𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐒𝐓 | ❏ 𝘒𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘬𝘪 𝘹 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

✘𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐒✘

-OUTDOORS-

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Kawaki sneered.

You dug your toes into the moist dirt beneath you. The soft grass tickled at the soles of your feet, kissing them gently with the cold moisture of yesterday's rain. Your eyes, now doe shaped, drank in the vibrant colours around you. Green, blue, brown— the outside world was mind blowing. The fresh air filled your lungs and you breathed in the raw scent. It was the void of any artificial smell, and you couldn't help but let out a soft smile.

Kawaki shifted on the rock he was sitting on, his dull grey eyes scanning you from below. The two of you had managed to clear a good distance from the research facility but decided on taking a small break. His arm was killing him, and your nagging was doing his head in, so some time to breathe was probably good. It also gave Kawaki the chance to finally talk with you— the adrenaline from escaping practically silenced the both of you back then. But now that he actually had you sat down alone, you were too busy staring wide-eyed at your surroundings to pay any attention.

It was clear from the way you twirled the blades of grass beneath you that you were too engrossed to care about what he had to say. Which was exactly why his comment drifted with the wind, never to be answered or heard of again.

He grit his teeth at this— he hated it when people ignored him. Who were you to brush him off so carelessly? And well, he was about to say something about it, but felt his words die at his throat when noticing two fat drops of tears form in the corner of your eyes.

His lips sealed shut and his head turned away, thinking better against it.

A solid minute passed with Kawaki basking in the occasional streaks of sunlight that poured from the clouds, and he took this time to shift his injured arm sporadically to kill the air of awkwardness, mumbling a colourful array of insults at every attempt to position it in a way that didn't have him bleeding through the gown. Which was a failure, might I add.

That was when you eventually stopped in your exploration, your hand placed along the bark of a tree. You glanced back up at Kawaki, and he was in the middle of tying his bloodied arm with a ripped piece of fabric.

"...I don't remember the last time I've been outside." Your voice was as soft as a whisper, and he could sense the overwhelming joy laced in it.

'Of course.' Kawaki thought to himself. You were a lab rat of Karas; an abused, scared child that was sold off by those who you thought you could trust. He shared the same fate, but even then, his isolation periods were broken with the training and occasional missions Jigen had him perform. Chakra dispensers like you however, lived deep in the underground research facilities— hidden behind monitors and machinery that robbed you of any natural light. You probably haven't seen the outside in years. So he made a mental note to be a little more...gracious with his words. He didn't want to make you hate him— not when you were the only person in the world who could possibly understand him and his pain.