[dreamwidth mirror]
~450 words
kaito&astral

He visits, sometimes, while Yuuma sleeps. Lands as quietly as he can on the roof - not that it matters much where Yuuma himself is concerned, but he doesn’t want to wake Yuuma’s sister or grandmother - and waits until Astral appears beside him in the night.

“You have remembered what you are,” Astral says one night, and when Kaito glances across he finds that he’s being examined intently by those mismatched eyes.

He nods, says nothing. What is there to say?

“I would have thought you would have questions,” Astral goes on. Arms folding in midair, gaze shifting to stare into the distance just as Kaito has returned to doing. “About your brother.”

Something in Kaito clenches painfully. Haruto. He’s not been thinking about what it means regarding Haruto - hasn’t been letting himself, really. Haruto is his brother, no matter what.

“I don’t,” he says eventually. “Haruto is my brother. That’s all that matters.”

Astral gives him another long look, appraising. “…yes,” comes the hesitant answer, “He is. Even though he is not the same as you. I am beginning to understand that.”

Kaito says nothing again, only stares up at the stars in the distance.

(so, so far away, and something deep inside of him cries out I want to go home)

His gaze reaches Polaris in the night sky and he stares at it for a few long moments that seem to stretch on forever, and then he finds himself looking across at Astral, who offers him a soft smile. A sad smile.

Yes, you found me, it says, and Kaito can’t help but snort quietly to himself. Guiding star, huh? Fitting.

There’s another long silence between them. It’s the way of it with them, really. They meet in the night like this, but they don’t speak. In the end, for the most part there’s never anything to say.

They don’t meet as friends, after all, but as comrades.

(as Yuuma’s protectors)

Astral is the one to break the silence again, eventually.

“You are attached to this world.” It’s a statement, not a question, and so Kaito treats it as such. “You would stay, even if we were somehow to be called home, or if something were to happen. For Haruto.”

Kaito hears the unspoken for Yuuma.

“I would,” he confirms, watches Astral carefully. He wonders what Astral knows, whether Astral is truly predicting disappearing or only preparing for every eventuality.

(how long is Yuuma going to have the guiding star he so dearly needs, if it is a prediction?)

“Thank you,” Astral says, a breathy, rushed thing. The relief in it is almost palpable.

Kaito only sighs to himself, thinks of the photon mode that eats away at his human flesh and starlight core all at once. He’ll stay no matter what - for Yuuma, for Haruto.

For as long as he can, anyway.