It takes longer than Soushi likes to return to full awareness. This body is-and-is-not his own, and its primary occupant is loud, and— and it has been five years since Soushi truly existed. Even this, even now, is…
(Has he truly returned from that horizon? Is he truly Minashiro Soushi? Or is he only an echo, clinging to the cockpit of Mark Nicht and the bones of this body that bears his name and yet is not himself? He loses three weeks of time overthinking it, and misses Kazuki like a hole in his heart even as he fears Kazuki failing to recognize him as what he believes himself to be.)
Whatever the situation is, though, truly, he sets himself to taking stock of it. He can see what that child sees. He can, with some concentration, sift through what that child remembers.
It doesn't take him long to understand that that child hates Kazuki. Maybe not as much as he might claim to, but the hate is there, all anger and rage and resentment bubbling barely-restrained under the surface of his thoughts whenever he thinks of Kazuki, which is more often than Soushi thinks anyone around this body realizes.
It hurts. The thought of someone bearing his name and near enough his face ever professing to hate Kazuki - and this child does more than just claim it, even if his hatred doesn't burn as brightly as it used to and as he insists it still does - is unthinkable, unbearable. The knowledge that, even if he doesn't any more and no matter how impotent the desire had been in the first place, this child with Soushi's name had truly and sincerely wished Kazuki dead is, too, unthinkable and unbearable.
Soushi doesn't truly have a heart of his own anymore to ache, doesn't have lungs that agony can drag the wind from. That doesn't stop him for a moment from feeling that pain, nonetheless.
It apparently doesn't stop that child from feeling the echo of it as Soushi is trying to tamp it down, either, and Soushi feels a blossoming confusion at it. He can recognize that the pain is not his own, even if he can't truly place the source.
Stupid, on Soushi's part. Stupid to announce his presence, even slightly and accidentally, when he has no moves in his arsenal. It's poor planning and worse strategy.
(He wonders when he started thinking of this child like an enemy for whom strategy is necessary to deal with.)
(Or, no, truly, he knows; the moment he understood the depths of this child's hatred toward Kazuki and his desire, even if he no longer truly wants it, to see Kazuki dead. Soushi might not truly count as alive, but he is here and remains here, and so Kazuki must remain alive. Anyone who would take Kazuki where Soushi cannot follow is an enemy.)
After that, he's careful. He keeps himself as calm as he can manage, and tries to think of Kazuki as little as possible.
That's still often, of course, because Kazuki is more important than Soushi has words for. That child's avoidance of him - and the way that everyone caters to that, never mentioning him in that child's presence unless it's absolutely necessary - is near torture. Not knowing how Kazuki is, not being able to see his face, knowing that Kazuki is so close and yet holding himself so far apart from where Soushi is for the sake of that child, aches like a loose tooth that he can't help but press at.
He suppresses it the best that he can, and tries to turn his thoughts away from Kazuki until that child is focused on something else. It works well enough to keep him from truly identifying the feeling, at least, but it doesn't keep all of it from that child; only means that what he feels is only an aimless, niggling dissatisfaction and loneliness that he can't place or alleviate and that keeps him up at night.
(Some part of Soushi is selfishly, vindictively pleased by it. He's not proud of that, and he knows Kazuki would hate it. But he would sooner give up his eye - would sooner give up a limb or an organ or some other fundamental part of a body he no longer has - than to leave Kazuki alone for another moment. If this child weren't here, Soushi could go to Kazuki's side without hesitation.)
(If this child weren't here, would Soushi be here at all? He can't bring himself to think about that, because if his pain is noticeable then the soul-deep fear of returning to nonexistence certainly would be.)
In the end, that child's lack of sleep results in him dozing off at one of the tables in Rakuen while trying to do homework. He's not exactly, properly asleep, but he's not quite awake, either; they're both in and out, half-aware of their surroundings in little snippets of conversations and sounds around them while they doze, with Soushi content to let it happen and that child just apparently having no choice in the matter.
The thing is, though, that that child doesn't ever stay at Rakuen for more than an hour or so after school before returning to the Toomi residence. In his ever-careful consideration of that child's feelings, Soushi suspects that Kazuki has been avoiding the place outside of school hours and the evenings after he's usually gone.
It's considerably later than that when the bell above the door jingles and rouses Soushi to a drowsy wakefulness. Probably close to closing, even, from how dark it seems to be outside and the fact that nobody else seems to be there.
Which is good, because Kazuki is the one who's walked in. And frozen, upon seeing that child, with a wild and slightly skittish expression blooming on his face when he sees the open eyes. Not that that child is… actually awake, exactly, as far as Soushi can tell. Soushi, however, is fully and completely awake now, because Kazuki is here.
"I— I'm sorry," Kazuki starts to say, obviously interpreting Soushi's wide eyes as a prelude to that child's anger.
Soushi can't bear it. This body is heavy with exhaustion and awkward to move when he still half-expects his own proportions, but he scrambles to his feet quickly enough to send the chair falling to the floor behind him - stupid, stupid, because the noise makes that child's presence jerk into a tired alertness in the back of his head and Kazuki sway back a little where he stands, but Kazuki is here and Soushi can't think straight beyond that - and steps forward.
"Kazuki," he manages to get out, for all that the word wants to catch in his throat, because Kazuki has that skittish look on his face that Soushi can't bear to have turned on him. "Kazuki."
Kazuki's eyes widen, and then he's stepping forward as well, until they're close enough that the barest motion would have them touching. He doesn't touch, though, only lifts his hand until it's hovering over Soushi's cheek and breathes out, "Soushi…?"
(That child is certainly awake, now. Soushi can feel anger and horror and something like terror blooming bright in the back of his head.)
(It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Kazuki is here.)
"I'm here," he says. It's not enough, but it's all he can get out past the lump in his throat. "I'm home."
Kazuki stares at him for a moment longer, and then he's swaying forward and clutching at Soushi so hard that it hurts. His face drops down to land on Soushi's shoulder, and his barely-suppressed sobs shake the both of them.
(He remembers Kazuki holding onto him like this after he returned from the Festum. He remembers this pain, this blessing from Kazuki that says that he is alive, that he is whole, that he is here. Or that he's here, at least, even if the others are… debatable, perhaps.)
Eventually, Kazuki manages to get himself under control enough to straighten up and look Soushi in the eyes. It means he's looking down at Soushi, and the reminder that this body isn't truly Soushi's own makes his mouth twist a little as he stares up at Kazuki.
It's not as though he truly needs a reminder. That child has roused himself into a full rage in the intervening time, and Soushi can hear, I hate you, I hate you, I'll kill you, let me out! in the back of his head like a mantra.
(For all of his resentment of that child, Soushi doesn't want this. He can feel the rage and the sickening, nauseous terror at having someone else moving his body in ways that that child doesn't want, and he doesn't want to inspire that.)
(But it's Kazuki. Soushi could no sooner keep away from Kazuki when he's right there than the planets could keep from circling the sun.)
"Soushi," Kazuki murmurs, "Is he… okay?"
Sometimes, Soushi dislikes Kazuki's ability to read him. For all of the time that he'd spent missing their constant Crossing, sometimes Kazuki cuts to the quick of things entirely too perceptively even without it.
He wants to pretend he doesn't know what Kazuki is asking. He wants to lie, to claim that that child is asleep or somesuch. Anything, to drag this moment out, because it's been more than five years since he was last at Kazuki's side. Because Soushi might not have experienced those five years, but Kazuki did.
But Kazuki cares for this child. Kazuki would rather carve off pieces of his own heart than let that child feel the way that he does right now.
Soushi breathes out a sigh that feels as though it takes all of his energy with it, and reaches up to hold onto Kazuki. To bury his face in Kazuki's chest and inhale, to try to burn Kazuki's scent and Kazuki's warmth and the feeling of Kazuki's heartbeat into his senses.
Let me have this, he thinks when that child starts to protest even louder, and something in the tone of it freezes the protests. Please. Let me have this much.
The noise in the back of his head falls silent, and so there's only the thud of his own heartbeat in his ears and Kazuki's voice asking, more hesitantly, "Soushi…?"
Soushi doesn't answer until, long moments later, he's able to finally pull himself away from Kazuki.
"He's not," he manages to bring himself to say. "Not with this. In general, yes, but— but not with this."
It's the answer that Kazuki expected, he can tell, but it still makes something go shuttered and closed-off in Kazuki's eyes.
"Ah," he says, slow and quiet. "Will you tell him I'm sorry, then? I wouldn't have—"
Kazuki cuts himself off before he can lie. They both know that their orbit is mutual. Kazuki couldn't have ignored Soushi any more than Soushi could have ignored Kazuki, no matter how guilty he might feel about hurting that child.
"I don't want to make him uncomfortable," he settles on, instead. That much is true.
"I don't think he wants to hear anything from me," Soushi says. "But I'll make sure he knows."
(There's so little that he can do for Kazuki, like this. But he can do that much, whether that child wants to hear it or not. He can't pluck the stars from the sky or erase all of their enemies or even stay by Kazuki's side, but he can make one stubborn child listen to Kazuki's apology.)
Kazuki stares down at Soushi in silence for several long, drawn-out moments. There are a thousand things he looks like he wants to say. There are a thousand things that Soushi feels as though he wants to say. He misses Crossing with Kazuki so much that it's like a physical pain in his chest.
In the end, Kazuki's eyes just dim further, and he turns his head away so that he's not looking at Soushi as he says, "I should go, then."
Soushi wants to beg for him to stay. If he opens his mouth, he will, this child's feelings be damned.
So he only nods, sharply, and closes his eyes so tightly that they hurt, because better that pain than the burn of unshed tears.
(When the other Soushi opens his eyes, fully in control of his own body again and with nervous tension vibrating through his limbs, he's alone in the room.)