Chapter Text
1.
That night, when Munakata arrives home and falls asleep, he doesn’t dream. The next morning, for no particular reason, he goes out and buys a gun.
2.
The one time Awashima and he go bar-hopping, and he crosses the threshold of a decent-looking place to come face-to-face with Kusanagi, he backpedals out of there so fast it puts Fushimi’s flash-step to shame.
3.
There is a ghost living in the dark corners of his single-bedroom apartment. Sometimes it flickers, sometimes he dismisses it as his imagination, and most times Munakata downs an extra coffee before showing up for work. One time it tries to say something, but he switches the light on before it can get past the first three words.
4.
He leaves the gun on the dresser, he doesn’t know why. It’s a sore reminder that greets him when he wakes up in the morning and goes to sleep at night. When it glints from light from passing traffic, the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
5.
He’s pretty sure those three words were ’do you miss’ and the sentence was supposed to end in a question mark.
6.
Five years later, the Golden King tells him to watch out for his Weismann level with a kindhearted smile, the crowfeet near his eyes digging deeper than they had the last time Munakata saw him. I never expected to warn you of all people about such a thing. Munakata never expected to put so much effort in remaining polite.
7.
The ghost eventually leaves, knowing it’s outlived its stay (although he’d lie and tell you its stay was outlived the moment it appeared), but Munakata doesn’t recall there being an ashtray on the coffee table or the smell of nicotine in his carpets.
8.
Even with his Sword of Damocles now a crumbling mess in the sky, not once does his immaculate leader-facade break, although his smiles are more clinical and his puzzles growing more elaborate by the day. Awashima mentions how he abruptly ceased personally supervising their operations and slips an off-hand comment about preparing her for succession, each syllable tainted in such obvious worry Munakata doubts she’s developed a cold enough heart to shoulder captaincy.
9.
There are nights where he misses the ghost. There are nights where he wishes he could dream of that day, because it’s frightening at what speed human memory deteriorates. There are nights where the balcony doesn’t seem a long way from the blur of traffic below.
10.
Eight years after the fact, Awashima Seri is promoted to Captain of Scepter4 a week following Fushimi Saruhiko kicking down the door to the Blue King’s house, the single time he was late during his entire occupation of the post. The gun was on the dresser, untouched. Munakata was in the living room, slumped over his own sword, his blood a familiar red pooled onto the floorboards and the sign of his kingship but glitter and dust in the sky. In his report, Fushimi neglects to record the suspiciously familiar laugh he heard during his excursion, mostly due to his unbelief towards the paranormal.
11.
What his clansmen will never know is that during his reign, Munakata Reishi harbored a single personal desire. Suoh Mikoto will never forgive himself, even in death, for denying him that one desire.
Just once, Reishi wanted to be a savior (a friend), instead of a judge.