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Astral doesn’t regret going to live in Astral World. It’s where he belongs. The people are...mostly kind, even if he doesn’t know many of them well, and the scenery is beautiful, and it’s generally serene, and he can go wherever he wants, tethered to nothing--but there's something about it that isn't enough. When he’s alone, he finds his thoughts wandering to cities and schoolyards and attics and warmly lit houses, television shows and lunch foods and colors besides all the glittering shades of blue. At first, the reason was obvious.
But now Yuuma comes over on weekends and breaks and days off from school, and whenever he misses his smile it’s never too long before he sees it again. The longing he still feels, then, must be for all of the things from Earth he never learned. Astral World is a beautiful place, but the flora and fauna isn’t nearly so complicated, and the history even less. That must be it. He wishes he could have seen more. That’s the feeling for the pain in his heart.
When he voices this opinion, Yuuma comes back the next weekend with a large pile of books.
“Yuuma, what are these?” Yuuma is nearly keeling over with the weight of all he’s carrying. Astral’s not sure how he made it through the transporter.
“Well, you said you wished you could’ve learned more about Earth, right?” Yuuma finally gives up, and drops everything he's carrying onto the floor. “So I went to the library and got you a bunch of stuff I thought you’d be into.”
Astral doesn’t notice that he’s smiling until Yuuma looks away from him, his face redder than usual. “Don’t look at me like that, it’s just books,” he says, but he’s smiling too.
It’s not until after Yuuma leaves that he gets a chance to look at the books. It’s quite obvious Yuuma just haphazardly picked a bunch of informational-looking things off the shelves. Astral loves him so. There are books on science, history, mythology…?
There are a lot of books on mythology. Yuuma must’ve thought he’d like them, even though the choices are equally as haphazard. With the same warm feeling in his heart that’s stuck since his meeting with Yuuma, he opens one of those first. He doesn’t end up coming out of his room again for a while.
In stories of deathless gods and endless feuds, of green fields and lavish banquets, he finds that humans once dreamt of astral beings too. Though, of course, they were a bit off. He wonders if they were disappointed when they came to his world, that there was no kind-hearted Persephone or stern Hades.
(Well, when he thinks of Eliphas, he thinks there might be a good contender for the latter.)
In one of the books, there’s a long story about a man on a long journey home. Though he’s described repeatedly as being alike to a god, he is still a human. No matter how many warm houses receive him, or how many feasts he participates in, or how many people express that they’d wish him to stay, he thinks of nothing but how much he wants to go home. His sorrow consumes him no matter how nicely he’s received elsewhere, yearning to take a step on the ground and know he is home, to be back with the place and people that are his for eternity.
Astral wonders if it’s possible to experience this feeling for a place that isn’t actually your home at all. Perhaps you can, if home is full of strangers, and far away is full of the people you love most.
Enna is tending to the younger children when he finds her.
“Is there a problem, Astral?”
“It’s not urgent.”
But Enna frowns, and Astral knows she thinks he’s not telling her the entire truth. What a strange reaction that other astral beings still have to those touched by chaos. He hadn’t been lying, but when she beckons him outside, he doesn’t stop her.
“What troubles you?” Enna’s face is straight, but not unfeeling--calm, but not cold. She reminds him a bit of a mother. He thinks he might like her the best.
“I’m...not sure.”
He’s almost ashamed to admit it, but her patience doesn’t waver. “Do you miss him?”
“I always do. But I will see him again soon.” Astral watches people walk across bridges, head for their homes, head for their favorite place to go in this semi-peaceful world--the Barian and Astral Worlds’ children hold hands, laugh together, play together. They were the quickest to forget old rivalries. They don’t remember much of a separated world. Astral forgets he’s a child, too, even though he isn’t quite as young as he was when he first arrived. Perhaps because he’s treated much more like an equal by most of the adults in Astral World. He almost wishes he wasn't.
Enna follows his stare. “...Is that why you are upset?” She nods towards the children laughing together, and suddenly Astral wonders if that is why.
The Barian child tells a joke, and the astral being child laughs. “...There is something I want.”
“You want to go home.”
“I am home.”
“This is where you come from, but your heart is in a place far away. Not here, where everyone is a stranger to you. Isn’t it?”
“I…” Astral finds he doesn’t have any sort of rebuttal, and suddenly feels lonelier than he’s felt in a long time. “I suppose it is.”
By the next weekend, he’s read all of his books five times over.
Astral’s grown so accustomed to Yuuma’s usual enthusiastic hug that he’s already holding his arms out when Yuuma arrives. “Astral!”
At this point, he’s used to the collision too. “Hello, Yuuma.”
“I don’t know how you always manage to be here every time I come over. Do you count the Earth hours or something?” Astral does, but he sees no reason to say that. “Come on, let’s go, you won’t believe what’s happened this week!”
The citizens of Astral World are so used to Yuuma’s visits that they don’t blink an eye as Yuuma passes by. Some of them even wave to him. Astral wishes he knew their names.
On top of the highest hill behind the highest tower is Yuuma’s favorite place to sit. Astral likes it too, but when he sits atop it without Yuuma it feels wrong. He saves it for his visits. When he’s finished treating Astral to a riveting story about Alit nearly burning the school down during a cooking class, he rests back on his hands and stares out at the place where the Astral World and the Barian World meet, and for a long time he’s quiet.
“Hey, Astral?”
“Yes?”
“Do you like living here?”
Astral takes a long time to reply. “Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“It is my home. But it can be lonely. There are times when I miss being on Earth, with you and our friends.” Vaguely, Astral remembers that Yuuma also knows what it’s like to wake up in a lonely, too-empty home.
“You know you can come back any time that you want, Astral. Who cares if they say you can’t? We can find a way.” There’s a certain tilt to his words, like he meant to sound matter-of-fact, but really his words are stained with hope. It’s not hard to guess what he’s hoping for.
Astral laces his fingers through Yuuma’s, and remembers that in the story, the people of Ithaca missed Odysseus just as much as he had missed them.
It’s taking Yuuma a while this time. Yuuma’s never been one for punctuality, but he’s been waiting here for longer than he’s ever had to before. He’s getting a bit worried, eyes roaming everywhere in the vicinity for the telltale flash of light. What if something happened to him? There’s no way he could know. What if--
Ah, there he is. He started worrying too soon.
And then he thinks maybe he stopped worrying too soon, because his vision is flooded with flashes and flashes of light and his ears with sounds of people thumping onto the ground of Astral World.
When it finally stops, his eyes are still desperately trying to adjust. “Yuuma, what...what is…?”
“Astral!”
It’s not Yuuma’s voice that shouts his name, and Astral suddenly realizes that he’s looking at what seems to be every person on Earth he ever met in his life. The crowd is large, and he thinks a few of them are having squabbles over stepping on each other’s feet, and he also thinks Eliphas might have his head for this.
“Oh my god, Yuuma, did you not tell him we were coming?” As it turns out, the person that shouted his name is Kotori, and next to her is the love of Astral’s young life, looking very much like he’s trying not to laugh.
“Yuuma...w…?”
“You said you felt lonely here sometimes, and it’s break, so I asked if a few people wanted to come...and...well, it’s not my fault they all wanted to see you so badly.”
So suddenly that half the crowd jumps backwards, Astral starts laughing. He laughs so hard that he doubles over and tears gather in his eyes, and he’s so unused to laughter that it sounds quite a bit like he’s trying to hiccup and breathe at the same time. Yuuma’s hands are on his arms, steadying him, and every time he thinks he’s stopped laughing there’s a little more left in him.
“Astral, are you okay?”
“...Thank you.” Astral beams up at him, even though Yuuma’s not nearly the only one he’s thanking, and finds that Yuuma’s face is red, and that Yuuma has a look in his eyes like he loves him, and he never really gets tired of finding that.
All the crowd converges in to join the hug that Yuuma starts, and Astral is glad beyond words for being taken home.