Author's Note: first of all, sorry! I know I promised last time that I'm planning on finishing this story with just one more chapter but I just couldn't!
There's too much to write and I just couldn't cram it all in one single chapter (my chapters are already long enough as it is; if I released a double-length one, people will most certainly cry out!). As such, please endure this a little longer! Next chapter will be the last one, for real this time!
And yes, I still have more story to tell; I thought it wouldn't be that much but I remembered now that I have a lot of loose ends that I must tie and, as such, the fluff will have to wait for just another chapter! Sorry!
For readers: I changed the rating from T to M, due to the copious amounts of cursing in the previous chapters. I thought about rewriting the chapters to not have them but, given the amounts of child abuse, discrimination, suggestions of xenophobia and Enju's dad being decapitated, I think it'd be more appropriate to just rate this as being for Mature audiences exclusively. I knew from the very start that I would have had all of these elements in my story but I originally thought, two years ago, that I could get away with it if I just had no explicit sex scenes in my story at all. And while that remains to be true and there won't be sexual content on my story, I think I'm stretching the T rating a bit too far with the dark theme! Had this been a movie script, it definitely wouldn't be a PG-13 film, I feel. As such, I'm changing this to what you see today!
~Hospital rooftop~
Kisara: "Enju….what exactly is the nature of your relationship with Rentarō?" she inquired in a very serious tone of voice, the usual voice that she uses whenever she gives her and Rentarō new assignments at work.
Given the location and the circumstances, this was a very odd subject to bring up. It felt completely out of nowhere but, when Enju recalled what Rentarō had done to her and what he had proclaimed back at the processing plant right in front of her and her father, it began to make a bit more sense that Kisara was becoming inquisitive about their relationship all of a sudden.
Enju: "Isn't it obvious? He's my fiance!" she proudly tried to deflect this topic entirely by using humor, a tactic she had learned from her Promoter in the past whenever Kisara would become a bit too serious for his liking. It was usually counterproductive but it still worked on the short term.
However, Kisara did not honor her attempt at a joke with a reply as silence began to set in between the two, an indicator that she wasn't about to accept that answer as adequate and was still waiting for the real one.
Enju gulped, uncomfortably.
Enju: "Why am I sweating all of a sudden?" she asked herself, beginning to feel sudden and unwelcome pressure on herself.
In the end, she was with Kisara, a close friend. And she knew that she shouldn't feel threatened or in any danger from her. However, the issue was that this was a very difficult question to answer without generating any misunderstandings, particularly because of the way Rentarō had behaved and the ideas that he had helped in creating with the proclamation of his desire to marry her.
Now, Enju was in the awkward position of having to explain the truth in a way that still confirmed what Rentarō had done but also in a way that wouldn't give the wrong impressions and cause more drama down the road. And that was just not something easy to do.
Enju: "It's…..complicated" she began to finally explain the situation, although stumbling over her own words a bit and trying to think of a proper way of expressing her honest thoughts. "I guess the official answer that I should give is that he's my Promoter….and nothing more!" again, she tried to use a very conservative explanation to this just to see if she could get away from a truly unpleasant conversation that threatened to follow but, to her chagrin, Kisara was not going to let it go just at that.
Kisara: "And what is the unofficial answer, then?" she continued to press on, without any hesitation, dead set on finding out the truth.
A pause followed, as Enju was still organizing her thoughts.
This was more difficult than she had expected.
She would have liked to just continue to say that their relationship had always been platonic but, given the evolution that had occurred the past couple of days, with Rentarō having even exclaimed intentions of marrying her, it suddenly dawned on her that she wasn't going to get away with these types of dismissive answers. Kisara was obviously perturbed by what had happened and she wanted explanations.
And since Rentarō wasn't there to give her his own, it was now Enju's turn to explain their relationship.
Enju: "(sigh) Well, I always thought of him as family. And, even though I joked about it in the past, I kind of always wanted to think of him as my fiance, for real!" cornered and without any other avenue out, she decided to simply be blunt and stop pretending or trying to change the topic. Whatever will happen will happen and, as the situation was finally calling for it, she accepted that this was now the moment for her to finally have a woman to woman talk about Rentarō with Kisara. This was something she had been considering to have for some time and now she was about to take advantage of this to tell her what she actually felt about the boy.
Kisara: "I always thought that you two were just messing around when you kept up with this play of yours. That is, until Rentarō just yelled that he was ready to marry you to your father….then I genuinely began to realize that you weren't just fooling around!" she followed, letting Enju know of how surprised she had been at that moment.
Enju: "No! Actually, we were indeed just fooling around, or that's what I believed Rentarō had always seen it as! But then, when he actually said what he did to my father, even I was surprised. I didn't expect for him to do that! I didn't think he ever took it seriously…." despite the beautiful scenery of the city in front of them, they were not focused entirely on their discussion.
Kisara raised her left eyebrow.
Kisara: "And the kiss? I've never seen Rentarō kiss anyone before, not even on the cheek, much less on the lips! And yet, despite his inexperience, he didn't seem that hesitant with you back then!" Enju gulped again, very nervous.
Enju: "She...got us!" she mentally noted, her heart beginning to beat faster at that.
Rentarō always tried to hide the fact that he had lost his first kiss in the past and, given that Enju was also a partner in that crime, she also tried to keep it buried. Now, however, the cat was out of the bag.
Enju: "W-well, that's...uhh" she was at a loss. Kisara had just said something that would be extremely difficult for her to deny. "Uhh...well….he's…." she began mumbling senselessly, running whatever lies she could come up with through her head to try to see how plausible they sounded.
Kisara: "This wasn't the first kiss you two shared, was it? You did this before, didn't you? Like, maybe at your birthday party?" she brought it out so suddenly and unexpectedly that Enju, for a moment, genuinely considered that Kisara had read her mind.
Enju: "Wait….you knew?!" and like any naive child, she gave away the truth just from her reactions, only confirming Kisara's hypothesis.
Kisara: "No….I just considered it as a possibility. Back then, it never even crossed my mind! I only began to realize it back at the Varanium plant when Rentarō told you that you shouldn't complain about sudden kisses! That made me wonder if you already did that to him too at some point, against his will! And, when trying to think up scenarios about that, I realized that there was one point in the past during which I could think that that might have happened! And it was during your party, when he screamed! I remember rushing to him and finding him with drool dripping off his face! I knew it was weird but I originally thought that he simply yelled very hard and that was the cause for that! I didn't think too much of it. I guess, I was obviously wrong…." for someone as clueless as she had been up until that point, Kisara proved to be way more intelligent than Enju had ever given her credit for.
Enju: "Uh…." she was speechless, almost as a kid would be if she was caught with her hand in the cookie jar by her mad parents. "W-well, I….I can explain…" again, she tried to think of a good explanation to defend herself with but she just couldn't. This was a lost argument from the very beginning.
Kisara: "That's when you stole his first kiss….wasn't it?" it was over. No amount of lying was going to get her out of this.
Enju: "Yes….I stole his first kiss back then" she finally admitted, a bit ashamed by what she had done. "I tricked him into crawling under the bed with me, under the pretense of helping me get my phone and then I moved in and sucked a kiss out of him! He didn't have the time to get away! He….didn't really like that!" after this much time, she confessed to her sins, making Kisara sigh at this revelation.
Kisara had suspected that Rentarō would have tried to cover it up after that, which explained his clumsy explanation back then. Which left it now at only one question:
Kisara: "Why….did you do that?" knowing the truth now, Kisara moved on to find out the motive.
Enju inhaled deeply, preparing to explain her feelings.
Enju: "Because….I got mad that he was paying too much attention to you during my birthday! And, also, that was only a couple of days after he had confessed to me!" she dropped the bomb, as Kisara's eyes widened.
Kisara: "Wait! He did what?!" the teenager was left speechless, her having predicted most of their conversation beforehand except for that last part; that last part was enough to make her freeze completely as it sounded so out of character for Rentarō that it just didn't mesh well with her mental image of the boy at all.
Enju: "It's not what you think! He didn't actually confess….well, not in a romantic way that is! He just said that he loved me and gifted a small box while telling that he wants me to always stay by his side! I mistook that as a confession and as his invitation for engagement! Naturally, I was really let down when I realized that it was just an ordinary birthday gift!" immediately after having said that, Kisara felt a sudden moment of relief when acknowledging that her employee was not entirely at fault for that situation, well, not in an intentional way anyway.
Kisara: "(sigh) Why am I not surprised? Rentarō is really tone deaf sometimes, especially when it comes to women! He always says stuff that could easily lead to misunderstandings without even realizing it! He did that with me so many times in the past too!" she genuinely sounded annoyed, although Enju was finally happy that they finally got back to common ground again.
Enju: "I know, right? He said it almost with the same seriousness that actors in romantic comedies profess their love with! How was I supposed to know the difference?!" she also gave away where those ideas of hers had come from in the first place as well.
Kisara: "Yeah. There was this one time in which he asked me out to a restaurant when we were younger! And it wasn't an inexpensive restaurant either, it was the type that couples usually went to only during their anniversaries together!" she began to share a personal story. "Evidently I took it to mean that he wanted us to go on a date together! But when we got there, he told me that we were just going to climb on the rooftop to look for Gastrea in the city to sound the alarm early on, if the city was to be attacked out of nowhere! He said that he had already talked with the owner of the restaurant to allow us to do that!" as soon as she finished saying that, Enju began laughing childishly at that, this sounding so much like something her Promoter would do.
Enju: "And? What did you do?" now that the mood had finally relaxed, Enju began to feel comfortable enough to start inquiring her own questions about Kisara's own life.
Kisara: "I kindly asked him to close his eyes when we got on the roof! I tried to lean in towards him to make it look like I was about to kiss him!" now Kisara had also felt happy enough to not have any inhibitions when narrating all of this.
Kisara: "He did just that! And just when he thought we were gonna kiss, I slapped him so hard he lost his balance and fell down! I then left him there by himself while he was yelling at me from behind!" now that Enju thought about it, had Rentarō had done that with her, she genuinely believed that she would have responded in exactly the same manner.
Kisara: "Apparently that wasn't enough to knock any sense into him though! I'm sorry he did that to you too! He's a very clueless man…" somehow, even though this was pretty pathetic, Enju and Kisara had bonded a bit more then than they had ever bonded before. It felt comforting to open up like that to each other.
Enju: "Yeah….he is…." she then trailed off, unsure of whether she should continue with their previous conversation on that topic. It was already awkward as it was and she didn't feel like continuing.
Kisara: "But….do you really like him that way though? As in, do you like him like a…." she didn't know how to complete that sentence but Enju already got the idea.
Enju: "Romantically? Yes, as a woman, I do like him! Or, I should rather say that I love him! And, ever since that day, I've been trying really hard to make Rentarō like me back in the same way! I've been working so hard to change his view towards me!" seeing how Kisara was still insisting on finding out the truth, Enju continued.
Kisara: "Enju….you're still young! And he's an idiot! Obviously all of this is his fault for making you think like you love him! But you shouldn't give him the time of day and just move on! What he did was a mistake! And knowing how stubborn he is, he probably won't change his mi-…" but then she remembered his confession to her father back then and stopped. Enju was also aware of that and understood why she had paused.
Enju: "I know! I also thought that he wasn't interested in me in that way! He always made it obvious that he didn't think of me any more than a little sister! But I, obviously, wasn't going to settle just with that and that's why I kept on pestering him with our little 'engagement' make-believe!" she made air quotes when saying that word. Kisara smirked at that, understanding that reasoning and finding it a bit funny herself now that she knew the context behind that.
Enju: "However….when he finally yelled that he was ready to marry me to my dad, I began to question everything too. I didn't know how to respond and it finally dawned on me that, maybe, I actually stood a chance at winning him over, like I always wanted! It was such a wonderful thing that my heart felt like it was going to explode!" now, the discussion was turning into a serious one once again, which began to cause concern for Kisara.
Kisara: "Enju….the reason Rentarō said what he did to your father was just to prove a point! He's a very passionate man about his ideals and I'm worried that he might have promised something which he wasn't ready fo-…."
Enju: "I KNOW!" the girl suddenly yelled, cutting Kisara off. "I know that he didn't mean anything that he said! He just wants me to be happy, that's his only wish! I know that, trust me! He would be willing to sacrifice his own life away for my sake, if that meant proving to my father that I still had a chance at a normal existence! His promise….was not because he loved me as a future wife! It was because he loved me as family!" she spelled out exactly Kisara's own thoughts.
Kisara: "Exactly! It would be unfair to force him to follow up on his promise because of that! He's….not ready to make that type of commitment yet, especially because of those circumstances. And, I'm sorry if I'm too blunt here, but I don't think you're ready either!" she tried to reason quite logically, although she had reached the point in which her and Enju's views finally diverged.
Enju: "No…." she replied very simply, letting the teen know that she was in disagreement with her. "You're right that it might be wrong for me to force him to follow through with what he said! I don't plan to do that!" she surprised Kisara suddenly with the maturity that she was displaying. "But, I'm not about to give up on him either, yet! My feelings for him are true, I know that for a fact! And nothing that you'll say or anything that he'll do will ever change that! I love him, I want him to be my husband and I'll fight with all my might until I'll make him change his mind about me and will make him want to marry me on his own accord, without any push from anyone!" Kisara was was taken aback at that affirmation, since it didn't feel like the type of childish delusion that a kid would say, as it should have felt like. No, it felt like the genuine feelings that a woman in love would exclaim, unapologetically, to her rival. It made Kisara feel particularly conscious of the fact that Enju was now her competitor in winning over the same man.
Kisara: "Why does my love rival have to be a ten year old?! Dammit, Rentarō!" she repressed the urge to say that out loud, out of respect for Enju, although she did proceed to curse the boy mentally for this turn of events.
Kisara: "Enju….you're not ready to say that! You've got a whole life ahead of you!" she tried to be nice and dissuade the girl from a commitment that she might later regret, although now it was Enju's turn to be stoic.
Enju: "I may be young, Kisara-san, but I've lived almost my entire life knowing that the next day could very well be my last! For me, 'my entire life' doesn't have the same meaning as it does for you! I can't plan for the long term and, as such, I learned to live to never wait for good things to happen to me; instead, I should be the one to seek them out myself! Maybe that makes me selfish, but frankly speaking, I don't care! I'm not going to give up on Rentarō just because he doesn't have romantic feelings for me yet, nor because he's way older than me! And if that means I'll have to work many years until I'll get to force him to change his mind about me, then so be it! As long as I'll live, I'll work towards that goal!" Kisara was genuinely impressed, her not having expected this amount of dedication from Enju. It felt so incredibly random.
Kisara: "(sigh) I guess there's nothing that I can say that's going to change your mind, is there?" she knew, deep down in her heart, that that would be the case. After all, she understood how Enju felt, as she herself was infatuated with the same man, although for entirely different reasons.
Enju: "No!" she immediately closed the door on that, firmly letting her know that she wasn't willing to negotiate on this.
Kisara: "I thought as much!" the teen then pulled out of her pocket an envelope. "Please have this! It's from Rentarō!" she exclaimed, Enju taking it in her hands and not sure what she was about to read.
Enju: "From…Rentarō?" she was at a loss for words, not understanding the purpose for that.
Kisara: "A couple of days ago, before we got to meet with your father, Rentarō was about to go to prison for having failed to kill you in time! Had Seitenshi-sama not been there to pardon him, he would have ended behind bars for almost a decade for what he did!" she revealed the mess that they had been enduring while Enju had been away, for the first time.
Enju: "Wow…" was all she could add to that piece of news, unsurprisingly.
Kisara: "Preparing for it, Rentarō had written this for you, in case we were to find you after he would be incarcerated! He asked me to give it to you! I know this doesn't make sense anymore since, as I've already said, he won't be going to prison after all but, I still think you should read it!" understanding the context now, Enju ripped the envelope open and began reading it in earnest. Despite being right behind her, holding onto the wheelchair, Kisara averted her eyes from the letter, out of respect for Enju's and Rentarō's relationship.
After a while, Enju's eyes began watering at the contents of the letter, as she was finally digesting the feelings that the boy had left behind for her, were they to never meet again. What was written on it broke her heart.
Enju: "Did….did you read this?" she asked while weeping horribly.
Kisara: "No….he asked for you to be the only one to read it! I didn't even try to! It wouldn't be right!" she explained, as Enju wiped her tears off her face, trying to save face.
Enju: "I….really hope he gets well! I don't know how I'll react if his condition worsens!" after confirming her feelings for the boy, Kisara was sure Enju would be devastated, were that to happen. Hell, she herself would most likely be ruined as well.
Kisara: "The doctors assured me that this is unlikely! But I'll keep watch over him to make sure that never happens, just in case!" she tried to act as a big sister to her, trying to calm her confidently. "He's in good hands, don't worry! This might come as a surprise to you but I like him too! Maybe not as much as to be ready to marry him, like you seem to be…" she blushed a bit when saying this, surprised at the sudden bout of shyness she had in front of this child. "...but I do love him in a romantic way too! I trust that you'll keep this just between the two of us! You know, as girl secrets!" she tried to play this off as something lighthearted, even though Enju was a bit more pragmatic about this for a different reason.
Enju: "I suspected as much! And….he kind of…..likes you, too!" she really hated saying this to her current rival but she considered that it was only fair for her to learn about Rentarō's own secret too.
Kisara's eyes widened at that, as realization was finally setting in for something that, Enju thought, should have been obvious.
Kisara: "Wait, he likes me back?! Are you sure about this?!" suddenly Kisara was the one acting all flustered now, hilariously enough.
Enju: "Yeah….I guess he just likes big breasts!" suddenly the girl seemed to have turned jealous, shifting her tone from a friendly one to a serious but insecure one. "He's always tried to deny it but I'm pretty sure that he has a thing for you! I was supposed to keep this a secret but, since we're now rivals, I suppose, I think it's only fair for you to know about the situation!" the cute bonding moment that they were having suddenly turned into a very sober and tense one, as the girls became aware of how awkward and complicated this was for both of them.
Kisara: "I….." she was astounded by how much she learned that day about Rentarō. Naturally, now she had her own set of questions but, when she thought about it, she realized it would only be inappropriate to press Enju for answers for them, as this was about her own relationship with the boy. This wasn't the proper moment nor the place for her to do this. "I see…." was what she finished that with.
Enju felt a bad taste in her mouth for saying this but Kisara had been nice to her and did end up giving her the envelope that Rentarō had intended for her, so it was only cordial, as a rival, to do something nice back in return.
Enju: "But, just so we're clear: I'm not giving up on him! I'll fight for his affection till my dying breath! After all, small breasts have their own benefits too!" she was obsessing over that particular subject for some reason, although Kisara decided it was best not to ask any questions, lest she be inviting an even more unpleasant hour of nonsense back and forth.
Kisara: "I know that you're not going to give up! I wouldn't have it any other way!" she decided to respond with that instead, as it felt way more honest and less personal. "May the best woman get to win over his heart!" so, now this turned into a contest over who will be capable to win the boy's affection first.
Needless to say this would not bode well for the man in question. Had he been there, he would have obviously tried to intervene.
Kisara: "However…." she suddenly captured the banter back, shifting the tone to a drier and less fun one as she was preparing to become more authoritative with the girl. "….I don't care how pure or honest your feelings for each other are! If I ever hear you two do anything too….mature for someone your age, I will make sure to split you two apart!" she said what she felt was necessary to warn. Enju was, evidently, unhappy at that.
Enju: "That's not fair! Why do you get to be lovey-dovey with him and I don't?!" she tried to interject but, being very responsible, Kisara tried to overrule her protests with authority, this time.
Kisara: "For the record, we never were 'lovey-dovey' with each other, either! And you're free to use whatever tactics you want to win him over! That's your right and it would be unfair for me to intervene, given our rivalry!" she tried to be as reasonable as she could, although still being unrelenting in her overall message. "Still, you're not ready for anything sexual, Enju! I don't know how much you know about this subject but, even if you do love him, I'm not going to allow you two to do something which you will regret later! Even if you claim to be mature enough to love him as a woman, you're definitely not mature enough to be a woman with him! Not yet, anyway!" Enju wanted to glare at her for that comment but refrained, since she felt that this was something that Kisara was obviously not going to back down on. She had a feeling that she needed to stop there, otherwise this would turn very ugly, for both of them.
Enju: "I'll….try to show restraint then…" Kisara knew that Enju was the mastermind behind this 'romantic' relationship she had with Rentarō, a relationship which the boy categorically would have wanted to remain platonic. As such, it was only natural for her to drive the necessary responsibility into Enju, rather than into Rentarō as she was the one that needed that lesson the most.
Enju: "But…." she still showed some form of rebellion even against that insistence. "….I'm reserving my right to kiss him at least! As a woman, I should be able to do that with my lover, at the bare minimum!" she pressed back, with her own stubborn self.
Kisara was about to complain about that mentality but, feeling the insistence behind Enju's own voice, she felt like it would be too much to ask her to refrain from that as well. Also, since she had already taken the boy's first kiss and, also seeing that Rentarō himself had begun to become comfortable enough with that to kiss her back even, it felt like it would be an overstretch of authority to deny them at least that freedom.
Kisara: "(sigh) Fine…..do as you wish! Kissing is not forbidden!" she relinquished at least that restraint, accepting the fact that Enju was at least capable of handling that much, despite her age. "However, the moment I'll see you two smooching in my office, I'll throw you out! I don't need to see that again!", apparently, that was as far as she was willing to concede.
~Tokyo Emergency hospital, room 209, intensive care ward, three days later~
The silence in the room was finally beginning to disappear, when low growling sounds began to be heard from the bed he was sleeping in.
The young man began to finally awaken from his artificially induced sleep, regaining enough consciousness to become aware of his surroundings, for the first time in a long time.
He opened his eyes slowly, complaining mentally about the salty taste in his mouth due to the fact that he had not brushed his teeth in almost a week, nor had he drank any water in that time either, which allowed for the proliferation of a lot of bacteria in his oral cavity.
He turned his eyes to the left of his bed, realizing that there was a familiar feminine figure staring back at him.
Kisara: "Good morning, sleepy head! Finally decided to wake up?" the girl commented cheekily at him, bemused by his astounded expression.
Rentarō: "Where...am I?" came out his voice, very hoarse because of his dry throat.
Realizing what was the cause of this, the girl handed him a glass of cold water that was on a small piece of furniture right next to his bed. She had prepared that in advance, knowing that this would be necessary.
Kisara: "Geez, why is that the first question you guys always ask? Isn't it obvious? You're at the hospital!" he took the glass she had handed him and began to gulp down the refreshingly cold liquid, finally allowing for his oral route to be blessed with the presence of the essential substance.
Rentarō: "Thanks, I needed that!" he replied weakly, before placing the now-empty glass back.
It took him a second but, immediately after that, he felt a sudden icy jolt from his liver to his brain, as the cold water finally made its presence felt in his lower regions.
He groaned very displeased, not having expected such a strong reaction from his body.
Kisara: "Take it easy! And don't worry, that reaction is natural, at least according to the doctors that took care of you!" she began to calm him down, as well, realizing how similar this was to how Enju had also acted when she had woken up as well.
Kisara: "Your liver was cut during surgery to stop the internal bleeding! Right now, the organ is still regenerating! From what I heard, you will have to deal with this pain for some time now whenever you will eat or drink!" that was the worst thing she could have conveyed to him now that he was in such horrible pain.
Rentarō: "G-...great!" he replied sarcastically, realizing how ridiculous that entire situation felt to him. "Am I still in any danger?" naturally, that was the first thing he asked, since that was the most pressing thing he had to worry about.
Kisara: "No….you're stable, at the moment. And even though they had to take out a third of your liver, you should be able to get back in full shape in about half a year, provided, of course, you refrain from too much eating, drinking alcohol or exerting any physical effort until you fully recover!" she tried to repeat to him what she herself had heard from the medical staff there.
The boy grimaced at this very unfortunate news.
Rentarō: "I was fine with it until you got to the 'physical effort' part!" he said, quite annoyed at this piece of information. Kisara chuckled at that.
Kisara: "Well, you'll just have to learn to deal with it! No more heroic deeds from you, Mister I-wanna-marry-your-daughter-san!" she joked lightly as Rentarō's face turned red when realizing what she was referring to.
Rentarō: "That….that was just the way I felt at that moment! You don't have to bring that back up!" he was looking away, timidly, which Kisara noted as being an unusually cute gesture, something she had never seen before from her childhood friend.
Kisara: "Yeah well, you still ended up making a pretty big impression, especially on Enju! The girl will dream about that manly speech for many months to come, Mister Casanova!" the moment the boy heard of her name, he immediately tensed back up.
Rentarō: "How...is she? Is she at this hospital too?" he made the logical conclusion, although he did miss an important aspect of it.
Kisara: "No….not anymore at least. She's been discharged and is currently back at your house, recovering too!" that felt very relieving, considering the fact that she hadn't been in the best of shapes either when they were back at that processing plant. The fact that her father had not managed to injure her too made that entire ordeal worth it for him.
Rentarō: "By herself?" he continued to ask, still not getting it. The female teen rolled her eyes at that stupid question.
Kisara: "No, Tina's taking care of her as we speak! I cooked a week's worth of meals for them, so they should have enough to eat. I also gave them some cash to pay for a couple of deliveries if they felt like eating junk food as well…." that felt a bit irresponsible but the boy wasn't going to argue with her over that. Given what had transpired, Enju did deserve at least this much leeway.
Rentarō calmed back down when hearing this, although the thought of Tina acting like a caregiver did amuse him ever so slightly. Who would have thought that such a thing is possible at all?
Kisara: "She has a fractured shoulder blade that the doctors had to realign properly. Moreover, she suffered heavy blood loss although we did find a donor for her just in time!" she didn't want to reveal the fact that she herself was that donor since it felt pointless to repeat this and it wouldn't have brought anything relevant to that conversation either so she withheld this information.
Rentarō: "I'm glad she's fine. I can't believe I almost allowed her father to stab her too! I should never have let my guard down in the first place!" he vocalized his own regrets. "Given that we were both so close to him, all I could do when he lunged at us was shield her an-…."
Kisara: "It's not your fault, Rentarō!" she didn't expect the need to have to say this but apparently the boy wasn't going to forgive himself for his supposed past mistake. "He should have stayed down, especially after the amount of bullets that Tina's drone shot into him! The issue was that he was wearing a military-grade bulletproof vest under his clothes! Nobody knew this and he took advantage of that by playing dead to allow you two to approach him. He knew he wouldn't get a better chance at striking so he used that to attempt to murder Enju right when she was the most vulnerable!" she remembered everything very vividly, although with obvious distaste.
The boy realized then that this had indeed been inevitable.
Rentarō: "Even with his last breaths, he wanted Enju dead. That man really was desperate…." he couldn't believe such hateful human beings could exist, especially since the victim in question was the perpetrator's own child. This amount of vitriol was genuinely alien and incomprehensible for his own brain.
Kisara: "Yeah. I guess the next thing I should teach Tina is to always aim for the head! Apparently even as a sniper she still forgets about that lesson from time to time. I can't have her make this sort of mistake again in the future!" a bit too late for that but late is still better than never, the boy thought to himself.
Rentarō: "Now….Enju will have to know that both her parents are dead; and also that her father was…." he stopped, refusing to use the word 'insane' as that felt very harsh, albeit truthful. "….so hateful" was the weakest adjective he could conjure up, even though that didn't even come close to faithfully describe Masahiko.
Kisara: "I don't think it'll matter that much to her" she broke his expectations with an odd opinion. "Masahiko had never been there for her in the past! He had always been away from her life and she only got the chance to become acquainted with him just for a few days. Given that she barely got to know him, calling that man her 'father' is very inaccurate, in my opinion. Even if, biologically speaking, that might be the case, he is not, and never was, Enju's family!" that was a rather surprising take of that whole situation.
The boy thought about it for a second, before she continued.
Kisara: "Enju might stay depressed over his death for the next couple of weeks. But I doubt it'll impact her too much! She'll get over it and come back to her real family soon enough…." she then looked up at him once again, right in the eye. "That is….come back to you, Rentarō! I can't really speak for her but, if I had to take a guess, I'd say that you have always been more of a father to her than Masahiko had ever been!" that was a very optimistic way of putting it, although hearing her call him a 'father' brought up a very strange and unpleasant feeling in him.
Rentarō: "I guess that might be the case. But I've always preferred to see myself more like an older brother to her, rather than a father!" he tried to at least make that clear, although Kisara just responded to that with a mischievous smile.
Kisara: "Maybe, but right now she sees you more as a future husband! So, in the end, that's probably what she considers you the most!" he hated how much fun Kisara was having with this whole ordeal. He had expected her to be mad at him for what he had said and done back then but, on the contrary, Kisara seemed to be using this as arsenal for her own brand of teasing. Now, it felt like he was in Sumire's office once again, having a female acquaintance constantly make fun of his supposed love life. Needless to say, he hated that profusely.
Rentarō: "Yeah…..I guess she would think that after what I said, wouldn't she?" instead of trying to play it off, as Kisara would have expected him to do, he just emphasized on that fact and began to groom over it, realizing how awkward his and Enju's next meeting with each other would be.
Honestly, he resented the idea that now they had to meet again after that weird exchange.
Kisara: "By the way, Rentarō, I had a small discussion with Enju before she was discharged. She….told me about your secret little relationship with her…." his heart skipped a beat.
Suddenly, sweat began to form all over his body, as his eyes widened more than he even thought for them to be possible, ending up with a pretty scary-looking face.
Rentarō: "Sh-she did what now?" he was screwed.
Kisara wasn't even smiling anymore, looking back at him with a stern look.
He was not prepared for what was to come.
Rentarō: "I….I can explain!" feeling like a criminal that was caught in the act, he immediately began to think up anything that he could to defend himself with, only further alarming the person next to him.
Kisara: "(sigh) Look, I know the truth! And I know that you're not to blame for what happened…..although I would wish you'd trust me more and not just hide the fact that she forced a kiss on you! You didn't need to find excuses for something as petty as that!" she tried to scold him, making Rentarō realize the full extent of what she had found out from the girl.
Rentarō: "If I told you that what I had over my mouth back then was her saliva, and if what came after was my word against hers over who initiated the kiss, would you have trusted my version of the story or hers?" he glared back at her, making her realize why he had lied like that.
Kisara then understood the problem and began playing with her fingers, feeling a bit guilty when coming to the conclusion that Rentarō had made a good point.
Kisara: "Well, when you put it like that…..I might have indeed sided with her…." she admitted, as the boy just nodded at that with a confident look on his face. "...S-still, it's your fault for having allowed her to trick you like that! You're a grown adult, Rentarō! You should have known better!" she somehow still found a way to shift the blame back at him, amazingly enough.
Kisara: "Besides, it's your fault for making her misunderstand your gift for her back then as an engagement ring! You were the one that started all of this!" she still didn't let go of the accusations as she continued to point her index finger at him angrily.
Rentarō: "I….I was just following Sumire-sensei's advice for-…." he stopped when realizing how stupid it was for him to say what he wanted to say. Kisara then stared at him, realizing how he must have wanted to finish that sentence, before giving him a disappointed look.
Kisara: "Did you really go to Sumire-sensei for advice about women?" she asked almost rhetorically before the boy almost face palmed himself.
Rentarō: "To be fair….I do realize now how stupid that was of me, back then!" now that they both agreed on this reality, the boy just conceded and accepted the girl's scoldings. He deserved all of them, after all.
Kisara: "You're a hopeless man, Rentarō….And, to make matters worse, you only continued to pour fuel on the fire when you said that you were willing to marry her to her father; with Enju right in your arms at the time, no less!" when bringing out all of that stuff in that specific manner, Rentarō had to agree, everything he had done did indeed seem….a bit reckless.
Rentarō: "(sigh) I might have been a bit too eager to prove her father wrong, admittedly! But I did mean everything I said back then, just so you know!" he finally made up his mind, coming to terms with what he had done and deciding to double down on his previously-stated resolve.
Kisara could only sigh after hearing that.
Kisara: "Well, I can't really say that I dislike this manly side of you! And who you plan to marry is obviously your decision to make, so I'm not going to try to change your mind on that!" she began the sentence in a very specific way, letting him immediately guess that there was a 'however' that was about to come.
Kisara: "However….Enju is still very young and...innocent, for lack of a better word!" the idea that Kisara still considered that girl innocent was a bit disturbing for him but he decided to let that slip. "I'm sure you didn't mean to hurt her when saying what you did but, in the end, you only ended up bringing her hopes up. Now, the girl is bent on really tying the knot with you and it doesn't seem that me, nor anyone else, is capable of changing her mind anymore!" she tried to explain to him, as Rentarō was finally realizing the consequence of his own actions.
Rentarō: "I knew this would happen and I won't be backing down! I don't really love her like that but, in the end, I will follow through with what I said! If she won't find a partner by the time she wants to marry, then I'll keep my promise!" he still stubbornly decided to go with this plan, much to Kisara's chagrin.
Kisara: "You really are an idiot…." she commented very sadly, knowing full well that he was only saying that because he wanted to make Enju happy, not because he really wanted to be her future husband, much like Enju had previously hypothesized herself. It was this sacrifice that felt so unfair to her but, ultimately, it was his decision to make and she knew that.
Kisara: "Well, suite yourself! I can't stop you two from wanting to be together! Just know that if you plan to touch a woman's heart…" she began saying before approaching his left ear to whisper in it. "….you're always supposed to follow through all the way! To be a good man means to never back down midway through! Women, in general, expect commitment!" she then backed away again, as the boy took in what she had told him.
Rentarō: "I'll….keep that in mind…." he liked to think that he meant every word he had said back then, even though this was probably a life-long decision that he was making rather hastily. Still, it was a decision he had to embrace now, as turning back would not bode too well, knowing Enju.
Kisara: "Just know that the girl is more infatuated with you than ever before! And even if you don't like her in that way, just please try to play along from now on, at least partially! She wants to see herself as your partner and, given what happened to her recently, I think she deserves some attention from her….fiance!" she finished that with a warm smile on her face.
Rentarō: "What….are you suggesting?" he gulped audibly again, although Kisara immediately helped him relax back down.
Kisara: "For now, just be honest with her and talk about your feelings! I think that should be a good start, although, honestly, that's not for me to decide! If you want to go through with this 'relationship' of yours" she made the required air quotes at that word "...then that's something for you two to decide, together! It's not my place to say anything!" she respectfully ended that topic there, as Rentarō was trying to consider what she was telling him.
Kisara: "However…." suddenly she took a sinister tone. "Don't take what I just said as a green light for you to do anything ungodly to that poor girl!" finally, the boy felt a murderous intent behind the woman's voice. "I hope you know that if I were to ever hear that you went too far with her, I'm gonna be cutting off your-…."
Rentarō: "I'M NOT PLANNING ON DOING ANYTHING DIRTY WITH HER!" he immediately spelled out exactly the words he knew she wanted to hear from him, just so he could interrupt her before she would get to the gory details. "I promise, I don't have any such intentions!" he tried to force this sinister persona out of Kisara before she would actually do anything less savory to him.
Kisara: "I'm just trying to make sure that we're both on the same page over what's allowed and what's not! As your employer, I need to make sure that you don't do anything stupid…..again…." she underlined the last word, just to make sure he got the picture.
Rentarō: "Yes, Kisara-sama!" the moment he used the '-sama' honorific on her, she knew he was genuinely obedient to her, to an unhealthy degree.
Kisara: "Good! Now that we got that out of the way, I can give you a bit more details over some fresh information about Enju…." she began before pulling out a stack of papers from her purse. They were all medical papers.
Kisara: "I received these test results yesterday after taking a bunch of blood samples from her after that incident with her father! I didn't show these to her because, frankly, I think she needs to hear all of this from none other than you!" she then handed him the papers, letting him read them by himself at his own pace.
The boy didn't understand the intentions for that, him just proceeding to read medical mumbo-jumbo that he had no expertise in understanding. However, even with his lack of a proper background, even he, eventually, could decipher what was written on them, as his honestly surprised expression was giving away to Kisara.
Rentarō: "T-this….can't be…"
~Satomi residence, three days later, 21:20 (9:20 PM)~
Finally, after an incredibly long and obnoxious stay at the hospital during which he had to recover, the teen boy managed to see his home once again, to his delight.
He was still walking around using a cane, to better support his body and not put too much pressure on his abdomen, as his liver was already in a bad shape.
He walked slowly through the front door, preparing to leave his shoes at the entrance, as he usually did.
Rentarō: "I'm home…." he mentally announced, although that was more because of custom rather than anything else, since obviously no one would hear what he was thinking.
He didn't yell for Enju to come greet him since, as he had learned previously from Kisara, the girl should have been in her room now in bed, recovering so, obviously, he wouldn't be expecting her to make an entrance. Instead, he was the one that needed to go visit her.
He made his way slowly to the kitchen, only to find a note left on the fridge from none other than Tina.
He approached it and began reading, to see what she wanted to tell him.
Tina: "Onii-san, I hope you're well when reading this. Kisara-san had an assignment for me and I had to leave early! Sadly I cannot be there to greet you, due to this, although please know that I wish you a swift and painless recovery in the next coming months!" the boy read from that note, as a warm smile began to form on his lips, him still feeling a bit of happiness just from knowing that this girl was acting so kindly to him, despite her usual apparent emotional detachment from literally everything around her.
He ripped the note off the fridge, only to realize that there was another one, hidden right behind the first.
Tina: "Enju is in her room, at the moment! She said that she would go to sleep after I informed her that I had to leave! Please check up on her as soon as you arrive back home! Make sure that she's well! With love, Tina" this was sweet.
Apparently Tina really had an unexpected responsible personality that she had just never got the chance to show to them before. The fact that she had been taking care of Enju up until then was a nice reminder that, even though they were preteen girls, they still had a natural instinct of caring for each other, almost like family.
Rentarō: "Family….huh?" he thought to himself, still maintaining his optimistic smile. It was such a strange feeling considering that the people who had been kind and caring to Enju were also, oddly enough, ones that she had never known before, just mere strangers until they got to bond together. The fact that such people were there for her more than Enju's own family (specifically her father) was a pretty depressing paradox, to say the least.
That girl had a horrible life.
Resolving to at least do what that note was asking him to do, he slowly approached Enju's room without making too much noise, moving his ear against its door to see if he could hear any rustling or movements from the other side. He could hear none.
He was afraid that maybe she was asleep as Tina's note suggested that she would be and, as such, he did not wish to disturb her rest, especially since she was still recovering, surely.
He listened carefully for about a minute, not hearing anything. It was so quiet, it felt very eerie, especially since this was Enju that he was checking up on.
Even though he did not wish to disturb her sleep, he was still having conflicting feelings over whether to barge into her room or not, as, at the end of the day, it had been almost a week since they've seen each other and he probably should at least say 'hello' at the bare minimum.
Still, without the courage to actually open the door, he decided to instead move on and immediately enter his own room to grab a new pair of boxer shorts and a new T-shirt, so that he can finally dispose himself of the old ones that he had been wearing for some time now.
He went inside the bathroom afterwards and took a warm, very refreshing bath to cleanse his body of the unhealthy odors that had been building up that entire time in the hospital.
He was so relieved of having been discharged and of simply being back home, after all the tension and just pure uncertainty that they had to deal with those past weeks, that he felt like he could literally just fall asleep in the bathtub and not wake up for a good couple of days.
Rentarō: "That….would probably not be a good idea…." he joked to himself, realizing how unhealthy it probably would be for him to actually fall asleep and, possibly even, end up drowning in his own house due to negligence. After all the crap that he had to live through, ending up dead because of sleeping while taking a bath would be so comically inappropriate and pathetic that he wouldn't even want to continue thinking about such a scenario.
No, Satomi Rentarō may be a pathetic man, but he was not that pathetic!
After an entire hour of washing his body and scrubbing every single inch of it, he then climbed out of the tub, still forcing himself to cope with the intense pain crawling up to his brain from his liver due to the physical strain and then he moved onto brushing his teeth, to finally cleanse his mouth after such a long break from oral hygiene.
To compensate for that pause in brushing, he went on ahead to brush for even longer than usual, this activity lasting for over ten minutes until he felt refreshed enough to stop.
After taking care of all of these bodily needs, he was happy enough to decide to go to bed as well, in the end.
Still, Enju still lingered at the back of his mind and, when thinking that going to bed while ignoring her and simply not even bothering to visit her would be incredibly rude, he decided to go past her room a final time that night, this time resolving to go a bit further and try to wake her up.
So he did just that, re-approaching the entrance to her room, summoning the courage to confront the child from within.
Rentarō: "Why….am I so nervous all of a sudden? It's just Enju!" he tried to talk himself through, even though he was more anxious than he usually would be.
After everything that had happened recently, he wasn't even sure how to talk with her, whether he should be mad at her for having run away from him for such a long time or whether he should be apologetic to her for having failed to kill her in time. After all, what can a man in his shoes do at this point? She was finally back home for him to confront her again and now he was too nervous to actually talk with her.
Rentarō: "No….I can't leave things as they are! The last thing I need is to risk losing her again! I...need to start talking to her properly!" finally making his mind up on a specific goal, he rose his hand and finally knocked on her door.
Silence followed, which began to worry him.
Seeing how that did not help him much, he knocked once again, this time with more force behind his hand.
Again, no response.
Rentarō: "Enju! Are you awake?" he began to speak with a higher than average volume in his voice, to be loud enough for his words to go through the door and catch her attention.
Sadly for him, this, yet again, failed to reward him with an answer.
With his worry now getting the better of him, he started to panic a little as he moved his hand on the door's handle.
Rentarō: "I'm coming in!" he warned before beginning to turn on it and cracking the door to her room open, to peek inside.
The room was completely silent and dark, something very odd for Enju who had an almost PTSD-level of hatred towards pitch black environments due to her past experience.
Rentarō looked towards the bed, knowing that that was where she had to be lying on. And, thankfully for him, he did find a child-sized bulge on the bed, slowly rising and lowering in accordance to human breathing patterns.
Relieved to find the girl there, the boy let out a sigh, before acknowledging how peaceful she looked while breathing so slowly and changing his mind and finally deciding to postpone his confrontation with her for the next morning.
But, just as he was about to close the door back, he heard her voice:
Enju: "What would you have done?" came her question, completely out of nowhere, shattering his initial expectations that she was just quietly sleeping.
Needless to say, Rentarō jumped a bit when hearing her voice so abruptly.
Rentarō: "W-what? Do what?" taken aback and without any context to help him, naturally he did not know how to answer that seemingly odd question.
Enju: "Back at the processing plant, when you kissed me! What would you have done if I really was infectious and I did end up turning you into a Gastrea because of that! You said it yourself that we shared enough saliva to completely infect you!" she asked very sharply, with no introduction or without even having the courtesy of asking him about his well being.
That left him with the impression that she was obviously mad at him. Well, not that that was unexpected really.
Enju: "What was your plan if that were to happen, Rentarō?" even with all the anger seeping from her voice, him hearing her say his name still brought a nice wave of comfort for some reason.
He thought about an answer to her question for just a bit, before proceeding.
Rentarō: "It wouldn't have mattered! Even if you were infectious, I wasn't in the best place to escape! There was Varanium everywhere that would have weakened my Gastrea self immediately after turning and, even if that wasn't enough to kill me, I had Kisara there to cut me! And, there was also your father there who also seemed very eager to pull the trigger on me too, so I stood little chance of getting out of there alive. And, even if that wasn't enough, Tina and Yuzuki were just outside the facility to-…." fed up with his incessant ramblings, the girl lost her patience and interrupted him, something that seldom happens in their usual dynamic.
Enju: "That's not what I'm asking!" she finally raised her voice high enough for him to immediately know that she was now yelling at him in anger. "I'm asking you: what would you have done to save yourself?" she forced the conversation on what she wanted to hear from him.
Rentarō finally got what she wanted them to talk about, although it greatly displeased him.
Rentarō: "There was nothing I could have done, were that to happen! I had no idea what was in store for me but, in the end, it didn't matter! I took a gamble and I won!" he was fairly confident that she was smart enough to have realized that answer herself, without him having to spell it out loud for her. And, in fact, he was right. Enju was smart enough to know all of this, but she was so amazed at how reckless this was that she still needed to hear him say it with his own words for her to believe it.
Enju: "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" she threw her covers off of herself, letting them fall on the floor next to her bed and ignoring the incredibly jarring pain that had emerged from her shoulder because of her sudden movements. She stared at him with such a huge glare on her face that, the boy was sure, she was about to have a vein pop in her head because of the contorted expression she was making.
Enju: "WHY, RENTARŌ?! WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO YOURSELF?! DON'T YOU REALIZE WHAT POSITIONS WE WERE IN?!" she rhetorically inquired, obviously to force him to regret his own actions.
Rentarō was not one to be that easily put down, though.
Rentarō: "Why? Because, to quote you exactly, 'because I love you, you idiot!'" he calmly replied, very simply and without any shame in his voice when saying these words.
Enju's contorted face turned from that of anger, to one of pain, as tears began to develop in her eyes when hearing that but, still, she was still bravely trying to suppress her desire to cry.
Enju: "You….you don't get to act like a cool boyfriend tonight, Rentarō! You lost that right the moment I turned into a Gastrea!" he grimaced, realizing the direction she was now taking this conversation into. He hated this topic so much but, ultimately, it was something he had to address, now that they were together once again.
Enju: "Don't think I didn't notice! I was still conscious back when I was in that form! And I can remember it all: every single little detail, how you didn't move to stop me even after I changed my shape, how you deliberately were avoiding to shoot me in my vital parts and how, despite burning me, those bullets you were shooting me with were doing nothing to me!" crap, she noticed it.
He would have wanted to pretend that he had no idea what she was talking about but, he knew, he wasn't going to get away easily from that.
Rentarō: "That was….uh…." he began scratching the back of his head, awkwardly, while looking away from her gaze, only serving to infuriate her further.
Enju: "I could feel that something was very wrong, back then. And even though it's a bit fuzzy, I can still remember how I was literally praying for you to put me out of my misery already while I was in that shape….but you didn't! You never had any intention to finish me off, did you?!" she cornered him way more than he had expected her to.
He could easily attempt to lie now but, given how crystal clear her recollections of the event seemed to be, that would only be fruitless.
Rentarō: "(sigh) Yes, you're right! I've been planning on letting you escape from the very beginning!" he finally admitted to his illegal deed to her, now that the cat was out of the bag.
He had not admitted this to anyone and the only other person in the entire world that knew about this truth was Sumire, who was a partner in crime. But now, now that Enju also knew, things were becoming quite complicated.
Rentarō: "But, for what it's worth, I decided in the middle of our fight to try to kill you for real, when I saw you attacking people and endangering their lives, trying to infect them. At that point, though, it was already too late and I couldn't do much of a difference since you already had turned and the only bullets I had on me back at the time were weaker bullets, ones that I had prepared for some time in advance knowing tha-…."
Enju: "Wait….so you already were prepared for my death?! And you didn't think you should tell me that you were planning on letting me escape as a Gastrea before that day?!" honestly, at that point, it only felt natural for her to be both horrified and angry at him to the extent that she was.
He had handled his duty as a Promoter to her extremely poorly and she had all the reasons to be very mad.
Rentarō: "I'm sorry! I messed up! I just…..didn't think that you deserved to die like that. Even though I knew that that was my duty and even though I knew what you must have wanted me to do…..I couldn't bring myself to actually finish you off…." he was honest with her at least. She could tell when Rentarō would lie to her and, at that moment, he was actually telling her the truth, although that only made her even more terrified, knowing that the person she had trusted the most in the whole world had planned to betray her in such an ugly way.
Enju: "HOW COULD YOU?!" she finaly burst out in a fit of rage, yelling at him and looking like she was ready to lose herself. "I TRUSTED YOU! I PLACED MY ENTIRE HOPES ON YOU! AND YET YOU WERE PLANNING ON LEAVING ME TO RUN AWAY WHILE I WAS LIKE THAT?! I….really don't want to agree with my father, Rentarō! I really wanted to trust you! But…..he did have a good point about this!" when hearing her say that, he did genuinely feel remorse. Using her father as an argument, given what a horrible person he had been, was a testament to the fact that he had screwed up so badly.
Rentarō: "I…..just wasn't prepared for it! I wasn't ready to deal with your death, Enju!" he began speaking more confidently, knowing now that she had used the worst she could conjure up in that discussion against him. He closed the door to her room behind him and began making his way to her bed, slowly. "This might sound cheesy but…..when you entered my life, you became the beacon that always guided my way through my career as a Promoter. Whenever I would shoot enemies, when I would end up almost killing Kagetane and when I would confront the worst that humanity had to offer, the only reason that I never lost hope…..was because you were there to remind me of what's right and what's wrong!" he was scared of this girl, despite her being so young, since he knew that her words mattered so much to him. And yet he knew that he had to finally be truthful with her.
Rentarō: "When you're an adult and you're dealing with the fate of humanity in your hands, you start to lose track of what is moral and what's the right thing to do! When your main priority is to survive in this world, you start to do whatever it takes to force the outcome that you desire and, in the end, I would have genuinely ended up like a husk of a Promoter had I followed down that path!" even though she would probably never accept this explanation, these were his honest thoughts. If she would find them too weak or pathetic, then so be it.
Rentarō: "But….you were there to always remind me what a Hero of Justice was supposed to be like! You would always remind me that, regardless of how horrible a place this world would become, justice was always the same! Killing was bad, discrimination was unacceptable and fighting for your ideals would always be necessary. Maybe I had lost faith in myself over time that I would be able to follow these goals…..but at least I always had you there to remind me of why they were so important to me, in the first place!" despite this heartfelt speech that he was providing, the child was less than impressed.
Enju: "So….just because you needed me, you weren't ready to kill me? Even when I was turning into a monster?!" she rhetorically asked although, to her surprise, he simply nodded this time, without any shame whatsoever. This only served to madden her further.
Enju: "Then….if I were to turn into a Gastrea right now, at this moment, I should just accept the fact that you'd abandon me and let me be like that for the rest of eternity?! You'd have no issues with making me die like that?!" she began asking very worried, her face still highlighting how appalled she was at what he was telling her.
Rentarō: "No…." he finally began to start talking in a way that at least provided some comfort to her.
Rentarō: "Like I said….I finally accepted my duty back then! I made up my mind to finish you off and, even though it was too late by that point, now I am ready for it!" he tried to reassure, although at this point his word valued way less to her than he would have hoped.
Enju: "You say that….and I'm really sorry Rentarō….but I don't know if I can trust you anymore!" it hurt her to say this to him but it was true. "You're….far too loving to me! You're far too good for this world! If you were just a bit more ruthless with me, I'm sure you would be fine with it!" it was really odd how the entire reason why she was so mad at him was because he had spared her life back then, something which most people would find like an incredible act of kindness.
Rentarō: "Well, whether you're willing to believe in me again or not doesn't matter at this point, anyway! You won't have to worry about transforming again anymore!" seeing how he had very little chance at earning back her trust in his vows, he changed the topic to the one thing which would brighten her mood.
Enju only raised her eyebrows, not sure how to interpret what he was telling her before he reached out into his suit and brought out a stack of medical papers, the same stack that Kisara had showed him when he had woken up at the hospital.
Enju: "What….are those?" she inquired, looking very curiously at them.
Author's note: fun fact, the original plan was for me to publish the "Oni" chapter around Father's Day as a less than appetizing joke. It felt like it would have been more cruel that way. However, due to poor planning, this never came to be as I missed my timing by way too much to make that work!