"There's a meeting tonight." They had been sitting in silence – as they always did – the entire meal, and Leon's sudden comment caught Seifer off guard, and made him look up from the small splotch of dark red ketchup he had been drawing circles in. Sea green eyes locked with Leon's, a flicker of curiosity lighting their depths as he raised a single golden eyebrow in question.

Leon attended meetings every so often to discuss the changes and the work that needed to take place in Hollow Bastion. Seifer had never gone along, because it wasn't his place, and he remained at home in those nights, reading one of the books Merlin had let him borrow or sleeping and dreaming of places and things he did not know the names of.

"Yeah? Have fun." Seifer said, leaning forward and propping his elbow on the corner of the table, his chin upon that, watching the wind blow the clothes of the nearby buildings' awnings around in a brisk dance beyond the window.

"You're coming." The words were so unexpected that Seifer was not sure he had heard them at first, and he had to blink and turn his head to face Leon, taking in the somber expression and the slant of his lips in an almost-smile-yet-not-quite to realize Leon had, indeed, just said what Seifer had thought he had said.

"Why? It's not my place." Leon did not answer him at first, merely getting to his feet with a clatter of his blood-red belts and a clink of ceramic and metal as he gathered up his cleaned plate and silverware, his footsteps filling the silence as he placed the dirtied dishes in the sink.

"We leave in an hour." Had he been able to formulate the exact words to say, Seifer was sure he would have protested in some way, demanding that he receive a clear responses and stating that he did not belong here, because this wasn't his place, these buildings weren't his past, and the reconstruction wasn't his duty.

He found his tongue tied, however, as he watched Leon through widened viridian eyes and realized, in that moment, that it was the closest Leon had ever come to telling him that he belonged here now.