Belladonna | Sano Manjiro

12 "I forgive you"

warning! Attempt of suicide

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What exactly is guilt?

Guilt, is something that he has grown to be familiar with.

He thinks that it is the constant thing that's been plaguing his mind ever since that night. Where all he can see is red splattering on the floor, painting the polished marble the color of spider lilies.

It was the hollowed and dead gaze that Shinichiro held as he laid there. Lifeless, and blood pouring out of him. It was the same hollowed gaze that he saw Mikey sporting after the funeral. Dead, empty. A far cry from how the teen usually look.

That night, seeing the Sanos face as well as Alessia, had been one of the hardest thing he had faced.

Baji had always bad at comforting someone crying. He would usually let one of his friends or just flee if he saw someone started to sed some tears. But seeing both Alessia and Emma cried is- he can't avert his gaze. It is as if he lost control of his body that night, leaving him nothing but a numb and frozen body.

Seeing grandpa cried too, was as hard as seeing Emma and Alessia cry. The man had always been imposing figure in his mind. Though an elderly, but the elder Sano had always been his martial arts teacher who wouldn't even think twice to kick his butt. So to see the older man cried, disbelief fully written in his face because what the fuck, his grandson died faster than him, is one of the hardest thing he had to witness.

Guilt guilt guilt.

Sometimes, he thinks it's hard to breath. It's hard to act that everything is normal. That he didn't have a hand in the death of his best friend's older brother death.

He always found himself laid awake in bed during the night. Not daring to close his eyes, because every time he shut his eyelids, the familiar scene of Shinichiro's unmoving body coated by blood would always replayed inside his mind.

"I forgive you" said Mikey, a few days after funeral.

Baji doesn't have the guts to come to the older funeral. Believing that he doesn't have the right to do so. When Mikey called him to the park where they usually played in during childhood, he had expected a beating. He had expected tears and yells. Not this.

"What?" He had chocked out back then. Disbelief lacing his tone.

"I forgive you" repeated Mikey, gaze zeroing to the ground. "You're not- you're not the one that killed him"

But i am. He wants to argue. I killed Shinichiro, i killed your older brother. He wants to yell.

He didn't.

Baji is a coward. A coward that hide behind everything. A coward that doesn't have the guts to admit that he's wrong.

Maybe it really is not his fault, maybe this forgiveness is just a part of Mikey's fondness towards his childhood friends, but-

"Kazutora though" started Mikey again, head tilted towards the sky. "I'll kill him if i ever saw him again" he continued, venom dripping down his tone as his eyes darkened into something that he never associated to the always cheery Mikey.

Chills ran down his spine.

Guilt, started to pumped into his body again.

Baji is forgiven. Kazutora is not.

Baji is forgiven. Kazutora is-

Guilt guilt guilt. It had become an old friend to him. An everlasting presence that never left.