Faux Flowers Errand PV Kazuo Closed

@Kazuo Shimada

T O P

J E A N S

Ruka beamed at Kazuo as the other boy laughed at his antics, satisfied with that reaction. "Right," he agreed upon hearing the colours Kazuo was choosing. "I could have guessed that. Except for Purple." He grinned, watching as the other boy took down the colours he'd been given on his arm. "I'll find out what you need those for at the tea ceremony, I assume?" he asked, an excited twinkle lighting up his eyes.

He leaned back a bit as Kazuo elaborated on how he knew the things he did about languages, and while the other boy made it sound like it wasn't that big of a deal, Ruka still found himself impressed. "Can we visit the shop on our trip?" he wondered, excitement evident in his voice. "The one you learned some Russian from the guy at?" His expression turned eager when Kazuo mentioned getting him a textbook, despite the fact that it seemed to be more of a tease than anything else. "You think that could help me learn?" he asked with genuine curiosity. He assumed that even very basic Japanese text books would be too hard for him to understand, but maybe with Kazuo's help, if he took a lot of notes... His eyes excitedly wandered across the area for a moment as he considered all his options for learning more about Japanese, though they settled back on Kazuo when the other boy asked him to elaborate on his name.

"My dad's family were Welsh," he explained, a hint of hesitation in his voice merely because he hadn't quite expected Kazuo to be interested in his heritage. "His- My grandfather met his wife in Ireland so he stayed there." At least that was what he had been told - It wasn't like Ruka had ever met his grandparents. "And... And my mum, she's Bulgarian. Suppose my dad just had a weird sense of humour. Firehand." He lifted his free hand to wiggle his fingers in the air while pulling a vaguely amused grimace. "That's what he called me. Firehand." His expression fell a bit though he quickly recovered when Kazuo hinted at the meaning of his own name. "What does yours mean?" he asked curiously, eyes wide with interest. "And how would you..." He held out his arm. "How would you write it? In what written form?" Not Katakana, he assumed. It most likely wasn't a foreign name.

Lowering his arm again as their conversation moved on to the Folktale about Tamamo, Ruka hummed his acknowledgment occasionally, observing the way Kazuo's expression and tone of voice shifted throughout the story. He squeezed Kazuo's hands. "She sounds incredible," he agreed reverently. Shuffling a little closer he tried to recall the questions that had piled up in him as Kazuo had been talking. "What's the Tao? And an... onmyoji?" Tilting his head to the side, Ruka hummed. "What was the ritual?" There were so many questions he had about Tamamo, he barely knew what to ask first and he wasn't quite sure when Kazuo's patience with him would eventually run out. The other boy's statement that it was a strange story to choose as a favourite made Ruka frown as he lightly pressed the pad of his thumb against Kazuo's knuckles. "I often find characters more interesting than the story," he admitted quietly. "Heroes are boring and happy endings an illusion. But the way someone acts... Why they do what they do..." He tilted his head back to stare at a passing cloud. "Any story can be ruined by being inhabited by someone tedious. On the flip side, any story can be interesting if the characters inside it make it so." A smile spread across his face and he directed it Kazuo's way. "Thank you for sharing it with me." He gave Kazuo's hand another squeeze before offering his own Folktale in return.

The way Kazuo gave his full attention, reacted with what appeared like genuine excitement, made Ruka smile brightly as he lifted a hand to ruffle his own hair sheepishly. "Dagda's Harp only listened to him," he told Kazuo with an equal amount of excitement. "Makes you wonder; Did the power really come from the Harp, or was it Dagda? Either way, to be able to influence people's emotions's like that? It won him battles, let his men forget all their sorrows. To control something so powerful..." His expression turned soft, almost dreamy. "I can hardly imagine." A small laugh escaped him when Kazuo asked if he knew more Irish stories. "Tell you what, I'll tell you more Irish tales if you tell me more Japanese ones," he offered with a grin. "We'll have a lot of time to exchange stories." Another squeeze of Kazuo's hand, another smile. The thought of getting to exchange folktales with the other boy made him fill with warmth.

Ruka's expression turned more serious as Kazuo admitted to considering humans disgusting at times. He wasn't quite sure what to say , so instead he stayed quiet, lifted their intertwined hands up to rest against his own knees and used his free hand to trace the lines of Kazuo's knuckles with the tip of a finger to try and convey his silent agreement.

He looked up again as Kazuo talked about his mother's profession, half a dozen questions bubbling up inside him once more. "A magizoologist for Japanese creatures," he repeated huskily. "Can she still do that from London? Does she need to travel a lot for it?" He wasn't quite sure how much fieldwork that kind of occupation required, but he didn't think England would provide Kazuo's mother with the kinds of creatures she was studying. He didn't know much about the other boy's family, but Kazuo had titled her as charming before, and the thought that she might occasionally have to stay away from her family for work filled him with a tinge of sadness. Looking at the other boy, Ruka found him staring at their hands, and he responded to that by giving Kazuo's hand yet another squeeze as if to silently ask what the other boy was thinking about.

"I suppose that makes sense," he decided as Kazuo talked about how he thought to overcome helplessness. "Constant self-improvement in all aspects." He grinned and gently nudged his elbow against the other boy's. "We can work on overcoming helplessness together. I'll share any secrets I come across if you'll share yours."

Kazuo's words about the amount of lemon tarts he was owed made Ruka bubble up a bright laugh. "I feel honoured," he said with exaggerated glee, though there was something genuinely grateful in his expression. "Can I set up a payment plan? Two lemon tarts on every first Saturday of the month?"

Resting his head against Kazuo's, Ruka thought he could feel the other boy relaxing against him as well. It was a comfortable feeling, a warmth that didn't just stem from the sun rays reflecting off the lake's black surface. "I think Jack feels comfortable with you," he pointed out, but as he said it he doubted it was quite the same thing. Jack felt comfortable with physical contact but that didn't necessarily speak for how comfortable he was with individual people. "Doesn't matter anyway," he decided with a little shrug. "Clearly my comfort is the top priority." He chuckled as he shuffled around until he was completely pressed against Kazuo's side, releasing a content hum and laughing at the other boy's tease. "Noted."

"You know, you're not wrong," he agreed with a laugh of his own. "He definitely keeps me on my toes." As much as he hated what Jack's actions did to his own sense of reason, Ruka wouldn't have traded it for the world.

There was a long moment of silence then as Kazuo seemed to ponder the question he had been asked. Ruka realised it wasn't exactly a conventional question to throw into a conversation, but Kazuo's answer elicited a satisfied hum from him. "Not a lot of people you can trust to be themselves out there," he pointed out as he stretched out his legs and lazily nudged a foot against Kazuo's shoe. "That I can trust you to be you... I think that makes you more trustworthy than most people."

Kazuo grinned and nodded in response. He hoped they would like what he was starting to plan and that he could actually manage to pull it off. He would undoubtedly need his mother's help. "It's a tragedy that I am stuck in Hufflepuff. All the wrong colours for me." He joked.

Ruka asked if they could visit the shop and he nodded again, excitedly. "We can definitely go there. It's a sushi shop, we can go for lunch. And I don't see why the books wouldn't help? They're beginner textbooks, for elementary school students. All fundamental lessons. If you have trouble, I can always help you right?" Kazuo thought it might be fun to teach Ruka Japanese.

As Kazuo listened to Ruka explain his name and his background Kazuo's eyes shone with curiosity. "Do you speak Welsh? Or Irish Gaelic? Not Bulgarian I'm guessing since your mother wasn't around." He considered the meaning of Ruka's name then shrugged. "I don't know, I think it's a cool name." He pulled out the pen and wrote out the kanji of his name on Ruka’s arm, pointing to each symbol in turn as he explained their meanings.

島田和夫

"Island. Ricefield. Peace. Man." He made a face at the name's meaning. "Names are mostly written in kanji, at least if they’re traditional names. Kanji can sound the same, though, so what sounds like the same name could have different meanings depending on the kanji used. I am the peaceful man of the island rice field. It's so absurdly incorrect, it's laughable. Shimada history says our clan once lived on an island but that was so far back, it's irrelevant. I don't know why the clan didn't change their name to something more relevant when they moved to the mainland. And peaceful man just sounds like wishful thinking from my parents…" He added with a snicker.

Finishing his story about Tamamo had only inspired more questions in Ruka and he couldn’t help but to laugh at Ruka’s eagerness. It reminded him of himself, of the way he had always had questions for his parents, for his tutors. “The Tao is… a way of living but also a way of viewing magic. It’s an old Chinese system based on elemental ideas. There are five elements and they exist in balance. Wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. And I’m an onmyoji. Japanese wizard. Or at least, I was meant to be. I’m not sure…” He looked down at the pen in his hand, holding it up as if it were a wand and tracing patterns in the air. “Is it the same? It doesn’t feel the same… not really… Sometimes I feel like something is missing…” He blinked and shook his head. “Nevermind. The ritual was called Taizan Fukun no Sai and was supposedly an ancient and secret holy ritual because it called on the god Taizan. They believed that because of its holy nature, a yokai like a kitsune wouldn’t be able to take part in it. But the ritual is… I don’t know. They called it holy but as the legend goes, it could extend a person’s life span, save them from dying or even bring them back from the dead. But the cost is a sacrifice and it always made me wonder how a ritual like that could be holy. When I learned about your unicorns and the blood, I couldn’t help but to think it must be similar. I don’t even know if the ritual is a real thing or just a myth. Certainly, no one in my clan knows it if it is real, according to our histories.” He shrugged and tucked the pen behind his ear again, looking down at their intertwined hands. “Sorry, that was probably depressing.” He added with a wry laugh.

“Maybe… since the harp only worked for him… maybe it amplified a power that he already had?” Kazuo suggested, considering Ruka’s words. “I think… it would be amazing but also wouldn’t it be scary to wield that kind of power over people?” He nodded eagerly when Ruka suggested they continue trading stories, returning the squeeze. “I have other books too, other myths.” The idea of trading stories excited him, made him feel happy to have found someone he could share this with.

As their conversation turned to Kazuo’s mother he shrugged. “She comes and goes as needed. It’s not as if it’s hard for her to travel. Last year, before I came to Hogwarts, sometimes she would take me back with her. Now that I'm in school here, it's not as if she has to look after me. We only live in London for the sake of appearances, I think. It would be kind of hard for my Dad to explain how he manages a twelve-hour flight to work every morning." He snickered at the idea. "And Mom stays in London with him for appearances as well since it's easier for her to use magic to travel for her job without it looking strange." He smiled softly as he thought about his living situation and his family. "I hated it so much… at the beginning of the year. Being away from Tokyo, away from my parents, away from everything I knew. Everything I'd been prepared for was back home, not in some boarding school in the middle of nowhere Scotland. I still don’t like it here but I find some things about Hogwarts to be interesting, at least. Like some of the people." He smirked a bit at Ruka.

"One of my secrets is not thinking I'm helpless." Kazuo squeezed Ruka's hand. "We’re never really helpless even if we sometimes feel that way. You have your magic, your intelligence, your hands, your voice… Maybe we don’t know how best to use what we have and maybe we’ll make mistakes but if I let myself think that I can’t do anything… then I won’t do anything, you know?”

Kazuo closed his eyes again as Ruka leaned his head against his own. “Once a month? What kind of payment plan is that? Bi-weekly payments at the very least.” He chuckled when Ruka claimed that his comfort was the top priority. “Well, the point of this was to help you grow more comfortable… so I suppose I can accept your comfort as the top priority… for now…” He replied, opening one eye and turning his head slightly to peek at Ruka, sticking out his tongue.

He closed that eye again as he listened to Ruka’s response on the matter of trust. He snorted and gave Ruka’s foot a return nudge. “Please remember this conversation later when you inevitably regret trusting me.” It was said with amusement but fell silent afterward, considering his relationship with Ruka. After a long pause, he finally asked, more seriously. “What does trust mean to you?”

@Ruka Burnett-Tân

@Kazuo Shimada

T O P

J E A N S

Ruka laughed at Kazuo's words about Hufflepuff sporting all the wrong colours for his liking, then hummed his agreement. "You'd be much better off in my House," he pointed out with a grin. "Everything's very red. Also, there's me, so that's obviously a bonus." He gestured towards himself as well as he could while refusing to let go of Kazuo's hands, and chuckled lightly at his own words. He couldn't quite deny always having felt lonely in his House. There just wasn't anybody he could connect to among his fellow Lions, and Ruka was not exactly one to go out of his way to make friends with people who didn't immediately capture his interest. "Of course, there's also Rafa, but as long as you don't mind occasionally having to fear for your life, you should be fine." Though, Ruka had to admit he hadn't really had any run-ins with Rafa since nearly being drowned in a fountain, so maybe the other boy had finally gotten over his bloodthirsty ways. Ruka certainly wasn't complaining.

Kazuo's clear excitement over going to the sushi shop almost made Ruka vibrate with his own excitement. Each time they ended up talking about their trip to Japan, he could feel his own anticipation rising and rising. He wasn't quite sure if he had every been quite this excited for something before. "That'd be so cool," he decided in awe when Kazuo talked about the Japanese textbooks, and helping him out with learning the language. "I don't really..." He stopped himself, considered his answer to Kazuo's question for a moment, then decided to rephrase it. "I speak some Gaelic. Enough to understand quite a bit, though I've hardly ever had to speak it. I'd be a bit rusty, definitely not fluent." His dad had not really taught him much, rather than Ruka just having picked up some whenever it was spoken. "And I've picked up more Welsh in my time with Jack's family than I have while I was with my dad but I wouldn't exactly say I speak much of it either. I definitely don't know any Bulgarian." He grinned sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders. It wasn't that he didn't think languages were fascinating as well, he simply didn't really know where to start when trying to learn any of them.

He averted his gaze for a moment when Kazuo decided that he liked Ruka's name well enough, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Then, he turned to watch as the other boy took down the kanji of his name on the offered arm, curiously tilting his head to the side as he observed every line drawn. It looked so precise, artistic almost. Ruka wondered if he were ever capable of learning something like that when he was barely able to draw a stick figure. He liked the kanji Kazuo titled as Peace particularly much, took an extended second to stare at it, then lifted his gaze to lock his eyes with the other boy as he talked. "Why is it called clan?" he wondered, a little off topic, but he couldn't quite keep the question in anymore. He remembered Selim using the same word but had never asked for a definition or at least confirmation of his own assumptions. "I mean... It's your family, isn't it? Or is that... A different concept?" After all, Japan seemed so vastly different from what Ruka was familiar with, and hadn't he been pondering the meaning of the word family over and over again himself? He was so curious about Kazuo's way of life that he didn't know which questions to ask at which moment in time. "Maybe they just wanted to keep that part of their history alive in the name?" he guessed with a small hum. "Even if it's irrelevant right now... There might be some sentiment to it." Not that Kazuo seemed all that attached to sentiments as he had learned. "You don't consider yourself peaceful, then?" he questioned with a grin. "Are you saying that whole calm and polite nice boy thing you have going on is just an act?" Gasping in mock surprise, Ruka nudged Kazuo's elbow with his own. "I think it's a cool name," he echoed the other boy's words with a faint smile, then closed his eyes for a moment as he tilted his face towards the sky to let some sun wash over him.

Listening attentively to Kazuo answering his questions, Ruka couldn't help but form even more of them. At least the other boy seemed amused by it rather than annoyed, which he took as an invitation to keep asking, keep trying to understand everything he was being told. "Not air?" he wondered when told about the five elements in Tao. It seemed like a strange assortment of elements to him, though he also realised he didn't know nearly enough about it to make that kind of judgment.

When Kazuo called himself an onmyoji, just to dismiss that claim again, Ruka furrowed his brows, gave the other boy's hands a squeeze and a thoughtful look. "Something missing?" he echoed, thought of the way Kazuo had talked about Japan back in the library, the way that it held a certain kind of spirituality and mystery that London was simply lacking. "Like you aren't everything you're supposed to be?" He gnawed on his bottom lip, felt a sudden urge to pull Kazuo into a hug but he resisted. "Would your education have been different if you'd stayed in Japan?" Letting Kazuo continue his explanation about the ritual, Ruka leaned his head against the bark of the tree behind them, moved so he could stare at the other boy's profile with unbridled interest as he talked. "Are there stories of the ritual working?" he asked, voice slightly timid as he pondered the implications of what that would mean. Rituals to return the dead, sacrificing one life for another. It sounded terrifying; From what he knew about drinking unicorn blood, it seemed to prolong someone's life but curse it at the same time. Would the ritual Kazuo was talking of carry the same kind of consequences?

He gently nudged Kazuo's foot with his own when the other boy apologised, and shook his head. "I asked," he pointed out with a small smile. "That means I want to know, no matter if it's depressing or not." Aiming for an encouraging smile, Ruka pushed himself slightly away from the tree again, though without losing the contact he had built up with Kazuo by then. Now that they had broken that physical boundary, Ruka wasn't eager to sever that contact again.

He nodded to Kazuo's theory about Dagda's harp. "Sometimes I think the harp might have just been something like our wands, you know. Something to channel that power he already had inside him. Magical by itself but only really useful when handled by someone with the right powers." He tilted his head to the side as he thought about the kind of things one could do with that kind of instrument. Scary, perhaps. He hadn't really considered that but now that he thought about it... "I suppose it's a little like taking away people's free will. Their individuality, huh?" He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth again, kept it there without actually gnawing on it. "With great power comes great responsibility?" he supplied with a little laugh. "I guess I shouldn't have a harp like that. Who knows what I'd do." He grinned at Kazuo's eagerness to trade stories, his own eyes glistening with excitement. "I can tell you all the stories my dad used to tell around bonfires," he agreed quickly. "And I can look for even more over the summer. There has to be so much more I've never even heard of, I know there are plenty of books on Irish Folklore." His grin widened even more at the thought and if he hadn't been holding onto Kazuo's hand he would have clapped with excitement.

With the conversation turning to Kazuo's family, Ruka's eagerness mellowed down, though his level of interest stayed the same. He found he liked observing Kazuo's expressions and the tone of his voice when he talked about himself or his personal life. There was something there, something unexpectedly vulnerable, each time he leaned into how much he missed his home, how different things were now that they had moved. Ruka couldn't help but think him strong for moving on and making the most of his situation regardless of how much he disliked it. "Did you like it?" he asked with a smile. "When your mum would take you along when she went to work, I mean. Did you actually get to go to her work with her, or did you just spend your time people watching in sushi shops?" He chuckled and poked his tongue out at the other boy before letting his features smooth out into a small smile. "Do you regret coming here?" he wondered with a tilt of his head. "I can hardly imagine the few interesting people around here to be enough to make up for how much you dislike living here." He looked away for a moment, hid the frown that crossed his features, then turned his smile back to the other boy again. He found himself wishing he could do something to make the other boy feel more at home, though his capabilities were limited. Maybe, after their trip to Japan, once he had a better understanding of what exactly it was Kazuo missed about his home.

After all, he wasn't helpless, there would always be something he could do. That was what he wanted to take away from their conversation about helplessness. If he told himself there was nothing he could do then he never would do anything. Kazuo's words stuck with him, opened up a train of thought he had never really considered before, as simple as it sounded now that he had heard it out loud. He squeezed Kazuo's hand in return, silently looked at the other boy for a moment too long. "Yeah," he just said, reverently, like Kazuo's words were a treasure he would store away and take care of forever.

With their heads leaning against each other, Ruka let his eyes stay shut for a while, just revelled in the comfort and the warmth he felt in that moment. A laugh escaped him when Kazuo insisted on a bi-weekly payment. "Every second Saturday it is, then," he agreed. "At least." He grinned, opened his eyes just in time to see Kazuo poking his tongue out at him, and he swiftly returned the gesture.

Gasping as his eyes fell on his bag not far away, Ruka straightened up. "I almost forgot," he announced, shuffled towards his bag without letting go of Kazuo's hand, and used his free one to rummage around in it until he found what he was looking for. "Made you something." He grinned as he got back into his previous position, pressed against Kazuo's side. In his free hand he was holding a bright red paper crane, an origami figure he'd spent multiple nights doing over and over again until he had managed to fold it as nicely as he possibly could.

Reducio

"I know it probably doesn't count towards your thousand origami cranes for your wish to the Gods," he said with a sheepish smile as he carefully placed the paper crane on Kazuo's knee. "But you can consider it as a sign of my support for your quest for immortality." He let his smile turn into a fond grin, didn't wait for much of a response before he leaned back again, eyes trying to focus on anything that wasn't Kazuo or his little origami gift. He'd thought it was a good idea as he had been making it, though now that he was actually handing it to Kazuo it almost felt silly. He tried to push the feeling down, concentrate instead on their conversation.

When his foot was nudged in return he smiled, then closed his eyes again, furrowed his brows when Kazuo asked him a question he had never actually been asked before, despite how much he'd been talked at about the matter of trust. "I'm not so sure," he admitted quietly. "Everyone keeps saying how I should be more trusting. Give people the chance to surprise me by trusting them, you know?" That was what he remembered Jack asking of him just a year ago. "But if I just throw my trust at people whether they deserve it or not... I feel like it makes me naive. I'd rather wait and see if people are willing to try and earn my trust before I decide whether they deserve it or not." He shrugged the shoulder that wasn't pressed against Kazuo's. "Sometimes I feel like I can hardly even trust myself, much less anybody else. There's so many different things you can trust or distrust people on, right? I might trust someone to be honest with me, but I can just as easily not trust that they have my best interests at heart. I don't feel like I could ever trust someone fully, you know? It feels like so much power and control to give to someone else." He sighed heavily. "What about you? What does it mean to you?"

If Houses could be chosen based on aesthetics, Kazuo probably would have preferred Gryffindor for color scheme. Though he'd heard that Ravenclaw had star themed dorms and that sounded nicer than the lion's den. Not to mention the supposed private library the Ravenclaws boasted having. "Your company would be nice but I'm not sure it would make living with Rafa worth it." He replied with a snort. "While I may not be a very Huffly Puff, I admit Scamander Dorm is pretty cool. And peaceful. Definitely no threats of random violence to suffer through. Better if you joined me in my dorm." He countered with a grin. If only they had that kind of control over their living situation, he would have been happy to share a dorm with Ruka.

“You should teach me what you know of Gaelic.” He replied with a grin. Even if Ruka didn’t know much, it would be more than Kaz knew and he’d be happy to learn even that small amount as a starting point. “I’ll help you with Japanese and you can teach me Gaelic. A fair trade.” Not that he was overly concerned with fair trades but he thought it might make Ruka feel better if they were both teaching each other something.

The next question Ruka asked was not a simple one to answer. He squeezed Ruka’s hand lightly giving the other boy a slight smirk. “You don’t ask the simple questions, do you?” He teased. “It can be family but it can also be larger than family. At the very top - or center - of a clan is a family line, usually. Small clans are all related family bloodlines, especially in the modern day. But larger clans, traditionally, were made up of multiple family lines. For example, the Shimada clan, a very long time ago, around the 1400s, was actually part of a larger clan, the Uesugi. The Uesugi clan was very large and had quite a lot of territory so while the Uesugi were the clan in charge, there were actually many smaller clans beneath them. Even the main family was technically made up of three separate clans, though they were distantly related and there was some intermarriage.” He hummed as he thought about his clan’s history, deciding how much to share without it sounding too dry and boring. “The Shimada clan weren’t martial. We’re onmyoji, wizards, so during certain periods of history, we chose to join under the Uesugi banner for protection. It was either that or face inevitably being conquered anyway. This allowed us to remain somewhat autonomous under the Uesugi. Later, after the unification of Japan, there was a lot of upheaval in how clans were structured and which clans retained power. Eventually we became independent again. The Shimada clan is large enough that we can’t really be considered just a family and we have a policy of adoption so there is a lot of mixed blood as well.” Kazuo shrugged. He wasn’t entirely sure how else to explain the difference between clan and family. “My line, my Dad’s line, we come from the original family that began the Shimada clan. I can track my bloodline back for hundreds of years. But I also have cousins who I have no blood ties to whatsoever.” He wasn’t sure if is explanation would make sense to Ruka. He’d never had to explain the difference before.

“Yes, you’re probably right. Also, lineages and legacies are easier to track if you don’t change your name.” He added with a chuckle. “Would you consider me peaceful?” He shot back with an arched brow, sticking out his tongue. He knew Ruka was teasing him but he didn’t really think of his calmness or politeness as things that indicated a peaceful person. He was always searching, always questioning, always chasing after things - that was not the behaviour of a peaceful person.

“No, air is not included. When compared to other elemental structures it probably seems odd but in the Tao air is viewed as breath… as life or energy. So it sits outside the structure of the other five elements and how they interact. Or you could consider it being involved in all aspects of the five elements behaviours. Without qi a Taoist could hardly manipulate the other elements.” He wasn’t surprised that Ruka would ask about air. It seemed a common choice in western esoteric traditions that involved elements. The differences actually interested him, viewpoints and whether or not they could work the same way.

He nodded when Ruka echoed him. I am not everything I was meant to be. Those words in particular seemed to encapsulate his feelings very well and he gave Ruka a soft smile. “I don’t know how different, but yes it definitely would have been different. Seeing how my parents do things is enough to show me that there are different ways of doing magic. Wands, for example. They aren’t universal, you know.” He pointed out.. “My mother never uses a wand. And between you and me, she wasn’t entirely pleased that I would have to purchase one to learn at Hogwarts..”

When Ruka asked about the ritual he shook his head. “Nothing outside of folk tales that I’m aware of and I couldn’t tell you which of those might be based off a true story. It isn’t a ritual that I think anyone would easily admit to knowing. The general moral stance on a ritual like that would be negative. Most onmyoji would frown upon someone using it, especially now. I suppose they might consider it Dark magic here even though in theory the exchange of life has to be willing.”

As he listened to Ruka talk more about the harp, he nodded his agreement to the theory. It would make more sense that the harp was a channel rather than the power itself. “I should also not be trusted with that kind of power…” He agreed with a grin. “It makes me wonder… Though he might have been doing good for his own men with that harp… was it really fair to decide for them how they should feel?” He mused with a frown. If there was one thing that Kazuo knew, without a doubt, that he would oppose without question, it was taking peoples’ free will away. It was the thing he found the most fascinating about humans, their ability to make their own choices. He could joke about the things he might do with Dagda’s harp but in the end, he didn’t think he could actually bring himself to use it. Those serious thoughts were pushed aside by Ruka’s excitement at sharing stories and he grinned brightly. What kind of stories would Ruka like to hear? Stories about yokai? Or samurai stories? Or maybe Court tales like the Tale of Genji?

Ruka’s questions about his family drew out a small sigh. “I didn’t get to go to work with her very often. I would spend time at home, or the estate, or in sushi shops watching strangers go about their days.” He replied with a chuckle. “I do regret it. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t have come. But that doesn’t mean what I’ve learned here isn’t worth it. If my parents had left me in Tokyo, I wouldn’t have had the chance to meet you and Jack or to discover all the strange things going on here.”

There was a quiet lull in the conversation that Kazuo found comfortable. He was content to lean against Ruka, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the relative quiet of the grounds. He could hear other students nearby doing their own digging, some more exuberantly than others, but none were close enough to encroach on their peace. Ruka leaning forward to grab for his bag caused Kazuo to look at him curiously, amused that the older boy chose to struggle instead of letting go of his hand. He considered commenting but decided against it, simply accepting Ruka’s desire to hold onto his hand. His gaze shifted to the bright red crane and he grinned.

He took the crane with his free hand, admiring it for a moment before responding. “Thank you, Ruka.” He replied quietly. It wasn’t much, just folded paper, but it was the first gift he’d received from someone at the school that had actual meaning. Ruka had remembbered what he’d talked about in the library and he had taken the time to create something for him because of it. The crane itself was just a crane but Ruka’s words made him smile genuinely. “When I’m immortal, I will fold you a thousand cranes.” He replied as he placed the crane on his head, letting it balance there.

He relaxed against the tree, listening as Ruka answered his question. It was not an easy question to answer so when Ruka admitted that he wasn’t sure Kazuo gave a slight nod of his head. “I think trust is something that should be earned.” He replied when Ruka turned the question back on him. “I think that you can give a person a chance without having to just offer your trust blindly. And I agree, there’s different ways you can trust people. I wouldn’t trust anyone to have my best interests at heart either. Except maybe my parents but even there, I would only trust them to have what they think are my best interests at heart. I think lying comes far too easily to most people. I wouldn’t trust a person I barely know not to lie to me. I think real trust can only be built over time, with actions as well as words. I can say anything to someone I’m meeting for the first time with little consequence, especially if I’m rarely going to see them or interact with them again.” He finally opened one eye, peering at Ruka curiously. “I would prefer to be surprised to discover that I can trust someone than being surprised to discover I can’t. Significantly less danger.”

@Ruka Burnett-Tân