Chapter Text
Akira is halfway through a slice of castella cake he traded Oboromaru a taiyaki for when he realizes that the Sundown Kid, sitting next to him, isn't eating anything. He's not the only one, of course—in lieu of being able to join everyone for snack time, Cube is futzing around trying to make themself useful by offering to transport traded food across the little circle they're all sitting in—but he is the only human who hasn't eaten anything yet. "Hey. You got any food on you?"
"Nope." The cowboy leans back a little, infuriatingly brief as always. Akira gives him a look and peers into his mind, but he's not met with much else, other than the slightly elaborative thought that the carrots in his pocket are for his horse, should they ever actually find it.
"Your horse can eat the damn grass, dude, but that's not enough for people," Akira says, and Sundown startles a little at having his inner thoughts responded to so directly. "If you don't just wanna go around eating raw veggies, I've got some snacks you can have."
Sundown's expression remains stoic as always, but Akira detects some skepticism in his thoughts. "Not too fond of sweets," he clarifies.
"Oh." Akira rustles around in his pockets even though he already knows it's only taiyaki and a second slice of castella in there. He'll probably have another piece of cake before long, seeing how quickly the shinobi's demolishing the taiyaki he's holding. "Well, you should still try to eat something, you know. Hey, Lei, don't you have pork buns? I'll trade you somethin' for one."
"I don't need you to trade me for anything. If he hasn't had anything to eat, then I'll offer it freely." She offers Sundown a bun, and he takes it silently, nodding slightly. Akira continues to stare at him until he starts to eat, though the intensity of his gaze combined with him stuffing cake in his mouth leaves several members of the group biting back a chuckle.
"Don't look much like the mothering sort," Sundown observes between bites of dumpling. Akira snorts, unsure whether he's being complimented or dragged. A quick peek with his powers confirms it's the former, so he lets it go.
"I just don't need you keeling over in the middle of a fight. I can heal you if you get hurt, but I can't do shit about it if you're starving."
An afternoon without a snack break has never been what caused anyone to starve, and everyone knows it, but it goes unremarked upon as Sundown continues to eat the pork bun. Akira, for his part, is certainly not about to clarify that he just felt bad about him being left out while everyone else got to unwind with something delicious. "Pretty good," Sundown says, tipping his hat to Lei. "My thanks."
"I didn't make them, but I will take your compliments to the one that did when I return." She takes a bite of a taiyaki, and Akira realizes she traded another bun for it from Oboromaru, who is counting the slices of castella cake he's still got lined up on a carrying cloth. He doesn't even need to read his mind to tell what he's thinking; Akira wordlessly hands another taiyaki over to him, and Oboromaru almost bashfully gives him a slice of cake in return, nodding silently in thanks. Lei turns to Akira, a softer expression than normal that he charitably decides is a smile on her face. "This is a wonderful treat."
Akira pauses, eyebrows furrowing slightly. "Thanks." He is the one who made them, of course, but if he had the chance to tell Matsu someone liked his recipe, he would jump at the chance to deliver the news, and something funny settles in his chest as the quiet, almost casual thought occurs to him that he can't.
He doesn't mean to bring the mood down, but the curt, clipped way the word comes out is enough to indicate his thoughts have taken a turn for the worse, and no one is really sure how to respond. Sundown sighs quietly. "You make 'em?"
"Yeah. Still not as good as the guy who taught me, but I'll get there." Akira finishes off his first slice of castella cake and wraps up the rest of his treats for later. "Glad I could share 'em, at least."
Sundown and Lei exchange glances, having more or less sussed out that the mood has shifted significantly. Sundown stands up abruptly. "I'm gonna look for my horse."
"Huh?" Akira puts up a hand in a 'stop' motion, as though it'll do anything—though he puts it down once he sees Sundown tense up a little, like he's expecting something to happen. He's so used to an environment where people don't even blink at his powers anymore that he'd almost forgotten what it was like to be around people who aren't familiar with them. "On your own?"
"'Course not. You're comin' with me."
"Why me?!" Akira snaps.
Sundown wordlessly points at everyone else, who are all still eating. Cube revs their wheels and decides to start gathering flowers to hand out to everyone as soon as they realize Akira is giving them a look of scrutiny.
"You should go with him," Lei says, not missing a beat. "You're good at taking out large hordes of monsters, but that strange weapon he uses seems best for single combat."
Akira grimaces. She's right, but he was going to take a nap…with a put-upon groan, he gets to his feet, dusting off his butt with his hands. "Fine, whatever. I'll bring the geezer back in one piece."
Lei gives him a wave, a gesture Masaru and Pogo both notice and replicate as the two of them trundle off together.
"Pain in the ass," Akira mutters, kicking a rock. "What color is your horse?"
"Brown."
It's also probably the only horse they'll run into, given how dead the whole place has been aside from the hordes of monsters, but one never knows when you're in an alternate dimension, Akira supposes. "You give it a name? Anything we can call it with?" he asks. Sundown shrugs in response. Akira's not entirely surprised. "You don't have, like, a whistle for it or something?" Sundown shakes his head, eliciting a groan of exasperation. "What the hell were you gonna do if it ran off on you, moron?"
Sundown opts not to even gesture to respond to that question, so Akira narrows his eyes and takes a peek.
Figure that'd mean it was time.
Akira stops mid-step, but Sundown keeps going, clearly hearing his companion pause but not especially caring about it. "Hey!" Sundown's poncho is rough in Akira's fist as he reaches out and grabs it, yanking him back. "The fuck are you thinking?" he growls. Sundown, predictably, looks over at him for a moment before refusing to dignify the question with a response. Akira holds onto him for what feels like an eternity, but if he doesn't let go, he knows they really will just be standing there in silence forever. That stubborn expression in the cowboy's eyes is something he recognizes, after all.
He lets go, swearing foully under his breath. "None of that shit while we're all together, you hear me?" He's seen enough—no, he's seen too much, already. One person making the choice to die in front of him is too many.
"'Course not." Sundown peers down at him. "Ain't like I plan to go quietly. And not here."
"Oh, I'm sure," Akira mutters bitterly. He's trying so hard not to be in his own feelings about this, because it really is none of his business, but he can't help it. His own wounds are too fresh for him to know how to deal with the way the man in front of him is dealing with his own painful scars. "But you're planning to go at some point, aren't you?"
"We all do eventually." It's not what he meant, and Akira knows he knows it, but this is a point he's not particularly interested in pursuing, because he doesn't like the cowboy's worldly tone, all of a sudden. "Ain't got much interest in tellin' my story, though."
"You don't have to," Akira grumbles, but when he reaches out to see what the Sundown Kid is thinking of, he's met with stark silence—vocal and mental. "Intentionally keeping your head empty, huh? Well, whatever."
Sundown seems more tense than usual. Akira hasn't known him for very long at all, just a few hours at the most, but he can tell even from that long that being alone with someone who can read his mind really has him on edge. But even so, he asked him to accompany him alone anyway.
If he won't think about it, there's only one way to find out why, then.
"We're not really looking for your horse, are we?" Akira asks.
Sundown doesn't answer at first, and Akira is just about ready to give up on getting one, but then the cowboy squares his shoulders in determination. "Can't read minds myself, but you wear your heart on your sleeve, and it's hurtin' somethin' fierce. Thought you might like to bounce it off of someone who won't talk back."
Akira squints at him, and Sundown does a half-turn to look him in the eye again. His expression says Don't even think about it. "I already tried and I didn't see anything. Awfully funny that you, of all people, are asking me to start spilling my tragic backstory."
Sundown shrugs, clearly not intent on arguing about this. The offer's been made, so he doesn't have anything else to say, which is the only thing that Akira can filter out from his otherwise silent mind. What kind of mental prowess does this guy have, to be able to shut down all the rest of his thoughts like this?
"We'll head back if you're set, kid," he says.
After a lengthy period of silence, he takes a few steps back toward where the rest of the group is still partaking of their snacks, taking Akira's lack of response as confirmation that he'd like to do just that. But it's only once he realizes he's losing his chance that he shoves his hands in his pockets, hunches his shoulders, and says, in a halting voice, "The guy who taught me how to make taiyaki…he died. Pretty recently." His tone turns slightly accusatory as he continues, "Ran off and got himself killed. I bet he wasn't even thinking about the people he was gonna leave behind."
That's not true, though, and Akira knows it. It's because Matsu was thinking of everyone so much in the first place that he even put himself in harm's way to begin with. All because Akira couldn't move the Steel Titan himself, and because neither of them would let Kaori sacrifice herself to get the thing going either.
If it was repentance for killing his father, it's a repentance Akira never asked for or wanted. There are a million things he wants to say that he'll never be able to, now that Matsu's burned out just as spectacularly as he lived. It's not fair that he only thought of them after it was too late.
He bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from tearing up. He's not afraid of crying, but the last thing Sundown needs is to deal with that kind of mess.
"Just hurts, that's all. I'll get over it. Don't worry about me."
Sundown's expression is inscrutable, as always, but Akira thinks there's a gentleness that he hasn't seen before in his eyes, just for a moment. There's barely a fragment of a sentence lingering in his mind.
...about the same age, if...
Before Akira can seize on the bit he's found, though, Sundown responds, "You're worryin' about me, ain't you? It's only fair to give a little back."
"I'm not worried. What do I care if some dusty old man starves in the desert?" Akira waves a flippant hand. "Just spare a thought for the people who'll be sad to see you go, will you?"
"There ain't anyone like that anymore." Sundown puts a hand on his hat and tilts it just enough to hide the top of his face from view. "Like I said, though, kid…I'm not goin' down without a fight. If I die, then I'll face it. But 'til then…I've got some unfinished business."
Akira scoffs wetly, coughing around the lump in his throat. Words that could've been ripped from Matsu's lips if he ever heard them. "Yeah, well. It's on hold until we figure out what the hell's going on."
"Naturally."
When they return to camp, Pogo and Masaru have just finished stamping out the makeshift fire they'd put together. Cube chimes musically to alert everyone that Akira and Sundown are back, doing a cute little dance in place.
"Didn't find your horse, huh?" Masaru asks.
Sundown shrugs, shaking his head.
"Are you feeling better?" Lei peers curiously at Akira. He waves her off. Sundown nods in her direction, and she relents, helping Oboromaru sweep away any traces that anyone had been camping.
Seems a little overkill when Cube's tread trails are a dead giveaway for their location at any given time, but far be it from Akira to tell people they're being extra, especially if they're not making him pitch in.
Sundown sidles up next to him, puts a grizzled hand on his shoulder for a second. "Next time we take a break, I'll have one of yer…tie-yackies."
Akira is two seconds from asking him to repeat himself before he realizes what he's trying to say is 'taiyaki,' and rather than responding in any real meaningful manner, he just squawks the reprehensible pronunciation back at him, drawing a hearty chuckle from Masaru and dissolving into a fit of ungraceful laughter himself. He hears Oboromaru cough a little too.
Sundown lowers his hat again, but Akira doesn't have to read his mind to catch that hint of a slightly embarrassed smile tugging at the corners of his mouth for the split second he can see it.