SALVATORE || Sano Manjiro X Fem! Reader

*+*CHAPTER 18 || CRY FOR ME*+*

Sano Manjiro sometimes wishes he wasn't such a stubborn bastard.

Had he been just a little bit less of a secretive ass then maybe he wouldn't have to stand there, watching in devastation as the crystalline tears finally spill down her cheeks, multiple paths of agony making themselves known to the audience that is him.

In all 14 years they've been together, Manjiro thinks he's always been the one to make her cry first. Always the first one to make her ache for him in all the ways he knows he doesn't deserve to be felt towards.

A tremble of his fingers makes themselves known to his mind as the feelings of guilt and misery creeps into his chest, the sensation of her palms against them, the only thing separating him from breaking down completely in front of her as her words had always been the reality of their lives.

That no matter what people might call or want what to believe, he's still just as human as the rest of them. He's aware of the monster he's made himself out to be, but he more than anyone knows just how easily it is to snuff out a person from your life forever. It's so easy at times, he can almost laugh. That how with enough determination and strength he too can be taken away from theirs, forever just leaving them with the phantom remains he will depart from.

'There's going to be a day you won't be here, Manjiro.' And he can almost cry from the undeniable truth her words bring him. Even he can't deny that the hole he dug himself in was far too deep for him to even think or consider about getting back out. That no matter the circumstances of his feelings he will never get to start right back to where he'd been remotely considered good as a person.

Obsidian glistens with his heartache. Worst of all, Manjiro thinks as he searches her face filled with sorrow, he had been selfish enough to drag her down with him. The months separating them all those years ago had been far too much for someone like him that he had eagerly and greedily clawed himself back into her life the moment she had given the slightest bit of chance.

His fingers manage to find their way into wrapping around her wrist, hands of destruction delicately holding her, anchoring him to the familiarity that is her touch. Manjiro finds himself swallowing as the thought of why she'd let him back in kept repeating themselves over and over again in his mind.

Manjiro brings a hand, blood stained permanently from those he killed, up to her face. Fingers, that had so easily gripped and snapped bones like second nature, brushing away the strands of hair sticking across her endearingly lovely face. Cheeks blotchy with a fascinating puff to them, he indulges himself with the thumbing across the wet patch of skin.

He finds himself sighing, sweet and exhausted all the same as he knows what she'll tell him once she finds the things that dwell across the map of his thoughts.

She'll call him an idiot for one, tells him that she loves him even then. That she stayed and that she let him back into her arms solely because of her loyal affections for him. He huffed at the thought as it just opened another can of worms to be explored.

She'll tell him that she loves him but then he'll ponder on the why. There were so many other wonderful people out there and yet she dares to waste her precious love for the likes of someone like him.

Manjiro can't help but to think about her awful taste in men.

Leaning forward, he connects their foreheads together. Off-white mixing with H/c in a twirling of strands in the middle, his lashes with their natural born color flutters as he closes his eyes. " I know." He finally says through his muttered breathe.

Manjiro feels the scrunching of her brows on his skin. "If you do, then why do you insist on lying to me?" She mutters back, voice borderline on a quiver when he places his hands along the nape of her neck, fingers intertwining with the locks of her hair.