Lies
He lies all the time.
Sweet lies. Smooth lies. Easy like a smile that rolls under his tongue like chocolate.
He likes what the lies do. The pretty pictures they make in people's eyes.
He lies to anyone, to nobodies, to everyone.
He lies to Subaru.
Subaru believes every lies, and they wash over him in waves of sorrow sweeping the seashore.
Every time he comes to see him, he makes another lie, another story, another non explanation. A thousand of alternatives, none of them real, but Subaru believes them so they become true, for a night.
He doesn't believe his own lies. He's not that desperate.
Sometimes he wonders how things would have been if he had been better at believing his own lies.