Chapter Text
Hoshi Kirara, as Kinji’s learning, is odd.
Oh, he likes odd. Especially that odd with fire burning in one’s eyes, setting stars aflame while they dot the night sky with constellations untold, their stories begging to shine. That odd that precedes either ruin or wealth, the odd that comes before everything in the world, but before all that – the very existence of oneself, for who is one without a special sort of oddness?
But he’s odd in the blandest way possible, not a single spark of fervor dancing in those eyes. Not a single whisper of pages unfolding, not a single whisper of words to be lain on bare pages, naked for the eyes to see. Hoshi’s eyes are brown, not even hazel – they deserve no fancy descriptors, no flowers adorning their boring, bland, bland, bland. Hoshi’s hair is brown – not a fanciful brown at all, but a mere mousy sorrel that lies under bracken.
He looks exactly like the picture-perfect student in Japan; unnoticeable by the public eye, adored by people around the world in those stupid slice-of-life anime, meek and quiet. Like the ones Kinji hated, back when he actually cared about life. Those brown stare up at Gojo with pure attentiveness, and Kinji scoffs, more out of disappointment than anything, because he wants Hoshi to have something to make this worth the shitshow it’s turning out to be.
“Sooo,” Gojo begins, the hints of a melody floating through his tone, and Kinji turns to face his new teacher with a heavy thump on his chair, eyes bored and floating with an olden song that begs for freedom. “We gonna chat, or sit here like a bunch of quiet lil people? ‘Cause I’m fine with either, but–”
“It’s fine,” Hoshi whispers, cutting Gojo off with a horrified expression slowly dawning on his face, eyes widening to the size of dinner plates in seconds when he realizes he’d cut Gojo off. “I mean – I’m so sorry, Hakari-san, did you want to talk–”
“No need,” Kinji sighs, kicking his feet up on the table with a decisive thump that echoes through the room, only the pair of them there alongside Gojo. “Is there a reason there’re only two of us, or what?” he decides to ask in a sudden spurt of words, curious as to the reason. “Could only kidnap a pair, or what?”
“On the contrary,” replies Gojo smoothly, not missing a beat as a crescent arc spreads across his lips, right below silky jet clouds covering his eyes, “I could only find two to kidnap. If I found more, they’d all be chucked in here with you, fear not, Kinji, Kirara. That all?”
“One more question,” the words spill from Kinji’s lips before he can recall them back, and Hoshi turns to him, setting those shrivelled brown on him with simple curiosity in those eyes. “Hoshi, do you have a dream?”
Do you have a dream?
“To see the stars,” says Hoshi decisively, much faster than Kinji’d been expecting, for sure. “That magical moment when they come together, twinkling like jewels on a satin cushion. Peering through a telescope, looking through those warped lens–”
He cuts himself off, flushing as if he thought he’d rambled for too long, though his tone had waves of embers crashing through it, dancing with a fever Kinji knows all too well. For that one moment, Hoshi’s eyes weren’t brown, but a deep, pretty violet, lined with twinkling jewels of the sky.
“I’ll accept that,” Kinji decides on a whim, a twist of fate leading him down. “Fine answer. I liked the passion in that sentence. If you ever forget that, as your classmate, I’ll knock some sense into you, Hoshi.”
Hoshi’s eyes blink at him before nodding in a polite, perhaps bewildered confusion, meek all the same. “Okay, Hakari-san,” he murmurs – totally the type to get bullied, just saying – and Gojo nods, like he’d planned it all along. “Thank you.”
Kinji lets the faintest wisps of a smile ghost his lips before answering. “No problem, Hoshi.”
Hoshi Kirara, as he’s learned, isn’t so bad when talking about the stars. The fever comes to his eyes, easy and sweeping over the boring brown with fresh shades of beautiful purple, intoning it with the very tears of angels that bring Hoshi there. He’s odd, but so is Kinji. He’s odd–
And so is Hoshi Kirara, a star amongst silken clothes.
“Hey, Hoshi,” Kinji nudges at his classmate once Gojo sweeps out of the classroom, announcing something along the lines of “Shokoblowingupthelabokaybyetalknow!” and patting both of them on the head happily before twirling away. “Where’d you come from? I’m from the northern part of Sendai.”
“Around Morioka Prefecture,” Hoshi answers, blinking long and slow like a cow. His eyes also laxen like a cow’s, Kinji notes with amusement. “Wasn’t much around. Tourists never come to Morioka, but they go to Sendai for the mochi, don’t they? Was it fun over there?”
Kinji hums, tapping his chin as he leans back, allowing the warm stretches of spring sun wash over his relaxed figure in content. “Not much to do,” he decides to go for the blunt approach, neat and orderly and true. “It’s pretty boring, but it was home, in a way. Isn’t Morioka famous for something?”
“Mountains, maybe,” Hoshi ponders his answer for a moment before continuing on, still slow and burdened like an oxen lugging material behind it in the crops, never free for a single moment. “The occasional fascinating bird here and there, tourists only visit because they saw it in an anime or something like that. Nothing much.”
“Ehh,” Kinji drawls, low and smooth as his fingers come to dance on the tabletop, Hoshi’s eyes following his every move. “Seems like both of our hometowns don’t have much, huh? Tell me, Hoshi. Why do you only have fever when you speak of the stars?”
“Fever?” asks Hoshi, those eyelids closing over those darkened brown once more, curious and inquisitive. “What d’you mean, fever? Like sick?”
Kinji raises an eyebrow, the fire in his chest dying alongside Hoshi’s quiet tone. “Fever,” he enunciates the word, tongue slamming against his mouth. “Like the fire in your eyes. When you know something calls to you, when there’s something that tosses a match into your eyes and it explodes, bursting into a million pieces.”
Speak of those stars, Kinji wants to say, greedy for more. Speak of those stars, aligning in those eyes as they do in the skies. Talk of them, ramble, shoot, and break out of those chains that hold you down. Let those words bubble from your throat, spilling off your tongue.
“I’m not sure I get what you’re saying, Hakari-san,” Hoshi mumbles, fingers fidgeting in his Jujutsu High gakuran nervously. “I do like stars, but they’re not as interesting as everything else, much. It’s more of a girly activity than anything, there’s not really much to say about them–”
“Fine,” Kinji says, eyebrows raised at the take Hoshi has on a subject that has his eyes in such ecstasy, shoving himself up with an echoing thump on the chair. “I’ll tell you about what has my heart in a clench, then, Hoshi. Know how to play poker?”
“Poker?” Hoshi frowns, lips turning into a light pout – the closest emotion to well, anything Kinji’s seen so far. “Gambling? Isn’t that worse than smoking–”
“In the eyes of held-back people,” Kinji interrupts, still unpeeved despite Hoshi’s standard approach to the fever of his life. “But isn’t it exciting? Drawing cards, deciding which hand is the best, if you should fold and back down for another day, or how much to bet? To match, or to fold? Is this an ace, or a three? What's the right move here?"
Hoshi considers his answer rather seriously, considering the topic they're speaking of before he answers. "I suppose I get it, Hakari-san," he mumbles, oak darting to his own before back to the ground, shying away from what Kinji wants to see from him. "To each their own, right?"
"Hakari."
Hoshi's eyes dart to him, taken aback. "What?"
"Ha-ka-ri," Kinji enunciates each individual sound, air blowing between his teeth with the "Ha", the back of his tongue stuck to his throat for "Ka", and the tip of this tongue brushing the back of his teeth for "Ri." "Drop the honorific, Hoshi. We're classmates for the next foreseeable four years or so, right? Not like I'm gonna call you Hoshi-san, all respectful-like, so just call me Hakari. It's easier that way."
"Then, Hakari," Hoshi says after what seems like minutes, probably only lasting but five seconds in real time. His eyelids flutter closed over oak as he dips his head, and just for the tiniest of moments, Kinji would have sworn on anything in the world something sparkled beneath browned plains, something bright and beautiful and twinkling and dazzling and everything in between. "Let's have a good year together, I hope."
"Sure," Kinji chuckles, slapping Hoshi on the back. He lurches forward under Kinji's touch, a smile arching on his face all the same, breaking through clouds to bring a crescent on Hoshi's lips. "Drop the formalities, Hoshi. Have a good year, yeah?"