A/N: Written for Tomoeish (♥♥♥!!) for the June round of flashfics on LiveJournal. Enjoy:D
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Once, Twice, Thrice the Bells
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Komui's favourite expression was lesser of two evils.
He'd thought he understood it very well, and had often used it as an excuse to do what needed to be done even when what needed to be done was horrifying. It had been his sword, his shield, his favourite truth when things got ugly outside.
Now, though, he realized that he hadn't really understood it at all.
This moment, right now, was the knife-edge between a terrible thing and a worse thing, and he only had this moment within which to choose.
Which way? Which evil?
To anyone else, the second evil would not have seemed an evil at all. The world would even go as far as calling it 'the right thing,' a phrase he'd come to hate. Let her go. Let her go, let the bells ring for her, let her smile and wear the dress and the ring and let her... oh, let her forget him. Let her leave him behind in the shadows, where he should be.
Oh yes, the right thing.
Or the first evil, lesser in his eyes because his eyes were bent and twisted by years of failing to hide from the truth: make her stay. Make her stay, let her eyes be sad and quiet, let her stay by his side forever because that was where she belonged.
Which way? Which evil?
Allen looked fantastic in a suit. Somehow, Komui was not surprised by this. His shock of white hair contrasted with the neat fabric strikingly, and today he wore a black necktie to match. His eyes were elated but calm. He looked the very image of a joyful groom, amazed by his luck. Komui was not surprised because this was what he actually was.
Linali... ah.
Her hair was down today, and expertly curled by Jerry into spectacular shining ringlets about her throat and shoulders. Miranda, who knew rather a lot about doing makeup for others despite being terrible at it on herself, had shaded her eyes with kohl just enough to make them smolder without any effort on her part, and her lips were a sweet, innocent shade of rose that suited her perfectly. And the dress... a masterpiece, to be sure, a waterfall of silk and crystals pouring from her shoulders like scintillating wings.
To Komui, she had always been the most beautiful person in the world. But today, he thought she had to be more beautiful than anything one would find in heaven after death. She was peerless, unmatched and unmatchable.
She had not looked at him in three days. Only half-glances and quarter-smiles assured him that she still knew he was there at all.
This was why letting her go was the worse of the two evils. If she stayed, Allen would be sad, but would find another. Probably. If she went, Komui would absolutely die, though his heart would continue to feebly beat and his lungs would continue to draw air and expel it without ever tasting its sweetness. Two slightly diminished hearts, weighed against a shattered one...
The moment was half-over already.
The doors swung open ponderously, the organ sounded, and an angel began her walk down the pristine crimson aisle.
He could hear her coming, feel her coming, though he did not turn from his second row seat to see. In his mind, the image of her white radiance gliding across the carpet was crystal clear. He didn't need to look. It would break the tenuous hold his heart had on functionality for good if he did.
Was she smiling, though? Was the face behind the drifting frosted veil glowing with joy, or was it troubled with regrets?
He didn't know, and suddenly it seemed the most important question in the world.
"Are you happy?" he whispered to himself, ignoring the odd looks from the Finder who sat beside him. "Is this really what you want?"
She was only steps behind him, only fractions of moments from being beyond his reach. He could feel the heat of her glowing presence on his back long before he could see her.
Also, he could smell her. She wore no perfume. She disliked it, and so the only scent adorning her was that of the vanilla bean soap from the south she loved so passionately, and her own unique subtle scent that only he knew well enough to notice.
Did Allen notice it? Somehow, Komui thought not, and it made him sick to his stomach to think of Linali, his Linali, marrying someone who couldn't pick her out of a crowd by scent alone. Komui could pick her out of a crowd with any of his five senses, given the chance. He knew the sound of her footsteps, the texture of her skin, and though he would never tell anyone and she did not remember, the taste of it as well.
He would know her no matter what disguise she wore, no matter how she changed.
Would Allen? Would the man she planned to give her life to know her if she changed her hair, wore makeup, and used a different soap?
Maybe he would. Maybe he really did love her as much as Komui did, impossible as that was to imagine. But the doubt was killing Komui.
What if?
Which path? Which evil?
The bell tolled once. Linali was a step behind him. He could see the foreguard, the foremost wisps of her spectacular gown, in the corner of his eye.
Which path? Which evil?
Oh, but he was selfish for even thinking this. It was not his choice to make. It was hers. Her life, her path, her heart to give to whom she wished. He had no right to even consider deciding for her.
He had heard once, somewhere, that true love meant letting someone go if it meant their happiness. Whoever had said it was probably right, he knew, but now he could see her slender waist and the bouquet of flowers she held carefully in her hands, those hands that were capable of such violence and power when provoked, and he wanted desperately to prove them wrong nonetheless.
She was so beautiful, and so strong. She was Linali, his sister. The only one in the world truly forbidden to him, and the only one he truly wanted.
The belled tolled twice for her and the love she walked towards with a smile on her face.
Wait, he cried helplessly in his mind. Wait, don't go.
And then she had passed him, and had not even looked in his direction as she went. He prayed, for the first time in many years, for it to be all a dream.
It was not. He knew it wasn't, he knew it was really happening, knew she was really going to marry someone who wasn't him and leave him forever. He knew it intellectually, could have written a clever essay on it easily, but his heart was a different matter. It screamed and begged for something to change, for him to stand up and call her back, beg her to stay. Do something to make it all right again.
The bell tolled thrice, and the moment was so close to gone as to make little difference.
Ignoring this, Komui stood anyway and reached out to catch her hand, so thin and moon-pale within his own white and bony one. She stopped, her momentum hardly enough to keep her moving, let alone pull her away. "Don't go," he said quietly, not even looking at her directly. He couldn't. It would blind him.
Time froze at the far end of the moment, in a rare fit of kindness letting them say what needed to be said.
"Nii-san," she said, and there was wonder and fear and a hint of pain in her voice when she said it.
The pain was enough to keep him on the path. There was regret there, something there he could call on to help him. There had to be. "Don't go," he repeated, unable to think of anything wiser to say. "Please, don't go."
In the moments that followed as she met his eyes, no one drew a breath or let one out. It was as if time had truly stopped, even though everyone knew that was impossible.
For a borderless slice of forever, nothing was said.
Then she sank to her knees in the aisle, holding his hand in both of her own and pressing it to her veiled forehead. "Nii-san," she whispered, eyes shadowed by the veil and her own sable hair but the grief in them not nearly hidden enough, "why didn't you say that earlier? Why didn't you say that before it was too late?"
He had no answer, at least none that would convey the real truth of it.
She had smiled when she told him, and so he had thought it would be all right as long as she was happy.
It would have been wrong of him to hold her back. He was her brother. To love her as he did was to be damned as terribly as it was possible to be damned, with no possibility of reprieve. It was just the right thing to do.
He couldn't find the words to tell her what he really felt. There weren't even words invented yet to adequately convey the heart of it.
The mood had never been right, never been quite perfect enough for truth-telling.
In any case, he could not have said it earlier than this moment... which was countless moments too late.
"Please," he said, meaning it more than any word he'd ever said in his entire life. "Please."
She regretted it, that was true enough. She may have stayed if he'd been able to ask her to earlier. She may have loved him as he did her if he'd shown her how it was in time for it to make a difference. But now was too late, and nothing would change that.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered, and though she wore a veil he could still hear the tears in her voice even if no one else could.
Allen stood at the pulpit, bewildered at the interruption and too far away to hear their words.
"You should have asked earlier," she said, and there was a tone of finality to her voice that even his powers of self-deception could not escape.
She would have stayed. That was what it meant. If he had found the courage and strength to say it sooner, she would have stayed, and this agony would not have existed.
What had he done? Only one chance he'd had, and he'd ruined it because he'd waited for the perfect moment, a moment which would never exist no matter how long he waited. Every moment had been precious, and he'd wasted them one by one because they were flawed... or so he'd thought at the time.
Now he saw, at last, the real truth-- there had been no flaws, none at all. Every moment had been perfect just as it was, and he'd wasted them carelessly, never dreaming that they would run out.
She stood, and met his eyes one more time. There was love there, vast rivers of it that he had somehow never seen before, but there was also an ending. All the chances she could afford to give him had already been given, and could not be given again. The choice had already been made. Now she was going to follow through on her decision, because that was who she was. She never backed out on a decision.
Two steps between them, and now three, and four.
The bell had tolled its last.
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A/N: I hope you enjoyed it!