THANK YOU I was so hoping someone would request this one for them!!!
97. “I’ll pick you up at the airport.”
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Kaoru could say he had gotten used to Kojiro being gone, but he’d be lying. Ever since Kojiro had gone to Italy, it felt like something was missing every time Kaoru skated, every time he watched the sun come up, not because he woke up that early but because he never went to sleep. The almost daily video calls served as much to remind him how far apart they were as they did to connect them. He’d watched the sun set in Kojiro’s bedroom in Florence, knowing that it would creep over the horizon in Okinawa just a few hours later. It was no different now, as Kaoru’s phone vibrated and Kojiro’s name lit up the screen.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep by now?” Kaoru said when he picked up to the image of Kojiro’s chin. “I can see up your nose, by the way.”
“Look who’s talking,” Kojiro quipped as he set the phone down on his dresser. A half packed suitcase sat on the bed, unfolded clothes piled around it. Kaoru could see another bag on the ground at Kojiro’s feet, laptop peeking out the top and the charger hanging out the side. “Isn’t it, like, two in the morning there?”
“I’m not the one with a flight in the morning,” Kaoru reminded him as he reached for the screwdriver across the table. He’d been working on the same project for months now, and many nights, it was all the company he had.
“Don’t remind me,” Kojiro groaned, as if either of them had forgotten about it for a second. He shoved a couple more rumpled shirts into his suitcase, earning him a grimace from Kaoru.
“If you fold them, you’ll have more space,” Kaoru said. “And you won’t be wearing wrinkled clothes the whole time you’re here.”
“Do you want me to go to bed or spend all night folding my clothes?” Kojiro snapped, and that was all Kaoru needed to drop their banter. In the next moment, Kojiro’s shoulders dropped and he rubbed the back of his neck where his hair had grown out. “Sorry. It’s just, school’s been a lot, and work’s been rough, so I’m kinda strung out here.” He punctuated the apology with a sheepish chuckle, but Kaoru wasn’t fooled.
“You’re burnt out,” Kaoru amended for him, setting his tools down and giving Kojiro his full attention. He’d noticed before now, sure. It was in the dark circles beneath Kojiro’s eyes, the way he’d paid more attention to his homework than to Kaoru when they called each other, and his wide shoulders held more tension than Kaoru had ever seen in them. He hadn’t said anything because he knew as well as anyone how impossible it was to just stop feeling stressed, but now he wished he had.
“Yeah,” Kojiro admitted. “And I had this dream last night that I missed my alarm and overslept, and then I missed my flight, and then by the time I got there, my break was over—”
“Kojiro,” Kaoru cut him off. “Even if you missed your flight, it wouldn’t take you a month to find another one.”
“I know,” Kojiro said, running a hand through his hair and cramming more clothing into his suitcase before he zipped it shut with some difficulty. He sighed heavily. “I’m really not looking forward to taking all this shit on the train tomorrow night.”
That got Kaoru’s attention. “Why are you taking the train? I thought your mom was picking you up.”
“Yeah, turns out she’s sick and my dad’s on a business trip until the weekend, so I have to.” Kojiro pulled the suitcase off the bed, and it landed on the floor with a heavy thud.
“I’ll do it,” Kaoru said without thinking.
“What?”
“I’ll pick you up at the airport.”
Kojiro laughed. “No offense, Kaoru, but I don’t think this’ll all fit on your bike.”
“I have a car, now,” Kaoru reminded him, words tinged with irritation. What he didn’t say was that picking Kojiro up at the airport meant being the first one to see him when he got back. It meant spending that much more time with him than he would otherwise get to, even if Kojiro slept the whole ride back. Because even if he was asleep, he would still be here.
“Okay,” Kojiro relented, and Kaoru swore he saw some of the tension leave his shoulders.
They sat in silence for a few minutes longer, the only sounds the crickets outside Kaoru’s window and the late night bustle of the city on Kojiro’s end. Neither of them moved, Kojiro standing with his hands on his hips before his disastrous bedroom and Kaoru on his apartment floor in his pajamas. Usually, they filled the space between them with words, knowing how little time they had, and yet now, the promise of a full month together made it safe to leave these moments blank.
“We should go to bed,” Kojiro finally said, raising his eyes to the camera and picking up his phone. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Kaoru said, and when Kojiro hung up, Kaoru felt like he might actually be able to sleep.
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for your pirate kyoshi au, im extremely curious what would happen with the flying opera company? would kyoshi eventually escape and go to them or would they meet in different circumstances, if at all? i'd love to know more about it!!!
thank u for the ask!! yesss i totally want the flying opera company to become involved somehow, although i'm not sure exactly how to do it.
i think, with two major daofei groups starting to take over two major spheres (the "autumn bloom"/yellow necks on land, the fifth nation pirates on the sea), there's probably going to have to be some conflict there (plus you know the LITERAL WAR that tagaka is starting), even if it's mostly just posturing to get an alliance that favors one group over the other. with that, i think it's possible that the FOC would eventually end up dragged into one group or the other. if i'm remembering ROK right, they traveled a pretty decent distance to actually brush up with the yellow necks, though, and that was high-speed travel done via flying bison which they do not currently have, so i guess tagaka's group is more likely if they do end up joining up with a bigger group.
so maybe i could try to have kyoshi meet them somehow? maybe tagaka is like "wow your precise earthbending sucks kyoshi. go train with this guy who just joined up who's really good at bending pebbles lol" or something LMAO. hard to say exactly. it would be hilarious for kyoshi and lek to be like hanging out and training and maybe becoming friendly with each other and then lek is like "yeah i respect my old mentors jesa and hark so much!" and kyoshi is like SORRY WHAT
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