Breathe
If it hadn't just been a smidge of his voice heard from across the pavement, and seeing those familiar hazel brown eyes inagain in the busy streets of the Clover Kingdom, the blonde captain might have made it another night without thoughts of him plaguing her mind again.
To damn it all. She thought.
She put her bet on it that these feeling would dissapear in his abscence. Yet it grew stronger the longer she longed for him.
The captain of the Blue Rose Knights Charlotte Roselei frowned as she took a pillow beside her, hugging it tightly against her chest. She was lying there restlessly on her large bed at the wee hours of the night. Struggling to sleep at the cause of her distressful thoughts.
Sometimes, she had forgotten how strongly she really felt for the Foreign captain Yami Sukehiro.
At the meetings, when he was away, While she kept seeing the empty seat that he occupied right next to her, Charlotte couldn't help but feel sour about the fact that Yami wasn't there . Because truthfully so, those meetings where he would graze her with his prescence just seated right beside her already brightened her day.
But whenever they were adjourned at the meetings without him, her days felt unfulfilled not seeing him walking on the same hallways as she does. Those were some of the small moments that filled in the gaps of her very bland and colorless life.
She thought it was good for her when he went way for such a long time. But her heart only ached deeply in his abscence.
He was appointed in a 3 month long mission and the wait simply saddened her.
And so, to distract herself from these troubling feelings. As the country wasn't in a good condition anyway, She got that opportunity to occupy her mind with work and made herself useful during his absence.
After all, it wouldn't be like her at all to sulk in a corner just because she wasn't in her best spirits. She was a huge asset in the kingdom, not only as a novelty but also for running a renowned brigade.
Clover was a mess, and the villages were in wreck. She did everything that could improve the country in any way that she could. She partook on too many solo missions that involved the humanitarian needs of the people, offering charities and personally scouting small remote villages that were unacknowledge in the ruins.
Whenever she did paperwork, she took on every single piece of paper that she could reforming every conflict that resurfaced before it could backfire against the people.
And in her spare time. She'll spend it diligently with training as always.
It was wholly frustrating this repetitive cycle of her life was.
How dearly she had missed him, truly so, but when was ever a day that she didn't?
And for how long will she still keep this thing going on?
Suddenly, a feeling of frustration washed over her. Days turned into months, and months turned into years. No signal to express her feelings. Not a shift in their professional relationship has occurred. All of the missed opportunities to confess. She didn't do it. And the gift that she had personally handcrafted was still left ungiven underneath her closet drawer.
It's been more than a decade now. These unrequited feelings that she has for him.
The blonde captain's breath shook. Her heart hurt feeling like such a fool.
The empty space right next to her was big and unoccupied. And it couldn't help but make her feel all the more lonely.
How pathetic. The blonde captain thought sadly.
Though her squad had been surprisingly supportive of her feelings for him. At the same time, She had been the one who was the problem. She tried surmountable times, and had lost count. But no matter her efforts, her ego had always seemed to have won out.
It was utterly hopeless how Charlotte just couldn't seem confess to this stupid boorish man. There were a lot of unreasonable things that would make him a very unlikeable person, and yet she fell for him.
Charlotte rolled to her side. A curtain of her hair fell in soft wisps against her plush pillows. She closed her eyes before abruptly sitting up, as the sheets pooled underneath her hips.
If it were really going to end up like this. The blonde captain thought regretfully, She might as well end up not telling him anymore.
Yami yawned and twisted his back to stretch in some sore muscles from his sleep. His back gave out a satisfying crack as he sighed in relief.
Man, he was only 28. He wasn't that old. And he worked out. The definition of his big muscles contributed to that fact. Yet here he was, having some sort of spine problems.
Maybe he'd have to visit the quack to get something that would help him with it.
Yami looked at the cracked mirror that lined in with the basin of water inside of his room. Scratching his stomach and stifling another yawn. He groggily checked himself in front of the mirror to see more stubbles from the overnight growth of his facial hair. Tracing it with his calloused fingers from his jaw to his chin. His alabaster skin had a few small bumps of moles and lightly scattered freckles over his nose, but nothing that entirely noticeable that took too much attention on his usual features.
He splashed some water on his face to clean himself up. And after he dried his face with a small cloth, he took one last look at himself before he noticed something.
Were those wrinkles?
Suddenly, feeling a bit woken up. Yami squinted his eyes to inspect the area around his eyes. His big physique hogged up the whole mirror to himself.
He checked the thin corners of skin, And indeed, there were a few small barely dented patterns that adorned it.
So he had wrinkles.
But the last time he'd checked, he hadn't had that many pronounced frown lines on his forehead before. Yami gave out a grumpy noise. He hadn't always taken the time to check his appearance by the mirror. He couldn't remember, but somehow, the last time that he truly took the time to check out himself was when he was 20 years old. The age where he dated girls from left to right and where there wasn't a night that he'd ended up without a woman on his bed
Perhaps he really was getting old. His mouth pouted a bit annoyed by it. of course, he still comes around from time to time. Perhaps he just wasn't in the mood lately.
He knew aging was inevitable. But he also couldn't' help but feel something about it.
Yami gave another teary yawn. He took one index finger and pulled on one bag of his eye. Even the dark circles that seemed to line below it wasn't looking that great.
Nothing he can do about it. Yami sighed tiredly. He didn't get that much rest for over the last couple of months so that much gave reason to it.
He also wasn't really one to dwell with this kind of vanity. Insecurities were already a real wreck when it came to his teenage years. Yet it was different having to relieve something like this in his adult years.
Setting up to get prepared, The first thing that Yami ever did in the morning was to fish out for his pack of cigarettes, and after finishing a stick or two at the balcony, the captain will summon the space mage to teleport him to the toilet.
It had quite become the daily habit that spurred on when he accepted the space mage as a knight on his squad. He mused, the kid's a wimp, but he's got a lot of potential. He just needed a lot of chances to develop himself. The strawberry-blonde space mage might think he's a worthless piece of shit right now, but his magic can be attributed into a lot of things.
As for now, it was mainly for sending Yami to the toilet.
Through his intimidating and brutal features. As an unusual fact, the captain tends to get a lot of constipation episodes. Sometimes he'd sit in the toilet for hours on end, just trying his best to unload everything in his gut. It was mostly a daily battle.
Luckily, today wasn't one of those days.
"Glory." He muttered to himself. trying to sit more comfortably on the toilet.
He blew out a cloud of smoke and took the daily newspaper beside him.
While Yami sat, crouched on the small toilet and cramped comfort room. Occasionally giving his cigarette a blow, momentarily leaving the paper in one hand.
The headline article caught his eye.
As a start of a grunt, he brought it near his face upon closer inspection.
"Well, I'll be damned." His eyebrows furrowed. As smoke billowed his sight from the cigarette hanging between his lips. Taken aback by the hot issue glaring right in front of him.
The article read, "Charlotte Roselei, Captain of the Blue Rose Knights, Engaged."