Fandom: Wish
Character/s: Kohaku, Koryuu
Words: 578
Notes: 50k30days, Oct 11th. Started out with Koryuu holding chibi!Kohaku, but I realised that wouldn't work, so the prompt became a little more abstract than we like.
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For an angel who had slept away the last hundred years, the earth was a loud, busy place. For an angel who had slept away those hundred years for a mere half-century with the human she loved, for an angel whose love had been taken from her once again, the earth was a loud, busy place that nevertheless seemed cold and lonely.
It was worse at night. So much worse. She had become so used to warm hands, so used to Shuichiro's solid presence at her back, that the night, now, was unbearable. None of Hisui's kind words, none of Kokuyo's carefully weighted and barbed jibes could change that.
She missed him. She missed him so much, and he wasn't coming back, this time; she had no promise from God, this lifetime, and he was gone again, and she felt-- she felt--
"Hey. ...Kohaku."
The thick, feathered shell of her wings muffled the voice, but she would always recognise it. She pulled her wings tighter about her. She didn't want to deal with Koryuu. Not now.
"Hey," he said again. She felt his hands along her pinfeathers, and hunched her shoulders against the touch. "C'mon, open up. Hey. Bubblebutt. I did not come up here just to be ignored by a fat featherpod."
Kohaku's chest heaved. "Go away, Koryuu," she managed, words trailing away miserably with the final syllable. She heard a snort, and his hands moved higher, over pinions, forcing his fingers around and between her makeshift shield. He prised her wings apart, more carefully than she'd thought him capable of, and suddenly she was looking at his pale, pointed face, calm and serious for a change.
"Hey," he said again, and squirmed forward, neck and shoulders forcing the crack further apart. She pulled back her wings, trying to stifle her sobs, but her breathing wouldn't come under control.
"W-w-what do you want?"
He watched her carefully for a moment, looked down at his hands, not ashamed, but wary. "Do you. I. Would you have wanted to know?"
She stared at him. "What?"
"Would you have wanted to know he was dying," Koryuu clarified. "Would it. I mean," and here he sighed, flushing a little. "Would it have helped."
She could feel herself turning red, could feel a shout building in her stomach, and she whispered to try to cut it off; hissed, instead, "You knew."
"Same as last time," he agreed, and wouldn't look her in the eye. "Would it have helped?" His hands were on her knees; she clenched her fists around them. He didn't look at her, just grit his teeth and stared off to the side. Would it have helped?
"No." She heard herself, calmly. "No. Better not to know. It would have," voice breaking, "it would have been so hard. I wanted to spend all the time I could with him. Happy."
"That's what I thought." He smiled, barely, leaned forward and butted his forehead against hers. "So quit cryin'. You did, didn't you?" He ruffled her hair, withdrew from the shield of feathers, far looser than they had been before. She let her wings fall back, watched him as he rose and walked away, watched him gather himself before he left the room, gather that cloak of shadow and mischief back around himself.
"Don't think I'm gonna go easy on you while you're wussing it out, crybaby," he sneered, and slipped outside. She smiled, and wept, and silently, silently blessed him.