individual experiences. As their professor, he couldn’t be more proud. He was still getting used to seeing them all as young adults and not teenagers.
“I’m doing well, Professor. And yourself? Where are you headed?”
“I’m fine. Just headed towards the greenhouse to check on my plants,” he answered simply, spotting Sylvain and waving to him as they passed by him exiting the nearby courtyard.
Ashe beamed even brighter and there seemed to be an extra skip in his step. “Would you mind if I came along with you?”
“I welcome the company,” Byleth replied, giving a faint smile as he recalled the similar way Ashe used to trail after him for another (just one more!) question after class. “Did you see Mercedes yet to fix your arm?”
“Yes, she healed me yesterday and had me visit her again just now to double check how it healed. I’m fine now.”
The two walked in a comfortable silence down the pathway to the greenhouse. They waved to the few passerbys that were up early, Ashe chirped out a greeting to each one. The professor never tired of his gentle, cheerful energy. It was refreshing to have in class on the days where the students were a little less motivated than usual.
The greenhouse was empty save for the caretaker and Ashe wandered off to check the various blooming flowers while Byleth harvested last month’s seeds from the caretaker. It was mostly silent between the three of them, the early morning atmosphere held a welcome, quaint aura after yesterday’s battle.
“Yesterday was pretty rough, huh?” Ashe said, breaking the silence, practically reading his mind. “Facing off against our old schoolmates on the battlefield. It was just like when we had that mock battle with the Black Eagles and the Blue Lions, except it… it really wasn’t the same, was it? People died this time,” Ashe murmured somberly. “Bernadetta, Hubert, Ignatz, Leonie, Raphael, Lysithea…”
Byleth turned his attention to Ashe who had his back to him and was pretending to observe the plants. His posture was stiff, his back rigid as he recalled the battlefield.
“When I first saw Bernadetta firing at us, I totally froze up. How could our own classmates be trying to kill us? We went to school together, we ate lunch together. We have memories together.”
“I understand,” Byleth returned, sighing heavily. He wouldn’t lie and say he also hadn’t frozen for a split second when he recognized the students on the battlefield. But a split second was a matter of life and death on the battlefield and he steeled his resolve to guide his students and win the fight.
“But that made me realize something! That we aren’t kids anymore, we’re not classmates. This is war and we could die any day! I-I want to live every day to the fullest and make sure I don’t die with any regrets. Did you... did you hear Bernadetta before she died? She said she wished she had at least died at home rather than the field we were in. Do you think she regretted coming to war?”
“I don’t know,” Byleth shook his head, “but we must live our lives for the fallen. We have to end this war before more needless death happens.”
“Yes, I completely agree!” Ashe replied, spinning around to face his teacher, expression brightening instantly, all traces of his dismay wiped away. “So on the topic of no regrets, I uh, I wanted to confess something to you.” The archer’s tone changed to a softer, more subdued happiness, his smile now sheepish.
“A confession?” A sinking realization settled in Byleth’s gut as he came to the assumption of what the confession would be.
“Um, yes! I-I just wanted to say that I er, have always seen you as more than my teacher! I mean- I’ve always wanted to see you as more than my teacher! And I hope that you can come to see me as more than just your former student!” he spoke excitedly, his voice raised a little higher than normal. “I want to become more than that to you, because I want you to know that you mean more than just my teacher to me. Oh gosh, I had this rehearsed in my head so much better.” A warm blush had spread across the young archer’s cheeks, highlighting the freckles sprinkled across his nose. Still, he held his ground and waited for a response from his teacher.
Byleth felt a jolt of surprise course through him. He had always considered Ashe to be a very handsome young man, and his bright personality attracted people of all types to him. With a hint of shame Byleth recalled his slight favoritism towards the eager knight-in-training, one of his most enthusiastic students in the class and always a pleasure to teach. So maybe he had felt a bit of attraction towards the teenager at the time, but because of their student/teacher relationship plus the slight age difference he had suppressed the flutterings of the emotion with disgust and put that passion into his instruction and keeping his students alive. Even now he still viewed the grown man as his young student and found the rekindling of interest to be frightening.
“Ashe,” he said firmly, “I’m very flattered that you think this way about me but I’m your professor and your senior. You’d be better off with someone your own age.”
“I’m not the same child I was five years ago,” the archer insisted, blush quickly turning into a look of determination. He closed the distance between the two of them, forgetting that the greenhouse attendant was even in the same room. “In these last five years I’ve been furthering my journey towards becoming an honorable knight that you would be proud of when you returned to us. And while you were my senior back then, you look as though you haven't aged a day since we first lost sight of you. I don’t know what happened to you in those five years, but I’m probably older than you now, if not the same age.”
Byleth was silenced by the last half of his statement. It was true he didn’t know what had happened within the last five years while he was gone (sleeping?) and it really did feel like he had woken up and barely a day had passed. The next thing he knew the Blue Lion teenagers had all grown up and were technically no longer his students. Sure they still took orders from him and they still listened to his lectures during the week, but that was more for the sake of war planning than graduating curriculum.
“Do you feel nothing for me, Professor? Do you think you could never feel anything for me? If so, say the word and I won’t take up any more of your time, but I felt that it would be a serious injustice to myself to never try before- before anything happens to me,” Ashe stated boldly, taking up an uncharacteristic sternness and standing taller.
“Ashe, I- it’s… strange to me,” Byleth spoke, feeling at a loss for the lack of his usual confidence. “This feels somewhat inappropriate for me. To me it was just a few months ago you were 16. Sometimes I blink and I still see the younger you, I still think of the young teenager chasing after a thief over a book, only to come back empty handed and with empty pockets because the thief had a sick child.” But it was untrue that he felt nothing for him and he wasn’t sure what to make of this revelation.
“Professor, I can’t pretend to understand what that’s like for you right now, but I assure you that I am a grown, consenting adult now. I know what I feel for you, and I hope that in time you can grow to feel that way about me too. I just want to live without regrets, and not telling you this would have been one of my biggest regrets when something happens to me.”
“‘If.’ If something happens to you,” the professor corrected, “you can be assured that I will do my utmost to make sure nothing happens to you. Any of you.” He couldn’t bring himself to admit that there was the stirrings of hope in his heart. Ashe had confessed to him and had offered to be more than just comrades in arms, more than just their former teacher/student relationship.
The grey haired young man smiled, posture loosening up and relaxing. “Thank you, Professor. And thank you for hearing me out at least. I’ll uh, just leave you alone to enjoy your day off.” Ashe gave a deep bow and walked past his teacher, heading for the exit of the greenhouse. His expression was tight now, as though he were forcing his smile. His movements were jerky and he hurried to leave.
If he let him leave now they would continue to be comrades at war together. They would pretend nothing had happened and nothing had been said. Or maybe that was doing Ashe an injustice to act as though his feelings had never been expressed when that was clearly something he had wanted to do, regardless of the outcome. Byleth was sure nothing would change for the worse, and that there would be no hard feelings between them. But that wasn’t really want he wanted.
“Wait a second, Ashe.”
The archer froze but didn’t turn around. Byleth suspected he was hiding his face.
“Err, would you maybe like to get dinner together later?” Byleth asked carefully, feeling the faintest hint of heat creep onto his cheeks. “I mean, as more than just a teacher and student. Just the two of us.”
“P-Professor?” Ashe turned around, eyes wide and expressive in his surprise and mounting excitement.
“I too would like to live life without regrets, and it would be one of my biggest regrets if I also did not tell you how I felt,” the teacher admitted, almost more to himself than to Ashe.
The young archer suddenly rushed towards him, throwing himself at Byleth and holding him tightly. Byleth stood awkwardly for a brief second and let himself be hugged before he gently wrapped his arms around the other young man.
“Sorry, sorry! I’m just so happy! I’m giddy, even!” Ashe sputtered, pulling away with the largest grin Byleth had seen on his face to date. “I didn’t think you’d say yes but I wasn’t sure you’d say no. You could have anyone but you chose me! I just- wow. I’m so happy!”
Byleth returned his smile, though it was not nearly as blinding and brilliant. It didn’t erase the awkward feelings he had towards their history as teacher and student, but he thought it would only be fair to himself and to Ashe to try and work through them with his student’s help.
“So I’ll see you at dinner?” He still had errands to run for the day, but he knew he’d be thinking of Ashe the whole day.
“Count on it! I’ll be there.” Ashe turned, spun in a circle and practically skipped out of the greenhouse after that, turning the corner and quickly out of sight.
Byleth straightened his clothing awkwardly before turning to look at the greenhouse attendant that had been watching the whole thing from the back corner. The older woman smiled at him as she tended to the plants.
“Good for you, Professor,” she congratulated, feeling none of the awkwardness that the teacher felt.
“Um, thanks,” he replied, giving a quick bow and hastily taking his leave.