#older!ko

Idk, I got bored and I wanted to design my own version of older Kaio! (Note: I refer to post finale KO as Kaio, pre-finale KO as KO and TKO and PKO accordingly)

~Aqua

TKO

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Forty-four days.

He knew because he counted every single sunset, haunted by the guilt of a particularly bad separation they'd had on his last night here. It wasn't as if it'd been an eventful one, just... terribly unceremonious. Forty-four nights ago, Kohaku embarked quietly, not wanting to make a fuss this time. Regrettably, he didn't give her the chance to fight or say good bye, thinking he'd be back sooner.

And yet Kohaku had been gone forty-four miserable days.

Idiot.

Fourteen days more than his previously longest journey away from the small village. Guiltily, he'd done his usual routine, leaving Rin's hut for last. He hoped making that much clear would somehow remedy things, make up for the wrong he committed, but that much was a stretch and he knew it.

Yet Kohaku was still taken aback by Rin's response to his reappearance. Spoiled rotten by the warmth and love she usually showed him, of course it still stung to be turned away from. He still couldn't blame her. Mind reeled back to all the times she'd begged him to stay and all the subsequent moments of insisting she come with him, the taijiya knew all along that this dilemma would reach its peak one day. It was bound to happen sooner or later, Kohaku. Doesn't mean he had to like it.

"Rin... I'm sorry," he started.

"… maybe."

     ”I… know a road, but it might be easier if I just bring you there. It’s easy to get lost if you’ve never been up that way before…”