marj, 26, simp

The tips of your fingers are cold and numb. Stark contrast of the scalding ache in your chest that radiates through your entire being, bringing tears in your e/c eyes. Your tearful gaze flickers from the fancy invitation in front of you to the silhouette of the man that's been the bane of your existence since you have realized you have fallen for him.

Enji throws you a glance over his shoulder as he redresses. For a second, you thought you saw remorse flash through those devastatingly breathtaking ocean eyes.

"I don't expect you to come," he says, averting his gaze as his thick fingers work the buttons of his dress shirt. The same one he wore this morning to ask the hand of the woman he intends to marry. "But I figure it'd be far worse not to at least let you know."

You were quick to mask your despair with a well practiced smirk. "How considerate of you." You chide, your tone betraying your facade. You fill the following silence with the clicking of the lighter as you set a cigarette ablaze.

Now fully dressed, Enji walks around your bed to sit across from you by the window ledge. He reaches and touches your face, memorizing your beautiful features illuminated by the Musutafu city night lights knowing this will be the last time he'll see you. Like this, at least. With skin in technicolor from the works of his hands and mouth, hair a mess from being under his grasp and from rounds of being tossed around in bed, soft kiss bruised lips that he almost always wounds by biting a little too hard.

He glares at the cigarette between them and asks, "I thought you quit smoking?" He takes the thing from between your lips and you frown as you watch him put it out with his bare hand. "I did." You shrug. "I guess I just can't live without at least one bad thing in my life."

The both of you take a deep breath at the exact same time.

"So I take it this is goodbye, then?" You ask as you look out the window, already knowing the answer.

"I am a lot of things, but I will not add disloyal to my long list of flaws." He mutters. You smile wryly, keeping your eyes on the cars passing below your apartment building. You feel pathetic as you realize you're even considering being a fucking mistress if that meant getting to keep him in your life.

"Was there ever a chance? For you and I?" You couldn't help but ask. Thinking about how in the span of time you spent together, didn't you ever stand a chance in his heart? Despite giving this fucked up arrangement with him your all?

The question had Enji clenching his jaw. He long accepted that his heart is close to nonexistent. All he ever is to him is ambition and greed. But as he stares at you, for a split second, he almost wants to reconsider everything.

You startle when he suddenly pulls you to him, sitting you in his lap and kissing you hard. Salty tears slip past your lips and his, Enji couldn't tell whose it was. Your hands card through his crimson hair in a desperate attempt to keep him in your grasp, reveling in how his big rough hands seem to hold you with the same desperation. Kneading and pulling you bruisingly tight against his body.

But then, he pulls away, leaning his forehead against yours. And you knew your answer when you looked at him. When you saw his eyes squeezed shut, lips pressed into a thin line, nostrils flared as he pushed air down his lungs. He does love you, whether he admits it or not, it's just.. not enough. And it never will be. You never will.

"You are.. despicable." You whisper. "But I already knew that and chose to love you anyway." A sigh of defeat escapes you as you now look at him with pity.

"I hope you know that this marriage, the children you will bear with this innocent woman.. it would not result in you attaining this 'dream' of yours. You're going to put everyone in misery. And I refuse to be one of those people. Not anymore."

"Goodbye, Enji." You murmur as you crawl back in bed with your back against him. The moment you hear the door click close softly as he left, you sob against your pillow that still smells of him.

—

You probably cursed him the day he broke your heart completely, Enji thinks to himself as he stares at the protesting crowd outside the central hospital. He was still foggy with anesthetics but the ache in his heart was sharp and it brought him to tears.

You were right. You've always been.

And now that he's faced with the repercussions of the poor decisions he has made in the past, he could not help but wonder what if he just gave up on his selfish endeavors and accepted that fact that he can and could have been happy with you.

Sparing Rei, Fuyumi, Touya, Natsuo and Shoto from all this hell he brought to them.

If only he was smart enough then to realize then that maybe, you were all he needed.