Notes

Yusaku/Miyu? Yes, you're reading that right haha. It's a ship I'm still not quite sure if I really ship, but a pair I've thought about since sometime in December - I was thinking about Ai's obvious crush on Aqua, and it lead me to think about Yusaku/Miyu, since you know. Origin children and all that. So here's a little, extremely self indulgent drabble! We know nothing about Miyu's current personality in canon, so I took obvious liberties here. I used my own feelings on things I've been through as a basis for Miyu's here. That being said, the romance is very, very small, so if you'd rather read this as a friendship fic feel free to do so! Hope y'all enjoy in any case!

"I don't understand how you do it," Yusaku said after a long silence stretched before them. He didn't preface it with anything, but he knew he wouldn't need to. Despite her cheerful, airheaded exterior, Miyu was an observant girl.

She shrugged in response from her spot on the computer desk, eyes not looking at him as he clacked away on his keyboard. "It's not that I don't think about it," she started, her legs swinging absentmindedly. "I think about it quite a lot, actually."

He looked up then, though not closing his laptop. "How, then?"

It was a question on his mind ever since she had come into their lives. She was a victim of the Lost Incident, too - but even more than that, she had been put into a coma because of Lightning and Windy. Miyu had suffered considerably, just as they all had, but she never seemed to show it.

Miyu hummed, and turned to face him fully. "Well, it's honestly because… what's the point?" She asked him in return. "We lived through it, by some miracle - all of it. We're here now, and that's something we should be thankful for. But," she said, giving him a small smile, "it took me a long time to start living that way."

"We have to live with it forever, though."

"We do," she agreed, "but don't you think that means we can do something good because of it? Like, you and I, we understand things differently now because of what happened to us."

It wasn't the answer he was expecting, but Yusaku supposed he could understand it. It was… very much like her, if he was being honest with himself. She was much stronger than outsiders gave her credit for.

"Part of the reason I'm able to live like that," she continued, not at all put off by his unresponsive nature, "is because I have people like Aoi and Ryoken and you, here, to help me when things get hard."

Yusaku blinked. They weren't terribly close, not in the way that she and Aoi were, but he supposed over the past few months he had grown to consider her… he had always hesitated to use the word friend, with anybody - but he could not think of another word he could use, to describe her place in his life. She had, just as the other Lost Children had, become someone he wanted in his life.

"But, you know!" She grinned at him, hopping off the desk. "I'm still learning, too. And you know what?"

"What?" His response was automatic, and Miyu looked delighted by the fact.

"That's normal!" She looked at him, then, in a way that made his stomach do an odd little flip flop. "No matter what people have dealt with, I think life is a learning experience. People like you and me," she gestured between the two of them widely, "just have a little more to learn, I guess."

Yusaku awarded her with a rare, small smile, before returning to his laptop screen. Something he did appreciate about Miyu was how she didn't mind any of his mannerisms - she took everything in stride. "Thank you," he said, almost as an afterthought. Just like the beginning of the conversation, he didn't specify what he was thanking her for, but he was sure she understood all the same.

She beamed at him, before heading to the door of the van. "See you tomorrow, Yusaku!"

"See you tomorrow, Miyu."