It feels almost bitterly cold, rising like moisture, and he wonders for a moment, if he can get past the shame or the guilt of it. It's been years in the making, and their lives are so different from what they used to be back then.
Hisame takes a deep breath, but even the words feel hard to choke out. I'm sorry. They are simple words, and sometimes spoken unthinkingly by people, but he means them. This time. He feels them deep down in his core.
But how can he speak them?
"Hisame?" Kiki is beautiful, and for a moment, he sees all the things he isn't. The little things, like the family head or soon to be, a beautiful woman, someone who while often calm and composed lets her emotions out gently, is honest and kind and compassionate in that way.
"I'm sorry." It falls out like a nearly forgotten verse, a quick turnaround.
"For?" Kiki pauses, and in her stunning ballgown, she looks like more of a bright light than Hisame feels for a moment that he can be.
"For my first time courting you." It's honest. Courting doesn't feel like the right word for that, for the shame of it all.
"That was a while ago." Kiki paused, "You've changed."
"Still..." He loses words, half afraid he'll start defending himself and still unsure of where to take his words, what to say exactly.
"I forgive you." Kiki shrugs, makes it look easy, and perhaps it is, and she reaches out a hand.
So, he takes her hand in his. She squeezes back, and when he looks over, she's smiling. Kiki is forgiving and loving. Though she's almost cautious with her forgiveness, yet she still lavishes it when she sees fit to do so.
"Thank you." And he means them, if nothing else to express his awe and his love for her.
Kiki pauses and turns back to him, as if to tell him it's no big deal, that really was a while ago, and Hisame just takes in her earnestness, clear as day shone through in her eyes, and he wonders how they've gotten here, for what seems like the millionth time.
Hisame's so lucky that she is his fiancée, and he's so grateful that she's in his life, and that she loves him so completely as to forgive him for one of the worst things he could have put her through.