Pairing: One-Sided Reisi x Mikoto
Theme: Reisi is haunted in the night by his own ghosts.
Warning: SAD.
Note: First person from Reisi's POV.

Author's Note: I would like to extend a HUGE thanks to all of my readers, especially those who leave me reviews! YOU are the reason I keep writing.

It's 4:38 AM. I had a nightmare. The dream was based on reality, though.

Because I am the one who killed Suoh Mikoto. His blood is on my hands—my name.

I felt his heartbeat through my blade, you know.

It wasn't that powerful kettle drum I was so familiar with. The man had a heartbeat like the deepest bass and it shared its tempo with the ocean's waves. It was so consistent, I'm sure his heartbeat was the drum HOMRA marched to in their everyday lives—whether they knew it or not.

The heartbeat often lulled me to sleep. I knew it as an unchanging force of nature.

That time, though, it was weak. It fluttered like a moth's wings—moth's wings snatched out of thin air. It sent such a weak pulse through my blade and into my bones that I should have been stricken dead right there. It felt like he'd handed me a grenade with the pin pulled. I would not have been surprised if the Sword of Damocles had dropped on me right then.

His words haunt me more than the ones I gush out now (which are merely ghosts and revenants) - those awful words that he uttered. 'Dirty work'? No, he didn't just make me do his dirty work; he left his baggage on the doorstep of my heart.

That was a cliché. I'm going to need to cleanse myself of that later.

But how else am I supposed to describe it?

It was my ultimate sin to kill that man.

I find myself now lost; lost in the pages of history- the clashes of kings and wars of spirit and emotion. Wars waged by lovers. 'All's fair in love and war'? Who came up with that quote? War takes our loves from us—it leaves us broken and cursing ourselves for not being able to save those we care about.

These words here- words that I scribble on sleepless nights on this paper- are signs of weakness. They are my faults and fears and demons given a tangible form.

I awake in the night, searching for him in the empty space he left in my bed. When I don't find him there, I expect to find him asleep on my couch and I expect to wake him up to question why. Then he'd tell me he didn't want to disturb my sleep so he crawled onto the couch, like always. I'd coax him back into bed and we'd fall asleep in silent admiration of one another.

Or instead of sleep, we'd share tea together. He couldn't drink tea without twenty cubes of sugar (which, at that point, it was no longer tea) but he humored me anyway. I offered him a number of blends—but I had to come to terms with the fact that he was a coffee man, and thusly, bought a few blends of that for him to enjoy.

He was such a considerate man.

Once, he took care of me when I was ill with the stomach flu. I woke up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain and somehow made my way to his house and knocked on his door. Looking back at it, it's a miracle he even answered the door. Yet, he took me in and laid me on his bed and told me to hang tight. I could hear him foraging around in his kitchen—then he passed by the door on his ay to the bathroom where he rummaged around further. He came back fifteen excruciating minutes later with a tray bearing a bowl of warm broth and some medicine of a dubious age for my stomach.

Then he pulled a chair up beside the bed and told me to wake him up if I needed anything. I didn't bother him. I was the one who'd intruded, after all.

I was well in the morning. I was thankful for him, and told him I'd repay the debt in any way he needed later.

I didn't expect he'd have me kill him.

You forget those little things about the person you're in love with: Their little tics, their handwriting (and his was atrocious—chicken scratch, the bane of any school teacher), their favorite curse word, their quiet kindness and their least favorite food. Yet, these things come into such acute focus when that person is gone. You expect to hear a sound of disgust as they come through the door and smell that you're cooking coconut curry (as he hated coconut and loved curry—he always insisted the two should not have been mixed) and then they come up behind you and lay their chin on your shoulder and ask why you had to cook that tonight.

Instead, no one opens the door. The house is silent.

My heart races a little when his favorite songs come on the radio. The man was really fond of music, as uncharacteristic as it seems. We did not share musical tastes—but I remember hearing him quietly singing along whenever he thought I wasn't paying attention. He'd see me looking and quickly fall silent.

Now, though, it's always silent.

Even on the streets.

HOMRA is but a shadow of itself, now. They don't really cause problems for SCEPTER 4 anymore, but sometimes I hear about ruckus caused by them. Usually, they just keep to their bar. I keep my eyes turned on them, regardless—it's the least I owe Mikoto; to make sure that no old grudges attempt to wipe out his family.

The sun is peering through my window. I haven't slept at all tonight.

Why can't my ghosts leave me alone? They scream and writhe and twist my skull open like a corkscrew to a wine bottle. Except I am no vintage red wine—I am a vinegar; an aged (not gracefully or finely), bitter substance that is used for cleaning and cooking alike.

Cleaning up what others leave behind.

I wonder who will have to play my vinegar when the time comes. After all, you weren't supposed to leave me first.