He strokes her hair gently, careful to not muss it up, not now, now when it has been put up elegantly, in complicated loops and waves and soft curls, despite its shortness, shorter than anyone else's in their family.

He watches her reflection in the mirror, and his reflection behind hers, seeing her pale skin, her closed eyes, her barely-there-pale-pink blush. Watching detachedly, tracing with his eyes, her soft, fragile, features, her small, perfect mouth, dark-dark-red, her small, sharp nose, her closed eyes, long eyelashes, darkened and thicker than the norm, delicately casting shadows on her skin. And he sees himself, his features just barely less fragile, less delicate, his face slightly leaner, less soft and round, his nose slightly longer, his hair darker, less blue.

And he wonders how long it could have taken him to see this, and wonders if it would be incest when they weren't siblings or narcissism when they could pass as twins.

But they weren't together, so it wasn't incest or narcissism, only perhaps incestuous and perhaps narcissistic daydreams, that make his throat tighten, and his chest ache when he realized that dreams are nothing but dreams.

And they sit there in silence, he stroking her soft hair gently. Silence, because she can't break the silence, not alone, and silence, because he can't give her his heart when he knows that she can't accept.

Not the heir of the clan, and not tonight.

Then, the chime rings, and she knows she needs to go, and he lets her go.

And she whispers, "Goodbye," in that soft, hesitant voice of hers, and she stands up and he lets her, watching her kimono, black and white and violet, perfectly suiting her, the folds brushing against the chair, swishing softly.

She looks back as she leaves the room, but she doesn't stop. And that was how she leaves him.