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Spring has come to Milliways, in full warmth. The grass is greening, and the trees are in bud, and so forth. There are even trees in the mountains that are covered in pink flowers.

Were they there last year? Were they, in fact, there last week? Enjolras is not entirely certain on either count.

On the other hand: Milliways. He'll ask Bahorel, or Combeferre or Joly, if he thinks to bother, but he may not.

At any rate, he's sitting at the base of one of the pink trees, on a convenient flat rock. He has a book with him, as usual, but he's currently ignoring it in favor of an abstraction of thought.

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Enjolras gives him the inquiring look of a man who's never thought It's like a Japanese painting in his life, even aside from not really knowing what Japanese paintings look like.

"The trees?"

That's what Prouvaire seemed to be dreamily staring at primarily, anyway.

"The blossoms. Yes." Which are not hiding any swords, so Jehan is unsurprised at Enjolras's uncertainty. "The blossoms represent beauty, delicacy, and ephemerality. In the future--future to us, anyway--songs compare Japanese warriors to cherry blossoms, to exalt the brief glory of their lives." He sighs. "And of course they also came to be a symbol of Japanese imperialism. But they're exquisite nonetheless."

...Sure! Enjolras isn't sure why pink flowers specifically get compared to warriors, but he also knows nothing about Japanese culture in any era, so sure.

"All right," he says, with the kind of fond look that means I'm glad this unaccountably pleases you, friend.

"Why cherry blossoms in particular?"

Like, is there a practical purpose there, or...?

(Yes, he knows that Jean Prouvaire is not the right person to ask about practical reasons for poetic comparisons. But at least one of them will be interested in the answer, and Enjolras is interested in his friends being enthusiastic about things.)

"Because they're both so lovely and so fragile, so short-lived," says Jehan. Then, with a slightly more practical note in his voice: "And there are many cherry trees in Japan, I believe, so it's an easy point of comparison."

Yeah, okay, fair enough. Enjolras's face says this.

"All right."

Jehan smiles, and gestures at the book. "Is it interesting?"

"Lefebvre," says Enjolras, which is a yes, even though he'd been ignoring the book in favor of thinking for a while. He passes it over. Critique de la vie quotidienne says the cover: Critique of Everyday Life.

"Have you read him?"

"Oh! Yes," Jehan says, peering at the book to check which of the two Lefebvres Enjolras is reading.

Jehan sighs. "Everyday life of the people, as a thing to be studied and theorized in its own right...I am still unaccustomed to such a marvel. It reminds me, you know, of what you--"

Here Jehan hesitates. He doesn't want to wound Enjolras by reminding him of this most fraught and heart-wrenching of moments on their last barricade. But then, with Enjolras, Jehan has always erred on the side of forthrightness over delicacy.

"What you said." His voice is soft now, almost tentative. "On the barricade. About the--the end of murders and wars and horrors. The end of events, you said. Meaning the end of the events that have defined history for so long: the intrigues and clashes of the mighty. In a truly free world the events of note must be part of the texture of ordinary life, woven by common men and women and children. And I know that doesn't come to pass in the way we wished it would, but books like these, studying ordinary life, are a sign of such marvelous change."

It is, of course, the correct way to err with Enjolras.

"Yes," he says, not tentative, but with the same reverent hush. "Just as you say."

"So many more ways for the voices of the people to be heard. To lift their voices and speak of their lives, even on utterly ordinary matters."

"Yes. Ordinary matters--and ephemeral matters, as fleeting as these blossoms, the quarrels and ecstasies that occupy a town for a month or a year. But no less worthy of study, for all that."

"And of the right to study themselves, and speak about it."

"Yes," Jehan says, his brow furrowing. "To study themselves, and not to be just the--the powerless object beneath some scholar's magnifying glass."

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