@twinleaf-royalty — ABOUT : hikari.
There were many things one could, and perhaps equally as many one should, say, when it came to him and her. To Cynthia, the idea of them had been expressed through venom and hatred; accusations of misconduct, infidelity (a delusion) and coercion to the foulest degree while Josefina, in her hesitant sort of way, had suggested that perhaps, just maybe… What they were doing wasn’t safe.
That the child no longer was just that, and that things no longer were as simple as they once had been.
Cyrus had always wondered if he simply had been blind to it all, once upon a time. This danger and jeopardizing that he was engaging himself within. Certainly, the child grew to be extraordinary in ways that had put his own ideals at risk; but, Hikari had never been dangerous.
And neither had he.
Not… Usually, at the very least.
He breathed out through his nose. A drawn out, long breath that collapsed his chest and left him feeling faint. “Jupiter once told me that ‘my heart bled far too freely for someone so insignificant.’” It had been an accusation levied in a quiet, motel room. One that they had shared as though they were lovers, and he remembered having laughed at how unreasonable it all had seemed. Compassion was something he had decided to no longer carry with him; not for the world, nor its people. To laugh now, however, he didn’t. He couldn’t. “… In hindsight, I think that she may have been right.”
If he had to describe his relationship with Hikari, then he wouldn’t have been able to do so. Not accurately, at least. What they had been had gone beyond words, beyond expressions and if he was to be entirely honest; he didn’t truly know what they even had been. Friends were too strong, too juvenile, of a word, yet enemies didn’t sit quite right either. He had never hated the child, nor could he ever.
Predator and prey, victim and abuser; perhaps others would’ve labeled them as such. But, they hadn’t been there for it all. Hadn’t seen the way she would reach for his hands whenever she had felt she could. When they had walked, talked or quietly sat under rising suns. They hadn’t been there when she had confessed to the fact that she thought him a good man, with a good heart, but that he just was… confused. But perhaps not wrong.
They hadn’t been there when she had accidentally called him dad.
A gentle smile tugged at the fishing lines attached to his cheeks. A somber such thing barely seen, unless one knew where to look.
It was most easily found in his eyes. “… But, how would one not bleed for a child like her?”
He had thought he had caused her death.
‘Didn’t anyone tell you?’ Cynthia had asked him at her family’s summer farm. In a tone that had suggested there had been humor in the topic, as though the idea of such a thing had been ridiculous. And perhaps it had been, for she had thought him to have broken the most important rule.
‘Cyrus… Didn’t anyone tell you about her? That she came back?’
He rolled his thumbs in his lap, over his knuckles and into his palms. There, they eventually sat. “I’ve tried to think of what I would say to her, if I ever got to see her again.” Twinleaf was a small town, with few people and even fewer with a name like hers but, he didn’t actually know if she still even lived there. He chuckled to himself. Shallowly. Tired. “… I think I’ve written her name now more times than I ever said it back when I still knew what she looked like. On paper scraps, receipts. In books and upon envelopes that I never feel are good enough to send – I catch myself wondering if I even should attempt to reach her at all.”
“I… don’t think I deserve to be forgiven. Not by her.” He admitted, and perhaps only then just realized that he wanted her to. For if not her… Then who? Widely, his hand sprawled over his breast. Right where his heart laid hidden beneath skin, flesh and bone. “If I could be, then I’d like that. Then, perhaps, this pain will finally leave, and I can be free.”
She had called him dad once. She had called him dad once, and perhaps he wished to hear it just one more time in his life. Even if it was just by accident again.
Then he would know that she at least didn’t hate him.
“… I wonder if she’s still my little girl, or if she has become someone entirely new?”
