Chapter Text
The moon exploding was not something Karma had expected to happen at all. If anything, he figured the sun would have been a lot more probable. Humans had been predicting it for a while and, yeah, there was some kind of limit to the giant fireball Karma owned and loved so much, but that expiration date was something Karma was trying to stall for as long as he could. As far he knew, the moon didn’t have an expiration date. The entire occurrence was bizarre and seemingly out of nowhere, but, most importantly, it was extremely worrying.
He was pacing around a room, one that didn’t belong to him. If he were to be honest, he had to admit there wasn’t much of the room left. It existed, still, but it was deteriorating with every second that passed. What remained were four crumbling silvery walls, a single blurry door, a broken mirror, and some floating chess pieces. It was nothing like the celestial space he’d observed and visited so often.
The most concerning thing of it all was the lack of another presence. Whenever Karma would come here on a chilly spring night like the one at that very moment, he’d have a smile on his face and a mind full of stories to tell as he came to annoy the room’s local resident god. He’d always prepared his witty comebacks for when the other would remind him of his duties, being ever so helpful as to tell Karma it is always day somewhere and the sun was always needed. Karma knew that, of course, but also never failed to mention that the sun would keep burning even if he’d be gone for as long as it took him to convince his killjoy friend to do literally anything fun. With a hesitant laugh in return to his words, Karma rarely failed those missions.
It was weird for the room to be this empty, without its celestial being gracing the space with his presence. Of course, the fact that the room still existed meant he was still out there. These spaces only existed because the gods who needed them existed. If the room was deteriorating, the god it belonged to was probably doing the exact same thing.
The room changed again. This time, it wasn’t necessarily bad, like the time the mirror had blown up in Karma’s face. Of course, the mirror couldn’t hurt him. Even if it wasn’t a mirror that barely existed in a non-physical sense, nothing could harm him that easily. This time, when Karma blinked, a stack of books that hadn’t been there before suddenly fell over, spilling the ancient books over the floor like they were worthless, useless paper. They even fell apart entirely.
Considering something had both appeared and broken down at the same time, Karma really didn’t know what it meant. He wanted to see it as a positive thing. It became harder and harder by the day to see it as a positive thing. The moon literally exploded, what good thing could ever be happening to Nagisa at that very moment.
Karma held his hand out, grabbing a hold of two chess pieces floating in front of his face and studied them. The white bishop was broken in two and seemed to be losing its clean white colour. Somehow, Karma knew he was supposed to feel sad about it. Then, his eyes wandered to the other piece, the white king.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with the white king. Well, nothing may have been an overstatement. Karma noted that it looked a little deformed, disproportionate, even, but at the very least still like a usable chess piece. And to make matters stranger, to Karma, it felt like it held magic. This was the kind of magic he was familiar with. This wasn’t godly power, it was literal magic, the kind that wasn’t limited to one being, but generally associated to come from one. It came from the exact being that owned this room and the piece he was holding. Nagisa.
A memory came to his mind. A boy sitting at a table, bent over slightly as he studied a book, eyes focused and strands of hair carefully leaving the restful place of his shoulder to hang in front of his face. That same magical essence was radiating off of him. Karma had just walked in. The scene wasn’t exactly surprising when knowing the calm nature of his friend, on good days at least, but it was still a pretty and astounding picture nonetheless. Nothing less ethereal existed.
He walked forwards, the blue haired god still hadn’t noticed his presence, and stood beside him. Carefully, he lifted his finger and forced the freed strands of hair back behind the other boy’s ears. This, finally, caught the boy’s attention.
Curious eyes looked up at Karma, blue and shiny, nothing short of a pleasant sight to anyone. They looked pure and wondrous. In this situation, they looked a little confused. This idea of confusion was supported by the slightly open mouth, which had fallen open in shock. It took a moment before the first words came to break the continued silence in the room.
“Oh, I didn’t make tea.”
Karma couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at the comment. Of course that was the first thing his friend would think about.
“It’s okay, I’ll survive,” Karma said, sitting himself down on the chair next to Nagisa.
“That doesn’t make it any less rude,” Nagisa argued. “Besides, why didn’t you warn me you were coming by?”
Truthfully, he hadn’t really planned to come over. It wasn’t unusual for Karma to act on a whim. He’d planned to go back to his own residence after taking care of some business, keeping the sun shining bright and whatnot, and at the last second, his mind had wandered to the magical place that was Nagisa’s room. And suddenly, that’s where he was going.
“That interesting?” He asked, nodding towards the book, “You were pretty invested, I’d say.”
Nagisa’s face had a slight pink shade showing on it. “I found it on earth. It’s a rather lovely story… although I have to admit I don’t fully understand all of it.”
Curiosity took over Karma, and he slid the book over slightly to himself. When he closed it to read the spine, he saw the words Pride and Prejudice . A soft laugh, an unimpressed one, escaped him. The hurt look Nagisa gave him in response didn’t go past him. No, he understood his reaction. He understood Nagisa’s behaviour.
“You’re too innocent for this,” Karma simply said. “Too stuck in this place, or the next godly space for that matter.”
The look on Nagisa’s face portrayed a little bit of sadness, but mostly a lack of understanding. Karma shook his head slightly before closing his friend’s book. It was true that a novel as such was befitting for Nagisa, and he was sure Nagisa could truly love the book, because the romance was subtle and slow, and the charm of the main character could perhaps show Nagisa a different side of his own personality. Nagisa, however, lacked something very specific.
“This book is so heavily built on the society it's based in,” Karma explained further, “The social rules, hierarchies, norms. And you, oh great powerful moon god, don’t know the first thing about life in this place. You’re as ignorant to earth as I am to whatever order I was given this morning.”
There was a short silence, a moment of contemplation. This time, it didn’t appear the words had hurt Nagisa. Instead, they had made him think. Eventually he’d even come to a conclusion, a response. He’d come to a string of words that surprised the other boy. This time, Karma was the one who was left speechless.
“Well, romance is universal, isn’t it?” Nagisa spoke up. “I can keep looking for it in everything for an eternity, and I think I will.”
And just like that, the feeling of the two chess pieces in his hand returned, and he was back in the present. The bleak, empty presence, with no Nagisa gracing the room with his energy. Karma focused on the piece, the last bit of Nagisa’s energy he could sense in that moment, letting his fist curl around it and closing his eyes to make the process easier for himself. He tried to connect to the magic in them. Finally, the corners of his lips curled up, presenting a smile to the ever so empty room. A sense of pride and determination filled him as he stood there, fist slightly glowing with a golden aura.
“Found you,” He spoke out loud, entirely to himself.
To him, it felt like he was speaking directly to his friend. Even if he couldn’t hear him, he soon would have to. His fist opened up to show the white king piece turned into ashes, and he smiled at it. He looked up, facial expression even more smug than it had been seconds before.
It appeared his next destination was earth.