Disclaimer: Property not mine.
"I don't think I hated him," Atsushi always began before quieting. The words spill over his lips, the taste of blood burning in the back of his throat. He doesn't know where it hurts, only that it does, and there's nothing he can do about it. There's no revenge, there's no closure. Atsushi is breathing through the words weighting down his lungs.
"Of course you didn't. How could you have?" Lucy mocked with a head tilt. She doesn't mean it. She never means it. Still, it's the thought that counts. Even if that's not how she meant it to come across as. He'll take her kindness as it comes, callous and hidden.
She learned to use barbed words as a weapon under her orphanage's matron. Atsushi learned to use silence as a chance for opportunity under his orphanage's headmaster.
He appreciates the fact that she would try to lie for his sake.
Atsushi pulls at the hem of his shirt, reminds himself there will be nothing to hit the back of his hands. He remembers the stinging sensation anyways. He remembers the way his knuckles would bleed, bruise, crack. "That's not really true. I did hate him. I just. Thought things would be easier if I didn't hate him."
"How did that work out for you?" He watched her run a hand through her hair, conscious of the fact she was never allowed to cut it as a child. He wondered if she kept it long out of habit. He wondered if she kept it long because she grew to like it. He wondered if she kept it long because she still remembered her matron's harsh words and the way the woman would twist her wrist until Lucy dropped the scissors she tried to use once.
He flashes a smile. It's as fragile as he feels.
"How did it work out for me?" Atsushi turned to look back up at the sky.
"How did it work out for me?" Lucy asked back, following his gaze to trace the fading stars overhead.
A smile as fragile as feeling. It was familiar.
The muse comes and goes as it pleases, updates shall remain sporadic forever.