Chapter Text
Every single day the most perfect person in the world lies to my face, and I listen, because I would cling to any words that fell from her rouged lips like they were a mission statement from the guild. She acts so happy to be by his side, but I know the truth, he doesn't love her like she wants to be loved, but like a sister, a comrade in arms, not as the woman who literally fought against heaven and hell for him. It completely escapes me how he can't see her devotion to him when on bad days it's all I see.
People want them to be together, the hero (the messiah) and his heroine, the perfect pair, the samurai duo who descended from the heavens to save the people of Tokyo who lived in filth. I hate it, hate seeing him pretending he's in love with someone who deserves so much more.
'Your such a kid,' Gaston had told me with an infuriating laugh 'political marriages happen all the time in Mikado.'
He said it so easily that I had to wonder, would that be his fate someday as well? Pushed into a marriage simply because people would look at them and say 'yeah that's the ideal relationship.' Isn't this a small part of why we were fighting there in the end? To achieve true freedom for humanity? So why now are the two of them letting themselves be shackled by expectations? She loves him, she would do anything he asked of her. Dotage, marriage, babies, galas, a pretty little thing to cling to his arm, someday maybe she would be content in that life, but even then she wouldn't be truly happy because the simple truth was that Flynn would not love lady Isabeau as she deserved. He will never love her the way I do. If it were me I would worship the ground she walked on (she even made the grime of Tokyo seem beautiful), tell her everyday how much I adored her and how perfect she is, kiss every inch of her lily white skin and caress her in ways she's never even imagined, and show her that she deserves that kind of love. A marriage for the sake of the people, it's just not right.
If I had thought she was beautiful before I was wrong, the pure white silk of her wedding kimono blew my mind, I should have spoken up, asked her to run away with me, pleaded with her not to live in a lie. 'You won't be happy like this' the words were there on the tip of my tongue, but they never came. So beautiful, so pure, and entirely unattainable.
Will this be what becomes of me and Nanashi as well? Once we're a little older, will we become the next celebrity couple that people need to know are happy so that they can sleep at night? People think I love Nanashi, I really thought I did too, but that it was first love, puppy love. Pushing on through blood and tears, fighting monsters whose forms I couldn't even take time to comprehend, I realized that Nanashi's safety wasn't my top priority anymore. Instead of focusing on him my thoughts kept falling to 'she doesn't take good enough care of herself, she's too reckless, I'll keep an eye on her just in case.' I look at Nanashi the same way Flynn looks at Isabeau when he thinks no one is looking, not in the fake I love you kind of way, but like a cherished friend. I won't live in the same lie as them, I won't marry him because it's expected. Pretending her marriage isn't killing me is already enough of a terrible lie anyway.
-Asahi (Inspired by American Hi-Fi: Another Perfect Day)
I overreacted, I shouldn't have, I barely even knew him, or his family situation, if I'm being honest I hadn't even tried to know him. He still had a bruise on his cheek as he denied Merkabah it's champion. I was surprised he hadn't jumped at the chance to become his master's lap dog again. Instead he broke the Spear of Michael like it was a twig. It was a symbol of his honor and pride, of the family honor he had fought so desperately to restore, and he cast it aside to return to his spot standing next to me. I hate to admit it, but I think it was that moment that I fell for him. He was an arrogant brash asshole, but he was with us, defying the will of the angels for the good of the people, he didn't make any sense to me, he was a paradox. A paradox that had a bruise that I gave him. It no longer mattered how out of line he'd been (he was to some degree right, even Asahi admitted it later), I had hurt him and that knowledge filled me with regret to the depths of my soul. He brushed off my apology (of course he did) saying it was nothing, he'd barely even felt it. I had knocked him to the floor, his cheek was a mottle of purple and blue, barely felt it.
He had picked himself up off the floor and somehow it seemed like a mockery at the time that the grit and grime of Tokyo refused to touch his pristine clothes. Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention? I'll admit, I tried so hard to not look at him that it's a distinct possibility. The first time I saw fresh blood on his tabard I nearly panicked. Gaston as willing as he is to jump in and save Toki from a goddess has no sense of self preservation, it scares me a little, that someday he just won't answer his phone. I'm confidant that if any of us called he would answer, even for me, but he's so reckless. He doesn't summon, won't for whatever arrogant reason is floating around in his mind, one day he's going to get in over his head, fighting a renegade demon, or some of the samurai or Tokyo residents that refuse to accept each other and he's going to die alone, because he wouldn't back down or budge. Someday, it could be tomorrow or next week, or years from now, but someday his pride is going to take him from us. I text him everyday just to be sure, but I can't just leave the Ashura-kai now to stand by him. I doubt he'd even want me to anyway.
Would he even want me at his side? I honestly have no idea. On good days I like to think he considers all of us to be friends, but there are bad days too, days when doubt drags me down and I can't help but wonder if the only people he really respects are Nanashi and Flynn. I could ask him of course 'Do you like me? Are we even friends?' But the risk of that is too strong, I never want to see that grief stricken look on his face ever again, not like when he was called back to Mikado. The occasional photo he sends (always to the group, never just me) assure me that he's alive and content, I've saved them all, even the bad ones from when he had no idea how to take a selfie, those are the cutest ones in my opinion. It's not even fair that one person could be that beautiful and here I am half demon spawn. There's no feasible way, even in my imagination that he could see that as desirable. Maybe once Mikado's been rebuilt and the Ashura-kai are back to what they once were....
It's really a hopeless dream, time passes on a different stream up there, he was already three years my senior, but now it's been half a year already, he must be a little bit past twenty now. In just a few more monthes he'll be twenty five, nine years older then me. A man who would have no time for a child from Tokyo. I should have left the Ashura fled Tokyo and followed him, clung to the ridiculously slim chance that he would want me in Mikado with him. It's too late now.
Even as he gets older his smile remains just as bright and arrogant in those pictures....
-Hallulujah (Inspired By Sister Hazel: Your Winter)
It started as a simple kiss, whispered words in his bedchambers before the cosmic egg. We were both young and afraid. It was a tryst, a one time thing, he'd grabbed my sleeve as I made my way for the door 'please I don't want to be alone.' I didn't think he was afraid of anything, I chose to stay. He kissed me, I wasn't expecting that, but this boy in front of me had taught me so many things I never knew about myself that I stayed. I didn't love him then, I thought with a bit of arrogance, that he loved me. He could probably have anyone in our group, but he chose me. It was years later with my next bed mate that I realized why he had picked me, I was the least attached to him and his friends, he saw me as the most likely to betray him. It wasn't love, it never had been, it was a leash. No different then the Spear of Michael, I convinced myself that I loved him, he was a hero, noble and honorable, everything I wanted to be. And what did he see me as? A rabid dog in need of a collar.
So why is it that I take him back every single time? Because I'm a fool. The last time I saw him I asked him to stay. I already knew the answer, even as I watched him try to make an excuse 'don't you think this would be bad for your reputation?' is what he came up with. I cast my reputation aside for him in front of the gathered samurai, hunters, and ashura-kai years ago, and I know he knows that. Such a weak excuse.
'Why don't you take a bride?' 'Asahi seems like a nice girl' 'Aren't you and Nozomi pretty close in age now?' I've heard them all, including 'your wasting what little youth you have left.' How am I supposed to tell people that I'm a hopeless fool? That I love someone who is now merely a child compared to me, that if he asked it of me I would truly be his pet, equality and symbolism be damned, if he simply gave me the time of day.
It's not really worth it though is it? This scandalous fling, that can't even be called a relationship. A lifetime ago it was a leash to keep me from betrayal, now as one of the leaders of Mikado is that still all it is? Of course it is, I'm a fool not naïve, close your eyes, spread your legs, and don't repeat Jonathon's mistakes.
God I'm such an idiot.
-Gaston (Inspired By: Duncan Shiek: Barely Breathing)