Light spoilers up to Camp Ichigaya.
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It's been a long time since he's seen Isabeau reading.
"I didn't expect to find any volumes of my manga here," she explains.
Tonight they've found shelter in the remnants of a bookstore; a shell of a shop, gutted with its insides hollowed out. They're surrounded by the bare skeletons of racks and shelves, cobwebbed with disuse. Flynn runs a fingertip over the dust on the spines of the books and turns back to Isabeau.
"... I stopped reading a few volumes before this one, though," she's saying. "... and I left them all at home. So I don't want to start reading this one until we get back."
"If you wanted to know how it ended, you should've listened to what the Black Samurai was telling you about it, though," Walter says, peering at the back cover. His voice is a lazy drawl, tapering into a yawn. Isabeau reddens. "Experiencing the whole story for yourself is an important part of the experience, you know," she says and tucks the book into her bag. "But I'm sure such a nuance would be lost on you."
Walter's brow crinkles. "Whatever you say, Isabeau," he mutters, and tears the packaging of a dis-poison with his teeth. "Man, I'm so tired. This place is crawling with poison. Any of you got a chakra drop on you? Hoy, Flynn, I'll trade you; a chakra drop for ten life stones? I'm up to my ears in them."
Flynn nods and tosses a packet. Walter snatches it from the air and grins at him in thanks. "How're things holding up on your end?"
When he stops to think about it, Flynn isn't sure how to reply. "... still alive, I suppose," he says, crushing a life stone between his back teeth. It's a poor substitute for food; just something to dull the edge of hunger and ease the soreness of his arms. Maybe next time, he'll try opening one of those strange kaleidoscope they found whilst excavating relics; the mystic script hinted at contents that would be more palatable than cheap rations purchased from a sneering Ashura-kai merchant.
It's been weeks since they've been back to the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado; it changes a lot, in the times they're gone. He's sure he's not imagining it, imagining Commander Hope looking older, greyer, more disgruntled. Flynn's sure he's not imagining all the seasons passing by, not when they walk into the Mikado terminal on a balmy spring morning and returning to the chill of winter. It's only been a month or so, hasn't it, he wants to ask, but he's sure he'll receive no answers.
"I confess," Jonathan says after a while, after he's finished reporting the day's events to Abbot Hugo, "to missing the comforts of home." His Burroughs informs him of a successfully delivered message, and goes silent. "And, of course, the camaraderie with the rest of our comrades."
"It's different here, isn't it?" Walter asks. He slouches against a shelf and grumbles, half to himself, before pulling out the coat of his uniform and wadding it up against his head. His new armour creaks awkwardly in protest as he tries to find a comfortable position to sleep in. "And, I suppose you could call the hunters here our new comrades, of a sort."
"I suppose," Jonathan replies. Isabeau hums in agreement as she spreads salve onto her burns. They've faded, over the past few days, to a less angry pink. Flynn now understands why so many hunters and samurai alike bear all their scars like badges of honour and pride; a mark of survival, a reminder of battles won and not-so-won. "Where to, next?" Isabeau asks.
Flynn can wear Walter beginning to snore already. He regrets not going to sleep earlier; Walter's snoring, he's found, tends to reverberate in small shelters like these. "Ginza," he says after Walter gives a particularly loud snore; he envies his comrade's ability to fall asleep so quickly.
"That's quite a trek from here," Jonathan says, and makes a move to check the time on his Gauntlet, then decides better of it. "It'd be best to get enough rest; who knows, what we'll face there tomorrow."
"With our luck, Yuriko," Walter mumbles suddenly and rolls over; his head lolls against Flynn's shoulder. "Or Tayama, I won't ... be ... surprised ..."
Isabeau snaps her fingers to get their attention. "Enough speculation," she says, and reaches for the light switch. "We'll find out when we get there."
He'll miss this, too, Flynn decides as Isabeau makes her way back to their huddle, picking her way carefully towards them with the help of the light from her Gauntlet. He'll miss this, once all their business in Tokyo's concluded.
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It just isn't the same, sleeping in a marginally more comfortable office in Camp Ichigaya.
It's not the same, when there's just the two of them.