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I don't eat as much as Rei, but I still like eating. Why wouldn't I be happy to eat something you made?

[ He'd eat her failures too... ]

Don't I do that already though?

[ Guess they're already married. ]

[ lmao gross ]

I don't mean my food specifically, but in general. Things have been pretty rough lately, so that sort of simple happiness feels a bit rare now. It's nice to see.

[ Yeah. ]

Mm... Yeah, but it's the little things in life that make you motivated to get through the day. As long as you remember that, I think... it'll be okay.

[ And he bites into the pastry. This is sooo good. ]

[ wtf that's cute... If it's cooking, Kido's determined not to fail so Terry won't get to eat failures. ]

Yeah. I'm not too worried about the day to day. There's always something to do and things to think about...

[ There's a lot of think about, now.

Kido watches Terry eat instead of taking any pastry, and thinks to herself that that's the face Rei makes too. It's a happy blissful face Kido really really likes. She stirs a little at her soup. ]

...Are you happy here, Terrence?

Yeah.

[ He says that without hesitation after swallowing his food. ]

I'm happy here because I get to spend time with people I like!

[ Kido glances down at Terry's pocket where Jace isn't in anymore, and then looks back up at him. ]

Were you happy back home? You have lots friends back there too.

[ The war couldn't have lasted thousands of years. She knows that was one of his worst memories— doesn't know if it's one he lived through before or after she'd met him— but she needs to know that he was happy for 40k years. ]

[ Hm. Terry thinks as he bites into another pastry. ]

I was happy. I did have many friends.

[ They're all in past tense, but Terry figures he can probably word that better. ]

... It felt like I was the only one that was forced to continue forward while I left everyone behind.

[ Kido immediately regrets talking about it, setting her spoon down and letting her hands fall onto her lap. ]

It must really hurt, losing so many people close to you... Sorry for bringing it up.

Humans grow old and die. It's a natural part of life for everyone else. Jace passed away eventually with everyone. He was old too, and he was only human. It's just... how it is.

[ He's not going to go look up ways to lengthen human lifespans, because that's impossible for him. It's just the law of the universe. Something he can't help. He had a chance to reverse everything, but he didn't take it. ]

... I still miss him sometimes.

[ terry: sometimes i can still hear his voice
orien: you're a fucking idiot ]

[ Where does that leave Kido, who's stuck on the side of the road as somebody who'll only grow a couple months older before dying and turning back to how she was before? At least she doesn't remember any of it, unlike like... music route Hibiya I think.

She gives him a look at the mention of missing Jace, but bites her tongue so she doesn't say anything about that. ]

...I don't know if you believe in a concept like Heaven, but I'm sure he's watching over you.

[ Terry realizes that, and that's why he wants to spend as much time with her before she has to go. He knew this even before the update when they had that talk about returning home and accepted it, because it's what Kido wanted. ]

Something like that used to exist back home. There's no afterlife anymore, because Death couldn't handle the overabundant population anymore. There's no other place to go, so everyone's souls just vanish into thin air once they die.

[ Terry killed everyone by playing population control despite knowing this, but for someone who could never relate to the importance of afterlife because he never had one in the first place--it didn't matter. ]

...Is that what you were talking about back in the dungeon? You called me Death.

[ He was shouting something about being made to kill people when he didn't want to, like he had no choice but to do it. But that doesn't make sense. If there's no afterlife and people's souls just vanish when they die, there's still no reason to kill everybody. Let them die a natural death, and then disappear. ]

... Oh.

[ Wow. Okay. Kido was suddenly Death. Cool. By that he means, no. That's not cool. Damn. To him, he didn't see Kido at all and sighs. ]

... Sorry. I didn't see that you were... you.

[ If that makes sense. ]

Anyway, when I talk about "Death", they're usually a humanoid concept. They had to sustain the planet and it couldn't do that once the human population hit a certain amount on Earth. So it was either a fraction of the people die, or everyone dies.

[ Terry nibbles on the pastry, looking down before removing it from his mouth. ]

So it tasked me with population control. I had to do it every thousand years. Each and every time... was horrible. I hated it.

[ So she literally wasted her breath back there. Cool. She can't even remember all of what she yelled at him about, because she was just yelling and then— then she killed Terry, and he was screaming, and after that it was her turn. The first time through was enough; she doesn't really want to think about it another time. ]

...People will naturally die out all on their own when there's too many of them. You didn't have to kill anybody. Who was making you do it? "Death"? Whether you say yes or no, it would have happened.

"They don't die fast enough", is what they told me.

[ He frowns and finishes the rest of the pastry. He's eating the soup in spoonfuls now. ]

It was a big political mess and stuff, for humans, and beings like Death alike. But I killed the one representing Death in the end, and I didn't have to do it anymore.

"Fast enough"?!

[ That makes her so angry. People's lives are already so short, and somebody has the nerve to say people don't die fast enough. None of Kido's dinner is going to get eaten, at this rate, seeing as she huffs and pushes her chair back so she can cross her arms and slouch. Impatient bastards. "Fast enough." They can fucking deal with it. ]

So where does that leave everybody else? You don't have to do it anymore, and everybody can grow up like normal, right? Isn't that how it's supposed to be in the first place? People's lives have no business being in politics.

... Yeah.

[ Terry stares down at the soup bowl, pensive. He thinks of it more like someone having to hold something up to support it, but it gets too heavy as time passes, so they need to shave off some weight from what they're lifting before they can properly support it again. And now that Terry killed whoever was supporting the planet...

... ]

Everyone live out their whole lives so that they can work toward passing away without regrets.

[ It's only a tragedy when they can't. ]

[ So he doomed the world faster. Don't tell Kido. ]

That's how it should be... Lives aren't something you're supposed to mess with.

[ Terry just decided that the world should die because he's had enough of living this way. Yeah. He's never telling anyone that. It ended with a me vs the world in the end, apart from Orien, so you can only imagine how happy he felt when he came back here. But the thing is that whatever he's done in those forty thousand years is bothering him here too. He absolutely hates it. The personality he tried to keep in check to stay the same so that he's not a hollow shell of what he once was... he feels like it's being scratched off with each reminder.

Things are different now.

He smiles. ]

I know.

[ ... ]

You're not going to eat?

[ Terry took up a resolution in his heart, then went home and slaughtered millions and then flounced. Great job.

Even while being ignorant to all of that, knowing only what she saw in Terry's memory and never through his own words, it's a heavy feeling that settles in the pit of her stomach and she shakes her head. ]

I'm not that hungry. Sorry, I'm going to go lie down for a bit. You can leave everything on the counter when you're finished, and I'll put things away later.

[ Coming back to Hirajiro wasn't his choice, okay... but he likes it. He looks at Kido with a slightly surprised look, but he figures that he shouldn't be surprised. At least he won't deny it this time that he ruined his own life, blaming external circumstances on himself.

He puts the spoon down on the rim of the soup bowl. ]

... I'm sorry. Rest well, Kido.

It's not your fault.

[ Like... it is, but the conversation was her fault to begin with, so she doesn't hold that against him. She doesn't even go to the bedroom to sleep, she just goes straight to the couch in the living room so she can lie there and curl up in one of the corners. So she can sort of be here with Terry so he doesn't have to eat alone, but also not there, because she can't look at him right now. ]

[ Terry looks down at the table and quietly eats the rest. He wraps the leftovers with a plastic wrap and puts it in the fridge. Then he cleans the table quietly. After that's done, he pulls out the warmer blanket in the closet and puts that over Kido. There's a ziploc bag with a food can label that he puts next to her too, labeled as "magic reflector". It's his last one, and in the end, he never used any of them for himself. It's for Kido and he hopes it will keep her safe, like a good luck charm.

He doesn't say anything more and walks out of the house. Kido will hear some quiet thumps on the roof. Terry decided to sit there and think about things.

The coldness yanks him back to reality. ]

[ Why does she need a magic reflector... She's forgotten she'd given hers to Rio too, and when she hears the thumps on the roof and startles awake, thinking that it's raining again at first but then the thumping stops, she leaves the bag with the blanket, both of which weren't there when she'd laid down, so she automatically knows who they're from.

He's not in the house.

She runs out of it, far enough away so she can turns around and see if he's up there. ]

Terrence?!

[ PEOPLE GO ON ROOFS LIKE THAT TO JUMP, DON'T DO THIS TO HER why can't he choose a safer place to mope ]

[ Terry had been sitting on the roof with his head on his knees, so he's startled when Kido suddenly runs out of the house and he has no idea why. Were his footsteps too loud? He tried his best to soften it. ]

I'm here... what's wrong?

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