The scent of cigarettes is foreign yet all too familiar, reminiscent of a memory as transient as the wisps of smoke dancing through the air. Munakata keeps these for special occasions; three hundred and sixty three days of the year, they remained stowed in a drawer, locked away so that mindless eyes might not settle upon them.
It's best not to dwell on the past.
These days, he gets enough sleep at night, can hold a pen steady without hallucinatory stains tainting porcelain hands, no longer haunted by the ghost behind his eyes. Suoh Mikoto was destruction in the making, a bomb waiting to go off, the heady silence of anticipation in the space between the pull of a trigger and a gunshot. Munakata has moved past that. His path didn't end there, left behind in that bitter cold. No, the road before him is long and winding, and he has miles to go before he sleeps. There is a crown perched on his head, heavy with the weight of his burden, but he bears it proudly for he is every bit the king Suoh never was.
Life does not pause to mourn the dead. There are no gaps slipped between the chain of ticking seconds, no moments tucked in where the world stops to dwell on memories of what once was. Life concerns itself with the living; those no longer alive are merely remnants of a time now past. Nonetheless, humans still grieve, for little pain is felt as keenly as that of those left behind. Grief is a dangerous thing. It serves as an anchor, dragging you under as the rest of the world moves forward. Munakata no longer grieves - or so he likes to tell himself.
Try as he might to deny it, kings are but mere mortals, and Munakata is no exception. And so, two days out of the year, he indulges himself in cigarettes that taste of bitter ashes, allows the fortress he has built to come crashing down. For a moment, his mind is an inferno. Its flames race through the cracks of bricks once there. His fortress has fallen and he waits before rebuilding, basking in the illusory warmth. He almost allows himself to pretend, remembering that familiar heat, but it is gone in the space of a breath.
Munakata exhales and the smoke hangs in the air for a second too long.
It eventually dissipates. After all, nothing lasts forever. He had known that all along, the knowledge of how it would end tucked away in the back of his mind, but still he had dared to hope that he could be wrong.
Well. Look how that turned out.
Sighing, he stubs out the cigarette. He won't be reaching for another. Munakata had grieved enough in the aftermath of that day - this one moment is the most he will permit himself.
The trees outside sway in the breeze, slender branches tipped with leaves dyed red. That shade is one he won't - no, can't - forget. How many times had he run his fingers through that fiery mane, marveling at the softness a creature so rough could possess? It's gone now - the texture under his hands is that of cloth, the fabric of his uniform crumpled between his fists.
Suoh's gone.
It's a fact he's accepted, a fact he'd been forced to accept, but sometimes Munakata catches himself slipping back into that familiar cycle of grief. It usually happens on this day.
Despite everything, he can't find it within himself to resent Suoh. Rather, there's a dull ache in his chest, a painful stab of longing for what he once had. He tells himself it was the companionship, the fact that he had an equal - and yes, that was certainly part of it - but there's more to it, an unspoken secret that Munakata keeps behind lock and key. Some things simply aren't meant to be known. After all, what's the point on dwelling on what he can't change? There's no point in saying it now.
The moment has stretched on far too long. Munakata has duties to return to, and he will, in due time. There's just one last thing he has to do. It's an exercise in futility, of course, but when dealing with Suoh, so many things are. Munakata likes to think there's an afterlife; if there is, Suoh probably hasn't changed at all, too busy being himself to listen to the words of the one he's left behind. Munakata says it anyways. It's the little things that count, after all.
"Happy birthday."