She doesn't love him, and he knows it.
He convinces himself otherwise, sometimes, on the nights where he's feeling uncharacteristically emotional and the pink-haired God-General isn't keeping the other side of the bed warm. When she is, and her liger is keeping watch by the door and looking ready to claw Sync's throat out if he hurts its mistress, he pretends not to notice the way she kisses him with her eyes open; he pretends not to hear her whisper Ion's name after the fact while they catch their breath in the dark and cling to each other like scared lovers.
Lovers.
It's a delicate, secret arrangement, and they don't discuss it in the morning. Arietta's gone long before the sun comes up, so that some days, Sync isn't sure if she was ever there at all or if the scratches on his back are the marks of some wild beast or thorny bushes he encountered on a mission gone wrong. Sync can't complain. It's easier this way, never having to face the girl without the guise of night or his bird-like mask to hide his face — never having to face her when he's like this, vulnerable, his emerald eyes puffy with sleep and bared to the world.
He isn't sure how it happened, in the first place, but Arietta cried the first night. It's nothing short of a miracle her little pets didn't kill Sync — a miracle, given the scars on the insides of his wrists, that Sync isn't entirely grateful for. She wasn't in pain, by any means; it had been her idea, and it was clear by the pace she set that Sync wasn't her first, but she cried nonetheless, and Sync felt almost sorry for her, despite himself. He held her until her sobs died out, rubbing her back nervously, unsure of what he was supposed to say. When he awoke, she was gone.
If the other God-Generals have any suspicions about the two, they keep them to themselves. Sync's almost certain Largo's onto them one morning when the man asks him if his shoulders are alright. For all the agony the fingernail marks cause him when his jacket rubs up against them, Sync doesn't regret them; it's not an entirely unpleasant sting, and he'd be lying if he said he wished Arietta didn't mark him with little bloody scores and teeth marks each night she came to him.
She doesn't visit tonight. Sync tells himself he doesn't care, but he watches the door for what feels like an eternity, straining his ears in hopes of hearing the feather-light pawsteps of Arietta's liger in the hallway. No such luck. She hasn't been by his room in at least a week, and the company of Sync's calloused left hand leaves him lonely and unsatisfied at best. He brushes the hair from his eyes as he catches his breath and shrugs off his clothes for a second round.
His throat is tight with tears by the time he's done, and he tells himself it's the exhaustion making him want to cry and not Arietta's absence.
She doesn't love him, and Sync knows it. He tells himself he doesn't care, that the sex is just that: sex. He's always been a good liar, but it's hard to fool himself; tonight, as he rolls over and buries his face in his pillow, breathing in Arietta's scent that's all but permanently sewn into the fabric, he can see through his own bluff. It's all he can do to scoff and go to sleep.
She comes to him the night before she meets Anise in the woods. Word's gotten around about her duel with the Fon Master Guardian, but it's only rumors, and Arietta doesn't say anything on the matter. She's gentler tonight, almost hesitant, and when she finishes, Sync swears he hears her say his name in place of Ion's. He's still trying to figure out if he heard her right when she rolls over and tucks a loose strand of jade hair behind his ear and murmurs, "Sync?"
Sync grunts in acknowledgement and shivers at the the contact. It's no secret she likes hurting him, and he wouldn't have it any other way; her sudden tenderness unnerves him.
"I lo —"
She doesn't get to finish her sentence. Her liger, hearing something outside the door, growls a warning, and in the next instant, Arietta's scrambling for her clothes and pulling her mussed up hair out of her face.
"What were you saying?" Sync demands, but Arietta won't answer.
"I'll tell you tomorrow," she says, and with her words comes a silent promise: she'll be here, tomorrow night, in Sync's bed.
She never loved him, and he knows it.
It's Legretta who brings Sync the news of Arietta's death. It's fine, he says, more to himself than the other God-Generals, he doesn't care, he hated her anyway. She was a good soldier and nothing more, and she got careless. She got emotional.
She never loved him. If she did, she wouldn't have died for Ion.
The bed still smells like Arietta that night. Sync breathes her in one last time; he doesn't plan on coming back again. One way or another, he's going to die. He wonders dully if Arietta will be waiting for him when he does, then dismisses the thought; she'll be with her Ion. Both of them. It's alright; he doesn't need her anyway. Doesn't want her.
He loves her, and he can't deny it, but nobody has to know.