Welcome to part 5 of the Arcade verse!
I use 1-3 lyrics from the original version of Arcade by Duncan Lawrence for this multifandom verse.
I am finally back from the unexpectedly long break I took since I posted #4 while on vacation. Phew. I did not anticipate this break to be this long. I don't have a lot of time to sit down and write, unfortunately. Motivation has also been lacking. Lately, I've been feeling more motivated and I'm going to try and focus on finishing this little verse before I go back to working on my major WIPs. I don't know how long for sure this Arcade verse might end up being.
I just love these two so much and their relationship was so tragic. T_T
I've never written gentlebrava so this was nice to write for something different.
(I still have loads of old fics to crosspost here and haven't gotten around to that yet either. Heh...)
Enjoy!
Tags: established relationship, character death, implied/referenced suicide, angst, hurt no comfort, canonverse, gentlebrava
I've spent all of the love I saved
We were always a losing game
She was always allowed one phone call a week. Each week that phone call was never made. She didn't have anyone to call. She didn't know if she could even call him. She never asked. Never attempted to ask. How would he answer the phone anyway? He couldn't bring a cellphone with him. It was probably confiscated when they were arrested so she wrote letters here and there to the prison where he was held, but he never wrote back. Letters were never enough because she missed the sound of his voice. Did he not love her anymore?
She clenched her fists tightly and looked up at the guard who brought her tray of food. "I want to make a phone call!" She took a deep breath. "I want to make a phone call to Danjuurou Tobita! He's in the men's prison."
The guard knelt down and gently pushed the tray of food underneath the bars of the holding cell. "Danjuurou…Tobita?" the guard asked slowly. The guard took an envelope from between their arm and looked over the labels.
"Y-yes. I want to speak with him. Please."
"I'm sorry, Miss Manami Aiba. He can no longer take calls."
"Wha-what do you mean? The prison might allow him one call a week, too!" Manami grasped the cell bars tightly as she looked up at the guard and tried to control her panic. Her heart raced.
"Mr. Tobita is no longer with us, I'm afraid to say," the guard admitted and swallowed audibly. "Guards found him hanging in his cell. There was nothing they could do to bring him back. He was…already gone, they told me."
It was as if time itself stopped. Each word from the guard pierced her already broken heart. Broken from the time spent apart from her Gentle Criminal only to know that she was never going to see him again. "No," she breathed and shook her head furiously. Her unbound red hair flew like a wild storm. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then looked up at the guard through tears. The guard, she noticed, was neither human nor animal, but an artificial intelligence of some sort indicated by the lit-up green circle on its left temple. The guard's gray eyes seemed to soften.
"I'm sorry," the guard said and slipped the letter under the bars next to the tray of food.
He was gone. He was truly gone. Never to come back. A sob escaped from Manami and she dropped to her knees. Her tears clouded her vision and she grabbed the letter as more sobs wracked her. She didn't notice the guard walking away as she tore open the envelope with leaden fingers and scanned the contents of the letter.
An apology and much regret for never attempting to contact her, an undying confession of love from a broken, failure of a man, many thanks for the years they spent together, and a final apology for her being dragged into his schemes when she deserved so much more. Manami would have continued to follow him anywhere. That much she knew and he probably once knew as well.
At his final written words of love, she let the letter fall from her hands and tensed. "My…my love was never enough." I've spent all of the love I saved. If her love had been enough that day when they were caught on U.A. High School's campus they may have been able to defeat Midoriya Izuku. After all that Danjuurou did for her, her love was never enough. Maybe the two of them were doomed from the start. Two broken people with failed dreams. We were always a losing game.
Manami's hair hung in her face, the letter limp in her hands. She dropped it and slumped onto her side. The tears were a never ending stream. Without her Gentle Criminal nothing else mattered anymore. If she ever got out of prison she had nowhere else to go besides his lonely apartment full of memories of when times were alright. When they had each other. It was never going to feel the same.
Some steam still came from her soup and rice, but she made no move to sit up. What was the point of anything anymore?
She closed her eyes and welcomed the flood of memories into her subconscious. She had nothing else after all.
Thank you so much for reading! Nice comments are appreciated!
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