Disclaimer : I do not own Soukyuu no Fafner, nor its characters, nor do I make any profit from this fic.

Sixty Days

It had been almost two months since Operation Azure was over and the pilots returned home, things left behind started over and affairs attended to. For Kenji, two months meant sixty days of watching over Sakura, debriefing, getting used to new schedules in Sakura's house and more simulation trainings. He'd joked, airily as was always his way of making light of the situation, that when she wakes up Sakura would be so surprised to see him taking the main charge instead of Kazuki. Then he'd return to the uncharacteristic study of his readouts, preparing for 'the day when he would no longer be a Fafner pilot', and shoo everyone away. For Canon, it seemed that she hassettled into her home and spent most of her time with Hazama-sensei. When on the topic of Fafners, she'd nod politely and say it was an honor to be named the Acting Commander (Kazuki refused to give the title of Commander to anyone but Soushi when he came back; nobody was inclined to disagree with him), even though she had not proven herself within her tenure at Tatsumiya. But then she was the most experienced pilot in all of them, and she was capable of making good decisions when things came to a head, an ability Kazuki associated with loss. Then there was Toomi, Toomi who ran to meet him at the beach and said she'd fight in his stead until his sight returned.

(but his sight is Soushi and Soushi is gone)

For Kazuki, two months meant at least five hours of an average day taking shots and lying around having his vital signs taken by Toomi-sensei. They were battling the assimilation phenomenon in him, testing out new methods and injections, for himself as well as for Sakura, unable to pilot for the time being. Kazuki didn't mind playing the lab rat, as he knew how important this was to the island. He knew how important it was to him. After a few weeks his sight began to return, although it was in no way the same as before. They asked him questions on how he saw; he answered the best he could. Still, nobody, not even Toomi-sensei, knew how different it was, how distorted everything grew and how it showed him things that should've been only visions in his mind. But to Kazuki, any eye that gave him a chance to see Soushi again was good enough for him.

With these assimilated eyes the city grew distorted. Buildings he knew since childhood twisted into grotesque shapes, the shadows extended and joined each other, arrows pointing in the same direction. All roads were assimilated; they were one and they and led to only one place, the shrine where they played as children. The city still stood the same way as it ever did, but with these assimilated eyes he saw the city as Soushi, or Soushi as he was, silently poisoning himself with all that comes with being an adult and overstepping his bonds to keep his shattered illusions intact.

(but the city is Soushi and all the memories of Soushi being there)

Sometimes he ran to the shrine, expecting everything and expecting nothing. Sometimes his assimilated sight was kind and he'd catch a glimpse of flowing brown hair in the corner of his eyes. Kazuki knew that Soushi was no longer here, and what he saw was only pieces of his memories replaying themselves, backward to forward and backward again, what he wanted to see and what he imagined himself to have seen. But in the same way that Minashiro Tsubaki was one with the island, to him this place was Soushi, all that was him and all that he gave trying to protect its peace. The more he looked the more traces of Soushi he found, from every shelter to every tree to every cloud in the sky. Everything was Soushi's life, what he lived for and what he would sacrifice everything for. To Kazuki, Soushi's voice lingered within every breath of air, almost as much as everything that happened before happened with Soushi connecting to it in one form or the other. Maybe that was obvious since Soushi's sister, perhaps one could say his family, was Tatsumiya Island itself.

They had all envied Soushi when they were young. Soushi was so smart, he'd probably get to go to a university on mainland Japan. Soushi was so lucky. Soushi was the only one who gets to see Tokyo, they complained. Soushi's always the only one who gets to see the outside world. Kazuki even remembered himself telling Soushi about it the year they turned seven.

"Mamoru said he wanted to see the really big manga stores too," he'd asked, his palms crossed together in boyish hope. "Why don't you take pictures the next time you go?"

Soushi only smiled and said nothing.

(but silence is Soushi's words and Soushi's smiles, or so he tells himself in the silence of a world without Soushi)

Kazuki still remembered the day he came back, still fresh from a goodbye that he wasn't prepared to make. He'd crossed a boundary he didn't know he had when he thought Soushi was dead, when the world was cold and the snow falling was just as cruel. For the first time he could remember, Kazuki wanted revenge. He wanted somewhere to scream, to empty his despair, his loss, his sorrow. For the first time he could almost taste hatred. For the first time he felt his rage twisted into a desire to destroy, to make the other side who took Soushi feel the same agony he felt. He wanted to show the Festum how they tore his world apart by destroying theirs.

He did not show it in his face, but Kazuki knew something in him whispered, this is called vengeance.

It did not taste as sweet as literature claimed. Vengeance tasted more like regret than satisfaction, more like bitter tears and strangled screams than wine and victory. It took a goodbye to make him realize that hope was as much his enemy as much as it allowed him to go on believing.

Soushi said he would always be there with him, but while Commander Minashiro was an expert at lying, Minashiro Soushi could not lie to save his life or Kazuki's. He wanted to believe Soushi, he always did, that everything that Soushi lied about would eventually became the truth.

(but Soushi would laugh and tell stories about a Tokyo-that-never-was, and everyone would laugh and thought it was true while it was instead a promise, a dream he wanted to retain in paradise)

They were always bound by their limitations. Kazuki wanted to believe Soushi freed himself from them in those last few seconds, when his warmth passed over him and his words finally spoke louder than his silence. He wanted to believe he could say yes, wanted to believe Soushi lived in Kazuki as much as Kazuki lived in Soushi. But belief was just that : an unsupported version of the two shared by only a few people, in this case Kazuki was the only one who was here anymore, and he wasn't even sure if his definition of 'here' was correct.

(but here means a place where Soushi is)

When he stepped out of the cockpit he almost didn't see Toomi standing there. The world he saw had twisted its way into monstrous shapes and forms, but then she grabbed onto his arm and Kazuki realized he was home, though it wasn't the same home as when he left. Nobody knew this but him, and nobody understood why he laughed when Toomi asked in a worried voice as to why Kazuki-kun was crying. Then Kenji and Canon came, all expectant smiles (or so he could feel, his eyes couldn't make anything of them but vague shapes and patches of colors, like the world turned to an impressionist painting) and slapping his back (he believed it was Kenji who did that, Canon knew too well the taste of vengeance and dis-hope and elation) and asking him if he intended to get Soushi out of the Siegfried system or was their Commander supposed to meet his untimely end freezing in there while his friend stands around looking dramatic. It was through his silence that they noticed the Siegfried system module wasn't there, and it was through their words that Father (Commander Makabe, really) finally declared the mission to be a failure.

It was ironic. They'd saved the world, or at least won a great victory for mankind, but lost their primary objective.

(but Soushi is his world and Soushi is lost)

Sometimes he wanted to ask Father about it. What was the difference between Mother and the Master Form of Festum that returned? She had looked the same. Her voice was monotonous, her words starkly inhuman, but he was listening in as everybody else was, when the other in her voice disappeared as she called Father by name. The real Makabe Akane, they said, was the Mir he met at the North Pole, one with the Festum and yet her own self. Was the Festum that returned simply a ricochet effect of her individuality, or the real Makabe Akane that returned, changed? He wanted to ask that question for him, for somebody else who lost his form and promised to come back. Would he come back the same, or would all the words and the voice be changed to that cold monotone? The situation was not, as Kazuki understood it, the same with Kouyou or Tsubaki, because they had not lost their entire existence. His mother did, and he wondered and feared whether the one he waited for would come back changed. But Mother was a subject that weighed heavier than the world for his father, and Kazuki was too afraid to ask.

And so he'd asked Toomi-sensei instead, during one of the many sessions in syringes, readouts and CT scans.

"If Soushi has merged with the Festum upon his return," Kazuki stated, ignoring the doubts as to the possibility of that particular event, "it wouldn't make any difference, because he would still be Soushi. Kouyou was Kouyou, wasn't he?"

Toomi-sensei shook her head. "I doubt if his situation is the same as Kasugai Kouyou-kun, Makabe-kun. Even with the data we have from Mir, we still don't know what would happen to him."

"If he's changed, then I'll just have to understand what changed with him. I want to understand him." Soushi was Soushi. No matter what happened, no matter how different he was, he would always be Soushi. Since forever and to forever. "And if he did merge with the Festum...it would just mean that he is proof that we can coexist, wouldn't it?"

Toomi-sensei had appeared genuinely surprised at this, but then Kenji came to see if he was free enough to go prepare for a speech with the underclassmen in school, so he didn't hear anything more. And when Kazuki returned to the infirmary the next day, she's apparently considered the subject closed until further notification.

(but he wants to believe that there would be no boundaries between the Soushi that he knew and the Soushi who would come back)

For Kazuki, the two months were spent in sometimes spent in sleepless nights, when he would try to figure out what to say to Soushi if he came back the next morning, perhaps in an attempt to tell himself that he would wake up in a world with Soushi again. Then he realized that it wasn't going to be so easy. This was no fairy tale, and because reality had no obligations to keep a child's hopeful dreams intact, it had all the freedom it could ever want in smashing hopes into the ground. So Kazuki waited and waited, giving up anxiety first and habits second, routines third. He stopped asking for any strange signs of Festum-like manifestations, then stopped going to the old places of memories he and Soushi shared. After several weeks of despair he finally gave up trying to search for the chance of Soushi appearing somewhere on the island, and simply waited. With his assimilated eyes it was worse, because he saw Soushi where he used to be, and because he'd gone everywhere with Soushi at one point or the other, it became hard to tell which were the signs of a real Soushi and which were the conjurations of his own mind.

Sometimes, when he actually slept, despite his own expectations to the contrary, Kazuki dreamed at night. In one of the recurring ones he saw a little house that doubled as a pottery shop. On its second floor was a large study cluttered by books and reports contrasting with neat uniforms hanging in the wardrobe, and over the door hung a joke sign that went 'Rule 01 of the Study Room : The Vending Machine Is 11 Steps Away.' It felt so much like home that Kazuki often agonized over the idea when waking up in the morning.

(but he didn't see how painful it would be until he lost it)

Eventually he asked Father if he would allow him access into Soushi's personal room, a request that was granted two days later. It was a room with nothing but furniture and books and the photograph, as always. But to him, the room was almost burgeoning with everything. That was the chair where Soushi sat while they attempted to hold their awkward little conversation. That was the picture they took when everything was all right. That was the bed where Soushi spent at least some of his nights in, and Kazuki wondered what it was that Soushi dreamed about when he slept. This was where Soushi lived and where Soushi endured his pain, away from everybody else's knowledge but Kazuki's. Somehow he did not feel as privileged as he should've felt. After a few hours of thinking and seeing the twisted shadows of how someone was once here, Kazuki ended up opening one of Soushi's books, as if that would help him paint a more vivid image of its owner being there. As if that would help him refuse the fact that Soushi was gone.

The book was instead a notebook, with each sparse page written in familiar neat handwriting, each entry occasionally marked by a date but usually separated by just a line.

Denial, the strongest shield for this island, said Soushi's diary. I wonder if I should applaud Hino-san for his sense of irony.

There was more than one way to talk, I've discovered, said the next entry, and it was almost as if Soushi himself was right there with him. A Soushi that he never knew, a Soushi without his limits, a Soushi who was frustrated and told his feelings in secret code that only he and Kazuki could understand, and for the next two hours that he spent reading the precious few entries in silence Kazuki could almost feel like he was there, he was there and talking to Soushi, hearing his words and things would just return to normal when he woke up again the next morning.

(but it reads, Quietness is not loneliness. Silence is not solitude. To differentiate between the two, we invented wordless conversations where things could go whichever way we wanted, and we could think anything we wanted. If only the world of words is that easy.)

The Soushi that he knew would not write diaries. Canon had told him, however, that Soushi himself said that understanding someone's emotions didn't mean knowing that someone as a person. Therefore, it made as much sense to Kazuki that there would be a Soushi he didn't know, another layer upon layer of the Soushi's that he was never allowed to see. The boy who wrote down his shattered dreams was perhaps the same boy who said goodbye, both Soushi and the Soushi who almost never was.

(but it is like the Tokyo that never was and always will be, etched in their memory and being true even though it's a lie)

He left the diary where it was, and left Soushi's room for the sea. It was the same as it ever was. The waves lapped the grainy sand of the beach, then rolled back to the endless blue again. The sea and the earth were rather curious things. They were never together, yet never apart. One moment the sea pulls back, and the next it is there again.

(the earth waits; the sea returns, the two are apart and never apart, there is no space between the salt water and the sea strand)

(the sky and sea merges at the horizon, the earth defines the edge where the sea ends, defining what makes the sea the sea)

It was obvious that he'd wait for his entire life if needed; he'd wait even if it meant living his life in nothingness. And so he asked the Makabe Kazuki that he saw in the waves, distorted as everything else by his own eyes and the by the all-too-brilliant sun on the water, why are you doing this to yourself for the sake of one person?

(that's just how the world is)

(that's what makes Kazuki into Kazuki)

He'd picked up a small pebble from the beach and smiled, recalling the game they played together as children. Throwing it into the sea, Kazuki watched as the little stone skipping seven times before sinking out of sight. Months would pass and maybe years, but someday, someday, he'd be able to tell Soushi that for Kazuki, he was never truly gone.

-Fini---

A/N : I hope I didn't screw Kazuki's personality up. ;;;; He's not a very reactive person, it's hard to gauge how he thinks. For me, anyway. ; Also, Kazuki's eyes were the results of my interpretation of how full-blown assimilation phenomenon works. I still think it's going to be completely fixed, but it'd take time.

And the 'vengeance' thing----I've always felt it was rather special of Kazuki to request, out of his own initiative, an almost suicide mission that'd leave the island defenseless in case he fails---just because he wants to avenge Soushi. He's quite and usually not very intiative-making except when things concerns Soushi, and this one is even more of an 'out of ordinary' circumstance than his earlier flight. Or so I think.