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In hindsight, Kabru doesn’t know what woke him. By the time his eyes flutter open, the small room greets him with the dark, heavy velvet silence of the middle of the night; no light to have woken him up, no sound beside Mithrun’s soft breathing beside him.
Must have been the insomnia, then. Kabru closes his eyes for a few minutes, tries to fall back asleep, but it’s no use. He is wide awake, thoughts racing despite the hour, and if he knows himself well, that’s a fact not likely to change anytime soon. Thus, with a heavy heart, he sits up and pads out of bed, over to his desk. Might as well help along a little.
At this time in June, even the stone floor under his feet is no longer cold. A warm, mellow breeze breathes through the windows, carrying the overwhelmingly sweet smell of the jasmine that drowns the courtyards every year for a summer’s week or two. Kabru barely notices it at this point; he’ll only miss it when it’s gone. Right now, he is too preoccupied rummaging through the drawers of his desk with as little noise as possible, looking for the sake he knows he keeps in here somewhere, a gift from the East. There have been many days like this, and Kabru has always made sure to be clever and plan ahead.
The bottle uncorks with a plop. He’s not planning on drinking much tonight—just a bit, enough to get his head spinning when he lies down and the thoughts to quiet down a bit. Kabru has developed other, arguably better coping mechanisms over time, but a bottle and some half an hour of a spinning mind, just to drown out the thoughts, have rarely failed him before.
He doesn’t realise he woke up Mithrun until he hears the shuffle of bedsheets and a yawn behind him. “Can’t sleep?” His voice is soft, almost drowsy. He can’t be awake for longer than a few moments.
Kabru puts the bottle down like a child caught stealing sweets, too-fast and with a pang of guilt. “Sorry,” he answers. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“It’s alright. I don’t mind.” The worst thing is, Mithrun’s probably serious about it, too. Kabru doesn’t deserve him.
In any case, it feels weird to drink himself to sleep while Mithrun is here, so, with nothing else to do, he walks back to the bed, dropping himself in the soft sheets. “I just couldn’t sleep,” he says, mumbled half into the rough linen of his pillow. “Guess there were just too many thoughts in my head to stay asleep. It happens.”
“Utaya?” Mithrun’s cool palm brushes the hair from his temple. Kabru turns to lie on his back, leaning into the touch.
“Among other things. There’s a lot to think about.”
“Isn’t there always,” Mithrun answers, but he shuffles over until they lie close enough that Kabru can see the faint silver of his eye, even in the dark. His palm brushes the locks from Kabru’s forehead, comfortably cool. “Do you want me to cast a sleeping spell?”
“Not right now. I think I’d rather want to stay awake and talk for a while, if that’s alright with you.”
“Of course. I don't particularily want to go to sleep either.” A corner of Mithrun’s mouth quirks up at his own joke. “Tell me about what’s happening in the castle?”
Kabru hums. “Have I ever told you about the upcoming diplomatic delegation from the Eastern Archipelago?”
“A while ago, when negotiations were still going. It’s a done deal now?”
“Toshiro finally managed to convince his father to take up official diplomatic relations with Merini. You should have seen Laios’ face when he broke the news. I haven’t seen him that happy in ages.”
Conversation flows easy between them. They talk about trade routes, Mithrun’s latest escapades in cooking, the success of Rin’s newly-opened pharmacy with the same ease that accompanies them so often these days. It comes as little of a surprise to either of them even when conversation shifts towards the dungeon; despite years passing, that disastrous first trip of theirs has become as much of a staple topic of conversation as their fight against the demon. Not necessarily a pleasant memory by any means, but omni-present enough to not be able to avoid it, either. It’s fine—things have gotten a lot better since then, after all.
“Remember the Doppelgänger?” Kabru asks. “I was terrified to run into one initially, but it turned out to be no problem at all. You took care of it before I could even begin to figure out a plan.” With a pang of fond annoyance, he remembers the Kabru-clone he took so much offense with back then. “Not that we would have needed one anyway. My clone wasn’t exactly…” He drifts off. For a long moment, nothing. “I wonder if it would look any different now.”
For just a moment, Mithrun stills. “You don’t think so?”
“It’s fine. I wouldn’t blame you for an imperfect copy, you know?” Kabru sighs, shifts a bit into the comfort of the conversation. “Not everybody is a chronic people analyzer like me, thank God.”
Fingers ghost across Kabru’s forehead, tangle in the dark bedhead-mess of his curls. “I think I know the important things by now.”
“Yeah?”
Mithrun pushes himself up on his forearm, ungracefully shifting closer. He reaches out until they touch in more places than not, despite the June summer warmth, sweaty and dangerously close to uncomfortable: tangled legs, an arm thrown across Kabru’s chest
“You’re smart, and dangerous, and skilled at talking to people—even more so at spotting a lie. Laios would have been overthrown thrice by now without you by his side.”
Kabru huffs a laugh, but it glows with entirely too much fondness. He hadn’t thought Mithrun would actually answer, much less compliment him. It’s nice. “Can’t help it,” he says. “Somebody has to do it.”
“But not everybody could.” Mithrun’s fingertips dance across his forehead, his jaw, the line of his throat, barely more than a ghost’s touch. Less than deliberate, more than accidental. For a moment, they settle on a spot at the base of his neck. “You got that scar when you accidentally opened a mimic’s chest, but you’re embarrassed by that, so you tell people you got it in the fight against the demon.”
Kabru flinches at that, cheeks burning with embarrassment. “Hey now, that’s—” But he can’t even defend himself without sounding too pathetic. Mithrun knows him too well, a fact Kabru laments more by the minute. “What else?”
Mithrun hums in consideration. After a moment, he continues, “You’re still bad at cooking, even after Senshi tried to teach you. And…you never tell anybody what you truly think, because you are afraid of the rejection that might follow. You manipulate people to like you.” A pause. “Even if they’d like you regardless.”
Kabru’s heart drops at the words, but there is no change in Mithrun’s voice that would suggest resentment, even judgement. He knows he should be uncomfortable; Mithrun just said it himself. It should terrify him. It does. And yet—
At the same time, there is a strange comfort to be found in those words. Here is somebody who has seen Kabru at his very worst, lists his ugliest and most unpleasant traits along with the nice ones without hesitation and yet, for reasons Kabru can barely begin to fathom, still stays. This in itself is something adjacent to a miracle.
By now, Mithrun’s voice and his soft touch have managed to calm down Kabru enough to make him comfortable and warm and settled; he feels sleep tugging at the seams of his consciousness, welcome like an old friend. Yet Kabru still fights it, if only momentarily, to turn to his side and look at Mithrun directly. “You sure know a lot of things about me,” he mumbles. “Keeping a list or something?”
“Just the important ones.” Mithrun’s thumb brushes over Kabru’s half-closed lids. He stifles a yawn. “I want to remember.” It’s as close to an I love you as Kabru will ever hear.
“We’d have to test it on a real Doppelgänger sometime.” Kabru, already half asleep, frowns; thinks. “Actually, let’s not. I’ve had enough of those for now.”
The last thing he hears before falling asleep is Mithrun’s soft laugh.