sailing miles away // tomokazu

01. goodbye to the eternity

he kept this journal ever since day one after.

beidou, the captain of the ship that happened to witness his failed attempt at flushing life down the drain, had sat with him on the mattress in the dimly lit room. the sea was exceptionally quiet that night. the thunderstorm ceased easing off the water surface so that the candlelight shimmering at the surrounding area kept steady despite the movement. kaedehara kazuha had been forcefully wrapped in a blanket and bandages at his wounds.

everywhere except his hand.

"come on now," she sighed for the tenth time in the past fifteen minutes. "i really need to take a look."

kazuha only squeezed the cold plaquette tighter and refused to let go.

the crux sailed ahead tearing gently through the night. captain beidou was patiently waiting nearby, letting kazuha's breath calm down again. she was a tall woman whose strength radiated from her incessantly without her trying. it was her strong hand that pulled him out of these waters, and then the exact same hand softly pushing the humid hair from his face. kazuha suspected she could be ruthless if she tried, but careful and delicate to carry a butterfly by its wings without hurting it.

something in her voice kept picking at his frozen brain. something he couldn't quite understand. was it care? was it annoyance? how would he even know?

he couldn't speak a single word without feeling his throat bleed.

it was then that beidou nodded and put something on the edge of his temporary bed. it was a book with a leather cover, plain and black, small enough to fit in his sleeve. she patted it and laid her hands on her knees.

"my old friend once said that silence speaks so much better than words," she said. "but even the silence runs out sometimes. so, perhaps when you feel ready to talk, you could try writing it down. but for that, i would also need to heal your hand first..."

kazuha finally looked her in the face. she smiled at him like she knew.

and fuck, she really did.

"i will not take it away from you, i'm not the shogun."

"it's not mine," he finally croaked out. his pathetic voice tore just at the edge and made him sound more like a twisting cry of the wind than anything human-like. only then did he realise that there was no need to say it; his own anemo vision was calmly resting on the bedside table.

with beidou it was always like this since the beginning. you didn't need to speak for her to understand, because she had already seen through you. perhaps without connecting the detail she was still able to asses the situation clearly. or perhaps kazuha only imagined.

and yet she asked, "family?"

saying no wouldn't be far from true, but he shook his head.

"a friend?"

"no."

"a lover?"

kazuha shook his head again, "no."

tomo was none of the above.

tomo was far more than this. more than he could place in words for the world to hear. tomo was... already coming to his memory in the past tense.

he felt himself crumbling as his fingers finally let go, and the empty dead vision fell on his lap. looking at it now felt like looking at the new-born baby subdued to the premature death because the world didn't accept its poor attempts at breath. at the same time, the grey surface of the vision glistened sadly in the candle light like it also didn't want to believe it was to never shine again.