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In a rare expression, Kuon actually cringed. Ah... he'd confided that story to her privately, and he probably didn't want to tell it all over again.

Much less to a teenager.

"It reminded you of Rumi, huh... you could have told her you weren't going to talk about that, Takuto. You shouldn't let some teenager pressure you into opening up."

"She's a teenager forever, you know?" he replies back- eventhough he knows this whole situation was just. Bad. Awful. He shouldn't have opened up at all...much less.

"She caught me rambling to myself," he clarifies. "I didn’t...I didn't want to tell her everything but- she's lost loved ones too. Ones she wished for at the shrine with me."

"I thought...maybe it would make her feel less alone. She's been so honest with me so far."

Not to mention the fact that he was still keeping things for her. It felt so close to how things had happened with him and Akira-kun.

Too soft... poor thing. She knew that Takuto couldn't handle turning a blind eye to someone else, especially someone in such a dramatically sad state.

"I'm guessing it didn't resonate with her?" Kuon asked, gently cupping Takuto's cheek as he spoke, stroking it gently as she listened carefully.

The hand on his cheek shouldn't be unexpected but it makes his gaze flicker to a torn look, for the briefest moment. The dam was filling up slowly and the waterworks were threatening to overwhelm him.

"We couldn't have been any different," he rasped. "She's...so naive. She thinks I should be sad at the fact that Rumi has no idea how loved she was that's-!"

"I tried. I tried so many months as I brought up her family. Any type of connection to the past that would bring her relief but it just- doesn't work like that! Everyone here thinks they can battle their problems out. That's fictional! Needless! Rumi was saved...shouldn't that matter the most?"

As Takuto became emotional, Kuon put her full effort into listening, and thinking about his words.

"Sad that Rumi doesn't remember how loved she was... hmm."

She touched her chin in thought, but kept cradling Takuto's cheek with the other hand. Why would such a thing be so sad...? Being sad about being forgotten sounds normal, but being sad that someone had forgotten someone else...? Empathy seemed like such a curse.

"I see... maybe it has more to do with the fact that Hamuko-chan is dead," she speculated. Gently, she lowered her hand from her face and brushed back Takuto's hair softly. "She might be projecting - after all, to her, all she has left is that her loved ones might remember her, even though she's gone. They say your final death is the very last time anyone says your name, after all."

"...See, if she were asking if you were sad for longing for her, that would make more sense to me," Kuon said, adopting a soft tone. "Because of course you would be - that's the normal response."

~~That's why people found her so abnormal, when her parents...~~

"And clearly you can't change that feeling. But having that feeling doesn't mean you can't also be glad that Rumi isn't suffering - people hold contradictory feelings and thoughts all the time, don't they?"

"She was worried about that too," he adds even as he feels himself clinging to Kuon, desperately so even as he felt greatly spoiled by having her comfort him like this.

It was strange, living with the fact that someone stood by him regardless of the sacrifices he was and was willing to make.

He nods mutely.

"It contradicts...but my heart is still delighted that she can keep going on happily," he admitted freely.

"Wish that's how things had ended..."

"Hmm...? Did something else happen, in that conversation?" Kuon asked, not minding his clinging - she rested her arm over his shoulder and pet at his hair, studying his face as she gave him undivided attention.

Suicidal.

She thinks I am suicidal.

Still, that's...he can’t say that to her. Regardless of what Hamuko’s intentions were he couldn't just out that. Even to Kuon.

He shook his head, sighing to himself. "Am I...self-destructive? Kuon?"

"Yes," Kuon answered, without even a moment's hesitation. Without even a flinch or pause as she stroked his hair. "Your act in surrendering your life with Rumi was a clear example. And you carve from yourself in your actions towards others in pain. Like you are one of those roasted meats, you shave yourself thinner and thinner to nourish those starving around you."

She doesn't really even say it derisively... not with praise... it simply is. That's how Takuto is.

"My own selfish enjoyment of your company aside, it's why I've decided to stay by your side - to help you build back up, to show you your accomplishments, remind you to take pride in yourself thus far. So long as I can be that for you, I will."

...!

His eyes widen a little at the clear admittance but his expression sobers right after, a flash of amusement in his eyes as he takes in Kuon's words.

And her metaphor. Way to remind him he skipped dinner a few hours ago, Kuon.
Still.
Is that really a bad thing? The world needs support. It needs unbiased judgement and help. Is it so bad when he can give up the cost ten fold, regardless of his own feelings or the memories with the other person.

Kuon...

Edited 2025-09-24 17:08 (UTC)

He smiles.

"Point me at the ledge before I decide to take the fall, huh?"

"Hmmm... more like... ah! Yes, more like a bungee cable. Pulling you right back up after you take the fall for someone," Kuon offered, in counter, sounding very pleased with herself for what she felt was an apt metaphor.

"Look at you go, literature analyst," he chuckles lightly.

"But yeah I...I like that. I am glad I have you by my side."

For now.

For he knows she wouldn't just be happy by his side. For he knows there might be a time where she would want to be liberated from her pains too.

"And I think I know what to do next with Hamuko's dreams."

"Think it'll take her mind off of your hurt? I don't know... you two have been bonding over what deeply empathetic people you are, she might not be that easy to shake," Kuon chuckled in turn, pausing to kiss his hair.

"Actually, what did you say when she suggested that you're self-destructive?"

"She isn't. "

Hamuko is so many things. Things he respects. Things he scoffs at. Things he wishes he could change. Things he wishes she stopped glamorising like her naive belief in humanity even when there's tol many cases of pain only propagating because of the human heart.

At her question, feeling the ghostly feeling of her lips against his forehead, his smile turned sad.

"She said far worse," he admitted. "Things that...she used to feel and think about. Things she thinks she sees in me."

He leans forward, swiftly moving his leg between them so he can shift position. Lying on top of her. Holding her close like this. His. For however long or short their time here with me.

"But I don't have to worry about those things right now," he says happily. "Since I have you. As long as you are here...with me, I don't have to think about what she said."

He looks down at her, straddling her carefully. "I don't have to think about how...easy it is to sometimes think that all I find myself end up doing is hurt people."

She embraced him, tightly and fondly, as he curled even more tightly into her. Her poor, hurting man...

"People are fragile, and it's so easy to do, even when you're trying to help," she agreed, combing her fingers through his hair. "But you heal, and create, all the same - look at your beautiful daughter. She will also always be the pure proof that you create such beautiful, wonderful things. She'll be by your side, too, and beyond - making people happy. Take comfort in that. Take pride in that."

Love... it's a far deeper well than anyone thinks.

His heart soared a little by her words. Words that he couldn't even imagine recieving from last year where he had to live with scorn and distrust. To have such a beautiful, sharp and caring woman by his side- there was really nothing more he could have asked and wished for her in his long trenching path to humanity's salvation.

Eve...

"Our beautiful daughter," he quietly added- looking at her with a quiet softness in his eyes as he lowered down to kiss under her chin. "Thank you...for giving me the chance to create alongside you."

"I am proud to have made it possible," Kuon lightly laughed at the kiss, hugging his shoulders fondly. It really is too bad that they'll inevitably part, when pulled away from here, but... "I will always be a phone call away. And... I'm sending Ancile with you, when you go back. She can be there to remind you of your potential... and to live with you in your godly immortality. A little part of me for you to keep with you in defiance of the boundaries of time and space."

Godly immortality, he chuckled lightly against her skin, giddy by the idea of it now that he was really here in her arms. "I will be honoured to have a piece of you with me," he claims while continuing to kiss along the slope of her neck. "Igor-san and his attendants for all their resistance couldn't have possibly fathomed what we came up with-! It almost made me think of my own ex-professor back home...hah. The look on their faces."

"A little rebellion of our own, correct?"

"Exactly! And she is an absolute sweetheart, wouldn't hurt a fly - take that, Mary Shelley!" Kuon laughed along with him, enjoying the idea that they really did buck the natural order and were right.

She loved the feel of his lips on her neck, the giddy little laughs, the distance from that suicidal sadness...

The world couldn't have comprehended it even if it tried to but that's the beauty of their relationship, isn't it? Not quite friendship...not quite romantic...

Planktonic. In its own unique way.

Still. He wasn't essentially in the mood to go fully further yet so he stopped close to pulling at the very collar where the turtleneck started. Staring at her quietly for a moment, his gaze shifted to the side. "I hope the Maruki in your world gives you good company too," he says. "If he hasn't conceded."

She figured he'd be too tired or low to really have the heart to get intimate - that didn't bother her. So long as he was smiling and finding something to enjoy, that was good enough.

"The Maruki in my world? Hmm... well, maybe he never got anywhere because he is still happily doting on his fiance," she shrugged in thought, "or perhaps he is as much of a failure as the one that twisted Morning. Maybe he simply never got blessed with Azathoth and so we'll never meet. Or maybe he's just like you. No matter what... you'll be my favorite one. So you don't have to get jealous."

He chuckles lightly at her hypothesis. A world where he got to live a happy-ever-after with Rumi...wouldn't that have been something? If he wasn't...blessed to play such an important hand for humanity, even if it meant his wounds had been slashed in deep.

"I have no reason to be jealous," He easily admitted while leaning forward to bump his nose against hers with a little giggle. "I just...I want my doll to be taken care of. If you are the bungee rope, I want to be your reassurance that you won't crack."

"This research...has to go through. And you make it possible through your words and actions. That Maruki would be lucky to have you."

"Oh, don't you think that would get you out of the obligation to call me once in a while. Godhood or not, I know you'll be able to operate your phone from here - if what the others say is true, we should stay connected."

All of that, so soon after talk of 'self destructive' behavior? Tsk, even SHE picked up on that, Takuto.

"I want updates! Pictures of you and Ancile out and about! Pictures of your paradise! And I'll send you what EMMA and I accomplish."

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