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The first time Kazuha discovered the Fatui camp and their research, he noticed the familiar presence instantly. How could he not? After all, his keen senses don’t lie, and he has an excellent memory for the types of traces that each person leaves. So he knew that the Fatui researchers weren’t alone on the islands from the second he set foot there.
“Let’s keep this between us for now,” Kazuha said rather hastily, with a forced laugh. “I simply don’t think it’s worth ruining anyone’s vacation over a trivial matter like this.”
Aether looked at him with barely veiled suspicion, but accepted the explanation with a nudge from Paimon. Still, the suspicion made Kazuha wary, so he resolved to save the information for later and check in another time.
And right now it’s another time , and he wishes he were anywhere else.
“I was right.”
The words announce Kazuha’s presence properly, since most people can’t pick up on the faintest whispers of the wind like he can. Still, the person seems unsurprised when he approaches.
“Kaedehara.” The speaker doesn’t bother turning around to acknowledge him.
Kazuha sighs. It’s disappointing how people can turn from close to closer so quickly, and from closer to distant in an instant. He misses the days when it didn’t matter what people thought of him, before their own country kicked both of them out. “Scaramouche,” he replies calmly, making it a stalemate.
There’s a silence blanketing them both. Kazuha finds it comforting and pleasantly warm, like swimming, but he knows Scaramouche will think of it like bubble wrap suffocating him. Sure enough, Scaramouche breaks first. “What do you want,” he huffs.
“Am I not allowed to simply desire your company?”
“Bullshit,” Scaramouche says instantly. It’s not entirely false, but it still hurts. “You’re here to tell me you’re with the traveler and I should fucking suck it, right?”
It’s Kazuha’s turn to break. His calm facade cracks, just a little. “You think so low of me?” he snaps. “Yes, I’m here with Aether. They didn’t put me up to this, though.”
Scaramouche looks doubtful. He kicks at a rock. He’s still sitting on the log bench, refusing to face him. Kazuha takes a careful seat on the other side of the log, just far enough that they can look straight ahead and not see each other. He doesn’t move closer, for fear of spooking him.
“I don’t believe you.”
Despite his low expectations, Kazuha’s heart still sinks. “I’m not allowed to wish for some good company?”
“Since when have I ever been good?”
“I miss you,” Kazuha says pointedly. He turns to look Scaramouche in the eye, hand propped on the log to keep himself balanced. Scaramouche glances at him, a habitual motion. It doesn’t seem like he consciously chooses to move, at least, because he looks away immediately afterwards.
“You don’t.” He stands up, hands in his pockets with an unreadable expression. “You miss who I used to be.”
Kazuha watches in a cold mix of despair and resignation as he walks away. He doesn’t have anywhere to go, even, but apparently anywhere is better than with Kazuha.
It’s the truth, which should probably hurt. But Kazuha doesn’t just miss who Scaramouche used to be. He misses who both of them used to be. After all, it’s not only Scaramouche who presents a different name to strangers. It’s not only Scaramouche whose allegiance comes and goes like the wind. It’s not only Scaramouche who’s changed.
Kazuha leaves cold and disappointed. He slips back into camp, waiting for Aether to confront him about his absence, but it doesn’t happen. No one seems to have noticed. Perhaps they simply don’t care.
***
He manages to slip away again after his own mirage gets explored, after all these people learn his secrets. Thankfully, there are few mentions of his life outside of the clan, so it’s fine. Aether can remain in the dark about some subjects.
This same logic is how he justifies leaving camp in the dead of night, his guilty conscience not helped by Miitoboru’s idle chatter.
The Fatui camp is deserted. In the center, the machine clicks and clacks away. It makes him sort of dizzy. His senses feel dulled, but even so, he’s perfectly capable of noticing Scaramouche’s approaching presence behind him. He wants to whirl around confrontationally, but instead he just pivots, slow and controlled.
“This machine of yours is very intriguing.”
Scaramouche rolls his eyes. “It’s not mine. Belongs to this guy named Persikov. You met him yesterday, right? With the traveler?”
“You were watching us?” Kazuha’s tone isn’t hostile, merely inquisitive. He knows the answer already, but he wants to hear it. Perhaps it’s just something self-destructive. Perhaps it’s clinging to a long-lost sense of hope. Scaramouche is walking slowly, so Kazuha joins him, following right to his side so they don’t have to look at each other.
“I wasn’t watching you ,” he scoffs, though it sounds flimsy to both of them. Kazuha takes heart in it. “The traveler. They’re on the Fatui watch lists, you know. The top secret ones.”
“You probably shouldn’t be telling me about it then, right?”
If Scaramouche were to roll his eyes any more dramatically, they’d probably fall out. “I don’t care,” he says flatly. “About the Fatui, or anyone in it. I thought I made that pretty clear.”
The information rings exactly zero bells. Kazuha tilts his head inquisitively.
“Huh.” Scaramouche plunks himself down on the ground, about three feet away from the machine, whirring away before them. “Guess all these years haven’t made you any less dense. Anyway, how’d it feel to involuntarily spill your guts to a bunch of strangers this morning? Great, yeah?”
Kazuha has half a mind to be surprised, but he knows the Fatui’s intel network is expansive, and Scaramouche’s own, even more so. But if he knows about that, maybe he really has been watching Kazuha. It’s touching, in its own strange way.
“You noticed,” he replies softly.
It has the exact intended effect. Scaramouche stares at him briefly, then remembers himself and tears his gaze away, the faintest hint of color on his cheeks. Kazuha pretends not to see it; it’s getting dark anyway, and anyone with duller senses wouldn’t notice.
“‘Course I noticed,” Scaramouche grumbles, and Kazuha recognizes it for what it is: an admission of defeat. “You know, with how much you talk about me, I thought maybe I’d be in your stupid projection.”
“Is that what they are? We’ve been calling them mirages.”
“ How is that even slightly relevant.”
“Right,” Kazuha says. He allows a sliver of a smirk to dance across his lips. “You wanted to know whether you were important enough to be in my mirage?”
“No,” Scaramouche replies, which is basically a confirmation. Close enough, at least.
“You’ve always been there,” Kazuha drawls, stalling for time. “The mirage shows what’s important to someone, if I’m not mistaken. So you tell me.”
Scaramouche is silent for one long, solid moment. “I don’t know,” he says quietly. There’s an edge to his voice that Kazuha regonizes: honesty. He really doesn’t know. Kazuha tries not to let it hurt. It’s been years since they were anything near close, and even longer since they were friends. Besides, Scaramouche has probably found other important people along the way, even though the only person Kazuha found was himself.
“You really don’t?”
With a brief glare, Scaramouche shakes his head. It’s more shameful than bitter, though.
For a second, Kazuha debates lying. He appreciates honesty, and he knows Scaramouche does too, but Aether has told him that sometimes, preserving people’s feelings is more important than the truth. But they’ve never preserved each other’s feelings before, and it’s getting late, and he should head back to camp to find the people who can admit that they trust him.
“You weren’t,” he says. “You weren’t in the projection.”
Scaramouche doesn’t respond. Kazuha leaves without another word.
***
After returning from slipping away, Kazuha realizes that the slipping part hasn’t been necessary, since Fischl has been blatantly disappearing with considerable frequency. He debates going back to find Scaramouche a third time, but ultimately decides against it.
These people trust him, he knows they do, and he cares about them too. Xinyan’s surprisingly calm despite her passion, Mona’s delightfully adept in the art of conversation, and Fischl, despite her oddities, is wonderfully appreciative of his poetry.
Aether, on the other hand, seems to know. They glance at him every once in a while, as if checking that he’s still there. Kazuha wants to say that he won’t run away, that they don’t need to worry about him, but he can’t. After all, even though Kazuha wasn’t the one to run away first , he did end up doing it in the end. There’s no guarantee he won’t do it again. It’s all up to the wind, usually.
But he stays. Until Mona’s mirage has been explored, until the machine is apparently sorted out, until the mirages are the only manifestation of its power.
Kazuha thinks Aether has forgotten, since he’s kept his track record squeaky clean since the few incidents, but Aether pulls him aside by the lavender-melon-roasting fire.
“What’s going on?” Kazuha asks, even though he already knows.
Aether gives him an appraising look, then apparently switches tactics. “The mirages,” they say slowly. “The machine manifests in mirages for people with a strong will, right?”
Caught off guard, Kazuha just nods in confirmation.
“Like visionholders,” Aether continues. “But apparently not most delusion users. So … where do you think I fit on that scale?”
Kazuha feels floored. He wonders if he’s been selfish, focusing on his own mirage, his own thoughts, his own excursions. He hasn’t given a single thought to Aether along the way. He turns one of the lavender melon skewers over, guilty.
“You’re not either of those,” Kazuha answers firmly, decisively. “You can use the elements, yes, and you have a strong will, but you’re not limited by a vision or a delusion. I’d argue that your way is better than any of ours.”
Aether nods slowly. “It must be the vision, then. I haven’t felt any adverse effects, but I don’t have a mirage, either. I might count as having both a vision and a delusion, since I use multiple elements.”
Kazuha suppresses a laugh at the reasoning. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Mm,” Aether hums, noncommittal. “You should ask Scaramouche about that.”
Kazuha knocks one of the lavender melon skewers into the fire. “You- you knew he was-“
“Yeah,” says Aether with a shrug. “It’s not exactly difficult to figure out. I mean, who’s the only person who was in the Fatui that you’ve ever met?”
Kazuha just gapes. Sure, he hasn’t exactly been subtle, sneaking off to the Fatui encampment, but surely he could just be there to investigate. Nothing gives away that he’s there visiting someone, right?
“Hang on,” he says as the realization sets in. ”What do you mean, was ?”
“Well, I assume he deserted.” Aether turns over one of the lavender melon skewers in the fire like nothing‘s unusual about their statement. No bombshells. ”Y’know, disobeying orders, running away, all that jazz.”
“What in the seven archons is jazz ,” Kazuha mumbles to himself; Aether opens their mouth as if to explain, and he hastily changes course. “What’s this about Scaramouche deserting? I didn’t know anything about that.”
“He took the Shogun’s gnosis and dipped.” Aether holds out their open hands as if to show their innocence. “IDK.”
Briefly he ponders the meaning of the phrase eye dee kay , but chalks it up to an Aether-ism (one of many).
“He has the electro gnosis?”
“Yes, exactly,” Aether says, casually removing one of the charred melon skewers. “Anyway, wanna eat? MONA!” they call, without waiting for an answer.
And Kazuha is left with his brain reeling as Aether’s companions gather to eat the roasted lavender melons. Aether’s companions, not his own, because Kazuha lost all of his long ago. Since then, he’s learned not to get attached. The one thing he got attached to is long gone. Just a few islands away, yes, but long gone all the same.
***
“Stop.”
Kazuha stops. “Why hello there,” he says, false cheer abundant in his tone. It’s masking the smugness he knows he’s finally earned.
“Don’t go in,” Scaramouche pleads from behind him.
“Not very polite of you.” Kazuha takes a step forward, purely out of spite.
“ Please .”
Kazuha steps a safe distance away from the familiar lake surface. It’s a miniature version of the lake he remembers sitting along the shore of, swinging his legs in tandem with the very person who refuses to look at him now. It’s touching, perhaps, that Scaramouche’s own mirage is so intimately related to him.
Scaramouche exhales a long, harsh breath. “You’re a fucking asshole, Kaedehara.”
“I know,” he replies without thinking.
Scaramouche rolls his eyes.
Kazuha gestures towards the sliver of the lake, shrouded in a small layer of fog. “Have you gone in yet?”
“What?”
“The mirage,” he repeats, finally turning around to face him properly. “Each of us have one, so the only one left is you. Don’t you want to explore it?”
Scaramouche meets his eyes for a brief, electric moment, then glances away just as quickly. “Hell no. Relive my past? No thanks."
A pang of some unidentified emotion slams into Kazuha’s chest. It’s painful in the worst way, the kind of pain he knows no healer could assist him with. “But it’s the lake,” he says, unsure why he’s protesting. “Don’t you want to go back?”
The words slip out before he can make a better judgment.
“You can’t go back, Kazuha,” Scaramouche snaps. It would be better if there was anger in his tone, but there isn’t. Just cold, ruthless truth. Using his proper name only makes it sting more. “ We can’t go back.”
“Right, because you’ve changed so much,” Kazuha fires back. “What was it you said? You’d moved on with the Fatui?”
He knows it’s a low move, throwing those words back in his face, but he can’t be bothered to care. Scaramouche had hurt him, once, but it’s his turn now.
“I didn’t mean it,” Scaramouche says quietly.
“You say that now, because look how well it worked out for you.”
“I didn’t,” Scaramouche repeats, a little stronger.
“But hey,” Kazuha continues, practically shouting now to cover up the words of protest, “at least you finally became a god out of it! Isn’t that what you always wanted?”
“ Shut the fuck up! ”
“Electro too, right?”
Scaramouche slams him into the ground with a growl. He props his legs on either side of Kazuha’s, ensuring he’s fully blocked in. “I’m not a fucking god,” he breathes. “And I never will be. I never wanted that and you know it. I’m never going to be like her . It doesn’t matter.”
Kazuha’s breathing hard. The dirt is coarse under his head. He can feel gravel digging into his back, sand on his feet. Scaramouche is pressing his head into the rocky dirt and it hurts . Everything hurts. But he can deal with it.
This doesn’t take emotions. This doesn’t take a careful hand. This is easy.
“Tell me what you want, then, Kunikuzushi.”
Scaramouche looks furious, like he’s going to slap him across the face. Maybe try out that new electro gnosis too. But Kazuha knows he won’t. Kazuha knows what he’s going to do, and he’s sure Scaramouche does too.
“Fuck you,” he replies.
Kazuha doesn’t have time to make a sly comment on the dual meaning, because Scaramouche is already kissing the life out of him.
It’s fast and messy and complicated and awful. Scaramouche shoves him even harder into the ground, so Kazuha retaliates by pulling his hair. It earns him teeth; Scaramouche doesn’t hesitate to bite, like he’s trying to tear him apart in the best way possible. Kazuha knows he’s a pathetic mess on the ground under him. He hates it. He wants to keep doing it forever.
Unsurprisingly, Scaramouche is the one to pull away, mostly because he has the room to. “Never do that again.”
Kazuha just smirks, like he’s won something. He can feel something warm on his lip. He’s not sure if it’s spit or blood.
“Didn’t know you missed me that much,” Kazuha teases, swiping a hand across his lips. It comes back washed with red.
“I don’t miss you,” Scaramouche says bluntly.
Kazuha falters for a moment, bothered by the sentiment, but strives not to let it bother him. He takes it as his cue to leave, turning back to the edge of the rocky beach.
“I like who you are now.”
He whirls around. Scaramouche stands there, looking confident in his words, but ashamed at the same time. Kazuha’s shocked to find that there’s no hint of deception in his voice.
He wants to reply, but doesn’t know how.
***
“Your lip’s bleeding!” Aether exclaims upon his return, and immediately begins fretting with some type of berry formula. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“The usual.” Kazuha brushes their hands away. “Make out session got too intense.”
Aether immediately withdraws. They stare at him for a few seconds, like he’s the weird one. Which, Kazuha supposes, he probably is.
“What?”
Aether shakes their head slowly. “You really need to learn how to lie. For everyone’s sake.”
***
Kazuha really, truly meant to wait. He likes his space, and he knows Scaramouche does too. Besides, whatever he said doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t have to mean anything. It can’t mean anything. So he fully intends to stay away.
But he doesn’t need to seek him out, apparently.
They’re sitting around the beach, eating breakfast and roasting the last of the lavender melons from the previous night, when Aether glances up and makes a noise of acknowledgement. “Hello,” they say conversationally.
Mona glances up and shrieks.
Kazuha spends about two seconds weighing the merits of turning around. On the one hand, turn around, and be faced with the consequences of his own actions. On the other hand, don’t turn around, and be faced with Aether’s wrath. Kazuha turns around.
Scaramouche stares at him, eyes blank and unreadable.
“ You ,” Mona hisses, flinging herself to her feet in an instant. “You little rat bastard! You- you little cocksucker !”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Scaramouche says, with his signature eye roll. Surely, Kazuha should dislike it. Surely, it shouldn’t be endearing.
Rather than take action against Scaramouche, Mona throws herself in front of Fischl, obliviously munching on her berries while making quiet conversation with Oz. “Don’t even think about hurting her!”
Scaramouche scoffs. “I’m not here for you.”
The words spark a wave of some emotion, settling low in Kazuha’s stomach. It’s awful. It’s bizarre. It’s almost pleasant.
He knows what that feeling is. He’s felt it before. It’s been a long time since then, though, and the last time it happened, he left worse for the wear. They both did, really, judging by the way Scaramouche has changed since then.
“I want to talk to you,” Scaramouche says.
“Don’t fucking lay a hand on him!” Mona whips out her catalyst with frightening speed. “I’ll- I’ll kill you! Motherfucker!”
Kazuha hastily places a hand in front of her, hovering over her arm as if to pacify her. “It’s okay,” he rushes to say. “I can defend myself if it comes to that.”
Scaramouche looks at him weirdly for that comment. The full weight of his attention is strange. “I wouldn’t hurt you,” he says quietly.
The sentiment rings true in the morning air. Kazuha doesn’t know how to feel about it. If it were just the two of them, he’d process the development by getting angry about it, letting some of the explosive energy take him over. The difference between him and Scaramouche is that while Scaramouche has utilized his own anger into his (…former) profession, Kazuha has learned to bottle it away. When Scaramouche lets out his calm, Kazuha doesn’t know how to respond, so he lets out the opposite.
But here, Fischl and Mona and Xinyan and Aether are relying on him. Even if they don’t say it, he sees the way Fischl has been copying his plunging attack. He sees the way Xinyan has been following along with his tunes. He sees the way Mona has been using his breathing patterns to calm down. Aether doesn’t really count, but whatever.
So he follows.
They walk across the beach, over the mound at the top of the island, over to a little inlet of water by the north side, at which point Scaramouche stops abruptly.
“You said you missed me.”
Kazuha sees no point in denying it, so he resigns himself. “Yes,” he admits. “I do miss you. I’ve missed you ever since you left me behind.”
A frustrated sigh. Scaramouche fixes him with a look laced with fury, but it’s a cold sort of fury that isn’t even satisfying. “I don’t want you to miss me,” he says.
“I don’t want to either!” Kazuha wants to punch something, to hurt something badly, but the only thing to hurt is Scaramouche, so he just throws his hands in the air. They make unsatisfying trails as they float back to his side. “If you hadn’t ever left, I wouldn’t have to miss you. And I know it’s not just you. I miss everything . Have you ever thought maybe I miss being allowed in my own home country? Having family members who care about me?”
“Kaedehara.” Scaramouche places a hand on his shoulder. It’s solid, but lacks any real restraint.
“That too!” Kazuha chokes out, eyes suddenly uncomfortably warm. “Don’t you wish you could call me my real name? Don’t you ever want to go back?” He pauses to shake his head, refusing to wipe his eyes. “Weren’t you happy?” he asks quietly.
“For fuck’s sake, Kazuha,” he mutters. Strangely enough, it calms him down much more effectively than he’d expected. “Can’t you let it go?”
Kazuha, finally out of words, just waits.
“Just because you were happy once doesn’t mean you can’t be happy again.”
His hands are soft. For the first time since their days by the lake, when ignorance was like a wall protecting their bubble of bliss, Scaramouche’s hands are soft when his fingers brush Kazuha’s face.
“You want to know why I don’t miss you?”
Kazuha tries to nod, but he doesn’t want Scaramouche’s hands to fall away for fear that he might never put them back, so he hums his confirmation instead.
“Because I don’t care about making it feel the same,” he says. “I want it to change.”
Contrary to his declaration, Scaramouche’s lips feel exactly how they used to. His hands are soft, gentle, but in a way that feels almost scared. He’s cautious, hands shaking like he’s trying to hold himself back. And Kazuha thought he liked the stupid anger, thought taking it out on each other was good, but this is even better. His frustration seems to melt away, leaving him with his usual sense of serenity.
Scaramouche doesn’t move far away when he pulls back, as if he’s determined to keep either of them from running away. “I’m not in the Fatui anymore,” he says. “That’s a change, right?”
“Yes.” Kazuha refrains from mentioning the many arguments they had over the Fatui incident, all the arguments that resulted in Scaramouche’s sudden disappearance one morning, along with the departure of one of the boats in the harbor, bound for Snezhnaya. “It’s different.”
“And you’re with the traveler now,” he adds. “You go wherever you want. That’s a change too.”
Kazuha quickly realizes where this is going. “The wanderer’s life suits me,” he agrees. “You’re trying to point out that change can be good, right?”
Scaramouche frowns slightly. “Yeah.”
“It’s okay, I already know that.” Kazuha takes one of Scaramouche’s hands and moves it away from his face, so that their loosely linked hands hang between them. “I just like to reminisce. Perhaps I wouldn’t have to if I had more subjects to write poetry about in the present.”
“Well, there’s, like, some really nice beaches here,” Scaramouche says. “And the castle on the island to the north is pretty cool.”
“I write about love,” Kazuha blurts. “My poems. They’re often about love.”
“Oh.” Scaramouche glances at him, then at their hands, then back to him. The smallest of smiles tugs at the corners of his lips, but it might as well be the brightest grin. “I guess that could change too.”
Kazuha doesn’t hesitate to kiss him. Scaramouche probably does his usual eye roll, but he kisses back anyway.
***
“Maple leaves settle,” Kazuha ponders aloud.
Aether shoots him a glare that can only be described as murderous as they bite into their mint stalk. Their face puckers up, like it tastes foul, but they continue munching on it. Kazuha wonders if it’s for the aesthetic , as they once said.
“Not unlike the path of the sakura blossoms,” he finishes, taking out a pen to record his sentiments.
“Oh my archons,” grumbles Aether, somehow almost shouting. “We get it, Kazuha, you got laid and now you’re happily in love or whatever the fuck. No need to rub it in our faces.”
Mona and Oz simultaneously attempt to cover Fischl’s ears.
Kazuha keeps his face carefully neutral for a moment, as if he’s considering. Just long enough to get Aether to feel comfortable. He watches their face for the right moment, until-
“Branches entwined like-”
“Fucking hell,” Aether groans, covering their face with their hands to muffle any further complaints.
Kazuha just grins.
Aether’s not entirely right about being happily in love. He might have thought that, once upon a time, but that’s not how life usually works. But Kazuha looks around the campfire, and he doesn’t see an astrologist, a princess and her raven, and a musician anymore. What he sees instead is a protective friend, a girl trying to figure it out, and a storyteller who will never give up. And maybe that’s love. Maybe that’s as close as he wants to be.
“I brought some fish. Peace offering,” Scaramouche says, by way of announcing his arrival. Mona glares at him for a moment, but he holds up the fish and her expression softens a little. He offers the fish, already skewered on small sticks. He jerks his head towards the fire. “I know you cook them best, so … Kazuha?”
He takes the fish with a grin. Then again, he thinks, maybe a little closer is okay too.