2383/Looming Comfort

Looming Comfort
Date of Scene:	04 March 2025
Location:	Mamoru's Apartment
Synopsis:	Kazuo checks in on Izou's condition after the heartstealing and the subsequent few days. It's amazing what can happen when people finally, finally, after over a year of people wanting to shake them, use their words.
Cast of Characters:	Kazuo Saitou, Zoisite
Tinyplot:	The Demise of Bow-chan

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Kazuo Saitou has posed:
They're both busy. Aside from normal things - Kazuo keeping an eye on the feeds from the security cameras when Chibiusa is over, for instance, so that they can all have an extra few seconds if an attack comes without needing to exhaust themselves staying transformed - it's ...

... honestly, the last week has been a year.

Keeping an eye on the security cameras doesn't actually include seeing what they're all doing inside, granted. But it sometimes means seeing them come and go.

That probably explains why Kazuo meets Izou as he's coming inside, the first time that, by a small miracle, nobody else is immediately around. "Busy?" he asks. "Or do you have a few minutes?"

Zoisite has posed:
Nonstop. Battles and homework and days where they see themselves or another hurt or attacked. And with everything happening all at once, he does lose some track of time. It had been his introduction to the Music Club that evening, which meant he was coming back a little later than usual. Uniform jacket slipped off and hanging over one arm, the other holding his bookbag. Green ribbon faithfully there as always as though it were part of him--just this time the icy blue gem adorned it since this past weekend.

Get home, change out of his uniform, water his plants, eat dinner, shower, study. That was his current schedule.

Until he's face to face with Kazuo. That schedule was flung out the window the moment he was asked the question. "I'm free." Izou blinks up at Kazuo.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Come sit with me a little while, then?" Kazuo touches Izou's arm, and goes in with him - there is time to change to slippers, then it's inside Mamoru's apartment proper, down the side hall, through the door that Mamoru posted a particularly death-oriented video game character on. (Kazuo appears to have left it there, and in fact framed it at some point.) Past that is the room that is alternately referred to as the server room, the security station, or the goth room, depending on who's talking and how scornful they are at the time: the room sectioned off from Kazuo's bedroom, adorned with a monitor wall, a desk and chair and minifridge, a couch with a pillow and blankets tucked beside it. The place is, indeed, painted black. Kazuo has the lights on at the moment; given the walls, they don't help that much, but it means they can see each other.

He seats himself at the far end of the couch. On the desk, within reach on the way to the couch, is a small tea set and a plate with a little arrangement of cookies. It might as well have Izou's name on it; Kazuo leans toward coffee rather than tea.

What he asks, all long limbs and long pale hair as he looks at Zoisite, is: "How are you feeling?"

Zoisite has posed:
"Of course." Was what Izou nodded back before following along only inches away from the other. Slippers on and leaving his bookbag and jacket at the entrance. He's become much more comfortable with Mamoru's apartment over time, even his own accommodations. Nothing was ever wrong with the building in itself, merely the fact that it was different from what he had once known, now just wanting to see every corner of it with time.

Now, it would be the server room, with black walls and comforting inside of couch, desk and the tea set that immediately got his attention, but did not ask about at that moment. No, he wanted to know what Kazuo wanted to talk about first.

Felt his nerves, goosebumps over his arms with some anxiety on what would come. Good or bad. Izou sat on the other side of the couch, ankles together even as he was angled to keep looking at Kazuo, and hands on his knees.

How are you feeling?

Deep breath. "Better." Exhale. "I still get angry but, it's not as hard to control right now." For now. he didn't know if he'd falter again with stress, wherever it came from. But he felt that he was accomplishing quite a bit. "I also fully apologized to Minako now. She has a new bow that suits her, I think." A nod.

"Yourself?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo turns a little more as Izou sits; he unfolds an arm to let it lie along the back of the couch between them. Not invading Izou's space, just the suggestion of a connection available if he should want it. "That sounds like progress on the problems at hand," he agrees. "Which is better, in a sense. But - I've been wondering how you are feeling. Just yourself. Not the things we're working on."

A beat, and he relents enough to almost-smile with a tilt of his head, and answer the question turned back to him, rather than letting quiet lean on Izou more. "Physically all right. I've been duly pushing the calcium and protein to help solidify the healing. Emotionally, worried; I may know that the heartstealers haven't been shown to have aftereffects, but sometimes knowing intellectually isn't everything."

Zoisite has posed:
The offered connection does not go unnoticed by Izou, sensing the heat form around his cheeks as he scoots a little closer to Kazuo. Always closer, always seeking to lean in or just feel the presence, the security of it. Looming comfort.

For a moment, as Kazuo mentioned healing, he felt the itch of want to reach out and touch at the rib that had been broken during the last night. Instead, he resisted a little. That'd be too much, and he wasn't a healer. Not like Mamoru was. "It's good your supplementing what your body needs. I don't want you to go without." As for the rest, "...Mamoru told me that he was fine after his heart was stolen. Took me a very long time to believe him. That's why I was henshin'd for so long. But he does promise me he's fine. And I don't feel anything different right now either. Not..."

And he looks down to his own chest, a hand pressed where the heart crystal was pulled from.

"Not physically. Well, maybe a little, but not like that." Not like something was missing from his body. "I don't want you to worry. Not about me, at least."

"I am feeling... okay. Thinking."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Thinking is good." Fingertips brush at a bit of Izou's hair - so very lightly. Not enough to tug it from its arrangement. Just enough for the contact to be felt. "But ... of course I worry about you from time to time. I care about you. When you might be threatened, of course I'm going to react. I promise, I keep it under control; I'm well aware that dwelling on these things too much makes reaction time worse instead of better."

Kazuo pauses, and then adds, more softly and less analytically, "I'm glad you're okay."

Zoisite has posed:
He leans into the touch when he feels it, lifting his hand to cup behind Kazuo's. Invite it to stay, linger a little longer closer to him. And the subject at hand also made his heart feel warm. Fireflies dancing in his chest.

There was a pause then, less than a second before he made his decision to continue. "When my heart was taken, I was still awake for... I don't know how long. But, I saw everyone before I was out. It was strange, like time didn't exist." Green eyes firmly on Kazuo now. "I saw you. You were one of the last ones."

"Last person in my thoughts. And the first one when I was back."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo's hand doesn't fight its capture; stays, thumb tracing lightly over the curve of Izou's head, the strands of his hair. Quiet. Patient. Slow.

Gray eyes drop from green ones at Izou's last words, as if Kazuo were about to say something gently self-deprecating, to deflect just a little while staying close. But they lift again instead, meeting green once more.

"I love you, too, you know," he says quietly. "Not in a way that - that demands anything out of you, or that puts everything on some one single form of showing it. Just you. I could be happy for the rest of my life just watching you, if you were doing things that made you happy."

Zoisite has posed:
Silence remained for a moment as Izou felt the slow trace of thumb through his hair, taking in all he could. The grey eyes watching him, wondering what Kazuo was thinking in those seconds where they both did not speak. Did he say too much then, what went through his mind? It wasn't everything, merely a glimpse of his thoughts. But he was still Kazuo that was at the core of it. First and last.

He leaned in a little more when greys dropped. Wanted to find them again, close to ask Kazuo to look at him once more before they were on him again. And it hit him. Like time stopping again, mind emptied of thoughts but the echoes of the first three words uttered to him. The rest followed. One spark of light after another that made the fireflies in his chest flicker brightly.

Izou didn't even feel the tears well up in his eyes. It was too fast to register, and when he did, it was a fumble of blinking and them streaming down his burning cheeks with no stop. Not now, Gods why now...

Of all the moments to break, why now? He tried to quickly wipe them away as they kept coming.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
The hand along the back of the couch shifts as Kazuo leans, drops around Izou's shoulders; he pushes himself closer, coming to Izou rather than drawing Izou to him - for the most part. Drawing Izou in the last few inches, against Kazuo's chest and shoulder. Lifting his free hand to stroke Izou's hair more freely, careful not to tangle in the ribbon or its new adornment. Touching. Supporting. Keeping warm.

"It's all right to cry," he murmurs. "It's all right. Sometimes we need to."

He doesn't stop Izou from trying to wipe the tears away. He can do what he wants or needs to. Kazuo will hold him either way.

Zoisite has posed:
He remembered how to breathe then. Deep breaths. Eyes wide when Kazuo held him close even as he cried, fingers swapping away the droplets but soon he realized there really was no point. No, it wasn't alright to cry, not like this. Even if it was told to him it was okay, something vital wanted to fight back.

His own lack of control frightened him. Not the violence he caused, the meanness, how much he could upset most people he met. But his own emotional vulnerability. Like during the meeting when he cracked in front of everyone, or how jealousy had him breach a rule so important.

Maybe this was the good kind of breaking, despite hating it. Oh he hated it... And he hated how it was Kazuo that caused this. Just three words. How pathetic was he?

Elatedly so, it seems. Arms pulling away from his face and wrapping around Kazuo's shoulder, to pull him much closer. Keep him there. Small trembles of anxious nerves as he took another breath. Turned his head and pressed another kiss to cheek. Longer this time, now that they were alone.

"I love you." He whispered back.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
There's a little hint of movement in turn - not an attempt at escape, no. Only Kazuo turning his face toward Izou's. Careful not to risk collision. Not until the intentional contact, the gentle one - the lightest of kisses, for just a few moments, at the corner of Izou's mouth.

Kazuo does not himself know how he can keep his breath so even, except that Zoisite is holding to him, and Zoisite is one of the very few people for whom he could be steady for ever.

He does not have words. He does not know how to come up with them. So he just holds there, breathing the same air, sharing the same warmth. Being with him. As if that were, at the moment, the most important thing he could possibly think of to do.

Zoisite has posed:
To Zoisite, it was the most important thing at that moment. Everything else could melt away, and he wouldn't look back. Possibly a dangerous thing if not managed correctly, yet the embers of it were so brand new. So carefully growing with every kiss against the corner of his lips. Reassurances in physical form, that he was wanted.

Loved.

Face presses a little closer then, so carefully so noses could touch and lips lingering near. Yes, he was seeking, permitting, asking silently for the last hairlines of distance to be gone between them.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
And how, precisely, could Kazuo ever tell him no?

Still. These things are to be moved into slowly; reassurance and closeness are not allowed to become overindulgence. The water for the tea likely won't be too cold by the time they draw apart.

But it's just as well they both have ways of reheating it anyhow.