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“ Kuni Kuzushi. ”
The name comes out of his mouth with a foreign softness. It’s a whisper that fills the empty bedroom, despite being uttered an inch from her ear. This is their place, a sparse apartment that few other than her rarely enter, but he speaks as though the walls have ears.
After an eternity, she responds.
“Why tell me now?”
A noncommittal shrug paired with an avoidance of her gaze. His skin is pallid in the moonlight- fair, the fairest face in all of Inazuma; he could never forget how the woman that tried to call her his mother would tell him so. The white coldness doesn’t extend to his eyes, no, they are the warmest she’s ever seen. They brim with an emotion that looks like regret, but feels like relief.
“It felt right, I guess.” His lips are still wet from their chaste kisses just seconds before.
She sighs, tugging her t-shirt- or was it his, she kept stealing them whenever he showed up- down over her exposed chest.
“I will say, I had my doubts on your origins.” A single eyebrow raises. “But there’s more to this than just a name, isn’t there?”
Chipped black nails scratch over his pocket, finding the beaten pack of expensive cigarettes stashed there. A few motions of his hand, and the end blazes to life, flickering for a few moments before the familiar rush settles in. He exhales the drag slowly, breathing out away from where she’s slumped on her pillows.
Her apartment smelled like smoke before she moved in, and he likes that she doesn’t care. No, her vice is alcohol, not nicotine.
“I just thought you’d want to know.”
She snorts. “How bold of you to think I’m ever not in pursuit of the secrets this world has to offer us.”
“You’re nosy.”
“Mm. I like to call it ‘unrestrained curiosity’.”
“If you’re so curious, then why didn’t you ask your precious stars of yours to tell you my name? Y’know, spell out the letters for you-”
A foot prods his abdomen. “Hush, you. It’s not that simple. I’ve told you this a million times by now.”
The corner of his mouth quirks as he puts out his half-finished cigarette on its waiting ashtray. It's far too clean, she had bought it just for his use alone. The gesture spoke volumes when her current financial situation was put into perspective.
He returns to her waiting embrace, his cheek pressed against the rise and fall of her breath. His silence endures, and she uses the moment to delicately run her fingers through his hair, the way she knows he likes.
“Besides,” she scoffs, “If you’re truly the wandering soul you claim to be, I find it odd that you don’t find comfort in the unknown.”
He stirs, head tilting up to look at the silver pools of her eyes. For a woman obsessed with the lunar cycle, she sure did look the part.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, the whole concept of fate, destiny. It doesn’t intrigue you that there might be the slightest chance of finding out your path in life?”
“Hm. Nope.” At least he pretends to think about it first.
Even though he’s nestled back in the crook of her neck, he knows she’s rolling her eyes.
“You vex me.”
“Yeah, but you like it, though.”
Her hands pause their combing. “Do the others know?” His roommate and his countryman, she means. They weren’t an exclusive pair, she knew full well of his bed-hopping tendencies. Sometimes she would try to cover up the marks they left on him with her own, and she was unsure if that was the healthy way to go about things.
“Yes, but I didn’t really have to ever tell them.”
“So I'm the first, then?”
“If that makes you happy.”
Another poke at his side. If she was actually mad, she could’ve made it hurt.
“It’s late.”
“Another astute observation.”
“Go to sleep, Kuni.”
For the first time in far too long, he willingly drowns in his dreamless slumber, and doesn’t curse the world when he wakes.