Crows Fly Away
There were very few things that could excite Yuu Kanda. Today was one of those days. It was winter in Paris, and in the samurai's opinion, Paris was better enjoyed during spring or summer, not when snow and slush clogged the streets. But he could not be picky with time.
He had forgone his standard issue exorcist uniform for today, choosing instead to dress in civilian clothing – a taupe trench coat, good leather boots and a woolen cap on his head.
He turns to his companion, thinking that civilian clothing – at least, civilian clothing from his part of the world – suited him.
"It's a tower," the red-eyed man with very pronounced tear troughs murmur quietly as he takes on the grand and imposing form of the Eiffel Tower. "Made of steel."
"It is," Kanda agrees, and he too tilts his head upward. But he glances at his companion, and Itachi's tilted neck offers him a sense of height that the tower cannot equal. "Some call it a scar on the beautiful face of Paris, but I don't really care about that."
Itachi turns to him with a smile. "Can we climb up?"
They do.
Elbowing his way through the tourist crowd up above, Kanda is determined not to let go of the shinobi's hand in his own. He'd insisted that Itachi wear gloves but the ninja refused, and when Itachi refused, one did not push.
They reach the railing and beneath them, Paris spreads out like a silver-gray dream of snow, cars, carriages and people.
"This is Paris," he tells Itachi. "I wasn't born here, but I consider this my city, my home."
"Because of your lifetimes spent on it," Itachi answers him sagely.
Kanda nods. "Because of my lifetimes I've spent, yes."
He buys freshly-baked bagels for himself and Itachi, and they eat them as they walk through the streets, with snow falling lightly from the sky.
Kanda is surprised that Itachi has never tried coffee before.
He buys a huge cup of coffee, his favorite – a latte with double espresso – and they share it, and each sip spreads warmth to their fingers, and Itachi holds the cup with two hands, sipping the drink carefully, and as he does so Kanda watches him and Kanda thinks that Itachi's eyes are most beautiful when they are normal black.
The Tuileries is not in its best during winter, and he tells Itachi this, and promises that the next time, they would visit in the spring, where all the flowers bloomed and the pigeons roamed the streets. Nowadays the gardens have nothing to offer except snow, a frozen pond and dead pines, but Itachi appreciates the view anyway, and he takes everything in with his wondrous eyes – eyes that Kanda had drowned in several times before.
There is something in this quiet, shared moment that makes him clutch Itachi's hand closer.
"Yes?" Itachi asks in his quiet voice.
"I don't usually do this," Kanda mumbles, but he reaches forward anyway and plants a kiss on the other's cheek – a kiss that would have gone elsewhere but he was too overcome with modesty.
They have dinner in one of the many cafes downtown, and Itachi holds knife and fork with wonder, as if unsure what to do with them. Kanda laughs and lets him watch how to use them, and his companion is soon eating his fill of duck liver and ratatouille.
"I like it," Itachi says at the end of the meal, and though his words are minimal, Kanda knows that he meant what he said.
They go admire the Arc de Triomphe in the fading daylight, just as Paris springs to life around them in golden little firefly lights.
And Kanda, watching Itachi as he takes in his surroundings, preserves the image of the mysterious shinobi in his mind.
He promises to take Itachi further south the next time he visits, to the beautiful port city and beaches of Marseilles. He tells Itachi what to expect – of the lovely azure French coast, white sands, ships with sails just coming in from a long voyage, of seagulls squawking as they gracefully circle overhead.
For a moment Kanda is overwhelmed with the need to talk and make Itachi picture the sea with his words.
He supposes he should have seen it or sensed it then, with how Itachi simply sat there, hands clasped on his lap, watching him almost sadly, as if he knew that this would be the last time.
He waits by the woods for hours.
Hours stretch into days.
Days into weeks.
Weeks into months.
And when the new year comes around Kanda knows he has waited long enough, and there is a sickening void inside him, a void that he never wanted to feel again, but there it is, and it cannot be filled by anyone else.
He remembers what Itachi has told him, about a vengeful brother and meeting his end on his brother's hands.
If he could find out how to go to Itachi's world, he would go there, and look for this brother and cut him down, or make him suffer alive long enough to realize the loss that Kanda had, this loss which, in a way, affected him too although he did not know it.
But Itachi never told him now, and Kanda supposed the shinobi knew what he was doing.
Kanda takes out the wrapped kunai he has kept all these years and buries it in the woods.
An exorcist cannot weep, after all.