Work Text:
Kazuma was gone.
Kazuma was completely, utterly, wretchedly, horribly, irreversibly, gone.
Ryunosuke still wasn’t sure what to make of it.
His spirit, he vowed, his wishes, his soul, stays by my side within Karuma, and his fingers, curled so delicately upon the scabbard, tensed ever so slightly.
He still caught the way Susato’s gaze caught itself on the twintails fluttering from the hilt. She would pause, for a fraction of a moment, and tear her eyes away with a heavy blink, washing away the grief. Working to keep it at bay.
They were both awful at that, he noticed.
On slow evenings, when the wind blew just right, and the clouds obscured the sun, as they so often did during London days, he would be reminded of warm afternoons and dancing petals and loud laughter and hello, partners and —
— and his breath would still, and the moment would pass, and he carried on, hand absentmindedly itching for something, anything, where it rested upon the sword’s hilt.
Every window he passed, he wished he could turn and see Kazuma’s reflection, walking alongside him. Every restaurant, he wished it could be Kazuma dining beside him and greeting the people he’d met in his absence. Every step, every breath, every sight to behold, every word uttered in court, and in court especially, where it hurt the most, it was only Kazuma, Kazuma, Kazuma — and it was because of Kazuma that he was here, and it was in Kazuma’s name that he upheld his honor, his role,
and it was in Kazuma’s name he drowned.