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Coruscant's Jedi Temple, like everything on Coruscant, is absurdly large, easy to get lost in. Though the Jedi Masters and Knights swear they keep perfect track of every Force sensitive being, especially the Padawans under this temple's care, it feels like it would be easy to drown in the crowd.
The problem, Masters Rei, Kataoka and Kunitomo had said, was that both boys simply shined a little too brightly to ever be ignored.
Especially by each other.
Kazuya is sneaking out of the Temple Precinct when he meets Mei, on his way to see his father and offer him some credits that he's won from fellow (older) Padawans in silly games of betting. Kazuya always wins, he wins in a few practice spars with training blades, too, and he does well in lessons... None of them like him very much.
They won't stop him from his escape, though. With great effort and concentration, despite his age, Kazuya is able to push the older kids back away from him just enough to scare them. He's shivering from it, that much of the Force responding to him, seeming to flow through him, and misses another Padawan's presence until it's too late.
Mei appears right in front of him, wide-eyed with excitement instead of alarm like Kazuya. He's too close, but Kazuya doesn't know how to push him away like he had done with everyone else.
"I knew it," the stranger says, all hushed thrill. "I knew there was someone really strong around here. I could just... feel it."
Him? The boy means him?
"How?"
This makes Mei wrinkle his nose, frown, tilt his head to the side just so.
"What do you mean? You just did that, but you can't sense other Force users?"
He makes it sound easy. Kazuya feels a little flushed in embarrassment.
"The Force doesn't work the same for everyone, it--"
"-- works in mysterious ways, yeah, I know," Mei finishes, rolling his eyes. "Where are you going?"
"None of your business," Kazuya replies, curt.
They're still standing very close to each other, making eye contact. It's uncomfortable that it isn't uncomfortable.
"Let me come, too," Mei asks.
Kazuya opens his mouth to refuse, but "fine" comes out instead. Mysterious indeed.
Mei pumps his fist in the air and Kazuya turns to continue along his route to get out of the Jedi's grounds, intent on making sure he doesn't check if Mei is following.
He is.
Moments later, in the quiet of winding paths that honestly need some cleaning, Mei nudges him.
"I'm Mei, by the way."
"Kazuya," he mumbles in return, and nudges him back, annoyed. "Now shush."
Kazuya can't get rid of him after that, even though he had made Mei wait a few streets over so as not to reveal where his father lived, just in case. Kazuya's not sure why he's worried like that, but he carries the fear anyway. If he pokes at that fear, looks inside himself like they're supposed to do in meditation, he assumes it's from losing his mother.
Kazuya prefers not to meditate, really.
Soon he finds out that Mei prefers not to, either, but that's mostly because he can't keep still.
Ever since they met, Mei has stuck to Kazuya like glue, and Kazuya reluctantly admits to himself that Mei is kind of fun and it's sort of nice to have a... companion here, where everything feels so big. Kazuya feels less small with Mei next to him.
He's a menace, though, who boasts too frequently, for one thing, and overall seems very much not like someone who can follow the Jedi Code. Kazuya is aware that he's breaking it now himself, which maybe doesn't make him a very good Padawan, but that's what training is for.
(Even though it makes him feel very uneasy to think of his training resulting in never seeing his father again. Is he supposed to stop loving him? Will his father forget him?)
There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.
Kazuya repeats that to himself during meditations and before he falls asleep as well. He can't reconcile some of it. He thinks of a loud blond boy who is all emotion, passion and chaos and wonders how he's going to become a Jedi. He thinks of himself and wonders about peace, wonders how the Code can say 'there is no death' when his own life is in such stark contrast with that.
It nags at him, always, during every lesson. Each time they practice. Despite the doubt, Kazuya improves. So does Mei. They're some of the most promising Padawans. Mei doesn't shut up about how they'll soon be able to get their own real lightsabers and how he's already planning on what he wants to make his from.
None of the Jedi Masters mention a family, Kazuya notices. He's been paying attention since he came to the temple, and now has begun to notice that they never mention any partners like his parents had been. They do mention friends. Friends, it seems, are allowed.
So Mei is his friend and that much is allowed, Kazuya decides.
It still worries him, even as he joins Mei in his dorm room and listens to him blabber on about what crystals he thinks will be right for them, even though Kazuya keeps reminding him that it's about whatever stone resonates with them. There's no choice involved on their part.
"Doesn't matter, I know I'm right. Watch. You're going to come back with a Lorrdian crystal in your blade and I'm going to laugh at you. Don't even try to get out of admitting I was right, Kazuya!"
Years later, Kazuya hears that faint 'song' that so many Jedi have tried to explain to them. He just knows it. There is a humming in the cave, coaxing Kazuya down a particular freezing path out of many others, something that sounds gentle and comforting. He's reminded of his mother, somehow, but pushes the thought aside.
He scrambles over rocks with shaky, stiff hands, following the melody that seems to be in his head at the same time it's within the rock around him. Eventually, Kazuya shuts his eyes like they do during blaster bolt training and lets his senses guide him. Something compels him to reach out, his fingers awkward when closing around something -- but it feels right.
Kazuya opens his eyes.
"Damnit," he mumbles to himself, the song now gone, replaced with only Mei's obnoxiously prideful voice in his memories.
Mei laughs for literal hours when Kazuya meets up with him, his own Sorian crystal clutched in his fist. That's exactly what Mei had predicted for himself, too, and it irritates Kazuya very deeply. It's not so much the embarrassment of having to actually say 'you were right, Mei' (which he does have to say), but it's the continued confusion of how Mei can be so very different than what the Jedi Code and teachings seem to demand from them and yet be so in-tune with the Force anyway.
Despite the intimacy of it, neither of them had needed a formal invitation from the other to build their lightsabers together. They simply do, on an open terrace in the temple that lets them see the stars in the sky and the lights of Coruscant that resemble them. It's a slow, careful process for Kazuya, each piece feeling heavy with the duty of carrying a weapon like this.
Mei finishes first and turns to watch him, which Kazuya feels is a little intrusive, truthfully, but he allows it for the sake of not breaking his own concentration and process further.
When finished, Mei grins at him, nearly bouncing despite sitting cross-legged like he should be for meditation's sake. "Light 'em up at the same time? I wanna see!"
Kazuya feels oddly nervous, so he nods, relieved he doesn't have to go first, go alone.
They countdown simultaneously and silently, only needing a nod to begin.
Mei's lightsaber is a bronze color, which Kazuya knows is quite rare. A brighter, more orange color is already rare in itself, but this shade, leaning into brown, is only shared by one Jedi Knight in their temple. Perhaps elsewhere in the galaxy, but...
Kazuya's is blue. Very blue. Bright, almost painfully blue with how it blazes in front of him.
"Yours looks like the sky on those flowery planets where it never gets cloudy," Mei says, chuckling. "Mine is..." It's a shockingly rare event, but Mei goes quiet. He looks at his lightsaber very seriously, tilts it side to side. Kazuya watches with wide eyes as it seems to burn, like there are flames in the blade, despite how impossible it is. It's intimidating, honestly.
He takes a moment to imagine Mei as a proper Jedi Knight and feels sorry for the people standing across from him, at the mercy of a blade like that.
"It's special," Mei finishes, nodding like that word finally satisfies him.
"It's weird," Kazuya says instead, teasing him a little. "And kind of ugly? It's... brown? Aren't you disappointed?"
Mei's cheeks puff up, he raises his hackles both physically (figuratively) and emotionally, scowls at him.
"No, it's not. It's good. It's like... amber."
Kazuya snorts.
"That's not amber. Amber is way more yellow. You don't even know your colors, that's why you got a boring one. And you still got it wrong."
"Whatever!" Mei says in a huff, abruptly standing up, seemingly taking far more offense to this than Kazuya intended to cause. "It's the color of your eyes sometimes, when we're off-planet somewhere that has a sun. Maybe. I don't know. Whatever. Whatever color you want to call that, then."
He leaves in a rush, his blade deactivated. Kazuya feels dizzy with the sudden flood of alarm and guilt. He's never made Mei genuinely angry like that before, nor has he ever apologized to anyone. Mei is his first and, currently, only friend.
Emotion. Passion. Chaos. Certainly no peace. Kazuya doesn't understand.
He goes to his dorm and stares at the ceiling and wonders what his eyes look like in the sun. Which sun? Which planets? What about on a planet with multiple suns? Why does Mei know?
Kazuya rolls on his side and stares at the hilt of his own lightsaber now, carefully lifts it and ignites it at an angle that won't leave a hole in the wall of his dorm room.
It's a lighter blue, a brighter one, than he's seen many others carrying. The shade is different.
If Kazuya closes his eyes, a comparison comes to mind's eye.
He turns off his saber, squeezes his eyes shut so tightly he can't see an image in his head anymore.
There is no emotion, he repeats to himself, even though there's a storm of them inside his heart. Only peace, Kazuya thinks and wishes with everything he is for that peace to come to him.
He does not sleep well.
The next day, it's like nothing happened.
They sit next to each other during morning meditation and Mei nudges him in the side until Kazuya opens his eyes and sees Mei just grinning at him, for no apparent reason at all.
Kazuya grins back despite himself, probably just because the relief that he hasn't ruined his friendship with Mei is too strong. He bumps him back and tries to look reproachful, then, tilts his chin up in the direction of the Master reading very low and quietly to them. Mei sticks his tongue out.
Kazuya feels some knots in him relax, but his chest is still tight with something that he cannot and will not name.
Everything is normal. Mei is still annoyed that Kazuya is so much better at deflecting shots from a blaster during practice than he is. It actually feels like he's improved since he's gotten his saber, like he's in position to receive and deflect the bolt before it's even finished firing. It feels good.
He relaxes.
Peace.
Chaos.
They spar, now, which is probably not, strictly speaking, allowed. Mei encourages him anyway, and his reasons make sense to Kazuya -- they have to have experience going against a real person, someone fighting with the same stakes as them, not just a Knight or Master who are holding back to such intense degrees.
The problem is that Mei is impulsive and had failed to account for a feature of his particular crystal. It's a strong mineral that tends to create a shockwave of sorts when it strikes something. As Mei has bonded with his blade, this ability has strengthened.
Kazuya sees it coming, he just can't stop. Or maybe just doesn't.
Mei's lightsaber hits his with a fierce blow and it sends Kazuya off his feet, hitting the ground, the impact enough to send him sliding back a little, too, even once he's flat on his back.
"Shitshitshit," Mei is saying. It sounds more distant than it is, than it can be, but Kazuya just holds up a hand to try and signal that he's okay. His back hurts, but he's oddly proud of Mei for that strike.
Mei's at his side so quickly, on his knees, a palm brushing through Kazuya's hair as he tries to find if there's any bumps, any blood from the impact.
"Are you okay? Do you know what day it is? How old are you? Where are we? What's my name?"
"I hit my back, not my head..." Kazuya grumbles, squinting up at him.
"Answer the questions!?"
"That was a really good swing, though. You have a good arm."
Mei lets out a distressed sound, something like a sob, but it sounds weirdly like a laugh too.
"You are so stupid," Mei says in a rush, and Kazuya closes his eyes, chooses not to see anything coming at all, takes his hand off his lightsaber so that it can't help him.
(Mei had revealed that to him one night, indignant. Kazuya's Lorrdian crystal tends to bond with its user and give them a sense of what's to come. Like reading the future, in small doses. It seems invaluable in battle, so Kazuya is pleased with it, but unsure why Mei was so certain that it would suit him.)
So there's nothing at all in the world to tell him that Mei leans down and puts his lips on Kazuya's in that moment. Nothing at all aside from all the nights he's been lying awake in turmoil, thinking about Mei and the color of their eyes of all things, Mei's smile, Mei's laugh, Mei Mei Mei, the boy who insisted on being with him and won't leave.
Attachment. Emotion.
Kazuya kisses him back.
Passion.
Mei's fingers in his hair, actual tears now dripping down onto Kazuya's cheeks.
Mei.
Mei who makes so little sense and yet all the sense in the world to Kazuya at the same time. Mei who has no business being a Jedi according to the Code but has some of the most promise in the entire temple.
Mei, his best friend.
And in this moment, despite being roughed up from their spar, despite the tears, their racing hearts, the messy, overly eager way that Mei is kissing him -- peace.