It hurts that he's as resigned as this, that her hands have already gone numb, from the pounding she can't help. Her wrists are already trembling, just like each lone tear drop, that she's trying to fight off. It's like Mitsuhide has turned off his light; it's as if Kiki's very life is cast into shadow. First, Hisame, a threat, she should have predicted and had felt the glimmer of, and now, Mitsuhide. It's as if the Seiran clan has been swallowed up.
Just everything barreling in all at once, and Mitsuhide doesn't even look angry, nor sad. Just resigned. Just a statue underneath each pounding hand, and maybe it's because he wasn't listening, or maybe he knew. Just her anger is the same as her sadness now, two sides to an ever spinning coin, that she wishes would just land already.
"Are you done now?" His voice comes soft, like the tip of an angel's wing, and yet the sound of it makes it feel as if each trembling punch is not the end of it.
"No." And it's bitter, a solitary clawing of words all the way up through her throat. Kiki can't even remember just when Mitsuhide became her punching bag tonight, can't remember past the almost cruel smile that had lit up Hisame's eyes, can't quite picture anything but the slamming door of her leaving, leaving before Kiki's whole life is a mess spinning desperately out of control. A clutter that can't be uncluttered.
And so, she begins again, already worn out, already ready to quit. And her hands slowly still, as if they were belatedly, finally, listening to Mitsuhide. And when she stills, they still rest on his heart. A heart that one time, she thought she knew so well, a heart that she hasn't felt fluent in, in so, so long.
Mitsuhide doesn't speak, and when he collapses slowly, she does too. It's quiet in the long hallway, too late for the hustle and bustle of maids and other servants, too quiet for anything more than the two of them, sitting cross legged on the floor, two statues, motionless before each other.
"I'm sorry." Mitsuhide says, and Kiki, for the life of her, can't quite imagine why he's apologizing. He wasn't Hisame, just mere months away from marrying into the family, of accruing all the wealth and status, Kiki owns, and discarding her like some lost puppy. He wasn't holding such a cruel secret bundled up like coal in his chest, where his heart should be.
"It's okay." And maybe, okay's different than fine, as she scoots over, instead of sitting in front of him, she goes next him and lays her head across his shoulder. Mitsuhide can be the tall, imposing comfort that you don't expect to find, yet can't avoid once you do find him.
"I never liked him." Mitsuhide says, instead of something more useful, a slip of the tongue maybe, something obvious in signs and moments before, "He wasn't good enough for you, still isn't, I mean." And he's tripping on his tongue like a young boy around his first crush, and for a moment, a smile alights across her tear streaked face. Kiki isn't even happy enough for the hint of happiness as it comes.
"Who is?" Kiki says, and the tone is almost dark, and Mitsuhide feels as if he is suddenly cast in more shadow, a lone messenger of his thoughts, quiet and almost unsharing.
"I don't know." Mitsuhide sighs, "Someone like Zen with all that heart, but more serious, not spontaneous." He's struggling with words, and Kiki remembers a time not too many years back, when she stood before Mitsuhide with a proposition that he'd denied.
"Someone like you?" And it slips out, as easily as the tears from her eyes, even though she doesn't mean to say it, doesn't even mean to consider it once more, like she suddenly is. Though her heart has been wrung out, and even now, there is no emotion there to be grasped.
"Sort of." Mitsuhide says, "But not me, I'm not near good enough for you. I don't get you well enough? Like, I'm missing something always." And that sudden humility hits like a train straight to her heart. And she, after all of this wreck with Hisame, definitely doesn't feel worthy of it.
"You would be." Kiki says instead of everything that swirls in mad circles around her head, "At least you're honest."
And Mitsuhide smiles, as if surprised, "Thanks, but you deserve even more than honest."
And Kiki wonders what all she deserves, and she pictures the position that Mitsuhide has made clear, he has no ability to hold, the nobility etched into every fiber of who she is. And yet, for a moment, she wants to discard it, if only to feel that trusting flow of honesty once again.
"You're loyal too." She says and tries to treat Mitsuhide's shoulder as some kind of comforting pillow, but even that doesn't feel like near enough.
"And so are you." Mitsuhide says, and he doesn't argue. And that's a relief as easy as pale moonlight, and Kiki wished she knew how Mitsuhide did it, how he made even the most awful of days feel a little better in the end. She used to envy that gift, and then grew worn enough under the weight of responsibility and the fruit of the future, that she hadn't even thought of it, anymore.
It is a gift that she hopes she never has to cultivate in herself. It's well enough to go to Mitsuhide, to feel that hint of peace from beside him, to let the moments carve out between them, silently.
"Foolish, you mean?" She says instead of anything else on her mind, and it's a weak argument, one she doesn't quite mean anymore.
"No, not foolish." Mitsuhide says back, voice strong though still as reassuring as before, "Responsible with your loyalty. You have an estate on your shoulders that you care for more than your heart."
'Then why do I feel this way?' Yet the words don't tumble against her lips, and certainly don't leave them, so that Mitsuhide can hear them. Instead she burrows her head on his shoulder; it's still a tad uncomfortable, and lets herself fall asleep. She knows that Mitsuhide, like always, will pick the pieces back up again.
