The soft moonlight washed down over the Hagi beach, dancing along lazy waves making their way to shore and back out in languid sweeps. No one was out at this time of night: given how small of a town Hagi was that was no surprise to the young man appearing and disappearing from the pools of warm light cast by beach homes and the odd streetlight as he moved silently along.
Shin was thankful for the solitude, just as he was most nights he walked along the waves and sand. He checked his phone again, frowning at the text message glowing in soft pixels, the white screen casting a ghostly pallor across his face and chest in the darkness before he dropped it back into his jeans.
There were times, many times, he wished he were someone else.
He often walked this path, past the small houses and ambitious resort hotels squatting possessively on their share of beach, down the quiet road that led to the old Mouri castle ruins.
He drifted along the same street without thinking tonight, the summer night sky bright with stars untouched by big city haze, a slim shadow of a young man in sneakers and jeans.
The "castle" waited for him as it always did, nothing more than low, rough ramparts sitting atop a moat, a cruel surprise to the occasional tourist who expected to find Hagi Castle intact.
In his younger days, in the fight against the demons and warlords, Shin had often thought he was lucky to be alive every morning he woke up. When they won and Arago had been destroyed, he had felt a deep relief and appreciation for his life that he thought would remain with him forever.
But it hadn't.
It was hard to say when the anger and bitterness had begun creeping in, but he knew the night they had coalesced into something recognizable. He had been walking along this same road, on a crisp April night, as he had done for a year or so since his eventual return home, restless and ill at ease for no reason he could think of.
Touma had, when they were all quite drunk at his 20th birthday party, called the need for Shin's walks a long, scientific name: "post traumatic stress disorder". They were war veterans after all, Touma had insisted during one of those philosophical talks all drunk youth seem to fall into. To general nods and grunts of approval and the pouring of more beer, he had explained there would be loud noises they wouldn't like, nights they couldn't sleep, negative feelings they couldn't shake, possibly for the rest of their lives.
It was part of war. Even after war was over.
Shin had quietly thought it was a bunch of bullshit and that war only stayed with you if you wanted it to, but that spring night as he had come to stand in front of what was left of Hagi Castle, he had found himself thinking more about Touma's words.
War.
Touma was right. They were veterans. They had fought, suffered and bled. They had lost two compatriots, better men than Shin knew he'd ever be.
And yet, here in the normal world, no one knew. No one had any idea what had been given up, what had been scarred and sacrificed, to save it all.
What thanks had Shin or any of his friends ever gotten, for any of it?
He had felt a dark epiphany as he confronted this strange, alien thought that April night. It was a stupid, selfish question. He knew that. And yet its cruel simplicity had haunted him more and more as the days bled into summer.
He took out his phone, his gaze dropping from the stone ramparts to the blinding white of the screen and the message from Seiji. Come to Tokyo ASAP. Touma fought a youja today.
"Come on," he grumbled, willing himself to write back. "Just answer the damn text."
Be there tomorrow.
He jabbed the Send button and tucked the phone away, staring up into the empty sky where his family's castle once stood, waves rumbling behind him. The night breeze drifted across his still form, the faint scent of the ocean comforting, and he let out a long, troubled sigh before turning to begin the walk back.