Japanese -English - Thoughts
The dormitory was empty when Hikari returned.
He'd expected it, really. It was the middle of the day. Akari was probably somewhere on the Mahoutokoro grounds, doing... something.
He stepped inside without pause, shutting the door behind him, the sound echoing in the empty room louder than it should have. For a moment, Hikari stilled , hand still on the doorknob, gaze unfocussed as it drifted around the room.
Everything was still in place. Curtains half drawn back, beds made; his clean, spotless one a sharp contrast to Akari's organised but comparatively messier one. Nothing out of place.
Except that one spot on his desk, at the far right corner, next to the pen stand. The spot specifically reserved for his sketchbook.
The sketchbook that had been shattered to pieces.
He lingered at the door, staring at that empty space.
Eventually, he moved, slowly, crossing the room, heading, not to his desk, but to the bed, and more specifically the window next to it. He pushed it open, and dropped down in front of it, on the bed facing the desk and the empty space.
Something crunched beside him, and he turned to look at his hand.
The sketch. Akari's.
He was still holding it.
For a moment, he just stared at it blankly, unseeing, as it he didn't really recognise it. The edges were frayed now, and the paper was creased where he'd clutched at it, marked by his grip. Familiar lines stared back at him- intact, untouched.
Safe.
Unlike the rest.
He leaned into his bed, bringing his knees upto his chest. He'd been rash in his reaction, he realised now. The paper had been perfectly fixable, there was a simple spell that would make his pages brand new.
It wasn't permanent. It was reversible.
His breathing eased as the thought settled in. He could fix it.
His gaze shifted back to the desk. To the empty space.
He remembered the torn pieces he'd left behind at the Headmaster's office. He regretted it now. He should've brought those back with him too. He wondered what the Headmaster would do with them now, would he throw them away?
Hikari stilled. The thought lingered painfully on his mind.
The paper-mending charm.
Fixable.
The word fell off.
Sure, the spell would mend the paper. Smooth out the creases. Restore the edges. Perhaps even make it smoother than it had been originally.
But it wouldn't erase what they had been. Wouldn't undo the fact that they had been torn to shreds right in front of his eyes by a person who had tried to teach him a 'lesson'.
Hikari's eyes burned at the thought. A lesson. Hikari couldn't see it. Whatever the Headmaster had tried to teach him had been lost somewhere between the first and last tear, buried under what he'd lost in the process.
Destroying something precious to a person and calling it a lesson... No matter how much Hikari thought about it, he could not understand it.
It didn't sit right.
His breath hitched, sharp and sudden, breaking through before he could catch it.
He bent forward, pressing the heel of his hand into his eyes, as though that might hold everything in place.
It didn't. Naturally.
Another breath, uneven this time. Then another.
His shoulders shook once. He stilled immediately after. Maybe he could stop it if he caught it early enough.
Another breath came out wrong— sharp, uneven— then another, and another, and another until he started to lose track, each one harder to steady than the other. He pressed his hand against his eyes again, as if that might force everything back into place.
It didn't.
A broken sound slipped out—quiet, barely there, but enough.
Hikari bent further forward, forehead nearly resting against his knees, his other hand coming up as if he needed something else to hold onto, something to anchor himself with.
There was nothing.
Just the empty room.
And once, just once, Hikari wished Akari had been there. And not only in painting.
