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Minamoto looks at Akane, face lax for once. “Constellations? I don’t know any.”
Akane sputters. “What do you mean you don’t know any ?”
“Hmmm, I wonder.” A hint of his usual obnoxiousness rises with the words, and Akane prepares to snap at him. “Why would you think I’d know them?”
‘I just”—Akane has to turn away, can’t handle the open, gentle curiosity on Minamoto’s face—“It seems like the kind of pretentious shit you would know.” Akane can’t resist a glance at Minamoto, finds his gaze soft, somewhat sad. I’m just… so done with everything, he hears, can map the inflections in Minamoto’s tone as if they were said aloud.
It’s gone then, replaced with his usual cheery obnoxiousness. “Nope! I didn’t have time to do something that useless!”
“Hey! It’s not useless!”
“Isn’t it?” Minamoto’s smile is cloying, but there’s still an element of softness to it, in the gentle curve at the corners of his lips. Akane finds that he can’t remember his argument.
“You should have,” he whispers. He hadn’t intended for the words to slip out, almost hopes Minamoto didn’t hear them. But he did, and the words sit heavy between them. Akane doesn’t know if it’s a line in the sand or an offering.
Minamoto’s wondering the same, Akane knows, his eyes deep and blue and searching, trying to parse Akane’s meaning when he doesn’t know it himself.
He gets to decide, he supposes. The decision weighs down on him, far greater than he expected from a stupid conversation about the constellations. He could brush it off, he knows. Could pretend he hadn’t said anything, could leave Minamoto wanting for an answer. He finds that he can’t, really. Not when Minamoto’s looking at him like the edge of a cliff, like his next words will be salvation or damnation.
“Had time, to look up at the stars,” he clarifies, knows it’s lacking. He looks away, unable to bear the weight of Minamoto’s regard for even a moment more. “It’s—you deserve to be able to do things like that, even if they are a waste.”
Again, his words surprise him in their gravity. In the way they make Minamoto shift, quick and startled. Akane keeps his eyes on the stars, can’t keep his mind from drifting, from seeing Minamoto, young and small and facing down creatures twice his size rather than going places with friends, rather than looking to the stars.
From seeing Minamoto and the childhood he never got to have.
“Teach them to me.” It’s not a question, not really, Minamoto’s tone deceptively light. It would almost be convincing, if Akane didn’t know him so well. Couldn’t hear the ever-so slight dip in his voice that would be a shake in anyone else’s.
Akane hums, picks a part of the sky at random and starts, draws on knowledge he learned to impress Ao-chan, brings it to the edge of his lips and tells it to Minamoto instead. “That’s Perseus,” he tells Minamoto, traces it out on the sky as he speaks.
Minamoto just s norts, and dodges when Akane wacks at him.
It’s a nice evening, all in all, and when Minamoto drifts off, there’s no one there to see Akane smiling at the peaceful sight of him under only the light of the stars, not worried about anything as he finally just rests .