Just the act of his opening up like that, even if not for long, went a long way to help her understand what her Conductor had gone through. "Hm." A simple acknowledgement with a little smile forming on her face. "I understand better now. Thank you."
With that, she looked away. "I know it's hard to trust someone again, but you trusted me and I trusted you, as hard as it was, for both of us. We watched out for each other, and that's why we won, why we're in these positions at last. I don't think that has changed, and it doesn't need to."
Placing her freed hands in her lap, she stared at them, the smile lingering just for a small moment. It faded, though, as she knew it was only right to return the favor.
"My life was... bad, good, and then bad. My mother disappeared, and my father died shortly after, so I came to Shibuya to live with my uncle. But in my first year here, even though I was grieving and introverted still, a boy asked me out, and we clicked so well we ignored his family's complaints. It wasn't me they didn't like, but that they didn't want him so unfocused on school. but after he proposed when we graduated high school, we were engaged. Life was pretty nice... but nothing like that seemed to last, given how fleeting life itself is."
"Two of his friends had never liked me. Thought he was too good for me. He always brushed that off, but they still didn't like me. As I started looking for work, those two got some of their friends, less good-natured and they decided how great an idea it was to sexually assault me, probably worse, take pictures, and show my fiancee. He didn't believe me when I came home crying, because they'd already shown him the factoring pictures."
A sigh followed more fiddling of fingers. "So I just ended up shallowly drinking my heart out, got myself hit by a car, and died. Even my partner in a useless Game was nothing more than a trashy yoctogram. He treated me even worse, and when he got erased out of cockiness, you could say I lost my ability to have faith in people then. I asked the Reaper who erased him to make me a Reaper, too. I may have lost my true name to the entry fee, but it was a small price to pay for the power I craved. You probably know the rest of it."
Even after all that, her face still reflected little emotion. Looking back up yet not at the other, she let a smile back on her face. "I don't think the world is garbage anymore. Shibuya is greater than the sum of its parts, and a few negatives doesn't change the result. All its people are part of the equation, and all my experiences make me who I am now, even if it took me far too long to realize it."
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