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It's a beautiful day. The sun was especially blindingly shining, but not enough to feel as if Klein were to be burnt alive. Which, he might add, is very credible due to a former encounter with a certain God.
The streets were peaceful, ordinary people walking by with smiles on their faces - It makes Klein feel warm inside. Despite all horrible the happenings in the war, there were still days like this where people could smile.
Approaching closer to his destination, he pulls his hat further down. Not that it does much when you're wearing someone else's face, but it's a gesture nonetheless.
He enters into a flower store, gently closing the door behind with a soft click.
The store owner turns his way to Klein's direction almost immediately. 'He must not usually have many customers to be this excited for just one..' He lampooned inwardly.
In that case, his business must have been suffering due to the aftermath of the war.
That fact only makes his chest feel tighter.
"Welcome sir, what are you in for?"
"I'm visiting a friend, I want to buy a bouquet for him."
The store owner eagerly motions towards the many different flowers, "Do you wish to choose the flowers on your own or for me to recommend you one if you are unsure on what to purchase?"
Klein flashed him a polite smile while shaking his head, "Oh there's no need.. I will decide them myself."
Afterall, what kind of keyboard warrior would he be if he didn't know a little bit about flowers?
After a bit of thinking, he finally decided on two flowers to be bundled into a bouquet.
"Do you want to add a note?"
"No I.." Klein was about to decline before he hesitated.
"Would that cost extra?"
"No sir, it's a free addition I like to personally write. I believe it makes the flowers hold more meaning and uniqueness to it."
"Then..How about writing this?"
Klein looks at the cold tombside infront of him.
There's a bouquet of pale pink and red carnations in his hand, and he hopes he's not gripping it too harshly.
The true guardian,
The most trusted partner,
The Captain forever.
Theres a dull, deadened mourning ache in Klein's chest. Something that appears to never leave him. He's not so sure if he can ever get rid of it.
That lonely ache, that has been following him ever since he found himself in this era, a golden revolver, and a diary entry that seemed to be an ever-so looming prophecy. Ever since he crawled out of his own tomb - alone, with nothing but a maddening urge for revenge. Ever since he saw those hanging cocoons above the gray fog. Irrefutable evidence of a home long gone. It washes over him completely. A grueling bittersweet longing, for a past he can never go back to. As if finally a dam had been set loose, it's so overwhelming and all Klein wants to is to wail, curse at the destiny that had been unwillingly forced upon him and thaw at the ground until he choked.
He does none of that. Instead, only a small twitch of the corner of his mouth move.
Klein lowers himself, half kneeling on the soiled ground and sits next to the Captain. A tangy smell of ink and soft scent of daffodils and pansies.
'Leonard must've visited..'
He opens his mouth, and closes it repeatedly. He waits for the words to come, waits for when the words he'd stuck so deeply in the back of his own throat to emerge.
"I ..," He begins slowly "..miss you, Captain."
One of the petals from the bouquet fall wistfully.
He recalls the the retreating back that was so far out of reach, the normally stoic expression faded, left with only a gentle, relieved smile on Dunn's face.
The Captain, who had always appeared so invincible. Acting as a pillar of support and guidance to him since the start. Someone who, Klein thought that if he were to ever fall, Captain Dunn would always, always be there to catch him.
(He was supposed to be unstoppable, bigger than life itself.
Why?)
"I'm really strong now. I'm even stronger than you now."
Funny, he used to think of a time where he could finally become strong enough to stand alongside with Dunn. Imagined of the day he would be able to take some of burden the Captain carried on his shoulders, even if just a little. But now, He was far past the sequence Dunn would ever reach, could ever reach, and he would never be able to do as his foolishly fantasies had wished. So, so incredibly ironic he wanted to laugh at his own misery.
"Sometimes, there's days when I miss you a little bit more. But you never truly left, either. You're everywhere," He falters, just slightly. "In the sky, the flowers, in each person I meet," His eyes start watering. "the words you said to me, dictate every action I take. You continue to haunt every corner of my life."
He brings his hand over the gravestone, grazing it ever so faintly. "If you saw me now, would you be proud of me?"
He bites his lip. "Would you even recognize me?" Klein couldn't - can't even recognize himself. And just how laughable is that?
Because with each potion, he forgets himself just a little bit. he becomes a bit more monstrous, uncaring, ruthless and cold, and it terrifies him to look into a mirror and see a distorted, unrecognizable stranger.
"I miss you," Klein doesn't say he cries. It's an act he's all long but detached himself from, because Mr.Fool, Gehrman Sparrow or any of his current identities don't cry. Zhou Mingrui and Klein Moretti might have, however that was a life he had already turned away and deserted from. He doesn't cry.
But this, was the closest he thinks he could possibly ever get, "I really miss you."
"We are guardians, but also a bunch of miserable wrenches constantly fighting against the threats and madness."
At that time, he hadn't understood what those words truly meant.
The hollow, desolate gap just in between his ribs, has never felt this unbearably strong. It consumes him wholly. It's excruciating, like deliberately pressing harder on a bandaged wound, staining it with deep crimson.
It's torturous, unforgiving. But this is what his journey has always been like since the very start. It's only been made just been made clearer now.
Klein stood up before his silhouette soon vaguely disappeared.
"To the Captain I will never forget." The note attached to the bouquet said. The sun just shined above the cemetery. What a beautiful day, wasn't it?
And if he went into the sefirah castle, a stormy fog brewing and wrecked everything apart whilst also letting out quiet, painful whimpers in a pit of, what any human could have seen as grief, then that wasn't something anyone needed to know.