After Maris is gone, Soushi attempts to get a little more sleep. He expects to wake with that child back in control - this body belongs to him, after all, when it comes down to it.
Instead, when they wake, it's with Soushi still firmly in control. He can feel his counterpart's presence, quiet and miserable beside him in their mind, but that child seems to have no desire whatsoever to take charge of his body again. Soushi frowns as he contemplates it, torn between pushing his counterpart and indulging him. Soushi's presence is likely to raise questions that he's not sure he has the answers to, as of yet, and besides that, he's not sure whether it's a good idea to let his counterpart hide away from the world and the people who care about him, right now.
(Soushi isn't quite ready to count himself truly among that number. Even if he were, the choice to let Maris go is the most that he knows how to do for the sake of that child's feelings; the aftermath is entirely beyond him.)
Please, his counterpart mumbles inside their head. I don't want any of them to know.
Soushi huffs out a sigh. He doesn't like it, for all that he's well aware he doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to bottling up feelings. The only person who's ever had any real luck at drawing out Soushi's feelings is Kazuki; even then, Soushi has always communicated those feelings best in expressions and touches and the moments that feel halfway to Crossing.
(There is nobody that his counterpart is comfortable being read so deeply by, and they both know it. There are too many people who could read him so deeply, because he wears his emotions brightly and violently and has no idea how to not.)
Please. I just want to sleep today, his counterpart says.
Soushi is still trying to decide whether to disagree, when that child interrupts his thoughts to say, You can go see Makabe Kazuki. If you want. I won't… it's fine.
Soushi feels as though he ought to protest, on some level. But he could no sooner hide his joy inside his own mind at the thought of seeing Kazuki than he could will his heart to stop beating with intent alone. His counterpart latches onto the feeling, focusing on it intently and holding it in the attention of them both, until Soushi sighs and only nods.
Okay, Soushi says, slowly. Thank you.
That child seems to slump in relief. Just don't do anything weird, and it's fine, he mutters. If it falls flat of the indignant tone that Soushi thinks he's trying to go for, neither of them comment on it.
Soushi takes his time with dressing once he's up, and by the time he's ready to venture out of his counterpart's room, a vague glance inward shows no sign of that child. Assuming that he's achieved his aim of going back to sleep, Soushi leaves him be and heads downstairs.
The first test of how today is going to play out is currently sitting in the living room, a cup of tea in hand. She glances up when Soushi enters, and then pauses to stare at him for long, silent moments.
"…good morning, Minashiro-kun," Maya says eventually. Her tone is flatter than Soushi had expected, and he doesn't quite understand until she goes on, "Does he know you're here?"
Ah. Soushi wonders whether Kazuki told her something about the night in Rakuen, and Soushi's unwanted control of this body, or if this is just… Maya, drawing and testing conclusions of her own with pinpoint precision.
"This time, he insisted," Soushi tells her. Maya narrows her eyes for a moment - calculating something from the qualification or from the insistence, Soushi can't be certain and frankly, knowing Maya, it's probably both at once - and then nods slowly.
She watches him, contemplatively, and then says, "Kazuki-kun will be arriving at Rakuen fairly soon."
Soushi nods, grateful. He'd suspected, between his own - old, too old - knowledge of Kazuki's schedule, and what he can surmise from Kazuki's avoidance of his counterpart, but he hadn't known for certain.
(It bothers him, more than he cares to admit. Without that half-conscious knowledge of where Kazuki is likely to be at any given time, Soushi feels bereft. Like missing a sense he'd never known he possessed until it was taken from him.)
Maya is still watching him, and Soushi feels the need to add, "I have permission for that, too."
She hums in response, turning her attention back to her tea with a disinterest that's somehow more intimidating than her focus.
"I figured as much," she agrees. "Minashiro-kun is smart, and wouldn't make the same mistake twice." She pauses, and then goes on before Soushi can respond, "Or, at least, not the same mistake that hurt Kazuki-kun. Isn't that right?"
Right. Five years passing has only made Maya all the more terrifying. Good to know.
"That's. Yes. That's right," he gets out, slowly. And if Soushi is backing out of the room as he answers her, then at least she lets that pass without comment.
Once he's actually out of the house, Soushi makes good time getting to Rakuen. He beats Kazuki there, in fact, and Rakuen isn't open yet when Soushi arrives, so he just leans against the railing to wait.
Something as familiar as that becomes odd, in this body. The proportions are off, that child not having grown into the height that Soushi remembers being, and for all that it's a tiny thing, it drives it home once again that this isn't his body.
(And yet, it's all he has. He is making peace with it, slowly, because he must. If he can exist as a passenger in his counterpart's body, then at least it's still some form of existence in the place that Kazuki is.)
The oddness falls away for Soushi, unimportant in comparison, when he sees Kazuki coming up the path. Kazuki doesn't notice him quite so quickly, but when he does notice, he freezes, eyes going wide for a moment before his eyebrows dip into the barest hint of a frown.
"…Soushi," he says, tone careful. As though he's dealing with a feral animal, because he thinks he's dealing with that child and, well, Soushi can't exactly fault the comparison if he were.
"Shouldn't you be at school…?" Kazuki asks a moment later. His tone is still careful, skittish, but there's a little twist to his mouth. An expression that says he wants to be disapproving of that child skipping school, but with the anxious twist to it that speaks to his not knowing whether the feeling is welcome, or allowed.
(Soushi loves him. This is a fact of Soushi's existence, something as intrinsic and as important as the blood in his veins, and just as unconscious as the mechanisms of his heart beating in his chest. Right now, though, watching Kazuki standing there and staring at him, the feeling is consuming enough to choke the air from his lungs and the words from his mouth.)
"Soushi…?" Kazuki asks again, stepping closer now. "Are you…"
He trails off there, his concerned expression shifting into something unreadable, and lifts one hand until it's hovering, not quite touching, over Soushi's cheek. Soushi leans into the touch without hesitation, and Kazuki lets out a barely-held breath.
"Soushi," he says again, but the tone is different, this time. There's no question in his voice, for all that his expression is still a little confused, a little flat. As though he doesn't quite dare to hope that this is real.
"Mm," Soushi manages, in confirmation of his presence. He lets his eyes slide shut, leaning with a little more force into the hand on his cheek, and adds, "…he's sleeping. He said I could see you."
Even with only the hand against his cheek, even with his eyes shut, Soushi feels the tension that drains out of Kazuki when he says that.
"That's… Will you tell him thank you, when he's awake?" Kazuki asks, voice shaky, and Soushi nods even as he's opening his arms to pull Kazuki into a hug without opening his eyes.
Kazuki doesn't cry this time, but he does drop the hand down from Soushi's cheek to hang onto him fiercely instead, pressing his face into the join between Soushi's shoulder and neck. Eventually, Soushi opens his eyes again, rubbing his cheek a little against the soft strands of Kazuki's hair.
"I probably ought to let you do your job…" Soushi admits, and huffs out a sigh when Kazuki only clutches him tighter. "I'm not going to go anywhere…"
Kazuki makes a protesting noise, squeezing Soushi until it nearly hurts. After a few moments longer, though, he pulls back and stares down at Soushi with a decisive expression.
"Okay," he says. "Come on. I'll make you breakfast."
Soushi certainly has no problem with that. He follows behind as Kazuki gets Rakuen opened up, and lets Kazuki set him up in a corner table where he's out of the way but can still see Kazuki working. In short course, he's presented with a full breakfast, and then Kazuki pauses, watching him, and declares, "If anyone comes in, tell them I'll be right back."
He disappears out the back before Soushi can respond, leaving Soushi to just blink after him. When he returns - thankfully without any other customers having arrived - it's with an Alvis tablet in hand, which he presents to Soushi with a beaming smile.
"I figured you'd need something to pass the time while I'm working," Kazuki tells him. "This will work, right?"
(His expression is so open and expectant right now that Soushi wants nothing more than to kiss him until he's breathless and wrecked. Given that it would be a distraction from Kazuki working and that he's pretty sure it would fall under his counterpart's definition of 'doing something weird', he'll refrain. Just about.)
"Thank you, Kazuki," he says, forcing himself to do nothing more than take the tablet. "It's perfect." Never mind the fact that Soushi is pretty sure he could pass the time just fine with nothing more than staring at Kazuki. Never mind the fact that he's pretty sure he will pass the time like that.
Kazuki's answering smile is absolutely radiant, though, and there's a little bounce in his step as he heads back to the kitchen area, and that makes it entirely worth it. Seeing Kazuki happy is enough to make more-or-less anything worth it, really.
Even the fact that none of the chairs in Rakuen are really comfortable enough to spend as many hours in them as Soushi intends to, today. But he'd told Kazuki that he's not going anywhere, and he'll stick to that. Settling back in his chair, Soushi sets to waiting, picking at his food and occasionally flicking through files on the tablet but for the most part just watching Kazuki.
He makes no attempt to be subtle with it, but Kazuki's smiles whenever he meets Soushi's gaze are fond - no matter how exasperated he tries to look - and the whole thing is so nostalgic that it almost aches. No matter that there are those five years hanging between them, no matter that this body doesn't truly belong to Soushi. Those are nothing compared to this, to sitting in Rakuen and waiting for Kazuki's shift to finish. To watching him in an environment that, truly, has always suited him better than fighting, no matter how beautiful Kazuki might be in flight.
(These things, Soushi knows as well as the beat of his own heart; perhaps even better than that, so long as he's in this body that is not his own. These things are precious memories that he'd thought he'd never be able to live again, simple and mundane things that are all the more precious for it.)
(He doesn't think this will be the last time, even if the moments with Kazuki have to be rare and factored around that child's presence. But he'll drink in every second of Kazuki's presence and Kazuki's happiness as though it will, and in that way, he thinks he can make it through any distance between them.)