POV: Haruki
I found her on the balcony, red hair stirring faintly in the night air. She wore her nightclothes without care, as though the cold could not touch her. The moon was high, the stars scattered sharply across the dark. Rias's gaze was fixed on the horizon, steady, expectant, as though she were waiting for a visitor who might never come.
"Let's meet in the field of green," she said quietly. Her voice carried, fragile but deliberate.
"Where morning never comes,
plant our name in the wind,
and we'll dance when time forgets to tick.
And when it is time to depart,
just leave your shadow by the lake.
I can't have you, you are just a dream.
So the goodbye never has to start.
Let them be remembered, even when we fade.
Only in a world without limits could we exist.
And when it is time to depart,
let me hold on to what is left of you."
Her words were too measured to be casual, too personal to be ritual. There was a strange melancholy to her tone.
"It almost sounds like you rehearsed it," I said from behind, startling her.
She stiffened for an instant, then turned, composed again almost immediately. Her eyes found mine, steady and calm, as though I had not vanished for months without explanation.
"Haruki," she said with such a delighted smile that I felt compelled to smile. Her joy was that contagious.
Three months have passed. Most people would have called me a coward, or worse. She said my name as though I had never left.
"I see my absence hasn't made me a ghost," I said, stepping closer.
"You were already something of a ghost," she answered calmly. "Coming and going as you please. Appearing when no one expects it. Disappearing when someone does."
"An unflattering portrait," I said lightly. "And yet, it sounds about right."
She looked back toward the horizon. "Did you hear me?"
"I did." I rested my arms against the stone. "It sounded like something between a farewell and a request."
Her lips curved faintly. "And which do you think it was?"
"I am still deciding."
We stood in silence for a moment. The kind of silence that did not weigh heavily, only reminded one that time was passing.
"Do you still believe it?" I asked.
"Believe what?"
"That I am only a dream."
She gave me that faint smile again, the one that made mockery look elegant. "If you are, then you are a very persistent one. Most dreams end when the morning comes."
"Then perhaps you should pray for dawn."
"I told you before," she said softly, "I am willing to wait. A decade, a century, longer if I must."
Her words were unshaken, the same as before. It would have been easier if she had grown weary, if she had cursed me. But no, she remained constant. That was her cruelty.
"I would never ask such a thing of you," I said.
"You did not ask."
I allowed a quiet breath, close to laughter but not quite. "No. I suppose I did not."
Her gaze flicked toward me. "You left without a word. Do you expect me to forgive that?"
"I expect nothing," I said. "Least of all forgiveness."
"And yet here you stand."
"Yes. Here I stand."
Another silence.
"Do you ever tire of this?" she asked suddenly.
"Tire of what?"
"Carrying yourself as though every choice must be final. As though compromise itself is a sin."
"Chains dressed as bonds remain chains," I said.
"And what of bonds freely chosen?" she asked.
I did not answer. The truth was simple, and saying it aloud would have wounded her.
At length, I said instead, "Then let us meet in the field of green."
Her eyes flickered. "Where morning never comes?"
"Yes. Only there could it work."
She lowered her head slightly, but her voice did not waver. "Then let me keep your shadow, if nothing else."
"You already have it," I said.
I thought of this girl, who loves me without condition or expectation. And yet I do not want to be with her. Or rather i can't be with her. It is not as though I am some hopeless romantic incapable of sharing myself with those I do not love. I have been with others before, women I liked well enough without convincing myself I felt more than I did. Lavinia comes to mind. I had slept with her though I barely knew her, not compared to Rias at least, and yet I was willing to do so without burdening it with the word love. But I cannot bring myself to do the same with Rias.
She loves me dearly, and any form of affection from me would delight her, yet I will not give it. I know the reason, the real one. I love her. Strange, is it not? If I love her, why not accept her confession, why not give her what she wants?
Because to do so would wound her more deeply than any rejection.
Any relationship between us would be founded on deception. Not on her part, but mine. That is what makes it worse. It would be one thing to manipulate or play with the hearts of the corrupt. That is easy. But Rias is innocent. She does not deserve to be punished for the crime of loving me.
The truth is that I cannot accept the society she belongs to. A society that turns slavery and cruelty into virtues, that praises its chains as noble tradition. She herself is kind, yes. She is different. But her kindness does not cleanse the rot from which it springs. To accept her is to accept it all, and I will not.
At first I only sought power so that I could live freely, safe from threats against myself or those I love. Yet I have seen what that selfish pursuit leads to. I had known in the abstract that countless humans and weaker beings suffered under the tyranny of gods, devils, vampires, and all the rest. But witnessing it, living through it, is another matter. There are humans dragged into this life against their will, remade into devils, condemned to eternal servitude. How can I lie with her knowing that, and sleep with a clean conscience?
I intend to destroy it. All of it. I will bring down the foundations of these societies, and in doing so I will be the enemy of devils, and of many others besides. If I take Rias's hand now, I condemn her to a choice she should never have to make, between her family and me. I will not do that to her. I am not that selfish. To enter into such a relationship would be to write its ending from the start: sadness, betrayal, and tears. She deserves better.
She deserves someone who would fight for her, not someone who will inevitably betray her for his ambition.
Rias hugged me then, fiercely, as though my presence itself were fragile and she feared I might vanish again. Her voice, soft as the night air, broke against my chest.
"I missed you."
I hesitated, then wrapped my arms around her in return. We stayed that way beneath the indifferent stars for what felt like eternity. Her warmth pressed against me, and I wondered how long I could keep up this cruel mercy I called restraint. I let my hand drift through her hair gently, and she spoke again, still holding me close.
"You seem to be in deep thought," her tone slipped toward mischief. "Were you not taught that it is rude to think too much when a beautiful girl is hugging you?"
"All I can think about now is bed," I said dryly.
"We're sharing the same thought," she murmured against me.
"You are thinking about bed too?" I asked curiously.
"I am thinking about YOU in my bed," she said, with the kind of boldness only she could carry with innocence.
"Figured." I rolled my eyes. "Were you not taught not to invite just any boy into your bed?" I asked.
"Now you are being cruel. I do not just invite any boy, and you know it."
"I know," I admitted. "But I like pushing your buttons."
"You would enjoy it more if you undid them first," she said with sudden brazenness.
I blinked. She was usually more subtle than this, though I suppose I should not be surprised. This is, after all, the same girl who conducts her peerage meetings with a see-through shower wall.
"Control your hormones, woman," I replied, dry as ever.
Her smile only deepened.
I met her gaze evenly. "Save your invitations for the field of green, Rias. There, perhaps, when time forgets to tick, I will give you the answer you want. Until then, you will have to settle for my shadow by the lake."
There was silence after that, the kind that did not demand to be filled.
"Are you not going to ask where I was?" I said at last.
Rias shook her head gently. "No. I'm sure you had your reasons," she replied with calm certainty. "You'll tell me when you feel ready."
That, more than anything, unsettled me. I had expected reproach, at least a touch of bitterness. She must have sensed my surprise, because she drew back slightly, wrapping her arms around my neck. Her eyes held mine, warm and steady, and she smiled.
"What?" she teased softly. "Did you think I would scold you? Demand an explanation?"
"Perhaps," I admitted.
Her laughter was light, but it carried conviction. "My beloved Haruki, you owe me nothing. I have no claim on you, no right to govern your choices or actions. I'm not so spoiled as to try to control you." Her expression softened, the smile fading into something almost luminous. "To tell the truth I am just grateful for the pleasure of your company."
"So am I," I answered quietly. And I meant it. Whatever else I thought, I enjoyed her presence.
Another silence followed, but this one was warmer, gentler, almost intimate. At length, Rias gestured toward her door.
"Would you like to come in and drink some tea?" she asked.
"Only if there's something to eat," I said, attempting levity.
Her smile bloomed again. "Then I'll cook for you."
Letter to my brother
Dearest brother,
Please forgive me for not writing for so long. But please try to understand that it took me a very long time before I was in any condition to write, and I have started this letter at least ten times. Well, at least that is what I would tell you if I had any courage to send this to you; I do not. I have tried a dozen times to fold these words into something brave enough to hand you, but my hands always tremble and the paper always ends up in a drawer. So I am writing to the drawer instead, and to whatever part of you might still reach for me in the silence.
How are you? It has been three months since that day, since the day that will never stop being that day, and yet each minute of it is as sharp and immediate in my mind as if it happened this morning. They say memories soften with time, that grief dulls and we learn to live around the hollow. I do not believe them. I remember everything. I remember the small things more vividly than I should: the way your sleeves were always too long when you were ten and you pushed them up with your thumb.
Do you remember when you were ten and I was eight and Mum and Dad had gone to a funeral and were late coming home and we were starving? You went into the kitchen and emerged triumphant with a boiled egg, salt in your palm, and declared it our dinner. You called it, what was it, "mom-is-away food"? We ate it anyway and laughed until our stomachs hurt. Dad found out the next morning and taught you how to make spaghetti so you wouldn't poison us in your next domestic fiasco. You took those lessons seriously (and, yes, I will claim I am still the better cook, don't roll your eyes at me). I still taste that salt when I think of you. I still laugh, and then I cry. Those little, ridiculous memories are now all I own that is purely ours.
You have always protected me. You punched the boy at school who made remarks about my body; you stood in doorways so grown men would not loiter near me; you made jokes at the dinner table so I could breathe. You were always the one who acted first and thought later, but somehow everything you did kept me safe. I have tried a hundred ways to repay that kindness and none of them are enough for what I have done.
I keep thinking of the stories you told me; the long, breathless versions you could make from a line in a book. Abel and Cain especially (fitting I suppose), how you turned that short, terrible tale into a drama that made me sob and hate and understand, in a childish way, the terrible tightness of sibling rivalry. You argued once that it is near impossible to truly hate your sibling, especially one as kind as Abel. That there was, first, a fierce soft love, then envy, then the fracture, and I believed you then, as I believed a hundred other things you said because you told them with such certainty. How cruel that certainty seems now. I have committed the oldest sin, Haruki: the slaying of one's own. I still call it an accident because the mind wants a shape for horror it cannot bear: accident, mistake, misstep. But names do not change consequences. They are dead. I am the cause. I do not know how to carry that and keep breathing.
You taught me what hell might be. Not fire and brimstone but the eternal separation from God, from love, the absence of that light which makes a thing sacred. I did not understand until now. I do not think I will ever see you again. That thought is its own kind of flame.
Your tenderness was always steady, even when everyone else's glances sharpened. You loved me without drama; you defended me without spectacle. That is perhaps what makes my crime most unbearable: that a person so generous in small things should have been repaid with such an enormous, irreparable wrong. And now I will never see you again.
I must tell you what I am doing now because secrecy would be an affront to you; you have always hated lies by omission. The stories, Haruki, were not just stories. They were warning and history and, horrible as it sounds, truth. The gods and heroes, the monsters we joked about at night, vampires, old tyrants of the dark, they exist. They are not kind. I have seen what they do to people. I have assisted in rescuing humans who escaped captivity: I did not cross into the vampires' dimension myself, my courage has limits, but I guided the survivors back to safety, I carried them when they could not walk, I listened to what they could not speak of without retching. Their dignity was stripped away, their bodies and minds broken in ways I cannot put on paper. The memory of their eyes haunts me; I see in them the thing I fear most: what they would have done to you if you had been in their hands.
I joined the Hero Faction because I could not bear the thought of those predators ever touching you. If one of those creatures had touched you, if you had been made to suffer in that particular, methodical way, my blood would have drowned my senses. I could not allow that possibility to exist.That is the truth that keeps me moving: not self-redemption in any lofty sense, but the small, selfish, utterly human wish that you remain safe.
We call ourselves heroes of man and mean it in the best possible way. We challenge gods and creatures, yes, but more often we do the small terrible things: set free a frightened child, carry a body, mend a soul. It is in these small things I find the only true repentance I can offer. Not penance in the religious sense, for what could I do that repays what I did? but action: to stand between predators and the people they would devour. To make a world where you can live safely. To give you the room to be everything you are without any demon, mundane or divine, ever touching you.
They told me that our strength is in unity, that even the greatest among us cannot shield humanity alone. I have been chosen to train under Cao Cao, the leader of the organization. Imagine it: me, chosen. I was terrified and elated in equal measure. Cao Cao is nothing like I imagined. I had often wondered what the man who challenged the gods themselves was like. I built him in my mind to be someone like you, someone with your fire and pride, and yet he is softer in some places and crueler in others. He is proud but humble; he calls us siblings and chides us if we bow too often. He believes heroism is equality. He carries the Longinus and yet will wipe a boot for a recruit on the ground if need be. Watching him taught me how a leader can be fierce without the flourish you have, and how clarity of purpose can be its own grace. He reminds me of you in that single-mindedness, the way you pursue a thing until it is finished, until it is unassailable. He is not you, but sometimes, looking at him, I imagine a version of you who would strap on armor and laugh at the chaos you would end.
Training is brutal. I push until my muscles break and then push a little further until there is nothing left in me but motion. There are others, so many others, who are brilliant and horrible and tender at once. I have new teammates who are frightening in their skill and generous with their help. It is a strange comfort to be with them: to sweat together, to fail together, to learn together. It is taking the place of ritual and offering something steadier: action. For a little while each day, the memory of them, the ones I failed and the faces I cannot unsee, recedes. I can focus on the simple, fierce thing of becoming capable.
Do not imagine me naive. I know Cao Cao's words are words, and words sometimes lie. I know factions have politics; hearts can be corrupted by power as easily as appetite. But I have seen his light cut through darkness. I have seen him stand in places where men would flee, and the sight is a kind of proof I can hold like a talisman. I train, and I fail, and I train again. I am not fast; I am not brilliant. I am persistent. I will be persistent until my limbs refuse me or until the work is done.
If you could see me now you would laugh at my clumsy attempts to look composed; you would tease me about my posture and scold me for skipping breakfast. You would be the same ordinary, miraculous thing you have always been. And I would, as always, love you for being you.
I do not know if you will ever read this. I do not know if I deserve your forgiveness. I do not know what justice the world will demand or what absolution I might find. I only know that I loved you before I knew what love could break, and I love you now, with a fierce, ruined devotion that will not be softened by time or penance. I write so that, if I die, you will at least have this: proof that my love was real and complete; that I did not pretend it; that even in my last acts I sought to put you first.
Yours truly, always and forever,
Hikaru
AN: Another chapter. Honestly, I wasn't sure how to start this one, so I just wrote whatever came to mind. I hope the metaphorical talk of unfulfilled love between Haruki and Rias isn't too annoying, I wanted to experiment with that style. For those who were expecting a more explosive reunion from Rias, I hope it's clear what I intended: she promised she would wait for Haruki no matter what, so she doesn't complain or demand anything from him. That's a selfless love, loving someone so deeply while expecting nothing in return. I tried to capture that feeling, and I hope it came across well.
As for Rias's poem: it's basically about a love that can't fully exist in reality. She paints an image of a timeless place where they can be together, but acknowledges that it's only a dream. The shadow by the lake is her way of holding on to a memory so that goodbye never truly begins. I am no poet.
btw we are five chapter ahead on Patreon. Consider checking it out.