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Mizuki was gone before Kiriko even knew it. One moment he was standing in front of her, listening to her agreement that he should leave whilst knots twisted painfully in her stomach, and the next he was…
She didn’t want to admit that he was leaving to herself. It made it far too real, and she wasn’t prepared to have it fully set in that he was gone for good. At least for as long as she needed him to be. She barely saw him as he walked away, the brown bag that she’d bought for him slung over his shoulder. The sight pulled at her heart, and she tried to not let it distract her from the reality they now faced.
Her father was back, and even though it hadn’t happened how she’d imagined at all, she forced herself not to care. All that mattered was that they could be a family again.
They didn’t go to bed until the early hours of the morning. When she finally laid down, shoulders aching, Kiriko found that she was hating herself. She hated herself for letting Mizuki go so easily. For letting her father be taken, even though she was a mere child. For not taking out more of the Hashimoto.
When did she become so bitter?
Jaw clenched, she rolled over and closed her eyes. But in the blackness all she could see was green. Discomfort crept through her stomach and lurched into her throat, making her tongue curl backwards. Something hit the back of her mouth, and she darted out of bed and into the bathroom down the hall, her hands weakening by the second.
Viscous yellow liquid surged out of her lips in a torrent. She knew her knees would be bruised with how urgently she’d dropped to the floor, but it was difficult to concern herself with that when this was the first time she’d vomited in months. It felt like her insides were preparing to rip themselves apart, and for a brief moment she considered whether her period was due. But deep down she knew it was a ridiculous idea; that there could only be one reason.
Pathetic was the only word she could use to describe herself at that moment. Losing her mind - and her dinner - over a man who had come in with the intent to betray all of the Yōkai. He was lucky that he’d had a change of mind, because all forms of violent thoughts had flitted into her mind when she’d seen him standing there with her father.
Kiriko didn’t like what she was changing into. She was supposed to be softer than this; she was supposed to condemn bloodshed unless absolutely necessary. Yet it seemed like Mizuki was bringing out the worst in her. It had felt good to turn him away, to tell him that she couldn’t forgive him, not yet. They both knew that hatred was off the table, anyway. But somehow, she still seemed to be the softest when it came to him.
She’d bought donuts for him constantly, gifted him ofuda and omamori whenever she noticed his anxiety growing too much, listened to his every pain and worry. The rest of the Yōkai had commented on it, of course. How could they not? They’d teased her whenever she’d insisted on leaving leftovers for him, and raised their eyebrows when she asked him to run a mission with her alone. She wondered how they felt now. Neither her nor her father had explained to them the truth yet, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to.
Mizuki still seemed to deserve to be remembered fondly in their minds, for all his faults.
As her vomiting stopped, Kiriko clenched the edge of the toilet bowl as hollow retches followed. Her head ached.
A hazy memory seemed to surface, then, when she’d been struck down with a mysterious flu. There had been someone standing behind her, someone familiar. Someone comforting, even. A gentle hand on the back of her head, soup and donuts pushed in front of her by a metal hand.
A metal hand. Sick surged out of her again.
There was a hesitant knock at the door. “Is everything okay in there?” Dad. With great, concentrated effort, Kiriko paused her throwing up and reluctantly turned her head towards the door.
“I’m good.” She managed weakly. For once, she didn’t want company.
“... Are you sure, Kiriko?” Toshiro said hesitantly. The sound made her insides twinge with regret, but even her father couldn’t soothe her right now. And after what he’d told her, well… She didn’t want to invite more of these thoughts in.
“I’m sure, dad. Go back to sleep, don’t let me worry you.” She said with all the softness she could muster. The guilt didn’t seem like something she could manage right now.
Whatever he said, she didn’t hear clearly enough, but his footsteps shuffling away was enough for her shoulders to sag once more. Who the fuck was Mizuki to make her feel like this? Exhausted and satisfied that her bout of illness had ended, Kiriko collapsed backwards onto the bathroom floor. She revelled in the coldness of the tile, laying her temple against it like it was the only sacred thing in the world. She had done the same to Mizuki, once.
His presence was so different to any of the other Yōkai. It was turbulent, yes, but there was a relaxing quality buried within. Or maybe that was just her rubbing off on him. The thought made her shiver.
She wanted to forgive him so fucking badly. She wanted to be as kind and understanding as her father, or as wise and reformed as Hanzo, but she couldn’t be that, she knew. Kiriko was her own person, and that meant she had to learn how to deal with her problems. The first step of that was being thankful that it hadn’t ended in violence. Physically, at least. Her stomach still twisted agonisingly, and the way her heart had leapt as he’d tried to maintain eye contact with her couldn’t have been any sort of healthy.
She was no stranger to Mizuki’s blood. There had been many times where she’d bandaged him up after a skirmish, or carefully laid ofuda on more worrisome wounds. With how often he seemed to get hurt, she wasn’t surprised his curse penetrated his life so brutally. Or maybe he was just willingly reckless.
Either way, she had spent her fair amount of time bandaging him up, giving concerned glances every time he tried to play it off as no big deal. Oh, how Kiriko had despised his blasé attitude. Always careless for himself, and always too compassionate for others. An involuntary flinch shot through her body at the memory of his immediate volunteering for a distraction back at the Hashimoto stronghold. She knew it was dangerous even back then, but now it hurt to see how he knew what he was walking into, and doing it without a second thought.
“Mizuki.” She didn’t mean to whisper it. But it felt sweet on her lips; it always did. What had once been shock and anger was now melting into a wound that she wasn’t quite sure she’d recover from.
Kiriko didn’t know quite how long she lay on that floor, but the birds were chirping by the time she raised herself off of it. The Yōkai hideout remained silent. Hopefully everyone would be far too tired to rouse themselves before noon. A wan, pinkish light glowed through the singular blurred bathroom window.
Quietly, she moved to the sink. Acid still burnt at her tongue and gums, her prior regurgitation still leaving its harsh mark. Water had never tasted so good. Or maybe it had.
There had been kisses before. Unsure, careful ones that felt slightly illegal and left her looking into a pair of eyes that didn’t know what to name what they were yet. She had been just as uncertain. But after, they’d always murmur each other’s names like it was a promise to keep it secret. Because they had to. Because Mizuki wouldn’t reach for her hand in public like she so badly wanted him to. Because she never had the guts to come out and say it.
After rinsing her mouth out, Kiriko brushed her teeth. Whether it was for a sense of normality, or to remove the remnants of her prior breakdown she wasn’t even sure of, but it just felt right to do. The birds continued chirping.
And after that… She stood in the bathroom, lost. Sleeping remained out of the question, and so did eating. Her room felt far too small for her to breathe comfortably in, too. Again, she turned to the sink, this time shoving her hands under the tap and lathering them in soap until her skin was red. The water was too cold, her skin too hot. Furiously, she shoved the last vestiges of Mizuki’s touch off her hands.
Soap suds swirled down the drain, the gurgling scraping at her ears. It was not as refreshing as she needed it to be, and as her skin reddened, Kiriko hissed and turned off the tap. She wrung her still damp hands, grimacing at the sensation, and then stared around the bathroom again.
Comfort. That was what she needed. But the idea of her room still suffocated her, already squeezing her chest without so much as stepping inside. Quietly, she opened the bathroom door and looked down the hallway. The greenish-yellow light was still on, a hum that she hadn’t noticed before thrumming throughout it.
Unconsciously, Kiriko entered Mizuki’s room. She didn’t even realise until the door closed with a muffled click and she was bathed in darkness. His lamp was gone, and when she turned on the light switch she realised so was his bedding. There was no pillow, no futon and no shimenawa. Every single ofuda, omamori and grain of salt seemed to have vanished. Even the light seemed a little colder and the cracks unfamiliar. Mizuki had left nothing for her to hold.
She felt frozen, gazing at the spot he had been standing just a few hours before. Had it been cruel of her to refuse to trust him? She had pretended not to look at his expression afterwards, ignoring the downward twitching of his mouth and sunken eyes.
It seemed like all she had now was a nightstand that was never really his in the first place. Cautiously, Kiriko stepped over to it, looking down at the two rings their glasses had made several weeks before. One was slightly overlapping with the other; its condensation blurring over. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the corner where he’d once slept.
Where they’d once kissed.
Hesitantly at first, of course. And she had been so shy, a feeling so unnatural that it’d swamped her heart with doubt until they’d locked eyes and she’d realised that yes, this was what she wanted. Even when Mizuki had placed a gentle hand on her shoulder to signal to stop, she was glad. Because as she pulled away, she knew it would be something they’d both regret in the morning. But she’d let him press a timid kiss to her cheek afterwards. They were playing pretend at something they knew realistically neither of them could have, at least not with each other.
Maybe Kiriko had always known that it would end horribly. Maybe there was a curse that encircled both of them as soon as she’d first caught sight of his frosty hair on that dock. She didn’t really care, not anymore. It’d done its business, hadn’t it?
Without realising it, she’d laid her head down against the nightstand, carefully tracing along the outlines of the marks with precision she typically only afforded to striking her kunai’s targets. The gentle scratching against the wood seemed to soothe her. The birds were still singing outside, as if taunting Kiriko with happiness that now seemed out of reach.
She wanted to whisper his name again, but the words couldn’t come. Her lips moved with the ghost of a noise. His name was replaced by real, genuine water leaking from her eyes and down onto the nightstand. It seeped into the wood, and she wondered if they’d stain it, too. She hoped they would.
Perhaps she just needed a long, quiet cry to herself. The tears began to itch at the sides of her eyes and her head started to throb. It had been too long of a night. She wondered where he was now, whether he had found Overwatch like Genji had told him, whether they’d even accepted him. Wouldn’t a former double agent be a security risk? She wondered if maybe, just maybe, he had gone trotting back to Shion like the dog he had been raised to be. Sometimes loyalty was too much.
Kiriko attempted to hum to herself, but the melody came out stilted and broken. It seemed as if everything he had ever taught her was failing, too. She should still feel good about turning him away. She knew it was better for the both of them, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t hurt. All that time spent with her father… It needed to be made up for. It needed to be taken back from a man that had only fallen into his life rather than been created by it.
Her arms stretched out across the bedside table, imagining that it was a human rather than a lump of chipped wood. He had always been tense when they hugged, anyway. As stupid as it felt, she allowed herself to sink into the ‘embrace’, letting her tears wet the cabinet as much as she wanted. He would have let her. He always did. But Mizuki was gone, and she seemed to have chased him away.
Words that she knew she should have said weeks ago flooded her mind, and she searched for the right word. Everything was too rigid, too much. Would it be too strong if she said she loved him?
Throwing her dignity to the wind, she kissed the edge of the cabinet, sinking further to the floor until she laid flat against it. She missed the way Mizuki made her feel. She missed the butterflies when he grinned in that infuriatingly smug way at her, the surge of protectiveness whenever he was hurt. Quietly, Kiriko shifted into the corner, the line of where his futon had been visible against the flooring.
She knew she would come back to this place again. She would keep coming back until she gathered the strength to admit that what he had done had truly hurt her. Until she sent that first, tentative letter that she knew would be writing itself in her mind day in and day out for the next month. Until she had exhausted her father of every single gruesome, traumatic detail of Mizuki’s life.
Kiriko wanted to continue to love him. So, so, so desperately wanted to carry on loving him. Because the way that Mizuki had looked at her as he announced his intention to leave was too regretful to be that of a friend.