He has always known that when she asks him that question, he is going to tell her the truth. Even if it earns him her hatred or his own end, he will not tell a lie.
He also knows that he does not have long before she figures it out. She is not as empty-headed as she pretends. She recognizes him and remembers without knowing it. Certain gestures are familiar to her. She knows his laugh. The way he teases her has not changed. And he sees sparks of recognition in her eyes when he is moving above her and she’s clutching at his back, arching her own. She says his name, but sometimes he thinks she starts to say another.
He knows he does not have long, and still she takes him by surprise.
He must have done something to trigger her memory – either a look, a movement, or a word has made her stop mid-sentence and stare at him with eyes that are wide but cut him like glass. She is sitting near him and she scoots away, setting her drink down on the table before them. There is fear in her eyes and hatred and regret and guilt and furious fear. This is when she knows, but still she asks him.
“Who are you?”
His throat tightens involuntarily and his eyes flutter shut. He longs for her to sigh and lament his naturally long, coal dark lashes and how they’ve been wasted on him. He wants her to giggle and tell him that the drink has made her silly. His mind is begging reality to change so that she kisses him and says that she knows but it doesn’t matter. She has forgiven him long ago. The spirit of his former self haunts her no longer and his past deeds have no bearing on them now.
He wants her to love him in spite of Kunzite, but he knows this cannot be.
“Who do you think I am?” he answers back. His voice is laden with age and wisdom beyond his years. He is weary with secrets and betrayal even though he has done nothing. That was another, but he still must shoulder the blame. He deserves it anyway.
He hears her sob and looks over to see her shoulders convulse. Her hand flies to her mouth and she shuts her eyes. Her other hand is free to cover an ear. She is trying to block him out in every way possible, but she cannot. They’re both in too deep.
“Kunzite,” she whispers into her dampening palm.
He has to physically restrain himself from raging at her as he has done to his men and even to his prince once. He does not know how he manages it, but he cannot hold himself back completely. His voice pushes through his teeth, trembling and terrifying. “I am not that man.”
She shakes her head. He wonders if she heard. “I don’t believe this.”
He swallows but he cannot clear his throat. “Minako--"
“Why didn’t you tell me?!” she rages. She is on her feet. Her fists are clenched, but he knows she’s ready to run. She is more than a match for him, but after all this time, she still doesn’t think so.
“It was better for you to figure it out yourself.”
“How?” she asks, and he finds disgust in her tone now. She towers above him and he feels impossibly small. “So that you could have me in your bed? So you could laugh at me when I’m not there? So you could trick me into loving you again--"
She stops. She had not meant to say that. She has never used those terms before.
He doesn’t know how to respond to that.
“I never did anything to be cruel.” he says instead. “This time.”
She doesn’t believe him, and he can’t blame her. “Everything you have done is cruel! Why didn’t you just stay away from me?”
He laughs and hopes she doesn’t hear his heart breaking. “You say that like it was an option.”
She wants to argue with him about that, but she knows she can’t. She couldn’t stay away from him and he could not avoid her. No matter, she was bound to end up like this: dying without any hope of her breath stopping.
He does not let them sit too long in silence. He owes her more than that. “Is there anything you want to know?”
She wastes little time even though she will doubt every syllable. “Are you evil?”
He cannot answer that to her satisfaction. “I will do no harm to you, your princess, or my master.”
She takes a step back. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
It doesn’t, and it sickens him. “I don’t want to be.”
Her expression changes after a moment, and it takes him a moment to identify the emotion. He hates himself when he sees that she pities him. “You don’t know?”
He shakes his head. He can barely whisper the truth. “I don’t know if I am good or evil. I don’t know if my soul is my own or my master’s or if I gave it to the devil one thousand years ago. I don’t know if I am Takehiko or Kunzite reborn or no man at all.
“I don’t know who I am.”
Silence fills his flat when he is finished. He does not look up at her or the spot she once occupied. He knows that she is going to leave him because she has to leave him. It’s the natural order of things. She knows the truth and now she’ll want nothing to do with him. She’ll flee, she’ll tell the others, and they will hate him. He will not begrudge them what is rightfully theirs.
But she doesn’t leave. She doesn’t sit beside him to comfort him nor does she scream at him as he deserves. She just stands there, looking at him. Finally, she speaks.
“Neither do I.”
