Nebulas

He couldn't help it. As a natural wanderer, he always had an appreciation for the night sky. The loneliness was easier to quell with the vastness of it, he found. Thus, it became a sort of ritual to at least look up and linger his gaze once every day, out of admiration and respect for the stars.

This day was no different, sitting on the roof of an uninhabited cottage, somewhere in Jueyun Karst. Sprayed across it casually, his hands supporting his head that was faced upwards, he recounted all of the blessings in his life. Tomo and he used to watch this same sky together on their travels, and during particular nights, he remembered his father teaching him about the world he grew up in. The constellations and other phenomena were not dismissable, he found, as he listened to both men talk endlessly about them.

It was all too cruel that life took them away from him.

He met plenty of people who told him the sky was not to be trusted. That the heavens would open up, and leave nothing but destruction in its wake. For if humanity ever disregarded its place as something to be controlled, it would be destroyed in every sense of the word. People opposite of his friend and father; people that would not die for him, despite it being a necessary sacrifice.

Someone like Kaedehara Kazuha knew this very well, so well in fact, that he ran from it whenever he could. Topics as these do not fare well in casual situations, so he would avoid them at all costs. Emotions and perspective is something he had, but was not willing to share with the rest of the scornful eyes he regularly met.

Times of when he was just a ronin with nothing to his name flashed back to his mind still, even now, when the dust seems to have settled. Inazuma was at peace once more. Much like the heavens that ruled above it; the bad blood dissolving into the earth's crust until it is its water.

The surrounding breeze picked up the chuckle that left his lungs. It was easier to hear the soul of nature speaking back to him during the night. He liked the quiet. Almost as much as he liked solitude, something he was not often privy to.

This time was no exception.

"What are you thinking about?"

The roof of the small, broken down cottage they found on their trip to Qingce village was made of straw. He heard every small thread within rustle against each other as he turned to face the person he was with. Kazuha could hear them holding their breath as well, not daring to look him in the eye, somehow knowing that the answer he would give wasn't something as airy as he usually was.

He hummed in response. "Recoinessance of what came before."

The person next to him whistled with a low tone. "Sounds exhausting." They turned their head towards him, their eyes reflecting the small lights in the distance. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I doubt anything would come of it, if I do."

They shrugged. A fragment of a normally joyful smile could be seen on their lips, tugging his own into a frown. An expression like this was nothing of the ones he wished to see on their face. Smiles were good, but only the ones that brought that contagiousness he was so used to with them.

"I'm more than willing to carry your burdens for you, if you need a place to put them, Kazuha."

You couldn't call him stunned, per se; shocked he was, but not to the point where it took his very own breath away. The stars could be swirling, but they were nothing compared to the twisting colours of nebulas springing out of the darkness. Almost invisible to the naked eye.

A sigh escaped him. "I see."

The other knew to keep quiet at this moment. Kazuha was a man of a certain type of pride, if you could call it that. Walls that he built around himself, to keep people away from snooping. It was a safety measure he made long ago, and it protected him from many unnecessary dangers.