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A glance up, and he goes still.
It’s quiet, he’s alone, and the sky is alight.
White streamers glide across the dark, purple backdrop of the milky way, one, two, ten, more than he can count, and he can’t do anything more than stare.
“Why do you want to go to space so bad anyway?”
“What a question,” his father laughs. “Have you ever seen anything bigger?”
“Bigger?”
“Well, space goes on forever you know. There’s so many things we don’t know about it. How big it is, if it has a limit or not, what else might be living in it other than us…”
“You’re rambling.”
“I guess I am.” Another laugh. “... you know, Senkuu, I think the biggest reason is because one night, when I was a kid, I was sitting on my own during summer break, my parents too busy to pay me any attention… and I looked up, and I saw a meteor shower.”
“That’s cheesy as hell.”
“Let me finish, punk kid. Anyway, I saw it, and I thought, ‘Wow, space is so cool!’”
“Now you’re just embarrassing yourself.”
“And. Then. I imagined the kind of people that went up there. And I thought, ‘Wow, they must be even cooler.’”
“You really should just stop talking, Byakuya.”
“So cold to your father.”
“Is there a point to this reminiscing or not?”
“You really are incredibly to the point… well, why wouldn’t I want to go to space? It’s where the future is.”
“The future?”
“Tell me Senkuu, what do you do when you get stuck and start thinking too hard?”
“... study harder?”
“Physically, I mean.” A sigh. “You look up...”
“... and you see the sky.”
Thousands of stars, thousands of solar systems, thousands of planets and thousands of skies.
Senkuu feels a hand on his shoulder. A phantom of a familiar weight he remembers even after thousands of years.
“I’m glad you got to go to space, Byakuya,” he smirks, crossing his arms and watching as the last of the meteors twinkled out.
“... thanks, Dad.”