They say the night sky feels so close you could reach out and touch the stars. As someone who had in fact swum through space and been caught up in a pseudo-meteor shower, though, Shido didn’t even want to think about reaching out to touch them, not even by accident.
The stars were beautiful because they were so far away. He let out a long sigh as he looked up at the crowded night sky.
A few days after he’d sealed Mukuro’s Spirit powers, he was stargazing from the roof of the apartment building rising up next to the Itsuka house. It was a request of the girl lying beside him.
“Mukuro.” He called her name quietly, and she turned her gaze toward him, pushing her longs bangs aside with a finger.
“Mm. What is it, my lord?”
“Are you sure about this? Kotori said she could find someplace even better for you to look up at the night sky, if that’s what you want.”
“This is excellent. Muku is to live in this place from now on, yes? In which case, this is good.”
“Yeah?” The corners of his mouth softened, and he turned his eyes once more to the night sky. As he stared at the twinkling stars, he stretched out his right hand and opened and closed it several times.
He wasn’t trying to grab any stars. He was simply checking that his right hand would move. His right arm had popped right off, but it had been regenerated the same as it had been. Although in order to restore a lost part on such a large scale, he’d needed not only the power of Camael but also that of a Realizer.
That said, however, the treatment, the containment of Mukuro, and the cover-up of the incident had been carried out as quickly as possible. And suddenly, the people whose memories of Shido had been locked away remembered him all at once and helped him out in all kinds of ways. To the point where he’d had to do a bit of work consoling the Spirits, who blamed themselves for what happened, wondering, when they saw Shido’s injury, if it was because they had forgotten his existence.
As if her previous possessive aggression had been nothing but a dream, Mukuro was shockingly docile. She did exactly as Kotori and Reine told her to and underwent all kinds of tests.
And today, when both Shido’s treatment and Mukuro’s tests were finished, and they were seeing each other again for the first time in a while, Mukuro had said that she wanted to look at the stars with him.
“Before.” Mukuro said this one word to break her silence, and Shido turned his gaze toward her.
“Huh?” he asked.
“I used to look up at the stars like this with my sister,” she told him softly. “Muku loved those times with all her heart.”
“Yeah… I guess you would have,” he replied quietly.
He knew this story. He’d dreamed about it when Michael performed the role of pseudo-path between her and him and their memories had mixed together.
He’d felt a peace and joy from the bottom of his heart when he had that dream. That had to have been what Mukuro felt at that time.
“Why did Muku not realize it then?” she wondered. “That I didn’t have to worry, that my sister, my father, my mother, they all loved me.”
“…Mukuro.” Shido shook his head slightly before continuing. “You can’t blame yourself. I mean, no one wants to be all alone. It’s only natural you’d try and protect your place. I get it. My way of doing it was just a little different is all.”
“My lord…” Mukuro glanced at him and then slowly lowered her eyes. “I see… I understand now. You, too, are the same as Muku. So then perhaps that’s why…I felt safe with you.” Her cheeks softened into a smile.
Now that she mentioned it, she must have also shared his memories in dreams, just like he had experienced Mukuro’s past in his sleep. He grew a little embarrassed and scratched at his cheek.
“Hmm,” she said. “I recall now that there were some things in my dreams that I did not fully understand.”
“Huh?” He glanced at her. “Like what?”
“For some reason, when you were at home alone, you placed your hands on your hips and shouted, ‘Secret Attack Instant Flash Bomb’ and—”
“Aaah, that was totally not me,” he said, as if to cut her off. “Must have been an actual dream you were having.”
“Hm-hmm?” Mukuro cocked her head to one side curiously. “Is that the case? Well, acceptable.”
She nodded and turned her face back to the sky. For a while, they stared wordlessly at the stars once more.
“Say, my lord?” Mukuro said quietly after some time.
“Hmm?” He looked over at her. “What?”
“You said…you would cut my hair.”
“Huh?” His eyes flew open.
It was true that he had said that on their first date, but…Mukuro had very firmly rejected the idea. In fact, the direct cause of her battle with the inverted Tohka was the fact that Tohka had cut a lock of her hair off.
“Do you want that, Mukuro?” he asked tentatively.
“…Mm-hmm. I wish to…feel a little refreshed.” Mukuro smiled, somehow sadly, and twirled her long hair around a finger. “You will cut it for me, of course? I do not wish to allow anyone other than family to touch my hair.”
Her tone was joking, and for a second, Shido was taken aback.
But he quickly nodded firmly.
“Yeah,” he said, gently stroking Mukuro’s hair. “You just leave that to me.”