Archive of Our Own

“I should kill myself,” Kaveh says out loud, into the wilderness of Sumeru where he’s somehow gotten himself stuck up a tree, missing his sketchbook and a shoe and sporting several new scratches from an unfortunate run-in with a sumpter beast that had been slightly too happy to see him. Mehrak buzzes around him in worry, too small to really do anything to help get him out of the predicament he’s landed himself in.

He receives no response except for the chirping of cicadas, the lights of distant villages flickering on in the distance, and wonders how he’s supposed to get home in time for dinner. And then he thinks about all the nagging he’ll have to face when he manages to make his undignified return, and the withering gaze Haitham will direct at him when he goes through the clothes basket in preparation for laundry day tomorrow, and thinks that no, maybe killing himself might be the better alternative here. At least then he’ll be dying on his own terms.

Speaking of dying, he thinks that’s going to happen soon—or, at least, however soon it takes for someone to starve to death. Which might not be that soon, actually. Kaveh the Architect, the Light of Kshahrewar, found dead in a tree at the tender age of thirty-four. The autopsy reveals that he starved to death upon realising that he was only able to get up a tree and not back down, along with the fact that he had the bone density and muscle mass of an eighty-year old, as well as the liver of a fifty-year old chainsmoker thanks to his unfortunate habit of drinking coffee like water.

“It’s not often I see someone other than me up in a tree this late at night,” comes a young girl’s voice, and in that moment, suddenly broken out of his thoughts, Kaveh’s soul smoothly leaves his body with all the grace and resignment that comes with watching his canvas tube roll down a mountain right into a river as Mehrak lights up in surprise. “You alright?”

It’s only when he’s tapped on the shoulder that he remembers it’s probably not his time to cross the rainbow bridge yet, and he scrabbles for purchase over the branch he’s managed to sling himself over, turning to see what looks like…a box with eyes and a split tail?

Said box materialises back into a cat-eared girl with cat paws, a backpack at least twice as big as she herself is, and an inhuman sense of balance, teetering right next to the fork in the tree he’s managed to get himself stuck in and somehow more stable than Kaveh is despite being on a thinner section of the tree.

“Uh,” Kaveh very eloquently says. “Um.”

“Kirara’s the name,” she offers helpfully, crouching down next to him and beaming, brighter than the moon through the leaves above his head. “And delivering parcels is the game. Need some help getting down?”

“Kaveh,” he shrugs—or tries to, at least, and immediately regrets it when he slides a couple more inches downwards. Kirara grabs him by the back of his shirt, and somehow, in that moment, despite definitely being taller and older than this girl, he feels like a kitten caught by the scruff of its neck. “Er, yes, please. Just treat me like a parcel.”

“With utmost care, then,” the girl giggles, and before Kaveh can say anything to the contrary, like ‘oh, just throw me down the tree at this point, I don’t care how you do it so long as I get to sleep in a bed and not a tree tonight’, she’s already shimmied out of the tree to stand below him, palms braced securely against his feet, and before long he’s lowered to the ground gently, light and delicate as a feather as Kirara dusts her hands off triumphantly. Mehrak hovers at his shoulder worriedly, zipping back and forth to see if Kaveh is alright.

“You’re really strong,” Kaveh stutters, pulling his loose shoe on and too at a loss for words to really say anything else as he stumbles over his thoughts, including but not limited to ‘why are you also up in a tree at this time of day’, ‘why do you have cat paws’, and most worryingly, ‘why can you turn into a box’. Kirara grins brightly at the compliment all the same, tipping her hat. “Thank you for saving me from that tree.”

“I’ll see you home as well,” she offers, already heaving her packages back onto her back. “Since you called yourself a parcel, and Komaniya Express prides itself on its great service, hm?”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly,” Kaveh demurs, waving his hands frantically when he thinks of what Haitham will say at the sight of a grown man having to be escorted home by a teenage girl. “It’s not like I…” It’s not like I have anywhere to call home, let alone somewhere I can live without feeling like I’m imposing and a useless, unemployed, burnt-out freeloader.

Surprisingly, Kirara doesn’t insist, bouncing from foot to foot as she nods in understanding. “Don’t want to go home? That’s alright by me! We can just write you off as a package diverted in transit, and you can come with me until you want to leave, hm?”

“Does that make you customs, then?” Kaveh jokes, feeling his shoulders lighten at the easy acceptance this girl has shown him, and he follows as she begins her trek across the cliffs of Devantaka Mountain, heading away from Sumeru City—and as much as something in Kaveh’s chest tightens out of nervousness at the thought of leaving home behind to go somewhere that might be completely foreign with someone he barely knows but already owes a life debt to, something else feels like it’s coming loose, unfurling like the first growth of spring. Kirara casts him a sidelong glance like she’s picked up on the turmoil in him, before her face blooms into a smile, patting his shoulder gently.

“If you want to think of me that way,” she sings, her footsteps stable despite the thirty-degree downwards incline they’ve somehow managed to find themselves trudging down. “Well, this customs won’t do anything to get in your way home, like the ones back home in Inazuma. You’re free to leave whenever, and I’ll see you safely home if you so much as think that you’d like to go.”

Inazuma. Kaveh thinks of sakura blossoms and the smell of salt and the sea, remembers a lighter time, where life wasn’t so much about work and his youth seemed to stretch out and faraway, boundless as the sunsets over the Inazuman ocean, where the time in his hands seemed to be both infinite as eternity and fleeting as a bolt of lightning and how he spent all of his time running and never chasing others, happy to blaze his own path recklessly with no regard for the consequences. They had existed, of course, but they had been so far off that they seemed like distant storm clouds. “That sounds good,” he murmurs quietly, more to himself than anything else. If he can find inspiration on the way, even better. Anything to get him out of this creative rut he’s found himself in.

Kirara grins, the point of a fang glinting in the low light with the expression, and suddenly Kaveh wonders why he agreed to go on this trip, second-guesses every single decision that has brought him to where he is now, starting from that one moment nearly two decades ago when he decided to become an architect, all bruised knees and starry eyes and a searing, painful kind of longing to make an impact on the world. “How good are you with mountain slopes?”

The expression on Kaveh’s face clearly tells her everything she needs to know, because she laughs—a beautiful, bright, sparkling sound, and even Mehrak seems to sag a little in the air under the sheer warmth and brilliance of her presence, soaking in it like sunlight. “Don’t worry, I’ll pick the easiest routes. Minimal climbing and the best views, and worst comes to worst, I’ll just carry you up.”

“You really don’t—”

“You’re just a parcel, right?” the girl smiles, her tails flicking as she reaches down to give Kaveh a hand with a particularly steep slope, and Kaveh wonders why a throwaway joke seems to mean so much to her, green eyes brighter than the forest around them. “It’s no trouble at all. It’s part of the job description.”

“I haven’t paid,” he says quietly, and helpfully, Mehrak zips closer, depositing his—painfully light—wallet in his hand. He pretends not to notice how Kirara’s tail flicks again at the sound of jingling that’s much quieter than it’s supposed to be, and clears his throat. “I can…sign an IOU?”

“I wouldn’t be a very good courier if I held my customers’ parcels under ransom,” she sighs, though it’s lightened by the teasing in her tone, and Kaveh finally manages to scrabble up the last ridge with her help, panting for air as Mehrak flits around him, dropping his water bottle in his hand. “And I was the one who offered in the first place, anyway. If you want, you can tell everyone that you disappeared because you were kidnapped.”

Suddenly, he remembers that he has friends who care about him and will probably worry if he disappears without warning, considers sending a letter and then thinks twice when he thinks about the efficiency—or, more fittingly, the sheer lack of it—that the Sumeru postal service seems so fond of. He also briefly considers another option, before realising that eleven at night is probably not a very respectable time to break into his friends’ houses to tell them he’s going out on an impromptu field trip. Just as he starts wondering whether leaving is a good idea after all, he catches two figures coming into sight along with the lights of Gandharva Ville, one of whom waves at him brightly.

“Mr Kaveh,” Collei smiles, watching as they trek up the slope, and Kaveh reaches out to ruffle her hair gently. “Oh, and Miss Kirara! Where are you guys headed?”

“I’m kidnapping Mr Kaveh,” Kirara grins back, seemingly unfazed by the absolute bombshell of an admission she’s just dropped on the two of them. Collei’s smile stutters briefly, looking to Tighnari for guidance, and Tighnari shrugs. He’s probably seen stranger things during his day job as a Forest Ranger anyway.

“As long as you promise to return him,” is what the man finally settles on, though he isn’t able to tamp down a nervous flick of his ear, a habit that Kaveh finds himself smiling at, realising the man is more worried about his safety than he can bear to let on. “Please do return him. I’d hate to go running all the way to Inazuma. The static in the air does horrors to my tail.”

“I’d go,” Collei offers helpfully, though not without a healthy dose of trepidation, at the same time Kirara finally returns from rooting through her bag to brandish a little slip of paper at the pair triumphantly. Kaveh leans in to get a better look, and finds that it’s a receipt for the delivery of a certain package—“approximately 5’11 man with blond hair and floating briefcase”, along with a pawprint that must be Kirara’s signature.

“If you just sign here and keep it for your records, any time you start getting worried about him, you can mail this to Komaniya Express, and I’ll get your package—er, friend—back to you within three days of the receipt arriving.” Kirara beams. “Part of the job of being a gold-standard courier. Does that sound good?”

Collei takes it, but Tighnari looks at Kirara a moment longer, before his gaze turns to Kaveh, care wrapped up in the guise of worry as his gaze softens the slightest amount. “Please be careful, Kaveh. We’ll still be here when you come home.”

Kaveh worries at the edge of a fingernail as he nods, and the corners of Tighnari’s mouth pull upwards in a small smile, nowhere near enough to encompass all the love he has for his friends, unfailing and unflinching. When you come home, not if. He likes the sound of that, knowing that he can run as far away as he wants, and that if or when he eventually returns, there will always be people waiting for him, to welcome him home and ask about his travels like no time has passed at all. “Yeah. I’ll do my best.”

“Take care of him,” Tighnari adds, turning to Kirara, who jumps to attention, flinching away from where she was cooing over Collei and Cuilein-Anbar. “I trust you, Miss Kirara, but please treat this package with extra care. He is one of my best friends, after all.”

“Of course,” the girl smiles, catching a leaf before it lands on Kaveh’s shoulder and dropping it lightly to the ground. “You can trust me. When have I ever failed?”

“Never,” Tighnari replies, but the tenseness in his tone eases slightly at the reminder of the courier’s abilities. “But I can’t help but worry all the same.”

Kaveh feels something welling up in his throat and looks away to cough into the crook of his elbow, prompting Tighnari’s ear to flick again, and the man shakes his head, tapping his foot. “Alright, we’ll let you go. Safe travels.”

“Safe travels,” Collei echoes, letting Kirara poke Cuilein-Anbar’s cheeks one more time just to pull a smile out of the reticent girl. “Oh, and safe returns, of course.”

“Thank you,” Kaveh smiles, waving, and Mehrak beeps in agreement. “I’ll see you soon.”

The cliffs of the Chasm are an awe-inspiring sight. Kaveh gets his breath taken away when they emerge from the tunnel connecting Gandharva Ville to Tiangong Gorge, stone jutting haphazardly out of the landscape and grasping for the clear night sky, studded with brilliant stars like an infinite, glittering tapestry.

The cliffs of the Chasm are also, unfortunately, just as hard to climb as they are awe-inspiring. Kaveh gets his breath taken away in a different way, climbing up a particularly tall mountainside as he watches Kirara seemingly stroll up the same cliff face with about as much ease—probably more, actually—as he would have ascending the slopes of Razan Garden. Mehrak buzzes around his head, lighting the way forward and finding the right handholds, and not for the first time that night, Kaveh thanks his lucky stars for Mehrak.

“Are you…really sure that…I’m not…slowing you down?” he pants, slumped against a larger rocky outcrop with his legs over the edge, feet swaying sickeningly over a drop that is going to shatter both his legs if he falls that he is really much too tired and out of breath to care about. “I’m really not in the best shape…”

Kirara, back in her human form and also with her legs over the edge, though admittedly much more carefree than Kaveh is, just shrugs when he poses the question to her. “It’s alright. I’m six days ahead of schedule. The last time I showed up this early, they gave me the rest of the time off, and I was practically going stir-crazy by the end of it.”

She tilts her head towards Kaveh, and flashes him a quick grin. “So I’d rather spend the time with someone who’s never seen the sights. At least now, I can play being a tour guide. It’s a nice change of pace from my usual job.”

“Did you always want to be a courier, then?”

He’s already asked the question before he can hesitate, wondering what it is that lends this girl so much confidence and calmness, like she knows that her job is where she belongs and what she wants to do for the rest of her life, like it’s so easy to make that decision. Against his will, Kaveh envies her.

Kirara rolls an apple in his direction, and he takes it, biting into it gratefully. “No. I didn’t even know this was a career option, actually. Youkai don’t typically get jobs in human society, nor do they really want to, you know. They keep their distance. But I thought living as a human just seemed so interesting—there’s so much to do, so much to see and eat and experience! I didn’t understand how the rest of them could be so detached!”

Oh, she’s a youkai. An Inazuman spirit. That explains the two tails, and the…box form.

On second thought, does it really? Kaveh weighs his options, and finds that he’s still too tired to ask.

“So then I became a nekomata, and because I was just so curious about everything the first couple of times I went into the city, I got arrested several times for trespassing.”

Kaveh chokes, and Kirara tactfully ignores him.

“They eventually realised I was new both to the city and to being semi-human, so they sent me off to see Lady Miko, and she taught me everything I know now about being a good part of society. She also recommended that I work at Komaniya Express, since clearly I liked being in the city and seeing people so much, and that’s just how it’s been for…oh, I don’t know how long now.”

Kirara leans backwards, running her hands over the cool stone that they sit on. “I was lucky, though. I had people to guide me from the moment I stepped into society, to find a job that I liked and could work hard at. Not every youkai is fortunate enough to find people who are willing to lend a helping hand.”

Kaveh hums in acknowledgement, and she turns to look at him like she can see through him, and he realises that the stories about youkai being wise and terrible in equal measure might not be false after all. “I think I’m only this happy where I am because I don’t know what else is out there. I’m sure there might be something else that makes me happier—but until then, I’m staying.”

And then she stretches and yawns, and suddenly, she is just a girl again, the edges of her smile soft and sweet. “I guess we could compare this field trip of yours to the first time I went into the city. Maybe you’ll find something new or somewhere you’d like to stay, or maybe you’ll find that home was where you wanted or needed to be all along. Either way, you’ll get something new out of it. That’s really all we can ask for sometimes, right?”

With the absolute worst possible timing it could have picked, Kaveh’s stomach rumbles, and Kirara laughs as Kaveh considers throwing himself over the edge in mortification, because of course it has to be now, in the middle of an emotional conversation, just as Kirara was starting to open up—everything always has to go wrong just as it starts going right. “Okay, I’ve nearly talked your ear off. Let’s just make it to the top and then we can have dinner and set up camp for the night, okay?”

Despite the rock wall that stands between him and proper rest, Kaveh finds himself surprisingly malleable and pliable to the pace Kirara sets, punishing (to him, a thirty-four year old shut in) as it is. Maybe it’s because of the sheer genuineness the girl has shown him, that he feels he has to pay it back in kind.

He leaves the apple core behind on a small patch of grass, and resumes the arduous trek upwards.

Somehow, he manages to struggle up the cliff face, appreciating how Kirara always pauses frequently enough to let him catch his breath, before he finally gets a hold on something that isn’t stone for the first time in what feels like hours. With a helpful push from Mehrak and Kirara’s deceptively strong grip on his wrist as she pulls, he finally finds his way back onto flat ground, collapsing into grass that’s softer than anything he’s ever felt. A Statue of the Seven hums nearby, and as he heaves for breath, he makes the solemn resolution to exercise more when he gets back…back home.

By the time he gathers enough breath and energy to sit up, Kirara already has a tent set up and is building a rudimentary fireplace, Mehrak buzzing back and forth as it collects sticks for her.

“Know how to start a fire?” she asks him, and he shakes his head, having relied maybe slightly too heavily on the ever-reliable Dehya and her Pyro vision on their trips out. Kirara hands him a flint and steel, and grins. “Want to try?”

Surprisingly, Kaveh gets the hang of it quickly, managing to strike sparks on his second or third try when he thinks of all the projects that are piling up, all the work he still has to do and all of the clients who don’t know what they want but think that he’s doing it wrong and—

They have a roaring fire going quickly. Kirara rustles together a rudimentary meal of fish and rice (extra fish for her, extra rice for him) and hands it over, and Kaveh finishes it all at a speed that might be slightly worrying if Kirara wasn’t just as engrossed in her meal as he is, looking over at him to grin in shared embarrassment, pawing at her face to get rid of the fish grease. It’s only then, full and satisfied, that Kaveh realises just how beautiful his surroundings are. The moon is high in the sky, illuminating the rippling terrain of The Chasm, almost as if a star had fallen and punched a hole straight through the landscape. Above it all, in the distance, hangs a structure in the sky, all elegant Liyuen sloping eaves and tiled roofs, and he wipes his hands on a napkin before reaching for his sketchbook and pencil, trying to capture the sight.

“The Jade Chamber,” Kirara supplies helpfully, following his line of sight, and her tail flicks at the rapid scribble of pencil over paper. “The second one, actually. It was rebuilt after Lady Ningguang dropped it on Osial, Overlord of the Vortex. It floats because of the Plaustrite in it.”

She glances at him, noticing the interest in how his fingers twitch, and shakes her head. “No, you can’t get any. All the largest pieces have been broken down by merchants to sell separately, or bought by the Lady herself. Even beyond that, you’d face some trouble trying to get it back to Sumeru, anyway. I don’t think even I could help with that.”

With some disappointment, Kaveh shelves his ideas of constructing Sumeru’s first floating building. Kirara pats him on the shoulder, as if she’s sensed the disappointment from him. “We can get you a smaller chunk, though. You can build models around it just for fun.”

“Okay,” Kaveh chuckles, not sure whether to feel happy or sad that she’s trying to comfort him. “Thank you, Kirara.”

She beams at him, brighter than the stars, before her tail twitches and she pulls a slip out of her pocket, scrutinising it. “Hm. My next client is scheduled to show up tomorrow morning around here, so I think I might clock out for the night. Are you coming with?”

The man nods, pushing himself to his feet and grimacing as his knees crack, heading over and brushing the flap of the tent out of the way to reveal one bedroll. One bedroll, for the…two of them?

He turns around, ready to ask a question, only to see Kirara having already shifted back into her cat form, weaving past his legs to sit by the pillow. She meows expectantly, kneading at the crude pillow, and Mehrak buzzes past him to settle down next to her. Kaveh pushes the thoughts out of his head and shrugs, flopping down and clocking out for the night.

“Goodnight, Kirara,” he murmurs quietly, the fatigue and excitement of the day finally catching up with him. She meows back, and taps his forehead gently with one of her tails, Mehrak beeping in familiar comfort. Like that, to the sound of quiet purring and the rustling of grass, he drifts off in a foreign place for the first time in a long time.

When he wakes up to the sound of foreign voices and an empty spot next to his pillow where Kirara should be, he feels like dying. Unsurprisingly, walking several kilometres and scaling three mountainsides without a warmup or cooldown exercise for someone who doesn’t do anywhere as much exercise as this in a month, let alone a single day means that his muscles scream in protest every time he moves, shifts, or even breathes.

Unfortunately, his stomach is also growling, and something smells extremely good, so with support (more emotional than physical) from Mehrak, he manages to stagger out of the tent, a hand between his eyes and the blinding sunlight. He finds Kirara first, who grins and waves at him, before he notices that their campsite has gained two new members; a green-haired boy with a spear who sits slightly away from the fire, and what appears to be a small girl with braided purple hair, who turns to look at him with curious pink eyes.

He rubs his eyes. Looks again. Okay, so they’re not sleep-deprivation hallucinations. Kirara pats the spot next to her, and tentatively, he sits down, slightly unsettled by how two pairs of eyes follow his every movement.

“This is Kaveh,” Kirara supplies, addressing the pair, before pointing first at the girl, then the boy. “This is Qiqi, apprentice and herb picker at Bubu Pharmacy in the city, and that is Yaksha General—”

“Xiao,” the boy says, before not saying any more. Kaveh nods like he understands all these titles and names.

“—Xiao.” To her credit, Kirara takes the amendment in stride. “Qiqi is my client for today, and Xiao showed up sometime last night when he noticed two people camping in the wilds of the Chasm without guards or anyone to keep watch.”

“Thank you,” Kaveh says tentatively, and Xiao nods brusquely. Apparently there are people who are worse conversational partners than Haitham. That’s certainly something new that he’s learned from this field trip. Qiqi pats the box next to her gently, as if making sure it hasn’t disappeared in the time she’s taken her eyes off of it, before Kirara sniffs the air and turns to the campfire, lifting the lid from the pan to reveal what appears to be several fish cakes, grilled to glossy perfection, pulling their attention back to the food.

“Sangayaki,” Kirara announces, looking awfully proud of herself as she wraps them up in leaves, handing it to all of them one by one, though she has to reach slightly to give it to Xiao, who is careful not to touch her when he takes it. “Or, seasoned and grilled fish paste. My favourite to-go breakfast.”

Kaveh takes a bite, and can see why as he feels his soul ascend out of his body. The fish somehow tastes fresh and the salt is light but not overly so, bringing out the best of both ingredients. Xiao makes a small noise of satisfaction as Qiqi sets it on a nearby stump and stares at it impatiently, waiting for it to cool.

“Where are…you all headed?” she murmurs dully, turning back to Kirara, who taps her chin.

“I need my border entry permit renewed, so we’ll be heading into Liyue Harbour to see Yanfei. After that, we’ll be heading to Inazuma.”

“The Harbour,” the girl echoes, before reaching into her bag and handing Kirara a paper packet that smells faintly of flowers and herbs. “Please deliver this to…Shenhe-jie…if you see her. If not, please drop it off at…Bubu Pharmacy. Doctor Baizhu will…take care of the rest.”

“Okay,” Kirara nods, and then the packet is whisked off into her bag, and Qiqi gets a receipt for her troubles, which she tucks carefully into her journal, red bookmarks and pages fluttering in the wind. “Busy day for you, then?”

“Qiqi has to pick…Violetgrass and…more Qingxin. Doctor Baizhu said we are running low.”

“I will accompany you,” Xiao adds, cutting into the conversation, his food finished and the leaf folded neatly to sit on the ground next to him.

“Nothing more urgent to do?” Kirara smiles, sliding another sangayaki in his direction, and the boy waits for her to draw back and put some distance between them before he takes it, humming in acknowledgement.

“She is a child of Liyue,” Xiao states, with the same self-assuredness one would have upon saying that the sky is blue, or that grass is green. Or red, since they’re in the Chasm. “Nothing is more important than protecting those who call Liyue their home. So I will protect her.”

“Qiqi does not need protecting,” the girl protests, a hand reaching out to tug gently at the lavender tassel that dangles from his waist. Absently, Kaveh notes that it’s the same colour as her hair, that Qiqi is the one person Xiao seemingly does not shy away from, that this boy who seems so wary of everyone lets his guard down so easily around this little girl. “Qiqi can defend herself.”

“And I am sworn to Liyue and its inhabitants,” Xiao replies quietly, leaning down to look her in the eyes. “Allow me to fulfil my duty.”

Qiqi doesn't have anything to say to that, toying with the edge of a slip of paper. Kaveh clears his throat, and the girl turns back to him.

“Your food’s going to get cold,” Kaveh remarks quietly, and Qiqi’s eyes widen like she’s forgotten, turning back to where a finch now pecks at the sangayaki, meeting her gaze with a beady eye of its own. Kirara’s fingers twitch like she’s holding back the urge to pounce, and thankfully, the bird flutters off both before her willpower fails and before Qiqi has nothing left to eat. Kirara giggles quietly, before bouncing to her feet and heading over to pack up and get ready to go, and Kaveh pushes himself to his feet (albeit not without a quiet groan of pain), dousing the campfire and cleaning the pan. By the time they’re done, so are Xiao and Qiqi, the former of whom stands at the edge of the cliff with his arms crossed and the latter of whom is doing stretches.

Kirara pats Qiqi’s head gently, and waves to Xiao, who turns to see them go. “We’ll see you around. Sorry I forgot your milk candy. I’ll make it up to you.”

“Okay,” Qiqi nods, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, and Kaveh tries not to feel too endeared. “Qiqi will try to remember that.”

Kirara begins on her downward trek, and Kaveh moves to follow, only to stop as he feels a tug at the hem of his shirt, and he turns to see Qiqi. She hands him a brown paper packet, similar to the one she asked Kirara to deliver.

“Glaze Lily leaves,” she says, as if in response to his confused expression, though he takes it anyway, tucking it into his shirt pocket carefully. “Add into boiling water, and then steep for three minutes. Helps with stress, helps you…live well. You…look stressed.”

Kaveh winces, wondering if the white that is coming out in his hair is so obvious even a child can pick up on it.

“Not a permanent remedy,” Qiqi continues. “Need to change routine and drink tea to be healthy again. But if you want more…come to Bubu Pharmacy. Bubu Pharmacy has more.”

“Thank you,” Kaveh says, and finds that he means it, despite the blunt manner with which Qiqi has shredded his confidence in his ability to hide his stress, or at least his ability to handle it well enough that he can pretend that he’s alright to the people around him. “I’ll be sure to drop by if I need more.”

She stares a moment longer, finally turning away to head over to where Xiao is before Kaveh starts to fidget and wonder if she’s going to give him something he can dye his hair with. “Take care,” she says, a parting remark thrown over her shoulder. “Of yourself.”

“Kaveh?”

Kirara’s green eyes poke out over the edge of the cliff, and he shakes himself out of his stupor, heading over to begin the arduous climb down. Through it all, the packet sits over his heart, a gentle and comforting weight and a new addition to his journey.

Kaveh thanks Liyuen infrastructure that the path to Liyue Harbour is paved, meaning that he doesn’t have to do any more climbing, and they make it into the city just as the sun reaches its apex in the sky. Kirara squints at the sky, her hand between the sun’s rays and the horizon line, before nodding in satisfaction.

“Good. We should be catching our little trio just as they’re returning from lunch.”

“Little trio?” Kaveh asks, and Kirara nods, fishing for something in her bag and handing it to him. He turns it over, finding a pink and gold-embossed business card—Yanfei, Legal Consultant, LLB, LLM and PhD in Liyuen Law. Property Law and Personal Injury Specialist. And then, scribbled in each corner; Yelan, Ministry of Civil Affairs and Liyue Qixing Fixer, as well as Shenhe, and then in crossed-out smaller script right below the last name, the word ‘unemployed’ has been replaced with ‘Martial Arts Disciple and Communer with the Adepti’.

“Yanfei is my go-to for everything legal-related because she’s so lovely and good at what she does, so you might want to connect with her as well if you’re ever interested in doing anything in Liyue. Yelan and Shenhe are just there for emotional support.”

Kaveh hands the business card back, and Kirara takes it after a moment of hesitation, continuing to skip along the tiled roads of Liyue Harbour. Kaveh’s path is nowhere as smooth, stopping every two or three steps to run his hand along a stone bannister in interest or scribble a quick sketch of the wood joinery, marvelling at how every step seems so filled with history and how there seems to be something to learn about everywhere he looks. But Kirara doesn’t complain, bobbing from foot to foot as she waits patiently, not a single word of complaint. Kaveh really could cry. It’s lovely to have someone who doesn’t complain about walking at the approximate speed of a snail, letting him collect inspiration and work at his own pace.

“What do you think about Liyue Harbour?”

“It’s different,” Kaveh replies, because it’s the only word he can think of, and because it is, all gleaming red-tiled roofs and sun-warmed stone as far as the eye can see, a far cry from the heavy humidity and rainfall of Sumeru that seems to weigh his every step down until he’s not sure if he’s more human or more water, clinging to him like a cloying second skin. “Not in a bad way, though. I like it.”

Kirara beams at that, a tenseness that Kaveh hadn’t picked up on in her expression melting away, like she’s terribly, horrifically, unbelievably glad that Kaveh likes the first real destination she’s taken him to on their journey so far. “I do too. They have all the best things to eat, and there are plenty of great spots to take a nap in the sun if you know where to look. Then again, I think that applies to most of the nations I’ve been to, anyway—excluding Snezhnaya, of course!”

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Kaveh laughs, knowing that he’ll likely never make it that far in his lifetime. But if he ever wants to, for some reason, he feels like if he asks, Kirara will gladly accompany him, braving the cold and winter chill. “And thank you,” he adds quietly. “For caring.” About me, about what I think, about whether I’m eating well enough and whether I’m uncomfortable or missing home. Even though we’ve barely known each other for a week, even though I’m sure you’ve seen people much more brilliant and spectacular and fantastic than I am.

“Nonsense,” Kirara beams, crouching next to him, and suddenly, Kaveh finds himself inclined to bask in her warmth, wanting more of this simple companionship that the girl hands out like she has an abundance of it. “It’s the least I can do.”

They are relaxed for all of five seconds before a bell chimes, and the girl jumps almost a full three feet in the air, yelping as she looks at the sun in the sky, beginning on its downward trend. “Oh, no, oh, we’re going to be late!”

Kaveh’s eyes widen almost comically, stuffing sheafs of loose paper back into his folder and clapping it shut. Kirara manages to catch a sheet when it slips out, handing it back to Kaveh as they race down the streets of Liyue Harbour, and suddenly, Kaveh feels a laugh bubbling out of his chest, half-exasperated and half-shocked like he still can’t quite believe the absurdity of what he’s doing. She glances over at the sound, a matching grin forming on her face, and Kaveh thanks whatever Archons have been watching for guiding him to the right tree at the right time, all so he could meet this girl who’s turned his life upside down.

They make it to Yanfei’s office at the Ministry of Civil Affairs just as the clock ticks over into them toeing the line between being barely on time and disgracefully late, careening through her doors and narrowly avoiding a collision with a stack of paper that has to be taller than Kaveh himself is, though he does smack his ankle on the leg of a large closet in the corner of the room, biting back a pained yelp. The sole inhabitant of the office doesn’t even look up from her documents at the commotion, spinning a pen idly.

“If it’s a message or assignment from the Liyue Qixing, leave it on the table by the door. If you’re looking for Yelan, she’s away from the office and won’t be back for a while. If you’re here for free legal advice, that’s Mondays and Thursdays from five to eight.”

“And if I have a delivery for Miss Shenhe?” Kirara prompts, grinning sneakily, and Yanfei’s head shoots up, eyes brightening behind the lenses of her glasses.

“Oh, Kirara! Aiya, if I’d known it was you, I wouldn’t have let them into—”

“It’s Kirara?”

The sounds of struggling emerge from the closet, and Kaveh has to shift backwards awkwardly to make space as the doors swing open and two people tumble out—one lands ungracefully in a pile on the floor, and the other steps out, unruffled and elegant.

“So much for her being away from the office,” Kirara half-laughs and half-sighs, and the woman in blue on the floor crawls back to her feet, dusting herself off and pinching Kirara’s cheek gently. “Ow, ow, hey! Yelan, that hurts!”

“You can’t blame me. Ningguang’s been on my case about work,” Yelan complains, her words lightened by teasing, and Kaveh tries not to feel too put out by how her gaze rakes over him briefly, almost sharp in its judgement before returning to the girl, softening so quickly Kaveh thinks he must have imagined the glance. “What do you have for Shenhe?”

“My everlasting love,” Kirara replies shamelessly, winking in Shenhe’s direction. The taller woman doesn’t smile, per se, but she comes very close, and Yanfei just sighs in what might be good-natured jealousy. “No, I’m kidding. We ran into Qiqi, and she asked me to bring you this.”

The paper packet reappears from the depths of her bag, and Shenhe accepts it, bringing it up to her nose, eyelids fluttering shut briefly. “Hm. Still fresh. Thank you.”

“Speedy and efficient as always,” Yanfei grins, shoving her documents aside and lifting two paper bags back onto the table, and at the smell that wafts tantalisingly in his direction, Kaveh has to bite back a groan, wondering what on earth it is that smells so good. “Come on, you two. Since it’s not Ningguang, you can get back to lunch.”

Led by her nose, Kirara practically floats closer, staring wistfully as Yelan practically falls into the nearby armchair and Shenhe takes a seat languidly, pulling out extra chairs for the two. “Any chance we could…you know…”

“We knew you were coming today so we got you extra,” Yelan nods. “And I’ve already eaten, so your new friend…”

“Kaveh,” Kaveh supplies helpfully, and tries not to feel too scrutinised or too much or too little or too unlike what they expect from someone who’s barely even known Kirara for long enough to call himself a friend of hers. More than a stranger, less than a friend. Maybe a parcel, caught in her orbit briefly. He can settle for that.

“Kaveh,” Yelan repeats; assessing, appraising. Either way, Kaveh feels oddly nervous, wondering not for the first time if it’s too late to turn back now. “You can have my portion.”

“Don’t scare him,” Yanfei protests, handing Kirara a takeout box and a pair of chopsticks, who gestures for Kaveh to come closer before dropping the box into his hands, and Yelan raises her hands in surrender, shooting Kaveh an apologetic nod. “He’s going to lose his appetite. Yelan, you need to eat. Three Jueyun Chilis does not count as lunch.”

“You’re biased,” the woman pouts, but she takes a pair of chopsticks anyway. Briefly, Kaveh is reminded of Tighnari nagging him to eat before he collapses, and feels a sudden and deep kinship with Yelan when she glances at him and pulls a face, all trace of her earlier unfriendliness gone with a simple word from Yanfei. He smiles in commiseration, though he does cough surreptitiously every time Yelan tries to sneak some food onto his plate, putting her on the receiving end of the lawyer’s unimpressed glare every time, shaking her head. After about the third time this occurs, he decides to just give up, letting the slow transfer happen. He thinks he’ll be left to struggle and fend for himself until he catches a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, watching gratefully as Kirara picks each item up and drops it back on Yelan’s plate every time she looks away.

“Shenhe,” the courier mumbles through a mouthful of food, diverting attention from the revolving trade between the three that’s happening right under Yanfei’s nose. “Why were you hiding in the closet with Yelan, by the way?”

“Because Yelan was there,” Shenhe replies plainly, with what looks like undying devotion in her eyes. Yelan huffs a sigh, loud and exasperated and affectionate all at once.

“Don’t let her fool you. She just wanted to see me fight for space with what feels like a brick wall. She was hoping it was Ningguang in person anyway, so she could watch me get dragged back to work unceremoniously.”

“Because Yelan was there,” Shenhe repeats, the corners of her mouth twitching slightly, and Kaveh realises that the undying devotion was not for Yelan, but to the cause of seeing Yelan make a fool of herself. Quietly, he looks down at his hands in his lap, and thinks of home, of his friends whom he teases and is teased by in equal measure. He realises he may be Kirara’s guest and Kirara might be beloved by all of her friends, but it does not change the fact that their love only goes so far, and that he remains a stranger in a strange land.

“I smell herbs on you too,” Shenhe remarks, pulling Kaveh’s attention back to her against the background noise of the others chatting amongst themselves as Yanfei works, pulling out a sheet of paper and a new border entry pass. “Has Kirara taken you on as an intern?”

Kaveh shakes his head, swallowing before he trusts himself to talk, and Shenhe just sits and waits, patient as a statue. “Qiqi gave me something as well. She said it would help with stress. Glaze Lily leaves, actually.”

He’s not sure if he’s imagining it, but Shenhe’s gaze lingers on the area under his eyes (oh no, he thinks, the dark circles under his eyes must still be pretty obvious) before she looks up to the omnipresent crease between his eyebrows, and then over to where the silver in his hair is coming out, right by his temples.

“I will be able to get you more if you need it,” she finally says. “Leave your address with Yanfei. I will take care of the rest.”

“I couldn’t impose on you like that,” he frowns, but Shenhe is already nodding seriously like her mind is made up, an expression that is strikingly similar to the one that appears on Cyno’s face whenever he either picks up a new case on the job or picks up a new pack of Genius Invokation TCG cards, intent in both cases on pulling him into spending time together so Cyno can pick at two brains instead of one. Or pick on, in the latter case. Kaveh always loses their matches.

Cyno. Kaveh hopes he’s doing well. That he isn’t overworking himself, that Tighnari and Haitham are taking care of him as best as they can, that he’s not taking on more cases than he can handle, that he isn’t running off to the far corners of Sumeru on some hare-brained scheme, or in pursuit of a red herring—or worse, a criminal that he’s not suited to handle. It’s unlikely, given that the title of the General Mahamatra is not one that comes lightly, but Kaveh worries nonetheless.

Shenhe must interpret the expression on his face as him still being opposed to the idea—which she is partially correct about, because Kaveh cannot stand the thought of troubling people, let alone people he hasn’t known for more than half an hour—because she tilts her head, the movement pulling him from where he’s stuck in his worry back to where he is. Stranger, strange land. “Do not worry. Kirara can both deliver and collect on the payment. It will not be any extra effort on our part.”

Kaveh isn’t sure whether the Adepti (or their disciples, at least) can somehow read minds, because it only takes a further glance for her to clock exactly what it is about this entire situation that makes something in him wither and rot, like fruit past its time.

“You are allowed to impose on other people and take up space in their lives,” she adds, and Kaveh flinches like he’s been struck, feels the bittersweet pulp of his heart compress under her unflinching gaze. “If people want to do things for you, and if both of you will benefit, learn to accept it. You deserve to be loved, and to accept the love that the people around you give, just as you wish to give in return.”

It’s an odd thing to hear the aloof-looking woman say, but when he glances over, Kaveh finds that fondness doesn’t look as out of place on her regal features as he thought it would. Less so like ice, and more so like the beginning of spring, frost melting into gentle water that trickles down the tender leaves and budding flowers of new growth, finally returning to the soil.

“I learned that from Yanfei, and Yelan made sure I would never forget. In the end, Master was right.” She takes a quiet breath torn halfway between awe and affection, and Kaveh feels something in his chest expand almost painfully as he copies her. “I found them, after all. My friends. Who do not expect me to be anyone in particular, and just want me to be me, instead of do anything for them.”

The tide of homesickness, just beginning to ebb, flows back in full force as he follows Shenhe’s gaze to Yelan, who’s wiping at the corner of Yanfei’s mouth as Kirara laughs, looking more like a family than anything Kaveh knows, an odd hole opening in the pit of his stomach as his throat dries up and wind seems to rattle through his lungs as he tries desperately not to cry. He watches and wonders and thinks of home, of learning from Madam Faruzan and teaching Collei, of Nilou’s unfailing friendship and Dehya’s warm smile and warmer company. Just as Shenhe has her friends, he has his little quartet too. Tighnari, the brightest botanist of his generation. Cyno, the famed General Mahamatra who never passes up the chance to play TCG. Alhaitham, Scribe of the Akademiya, much greater and meant for far more than what he wishes to achieve. And then him, little old Kaveh, with too little money and too much heart, suffering for both.

Like she’s known all along, Shenhe turns slowly back to Kaveh to smile, worldly and wise, and Kaveh feels his heart split cleanly in two like a pomegranate, the only part that really belongs to him the seeds that lie within the glistening red fruit bared to the air. Bitter and inedible and the worst and most annoying part of each aril, but if nurtured with a little bit of love, maybe full of life.

“Thanks for the herbs,” he says quietly, and tries to make it sound like thank you for everything. With the way Shenhe nods languidly, he thinks she has understood both meanings.

Later that night, slightly tipsy from all of the alcohol that he’s had at dinner with Captain Beidou and her crew, busy diverting it all away from Kirara (she might be older than him, but it still feels strange for a girl who looks no older than eighteen to be drinking tankard after tankard of baijiu), he takes the business card out of his pocket, and inspects it again.

Yanfei, it still reads. Legal Consultant, LLB, LLM and PhD in Liyuen Law. Property Law and Personal Injury Specialist, and in black pen, as if added after, the next time we meet, I’ll have an honorary degree from Sumeru Akademiya so I can advise you confidently! And then, after that, Shenhe, Bubu Pharmacy Contact and Disciple of the Adepti, and Yelan, who knows all the best places in Liyue to eat and drink - if you come back, give us a call!

He runs his fingers over the edges of the card, not sure whether the odd feeling in his chest is from the easy-going acceptance that everyone seems to have shown him like he’s just Kaveh and Kirara’s friend to them and not Kaveh the Architect or the Light of Kshahrewar, without expectations of anything from him, or purely because of the veritable half-bottle of alcohol that he’s just consumed. It doesn’t matter either way. He thinks it’s part happiness, fizzing up his spine and blooming in his mouth like carbonation, which is all that matters.

For the second night in a row, a real rarity in his line of work, Kaveh’s sleep is dreamless and undisturbed, Kirara curled up in the bunk above his and purring loudly enough to be heard over the sound of the waves.

“You’re late,” Lady Yae Miko of the Grand Narukami Shrine says when they get to the top, Kaveh bracing his hands against his knees as he heaves for air, too exhausted to enjoy the sight of the sprawling Inazuman countryside. To her credit, Kirara looks completely unwinded, and Kaveh wonders how he hadn’t noticed that she was a youkai earlier, because surely the ascent up the mountain was not intended for humans. Mehrak, on the other hand, seems perfectly fine, which may be because they can fly, and also because machines do not get tired. Kaveh would be jealous, but he’s too busy trying to remember how to breathe without it hurting.

“No, I’m not,” Kirara pouts, though the hint of a smile pokes through in her expression. “You just expect me earlier than everyone else does.”

“I expect great things from you,” the Lady replies with a smirk, though she’s already opening her arms, and Kirara breaks into a run, flinging her arms around Miko’s shoulders. The woman catches her with a laugh, gentle and delighted and more delicate than the petals that rain down around them, and Kaveh feels a phantom ache in the thing in his chest, coughing twice like that is all it takes to dislodge heartbreak, the persistent and haunting thing that it is. “Immediate delivery on all of my parcels is just another.”

“And it’s unreasonable,” Kirara argues back. Kaveh fidgets, feeling slightly out of place as Miko places a kiss on Kirara’s forehead, her every action filled with affection, before she composes herself and turns to Kaveh.

“You’ve brought a guest,” she remarks, with enough unfamiliarity for Kaveh to realise that this is not a common occurrence, along with an equal amount of worry that befits such a situation. “I would typically welcome you, and while I do trust Kirara’s judgement when it comes to her friends, I trust my own more.”

“I can vouch for him,” Kirara protests. “Even Yelan ended up liking him by the end of their meeting, and you know how suspicious she gets. He’s genuine, sweet, and—”

“Yes,” the Lady says, but the tone of her voice brooks no argument, all hardwood of the cherry tree to the petals and soft leaves that Kirara is, solid and unyielding where the other drifts with the wind, and Kirara falls silent. “I’m sure.”

Faced with Lady Yae Miko, Guuji of the Grand Narukami Shrine, Kaveh thinks of Tighnari, and wonders if all of the foxes in the world are like this. Not fond of many but painfully protective of the few they do love, both prone to worrying too much that it manifests itself as something sharp and cutting.

“I’m Kaveh,” the man finds himself saying, laying his hands out, calloused palms up, and Miko takes a step closer. “I’m an architect from Sumeru. I met Kirara while stuck in a tree—”

A pink-furred ear flicks, the earring making a crisp, clear sound as jingles, disturbing his calm like a single raindrop falling into a lake, sending ripples radiating outward. Still, Kaveh forges on bravely. “—and she invited me to come back to Inazuma with her in the hopes that I could collect some inspiration for my projects. She took me through the Chasm, we stopped by in Liyue Harbour, and then Captain Beidou took us across the ocean back here.”

The Guuji’s silence turns expectant, and it takes a moment for Kaveh to pick up on this change, but less time than that for him to realise what he needs to say next. “She’s been nothing but kind to me on this trip. She’s been making sure that I eat well and eat enough, that I’m not feeling too homesick or too strained or too tired on this trip. I really don’t know how I’ll ever repay her, if I even can.”

He hears the faint sound of a bamboo fountain against rock distantly, hidden in some corner of the shrine, and counts the clicks that mark the length of the silence. One, two, three—and still, the Lady is unmoved.

“The first thing Kirara said she had to do after coming back was visit you,” he finally offers timidly, and her expression changes entirely, a smile spreading across her face.

“Is that so?”

Miko can try and pretend all she wants, but a pleased note lies under her voice as she turns back to Kirara. “I see you are still the most filial of them all,” she teases, and Kirara’s expression softens slightly, worry melting into affection. “Very well. I concur with your view of him. Take care of your friend, Kirara.”

Kirara sighs, launching into an animated tirade about how her taste in people has never led her wrong and how Kaveh himself is much nicer than the majority of the people she delivers packages to and oh, has she told Miko about her last mean customer?—and it’s all Kaveh can do to just watch, thoroughly too endeared to look away.

Lady Miko seems to behave like Kirara’s mother, even though their ears and tails are different shapes and their fur is different colours and the Priestess does not seem like the kind of person to ever get married in her lifetime, let alone have an actual child of her own, but none of that seems to matter with the depth and breadth of love that lies between them, its familiar grooves worn smooth by time and repeated traversal. Not for the first time, Kaveh squashes a wave of envy down furiously, the caustic and acrid feeling squirming in the hollowness of his ribcage, mixing in with what might be a desperate, anguished kind of longing for a simpler time. He has not been a child for a long time, and does not intend to behave like one, refusing to taint the memory and existence of Kirara, his saviour and guide, with his selfishness.

But he was a child too, and he still remembers being loved so openly and without pretense, as distant of a memory as it is. He looks at the pair and thinks of the gaping hole in his chest, one that he still digs his fingers into the scar tissue of and holds open in the hopes that he might finally find out how his useless, foolish heart works, that he might never have to hurt anyone ever again at the cost of himself. He still remembers his father’s smile but not the colour of his eyes, his mother’s figure on the sofa waiting for someone who’d never return home, and how he lied, both to her and to himself, that he’d be alright without them, that he was hardy and tough enough to survive in the world they were going to leave him in. The last thing his mother had told him before leaving for Fontaine was to be happy, and he had just smiled and pretended like he knew what that meant and like he understood and like happiness was just a firefly to him, harmless and easy to catch and keep in a glass jar. But Kaveh’s butterfly nets are worn and glass jars only cut his fingers now, and he is not suited to the fleeting and fragile nature of happiness, only the consistency and solidness of rock bottom, of let downs and disappointments and at least it is one thing never changes, in his world where everything seems to change too much. It seems the Architect has grown, and it is Kaveh who has regressed, one knowing that glass is a terrible and finicky material to work with, and the other who still dreams of so many fireflies that they make fields look like galaxies.

He would have stayed in those endless fields forever, and it seemed that Time itself disagreed, pulling him away and yanking him out of shape until he grew up into a mere wooden frame of a man with his skin stretched thinly over it, just that same small scared child deep within, plaster splintering under the weight of all of these expectations, not happy enough to be a child and not cruel enough to be an adult. He has his father’s smile—always half-rueful—and his mother’s hair—greying ahead of its time—but the blood caked under his fingernails is his own, hands too unsteady and stained with black and red, too far from the gentle light of a firefly. His own blood, his own fault.

He wipes his eyes and looks away at the sunset, laughing at himself. Half jealousy, half yearning, and all of it agony, agony, agony.

Somewhere along the line, the Guuji leads them to a sitting area in one of the smaller buildings surrounding the shrine so they can sit down and talk properly, asking a shrine maiden to bring them something as Kaveh keeps his eyes stubbornly downcast, refusing to let Kirara notice, or worse, worry. Mehrak sits in his lap, beeping quietly to offer some semblance of comfort, and Kaveh cracks a small smile, smoothing his hand over ivory and flickering green eyes. Miko mentions something about the Traveller having brought something from Fontaine just for her, and then Kirara is excusing herself hastily, darting out of the room and scrambling to see what it is as Miko laughs, and then a pall of silence settles over the two remaining occupants.

“You must be the first guest in a long time I’ve had visit this shrine who refuses to look at me or their surroundings.”

Kaveh laughs bitterly, but he does look up from his lap at the gentle prod, shrugging. “Sorry. I just…”

She waves his explanation off, pushing his cup of tea across the table along with a napkin, the latter of which Kaveh gladly takes, scrubbing at his face. “No need. I understand. Kirara’s friends have always been just as, if not more tender-hearted than she is. It’s just a side effect of her personality. Like attracts like.”

“Have you known her for a long time, then?”

Miko nods, and her smile turns proud. “I taught her just about everything she knows about human society, and introduced her to Komaniya Express. Her success, her popularity and reputation as a courier—everything else was her.”

Kaveh isn’t sure whether he wants to ask this next question, but he does anyway in the foolish hope that since the Guuji has already guided one person (or youkai) to success, she’ll be able to do the same for a measly human. Hope, the thing that pulls him back up and pushes him down in equal measure. “Did you have another option for her, if the Express didn’t work out?”

The Guuji looks at him, her eyes narrowing briefly, before she huffs a laugh, diverting the topic of conversation easily. “She wasn’t always like that,” she continues, and Kaveh follows her gaze to see Kirara in the courtyard, rifling through a yellow box in her lap as she chats to a shrine maiden. “She was always driven, of course, but she didn’t have a direction.”

“And I’m the opposite,” Kaveh snorts, the derision in his tone directed more at himself than anyone else, and she hums in assent. “I know exactly what I want to do. I’m just scared to start. I know I should keep trying, but I don’t see the point if I can’t do better than I did before. We’re supposed to keep improving and comparing ourselves to our pasts, but what happens if I’ve already done the best that I can do and ever will? How am I ever supposed to top my magnum opus, after all?”

“Why is it your magnum opus?”

Miko’s voice cleaves through Kaveh’s thoughts, pulling him swiftly out of his spiral and dragging him onto shore to cough up water and heave for air. Kaveh blinks at that.

“Because it’s…the best thing I’ll ever create?”

“And how do you know that?” she challenges. Kaveh blinks again, stunned wordless, and looks down at his lap as Miko rolls her eyes.

“The last time I checked, a magnum opus is a designation that you only slap on things after you’ve kicked the bucket. So, unless I’ve gained the sudden ability to talk to ghosts who belong to a foreign land and Kirara has too, I think it’s too early for you to go around saying that.”

“But…”

“But what?” She prods, ruthless and sharp, and finally, Kaveh breaks under her scrutiny, shattering into the pieces Miko seems intent on reducing him to.

“I’m scared!”

His eyes burn frustratingly and his throat seems to close up with the strange allergen that is grief and anger, and for a moment, he hates architecture—hates himself—with a blistering, seething passion that scares even himself with the intensity with which it scalds him, licking up through his lungs and clogging his mouth until it seems like he’s both drying up and drowning at the same time.

“I’m scared that I’ll never be able to do better than what I’ve already been able to do, okay? It’s just easier to give up now, when I haven’t disappointed anyone else apart from me! I might not get the same amount of funding I’ve gotten before, or my judgement will fail or I’ll become too stubborn or stuck in my ways or too experimental and either way I’m going to fall short of the expectations that people have put upon me—I’m scared that I’m not as good as I was before, and it’s going to take me my entire life to realise this, that maybe I should have quit while I was ahead and been content to stay mediocre and happy rather than try to be anything else and spend my entire life chasing after something I might not ever reach! You might have a long life, Lady Miko, but the same does not apply to us! I live paycheck to paycheck, though my paychecks just happen to be larger and further apart than most—failing is not a luxury I can afford!”

At that, Miko is silent, and only then does Kaveh realise that the quiet suddenly seems so much louder than it was. He can barely hear the chatter of the shrine maidens or Kirara’s delighted exclamations like he’s been plunged to the bottom of the sea as the pressure squeezes inwards on his ears and muffles his world, and for a moment, he thinks that maybe it’d be better if he stayed there and drowned so he’d never lose his temper and hurt the people who are only trying to help him. Again, and again, and light fizzles further out of reach. Maybe it’s better that way.

And then, all at once, Miko is no longer silent when she sighs, loud and agonised and not really meaning any of it at all, and Kaveh is dragged unceremoniously back to the surface yet again, blinking at the sudden influx of light, because surely that’s the only reason for why he’s suddenly tearing up. Another napkin is pushed across the table along with her cup of tea, and Kaveh raises it to his lips, trying to hide behind the wisps of steam that peel away from the amber surface of the drink.

“You perfectionists. Perfection truly is the bane of art. You think everything you do has to be better than the last. Can’t stand failing, but can’t stand not trying, either. You let that fear consume you, and keep you from doing the thing you love. If you do try and then fail, then you blame yourself and call it a waste of time.”

Kaveh frowns, feeling oddly like a fish being picked apart bone by bone by a fox under Miko’s unyielding glare, but he sets the teacup back down anyway, knowing that nothing will save him from further dissection. “For something that will never love you back, like a hobby or a passion, fear is part of the love you pour into it. If you run from it, you risk mediocrity. No risk, certainly, but no reward.”

“Rock and a hard place,” Kaveh grimaces, though it’s still a bit wobbly with frustration and self-deprecation, but Miko nods all the same, her mouth flattening out into an expression of what might be pity, or what might be the beginnings of empathy instead.

“If you stop creating, then you can confidently call it your magnum opus. Will you stop creating? Will you leave architecture behind?”

“No,” Kaveh answers, steady and sure, surprising even himself. “Never.” The foundation of Kaveh is architecture itself—without art, the character that the world knows as ‘Kaveh’ will cease to exist in any meaningful way. Maybe Haitham was right when he said Kaveh was obsessed with torturing himself, because surely no one logical would run back to the same thing that has hurt them a thousand times over, ready for the thousand-and-first blow. But love never is, and Kaveh thinks that this is what that might be.

“Failure does not mean your efforts are wasted,” Miko continues, examining her nails now, though her tone has lightened considerably, seemingly having grown bored with lambasting Kaveh for the moment. “Hard work will never go unrewarded, and just because you aren’t happy with the results doesn’t mean that it was worthless, because everything will have its use in the end. Everything you put love into will always come back to you, just in another form. You just have to hold enough hope to spot it when it does.”

“But it’s so hard,” Kaveh replies quietly, and then quickly wishes that he had enough self control to think before he speaks, lest Miko now think of him as a whining child instead of a whining adult, and her attention lands on him again, one eyebrow arched expectantly. “And I’m scared of being hurt again. What’s the point of holding all this hope, if I’ll always be risking the fall?”

Miko breathes a quiet laugh, and her features seem to relax and her posture softens as her gaze drifts outside, towards the purple tiles and gold of what must be the famed Tenshukaku in the distance, taller than the rest of Inazuma City.

“You remind me so much of Ei. So scared of letting go and learning to live again that she stagnated. She’s lived for longer than I have, but sometimes, it feels like she’s younger than me because she ran from the hurt instead of learning to embrace it and grow over it. If you forget time exists and sink into eternity, then you strip the meaning from everything you touch. She kept us all in an endless stasis because of this fear. No death and no loss, only to cause both herself and all of us so much more pain because of this. If you keep pushing yourself back from the cliff’s edge, the inevitable fall will only hurt more.”

In that moment, when she reaches across the table to touch his shoulder, he realises that her eyes are ever so slightly unfocused, almost as if she’s seeing this ‘Ei’ figure in place of him, and realises that while she may be helping him, he is also helping her resolve her past regrets. Maybe, if she couldn’t stop Ei, she can stop Kaveh—and maybe, just maybe, Kaveh can still be saved.

“So don’t do that, Kaveh. You deserve better than that. Like you said, your life is short—we are born to fall and get up again, not to be coddled endlessly where the slightest disturbance would break us apart. You should bloom as brilliantly as you can, while you still can. If flowers all fall to the ground and wilt in the end, why bother hiding out of fear when you can still reach for the sun? It’s scary to fail and scary to try, but it’s scarier to look back and realise you’ve never tried and that you’ll never get the chance to try again, right?”

Kaveh balls his hands into fists, gritting his teeth. Miko is a lovely wordsmith, but that’s all that these are—words. If he’s going to be scared and if he has to fall either way, why not just save himself the effort and give up first?

“I can’t force you to take the leap,” Miko shrugs, tapping his cheek lightly, and not for the first time, Kaveh wonders if he’s really as terrible at hiding his expressions as everyone he’s met on this trip so far seems bent on convincing him. “Nor can I tell you that you’re not going to face consequences every time you fail. But failures and diversions are never truly irreversible—if you work hard and try your best, you will be rewarded. Everyone—everything you love will hurt you. It’s just a matter of whether you love it enough to move past it.”

Miko reaches out to smooth a hand over Kaveh’s head, quelling his frustrations with a simple motion, and suddenly, everything comes back in full force—the homesickness, the resentment, the self-loathing, every terrible, terrible part of it that makes his throat close up and his eyes burn.

“It hurts,” he manages to squeeze out. “It really hurts.” I want to stop trying. I’m so tired.

“I know it does,” Miko replies, brushing the pad of her thumb over his cheek and wiping his tears away, ceaselessly and endlessly patient. “I know. But if you’re not brave, no one will be for you.”

“Why not?” he laughs wetly, only half-joking, and Miko laughs with him, a lovely, bright sound like the clear tones of a silver bell, cutting through the fog and guiding him back, making sure he doesn’t get even more lost. “Why does it have to be me all the time?”

“I asked myself the same thing,” she winks, and Kaveh finds that the odd knot in his heart seems to have—not unravelled, but loosened slightly, at least. “It’s why I dump my responsibilities on someone else sometimes, and go and eat udon. After all, if I have to be brave when it matters, then I should get to be a coward when it doesn’t.”

Miko sees them off when the sunset trickles past dusk and then into evening as the stars begin to emerge, walking them to the entrance of the shrine to say goodbye. Kirara matches her steps, two small hops along the cooling stone tiles for every elegant step that Miko takes, and Kaveh hovers somewhere in between, still arranging the many sketches he’d finally gotten the chance to scribble out after the lengthy conversation that still weighs on his shoulders.

“You can stay a little longer,” Miko says as she glances over at Kirara, though it sounds more like ‘don’t go’, and her smile seems slightly wilted at the edges like she already knows what Kirara is going to say, and suddenly Kaveh sees that when Miko speaks of love and hurting, she speaks from experience, watching as she gazes at the girl, still a child to her and yet already a young adult that has grown up before her eyes without her noticing. “It’s still early. I can ask the shrine maidens to bring us dinner. The berries are especially sweet this year. You should have some.”

“I’d love to,” Kirara groans, but she takes Miko’s hand gently, squeezing it once in comforting reassurance. “But I told Thoma to tell Granny I’d be home earlier than usual this week. I don’t want to worry her, especially when it’s almost dark out. I don’t want her to go looking for me again.”

Miko nods in muted acceptance, but her smile is no less adoring and genuine, tinged with hues of pride and sadness as it is. It turns out that even cats—or nekomata, or youkai—have to leave the nest, and that foxes—or cunning Guujis with sharp tongues, or de-facto parents—have to watch them go all the same, worrying and wishing for their safe return. In a small, secret corner of his heart, Kaveh thinks that he might finally find it in himself to be truly happy for Kirara, that she still has someone adjacent to a parent-figure who can watch over her and welcome her home, and someone to walk the first steps of a journey with her. Someone to catch her if she falls, and help her find the will to stand back up.

“When did you grow up this much, hm?” Miko finally teases, the lightness in her voice not forced, but not entirely willing, all the same. “And without telling me, too. With a family of your own, now. You barely even need me anymore.”

“You know that’s not true,” Kirara complains, clearly picking up on the unspoken feelings that span the space between them, running her fingers along the heartstrings that hold up the unspoken weight of love. “I’ll be back soon, promise. You said I’m the most filial, and you know that’s the truth. Outside of clients, you’re always the first person I visit when I come back to Inazuma.”

Miko smirks, the sharp edges of her proud expression sanded down by time and familiarity. Kirara leaving home is a common occurrence, but her return has to be too, and Miko has plenty of time on her hands that she can spend waiting anyway. “Keep it that way, hm?”

Kaveh looks away and pretends not to see how the corners of Miko’s eyes soften almost painfully when Kirara bids her goodbyes and beams, brighter and warmer than the sun, and how she opens her mouth, seemingly about to say something more, before she simply shakes her head and beckons the two of them closer. Kirara obeys, but Kaveh is slightly slower to pick up on the fact that she means him as well, and steps forward cautiously. Miko grins in what might be teasing, the corner of a keenly pointed tooth gleaming when she smiles, and she lays a gentle hand on Kirara’s cheek, the girl letting Miko fuss over her and readjust her hair before finally pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“A blessing for you,” she smiles. “Safe travels, and safe returns. May your steps be sure, your parcels be light and your clients always be kind.”

Kaveh has to lean down slightly for her to reach him, but he receives the same treatment in equal measure. A gentle hand laid on his cheek, and almost reluctantly, he looks up to meet her gaze and wonders how he’s supposed to convey the sentiment of ‘please don’t make me cry again’ without saying any of it out loud.

“A blessing for you as well,” Miko says, though her tone takes on a softer shade of affection like she’s picked up on his wordless plea, tender but unyielding all the same. “Safe travels, and safe returns. May your mind be clear, may you always be sure of yourself, and may you always find exactly what you are looking for.”

It turns out that tenderness does not just mean gentleness, but also pain. For Kaveh, who loves too much and too deeply and never expects anything in return, the two meanings are often inseparable. With how Miko looks at him like she can see through him and right into his broken but still stubbornly beating heart, one hand lingering on his cheek and the other on Kirara’s, he thinks that she can probably reach out and tear through his ribcage with barely any effort to reach the organ he both rues and prizes in equal measure, and save them both the pain of worry and loss and eventual heartbreak.

She reaches out but does nothing of the sort and taps an elegant fingertip against his shirt, right over his heart, before letting both of them go.

“Take care,” she smiles, and lays a single blooming cherry blossom in his hand, pristine petals soft on rough skin.

“Granny, I’m home!”

Kirara locks the door behind them and nods her head in the direction of some small cubbyholes, rubbing her feet over a small mat before hopping up the small steps separating the entryway and dashing around the corner. Kaveh struggles with his shoes briefly as Mehrak buzzes after her, knocking the soles together to dislodge any stray dirt and dust, before stowing them and hurrying after Kirara.

“Ah, Kirara’s friend! You’re back?”

“With an extra friend, this time!”

Kaveh follows the sound of Kirara’s voice, wondering why she hasn’t corrected the person who sounds like an old grandmother, and comes to a stop in the living room to see that it may be because the person whose home they’ve entered is, indeed, an old grandmother’s, who looks up when he stops in the doorway.

“Oh, hello. Gosh, if I’d known you were coming home tonight, I would have made extra—”

“It’s no issue, Granny! Have you eaten?”

“I have,” the old woman says, though she stands up all the same and adjusts her reading glasses, peering into Kaveh’s face inquisitively before she takes his hand and squeezes it gently. “Your new friend is very tall, hm? He’s got some good meat on his bones. Looks strong.”

“Thank you,” Kaveh stutters, unsure what to say, and with a final pat of his hand, she turns to head for the kitchen, where Kirara is already bustling away. “Er, I’m Kaveh. Thank you for having us.”

“Kirara’s away from home right now,” she continues, and Kaveh throws a glance over her head to meet Kirara’s gaze inquisitively, who shakes her head quickly and puts a finger to her lips. Kaveh isn’t terrific with social cues, but he knows enough to not pry where he’s not supposed to, and stuffs his questions back down his throat. “I’m Tora, but I don’t mind if you call me Granny.”

“Granny, have you moved your chopsticks?”

Granny Tora hurries over, hobbling slightly more quickly as the sound of cutlery clattering floats from the kitchen. “Lower drawer, compartment on the left. You’re not helping me move house, are you?”

“I wouldn’t dare!” Kirara laughs, before making a noise of triumph as she brandishes them proudly. “You should eat more, Granny, it’s getting cold outside—are you warm enough?”

“Plenty,” the woman sighs, but Kaveh notices how she breathes a sigh of relief at not having to bend down to reach for them. “How’s Kirara?”

“She’s doing well,” Kirara beams, smoothly taking the ladle from the pot before the woman can reach it and swiftly dancing out of reach so she can spoon still-steaming soup into three bowls, and Granny clicks her tongue in what might be something halfway between disappointment and affection. “She sends her regards. She travelled to Sumeru recently for a delivery, and then she met up with Yanfei and her friends too. She took photos! I can show you!”

Kirara makes a precarious bid for the dinner table and successfully manages to deposit the two bowls of rice, and Kaveh makes himself useful, carrying the pot of soup and setting it on the tabletop. Before the old woman can pick the bowls of soup up, Kirara is already nodding at Kaveh to take one and rushing back to take the other two, leaving Granny Tora empty-handed as she sighs, unable to hold a candle to the speed and reflexes that the two younger people have.

“I can still carry things, you know.”

“I know,” Kirara chirps brightly, the good-natured complaint in Granny’s tone sliding past her ears like water off a duck’s back. “But I can too!”

Dinner that night is a uniquely bustling affair despite there only being three people at the table. Kirara spreads photographs across half of the table and talks endlessly about her travels, though Kaveh does note that she carefully keeps any and all discussion about customers who don’t treat her well off the table. Granny Tora picks each slip up and looks it over carefully, like she’ll be able to pull her answers about Kirara’s wellbeing out of it, or that it’ll somehow grow a mouth and tell her itself. Unfortunately, neither of these things seems to happen—or fortunately, Kirara is there to fill most of the gaps herself, even if they’re not the full truth, carefully and painstakingly declawed and defanged to assure someone she loves deeply that she’s not having a hard time at all.

Kaveh wonders why she doesn’t do the same for Miko. Maybe it’s because one person is more elderly than the other, despite the other most likely being much older, if only mentally. Or maybe she sees Miko as someone she can rely on, and Granny Tora as someone she needs to take care of. Kirara does seem like the person who cares about even the smallest of details, wanting everyone around her to be happy—Kaveh likes to think that he’s the same, just that Kirara faces more success with this effort than he ever will.

Kaveh also wonders how it is that Kirara seems uniquely blessed to have people treat her like family wherever she goes. How it is that she has all of this boundless love to give without complaint or reluctance, like a light that never burns out.

“Kaveh?”

Kirara is looking at him when he remembers he’s probably supposed to be eating, and looks down to see her sliding a photograph across the table to him.

“Your food’s getting cold,” Granny Tora adds, clicking her chopsticks in his direction, and he snaps back to attention.

“Sorry!”

A quick glance reveals that it’s a snapshot of Kaveh, out cold in the tent in the Chasm, with Mehrak floating above his head and Kirara grinning as she makes a peace sign. Cat ears have been doodled in green pen just above Mehrak’s screen and over Kaveh’s head, and he has to suppress an affectionate laugh at the sight. He takes the photograph, and tucks it into his chest pocket, right next to the tea leaves, to be enjoyed and reminisced over another day.

“Why does Granny call you Kirara’s friend instead of, well, Kirara?”

Kirara hums in thought, washing the last grains of rice from her hands in a nearby creek as Kaveh sits on the back porch and watches her. The grass rustles gently in the night wind and the sky has just cleared enough to see some stars, and the clouds on the horizon are light, no sign of a storm anywhere to be seen. The dishes are drying in the warm summer air and Granny Tora has long retired upstairs, the last traces of her presence being two cups of tea on a tray by the fusuma door that Kaveh has settled himself by, left for her two visitors.

“I used to be the cat that she took in,” is what she finally says, grinning as she accepts the towel that Mehrak zips over to deposit in her hands. “I would’ve frozen to death without her, too. So when I turned into a nekomata, I didn’t want things to change. The first time I saw her in my new form, she just assumed I was a friend of Kirara’s instead, since she believed no one else would have sent people to look for her. So that’s how it’s been all this while.”

The towel is slung over her shoulder carelessly, and then she’s hopping through the grass, stalking after what might be a lizard or a gecko with her eyes wide, and Kaveh just watches, trying to see whatever it is she’s looking for. “I’m sure she…”

“She what?” Kaveh frowns inquisitively at her, his attention diverted—and he must shift or make some noise, because then Kirara’s darting after something on the ground, landing on all fours, only to come up—

“Empty-handed,” she laughs, bright and faultless as she holds her palms out to Kaveh like she still needs to prove herself to him—and silently, Kaveh wonders if she knows he’d trust her even if she said the sky would collapse tomorrow. “I’m sure she knows I’m actually Kirara.”

“Then why does she still call you Kirara’s friend, and why do you let her?”

Kirara’s answer is quick, the heartache in her tone carefully covered up and tamped down with acceptance and grace—like the last ashes of a firework, having already lit the sky up with its light, now returned to the earth. “Because I don’t want things to change.”

Her smile is also just as ephemeral and short-lived as a firework—just as wistful, too, only an afterimage on the back of his eyes and a mere memory of summer before long. Under the moonlight, the grass around Kirara’s paws flickers with the light of fireflies, and she giggles at the sight, lifting her feet and sending a cloud of them floating up into the air. She lets them land on her, settling on her clothes and crowning her with light, before crouching down to let them crawl back onto the blades of grass that reach upwards into the warm night air, peeling off of her and floating in her wake. There, lit by the gentle flickering light, she looks both painfully young and infinitely old, not used to loss yet but too ready to face it. Mehrak is set next to Kaveh, perched vertically by Kaveh so as to look at the sky with them—but in this moment, he thinks that surely, surely Mehrak must be looking at her too.

“Things change too quickly. As a youkai, I’ll have to grow more familiar than I want to with the feeling of time slipping away and out of my grasp. I don’t spend enough time at home, anyway. Is it so bad to want to hold onto the things I love while I still can, in the forms that they bring me the most comfort in?”

“Doesn’t it ever get hard?” Kaveh murmurs quietly, not sure whether he’s directing this question at her or at himself. “All of that running, being away from home for that long?”

Kirara collapses onto the patio next to him, stretching and bumping her head against his shoulder, and quietly, almost reluctantly, he leans over and rests his head on top of hers, careful to avoid her hair accessories and letting her reach up to pat his head absently. “Of course it does! But it also gets easier, in time.”

“Do you…”

Kaveh clears his throat, trying to be surreptitious with his inquiries, though both of them know well enough that pretenses aren’t needed between the two of them, because Kaveh is no good with hiding his intentions and Kirara can see through facades too easily anyway.

“Do you like your job, then?”

Kirara shrugs briskly at that, and Kaveh feels his head move up and down gently with the movement. “For me right now, it’s more than enough. I get to see the world and interact with human society, I enjoy what I do, and the recipients of the parcels I deliver appreciate me. In a line of work like this, there isn’t much more I can ask for. I’m sure there’s something better out there, but to be honest, I’m not keen on pursuing it when I’m perfectly fine where I am. If it wants me so badly, it can come and find me itself!”

She practically shouts the last sentence into the wilderness of Inazuma, bright and brilliant when she turns to him to grin, and Kaveh finds himself buoyed along by her presence, lifted up like a feather, like a seashell with a wave, carried back to shore. All of a sudden and all at once, he understands that the only reason she speaks of her job so easily and carelessly is because she loves it, but not enough to make it stand out amongst everything else that she loves just as much, because Kirara is careless with her heart and too forgiving of the world and its wonders—to her, Komaniya Express is only a stepping stone that she likes enough to settle on like a cat in the sun, only until the next cloud comes along.

“I could have landed in any other company and been happy just the same way if I could see the world and interact with people,” she smiles. “In another life, maybe I would have landed in an architecture firm, working side by side with you as your dedicated surveyor. See? Just as happy.”

“You would have been good at it,” Kaveh adds mindlessly, and Kirara laughs. “A feline surveyor who can climb trees and pillars to get to a better viewpoint, who can see in the dark and is much, much more genuine than almost everyone else I’ve worked with so far.”

“But then you’d have to let me go eventually,” the girl sighs. “I don’t think architecture is the perfect fit either, as much as your offer is very tempting.”

Kaveh puts a hand on his heart, turning to look at Kirara. “I’d bribe you in hand-caught fish to stay. I’d go down to the harbour every morning and cast a line out and wait for hours on end.”

She giggles at that, kicking her feet, and quietly, almost without realising, Kaveh mimics her. They make a funny pair, two grown people sitting on a porch in the Inazuman countryside, the little river that runs under their swaying feet glinting silver in the moonlight as wild grass sways.

“Did you notice?”

Kaveh makes a sound of noncommittal acknowledgement, leaning back as his hands smooth over the wooden porch behind him, still holding on to a little of the sun’s warmth even as it dissipates slowly into the night air. “Notice what?”

“How, even with the world laid out before you and infinite choices to make, you still chose architecture.” She grins at him, and only then does he realise that she may be sweet on the surface, but any good youkai taught by the Guuji of the Grand Narukami Shrine would be able to lay traps with their words with ease, and she is certainly no exception.

“Very funny,” he concedes, holding his hands up in surrender as Kirara pokes him gently, as if to rub the message in further. “Alright, you’ve made your point.”

So maybe architecture is too deeply entrenched in him for him to ever pull it out of himself, carved into the pillars of his legs and the cathedral of his ribcage and the dome of his skull, to the point that there is no living without architecture. That’s the one point that he thinks might be the largest difference between him and Kirara—where she only has a concept of what she wants to do and an idea of where to begin, he knows exactly what he wants to do, but not the faintest idea where to start. Both of them, friends and kindred souls lost in different ways.

“I didn’t know what I wanted until I was doing it, but like I said, I was lucky. I had friends to help.” She smiles, running her finger along an edge of the wooden plaque she keeps on her hip, emblazoned with the logo for Komaniya Express. “Not everyone snaps into place as easily as I did.”

“And I knew what I wanted to do all along,” Kaveh laughs, half-bitter and half-resigned. “But it’s just so hard all the time.”

And yet, even in the face of Kaveh’s disappointment, Kirara is undimmed, patting his shoulder in commiseration. “So neither of us are there yet. That means we can accompany each other on the journey to find out what happiness is, right?”

Kirara’s green eyes glimmer with unsaid feelings in the low light, focused for all of maybe three seconds before her eyes drift to the lamp behind Kaveh, small bugs flitting around the paper blinds shading the light, and then her eyes are narrowing as she prepares to pounce. Probably for the best, too, because if she’d stared any longer, Kaveh might have burst into tears again.

“I’m glad,” he manages to squeeze out, just as Kirara darts past him to jump on whatever poor insect has drawn her ire this time, and she turns to look at him, her hands closed around something that glows and flickers weakly from within the confines of her fingers, letting off a faint green light. She opens her hands to show him, and he leans back slightly, instinctively apprehensive—though lessened by the depth of his trust in Kirara—that it might turn out to be a beetle that lunges at him, eager to pinch the person it deems responsible for its capture and ungraceful release. I’m glad it’s with you. I’m glad I’m not alone.

It’s a firefly. It crawls slowly over the curve of her thumb and through the valley of her palm, and Kirara presses the side of her wrist to Kaveh’s, letting the bug cross over to map out a path along Kaveh’s fingers instead. The sensation is slightly ticklish, and Kaveh just watches as it walks along, seemingly looking for something as it traces the lines of his open hand, slightly scared that he might injure it if he moves too quickly, a fragile and delicate thing as it is. Before he can say anything to Kirara, who’s settled back down next to him and let Mehrak move into her lap, another firefly drifts out of the sky to settle on his palm to join the first, and he extends three fingers in Kirara’s direction to form a rudimentary bridge, letting the pair make their slow, meandering journey back over to finally settle on the back of her hand, lingering briefly before they flit off into the fields.

“I’m happy right now,” Kirara smiles, her other hand now resting over the nape of his neck, fiddling with the ends of his hair thoughtlessly. Kaveh has to suppress a quiet hum, not sure what it is about Kirara that makes him let down his guard so easily. “And I’m with you. So maybe all I really need to be happy so long as I have my friends is time, patience and a little bit of confidence, bordering on recklessness. Maybe I'll never find what I like, but I can at least try to make myself happy in this moment, and I'll never be happy if I keep looking for the perfect fit. Perfect doesn’t exist, but at least my friends—including you—come pretty close.”

“I’m not perfect,” Kaveh mutters, averting his eyes from her to look at the moon. “You think too highly of me.”

“I said you came close,” Kirara answers patiently, and Kaveh hums in quiet acknowledgement, cowed briefly despite the lack of teeth in Kirara’s tone. “Not that you were perfect. Besides, you might not think that Kaveh the person or Kaveh the architect is perfect, and they might not be for a long time—but to me, Kaveh the friend is plenty good enough, just as he is. He may not be a good person—even though I’m sure he is—but at least he is a good friend to me.”

“Kaveh is selfish,” the man finds himself saying. “He is foolish, too trusting and too naive, and not clever or smart enough to change after he has been hurt. He does not know when he asks for too much, and blames himself when the people around him love him too much and end up overextending themselves for his sake.” Surely Kirara, with her endless light and warmth, would deserve better than him.

“That’s not it.” Kirara squints at him, before her expression rounds out into a smile, reassuring and constant like the sun after rain. “But, fine. Let’s say Kaveh is selfish, too foolish and trusting and naive—and yet, despite all of these things, Kaveh is still a good friend. Isn’t that magical?”

At that, Kaveh has to suppress a desperate, terrible blush that threatens to overwhelm his cheeks, shooting upright and coughing like that will disguise his expression. Behind him, he hears Kirara laugh faintly, before she’s patting the small of his back.

“What’s being an architect like?” Kirara finally asks, nudging her shoulder into his side after he settles back down, and Mehrak makes a quiet beep of protest, having been roused briefly from sleep mode by the motion. “You know, just in case I change my mind and decide to leave Komaniya Express.”

“So never, then,” Kaveh jokes, and Kirara makes a teasing noise of affront, and then his face straightens out, twisting his fingers together in his lap as he thinks. Kirara hums quietly, letting the tune well into the space between them, letting them drift along until he gathers enough words to string together into thoughts.

“I want to smile and say that being an architect doesn’t hurt,” he murmurs, and Kirara falls silent, turning her full attention towards him. “It was what my mother did, and what my father admired so much—in a way, it’s my small way of atoning for their loss. The fact that it’s what I love doing more than anything else in the world is just luck.”

“But the first part is a lie. It hurts. A lot. The love just makes it more bearable, but also more fragile, because when everything you pinned your hopes and dreams on chasing makes you trip and fall and go sprawling, it’s hard to keep your love from turning into hate when it’s the reason you even chose what you love doing in the first place. I would die for what I love, and on some days, it feels like I just might.”

Kirara’s tail swishes restlessly at that, but her expression betrays nothing, and Kaveh musters up a weak smile for her—it’s an expression that she returns, urging him to continue. “Us humans are strange. We feel everything so intensely. I try to convince myself it’s more of a strength than a weakness, but it gets hard.”

“At least the second part is true.” He breathes a sigh, and finds that it seems to come more easily to him, like the weight on his chest that has accompanied him for so long has finally lessened slightly, split between an architect and a courier instead of just one person. “I do love architecture with my entire heart and soul. At least this is one more thing that has never changed, along with the guilt.”

“The guilt?”

Kirara’s eyes are wide, as if she’s not quite sure whether to ask about this topic, but Kaveh’s smile is rueful and his demeanour open and without pretense. To him, this is a wound that will never close anyway—one more person who knows of it will make no difference.

“I said something I shouldn’t have and wanted what I could never get, and my father perished trying to get it for me—so I swore that I’d never ask for anything again, and work for everything on my own.” He shrugs, and Kirara makes a quiet noise of empathy, patting his forearm. “My mother never designed again after she lost my father. So I guess I kept a very talented architect and a very loving husband and father all to myself for a while.” At that, he laughs, suppressing the pang in his heart. “Now I’m making up for it.”

“If you could see your father again, what would you say to him?”

Kaveh opens his mouth, but no words grace the warm summer’s evening with their presence, even though they pile up on the tip of his tongue like the shards of a magnificent fresco, falling from the ceiling and shattering into dust at his feet.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry for wanting. I’m sorry for not knowing what I want now. I’m sorry for wishing for the things I could never have, and I’m sorry for still doing that now. I’m sorry for not thinking before I talk, I’m sorry I didn’t know better, and I’m sorry that I had hopes. I’m sorry for not being able to let go and move on, for being scared of wanting now. I’m sorry you loved me. I’m sorry I don’t know what being happy means. I’m sorry I don’t know what to be, let alone how to be happy. I’m sorry I exist. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry. Please come back. I miss you.

“I don’t know,” is all he can say, voice trembling. “I guess I just want to see him again.”

Kirara looks like she still wants to say something else, before catching sight of something and reaching out for it. “Wait. Hey.”

She raises one of Kaveh’s hands to the light, and only then does Kaveh realise that he’s been picking at his nails this entire time, rendering them worn and ragged, trenches carved into skin by his endless worrying. He winces, expecting gentle rebuke, only for her to take the towel from earlier and begin cleaning all the blood and dirt from under his nails, patient and unflinchingly kind. Maybe the blood under his nails has to be constant and is always his own, but the one who cleans it out does not have to be him all the time.

“It’s not my place to say,” she begins, but Kaveh nods for her to continue, both of them looking at how she runs the towel gently over his uneven nailbeds. “But you should trust the people around you more. They can make their own decisions. Their burdens are not yours to shoulder. It would be both unfair to you and to them if you undertook this act on your own. Like, hey—if I never carried my own parcels, I would never have grown into the courier that I am now, right?”

It’s my fault is the constant current that runs just underneath the current of Kaveh’s words—and then there is Kirara, wrapping bandages around his fingertips, shaking her head saying no, not everything is, telling him to know when to let go. Where he is a marble statue with one fatal flaw, rigid and unyielding and terrified of bending in any way, she is a willow that has weathered countless storms, shaping herself to work with the wind instead of against it. Gentle and swaying, but with a core of steel, able to regrow if she wants to.

“Letting go isn’t a moral failure,” she murmurs quietly. “Just as being the one who holds on until the end doesn’t automatically mean you’ve succeeded. You just have to spend the rest of your life learning what the difference is.”

“How horrible,” Kaveh jokes, and Kirara cracks a tiny smile, the atmosphere around the two finally lightening, like the first rays of dawn over the horizon. “What a long time to spend on something so trivial.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, and Kaveh realises that above all, the one thing they share is the empty space in their life that they have to learn to fill. “But I’ll be here, won’t I?”

Kaveh nods, and she grins, linking their elbows together carefully. A human who cares too much, and a youkai who will live too long—what a funny pair. She bumps her head against his shoulder, before tying the last bandage off and letting him go.

“Do you still want to kill yourself?”

Kirara is unflinching under the moonlight, the bloodied towel still in her hand, but Kaveh only glances at her and smiles, quiet with acceptance and only the smallest glimmering bit of ruefulness, like flecks of gold in a running riverbed, his scratches and wounds (both physical and psychological) now carefully dressed, and maybe, if given enough time, eventually ready to heal. All the same, he looks bright, and for the first time, it seems the long night is over and the sun has risen again, to try again for another day. So she did hear what he said, before their first official meeting. Strangely enough, he finds that he doesn’t mind, trusting her to take enough care and tact with her discerning honesty and tendency to cut straight to the heart of the problem without tearing through the fragile bone and sinew of everything else.

“Sometimes,” he shrugs. “But not right now.”

“Then what do you want to do?”

At that, Kaveh is silent, his clothes rustling in the wind and his eyelashes fluttering as he closes his eyes and tilts his head back.

“I think right now,” he finally says, feeling briefly, briefly at peace with the world and with himself as Mehrak beeps in agreement—“I’d like to go home.”