“ Sain. ” The greeting is as it perhaps always is, but there is something slightly different to Kent's mood today. It is a bit embarrassed, a bit more lenient, perhaps a bit more lax, as he announces his reason for looking for him today. “ Today's the Winter Festival. I hope you are keeping yourself out of trouble lately? ”
Not that he ever needed a reason to see the man. His question is filler, a way to allow himself to figure out the motions of conversing because he trusts Sain to pick up his slack. Some things take time. Some things take experience.
This one takes Sain's kindness, and for as much as Kent might exasperate himself looking over his fellow cavalier, he thinks the other man is just as patient with him in his own way as he always has been.
“ Stay out of trouble, and I might very well keep getting you gifts for seasons like these. ” A fib, for he would still do it regardless. “ ...It's been a while since we've last celebrated a holiday together, hasn't it? ”
He hands the man his gift in a bid to cover up his waxing nostalgic, mourning that it was the truth at all. “ You're free to open it now, if you wish. ”
Underneath wrapping paper is a sleek box and inside is a small pocketwatch, chain and all. Its outer face bears the design of roses.
“ I don't think I need to tell you why I gave you this. ” It's an exercise in keeping the man on a leash, in trying to train him to be more punctual and responsible as per usual, but... “ ...However, I suppose I can confess that there's more to it than whatever you're thinking. ”
It's at that point Kent pulls out a similar pocketwatch out of his own outfit, holding it up for his other half to see.
“ You seemed keen to match when you first arrived here. So I also... ”
The pocketwatch Kent holds is not exactly the same. Instead of roses, his bears a design of lilies, but it's undeniable from even just a spare glance that the two were twins made by the same craftsperson.
Just the thought of it makes the Shield grow a bit more crimson in the tips of his ears.
“ ...Nevermind. I need not explain myself! ”
And he puts away his matching item, lest his embarrassment make itself any louder...
"Kent!" answers the Lance, his hand shooting up to the back of his head in tandem with him turning around. Instantly he's on his feet, trying to cover up what he had been fiddling around with before Kent arrived. The man speaks of 'trouble', which seems to make him skittish. Could there have been something sinister brewing?
He isn't the least bit surprised by Kent's gift--and on the contrary, had come to expect it--but the delivery throws him off. His shoulders slump and a frown quivers on his lips. To imagine the two of them, them, missing a holiday together... It's almost pathetic. That they missed a few, that it's been a while, stings worse. Sain finds himself wishing he could shake his younger self before he resigned from Ostia, that he could slap his face in the direction of Kent and show him what he would lose.
But the Shield continues, sort of stumbling his way through conversation as he normally does. He mentions a gift, and Sain sticks out his hand to receive it. The wrapping peels off very slowly, betraying the rip-and-tear one might expect from the roguish cavalier. This was touched by his partner's hand, though, and that makes it special. Special enough to want to keep it intact until it begins to rot.
"Ah, Kent..."
Once the lid pops off and the watch enters his grasp, he is overcome with emotion. Sain, after a moment of quiet, starts drowning in his own tears. They only wet his eyes like a soft and damp rag touching dabbing them down, but they feel like so much more. A torrent against a ship's hull, a storm over garden roses, a tidal wave dragging starfish back to sea. And Sain, too, feels like he's being dragged back. Back into the past, back into memories of Kent. It's almost like he could turn back the hands of his clock and he'd be there, and he'd see Kent too.
He's hardly being realistic.
But maybe that's not the point. Looking at his watch, and then its sister, and then his soul and then Kent's soul, Sain thinks he understands. Their days tick by the same second's hand. They'll never live a moment out of sync. They watch the turn of the same hour's hand, so no more will there be any 'while's where they haven't done this or anything else. And when they call for one another, when one says "I'll meet you in five," those are five ticks of the same minute's hand. They'll know exactly what the other means to say.
Sort of like now, how Sain knows that Kent means to say he wants them operating on this same rhythm. "...You always were kind of awful with words, weren't you?" he laughs, wiping his tears away as his umbrella of a smile opens over his mouth.
"You don't need to explain anything to me."
He reads his partner's intent to swallow the humiliation of this encounter, but dredges it back out of him by pulling him into a tight hug. It constricts his back, presses his chest, and lingers a few seconds longer than it should. There's a slight tremble as he pulls away.
Once he's finished, he gives the other a pat on the shoulder and a damp smile, and focuses back on what he was doing before his Shield arrived.
"Good timing, though! I've got something for you." Scooping one of two bundles off the bar table, he hands it off. "From now on, we're writing to each other! No more losing contact, no matter the distance."
He waits for Kent's gift to be opened first, then tears the wrapping off his and holds their sets together. They are each a stack of calligraphy papers and matching pens: red for Kent, green for Sain. The parchment, in addition to its color, sports a floral scent. This is the gift of space, where Kent had given him time. Now that their hearts beat as one and time won't keep them apart, the space between them will prove to be trivial. No matter where in the world they wind up, their letters will arrive--kept on-schedule by their matching pocket watches.
"Happy Winter Festival, partner... Let's never miss another one again."
