𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 ; 𝐤𝐚𝐳𝐮𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐚 . ◈

realization

The third time he breaks the rules is maybe his fault.

It's definitely his fault.

It happens because he hasn't shared a room with anyone in years, much less the same bed, because he's lowered his guard when it comes to keeping himself composed, because no matter how hard he tries, he can't seem to completely escape his past.

It happens because he wakes one night, cold in a way that has nothing to do with blanket-snatching, his heart rattling painfully in his chest, his teeth clenched so hard that his skull nearly aches. Every muscle in his body is seized with tension, the lingering remnants of his self-sealed memories a bitter taste against his tongue.

He doesn't often have dreams like this anymore--although they used to be nightly occurrences, once--but they're nearly blinding in their intensity when they do appear, leaving him in a breathless sort of panic as he stares into the dark.

The blankets feel rough and heavy against his skin, remind him of grasping hands with no escape, and he twists his way out of them in a violent motion, backing himself up against the wall as he forces himself to calm down. He wants to shut his eyes, but he's afraid of what he might see if he does, with his past still so fresh in his mind--so instead, he turns his head and looks down at Kazuha.

His bedmate is perfectly, completely still, his breaths even and composed as he stays blissfully asleep.

Except he's not--he can't be asleep, Scaramouche knows.

This is the boy who knows when the rains are coming from the sound of the wind, who can track the whistle of an arrow from miles away, the sound of a pebble as it shifts in the dirt. It's genuinely, entirely impossible for Kazuha to not have heard it, the near-gasp that had torn its way out from between his clenched teeth, the creak of the bed as he'd sat up fast enough to make acid rise in his throat.

Kazuha is pretending to be asleep, because--why?

Scaramouche tries not to think on this, mostly because he's trying not to think of anything at all at the moment. He drops his head into his hands, wills the aching clench of fear in his chest to dissipate, but it's so silent that he can hear the frantic beat of his heart in his ears.

He hates the quiet whenever he wakes up like this--it's by far the worst part, because in the absence of light, in the absence of sound, there's nothing to pull him away from the dark.

Well. Not quite nothing.

Scaramouche grits his teeth, takes in another shaky inhale to steel his resolve. Maybe he's misreading the situation, or the other's intentions, but if this doesn't work, at least there's no one around to know.

"...Kazuha," he says, quietly, disliking the amount of hope he hears in his own voice.

Almost immediately, the other stirs beside him, and although Scaramouche doesn't look to see, he can tell that Kazuha is looking at him, blinking sleepily at him with that familiar patience on his face.

Kazuha watches him with expectant eyes, waiting for Scaramouche to make the first move. Except, Scaramouche doesn't know what that might be--he is, in a rare moment of his life, completely at loss.

"Say something," he manages to bite out, when the silence stretches out into something uncomfortably loud. "Just...talk."

There's a pause as Kazuha sits fully upright, then shifts about as he stacks some pillows behind himself, making himself comfortable against them. Slowly, Scaramouche dares to lift his head from his hands, but he still stays turned away.

"Certainly," Kazuha answers, his voice gentle and lilting, warm in a way that washes over the ice in Scaramouche's veins.

Then he tells Scaramouche about himself--small stories from his travels, a little about his childhood, something about his hometown, aimless, wandering words meant to fill the empty quiet. Scaramouche is only half-listening at first, merely grateful for the distraction, but soon he finds himself leaning into it, hanging onto every soft-spoken word.

"...and that is how my family came to bear the Kaedehara name--which is perhaps quite a coincidence. I do rather enjoy maple leaves, of course."

Surprisingly, something like a laugh claws its way out of Scaramouche's throat, the first response he's made in well over thirty minutes. "Yeah? Hard to tell."

Kazuha tilts his head at that, and even in the dim lighting of his room, it's not hard to make out the shape of the smile on his face. It soon melts away, though, replaced with a wistful sort of longing, a quiet sadness that Scaramouche has come to realize that Kazuha carries with him always.

"The leaves in my hometown must have turned red by now," he admits softly, and the yearning in his words very nearly makes Scaramouche forget why they'd been speaking in the first place. "I wish I could see them, but..."

He looks down at the nightstand, at the space of the bottom drawer, his expression suddenly distant, lost in another time. Scaramouche has only seen the contents of it once--at the time, he'd been a little too distracted in his search for the oil to pay much mind to a useless, empty Vision.

Now, though, it's starting to occur to him that there's a reason why Kazuha is here, hiding out on an unpleasantly rain-sodden island instead of wandering the world.

"They're just leaves," he hears himself saying, a little harsher than he'd intended to make them, because the sadness on Kazuha's face just bothers him, for reasons he refuses to name. "Nothing worth getting emotional over."

An unmistakable sort of hurt flickers across Kazuha's face, and Scaramouche isn't sure what he's more alarmed by--the crack in Kazuha's perfect composure or by how frantic he suddenly feels, knowing he's the cause.

"Ugh, I mean--sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

His breath promptly abandons him, then, before he can continue, because the number of times he's apologized with genuine intent can be counted on a fingerless hand. He scrambles to rectify the impact of it, to undermine his own words with another cutting remark, but nothing else comes out.

Kazuha is looking at him again now, this time with an impossible softness that is so much worse than the sadness, largely due to the spasm that flutters its way across Scaramouche's chest.

"I know," Kazuha murmurs, and he really does sound like he knows, like he knows Scaramouche. "It was an honest thing to say. I appreciate that about you."

An honest thing. Because only Kazuha would call it that, would perceive Scaramouche's complete and utter assholery as honesty.

Only Kazuha would mistake him for a good person.

And only Kazuha makes Scaramouche want that to be true.

Oh, he thinks, distantly, at first, and then all at once.

Oh, shit.