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Title: Dreaming of Flowers

Fandom: D.Gray-man

Summary: In which Alma Karma is recovered not by Central, but by a young Bak Chang determined to save the boy whose life his parents destroyed.

Notes: Warnings for suicidal thoughts/intent, musing on a suicide attempt via a bladed weapon (there is no direct physical threat, but the implication is there), attempted/intended murder, detailed description of past injury, aftereffects of trauma, and Alma’s usual brand of murderous intent. There's a LOT of heavy stuff this chapter, especially towards the end, so please be mindful of the tags!!

AO3 version is here.

Previous chapters can be found here.

-

Chapter Seven: The Knife

-

When Alma opens his eyes, he is back in Laboratory Six.

He knows it almost instinctively, before he even thinks to look around. It is exactly as he remembers; it is all he’s ever known. The cold floor is like ice against his bare feet, gray stone stretching on endlessly. A heavy fog hangs low in the air, tangling at his ankles. The pits dug deep in the ground, filled to the brim with clear liquid, shine soft and blue with artificial light. The air is so frigid and cold that Alma’s every breath puffs in his face.

This cold is not new to him. This room has always been cold, from the moment Alma woke up here and every day after. The room, and the people, and their smiles. There is something so terribly frozen about it all, something terribly cruel in the way these pits dig deep in the floor, the way the lights flicker and fade through the mist.

Even now, despite everything—this much remains. Despite everything, this room has stayed the same. The room is still cold, and it is still silent. The only difference is the red scattered across the walls and staining the water, the red that drips steady to the cold stone floors and runs rivets from their bodies.

Alma stands there, in the Lab, in that still and silent room, and watches the water turn red. The Innocence hangs heavy from his arm, pulling hard at his right shoulder, the feathery blades dragging at the ground. There is red spilling all down his front, a stain like a child tipping a drink down their shirt, a silly mistake. The blood is stiff and tacky on his bare hand. He is breathing so hard and harsh that every inhale drags at his throat like a knife.

He hears Yuu before he sees him: the quiet shuffle of Yuu’s footsteps, the scrape of his pretty silver sword against the stone. Alma stands still and Yuu limps to stand beside him.

Yuu is not smiling. He is not scowling. He just stands there and looks over the laboratory and the bodies with an expression as blank as the water.

“Why?”

Alma blinks. He feels slow, sluggish, sleepy. He wavers on his feet. The Innocence is dragging at his arm. “I don’t know,” he says, distantly.

“Bullshit.” Yuu’s voice is dead and dull. “Why’d you do it?”

“I don’t know, Yuu. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The steady drip of blood in the water makes Alma twitch. “They deserved it,” he whispers, finally. “They did.”

Yuu is not looking at him. His eyes are blank and staring, unseeing. He speaks without any feeling at all. “Edgar. Twi. Renee. Sahlins—”

“They deserved it!” Alma cries, and he turns away, faces Yuu properly. He feels strange, torn in two—the child, young and hurting; the adult, old and hateful. He wants to cry. She wants to tear them all to shreds. “They hurt us. They were going to kill you, and we weren’t the first, and— and I died, I died, I died screaming and they brought me back anyway. I hate them. I hate them!” Her voice rises, his words waver. “They deserved it.”

“Yeah,” says Yuu, and he says it so blank, so casual, an undeniable truth. “They deserved it. And now they’re all dead.”

“I know. I, I know, I had to, they had to learn, they had to stop—”

“All dead, Alma. All gone.”

“I know that!” he shouts, and his voice echoes and echoes and echoes. “I know that.”

“Yeah? Okay, then. They’re dead, so it’s all over, right? The project, the experiments… it’s finished. It’s over, Alma.”

Alma stares at him. Yuu watches the blood drip in the water. His eyes are distant and as cold as the room around them.

“I know that,” Alma says, finally, and it feels like a whisper, or maybe a plea. The Innocence is like iron on his wrist.

“Fuck no, you don’t.” Yuu shakes his head, and at last he turns to look Alma in the eyes. There is blood on his face and exhaustion in his voice. “Alma, you idiot. If you really know that, if it’s really over—”

The world blurs. Suddenly Yuu is standing right before him, his hand gripping Alma’s wrist, bloody nails digging into Alma’s skin. The Innocence burns like a brand on his other arm. The blades, soft and wispy as feathers, drag across the ground like a ball and chain. The white feathers stained red, the edge of the blades still sharp.

“—then why are you still holding the knife?”

-

In the week following Alma’s breakdown by the Branch door, things… settle. There’s probably a better word for it, but this is the closest Alma can come to describing it. Things settle. Wong bandages Alma’s hand with a creased brow and mumbled worries, his meals for the next few days are salty and include two cups of water for combatting any dehydration, Fo avoids Alma more than usual—but after that, it’s as if nothing has happened. Bak doesn’t bring it up and Alma lets him. For all intents and purposes, Alma’s hysterical outburst never happened.

If anything, the only change is Alma himself. Wong is just as fretful, Fo just as watchful, Komui as cheerful and Bak the same as ever, emotional and cautiously offering, carefully helpful—but Alma finds that his resolution to ignore them is all but gone. He can’t pretend, anymore, doesn’t have the energy to fake a smile and laugh and hope—but neither can he shut himself down. He can’t keep his face blank, or his words empty. He’s stuck, maybe—stuck somewhere in the middle, too tired to care and too tired to not care.

Or maybe he’s just tired.

Alma doesn’t know anymore. He hasn’t known for a long time, to think of it. At the start, anger was—easy, known, simple. Anger and hate and the drive to end it all. But it has been so long since then. Almost a full three months, if Bak is to be believed, and—and Alma can hardly fathom it. Three months. Three months alive, three months without Yuu, three months healing and hiding and waiting. He’d never expected to last the night, that day during the massacre. Never expected that he’d have to wait more than a week, before he could reclaim the Innocence and finish it once and for all. But it’s been three whole months, and now… now Alma doesn’t even know himself anymore, if he ever did.

He’s so tired.

But then, that’s why he’s here, too, today—a full week after his meltdown, and Bak has finally given him summons. He’d made it clear that Alma could refuse, that Alma didn’t have to go… and Alma, knowing that, is here anyway. It’s the first time he’s ever seen Bak’s office. It’s the first time Bak has officially asked to speak with him, after Alma blew up at him at the Branch door. But these are all excuses, and in truth, Alma doesn’t know why he’s here, why he’d accepted—just that he has, that he promised to come, before he could even really think about why.

And so, here they are: Alma, in his wheelchair; Wong, just behind him, having escorted him here; Fo, sitting up on Bak’s desk and kicking her heels into the air; and Bak, dressed in a fancy white coat that makes Alma’s skin crawl, his smile small, his eyes steady, as composed as ever.

“Alma,” Bak says, a quiet greeting, as the door clicks shut behind them. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I appreciate it.”

Alma nods, for lack of anything else to do, and fiddles with the hem of his shirt. “It’s fine,” he says. He glances around the room, not wanting to meet Bak’s eyes. His gaze lingers on the white glare of the monitors, the undecorated walls, the plain wooden desk and chair. Besides the frankly terrifying towers of paper, the room is utterly bare of any décor. It strikes Alma as distinctly un-Bak like, for some reason, and he frowns. “What… what do you want?”

“Nothing serious, I promise you. Just… I wanted to clear up a few details, if you don’t mind. It’s a… long overdue conversation, you could say...”

He’s still talking, and Alma is sure it’s something important, but the even tone and mild inflection of Bak’s words make him drowsy. Alma’s mind drifts, his gaze wandering away back to the monitors. He feels listless, disconnected, and the white buzz of the screens is distracting. He wonders what they’re for. Spying, maybe? They’re all shut off now, and he wonders darkly if it’s to keep Alma from knowing. Did Laboratory Six have any screens like these? Did they have tapes of Alma, of Yuu, of the experiments and everything associated with them? Did they have tapes and records of all the previous experiments, or were they destroyed along with the subjects once they went mad? Did they—

“—Alma, are you alright?”

Alma’s head jerks up, his thoughts derailed. The whiplash makes him wince. He blinks blearily at Bak, struggling to refocus, and brings up his hand to hide a yawn. “Oh. Sorry. What’d you say?”

Bak is frowning at him from his perch behind his desk. The white glare of empty monitors casts a strange shadow at his back. “I said… you look distracted. Is this a bad time?”

The idea of Bak postponing his own meeting for Alma’s wellbeing sits funny in his gut. His fingers curl in his shirt hem, and Alma shakes his head quickly and sits up straight in his chair, trying to force himself awake. “No! No.” He hesitates, but Bak is still looking intently at him, and even Fo seems alarmed now. “I just—I’m not— um, sleeping. Well. So.”

Bak hesitates, and for a moment Alma almost thinks he’s going to postpone anyway, which, no. Alma’s already panicked over this meeting, he refuses to prolong the stress. His fingers tighten in his shirt, bunching the fabric in his fist. “It’s fine! I’m fine. I’m just—um, tired. That’s all.” He takes a breath and forces himself to meet Bak’s eyes. “What do you want?”

“If you’re really not feeling well—”

The concern is clear in his voice, his hesitancy genuine. There’s a strange knot rising up in Alma’s throat, but Fo cuts in before Alma can even consider why he’s so bothered. “Kid already said he was fine,” she snaps, gruff, and kicks Bak’s chair so hard it sends him spinning with an undignified yelp. “Stupid Bak, just get on with it already, geez.”

“Stop kicking my chair!”

“Then stop being stupid!”

Wong clears his throat. Bak and Fo shut up at once, glaring at each other, before Fo finally turns away with a sharp huff. Bak rolls his eyes. Wong sighs and pinches at his nose. Alma eyes them warily, and scoots back a little in the chair.

Bak turns back to Alma and quirks a vaguely apologetic smile. “Well.” He clears his throat, adjusting his hat and smoothing down his coat. He sits up straighter. “Moving on, then. This will be quick. I called you here this afternoon to… clarify some things, I suppose. Regarding… what we spoke of last week.”

Alma eyes him, suspicious. Last week. Does Bak mean what happened at the door? He feels a thrill of fear at the idea before he can swallow it back. Bad enough it happened at all, but… Alma isn’t sure he’s ready to talk about it, either. Not yet. Not ever.

Yuu. It’d be easier, if you were here.

But missing, of course, doesn’t change anything.

Still. Alma can’t quite keep the trepidation from his voice. “What… what do you mean?”

“That is—well…” Bak briefly flounders, clears his throat. “I want… I want to be absolutely certain of our next move. Of what we can do for you. So, I suppose what I’m asking is—Alma. What do you want?”

Alma stares at him. The question doesn’t make sense—the words in the wrong order, the meaning lost in translation. “I… what? What do I want?”

“I’m not explaining this well, am I.” Bak’s smile is weak and rueful. “Let me try again. I… I meant what I said, back then, last week.” Bak works his jaw, clearly thinking over his next words. He meets Alma’s eye with difficulty, but his expression is open and earnest. “If you wish to leave the Branch, go elsewhere, then I will do everything I can to help you. I want you to know that.”

Bak pauses. When Alma still doesn’t respond, he coughs into his hand and looks away, his mouth twisting. “But… I don’t—er—it’s, um, been brought to my attention that I have made… too many decisions for you based on my own assumptions of what you wanted.” He forces his eyes back, meeting Alma’s stunned stare with a determined gaze, leaning over his desk and linking his fingers, a posture painfully reminiscent of Chief Twi. “I apologize dearly for that. I will strive to do better, starting with this.”

Alma is silent for a long moment. He opens his mouth but finds himself with nothing to say—nothing kind to say, at any rate, and he finds himself reluctant to even voice that, for some reason—and shuts it again, keeping silent. His fingers, already curled in the fabric, briefly tighten to a fist.

Bak blows out a sigh, unwavering in the face of Alma’s judgment. Behind him, Fo is a watchful and narrow-eyed shadow, her lips pressed into a thin line and her eyes fixing the ground with a cutting stare. They make a terribly contrasting picture.

“Above all else,” Bak says finally. “I simply… wanted to ask you directly, this time.” He sits up straight in his chair and pins Alma with an intense look. “What do you want, Alma? Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? What kind of future do you want?”

He seems so focused and sure—so bizarrely sincere—that Alma shrinks back without meaning to, thrown off-guard by this turn of the conversation. Bak leans back too, his stare broken. All at once, his strange conviction is gone, vanished under a red flush of mild embarrassment.

“…Ah. Sorry, again. I—I can understand if you do not wish to tell me. Or if you don’t know yet. That’s fine. Just—please know I will help you in any way I can, if you ask it of me.”

Alma stares blankly at Bak, struck speechless by the enormity of the offer. He’s—he’s honestly been ignoring his breakdown from last week, embarrassed at the things he’d said in Bak’s earshot. He’d thought Bak was doing the same, but now it occurs to him that maybe Bak was just waiting for him to recover before broaching the topic again. He’s… not sure how to feel about that, honestly.

He’s well aware of Fo, too. Her eyes bore into his back. He meets her gaze and bites his cheek hard, and then pulls his eye away. He stares at the floor instead, trying to make sense of the bombshell Bak just dropped on him. What does he want? What future is he seeking?

Alma… doesn’t know.

He’s never thought about it. He’s never once considered it. It’s—it’s such a nice offer, such a kind thing to ask, and it almost makes Alma bitter because—because it’s wasted on him. It’s wasted on Alma, who has never wanted a future at all.

I just want it to be over. But that is the one thing Bak has already made abundantly clear he’ll never give Alma. The one request no one will grant.

It’s a nice offer. It’s a kind thing to ask. But that almost makes it worse, because for all that it’s exactly what Alma wants to hear—it’s something that could never be. Something he doesn’t have an answer for. Even if Alma wanted to leave—even if he could leave, even if the idea didn’t fill him with a blind terror—even if Bak is utterly genuine in his offer, Alma still knows better.

He’s always known better.

“No,” Alma says, and if he has to bite the words out, then—fine. Fine. Alma has done harder things. “No. I’ll—” He nearly chokes on the words. “—stay. I’ll stay here.”

No matter how much he hates it here. No matter how dearly he wants to leave. The world outside is a siren call, but without Yuu—it’s an empty wish. A frightening one. It’s not a place for someone like Alma, less than human and with only weeks left to his name.

He wants it, though. Even as he says it: he wants.

But Alma, as always, knows better—and he keeps his mouth shut.

Bak is quiet at this. He’s biting his lip, his expression shadowed. Fo looks surprised, her eyes wide, her mouth dropped open. Even Wong, at Alma’s back, seems startled in his silence.

“…I see,” Bak says finally. He looks like he wants to ask but shuts his mouth right before he speaks. His expression is troubled, his mouth twisted down. The silence is stifling. Alma looks away.

The silence stretches on for another few seconds, and then Bak clears his throat and shakes his head, straightening up again. “Well, then. If that’s what you want, I won’t question it. Just—just know, Alma, if you ever change your mind—the offer is always open. You can leave whenever you want.”

Alma clenches his jaw and glowers at the ground. Doesn’t Bak know that just makes it worse? But the thought is a tired one, weak and vaguely pitying. Maybe Bak means it. Maybe he truly is trying. Some part of Alma can’t help but think he is. But even then—even then, Bak just doesn’t get it.

Bak is thinking of the future, and Alma no longer wants one.

There’s no way to put that into words, though, so Alma shrugs again and stays quiet. The white noise of the monitors buzzes in his ears. Bak clears his throat.

“Well! Regardless. In that case, Alma, if you are to stay…” Bak shuffles some papers on his desk. “We’ll need to talk names, I suppose.”

Alma pulls his gaze away from the monitors. “…Names?”

Bak nods. “Yes.”

Alma stares at him. He glances over at Fo, but she’s looking at Alma too, just as intent. No one seems to see anything wrong with Bak’s declaration.

“I already have a name,” Alma points out slowly, just in case Bak has forgotten this.

Bak goes bright red. Fo chokes on a laugh and nearly falls off the desk. Bak is stuttering. “I—well, yes. I meant—a false name, a pseudonym. For your new identity! Not—I meant a false name. A false name. Fo, stop laughing.”

Fo does not stop laughing. She smacks her fist on the desk and wheezes. “Already got a name,” she chokes out, in a terrible falsetto, and then she falls off the desk.

This time, Alma goes red too. He gets the sense he’s being laughed at, but he still doesn’t understand why. “What—I don’t—don’t I already have a pseu… pys… false name? Is Aly not good enough?”

Bak looks a little lost. “Um.”

Behind Alma, Wong sighs heavily, seemingly exasperated. “Young Master, you are not explaining clearly enough.” He turns to Alma. “Aly is a fine name. Do not worry. It is simply that most people have two names—their own personal name, and their family name, to denote their origins.”

“Two names?” Alma repeats, bewildered. “But—I only had the one before. Why do I need…?”

“It’s a weird-ass human thing,” Fo cuts in now, as blunt as ever. She sits up cross-legged on the floor. Her cheeks are flushed a dark forest green from laughter. “Don’t think about it too hard. It doesn’t make sense to me, either. You get all these people with the same goddamn last name and tell me that only some of them are related to each other? So why don’t they have their own name?” She throws up her hands. “Ridiculous.”

“Anyway,” Bak says, and rubs at his face again. “That’s the gist of it. Last names. It’s not—a necessity, really, but its common enough that not having one might draw you more attention than you need. Though frankly, any attention may be too much attention. But, well—a last name might help.” He links his hands. “So. Any, um… preferences?”

Alma blanks. “…Um.”

“It can be anything you like,” Wong encourages. He looks bizarrely excited. “Take your time.”

“Anything I like…?” Alma is at a loss. Books, the sky, Yuu… but none of these seem right, and certainly not like a name. Maybe he can take the name of something else? What does he like that has a name?

A thought strikes him. Alma leans in. “What if it’s a thing or—an object, um—”

“Oh, yes, that’s fine,” Bak says. He’s nodding to himself, thoughtful. “If it helps, I could help you find a traditional Chinese surname like that… and it’s a common trend in surnames from other languages as well. Objects, location, profession… anything could be the base.”

Which means—yes! “Okay,” Alma says. He feels, for the first time in a while, as light as a feather. He’s smiling again, almost giddy. This name thing isn’t so bad after all. “Okay! I think—I think I’ve got it.”

Bak blinks, bemused, then smiles and leans forward over the desk, linking his fingers under his chin. “Really? That’s wonderful. Let’s hear it, then!”

Alma smiles back, pleased with himself. “Mayonnaise!”

There’s a long silence.

“…What?” Bak says.

“I want to be Mayonnaise.”

Bak opens and closes his mouth, seemingly speechless. “Mayonnaise,” he repeats, weakly. He looks a little strange—face weirdly slack, expression twisted like he can’t decide on an emotion. “Mayo…naise?”

“Yes!” A sudden thought occurs to him. “Do… do you not know what it is? It’s this really good food that—t-that someone gave me once, um, it’s made of eggs and tastes really good with pretty much anything! I promise it’s a thing.”

Bak has his head in his hands. He doesn’t say anything. Alma stares at him, and then turns to look at Fo and Wong. Do they really not know what mayo is? The Asia Branch is even worse than Alma thought.

Wong and Fo are staring at him. Alma blinks back, uncomprehending.

“…Mayonnaise,” Fo says, finally. Her voice is high-pitched and tight, almost strangled. Alma squints at her suspiciously. “You want your name to be Aly… Mayonnaise.”

And, well. That’s not a no. “Can I really?”

“U-um,” Bak says, as Fo descends into a sudden fit of coughing. “That’s... er… are you sure?”

“Yes.” And then, because they’re still staring at him: “I like mayonnaise. It tastes really good. I like it.” His mood brightens a little just thinking about it. “And it’s such a pretty word, too! Can I?” No one’s saying anything. Alma falters. “…Is it too long? Um, it doesn’t have to be the whole word, I could just be Aly Mayo—”

Fo gives a bizarre wheeze. Alma cuts himself off to stare at her. He wonders vaguely if she’s dying, and feels rather hopeful. One down?

“That’s—” Bak pinches at his nose. “That’s… fine, it’s just, um, rather—obvious?”

Alma blinks away from Fo to look back at Bak. “Obvious?”

“Mayonnaise is a…popular… food item,” Bak settles on, still rubbing at his temple and looking vaguely guilty. “Having it as a last name would… likely reveal your identity to be a rather obvious fake.” He looks at Alma’s face and blanches a little. “Er. That is—Mayo, Mayonnaise, these would be—too obvious, but we could perhaps... derive your name from—from the word? If. If that’s okay.”

“Oh.” Alma slumps. “Um, yeah. Okay.”

“It’s a good starting point,” Wong assures him, looking a little twitchy and bizarrely relieved, for some reason. “Ah, let’s see… it’s an English word, so how to break it up… hmm. Yonna, Aise, Ayon, May, Nai, Naise, Mayon…”

“Mayon,” Alma says, at once. It sounds like mayo, and that’s good enough for him. “I like that one.”

“Aly Mayon,” Bak says, and he sounds a little despairing. Alma eyes him, suspicious, waiting for him to shoot this down too—but though Bak rubs his forehead and mutters a lot, this time he seems resigned. “Well… if that’s what you want…?”

Alma takes a moment to consider, and then nods, firmly. He does want it. There’s so few things Alma enjoys these days, but mayo doesn’t have any real negative association at all. Besides, it’s delicious. He likes it. He could handle being called something like that, if he has to be called something.

Bak’s face is now completely hidden in his hands. “…Okay. Yes. Fine. Sure. Not at all what I was expecting, but… Aly Mayon. Okay.” He pushes away from the desk, looking dazed, cradling his forehead in his palm. “I…” He sighs. “I’ll just go get the paperwork.”

Alma watches Bak leave, looking near despair, and then turns back to Wong and Fo. He blinks twice, flexes his grip nervously against the wheelchair, and gets hit with the looming sense he’s missed something.

“Uh… was it something I said…?”

Fo wheezes against the floor. Wong sighs.

-

If there is one truth in this world, it is this: Komui despises Tuesday mornings.

Every other morning is—well, okay, still terrible, but at the very least they aren’t Tuesday. Tuesday mornings, for some unparticular reason, are hell on earth. Komui knows this for certain, though he’s yet to explain the phenomenon. He’s tried, though. He’s a scientist. He has charts.

On this particular Tuesday morning, it takes four alarms and five whacks from his roommate’s pillow before Komui can be convinced to wake up. The clock is a blur to his eyes and his lab coat, drooping sadly on his chair, is stained to hell and back. Komui rolls out of bed with little more than a sleepy mumble and muttered plea to his incensed roommate, groping for his glasses and tripping his way to the door, and ah, please, dear roomie, don’t aim for the blueprints…

Thirty seconds later has him shoved out the room with another ear-splitting screech and his coat chucked over his head. Komui shuffles down the hall, tugging on the coat with one hand and wondering distantly how bizarre he must look, wearing a lab coat with pajamas; looks down as he thinks this and realizes that he’s actually still wearing yesterday’s clothes, so. Smelly! But presentable. And still wearing those bunny slippers his mother bought him when he got accepted into University, all those years and years ago…

Ha-ha, bad thoughts. He cuts that thought off without mercy. It’s best not to think about such things—always better to look ahead. The future is full of possibility. One day—the European Branch, Lenalee safe and sound, the Order dragged into some degree of decency. But for now, this lone Tuesday morning: a hellish day on the best of times, but his future breakfast promises to be comforting.

And hey, who knows—maybe this time Komui really will sneak a rocket into the new experiment, show those snobs what’s what. That, at least, would make for a story.

Komui giggles at the idea and drifts off to the mess hall, humming a lazy tune under his breath. He feels light and airy, still stuck in that post-waking haze, which is good, because otherwise he’d be thinking not-so-charitable things about his coworkers and one of these days it’s going to show on his face and give him away.

For now, at least, Komui’s smile is fixed firmly in place. He tosses cheerful waves over his shoulder and crows his hellos down the hall. Most of his fellow scientists roll their eyes; some smile uncertainly back. Only a few meet his gaze, and his grin, with the same enthusiasm.

Komui notes it all somewhere in the back of his mind, and then he’s reached the dining hall and his thoughts switch tracks once again. His bright smile grows wider, more genuine; glee is like a bubbling fountain in his chest.

He makes a show of entering the hall: throws the doors open with a loud bang, poses in the doorway with one hand held high, his head tilted up to let the light glint bright off his glasses. His smile is ear-to-ear, so wide it feels as if it’s going to split his face. “Jeryy dear!” he crows out into the crowded mess hall. “Tell me how much you missed me!”

In the stunned silence that falls over the mess hall, he can hear Jeryy’s flattered coo loud and clear from across the hall. “Komui, sweetie! It’s so late, hon, I thought you’d never show up.”

One of the scientists—a newbie, probably, seeing at how shocked they seem at the sudden and ear-splitting exchange despite it being Komui’s near daily routine—almost falls off their bench. The look on their face is almost enough to send Komui into giggles all over again.

It takes great effort to keep from laughing, and his lip twitches wildly. Komui straightens to give himself time to recover. “I’d never!” he declares, once he’s sure he won’t bust a rib from holding back laughter. “Like I would ever skip your company! Jeryy, have you no faith?”

He pitches his voice high, hand against his forehead like he’s feeling faint, but even Komui’s self-control can’t quell the bright smile on his face. There’s theater in every motion, yes, but the emotion behind it is genuine. Of all the people here, Jeryy is perhaps the only one really worth greeting. It’s bizarre to remember how much Komui had disliked him at the beginning, the same way Komui had hated everyone in the Order, but enough scrapes have long since confirmed to Komui that despite the Order’s genuine nastiness, Jeryy is one of the few here that’s worth trusting.

Further proof to this fact: the cup of coffee already poured out for him when Komui reaches the window. Komui beams fit to outshine the sun and takes a deep sip—not as good as his mom’s and Lenalee’s used to be, but as close to perfect as anything gets. “Ah, my blessings upon the cook!”

Jeryy flusters and flushes and bats his hand playfully, but his smile is gentle and knowing. “Oh, you. You say that every time!”

“It never stops being true.”

Jeryy just laughs at that, and turns back to flip a pancake sizzling over his stove. When he speaks next, his voice is a little quieter, though no less warm. “How you holding up, hon?”

“Wonderful as always!” Komui replies with his usual manic cheer, and then, more genuinely: “Tuesdays are terrible and I hate them forever.”

“Oh, darling, you aren’t the first to tell me that and I know you won’t be the last.” Jeryy glances back over his shoulder. “Long week?”

Long month, more like, and Jeryy nods at whatever expression Komui makes in response to that. “Oh, dear. Easing up soon?”

Komui makes a deep and ugly noise in the back of his throat and wavers his hand in the air in a so-so motion. Jeryy clicks his tongue in sympathy.

“…It’s not that it’s hard,” Komui says, finally, letting a brief glimpse of his exhaustion slip past his smile. “Just. Ugly, sometimes.” He looks down at his cup. “It’s very funny! All my expectations for the Order, and they still manage to surprise me!”

Jeryy hums vaguely and takes a moment to flip a pancake. He doesn’t push, and Komui is grateful for it. Even here, with a friend, it is too much of a risk to speak of the Order’s darkness aloud—but it’s enough just to have someone understand.

He lets the silence settle, and takes the moment to just close his eyes and breathe. It’s late enough in the morning that there’s no real line left for breakfast, so the counter is pretty much clear, and the privacy is comforting. Komui leans against the countertop and holds his cup loosely in his hands, letting the warmth of the coffee seep through the ceramic to his skin.

“And that boy?” Jeryy says, after a moment. His voice is soft, prompting. “Is he doing better, at least?”

Komui lifts his head. “Oh, he’s fine.” Best not to mention names, what with Aly still not being officially inducted into the Branch, even if he’s already told Jeryy of the kid’s existence. Well, what the Order doesn’t know won’t hurt them. “Well… better than before, I think.”

Hopefully, anyway. Komui still isn’t sure what caused Aly’s bizarre shutdown a few weeks back, and he’s not sure what fixed it yet, either, if it’s fixed at all. Aly isn’t as… closed off as he had been during then, but neither is he as he once was. He’s smiling again—but quieter, too. Quieter than ever. And yet… “More real, perhaps?”

Jeryy glances up from the pan, his eyebrows arching up over the lens of his sunglasses. “Oh? That’s an interesting phrase. Was he faking before?”

Komui wonders about that. Sometimes—sometimes, Aly rang true to him, his excitement genuine. But there is also this: those days when Aly would be nothing but false, his smile forced, his eye dark in his face and his hand white-knuckled in the covers. “Ah, hmm. I’m afraid I’m not sure.”

“Still, that’s good, isn’t it?” Jeryy stacks the pancakes and slides them to the counter, his eyes sharp behind his glasses. “If that dear boy feels comfortable enough to stop pretending.”

Komui considers this, and feels some measure of tension ease from his shoulders. “I… I suppose so. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

Jeryy spares him a smile. “Chin up, dear. That poor boy may have had a hard time of things, but I’m certain you and the Chief are helping him, however that may be. A kind smile means more than you know. Change is a sign of progress, as you scientists like to tell me.” He pushes up his glasses with one finger. The light glints. “…By the way, dear, what shall it be for breakfast?”

Komui laughs and waves a hand. “Ah, my. How about my usual?”

“Porridge, of course. Some sugar today, maybe? To ease the drain of Tuesdays.”

“You’re a godsend,” Komui says, marveling, and Jeryy beams brightly back before whisking off back to the kitchen counter.

The conversation effectively tapers off from there, but Komui doesn’t mind. He stays leaning against the countertop, rubbing his thumb against the rim of his coffee mug as he watches Jeryy work. There are few places where Komui feels safe to let his real face show; even fewer people he trusts. But Jeryy and his kitchen are the rare exception. For all of the Order’s deceit and cruelty, Komui’s long months of working here have slowly cooled his temper.

There are monsters in the Order. He’s known that from the start, from the second they came and dragged Lenalee away. But there are people here like Komui, too—people who have lost family, who have lost everything, who came from the goodness of their hearts, people who have no idea of the darkness at all. Jeryy has proved himself one of the few aware of the Order’s evils, the few disparaging of it, and the few who stay out of genuine desire to do good.

Komui is under no illusions—if not for Jeryy covering for him those first few months, Komui’s rebellious attitude would have had him booted long before he could ever see Lenalee again.

It’s why he smiles bright and beaming upon receiving his order—to go, as always, because Jeryy is a dear and can also possibly read minds—and why his smile gentles into something painfully real when he sees the pile of smaller, Chinese-style stuffed steamed buns on the side, its own little plate.

“For that poor dear,” Jeryy says simply, when he passes it over. “I do hope he likes custard… try to ferret out his favorites for me next time, hmm?”

Komui takes the plate with a smile and salute. “Of course,” Komui promises, and means it. One of these days, he thinks, he must introduce Aly to Jeryy. He thinks—knows—it would do the boy so much good, to meet someone as genuine and caring as Jeryy.

When Komui finally skips his way out of the mess hall, it’s with a much lighter heart than when he entered. Tuesdays are terrible and the Order is a den of horrors, but—well. There’s some good here, still, and Komui is nothing if not determined to share the cheer.

He’ll make this place brighter and better if it’s the last thing he ever does—for Lenalee, for anyone else like her—but it’s nice, sometimes, to know he’s not alone.

-

He sweeps into Aly’s infirmary room at a quarter to noon, just as usual, the plate of stuffed steamed buns balanced precariously in one hand. The room isn’t much changed from the first time Komui came here, nearly three months ago—blank stone walls, small metal bed—but the blankets on the bed are now a deep soothing blue, and there’s sprawling sketches made of crayon on the wall, Komui’s own contribution. He doesn’t need walls to write his formulas—Komui knows the scientific method, thanks, he only chooses to ignore it—but in the absence of Aly’s desire to decorate, the small few who know the boy have brought it upon themselves to decorate what they can. And so, despite the dreary gray, it is a much warmer room that Komui swings into, well-lit by golden lamps and with color all over the walls.

“I’ve arrived!” Komui crows, as usual. He makes extra effort to swing the door open dramatically but without a bang. If he does it right, it never fails to make Aly smile.

“Late,” Bak Chang snaps, but after months of being exposed to this, his usual biting tone is just tired. “Again!”

Komui tuts and sets his plate down on the table. “I had important work!” He turns back and surveys the room, and his brows shoot straight up. Well, now, that’s new. “Oh-hoh, what’s this?”

Sitting cross-legged on the infirmary bed, Aly looks up briefly and gives Komui a weak smile of greeting. Unlike usual, he doesn’t say a word—just looks back down and makes another knot in gold hair. His brow is furrowed, the tip of his tongue poking out the side of his mouth. He seems entirely intent on his task—which is, at first glance, apparently tying knots into Chief Bak Chang’s long hair.

Komui tilts his head.

“I am teaching Aly how to braid,” Bak says, when Aly seems content to ignore them both.

“Attempting,” says guardian spirit Fo, perched up on the dresser. Komui almost jumps. He’d somehow missed her there. She gives Komui a smile that’s all teeth and withheld laughter. “Attempting to teach.”

“Teaching him how to braid.”

Fo snorts. Aly, staring down at the… mess of hair, really, in his hand, just sighs. “I think I messed up again.”

“What? No you didn’t.” Bak reaches back, feels the braid, and winces. “…Ah.”

Aly sinks down into the bed. His cheeks are red. “I’m no good at this...”

“You’ll get it,” is Bak’s casual reply. He tugs his hair back and works on getting out the knots, no anger in his expression. Komui watches Aly relax at Bak’s response, and wonders. “I was planning on cutting it short anyway, so it’s no issue. Let me unravel this and you can try again, if you want.”

“Sure,” Aly says, and this time the smile on his face, while small, is far more genuine.

Komui files it all away in the back of his mind for further speculation, then laughs and picks up a steamed bun for Aly. “Practice, practice!” he enthuses, ignoring Bak’s disgruntled face. “All things come with time. For now—try this!”

He tosses it low; Aly fumbles with the catch but manages to keep from dropping the thing. He blinks fast, and lifts the bun to his face warily. “…What’s this?”

“A custard stuffed steamed bun, with compliments from the cook,” Komui says, and winks at Bak before he can be scolded. “I didn’t mention anything about dear Aly here, by the way, so no need to get all huffy about it!”

“Who’s getting huffy?” Bak demands, tugging hard at a knot. “It doesn’t matter, regardless. Tell who you will. Aly will be cleared to join the Branch by tomorrow. He’s recovered enough that the privacy is unnecessary.”

“Oh!” Komui blinks fast, casting a quick look at Aly. Unlike the last time, a week ago, this time the boy doesn’t flinch at the news.

Sure enough: “My choice,” Aly confirms softly, looking up at Komui through his bangs. “…Thanks. For back then.” And then, before Komui can respond to that—he’s not sure whether to coo or cheer or burst into dramatic tears—Aly snatches up the steamed bun and bites down quick, as if to hide the red in his cheeks. “‘M name’s Aly Mayon.”

Komui stares at him, parses through the words, and beams. “Aly Mayon! What a lovely name. It’s a pleasure to meet you properly, Aly.” He holds out a hand and waits patiently for Aly to decide if he wants to take it. When the boy hesitantly reaches out, Komui makes sure to shake firmly but gently, and can feel his smile grow, even as his heart pangs. Will Lenalee be like this, too, once he finally finds her?

Aly draws his hand away and Komui startles at the look on his face, shaking his head hard. “Oh, sorry—”

“You’re upset.”

Ah. Hm. Aly had never noticed that before.

Komui manages a smile. “Oh, it’s nothing.” But Aly does not look comforted, and his shoulders hunch by his ears, his expression guarded and guilty, drawing away. Komui can feel Bak’s glare settle like a knife at his back. He doesn’t look, but inwardly he is cursing. Stupid, stupid, sloppy. Kids are perceptive, especially when it comes to negative emotion. How many times had Lenalee once walked in the house and immediately known he was upset? His mother had used to joke about it, for god’s sake.

“It’s nothing you did,” Komui says, making a split-second decision. Honesty and kindness—this is the way to Aly Mayon’s guarded heart. Komui has no desire to admit his troubles in front of Bak Chang and his glorified guardian spy, but this is nothing they wouldn’t already know from the records, and…

And Aly’s trust is more important, anyway. Aly, that quiet boy who reminds Komui so terribly of Lenalee, who has nothing at all to do with the Order’s evils. Aly, who from the looks of things, very dearly needs someone on his side who will be honest with him.

And so: “But yes, quite correct! I am upset, I suppose. It’s getting close to a… rather painful time for me, you could say.” He offers another smile. “I just remembered, is all.”

“A painful time?” Aly parrots, then snaps his mouth shut, looking mortified. “Um, sorry, I don’t mean to—”

“It’s all right.” Komui shifts on the bed, studiously ignoring Bak and Fo. He bites into a custard bun to give himself time to gather his thoughts. “It’s not exactly a secret! I have a sister—little sister, she’s so small, maybe just a bit younger than you, absolutely the most adorable child to ever grace the earth…!”

He trails off, swallowing hard against the sudden knot in his throat. His chest feels tight. “Ha-ha. I’m a proud older brother!” He sees the look on Aly’s face and smiles faintly. “She’s—she’s okay. Not dead.” Not like Mother, or Father, or all their other siblings—but no, no, he can’t think about that. “She’s an Exorcist, actually! They, ah… took her in, a while ago.”

Which is a very fancy way to say ‘kidnapped against her will and dragged her off to fight nightmare monsters despite only being six and fragile.’ But Aly doesn’t need to hear that.

“I just miss her, sometimes,” Komui says, and says it casual to soften the blow. Sometimes. More like every day. Every hour. “But! I’m certain to see her again soon, so really, there’s nothing to worry about!” Unless she dies before he can reach her side. Or hurts herself. Or if he dies before he can reach her, and leaves her truly alone. Or—

Oh, that face. Komui hates that face. Crying children look all the same and it’s like a stab to the heart, especially with all the dark turns his thoughts have taken today. (It’s almost been a year, now. Is she happy? Is she scared? Has she grown up? Will he recognize her? Of course he will, stupid thought. But—will she recognize him?)

“What’s with that look?” Komui asks, gently, unable to understand the sudden devastation in Aly’s face, the darkness in his one eye. “As I said, there’s no…”

He trails off, struck silent. Aly is really crying now. “Oh, shi—shoot, I—handkerchief! Where’s the—”

For once, Bak doesn’t argue with Komui’s order, just hands over the handkerchief with a solemn cast to his face. Komui resists the urge to grit his teeth—pity from the Order will never not be grating—but this is not about Komui, or Bak, or the grievance Komui feels towards the Chiefs. He turns back to Aly and rubs carefully at the boy’s ruddy and tear-streaked face, trying not to panic. “Shh, shh, it’s fine…!”

To Komui’s relief, Aly is already calming down, wiping hard at his eye and breathing quiet. “S-sorry. Sorry. It’s not that, it’s not, I just…”

“Aly.”

Komui startles, looking back—but Bak is not looking at him, just at Aly, with an expression Komui doesn’t understand. Something like regret, and something like warning.

“I know,” Aly says, and he says it so low and so coldly that Komui blinks, certain he hadn’t been meant to hear that. The boy takes another shuddering breath. “Sorry. Sorry. I’m okay now.” He crumples the handkerchief in his one hand and lifts his head with a weak smile. “…Sorry.”

“It’s quite alright,” Komui says, still trying to track whatever just happened. “I… I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Aly glances down, his bangs falling over his face. “It’s n-not… I mean, I. I’m glad you told me. Thanks for sharing that.”

“…Right.”

“Mm.” Aly shakes his head, as if to chase the last of his sadness away, and lifts up his head to meet Komui’s eyes. His smile is pale and false, but his eye is a little brighter than before, the shadows faded. “Um, I’m—I’m still trying to learn how to braid one-handed, and I don’t have long enough hair yet, and Bak’s is all tangled…” He’s red, a little. “Can I try braiding yours?”

Komui blinks fast, brings one hand up to his own ponytail—and laughs, relieved at the change of subject. “Why, of course! And then we can go over the prosthetics one last time. It’s almost done!”

Aly smiles at that. Komui grins brightly back.

Yes, he thinks. What he’s said to Jeryy is true. Aly is quieter, now, less cheer and less enthusiasm, but while his smiles are fewer and smaller they are also more genuine. Whatever happened to Aly, whatever Akuma attack left him this way—pale-faced and hollow-eyed, solemn and hateful and false, distant and unwavering—slowly but surely, Komui can see the barriers breaking, lowered little by little by every kind word and freely offered truth. Whatever the boy’s wounds, he is healing. Komui really must introduce him to Jeryy sometime soon…

It lifts his heart, though. For all that Komui may wonder at the boy’s origins, just this is enough. That Aly is healing, despite everything… it means more than the boy will ever know. After all, if Komui can help Aly… if Aly can heal, even here in the Order’s walls… then maybe finding Lenalee won’t be so hard.

There’s still hope for them. Hope for Aly. And hope for Komui and Lenalee, too.

If nothing else, Komui must believe in that.

-

Alma wakes up alone.

For a moment he’s confused—staring blankly at the ceiling, unaware of where or when he is, bizarrely thrown off by the darkness in his room and the silence. He reaches out to the side and his hand swings out into open air.

The confusion fades, and Alma blinks fast, struggling to wake up properly. He’s… he’s in the Asia Branch. It’s mid-winter. He’s in the Asia Branch, alive and hidden, and Yuu is not here.

His sigh is near soundless in the air, and Alma sits up, rubbing his palm against his good eye. He must have woken up early—it’s so dark in here, and so silent outside, not even the echo of footsteps from nurses or passing scientists. It’s not surprising, really. Alma could barely sleep last night as is.

He draws up his knee and rests his forehead against it, breathing soft. In a few hours’ time, the day will properly start, and Alma…

…No. Not Alma. Aly Mayon will finally join the Asia Branch.

Finally chained down for good, once again, by the organization that destroyed everything.

It was my choice, Alma reminds himself. Not that there was much else to choose from. Nothing else to choose that Alma deserved to have, really. Going outside, leaving the Order—it’s a pipe dream. No matter how sincere Bak sounded when he swore he’d let Alma go, Alma still knows better. Even if Bak would, then Fo would stop him, or Wong, or—someone else. Anyone else.

But even so. Alma has said it, hasn't he? He’s promised to join, made a new name and everything, and the fact he’s moping about it is…

Alma scowls down at the sheets. His fingers curl in the covers. He feels suddenly trapped, caged in his own body. An itch crawls, restless, beneath his skin. The walls feel too close, too enclosed, too familiar. How long has he sat here? How long has he stayed in this room? How long has he lived in this place?

The restlessness grows, the knot tangling tight in his chest. His hand flexes and twists in the covers, reaching for something that isn’t there, a weapon he no longer bears. Alma shakes the fog from his head and throws back the covers, and he gets one leg swung out over the side before common sense rears its head and he freezes.

But just as quickly as the anxiety rises, Alma forces it back down. So what if he’s not allowed? So what if he’s found out, if Bak or Fo or anyone disapproves of him sneaking around? Alma doesn’t owe them a thing. They’re the ones who want Alma to live, to follow the rules and heal like a good kid—not Alma. He didn’t choose this. If Alma had his way from the start, he wouldn’t have chosen this.

The rush of anger, bitter in the back of his throat, is a relief. Alma kicks off the covers and grabs the makeshift crutch leg from the corner, the one that lets him walk short distances while keep his hand free. He doesn’t want the wheelchair right now. He doesn’t want to use anything fancy made by the scientists, even if the scientists in question is Komui.

It’s a struggle to open the door and get out of the room, what with one unsteady near-peg leg and only one hand, but Alma hasn’t spent the last three months just sitting in bed and seething. It’s noisy and precarious and a bit like standing on a tightrope, but ten minutes later and Alma is limping down the darkened corridors of the Asia Branch, alone, unsupervised, and finally able to breathe.

The heavy thunk of his crutch leg against the stone is rhythmic and soothing, even if the leg is starting to make his stump ache. The dim firelight of the lamps cast long shadows down the halls. There’s a thin mist drifting through the empty stone rooms. It’s quiet and creepy and utterly empty, and Alma wanders down the halls with his mind elsewhere.

He’s alone. He’s alone, he’s nowhere, and for the first time in a long time, Alma feels that resentment and lets himself seethe instead of pushing it away.

He’s tired. He’s been tired for months and weeks, he’s been tired since he woke up. With every loping step, he thinks back to sleep. Dying and drowning, so terrible and painful, and yet…

It’s been months, and Alma’s still here.

Never once did Alma think he’d stay here this long. He’d thought, for sure, that he’d come across a weapon sooner or later, and that would be that. But Fo is craftier of an enemy than Alma ever imagined, and—and after all this time, here he is. Playing pretend, playing sympathy, letting Komui build him limbs and Bak teach him how to braid and even choosing a new name, as if it matters, as if Alma was ever going to stay.

Three months and counting, and even after all this time, Alma hasn’t done a damn thing.

The frustration needles at him, and he grits his teeth against the burn behind his eye. The emotion is so great his hand has started shaking, and he has to stop a second, lean against the wall and calm himself. The stone is cold against his skin. His head feels heavy, his thoughts slow and bitter. Alma closes his eyes.

He could try, he thinks, his thoughts taking a dark turn. He’s waited—too long, probably, far too long—but he still could. He can still finish this, probably. Maybe. He has to, at some point. He has to finish this. He has to make sure the project never happens again, that it ends, that it all—

“Aly? Is that you?”

Alma’s eyes fly open, a scream locking in his throat. He jerks back and nearly trips, his heel catching on the raised edge of the floor and his crutch foot getting tangled somewhere between leg and wall. He falls with a loud bang and a yelp bit off behind his teeth.

“Oh, whoops!” A wavering glow casts down the hallway, and a pale face stares down at Alma from behind the brightness. “Sorry! Did I startle you?”

Alma squints past the light, wincing at the glare. He can’t see their face, but that voice… “K-Komui?”

The stranger—Komui, Alma realizes, his face lit by a hand-held lantern—laughs brightly, and offers a hand. “Yes, yes. I suppose that answers my question. Need any help?”

Komui looks disheveled, worn, tired as always. His glasses are a pale gleam above his nose; his white lab coat near glows in the pale light.

A flash of anger rises up Alma’s throat, too quick to bury. He slaps Komui’s hand away from his face before he can think better of it. “No! I don’t—I don’t need your help.” As soon as he says it, though, Alma feels a burst of shame. Komui is—a scientist, yes, but so far he has been one of the few trustworthy ones. He builds prosthetics and robots, not new brands of torture… but for once, this is harder to remember. The white coat. The name he doesn’t want. The walls. It presses in on Alma, weighs him down. He’s been here too long. He is—

He grabs the wall and levers himself up, looking down, breathing hard through his teeth. “Sorry.”

Komui pulls his hand back and tucks it away in his coat pocket. His eyebrows are up by his hairline, his smile bemused. “It’s quite all right.”

Alma thins his lips.

Komui settles back on his heels, just as quiet, looking Alma up and down and seemingly deep in thought. Alma glares back, his heart in his throat, his hand white-knuckled against the wall, his bad leg chafing against the wooden crutch. He waits, with a shred of desperation and a growing swell of anger, for Komui to ask. To ask what Alma is doing, why he’s here alone at such a late hour, what he’s thinking. He almost hopes he will, just to give Alma an excuse to yell at him.

But all Komui does is lift the lamp a little higher and nod to himself, still smiling that same goddamn smile. “Were you heading somewhere in particular?”

Alma narrows his eyes, hesitating briefly, thrown and suspicious by this change in script. “…No.”

Komui is still smiling. “Ah, I see. Well, I am heading to the kitchens, for some… very… very late dinner. Dinner-breakfast. Dinfast? Well, anyway. Would you like to join me?”

Alma surveys him, biting his lip. He doesn’t answer.

Komui looks evenly back, and lowers the lamp a little, the shadows on his face flickering strangely. “…It’s all right,” he says, almost gentle. “You can refuse, if you wish. I won’t stop you, and I won’t make you go back to your room, either. This isn’t a trap, Aly.” He suddenly beams. “I’m seventy-four hours without sleep! I simply don’t have the brain function for that! Not right now, anyway.”

“I didn’t think it was a trap,” Alma defends, but it sounds weak even to himself. He looks down. He’s tired, and now he feels a bit guilty, too, for how he’s been acting. He’s being stupid. He can… it’ll end, sooner or later, but until then Alma has to be patient, and he has to stay calm. He just has to wait until it’s over.

“…Does the kitchen really serve food this—early?”

“Well, not really,” Komui says, something amused and fond in his eyes. “But Jeryy—that’s the head cook—is an absolute angel, and I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to serve you.” His smile sparkles. “And, hopefully, me! He’s a good soul. Wakes up early to start the kitchens, too, so we’d be keeping him company, not bothering him.”

Alma worries at his lip, considering. Komui waits patiently.

“…Okay,” he says finally.

Komui beams. Alma can’t bring himself to smile back, but…

When Komui walks off to the kitchens, Alma turns and follows him.

-

The Asia Branch at night is a strange sight; for the little that Alma has seen of the Branch, it has almost always been busy and bustling. The empty halls and dim lighting, most of the lamps long-since blown out to give the illusion of night-time, creates an eerie sense of space—the hallways stretching on to infinity, their footsteps and the tap of Alma’s crutch-leg against the stone echoing back threefold, the shadows stretching and warping with their passing. Alma stays close to Komui to escape the uneasiness, watching the older scientist from the corner of his eye the whole way. Komui, for his part, never looks back—just stares straight ahead and walks with long, sure strides, his expression bizarrely even.

The mess hall, too, is empty when they arrive—the wooden tables cleaned and cleared, the chairs pushed in neat little rows. All the lamps are dark, except for one in the far back—a small little room with a wide window, where a shadow hums a soft song under their breath and bustles around the back, the lamplight flickering with their every movement.

Komui walks right for the light and Alma trails uncertainly in his wake.

“Jeryy, darling!” Komui says, sing-song once again, and in the blink of an eye his set and calm expression has transformed into a smile as goofy as his voice now sounds. “I’ve brought a guest!”

“Komui, dear!” The stranger pokes their head out the window, one hand pressed against their cheek. A man, tall and thin with dark skin and pale pink dreadlocks, thin shades settled on the bridge of his nose, hiding his eyes. His mouth makes an ‘o’ of surprise. “A guest? At this hour? Honey, please, why aren’t you asleep?”

“Science laughs in the face of my sleep schedules,” Komui says dismissively, and before Alma can sink behind his shadow, steps aside to reveal Alma to the lamplight. “Besides, I wanted to introduce you! This is Aly Mayon. Aly, this is Jeryy, the head cook of the Asia Branch.”

The stranger—Jeryy—gasps delightedly when he sees Alma. “Oh! Why, hello dear! I almost didn’t see you there. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“H-hi,” Alma returns weakly, bright red under the attention. He rocks on his heels, stuttering a little on the greeting. “Um, I-it’s—it’s nice to meet you too…?”

Jeryy beams brightly back. “What brings you here at this kind of hour, pumpkin?”

Alma’s smile flickers and falls at the reminder. His stomach drops. He looks down and stays silent. He is suddenly hyper-aware of Jeryy and Komui’s eyes on his back.

“…Ah,” Jeryy says, softly, and then he clears his throat. “Oh, honey, you don’t have to tell me a thing. It’s alright. Would you like something to eat, at least?”

Alma looks up again. “That’s okay?”

“Of course! What would you like? I could make another stuffed custard steamed bun, if you’d like...”

Alma jolts. “That—that was you?”

Jeryy blinks down at him. “Oh—yes! Ah, not that I knew I was making them for you, of course. Dear Komui just mentioned you offhand to me, and I figured some good food might help… ah, perhaps I got the flavors wrong? I can fix that next time around.”

“No, no, it was—the food tasted good. The food always tasted good.” He looks down again, but this time it’s not to swallow anger. His gut feels heavy. “I—I, I really liked those steamed buns, from… from a few days ago. They were good. A-and warm. But, um, I—”

“I can make anything you like, hun.”

“Then… could I… I really like, um, mayo, especially on bread, but you don’t have to—”

“Coming right up,” Jeryy says, a gentle interruption. “Come on in and sit down, pumpkin, that leg doesn’t look very comfortable at all. There’s some flour packs in here that’ll make a good seat.” He turns to Komui. “And you! Honey, I adore you, and I will make you that coffee—”

Komui beams.

“—but since you’re here, do help me with some prep work?”

Komui splutters. “Ah…! But I…!”

Jeryy taps his spoon against the window. He says nothing. His one eyebrow, expertly lifted, is all judgment.

“Ah… by which I mean… but of course I’ll help!” Komui gives a tittering laugh, looking away from Jeryy’s patient stare. He sighs at the ceiling and then looks down to give Alma a quirked smile. “After you, Aly.”

Alma smiles weakly back. He limps his way into Jeryy’s kitchen without help, his leg sore and shaking. He’s really pushed it with just walking around on the crutch-leg—it was made only for crossing short distances, like in his room or the infirmary, not for wanderings like tonight. Still, neither Jeryy nor Komui call him out on it.

Jeryy’s kitchen, Alma thinks, looks as warm and kind as the man himself seems. Despite the small window from the outside, the actual kitchen itself is much bigger on the inside, stretching a good twenty feet back into shadows. The walls are stacked with foodstuff and cooking appliances, tools and ingredients Alma has never seen before, and he cranes his neck to take it all in. There’s so much to see that he doesn’t know what to look at.

The flour bags Jeryy mentioned are in the corner, stacked up against a taller counter that comes to Alma’s chin. He sits down and makes himself comfortable. The flour bags are actually quite nice.

He leans back against the wall and lets Jeryy and Komui’s conversation wash over him. Now that he’s sat down, in this warm yellow lamplight, his exhaustion returns. His eyelids feel heavy. He hears Komui laugh and watches through half-lidded eyes as Jeryy slices carrots and sets a pot of water to boil. Then his eyes slip closed and sleep steals over him.

When he opens his eyes again, the room is bright and there’s a neat plate of mayo sandwiches lying beside him. Outside the kitchen, he can hear the low murmur of voices, scraping chairs and low laughter. Komui’s coffee cup is in the sink and he’s by the ordering window, his smile stretching ear to ear, eyes bright with laughter.

“Komui, please, I’m telling you—”

Bak?

Alma sits up carefully, rubbing at his stiff shoulder and shoving a sandwich in his mouth as he listens. Across the room, Komui laughs again.

“Chief, how many times to I have to say it? I have no idea! I don’t know why you’re accusing me.”

“That’s because you’re suspicious!”

Jeryy, chopping onions by the side, glances back and sees Alma watching. He smiles and winks. Alma stares blankly back and glances over to the window again, unsure of if he should be laughing or afraid.

“Look, Komui, if you have any idea where Aly ran off too…!”

“I told you, I told you! I don’t have a clue!”

“That right there! That smile! Suspicious!”

“Ah, Chief, so rude~”

They’re talking about me, Alma realizes, and then flushes. Oh, god. It’s bright out, and the mess hall is no longer empty… he’s overslept.

He works his jaw, considering, then bites back the thought before it can fully form. No. No. He’s finally gotten a chance to himself. He’s finally gotten a chance to breathe, after months of biting everything back. He doesn’t… he doesn’t want to reveal himself just yet. He’s not ready to become “Aly Mayon” for real. Not yet.

Alma pushes himself up slowly, casting a long glance around the kitchen, his eyes watchful. There has to be an exit somewhere, right? And sure enough—in the far back, there’s a door, just by the corner. That’s doable. His leg still aches, but he can walk on the crutch-leg for a little longer, no matter how uncomfortable it might be. Maybe—

His eye catches on a silver gleam, and Alma goes still.

For a moment he is stuck silent, stunned by the realization. His blood is like ice in his veins, a chill striking down his spine. His hand feels clammy and cold.

Because there, on the counter, just within Alma’s reach… there are the knives.

They are long and gleaming and silver in a way that makes his heart clench. They are big and small and deadly sharp. But most of all—most of all, they are unguarded.

A weapon. A tool. A way out.

Three months of nothing, and now: a chance.

Alma is so still he barely breathes. The moment the thought crosses his mind, he flinches. His heart weighs heavy in his throat. He glances back at Jeryy and Komui; a quick, guilty glance—but they are both distracted, both looking away. Bak doesn’t know Alma is here. Komui is too busy with his theatrics. Jeryy is too busy cooking. No one is looking. No one is watching Alma.

If he took a knife, right here…

No, Alma tells himself. No, no, he can’t. What if it’s too soon? What if he slips up? If he screws this up, then the game is over and everyone will know the truth of who and what Alma is and what he’s done. He shouldn’t… he should wait. He should wait—

…but what, exactly, is Alma waiting for?

His breath catches. He’s so stupid. He must be. Hasn’t he just been thinking this? He doesn’t want to be Aly Mayon. He’s tired of playing their game, of waiting, of pretending he’s not who he says he is. He doesn’t want to join the Order but he doesn’t deserve to go outside, and so—

So isn’t the only other option, then, to make it so he doesn’t have to choose at all?

If he kills them. If he does it right here, right now, after all these months of waiting…

He stands slowly, his heart pounding in his chest. Every creak of the floorboards, every step, every movement—he feels like he’s under a spotlight, his intention writ across his face like a glowing sign. Any moment now, Alma tells himself. His hand reaches across the gap, drawn to the biggest and longest of the knives, the blade so thin it’s like paper. Any moment now, they’re going to look back, they’re going to see him, they’re going to know. His hand curls around the hilt and he thinks, This is it, they know, I’m finished, they know—

He lifts the knife from the block, and Komui cackles. Jeryy is humming over a pot of soup. Bak is spluttering. The room is warm and bright, echoing with the sound of their laughter. Not one of them looks back.

Alma grabs the knife, and no-one notices.

He’s frozen still, struck by his own daring, his own success. It’s nothing like wielding the Innocence—the knife is unmoving, still, heavy in his hand but not dragging at his side. If he wants to strike, he must move the blade himself. And yet, at the same time—it is everything like wielding the Innocence. Power and the promise of freedom if he uses it right. A weapon no-one knows he has, and Alma, with every intention to use it. Death as swift as a thought.

Three months. Three months of waiting, of playing along, of gritting his teeth and crying and grieving and thinking, of living past the time he’d decided to die—and now. At long last.

Alma finally has the knife.

He finally has a choice.

His throat is tight, his heart pounding so loud in his ears it’s like drums in the beat of his heart. Alma has the knife, and he finally has a chance. He knows it. He can tell. He sees Komui’s back, exposed; Jeryy, distracted; Bak, unawares—and realizes, knows, he can do it.

He can do it, right here, right now. He can start here. He can kill Komui, Jeryy, Bak, anyone who comes close… and even if he can’t, even if they try to stop him—can’t he kill himself? Before they can even think to disarm him—how easy, how simple it would be, to turn this knife on himself, even if he can’t take them down with him. The project, complete at last.

He wins, either way. Whether he kills them or makes them watch. He’s won. Whatever Alma chooses: he’s finally won. Laboratory Six, the experiments, that awful legacy… it will finally be over.

No-one knows. No one’s turned around. Komui’s back is to Alma, an unthinking trust, and Alma watches them talk and bluster and laugh like they mean it, and grips the knife white-knuckled in his hand.

I have to, Alma thinks to himself. I have to. He must. He’s promised, hasn’t he? He’ll be free. He’ll die, they’ll die, and teach humanity a lesson. He’ll—he’ll end it all. The Order, and their false good intentions. He will—he will—

“Now, now, Bak~! I’m sure the boy’s just wandered off for some air! No need to get drastic. Isn’t he allowed to go places on his own?”

“Yes, obviously, of course, that is not my problem, you—!”

“Then I don’t see the problem.”

“You’re being annoying on purpose, aren’t you!?”

“Why, Bak! I haven’t the faintest clue what you mean.”

“You—you—!”

Komui, laughing. Bak, spluttering, red in the face and brow still creased from worry. Even Jeryy, chopping onions in the corner, humming something soft and cheery and soothing under his breath. The mess hall outside, and the people sitting there, their laughter and teasing and conversations loud enough to sink through the walls. The room is so bright. This place, and all these people, are so alive.

It doesn’t mean anything. Not really. Laboratory Six was bright once, too. But it still makes Alma shake to hear it.

He can do it. He must. He lifts the blade and thinks about Komui, dead; Wong, dead; Bak, dead—blood and bone and bodies on the stone-cold floors, and the way their blood clung to his fingertips. He fights the tremor in his hand and lifts the blade and thinks—he can, he can, he has to, he can kill them and he can smile while doing it—he’s done this all before—

But all Alma can think of is Komui, talking about his sister; Wong, forever gentle, unwrapping the bandages with a care Alma can’t comprehend; Jeryy, who tried to learn Alma’s favorites even before meeting him; Bak, his hand warm on Alma’s shoulder, his stuttering apologies and careful instruction on how to braid—the catch in his voice when he’d promised to be kind, to let him go, whatever Alma needed.

—and Alma can’t.

He’s done this all before. But it’s been—it’s been three months. It’s been so long. His wounds have healed over. He hasn’t felt the sting of Innocence in weeks. He hasn’t hurt in weeks, and the only time he has, it’s been self-inflicted.

Alma has sat through three months of watching these people make stupid promises with stupid smiles, and try their best to uphold them to him. He’s sat through rehab and measurements and braiding, he’s missed Yuu like an ache and broken down crying about it.

He’s chosen a name.

He can do it now, Alma knows. He could kill them all. But he thinks of Yuu and he thinks of Bak and he thinks of Komui and even Fo, but mostly he thinks about Twi and Edgar, and his hand on the knife is shaking.

And he realizes—he can’t do it again. He can’t. He imagines these smiling faces screaming and splattered with blood and thinks he might be sick.

He’s shaking so badly he almost drops the knife. He feels like he has a knot around his throat. Alma could almost laugh. So this—this is all it takes. Three months, and he’s broken. He’s gone weak. All his hatred, all his anger, and he can’t force himself to do it a second time. He’s gotten so used to the brightness that going back feels like a nightmare.

He’s so stupid.

It’s not like before, when he realized how badly he missed Yuu, when the outside was so close and yet so far away. It’s not so much a breakdown as it is an understanding. A quiet realization, and a quiet break.

Alma lowers the knife. He feels far away, distant, disconnected. He stares at them—still unaware, still laughing. Bak is flushed red with rage and snarling incoherently. Komui has thrown his head so far back in his theatrical laughter he looks if one good poke could knock him over.

He can’t kill them. But Alma watches them laugh, watches them smile with an ease he no longer understands—and knows he can’t believe in them, either. Not yet. Maybe never.

The knife is so heavy in his hand. Like the Innocence—heavy with promise. The promise of death, and endings, and freedom.

Alma can’t kill them. He can’t bring himself to hurt them, and he can’t even bring himself to make them watch. Maybe this really is the truth of it: it’s not so much that he’s forgiven anyone, more than it is that Alma is just so tired of hurting others. Of hurting the people he cares about most of all, no matter how much they might deserve it.

He takes one step back, and then another. His crutch-leg knocks heavy against stone. The laughter and noise drown it out—drowns him out. They don’t notice. They don’t even look back. They take it for granted that Alma wants to stay.

Alma watches them smile. The knife is heavy in his hand. He turns away, pulls himself back, slips through the far door—and vanishes into the crowded halls, gone before they can even think to look.

Alma’s not sure where he is, or where he’s going. He just walks. He’s not sure why. He feels—distant, disconnected, rootless. Dizzy, blurred, and yet strangely resigned. He doesn’t want to kill them. He can’t make himself do it—doesn’t want to make himself do it. And months ago, maybe, he could have hardened his heart anyway and lifted this blade regardless, but—

He’s tired, he thinks. He’s so tired. The project is shut down, and Yuu has disappeared, and already, the world is moving on—Alma, newly part of the Asia Branch; the dead buried and the graves set. It’s all over, but Alma is still here.

He’s still here.

He barely remembers the way to the Branch door, but he finds it easily enough. It’s the one place in this whole Branch that means anything to Alma at all. He cranes back his neck and looks up at the towering door locking the outside away.

The room is just as he remembers it—wide, open, empty. His breathing is soft and echoic in the silence. He feels so small, here. He feels too much. The handle of the kitchen knife is slick in his palm, and Alma adjusts his grip and keeps walking.

It’s quiet here. It’s lonely here. His crutch leg knocks on the stone in lurching, rhythmic taps. Alma limps up the steps and walks until he is face to face with the door once more, and lifts his hand, closes his eye. He touches his forehead to the cold stone, and breathes. It’s almost comforting. It’s almost like reaching the sky.

He doesn’t know what to do.

The room is as cold as he remembers, the door just as icy against his skin. It is so quiet here. So silent. He can’t remember the last time he was alone—if he ever was. The knife handle rests awkward and heavy on his fingertips, his grip spasming from tension; the blade scratches, soft, against the door when he moves his hand.

The room is cold as ice, crawling down his spine. The silence is so complete he can hear his own breathing, his own heartbeat. And there—just behind him, so soft he could almost miss it… there is, for a moment, the quiet crackle of lightning.

Laughter bubbles up in his throat, acrid and bitter. Alma presses his head harder against the stone, and his lips curl and pull away from his teeth. He has to fight to keep his voice even.

“I’m really pathetic,” Alma informs the stone, half-laughing on the words. “I really, really am, y’know? I spent all that time thinking about it, telling myself I’d do it as soon as I had the chance… but I didn’t really try, did I? Could have used the medical supplies. Could have done it bare-handed. Could of just—but I didn’t. And, I finally get—a weapon, I finally…”

He trails off; his fingers flex around the knife. The scars that gash up his arm and across his hand pull like a seam. “I don’t want to kill anyone,” Alma remarks, soft. “I-I mean, not that I ever did, but—well. You know, don’t you? But really. Yuu would laugh and laugh at me now, I think.”

He opens his eyes. His breath burns like bile in his throat.

“I’m such an idiot.”

No answer. Alma breathes out and pushes himself away from the door, stepping back and tilting his head to look up at it properly. The gray stone, the colorful geometric. The endless ceiling, stretching on into darkness.

“But that’s okay,” Alma says, to himself. “That’s fine. This is… this is just fine.” His breath whistles through his teeth, a quiet sigh. “I mean, I guess I already knew, you know? Everyone’s dead. The project’s over. I killed everyone involved. What else is there to do?”

He pauses. Something knots in his throat. “The only monster left here from that lab is me.”

And it hurts, maybe, makes him go cold with fear—but it’s true. It’s true. And when Alma turns away from the door, he is smiling.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” he says. “Fo. I’m right.”

Fo says nothing. Her eyes are wide and blank, her expression still. She’s standing at the edge of the staircase, looking up at him. There’d been no footsteps. No words, no shouting. Just the soft crackles of lightning as she bled through the walls, but that’s all Alma needed.

“Maybe you, too,” Alma observes distantly. “And I think I could kill you. I think I could make myself do it. If it’s you. But you can’t die, can you?”

Fo’s breathing is shallow and thin. Her shoulders squared up as if to fight. But still: her face is empty, utterly blank. There’s nothing in her eyes at all. “Not from a knife,” she says, and the words rasp in her throat.

Alma nods. “Yeah.” He feels tired. “I thought so. So… it really is just me.”

Fo doesn’t move. She barely blinks. “Alma—kid—you don’t… please don’t do this.”

“Are you trying to stop me?” Alma asks, bitter and almost bemused, and his smile tightens. “You—you don’t get to say that, I think. Not you.” His hand flexes around the knife hilt, and Alma lifts his chin, almost daring. “You were there. You know. It has to end. It—it just has to.”

“The project’s over. It’s done. It’s—”

“It’s not.”

“Alma—”

“It doesn’t get to be over!” Alma snaps, and his fingers tighten to a fist, so tense the knife feels melded to his skin. “How can it be over when I’m still—I’m still here!”

Fo’s jaw clenches. Her lips are pressed thin, her eyes dark. She opens her mouth and then closes it again, shakes her head.

“I don’t want to be here.” His voice trembles, a bit. He grips the blade for comfort and looks away, down to the stone at his feet. “I—I didn’t—I just wanted to rest. I just wanted…” He’d wanted to save Yuu. He’d wanted them to hurt. He’d wanted humanity to learn. He… he’d wanted it to stop. He’d just wanted it to stop. The experiments. The pain. The lies. The losing, over and over again. She had lost so much, even before she died—and then Alma, Alma has been losing ever since.

“It was supposed to end,” Alma whispers, and their voice cracks. “It was supposed to be over!” His eye burns, hot with furious tears. “But I—I’m still here.”

Fo sounds strained. “I—”

“I don’t even know why you’re trying to stop me at all!” Alma snaps his head up, something like desperation tangling in his chest. “You—you know. You’re the only one who knows. I killed them. I killed—C-Chief Twi and Doctor Edgar and—and—and why are you trying to talk me out of it?” He shakes his head, breathing going ragged. “They deserved it! For what they did to us. They—they deserved it. I don’t regret it.” His cheeks are wet. “But I deserve this, too. To sink… to sink back into the mud. Don’t I?”

He’s rambling, he realizes. He’s rambling. He has the door at his back and the knife in his hand—but for some reason, he’s still waiting for her to respond.

“I can’t—I can’t answer that, kid,” Fo says, and her voice is small in a way that sounds alien to her. Quiet and drawn thin. “Deserving, h-hah, I don’t—I don’t know shit about that. I— I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know you don’t trust me, but please—it’s over. It’s really over.” She takes a breath. “Alma, please— put down the knife.”

He does laugh, at that. A little small, a little shaken. “I—I don’t want to.”

“It’s over.”

“I’m really tired of people telling me that.”

Fo swallows; her jaw is tight. She doesn’t look away. “Okay,” she says, and the words are small. “Okay, then. Then—can you tell me something, instead? Alma, kid—what do you want? Tell me what you want. Please.”

His grip spasms on the knife. Alma grits his teeth. “Is that a joke?” he asks, and his voice cracks. “Is that—are you—I’ve told you. I’ve said it so many times.”

“Alma—”

“I’m tired,” Alma says, and something burns behind his eye. “I’m really, really, really—tired. I just—I want it to go away. I just want it to go away.”

Fo’s eyes flicker, squeezed tightly shut for one painful second. “Okay,” she says. “I understand. I get that. I do. I know, what they did—and I—” She swallows, hard. “I get it.”

“So—”

“But what else?”

“I…” He feels caught. Alma frowns. “What?”

“Is that it, Alma? Is that all you want?”

“It’s the only thing that matters.”

“What about Yuu?”

The anger hits him suddenly, without warning, like blood rush to his head. His vision swims. “Don’t talk about Yuu!” His ears are ringing. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Yuu’s gone. I don’t know where he is. He’s not here and he’s gone and you don’t get to talk about him.”

Fo doesn’t even flinch. “He’s alive.”

“He’s—you—what?”

“Yuu. He’s alive. Probably—probably with the Order too, I’ll bet. I let him escape. He dragged someone else with him, an exorcist, Noise Marie. Bled all over him, saved his life by accident. Marie’s a level-headed sort. Maybe they ran. Maybe they found Marie’s weepy general. Who knows? But Yuu got out, Alma, and he’s not alone. He’s not as far as you think.”

It’s like a blow. “Shut up.”

“Alma, I—you won’t believe me. That’s fine. But it’s true, Alma, I swear it. The project is over. It’s been over for a long time.” Fo steps forward, just slightly, and her voice rises, almost pleading. “But I get it. I do. Because it doesn’t feel over to you, right? It happened, and you can’t go back to before it did, and that means it’s always, always there. It’s always going to be there, and that’s awful. And I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

She takes another step forward. “But Alma, this is—all this! —it’s something new. You lived, Alma. You survived it. You’re here! And maybe you didn’t want that, and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, kid. You deserve better than—this place, and the Order, and us. But god, Alma, what do you want? You can do so much. Yuu’s out there, the sky’s right past that door, I can open it—right now! You can… you can eat jars of mayo, you can paint on the walls, you can go anywhere you want if you just ask. Bak’s stupid and quick to please, he’d practically fall over himself to help, you can’t not know that!”

Fo takes one last step. She’s on the main ledge now, just across from him—but she doesn’t reach for him, doesn’t push. Just takes another breath, and says, “There’s so much. There’s so much. And maybe it won’t make everything go away, but it might make it a little easier to live with.”

“That’s not what I want!” He feels caught, torn in two. Because in truth— Alma is terrified of dying. He’s so scared by the idea of going away. But when he thinks of tomorrow, of a future so big and terrible he can barely fathom it, it makes something in him shake. A world where he survives—a world where he leaves the lab behind—a world where he lets go of the knife, and has to live with that—

He can’t even imagine it.

And he is so, so tired—but in this moment, looking down at the knife, all he can think of is Yuu. Yuu, alive, Yuu, out there, Yuu, with an exorcist, still tied to the Order, and why, why would he— Yuu, who escaped, Yuu, who perhaps Alma could see —?

But more than that. More than even Yuu… Alma wants to walk. He wants to take his new limbs and new wheelchair and explore the Branch and all its mysteries. He wants to meet Komui’s sister and he wants to know if Komui really would create rocket-powered crutches, and he wants to see Bak’s face when it happens. He wants to read all the books he’s been ignoring and he wants to try that new mayo dish Jeryy promised him. He wants to braid his hair the way Bak taught him, French style and mermaid tail and doubled, he wants to go past Fo’s door and see the sky. He wants to know the forests and their morning fog, the hills and their green glow, the small towns dotting the Chinese countryside, the people and world right outside the door, how they speak and how they’re doing.

And it’s hard, it is so hard, to fight against so much want.

“Alma,” Fo says. There’s a ringing in his ears so loud he can barely hear her speak, but he sees the way the word forms and knows it’s his name. His vision blurs. He feels his hand shake.

“I just want it to be over,” Alma says, at last, and the words feel useless, almost a plea. “I want it to be over. But it’s not.”

Fo speaks very quiet. “I’m sorry.”

“I want it to stop hurting.”

“I know.”

“I want,” Alma tries again, and the words fumble. He’s breathing very hard now. He thinks he might pass out. If he hadn’t been clutching the knife in his one hand, then Alma would clutch at his chest instead.

He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe, and he can’t stop crying.

“Alma,” Fo says, and she sounds a little like she might be crying too. “Please put down the knife.”

He does.

Alma opens his hand, and the knife clatters to the ground, the echoing clang of metal on stone. He watches it fall, and he doesn’t pick it up again. It feels like a loss. It feels like letting go. It feels like the hardest thing he’s ever done, and he curls his fingers in his shirt hem and steps away until his back hits the wall. Fo kneels down and picks up the knife, and it vanishes in her hand, taken by her being. Alma closes his eye and tries to breathe, and the sob catches behind his teeth.

Fo stays sitting beside him. The knife is gone. He curls up, head buried in his arm; he can hear himself crying as if from far away, something quiet and weepy and weak, every sob bitten back behind his teeth. He feels dizzy, sick and faint. The colors swirl, melding into light, trickling like sand through his fingers.

It’s not an ending, not really. It is not something breaking. In time Alma’s tears will dry, and he will pick himself up off the floor, and he will not ask for the knife. He will walk back to his rooms with sore eyes and a dry face. He will keep going. He will keep moving. He will drag himself forward inch by inch, and he will learn how to live with what he’s been left with, with this future torn open and bleeding.

But for now, for this one moment, Alma sits before the Branch door and cries. He hides his face and shakes as the icy cold of the stone door seeps through his shirt and chills him. He sits there—his lungs breathing, his heart beating; horribly, irrevocably, undeniably alive—

Choosing, for the first time, to live.

#dgm fic

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#dgm fic