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All the curtains were closed tightly.
The spacious living room was completely immersed in the darkness, except for a couple of big, scented candles on the ground, faintly illuminating the floor.
Any hindrance out of the way. A generous number of soft pillows of all sizes was arranged on the floor, on top of a large camping mattress, right between the two candles.
Akiho threw herself enthusiastically on the pile of pillows, while Kaito lay down in a slower motion.
"...Ready?" Kaito whispered with a soft smile, as the girl next to him nodded excitedly, azure eyes shining in the dark.
One press of a button on the remote controller, and the whole ceiling turned into a sparkling planetarium.
Akiho gasped. "Oh my god...this is amazing!" she instinctively brought her hands to her face, covering partly her mouth while her voice choked up with emotion—a habit that, despite being 17 years old, she hadn't dropped yet.
The starry vault rotated very slowly, while some of the stars twinkled, giving a quite realistic effect to the scenery. Every now and then, a shooting star would appear randomly, inviting to make a wish.
Kaito looked to the side to check the reaction of the girl, pleased with himself.
The star projector had been his present for Akiho's 17th birthday, but between study, book repairs and moving out to another country, they hadn't found a moment of quiet to put it into function yet. That perfect moment had finally come on this evening of December.
Needless to say, he bought the most expensive model out there, and this particular one could even add sound effects to the experience, which he had set on “sea waves” through the remote control. The vibe it was supposed to give was "we're lying down on a deserted beach at night, in the early summer", instead of the chilling winter they were actually in.
"Kaito-san..." Akiho moved her finger up in the air, "what constellation is that one?"
He had vaguely studied astronomy as part of his magic education, but he had forgotten a lot of it. For a moment he felt the temptation to use a magic spell, but then decided against it, not wanting to upset the girl beside him. She always reprimanded him whenever he lazily tried to use his magic for the most mundane things. They hadn't found a cure for him yet, so she wanted him to keep the use of magic at the minimum to avoid any effect on his health. Therefore, he pulled himself up and reached out to the star projector, changing the little disc with a different one.
The projection changed to a similar starry vault complete with the constellations' map, and plopping down again next to her, he said with a smile "Akiho-san, that seems to be Virgo!"
"Really?! Wow, that's my zodiac sign!!" she exclaimed enthusiastically, only for her brows to furrow a moment later. "Indeed, with a bit of imagination that could look like a maiden...without a head..." she commented all serious, which caused Kaito to chuckle amusedly at her remark. "Wait, where's Pisces?"
Kaito checked the constellation map on his phone (which he had downloaded precisely for this occasion), and after a moment he indicated it, pointing his finger towards the ceiling. "Over there."
"...That one?! Oh...that's supposed to look like two fishes, but it actually looks more like a pretty flower with two stems, doesn't it?" she blurted out, laughing playfully.
"...Akiho-san..." Kaito couldn't help but chuckle again, reveling in the cheerfulness of his beloved. Nothing could bring tingles to his heart like the sound of her laughter. He gazed at her with soft eyes.
"Akiho-san...do you know the origin of your name?"
"...My name?"
"Your true one."
Akiho stared at him with curiosity, cheeks tinted slightly with a pink hue.
The topic of their true names was usually off-limits. They hadn’t made a rule about it, but being both very well acquainted with the customs of the magic world, the unspoken agreement was to never bring them up...unless the matter was serious.
"I was named after a flower, right?"
"Of course...but do you know why cosmos flowers were named that way?"
The girl stared at him, thinking for a moment about the question. She realized she had never actually thought about the reason why cosmos flowers bore that name. So, she slightly shook her head.
"Back in the 17th century, some Spanish priests found the flowers in Mexico and cultivated them in their mission gardens."
He looked away from her, turning his gaze towards the starry sky.
"Originally, Kosmos is a Greek word that means 'order' or 'harmonious arrangement'. The priests were fascinated by the orderly arranged petals of those flowers, they found them..."
He paused.
"...Breathtakingly beautiful…and perfect," his eyes were now twinkling, still fixed on the firmament over their heads. "Just like the universe, the cosmos. So, they named those flowers after it."
Akiho's heartbeat quickened, and if she knew the young man next to her well enough, his own heartbeat was doing just the same. They had spent enough time together for her to understand all too well what he was trying to say between the lines.
Kaito felt Akiho's hand searching for his, and they intertwined them silently.
"Thank you...I didn't know all of that. I've always thought that cosmos flowers were pretty, yes, but not particularly remarkable or unique... It is nice to know that the right people could see the true beauty and worth in them."
As if replying to her, she felt him squeezing her hand.
After a moment of silence, Akiho's right index finger moved up in the air once again.
"Wait, what about that one? What is its name? It's big, but the stars don't look particularly bright."
"Hmm...Aquarius, apparently. This one would be basically impossible to see by naked eye, from an urban area."
Akiho made a face once again. "The water-bearer, hmmm...” she squinted her eyes, “I can see his legs but...these constellations all seem to be missing their heads!" she blurted out, feigning annoyance.
Kaito couldn't hold it in, and burst out laughing, causing her to do the same.
Yes, she was just perfect the way she was.
☆゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜★
Kaito groggily opened his eyes in the dim light of the candles, ceiling still covered with stars. The clock of the living room showed it was 2 am.
Clinging onto his right arm, Akiho was soundly asleep next to him. Consciousness rapidly washed over him, remembering what happened.
Akiho's exploration of the starry vault had gone on for more than an hour, but at some point her remarks and answers had become more and more absentminded, till he realized she had actually fallen asleep. Smiling tenderly at her slumbering form, he had been ready to pull himself up to go pick up a blanket for her, and eventually arrange some cushions for himself farther away from the camping mattress (he didn't want to wake her up, but didn't want to leave her sleeping alone in the living room either), but he had quickly realized with dismay that she had turned to the side and literally latched onto his right arm.
He had frozen right there and then. He didn't want to wake her up, but he had started to overthink as usual—this is not appropriate, we shouldn't sleep together, what if--
The result was that the stress had made him incredibly sleepy, and after a few minutes of ruminations, Morpheus had taken a hold of him too.
Now that he was fully awake, he mentally scolded himself for falling asleep, and proceeded to do what he didn't have the heart to do before: slowly, slowly, he tried to disentangle his arm from Akiho's grip. When he managed to slip away, he rose to go picking that blanket up, because he couldn't risk Akiho catching a cold due to his imprudence.
"Where are you going?"
Her tone made him stop in his tracks immediately. Turning around, what his eyes saw made his heart drop.
Akiho was propped on her elbows, staring in his direction but not quite focused on him. She was clearly still half asleep, but what ripped Kaito's heart apart was her expression, halfway between a scowl and wanting to break into tears.
It didn't take him long to understand why she had that expression. Even after four years, the trauma he had caused her resurfaced sometimes in her dreams, upsetting her when she woke up.
"I'm just going to get a blanket...I'm not going anywhere," he answered, while painfully making sure to emphasize the last part.
Akiho blinked her eyes twice, awareness coming back to her. Her expression slowly turned into one of realization, then she looked briefly to her side, panicking. "Oh my god, I'm sorry...I didn't fall asleep on you, did I? ...I didn't want to bother you—"
"You've never bothered me once, Akiho-san."
The girl stared at him, eyes glistening.
His expression was kind, but tinged with guilt. His figure against the starry ceiling reminded her of that fateful night, when he fought his stubbornness and the monsters inside his head to go back to her.
The girl cast her eyes down and to the side, pink hue emerging on her cheeks once again. "Then...once you took that blanket...could you...could you get back here next to me?" she said softly, finding the courage to look up once again.
Kaito had already understood a long time ago that he was done for.
He knew that no matter how much he tried, he would've never been able to refuse anything to those blue eyes of hers. Especially if he wanted it himself, in the first place.
They stared at each other for a moment, before Kaito breathed out the air he was unwittingly holding and said with a smile "I'd be happy to, Akiho-san."
Akiho beamed at him, sure more than ever that there wasn't any place on this Earth or in the entire cosmos where she could've felt safer, other than next to him.