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“Would you be happier without me?” Alma asks him one night, stabbing a knife through Kanda’s soul with the casualty and abandon of one who doesn't understand the depth of their words. “I feel like you would.” They continue, not giving him a chance to even conjure a response, mind still fogged with the edge of a tiredness that's quickly being devoured by heartache. “I feel like you could have been really happy without me, Yuu.”
They turn beside Kanda in bed, their eyes serious and set even as they brim with unshed tears. “I couldn't be happy without you, though.” They say, and you're wrong, Kanda wants to yell, you're wrong. It sits in his lungs, on the tip of his tongue, but he does not say it – there's something in Alma's voice, something in their eyes, in the curve of their lips that tells him this is something that needs to come out, that needs to be let out, as much as Kanda detests to hear it.
Alma is someone who's been wired to push things down and down and down until they burst, explode, taking larger and larger pieces of them with it. It's different from Kanda who, at the very least, has been taught to circumvent his emotions by unleashing them as violence inflicted upon the world until the thrum of unsaid things in his heart settles.
If Alma is venting, Kanda thinks, so desperately, whispered words fleeing their mouth in the dark of the night like a secret punishable by execution, it's because they're at their limit.
“No, I don't think I could be happy without you at all.” Alma’s words are slowly spoken as if they're rolling off their tongue with a great deal of thought imbued into them. “I wasn't happy before you, I wouldn't be happy without you.
“Sometimes I think it would be better if I died.” They say, twisting the knife a little harder, plunging it a little deeper into Kanda's core, and he has to take a shaky breath to not respond to that, hands shaking at the mere thought of it. “I should have died in the orphanage, I think. And I didn't and that's why I feel so wrong all the time, and everything feels so jarring. Why you don't seem as happy as I know you can be. It makes me sad, because I love you so much. I feel like my body is always about to burst with the sheer power of it, and it doesn't even scare me because this is what I was born for.” Kanda's breath hitches, but he doesn't move, doesn't close his eyes or interrupt like he longs to do. He just stares at the lines of Alma's face, the wide glow of their eyes, the gentle sharpness of their cheekbones, the gravity of their expression. “I was born to love you,” They say, a light furrowing of their brow matching the anguish in their eyes “But you were just born.”
“I feel like I'm holding you back, keeping you from– I don't know. Your destiny seems unnecessarily mystical. Your potential, maybe. From true happiness.” Alma lets their eyelids fall shut and the gleam of tears that sat on the corner of their eyes slides down their cheeks. “I know I'm not the best at– being a good person, or even a person at all sometimes, but I love you and I want you to be happy. And I feel like I'm lost because I know your life would be a lot easier without me.”
Their breathing is shaky and unsteady by the end of it, and there's a shadow of despair deeper than anything Kanda has ever seen on their face.
The knife shifts into a sword and pushes through him, slicing chest and heart and soul in the process.
“Alma.” He says, and it comes out rough and raw, something that he would usually never allow, but that he neither can nor cares to control right now. He moves, supporting himself on one elbow as he lifts himself up to straddle Alma and hover above them, his hair falling like a curtain around them and swaying gently with the night breeze sliding in through their cracked window.
Alma is still frowning, still crying when he looks down at them, and not even the dark of the night can hide that from Kanda–even without sight he would be able to see Alma, to feel everything they feel, know every inch of them. They're beautiful, even with tears streaming down their cheeks, thick brows and full lips, their hair spread on their pillow, black stark against light gold, a halo around the image of the celestial.
Kanda will never love anyone as much.
He raises his hands to their face, wiping away their tears with a tenderness that is exclusive to their being, and places a kiss on the corner of each of their eyes before resting his forehead against theirs.
“You're an idiot.” He says, and the breath of laughter that Alma lets out is wet and intertwined with a sob.
“I know.” They say, and there's a new hurt in their voice that Kanda loathes more than anything. Alma, he thinks, was made for joy, for delight, for contentment; Alma was made for winter mornings and spring afternoons, for autumn evenings and summer nights. For him, Alma is the ocean, the sky and everything around it – that they don’t think Kanda would crush this world between his hands for them is staggering.
This type of pain has right to exist within someone like Alma, has no rights to cloud their brightness and damper their spirit. If he could, Kanda thinks, he would slay it himself, delve deep into their pain and destroy whatever hurts them, even if it meant dying alongside it.
“I’m sorry.” Alma whispers, and Kanda exhales.
“Alma.” He calls again, a silent question that Alma answers with reluctance, eyelashes fluttering as they blink tears away from their eyes.
There’s a lingering fear mixed with adoration and melancholia there, and before any words have a chance to even be uttered, Kanda leans into them, pressing their lips together with all the tenderness and love he can muster.
He’s not a man of words.
But words are what Alma needs, and for Alma he’ll try anything.
“You’re an idiot.” He repeats, and Alma doesn’t react this time, waiting. “Like I’d exist without you.” Slowly, he sits back on Alma’s lap and they follow, sitting themselves up in synch.
Kanda’s hands search blindly for Alma’s, his eyes never leaving their face as he pulls their right hand up, cupping it gently between his own and bringing it to his lips.
Their skin is cold or maybe Kanda’s is warm, but he doesn’t mind, closing his eyes as he presses his lips to the back of their hand, their palm, the inside of their wrist.
“Whatever happiness you think I’d find without you would be empty and meaningless and far inferior to even the most agonising moment spent with you.” Kanda doesn’t think about his words as they leave his mouth, doesn’t need to chew his thoughts up into understandable bits, to revise and review what he means and how he expresses it.
Kanda is not a man of words, but for Alma he is – for Alma, he thinks, he’d be anything he needs to be.
It’s ridiculously sentimental, borderline saccharine. It's something that would have his stomach turning if coming from someone else, but it’s culmination of his affections, the apex of his feelings. What he feels for Alma is the highest form of emotion, the very core of who he is.
“If you weren’t here, I’d spent my life looking for you. If you’d died, I would've lived on, but it would've been hollow. You’re an idiot, and you’re my life, my past, my present and you’re my future.” He presses the back of Alma’s hand to his lips again, closing his eyes as he speaks and not moving an inch. “Do you not remember the past? I was an angry uncaring child, and without you I would have been a vicious adult. I would have been lonely and I would have remained uncaring. It would be a life, but not a pleasant one. There’d be no joy in my world without you – you’re my joy, always.” He takes a deep breath, pulling away to meet Alma’s eyes only to find them shut tight, tears running freely down their face.
“It’s you. You’re ridiculous and annoying at times, and you’re loud and brash and far too sociable for your own good, but it’s you. For me, it’s always been you, it’ll always be you. In this life, in the last and in the next.” Kanda chuckles, airily but with sincerity. “Do you think anyone else could make me say this much cheesy shit? In this world, do you think anyone else would make me want to say all this romantic garbage? Think, Alma.” He pulls the hand away from his face, but doesn’t let go of it, pressing it against the bed as he leans down. Alma follows, and his hair mingles with theirs on the sheets below when they lay fully beneath Kanda.
“You’ve got it the wrong way around.” He says, Alma’s laboured breath warm on his face, their cheeks flushed and their eyes wide with wonder and worship – Kanda is sure he paints a similar picture, and his lips quirk up at the thought. They’re both fools, he thinks. “You were the one who was born to thrive, and I was the one who was born to love you.” He bumps their noses together, leaving a featherlight kiss on Alma’s lips again. “You’re the sun and I just gravitate around you, like everyone else.”
“Yuu.” Alma’s voice is heavy, but their lips are twisting into a hesitant smile that Kanda can’t help be adore.
They bury their face into Kanda’s chest, sobbing in full now, but in a way Kanda is more than familiar with and that doesn’t ache to hear.
He moves, careful not to jostle Alma too much as he switches their positions, laying himself down onto the bed and pulling his crying soulmate into his lap as they keep their face buried into his chest and cry.
It doesn’t stop soon, but Kanda doesn’t mind, petting Alma’s hair until they pull back and away from him, a serene look on their face that hadn’t been there for weeks now. Kanda is pained at the reminder that they’d been carrying this around for some time now, but he dismisses that thought for now – they can talk about it later.
“You’re stupid.” He says, raising his hand to cup Alma’s cheek, feeling it move as they smile brightly and lean into the touch like they were starved for it. I know, their eyes say, amused. “And ridiculous, too.” Alma chuckles, and a weight is lifted from Kanda’s shoulders – the freeing of Atlas.
“I love you too, Yuu.” They say before leaning down to kiss him properly, and Kanda’s heart blooms as he responds with every bit of love he has.