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Kenshi always stuck to the same colors, to the same color scheme.
Even after knowing the man for two decades now, he still stuck with the same red and blue aesthetics.
The arrangement, the clothing, the armor had all gone through some variation of change, but the basics always stayed the same.
Kenshi liked to remark, liked to tease that he knew what he looked good in- hence the lack of change.
And Sonya always wondered if there was some merit to that.
She wondered if those were the last two colors he had seen himself in before his vision had been stolen from him; she wondered if those were the only two colors that he remembered. But given how Kenshi could be at times, it was a little difficult to tell when he was being serious or not. And it was even more difficult to tell whether he was being sentimental.
Outside of needed situations, anyways.
She could be the same way though.
There wasn't much that she was sentimental about, and it wasn't a feeling that she tapped into much either.
But every now and then, it would catch her off-guard.
Whenever Kenshi left, whenever he was gone on his usual wanderlust adventures, she usually found some piece of him that had been left behind. Not intentionally, or at least, Sonya didn't think he would willingly leave anything behind; but then again, it was never something that was necessarily needed either. It was always just something small, something that was probably meant to be discarded but had somehow been overlooked.
Like the time before, he had left behind a strip of ito wrap from the last time he had re-bound Sento.
Kenshi had been at her place, and had opted to redo his previous work since he had had the supplies on-hand.
There had been a storm outside that she had preferred not to drive in, and since he was in no rush to be anywhere either, they had decided that he would just spend the night there. It had been unplanned, but nothing new; he had stayed with her plenty of times before, although those times had been for obvious reasons. And since they were left to their own devices, he had opted to just do the work he had already planned for that night.
And while Sonya had playfully chided him on not making a mess, she had found it interesting to watch him.
It was one of the few activities he did where he needed to remove his gloves, where he ended up exposing his bare hands.
"I need to ensure that I'm still doing this correctly," Kenshi explained, no doubt able to feel her watching eyes on him. "I don't have sight, so I have to use the next best thing I have- touch."
"You still doubt yourself even after all these years?" Sonya asked.
"It's less about doubt, and more about... just wanting to make sure it's done right," he replied. "I messed it up once years ago, and the ancestors never let me hear the end of it."
This time, however, Kenshi had left behind one of his sweaters.
Sonya had found it in her dryer after he had already left and figured he must not have realized that it hadn't been grabbed.
It wasn't a necessity, thankfully; she had seen him pack plenty of clothes with him before he left.
And even if it was, it wasn't like she could go drop it off for him.
Kenshi was long gone by now, and there was no telling where he was.
She could fit in it and Sonya did find herself wearing it from time to time when it was late, but it was still a little too warm for her to keep it on for too long; she was hot-natured and anything too heavy would be enough to make her sweat, even with the A/C on. And given that she preferred to sleep in the cold, she nixed herself sleeping in it.
And it just felt weird to have a loose piece of clothing tangled next to her in the bed.
So Sonya did the next best thing she could think of.
She had plenty of pillows to go around, more than any average person would have, so she stuffed one of them inside of the sweater.
She picked one of her firmer pillows, so that it would fill the sweater out a little more, and give it some body, give it some weight.
Sonya wasn't really the cuddling type, never really had been, but she found herself keeping the pillow close to her on some nights; she had even found herself waking up with it completely pulled against her, with it tightly squeezed in her arms.
To a degree, it almost felt childish, but she also knew that it was a coping mechanism.
She remembered giving Cassie her old jackets the day before her deployments, just to give the girl something to hold on to, to remember her during her absence.
And it used to be a fight just to get them back, even when Cassie was in the single-digits.
Sonya could give herself some leniency in that way.
She liked the feel of Kenshi's sweater against her skin, and the occasional catch of his scent that still lingered on it.
It was usually enough to keep the loneliness aside, to keep herself from focusing too much on counting down the days until Kenshi came back- although the end number was never really known. And sometimes the sweater was enough to keep the constant thoughts away, keeping away the ones that lingered around in the back of her head.
The ones that reminded her again and again that he just might not come back this time.
In fairness, up until now, Kenshi always had.
But Sonya would never really get that answer until he actually returned, until he physically showed up again.
So until then, all she had was this.
His sweater stuffed with a pillow inside of it.