#who is our husband ??? 🤔🤔 i'm thinking...iida ?? 🤔🤔

[willowser]

NOOO UR MAKING ME SO SAD one day he doesn’t come back and so u decide to move on and then he comes back literally YEARS later and sees u w a new man and his heart is BROKEN im so sad omfg

OMG. CRYING.

you run into him on the street, just as you did the first time.

you've married a decently wealthy man, one with enough money that you're free to pour all your time into painting and you do quite well, are able to sell them and host them in small museums and general markets during the week. you've moved, to be with your new husband, so you're no longer in your small village of drunks and thieves, and you're quite happy with the life you've built around you.

it's full of art and curiosity: your husband buys you a brand new telescope from a different country, top of the line. it's bigger than your old one and it takes you longer to figure out the dials and knobs, but when you do — the views you get are breathtaking. you paint what you find, all the shapes you discover in the constellations. very rarely is the sea your muse, these days; all those works became sad and unfinished, dark portraits of a ship far out in the distance that never sailed any closer, no many how many times you painted it.

the necklace lies at the bottom of your first jewelry box, chain broken from when you'd ripped it off and tried to throw it into a tide just as furious as you had been — but it never left your clenched fist.

it's not your painting he comes across, but someone else's star-map. for sale, at the local market, and you've stopped to enjoy the work the artist has done, chatting with them about what you've found when another customer wanders up beside you and says,

"'sea goddess', hmm," a hand reaches around you, too close for your liking, to pick up a reimagined constellation on display. "heard the woman it's named for is more beautiful than all the seven seas in the middle of a hurricane."

the artist frowns, because it's his piece, but indulges the customer anyway. "and what woman would that be?"

and your blood runs cold at the sound of your name, slowly turning to peer around you shoulder, to take in the figure that's uttered it. bigger than you remember, and darker, hair tied back in a tidier bun than usual. in his grip in his weathered hat, torn and nearly destroyed; a testament to the voyage he's had, maybe. and when he raises one hand in a soft wave, the flat of his palm is exposed, the pendant from your necklace in fading ink at its center.

kirishima is older now, as are you, with more scars along his nose and under his jaw, a jagged one across his neck that has tears stinging your eyes. but despite his edges — the smile on his face is soft, sad, and the light in his vibrant eyes hardly flickers as he takes in you and all your changes. as if he's been extinguished for quite some time, and only just now burning again.

"i never stopped lookin'," he murmurs suddenly, uncaring of the merchant as he dares to edge closer to you. his skin smells sharp and clean like aftershave, though the shadows on his face linger. "took a long time for me to find you."

and you feel like his violent sea, his crashing waves; despite the tears that track your cheeks, you remain stone-faced, trying to tide back the rage — the hurricane you want to be. "me?" you whisper, incensed. "to find me?"

his face falls and his eyes slip to the floor, ashamed, but he still tries, stepping further into you when he speaks again. "i know, didn't mean it like that. but i—" one hand gently rests on your elbow, while the other finds your own and you jump, startled and angry at how forward thinks he can be after all this time and yet — you let his rough fingers brush over yours, over the short silk gloves covering your skin. "i did search for you, i wanted to come home. i was always gonna come home—"

"don't—" you hiss, but he doesn't let you go far, following through the step you take back from him. on purpose, you think he pushes his palm into your fingers, as if wants you to feel the mark he still wears for you. "home? how dare you—"

"i know, 'm sorry," he whispers, so close that you can see the freckles on the bridge of his nose and the golden stars in his eyes and the desperation in the lines of his face. "i'm sorry, i'll always be—"

"darling?"

you pull away from him in no time, wiping a gloved hand over your cheeks before turning to face your husband who stands only feet from you, holding a new lens for your telescope. his eyes jump back and forth between you and kirishima, but you give him no longer to consider what he sees.

"yes, excuse me. let's go." you slip out of range when kirishima backs up a step, started probably, at the title and the arm your loop through your husband's. only once does he try to turn back to the figure, as still as a dead man, but you tighten your grip on him and don't look back.