Work Text:
Souta gives her a sideways look the first moment they're alone. He's standing to her right as she sits on a stool in the salon, shoulders slightly hunched and eyes fixed on the yellow table. Sakura thinks he suspects Akashi-san didn't die by accident, but he doesn't say anything accusatory. Instead he says, "You should have stayed."
Sakura would have liked to have been little surprised and the unspoken "with me," but Souta had made his position clear that night before she had embarked on her last-ditch desperate journey to win Akashi-san for herself, or maybe just what he stood for. He had known, and advised her with sad eyes, and willed her to do something for her own good instead of the ideal she was killing herself for. At the time, she hadn't noticed, or hadn't wanted to, but now, in her heart, she knows he's right. She tells him as much.
There is no need for confession or forgiveness. He leans over and lets their arms touch, and something about it feels more intimate than she's ever been with him, with anyone. Souta's pinky brushing hers says more than he ever could. As their hands entwine, Sakura wonders if she won't have to change for this, too, like she had to conform for her parents' love and the military's approval. Like she tried to for Akashi-san.
But as their lips meet, a burst of sudden clarity makes her realize what a fool she was to have voluntarily given him up because she was in love with someone she couldn't even see as a mortal man, because she was obsessed with a purity she maybe didn't even want to achieve. Souta accepts her as she is, dark as well as light, without any regard for past sins or future uncertainty.
Sakura wants to do that, and she tries.