Work Text:
It has been a long ten years.
He stayed.
Shouichi was guilty because of his selfishness of wanting to be a musician instead of an engineer. He has driven his friend mad.
Byakuran appeared on the screen, a technological marvel which took less than ten years to make. He wears a white clothing, with empty purple yes.
He smiled the same. He laughed the same. He stands the same. If Shouichi turns away from his actions and pretends to not know.
It.....
It would have been easier.
But his morals and guilt did not allow him to look away from it all.
Instead Shouichi watched, face set in apathy. His stomach throbbing with pain and legs shaking in weakness. As his friend, rise the morale of his soldiers to conquer the world.
He sat down and his forehead against his desk. Wishing the cold can take away his headache. His only consolation was a comfortable chair.
He still has work to do.
This is my mistake to fix, he thought, reading the report that write down the deaths as merely a number. His hands stopped trembling long ago.
World leaders not believing his words, threats. Really. Because Byakuran looks young, someone not even in his forties. They laughed at his face and die from their foolishness.
Those deaths are not the beginning nor it is the end. It was numbers added to the death he helped cause.
There is blood on his hand that he can never wash off.
The ghosts and screams haunts him in his dreams. The guilt eating him alive.
Shouichi still smiles at Byakuran with sincerity because despite his actions, he made Shouichi happy. Even if just for a moment.
This is my mistake to fix.
He helped lessen the pain of the loneliness of being in a foreign country.
It was a small thing but back then….
It was everything.