.
one.
.
He fumbles at your spirit
As players at the keys
Before they drop full music on;
He stuns you by degrees,
.
The dark fades. The birds sing. The sun rises.
She waits, eyes still shut, for the soft click of a door closing, muted shuffle of bare feet on the wooden floor, the comfort of whisper-quiet sounds that would mean she was no longer alone.
It's the stillness of the morning, the crisp air eddying through the cracked-open window, the possibility of a new day; these are the things that anchor her and yet make her acutely aware of her solitude. Cocooned in layers of cotton as fluffy and white as the clouds in the sky, she lays perfectly still, silent. She knows it's pointless, but she gives a few more moments to the dream anyway.
And the dream is like it's always been – waking up in strong arms to a kiss on her forehead, murmured words of affection, the sensation of smiling again, blinded by the light. But it's only a dream, one that can only exist for the briefest of idyllic interludes before the kaleidoscope turns and the inevitable happens – "I have to go."
It's an admirable quality, his devotion, and Kyoko has always respected him for it. He has come a long way from the title of No-Good Tsuna to instead take up the mantle of Vongola Decimo, but he has always been a good person at heart. Sawada Tsunayoshi has always been – at least in her eyes – loyal to a fault.
And his loyalty to his family is what she finds fault with now, despite her best efforts to the contrary. Because it's loyalty to his other family, the Vongola family, and she knows it will always, always trump her. "You understand, don't you?" he's asked her a hundred, no, a thousand times, hopeful and beautiful and apologetic all at once – and there is only one answer. "Yes, of course I do."
She does, in a way; more of an abstract idea that she tries to make sense of than one that truly resonates with her. For while he is so deeply devoted to the greater good and the mafia and his guardians, the only thing she is deeply devoted to is him. But Kyoko smiles and kisses him goodbye like it doesn't kill a little piece of her soul, her eyes bone-dry – she will shed no tears in front of him because she loves him. She loves him more than life itself and she doesn't want to break his heart the way he is inadvertently breaking hers. He is too good, too pure, still miraculously unsullied by the dark underworld he passes through, and Kyoko will not let herself be the one to taint him.
Heartbreak has not been like the smash and shatter of broken glass – it has been the daily wear, a slow and steady chipping away that has done it, protracted death in every glint of light reflected in scattered beauty from the wedding ring that reminds her she is alone. But she does not want to make him feel guilty, does not want to make him choose. He already has enough dark circles and worry-lines – the side-effect of being responsible for so many lives, having to make the hard decisions. It's only in the dead of night, curled up in their empty bed with golden eyes shut tightly, that she can admit to herself that really it's because she is afraid, terrified to her core and sure that he would not choose her.
It has been ten years. Ten long years and they have lived the span of days that will never be, the age of Byakuran that has never come to pass in this world, all thanks to her husband. When they had triumphed, returned to their own time, she had been so young and hopeful, full of dreams and the idea that they could make a better world. And Tsuna had, oh how he had; except that what she hadn't counted on was the price they would have to pay – currency that was dark, gritty, brutal.
It had only been two years ago, after their first year of marriage that Kyoko had finally realized what the collateral damage was.
Her.
She was the bystander shot down in the crossfire, the sacrifice that had to be made for the sake of everything else.
And who was she to demand the world stop turning for her sake? The question had plagued her as she spent long minutes in the mirror dissecting her jealousy. She had no right. She did not own him as he seemed to own her – he belonged to truth and justice and a million facets of good, and she… just belonged to him.
It had been a bitter realization that she has never really mattered in the grand scheme of things.
And he has always told her that he fights for her, to protect her, but it's a placating sentiment that she has long since stopped believing. She thinks that maybe he still believes it, but he has always been prone to senseless optimism and near-delusion. So she plays along and treasures the time he does give her, stolen moments of bliss that she files away carefully so she can cling to the memories when he leaves again.