Work Text:
“Would you have still gone through with it? Still join the Military Police, knowing what you know now?” Wide and strong shoulders tense and stiffen as the person poses the question, shoulders that once carried a heavy burden.
“Hm…If I knew what I know now, wouldn’t it be easier to tell everyone else instead of worrying about what decision I would make?” A smile plays over his lips, playful and amused, like every other smile he shared with everyone.
“Do you ever think about anyone other than yourself?” Lips as pink and soft as rose petals brought the question up, crystal-like eyes staring off with her usual disinterested gaze, hiding the emotions stirring inside like a storm.
“Well…if I worked alone, I think I would have no other choice than to think of myself, because there’d be nobody else to worry about, right?” With his posture as straight and confident, he seems proud of his answer, skirting the edges of what the question had asked.
“…Are you angry?” Despite being as tall as a tree, his voice is so small and fragile, back bent like a dying flower, all strength gone and leaving behind a straw-like body, unable to look at the warm smile in front of him.
The pause that follows fills the endless space around them, heavy and thick like the smoke they had breathed at the pyre. Like statues, the three surrounded him, waiting for an answer. This triangle they formed brought a bitter taste to their mouths as they recalled a similar situation before, and now they await the fire that they so deserved.
Instead of fire, they get water that extinguishes all the burning sores they felt inside and out, and it comes in the form of the gentle and sweet chime of content laughter, “If I was angry, I wouldn’t be here, would I?” You’re punishing us, they want to answer, this is your punishment for the Hell we made you endure. “What good does being angry do when we’ve all suffered enough? I think it’s time you forgave yourself a little, don’t you think?”
The rose petals lips are bitten by teeth, a broken sob escaping her throat. The stiff shoulders tremble with held back emotion, like cracked stone. The straw-like body bends in half with an open whimper and hands held to the tear-soaked face.
“Why don’t you hate us?” She asked with a wavering voice.
“Why won’t you punish us?” He asks in a hushed and stone stiff whisper.
“Why?!” He nearly wails with a voice dripping in pain.
Why?
The same word he had said- No, that he has screamed, with eyes wide and frightened and a betrayed look deep inside. They felt such irony in the word at this moment. So much irony they want to laugh through the pain. ‘Why?’
He doesn’t miss a beat, he doesn’t stop smiling, and he doesn’t sound bitter, “Because I’ve never really been the type to think hate is the right choice to make.” They know there’s more to it, but how can they argue with him. How can they argue with the boy they themselves left for dead?
They could never argue with the freckled soldier who stood by his personal own personal morals. The soldier who had everything stripped away and still held his head high with a smile.
We’re so sorry, Marco…
Marco could never hate someone, it just wasn’t in him.