#eighties au | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rikiblues · 2 years ago

Text

shinjū (心中)

featuring. enhypen ni-ki x fem!oc contents. 86!au, angst, heavy angst, major character death, assisted suicide blood and gore, detailed injuries, racism, discrimination, mentions of concentration camps, forced military enlistment. fluff, love confessions, first kiss.

track. voices of the chord, sawano hiroyuki word count. 5080

note. some world notes; they're fighting a war against war machines called the legion, the 86 are people w colored hair and eyes thrown out of san magnolia by the alba, people w white/silver hair and eyes. they fight in war machines called juggernauts that don't account for pilot safety, and they communicate using a device called para-raid. handlers are alba military officials who direct them from inside san magnolia, typically incredibly abusive, and the 86 have little to no rights at all. that's it for this au, hope you enjoy ahah

Hazy darkness begins to give way to golden light.

Riki Nishimura opens his eyes slowly, aware of his head spinning, aware that he's practically numb. Not good—he has to be bleeding badly somewhere. Being able to feel pain, he's learned, is better than experiencing so much pain that your body goes into shock.

He blinks, and blinks again. Slowly his awareness spreads out, and his nose is hit with the metallic tang of blood. So much that he stiffens, wondering just how screwed he is. Just how many others they're losing again today...and if he himself is on that list.

That nonexistent list only etched in the hearts of their comrades. The only memorial allowed to them. Nothing else—not even a simple grave, not even a burial.

He chuckles a bit when he remembers Shinei Nouzen and his scraps of metal retrieved from ruined Juggernauts, engraved messily with the names of fallen comrades. Riki hasn't yet lived long enough to be a name bearer, but regardless of whether he doesn't have a call sign, Shin will take a piece of his Juggernaut and write his name. It comforts him.

Of course, the thought of this all means that he's dying. He wouldn't think like this if he truly believed he had a way out of here.

A small sob gets his attention, and his head—thankfully he can move that fine—snaps to his left, and he jolts. There lies Mila, soaked with blood, her brown hair so soaked with it that it's darker, drippign droplets of it. Not all of it is her own, that much is obvious.

And she has a gun pointed right at Riki's head.

"I'm sorry," she hiccups, "I'm sorry, I can't—this isn't what I—"

Watching the only girl he's ever loved do this breaks his heart. Nobody should be subjected to this. The gun's muzzle is a full six feet or more away from him, and he will die instantly should Mila pull the trigger. Like he knows she will.

"Mila," he says hoarsely, "please."

Her hand shakes but she does her level best to keep it steady. "Riki," she lets out another sob. "Why? We—we were supposed to—"

"I know," Riki is beginning to feel the first sensations of pain from somewhere around his chest, a stinging ache. Crap. A chest wound. He's not getting out of this alive. "But remember what we talked about. Remember what we promised."

Mila cries harder.

𓆩♡𓆪

Midnight meetings at the age of sixteen aren't out of the norm, especially as an Eighty-Sixer. Comfort is hard to come by, and they will take any of it that they can.

Riki Nishimura is one of those many hopeless Colorata, clinging onto some pathetic resemblance of hope and humanity when really, what is there left anymore for him to live on for? Perhaps the pride of an Eighty-Six. He knows he values that above far too much—never will he ever descend to the level of the white pigs.

Even if it means biting his tongue bloody as the Handler throws verbal assault at them. He wishes so badly sometimes he can rip the Para-RAID off his ear, but of course, it's permanently attached, while the oh-so-wise and noble Alba get to wear pretty little collars as they like. Hilarious. But unsurprising.

Why is he getting so angry about this at one in the morning? Probably the lack of sleep. He doubts he's ever slept this badly in the two years he's been serving as part of two different squads. Part of him wonders how he's still alive, and then he remembers he'll just die anyway, so he chooses not to worry about that.

"Riki?" a voice hisses in his ear. "Where the hell are you?"

He stifles a giggle. "I'm looking for something in my Juggernaut," he whispers back. No one is actually in the hangar with him right now—Mila just likes to worry when he doesn't show up to their little rendezvous on time, hence the Para-RAID call. "I'll be quick."

"Riki, it's literally pitch-dark in the hangar. What do you think you'll be able to find in there? And anyway, where are the mechanics?"

"Asleep in their rooms, I'd assume."

Mila lets out a sigh. "Well, be quick and don't trip over something. You'll get in trouble."

"I know, I know," Riki mumbles, squinting in concentration as he feels around the cockpit of his Juggernaut for the rock he had picked up today while out on sortie. They'd lost another squad member today—Harua, the only other Orienta in their squad—and he'd spent too long crying over him. The only upside was the little, albeit kind of stupid, gift he had found for Mila while they retrieved another squad member stuck in the wreckage of his own Juggernaut.

"I saw Shin walk past just now," Mila says after a moment. "He looked...sad."

"He can emote?" is Riki's automatic, unthinking response. He immediately winces, realizing how insensitive that is. "Sorry, I...I just mean, he usually looks so..."

Cold. Unfeeling. Like a reaper.

"...he had a piece of Harua's Juggernaut, I think," Mila responds quietly. "There was something metal and shiny in his hand."

"Oh." Riki bites his lip, continuing dig around the cockpit. The metal is still warm from the day's sortie, not aided by the fact it has no cooling system whatsoever (or that the hangar is just a wooden warehouse-looking building with the mechanics' tools in it). "That's...that's good."

At least Harua will be remembered, Riki consoles himself. Shinei Nouzen is a strange boy, but a mostly reliable one. Riki says mostly because he knows next to nothing about the guy, other than his apparent interest for reading.

Everyone knows of their silent squad mate's habits now—from his absolutely silent footsteps to his tendency of collecting remnants of fallen comrades' Juggernauts, engraving their names on the shards, and keeping them hidden away. The Eighty-Six aren't allowed to have graves, which just contributes to the Legion problem, so Riki supposes that it happens to be Shin's way of giving them one.

Like a reminder. Like a memorial to who they were in life.

"Found it!" he mutters triumphantly when his hand comes in contact with a small, cooler object round but slightly oblong in shape. He quickly closes his fist around it and clambers down from his uncomfortable perch of leaning over the side of the Juggernaut, massaging his ribs with a grimace as he lands on his feet lightly.

"Found what?" Mila asks.

"You'll see," Riki replies cheekily, trying to keep the mood up. Losing squad mates is nothing new, honestly—by the next sortie, either they'll all die or they'll have to be reassigned to different squads. Riki knows which one is likelier, but a small, stupid part of him hopes he and Mila will make it.

"Okay, okay, just get over here already," Mila says impatiently. "I'm getting antsy. Do you know how weird it is to just in a corridor by a closed door? Not even by a window? When it's one in the morning?"

"I'm almost there," Riki whines, hastening his footsteps, making sure that Mila hears them. The settings on the Para-RAID are usually kept to the lowest—only transmitting sound and unfortunately, just a hint of emotion—both because Riki hates people reading into anything more than what he shows, and also because he refuses to be caught off-guard by the Handlers. Besides, it's funny to stomp his feet and feel Mila's wince as she no doubt thinks about the scolding they'll get if they're to be caught.

The darkness isn't so absolute that Riki can't see his hand in front of his face, but it's still a relief to emerge into the moonlight. The Eighty-Six don't exactly have electricity access, at least not at night, so they usually guide themselves by moonlight. And, well, on moonless nights...there are other ways.

"Riki, hurry up unless you want Raiden to go all mom-mode," Mila hisses, "because I think I just heard him talking to Shin!"

"I'm almost there," Riki repeats, "meet me outside. I've got something for you."

Immediately, Mila falls silent. "Okay," she responds, and he can practically hear the gears in her brain turning. It's amusing how he can do things like this and Mila will give it genuine thought.

It takes less than two minutes for them to meet outside the barracks, and Riki reaches up to cut off the Para-RAID connection himself. Mila looks up at him with narrowed eyes for a second before looking at his hands clasped behind his back. She knows better than to try and look at it, instead raising an eyebrow at him.

"Patience, Mila dear," Riki says mischievously, much to her frustration. She frowns at him and strides ahead, but Riki knows all too well that she isn't actually upset, just messing around with her. Okay, and maybe a little pissed he took so long to get here, which. Fair.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry!" he calls out, giggling, striding after her. His longer legs help him reach her faster and Mila turns around, her own face breaking out in a grin, sparkly in the same way her blue eyes are. In the moonlight, both her eyes and her brown hair—signifying her mixed Deseria and Rubis ancestry—take on a silvery, washed-out sheen, but she's no less beautiful.

Mila Clemens is so beautiful it hurts to look at, a little bit.

(Okay, so. Riki might be a little whipped for her.)

"I do not want to be subjected to another scolding," Mila scolds, "and I don't think you want one, either."

"Then let's go before we get caught," Riki says, taking her hand and breaking into a run. Mila's startled shriek pierces the air as she's forced to run on light steps, dragged along behind him. He knows nobody will actually care—Raiden knows they need times like this after days like this, before days like tomorrow inevitably will be—and that in the end, as long as they don't wander too far, they'll be fine.

"Riki Nishimura!" she shrieks, but she's also laughing and her other hand is clutched around his wrist. "You're going to make me fall!"

"You're more nimble than that!" Riki calls back, giggling harder than ever as they reach the small hill they usually find themselves climbing at night. He sprints up to the top without pausing, and neither do his giggles or Mila's frantic yells and laughs and curses.

"I swear to god—" Mila cuts herself off with another high-pitched shriek as the two of them tumble to the soft grass, all because Riki throws himself down and takes Mila with him. They hit the grass in an undignified heap, giggling uncontrollably.

Riki unentangles himself from her. Their laughter dies down and they lie on their backs side-by-side, gasping for air as they look up at the night sky. If it weren't for the moon, they wouldn't be able to see each other at all.

And this is their purpose: going out almost every night, especially on nights when they lose members (which happens far too often) to look at the stars. To look at those distant lights, to wonder if there exists other beings in one of those planets, watching the Legion War, watching country after country be wiped out, watching San Magnolia kill off the Eighty-Six in their characteristically brutal fashion.

All of a sudden, Riki misses Harua with a sharp aching just behind his ribs, right over his heart.

Harua is far from the first teammate that Riki has ever lost. But they'd been closer than one might expect—a sort of expectable bond forged from being the singular Orienta in the squad. The white pigs may be just that, but that doesn't mean the Eighty-Six are great all the time, either. Riki and Harua had both seen their fair share of discrimination for their skin color, for the difference in how they looked. Even if their current squad members are all pretty cool, the hurt stays, always. Especially when you're supposed to be sticking together against the Alba.

"Mila?" Riki whispers. "Today, when I was going to check on—on Harua, I found something."

He can feel Mila turn on her side to look at him. Harua's Juggernaut had been downed, and Riki had stupidly jumped out of his own wrecked one to go get to him, before Raiden had sharply ordered him to stay where he was. Raiden isn't their squad captain, but they've learned to listen to people like him and Shin, by now.

Riki had spotted the shiny little rock in the ground right before he'd climbed back into his Juggernaut, biting his lip at the fact that one of his teammates was fighting to protect him. In the end, that teammate scraped by with a little bit more than a nasty gash to the face from flying shards of metal during the battle.

That little rock was what he held onto, hunching his shoulders, biting his lips, as he listened to Harua's terrified scream echoing through the air, through the Para-RAID connection, before the Legion unit brought a blade down and neatly beheaded him. Nobody was able to save him. Nobody was able to end it for him before they took him.

Such is their life, but it doesn't stop him from getting upset every now and then.

"What did you find?" Mila asks, and that's when Riki turns around to face her as well. He reaches out a fist between the two feet that separate them, and drops the shiny little rock. Mila picks it up, examining the smooth, blue surface. "It's pretty."

"I know it's stupid," Riki says awkwardly, "but you saved me today, so I just..."

There are a hundred different things he could've done. Take her laundry duty. Help the girls in the kitchen. Go hunting with the boys for a change and bring something back for her. So many acts that could've won her over, and he chose to give her a stupid rock.

But he can't find it in himself to regret it, knowing Mila likes these small gestures better than anything else. Something small, meaningful. Though what the rock is supposed to mean, Riki isn't really sure, other than that the shade matches her eyes.

"I didn't save you," Mila says, "and it's not stupid. It matches my eyes, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, well..." Riki coughs. To this day, he doesn't know how to handle it when Mila calls him out so obviously like this. "Don't deviate from the point. If you hadn't warned me, I would've been dead. That Ameise would've—" he makes a slicing motion across his throat.

"Julien warned you, too," Mila points out, turning the rock over in her hands. She likes it, Riki thinks with a burst of joy.

"Yeah, half a second after you," Riki counters.

Mila laughs. "Okay, okay, I get your point," she says, turning onto her back again. Riki somehow finds the courage to stay where he is, looking at her. She must notice, but makes no comment on it. "Is this some kind of courting gift, Nishimura?"

Riki blinks. "Huh?"

"I said," she repeats without turning to look, but a playful smile curls on her lips, "is this some kind of courting gift?"

His ears burst into flame, practically. "I—I don't—know?" Riki stammers out, which prompts Mila to burst into laughter, finally turning to look at him again. "Why would you—?"

"Sophia told me you may have a crush on me." The words make Riki's face and ears burn worse. "And, well, once I started looking for the signs..."

What little he can see of her blue eyes seem darker. "We don't know when our last sunrise will be. So...I thought to myself, what's the worst that could happen, if I went for it?"

That kills the fluttery feelings swirling in his chest, the hotness in his face. He exhales slowly, turning onto his back, too, eyes tracking the shapes of the constellations in the sky, trying to work out what to say, and how to say it.

"At first," he starts, "you didn't really seem special to me."

Normally, Mila would be making fun of him for that, but now she just listens quietly, humming in response. Riki sucks in another breath, because what he wants to say is by no means an easy feat, but he feels the need to say it, because he could die tomorrow, and he doesn't want to leave anything unsaid. As somber as it is, the thought of it kills his nerves.

"You were just another Processor," Riki goes on. "Yeah, you're really pretty, and yeah, there aren't many girls in our squad—" or even among the Eighty-Six as a whole "—but I was just focused on getting better at...not dying, you know? Because the truth is, death scares me. Even if our entire lives are shrouded in death."

"What changed?" Mila asks. Her hand finds his in the semi-darkness overlaid with silvery light. "Or, well, when did that change?"

"I guess when the platoons were first reorganized," Riki reflects, "and we had to work together. I dunno. I just know we started to work together more and it kinda went on from there?"

"It was like that for me, too," Mila admits. "I mean, it's hard not to notice one of the only Orienta in the squad when he's basically a loner, but...you get what I mean."

"Yeah," Riki agrees, "I do." A beat of silence, and then, "it's—it was Harua who helped me realize. That I like you, I mean. That I like you a lot."

"Really?" Mila sounds startled; Riki doesn't turn his head to look. He's afraid he might lose whatever this rush of courage flowing through him is if he looks. "Harua?"

"Yeah."

"He helped me realize, too," she reveals. Riki blinks, but keeps his head firmly in place. "He pestered me about it a lot before I gave in and faced my feelings. He didn't tell me anything about you, though. That was all Sophia."

"So he was playing matchmaker the entire time," Riki huffs out a laugh. "Wanna bet both he and Sophia were in on it together?"

"Why bet when we know that for a fact? Sophia's a sucker for romance," Mila snorts, right as Riki lets out another giggle, thinking of their mischievous, hyperactive friend.

The silence falls, though, when the weight of her words settle in.

And yet, Riki refuses to let this chance go to waste. This could be their last night under the stars. Their last night together. The last chance to tell her what he needs to say.

"Mila." He sucks in a breath. His hand clutches hers tighter. "I love you."

She whispers back a quiet, "me too."

Joy bursts through Riki's entire being, and he turns to face her, grinning like the biggest damn fool on the planet. Mila turns to face him at the same time, and their eyes meet, and they're both giggling and grinning and just reveling in the sheer ridiculousness and euphoria of the moment and Riki just loves her so much he doesn't know what to do with all of this feeling.

"I'm going to sound really cheesy," Mila warns, "but sometimes I feel like nobody else complements me the way you do."

"Stop!" Riki starts actually laugh. "No romancing in the middle of the night!"

"You're romancing me too!"

"Only because I can't help it!" he protests, mouth aching from all this smiling. "You expect me to be able to help it—"

A sudden noise not too far off startles them both and they're up like lightning, ready to run, hands on the guns strapped to their waists. Riki's head swivels, heart pounding. He can't pinpoint where the noise came from. Did a Legion unit actually manage to sneak up on them? How much did they have left? Could they still run—

"Just a rabbit," Mila sighs out in relief, pointing to the animal a little distance way. "We're fine. Legion units make more noise than that anyway."

"Unless it's an antipersonnel type," Riki mutters, "but we're not on the battlefield, so."

Not exactly relieving, but Riki takes it. He sits down heavily on the grass, acutely aware of how ruined their mood is. Mila sits down beside him and lays her head on his shoulder.

"It's frustrating, isn't it?" Mila murmurs. "Knowing that there's love to be found in places as awful as this, but not knowing if we can live to experience it to the fullest."

"But I'd love you anyway," Riki says. "Even if I died, I'd love you."

"That's physically impossible."

He shrugs. "Just because something is supposedly impossible doesn't mean I can't promise to do it anyway. Because I will, you know. I will love you till death, beyond death, even."

"Okay, then," Mila says quietly. "I believe you. Because I will, too."

"But," he continues, "promise me you won't let them take me. If worst comes to worst...please. Do it. End it. Don't let them take me. I can stop them from taking you, but I can't defend myself if it comes to that."

"I'd kill myself before I let them take you," Mila whispers. "That's a promise."

"I won't let them take you, either," Riki vows firmly.

And when he leans down to press a kiss to her hair, she looks up. There's no negativity in there; she just looks sad and surprised all at once. "I love you," she murmurs. "I don't want to lose you."

But you'll lose me anyway. I'll lose you anyway.

Riki leans down to really kiss her, inching slowly so that she can move away if she doesn't want to, but she doesn't. Their lips meet and the kiss is simultaneously the best (first, actually) and saddest kiss of his whole life; they're slightly shaking in each other's hold, and Riki feels the sting of tears in his eyes.

"I don't want to lose you, either," he whispers when they pull apart. He hugs her tightly, burying his face in her brown hair. "I can't lose you, either."

But loss goes hand in hand with life anyway, doesn't it?

𓆩♡𓆪

And so, here they are. Trapped at the edge of a cliff of death where there is only one way to go—down. Down, down, down, until they are no more.

Riki's been impaled in the chest by flying shrapnel and he can't even tell if it's numbness or the actual loss of his right leg that makes him unable to feel it. Mila's entire left forearm is gone. There's shrapnel embedded in her shoulder, and a deep gash from somewhere on her torso is dripping blood everywhere. God, the two of them will not be making it.

Hence why they need to end it. Now.

"Do it," Riki urges, starting to inhale deeply, but stopping when pain ricochets through him faster than that bullet can travel. "Mila, come on. We don't know when they'll come back."

For all he knows, their squad-mates have driven the Legion away from Riki and Mila's ruined units to allow them time to end it, or something.

"I promised," Mila cries. "But I—I can't do it to you—"

"You should be able to do it because it's me," Riki lets out a rattling breath. He can taste blood in his mouth, in his throat. "Because you don't want me to be taken by them. Because you don't want me crying out for you for all eternity in a craze."

The admission that his last words would be about Mila snaps something inside her. He can tell from the way her eyes harden. The way she closes them, inhales deeply despite the pain wracking her body right about now. Because of course she doesn't want that; she wouldn't wish that upon anyone but the white pigs. And even then, being taken by the Legion seems all too cruel.

"I don't want that to happen to you, either," Riki whispers. Tears well up in his eyes, hot and burning. "Harua's already gone. I couldn't save him, so please. Please. Don't let it happen to either of us."

He fumbles around for his own gun, and levels it at her. His hands shake but he's sure of himself. Ending Mila's life by his own hands? A muchbetter alternative. The only choice he has.

It's better than being beheaded by the Legion, becoming nothing more than a central core processor for one of their units. To be multiplied infinitely until there's so many of them screaming their death throes over and over again.

Riki knows this, because he overheard Shin talking to Raiden. He wishes to this day he hadn't known that, because now it makes the idea of becoming a Legion unit all the more terrifying.

He steadies the gun, closes his finger around the trigger, begins to pull just as Mila begins—

"MILA!" a voice shrieks, accompanying stomping footsteps. "RIKI! Where are you guys?"

"Sophia," Mila's eyes widen. "Oh, no no no no—"

"MILA!" the high-pitched female voice continues yelling, even as every inch of Riki wants to yell right back, to tell her to be quiet lest they're found, but it's bound to attract more attention from any Legion which might be nearby. Besides, their blood is an easy enough trail for Sophia to find them, as gruesome as it is.

It doesn't take long for her to come across them, and she immediately steps back, golden eyes blown wide. "No," she whimpers. "Please, no..."

"Sophia," Riki rasps. "You don't need to see this."

The petite Heliodor girl glares at him furiously. "Bullshit!" she snaps. Ever a raging storm, that's Sophia, indeed. "We can—we can still take you back to base, help you heal—"

"Now that's bullshit on level with the white pigs' logic, Sophia," Mila stops her. "You know there's no saving us. Maybe if we had medical help..."

She lets the sentence trail off. The brutal honesty puts out Sophia's fire as quickly as it had flared up as she tracks her eyes from Mila's bleeding stump of a forearm, the shoulder injuries. The gash Riki now realizes comes from a piece of metal wedged deep in her stomach. Riki's chest, and his leg, which he really doesn't want to look at right now.

The Eighty-Six don't have medical staff. They have to make do with what little supplies they manage to scrounge up. The only 'valuable' Eighty-Six, in any sense of the word, are the mechanics and their only use is to maintain the Juggernauts.

The Eighty-Six's only purpose is to fight the Legion and die trying. Nothing else. If they get injured, then it's game over. From there, the only option is to die.

Being assimilated by the Legion is not an option most are willing to accept. Riki would just shoot himself here and now if he didn't think Mila would be left alone. He doesn't think she would able to do it with his body lying in plain view—just as he doesn't think he can do it if her body was before him, either.

Sophia lets out a sob, pressing her blood-covered hands to her hands. Riki doesn't want to know whose blood it is. "This is so unfair," she sobs. "I don't want to lose my three best friends all in the span of two days."

Riki wants to point out that at least she didn't have to watch Harua die, but she definitely heard his death screams. His cry of, "someone please help me!" right before he was taken. But he doesn't think that'll help.

"I'm sorry, Sophia," he tries, gentler than he's used to being. "I'm so sorry that it has to be this way. We don't want to leave you. We would never."

"We love you, girl," Mila inhales shakily. "We love you so much, you and Harua. But you should go. You don't need to see this. Nobody should."

"This world is so messed up," Sophia looks up. "It took my parents. It took my sisters. It took Harua. And now it's taking you, too."

Riki knows Harua himself had a bit of a thing for Sophia. The two of them were friends, but it was difficult to tell what their relationship was, exactly. More specifically, it was Harua who was more sure of how he felt, and Sophia who never gave a thought to the nature of their relationship.

Matchmakers who could've been in love.

"The world takes and takes, Sophia," Riki tells her. Oh, the pain is becoming unbearable now, the smell of blood only growing stronger and stronger. "It took my parents and sisters, too. Mila's parents. We're all a victim to it, and there's nothing else to do but soldier on through it."

He knows that so well. So many times have passed where he's had to tell himself just to stay afloat. Just to stay sane.

When he had watched Konon be assigned to a different squad and never heard of her again, Sola left behind in the camp before she would be inevitably forcibly enlisted too. Never knowing what happened to either of his sisters, or his parents, who he knows are long dead by now. He had almost wished to be back at the camp amidst the constant abuse, physical and verbal.

"I hate it," Sophia says, looking at them wide, wet eyes. "I don't want to keep losing."

"One day it'll end, one way or another," Riki says. "Please, leave. We don't have too much time left and I don't want you to see this, Sophia."

"Just—just please remember us at our best," Mila croaks out. "Remember that we loved you and Harua. That you were one of the best parts of our lives."

Sophia backs away slowly, swallowing hard. "What should I tell the captain...?"

"Tell him what you need to."

"Okay." Her golden hair and eyes glimmer in the sunset light. Harua would've wanted to witness this sight a thousand times, Riki thinks. He had always thought Sophia was a sunset kind of girl. "Goodbye...I love you. Both of you."

And then she's turning away and running, sobs wracking her frame as she goes. Riki aches to see her in so much pain, and it's worse when he sees the way Mila's closed her eyes, crying softly.

"I don't want to die," she confesses.

"Neither do I," Riki says. "But..."

"Yeah." Mila takes in a shaky breath. Levels her gun, and so Riki does, too. "I love you, you know. More than anyone else. You were my thin thread of sanity at times."

"You're everything to me," he admits softly. "I love you more than I can put into words."

"So then—" her grip tightens. Riki mirrors the action; it's like they're going to do everything together in their last moments. "Goodbye, love."

"Goodbye."

They pull the triggers. Mila's beautiful, beautiful smile is the last thing Riki sees before the bullets meets his forehead square in the center.

The best goodbye he could've wished for.

shinjū (心中), meaning "double suicide", used in common parlance to refer to any group suicide of two or more individuals bound by love, typically lovers, parents and children, and even whole families.

lovers committing double suicide believed that they would be united again in heaven, a view supported by feudal teaching in Japan, which taught that the bond between two lovers is continued into the next world, and by the teaching of wherein it is believed that through double suicide, one can approach rebirth in the Pure Land.

songs listened to while writing: - rock with you, seventeen - voices of the chord, sawano hiroyuki - my youth, nct dream

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