Let's try something new!
It’s cold and clear outside. The city lights sparkle for miles around in patterns that make Misaki wish he could paint - just to get them down on paper, to show everyone.
But Usagi-san stands outside and stares at the stars.
Misaki can tell his lover’s changeable moods apart easily now, but this is an indefinable one. He’s only had to deal with it in this situation, when Usagi stands on the balcony and stares up at the sky.
Akihiko knows all the constellations off by heart. He taught them to himself one desperately lonely summer, when his mother was particularly indifferent, his father was as absent as always, his brother was away god-knows where and his tutor was more interested in flirting with the maids.
He likes stars. They appeal to his imagination, to his writer’s sense for metaphors. They look pretty and sparkly from far away, easily linked into attractive groups. But close to they’re alone, so far away from each other as to be completely isolated; lonely, fiery, unpredictable monsters.
Sometimes he stands out there and he thinks about his past, and he thinks about the stars, and then he forgets what he’s thinking about and just can’t get the topics untangled again.
He thinks about their deaths - violent explosions or crushing implosion - and he thinks about the horrific damage both choices do, and he wonder which route he’ll take when his time comes.
And when Misaki joins him, he forgets the deaths and the pain and the distance and he rattles off all the names he can remember, thinking up little myths for all of them, pointing out each constellation with a flaring cigarette tip and laughing when Misaki calls him a nerd but doesn’t tell him to stop with his silly stories.