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Nights were difficult for Kunikuzushi, mostly because it isn’t a necessity for him to sleep, but also because there is a lot to think of in the head of someone that was erased from the world.
Some nights were harder than others, and it isn’t regret what keeps him away, it is loneliness.
Summer nights in Sumeru were warmer than Snezhnaya, only one of the reasons that kept him awake today, so he decided to take a stroll around the city, trying to tire himself out. He walks and walks around in that sleeping city, at this hour it is difficult to find someone on those desolate streets, so it’s a surprise to him when he decides to settle in a bench close to the Razan Garden and someone takes a seat beside him.
“What it is?” Lumine, obviously, she is a busybody, she likes to know everything about the people around her.
Just a few days ago she had arrived in Sumeru after being in Fontaine for quite a long time because there will be a festival in the city in a week, so she was here to enjoy it with her friends.
“Can’t I just take a walk at night? Does it really need to be something happening?” he responds a little too quickly for someone that is supposedly just walking around.
“Hey! Don’t use that tone with me young man” she scolds him, it is in moments like this that he remembers that she is in fact older than him “I know you. Something is happening, isn’t it? You can tell me, we’re friends.”
It is an overstatement, friends don't try to kill eachother, but well, he can't be picky with his closer acquaintances right now, which are like three people if he counts himself.
“How is he doing?” He whispers, praying that maybe she doesn’t listen to the question, and he also avoids Ajax name in case that she does listen.
“Fine” that was a lie, of course, Kunikuzushi knew him too well to know that the rumors of Fontaine were true, and he lived quite an adventure there. But Lumine's words mean that he was alive at least “As fine as he can, I think.”
And they both laugh, a short and quiet giggle, maybe a little nostalgic too as if the both were remembering a fond and stupid memory of the eleventh. Gods, he misses Childe a lot, in moments like this is where he notices it.
“I’m glad then.” They fall into silence, a comfortable one, and both take a moment to appreciate the moon that it is not exactly full but bright as ever. And the thought that it is this very same moon that is probably hiding itself on the gloomy skies of Snezhnaya makes him change his gaze to the floor, trying to suppress his feelings once again.
“You know... On nights like this, Childe liked to tell me stories of his childhood in Morepesok” he smiles with softness in the moment in which he remembers him talking and brushing his hair like it was something valuable “The dumbass. Always talking about his family.”
Maybe his voice cracks a little at the end, or his tearful eyes are starting to betray him because the looks that Lumine gives him isn’t a joyful one. She looks at him as if she knows every detail, as if he was brave enough to tell what happened in between the two, when in reality he just mentioned that they were more close that what it looked. Yet, Lumine looks at him like she knew that Ajax was the only person that had loved him with that much care in all of his immortal life.
“You miss him, don’t you?”
Did he? Did he really miss him? Yes, he knew that the answer was positive, but it wasn’t just that, he not only misses him, he misses bickering almost every time that they saw each other, he too misses the times were Childe was reckless and stupid, and asked to spar with him knowing well that he was going to lose, he misses his warm touch, even more on nights like this were the ginger tried to help him to fall asleep.
But more importantly, he not only misses him but he yearns every night for Childe to remember him, and that is impossible, all is gone now, the memories, the nights together, the love, all gone.
Sometimes, when the moon is shining bright in the sky, Kunikuzushi calms himself thinking that at least he had the opportunity to be loved and he took it, or that now at least he has some lovely memories to cherish, and that was better than nothing. But most nights he thinks that maybe Childe knows and remembers all too well, but Kunikuzushi isn’t there, now, there is someone else replacing him in all of those memories.
And that, that hurts a little too much in his inexistent heart.
“I do” he says, and the words leave a terrible taste in his mouth because now they feel more real.
It was ridiculous, almost laughable, he was being weak, he was telling someone what he feels. It felt strange of course, he barely told Childe what he was thinking because he knew that when the time would come the parting wouldn’t be a good one.
But now, now that all already happened, he feels more at ease talking about himself, he was starting again now, and maybe showing himself with a weakness was a way to show who he really was.
“I can’t say that I understand your pain” she says putting a hand on his back, rubbing it with her thumb “But I do try.”
It’s more comforting than what she thinks, the thought alone of having someone trying for you is recomforting, it is enough for him. And it is what makes him realise that he never gave Ajax the opportunity to really know him, maybe if he just would have given him a chance things would be different now.
“Thanks” he managed to say before breaking into tears.
He is weak.
Weaker than he would like to admit, to be longing for the love of a human, to yearn to be remembered for a mother that never treated him like her own child, to miss people that are no longer alive and haven’t been for a long time is stupid, useless, painful. But it is a part of him, one that he can’t get rid of.
“And why are you crying?” he says in between sobs when he realizes that at his side she was sobbing too.
“I miss my family too” she mutters with sadness and while Kunikuzushi doesn’t know a lot about it, he is conscious of how much she loves his missing brother.
He realizes now that maybe Lumine understands better than what she can imagine.