A/N:
For my best friend.
Honestly, I'm just making this up as I go. You can expect it to follow the same plot points as Princess Bride loosely, as well as some from the pre-canon events of Inazuma, but obviously, some stuff has been changed for convenience's sake, and some characters have been merged into one because I said so. Canon is my bitch, it does what I want. Not beta read, but I have grammarly so any mistakes are totally not my own and I will take responsibility for none of them, blame it on the robot. This is a gift to my beloved Morbin, who is expecting me to write literally any of the other 90 fics I've been ranting about to him and not the one I haven't mentioned since June. He will be very put out to find out this is not the thing he was promised. Ily though babe, hope this is up to your standards Heart Emoji Chapter title from the song of the same name by Eliza Rickman━─━────༺༻────━─━
Heizou didn't realize he was falling for Kazuha until their entire lives were intertwined.
He didn't think anything of it when Kazuha would walk with him every evening, without ever having planned to.
He didn't see anything special about wanting Kazuha to be the first to hear about anything and everything that happened in his life.
He laughed it off when his cousin said that he and Kazuha may as well be glued together with how often they're together.
He carefully disregarded how his heart would race every time Kazuha took his hand to lead him somewhere, or pushed his bangs from his eyes for him when his hands were full.
It was when Kazuha fell asleep with his head on Heizou's shoulder, not for the first time, that he thought I don't ever want this to change.
And oh. Oh. I love him.
What followed was a month of Heizou being an embarrassment to himself and trying to keep their friendship normal, and his newly realized feelings a secret. The whole ordeal ended with him deciding that life is too short for secrets, and kissing Kazuha in the rain like a scene from one of Lady Yae's novels. Or, he tried to kiss Kazuha, but shut his eyes too soon, and missed. It turned out as more of an awkward peck on the cheek. He got his point across though, and their second kiss was exactly as perfect as he'd imagined their first. The ones that followed weren't far behind.
And everything was perfect. Heizou had never been happier than he was then. If they'd been attached at the hip before, they may as well be one person now. Heizou slept at Kazuha's home more often than his own, until there came a day when he could say with complete sureness that Kazuha's home is his home, in all ways. It was all so blissfully domestic, and even things like doing the dishes were wonderful because he was doing the dishes with Kazuha.
His cousin says he's like a teenager with a crush, even a year into his fairytale life. Kazuha's friend jokes that they're practically an old married couple. The thought of getting to grow old with Kazuha, and getting to spend the rest of their lives together, had Heizou grinning like a lovesick fool for the rest of the week.
Heizou was so enamored with his love, so sure that he would get his perfect ending, that he didn't worry when things started to change.
He didn't worry when news of the Queen's murder in a foreign land across the seas reached Inazuma, and her sister's coronation was held the day after the public funeral.
He didn't worry when Inazuma's borders closed, and no one was to enter or leave the country.
He didn't worry when whispers of war were heard in every corner. So long as he was with Kazuha, nothing could touch them. War was a problem for big cities, a problem for princes and soldiers, not for him and not for a fishing village where the only people who ever left were transporting goods.
He didn't even worry when the rumors of public executions in Inazuma City were confirmed, he just held Kazuha's hand tighter and reassured himself that as long as they were together everything would be okay.
When word of Kazuha's wandering friend being declared guilty of treason reached Konda, Heizou finally panicked. This made it real. Before, the war and everything else was something that couldn't reach them, couldn't hurt them. Now it seemed right on top of them.
Kazuha left that night to see his friend. It was two days until his sentence was to be carried out, and Kazuha had said that he couldn't just leave him. Couldn't let him die without at least trying. He had promised Heizou that he would be back. He promised.
Three days later, a traveler from Inazuma City brought news of Kazuha's friend's execution, and the arrest warrants out for Kazuha. He was wanted for treason. He hadn't been fast enough and was seen. Heizou was sure, at that moment, that he had never been more afraid or heartbroken. He went home alone and laid on Kazuha's side of the bed, and did not sleep.
Eight days after that, a man Heizou didn't know ran into him in the market a town over and made brief, pointed eye contact. He left the interaction with a sealed letter slipped into his hand and hidden under his coat. He returned home without half of what he'd needed and barely waited until he was through the door to open the letter. It was from Kazuha, though the handwriting was messy and seemed rushed.
He was on the run. He was leaving Heizou leaving Inazuma. He apologized for not being able to say more about where he was going, or how he was getting out, in case the letter was intercepted. He apologized for not being able to bring Heizou with him and said that there were soldiers on his heels, that he couldn't risk them thinking Heizou was involved. He said he loved him. He asked Heizou to wait for him, promised that no matter what he would find a way to come back. At the end of the letter, he asked Heizou to burn it when he had finished reading it. If their home was searched, and the letter found, Heizou could be arrested. Or worse.
The letter lacked all of Kazuha's usual flair, and his panic was evident in every uneven space and missed punctuation. Heizou's name wasn't written down once, it could have been meant for anyone if he didn't know better. But he did know, and it was the only thing he'd had to prove Kazuha's safety over the last week. Everything in him said to keep the letter, to never let it out of his sight lest it be damaged and he loses the last thing he may ever have from Kazuha.
Heizou's hands shook when he lit the fireplace for the evening. The letter dissolved to ashes in seconds when he threw it on as kindling. But it was okay. Kazuha was coming back, he had promised. Heizou wasn't going to cling to paper and cry, Kazuha would be back for him. He promised.
And so Heizou went to bed, and he slept on Kazuha's side that just smelled like Heizou's shampoo after a week, and he did not mourn someone who wasn't dead.
And Heizou waited.
And he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
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Six months later, there were rumors of a white-haired Inazuman man having been captured and murdered by Liyuen pirates. Heizou told himself that it wasn't Kazuha (he promised), but it was less than a week later that Kazuha was declared dead by one of the soldiers that now swarmed even Heizou's peaceful home village. His name was struck from the ever-growing list of wanted criminals kept publically on a post in the middle of town.
Heizou went home that night and did not open the door when his cousin stood outside and begged him to let her know he was okay. (He had promised)
He did not open the door when his neighbor brought food and condolences the next afternoon. (He promised he was going to come back)
For a week, Heizou did not leave his and Kazuha's home. At some point, he picked himself up from the kitchen floor where he had collapsed and dug through Kazuha's drawers for anything that might still have some trace of Kazuha on it, even after all these months.
Everything just smelled of dust and Heizou. But tucked into a pocket of a robe at the very bottom of a drawer that neither of them had ever really used, Heizou found a ring. It wasn't complex, just a thin gold band. But when he slipped it onto his left ring finger with shaking hands, it fit perfectly. Heizou stared at it for what must have been minutes, and all at once the reality of what he had lost snapped into reality. Kazuha was never coming back. He promised, but he had gone and gotten himself killed and now he was never coming back.
For the first time since he'd gotten news of Kazuha's friend's sentence, Heizou cried. He sat on their bedroom floor and sobbed for something he would never have, for everything he had lost. Eventually, he cried himself into an exhausted sleep, curled around the last thing he would ever get from the last person he would ever love.
By the end of the next day, Heizou had packed what he needed and left for Inazuma City. He refused to continue living the ghost of the life he used to have in the shell of their home, now that Kazuha had broken his promise and left him.