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The first time Soushi kisses him, it’s supposed to be the last time.
(Kazuki cannot belong to him. He tells himself that, and tries to pour it into the press of their lips together, and by doing so make himself understand it.)
(Kazuki’s heart belongs to Minashiro Soushi, yes, but it will always belong to that Minashiro Soushi. And there’s no way to fight against a ghost, not really.)
Kazuki stares at him, when Soushi pulls back. All wide-eyed and wild and with more genuine emotion on his face than Soushi thinks he’s ever seen there.
“Soushi, what—”
“I’m letting you go,” Soushi interrupts. “Okay? You— you want to go, don’t you? To where that guy is, and it— if Minashiro Soushi’s feelings matter to you so much, then I’m letting you go.”
Kazuki just keeps staring at him. Even as his expression stays the same, it looks so human, more than Kazuki has ever looked in front of him. Soushi is— no matter how it hurts, he’s… glad. To have seen this, even only once.
(He closes his eyes, to engrave that image behind them as much as to hold back tears, and when he opens them again, Kazuki has disappeared.)
The next fight is the last one, the way that some part of Soushi had known it would be. Malespero gone, the last remnants of Soushi’s ‘parents’ gone, and he doesn’t know whether Maris is still alive but he does know that Maris is useless alone. So it doesn’t really matter one way or the other, truly.
Neither does it matter, he tells himself, when him and Kazuki end up in that vast black horizon again. Kazuki is below him, staring down at that echo of Soushi’s predecessor that waits in the darkness, and Soushi could reach out and grab his arm, could hold him back. Soushi could be the one to pull him back to reality. But he’d promised, hadn’t he? That he was letting Kazuki go.
So he only closes his eyes, and waits, and ignores the burning behind his eyelids, and so—
And so he doesn’t expect the hands that come up to grip his own, making his eyes fly open to find Kazuki before him.
“What are you—”
“I want to be where Soushi is,” Kazuki says, his tone firm even as his voice shakes. “And Soushi is— Soushi is nowhere. I know that.”
He takes a shuddering breath, and Soushi’s eyes track the tears that drip down his cheeks into nothingness.
“Soushi is nowhere,” he says again. “But Soushi is also here. And I— I want to be where Soushi is. I don’t want to be where Soushi isn’t.”
It takes Soushi long moments, following the threads of Soushi-him and Soushi-I until he reaches the point that seems almost terrifying.
(If it’s true, it’s all that Soushi wants in this moment, because the first Minashiro Soushi passed on more than a face and a name and Soushi-and-Kazuki are supposed to be an immutable fact.)
(If it’s not, Soushi might just let it break him.)
“You’re staying?” Soushi manages to ask after what feels like eternity, voice cracking in his throat.
Kazuki stares back up at him, and then turns his head behind himself to look down at the image of the first Soushi, waiting beneath them in the nothingness. He’s silent for long enough that Soushi starts to crack, especially when Kazuki lets go of his hands.
And then Kazuki’s arms come around him, tight, and he’s pulling Soushi in against him.
“I’m staying,” he says, and the words sound like they’re wrenched out of his chest and up through his throat like broken glass but they hang there, nonetheless, a promise.
(Kazuki keeps his promises, rings in Soushi’s head, a voice and a thought that is and isn’t his own at the same time. No matter whether you deserve that from him. No matter how painful it is for him. All you can do is try to be worthy of it.)
(Soushi just stares over Kazuki’s shoulder, at that echo of his predecessor, and says nothing in return. He knows. He knows, to the very depths of his heart.)
The first thing that Soushi does after landing Nicht is to search for Kazuki. Because he needs to know that it’s real, needs to know that Kazuki is really here.
That, too, is why the first thing that he does when he finds Kazuki is to drag him into the nearest empty room inside Alvis, pressing Kazuki up against the inside of the door and leaning up to kiss him desperately. It’s not a particularly skillful kiss, because Soushi is desperate and terrified and so the bruising force of it is more a reassurance than a problem, even as he cringes a little as his teeth ram against the insides of his lips and their noses knock together.
Kazuki tolerates it, though, as awful as it probably feels for him, and it’s only when Soushi pulls back for breath that he puts his hands on Soushi’s arms to gently put a little more distance between them.
“I’m sorry,” Soushi chokes out. “I’m sorry, I just— I needed— Kazuki, I—”
“Shh, Soushi,” Kazuki tells him, voice ridiculously gentle. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have to do this. I’m staying.”
That sets alight a little spark in Soushi when he processes what ‘this’ was supposed to be referring to, even as thrown by the fear of a world without Kazuki as he is right now.
“I’m not— I want to kiss you, it’s not— even if it’s only like this because of that, it’s not— the kissing itself isn’t a hardship.”
Kazuki only blinks at him, looking just as surprised as after that very first kiss.
“You… want to kiss me.”
Soushi’s expression twists, and he tries to lean in again. To prove that he wants to kiss Kazuki, since the idiot clearly won’t understand words.
Kazuki’s hands stay firm on his arms, though, keeping the distance between them until Soushi wilts a little.
“You want to kiss me,” Kazuki repeats again, slowly and deliberately. “This is… what you want from me?”
“I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t, idiot Kazuki,” Soushi snaps back, the biting tone a familiar reassurance on uncertain ground.
Kazuki stares back at him, and then closes his eyes. He’s silent for long moments, the kind of silence that makes Soushi want to tremble under the weight of it, until he finally lets out a slow exhale that feels as though it’s carrying all that weight with it.
“Okay.”
Soushi blinks. Okay to what? Okay to the kissing, or okay Kazuki acknowledges what Soushi wants but has to gently let him down, or okay but Kazuki is appalled by it, or—
“I want to be where Soushi is,” Kazuki cuts into his thoughts. His eyes are open again, now, and he pins Soushi with a look so intense that Soushi finds himself not even breathing as he waits for the end of that thought.
“I want to be where Soushi is,” Kazuki repeats, as he had on the border. “And if that’s where Soushi is, then… that’s the place I’ll meet Soushi at.”
Soushi lets out the breath he’d been holding, but still remains trapped under the weight of Kazuki’s gaze, the weight of his own fear, the weight of everything that’s happened up until now. It’s only Kazuki’s hands guiding him that let him move at all, as Kazuki uses the grip on Soushi’s arms to turn them both, slowly, until Soushi is the one with his back to the door.
And then he leans in just as slowly, telegraphing every movement, and presses his lips to Soushi’s.
It’s nothing like the first kiss, full of regret and fueled by the desire to expel the emotions behind it. It’s nothing like the second kiss, all terror and filled with the need to confirm both of their existence.
This time, it’s as simple as Kazuki meeting Soushi where he is. It’s Kazuki’s lips pressed gently against his own and Kazuki’s arms bracketing him in against the door, enclosing him in a space where nothing matters beyond this.
(Maybe it shouldn’t be that simple. This isn’t the kind of family that he and Kazuki were supposed to be and it doesn’t fix everything in an instant, doesn’t take away all of the pain that built up between them over what could-have-been, should-have-been, never-will-be. It doesn’t, but;)
(But Soushi-and-Kazuki are an immutable fact. But Kazuki will always reach for the place where Soushi is, more than he reaches for the place where another Soushi is not. But Soushi has been chasing after the place where Kazuki is inside of his heart for all this time, even when he couldn’t admit it to himself. Even when he didn’t remember Kazuki.)
(And so the rest of it will come later. And for this moment, at least, it’s simple.)