Iida distantly remembers a time when he had friends.
Surrounded by overflowing love and warmth, hands that slid into his, laughter, happiness, crinkle-eyed smiles, heads leaning on his shoulder, faces burrowing into his strong chest in search for comfort.
Yes, those days, when he had the luxury of ... feeling.
A luxury not even diamonds could buy now.
What was love? Affection? Desire?
It seemed there was no right or wrong answer.
Arguably-- stealing a person’s heart and soul to mold them into an object made in the pursuit of rapacity and hedonism was the farthest thing from love. But no. No. It was precisely his love for his vessel that drove him up the wall, that convinced him to take and take and take. Maybe it was selfish. Maybe it was unreasonable. Maybe in a different time, a different world, it would have gone differently.
But Iida was convinced, that this was his God-given gift. He deserved to have this.
To own a mind. To claw into flesh and blood and drink. To have his world revolve solely around a seemingly insignificant creature.
It is the world’s way of apologizing to him. His comeuppance. Fate’s fucked up way of saying, “Sorry we killed your brother and chipped away at the rest of your sanity.” He deserves it, after everything he’s been through, everything it put him through.