Sometimes Reiji wonders if things would have been different if they hadn't met each other as children.
Not if he hadn't ever made it to Academia or if Serena had never tried to escape. Asking either of them to keep from searching would have been the same as asking them not to breathe. One way or another, they'd have found their way.
But that didn't mean their paths were always destined to cross. Who would he have been without seeing her burning determination to cut a path for herself? An hour later, and he might not have been able to offer his hand so freely. She would have been a soldier first and foremost, not another child also striving for things beyond her grasp.
Even when Serena came to Standard, teeth and ambition beared, he had still seen that girl who believed in him so easily first, before recognizing the enemy she had become.
He tried bringing this up to her once, but the only response he got was a dismissive huff.
"We're not children anymore." She talked as if she were correcting a simple mathematical error. Time flowed in one direction. After everything they had gone through with the war and their fragile peace, they certainly couldn't be called children anymore.
But when she said, "I don't know where I'm going, but I can't stay here," Reiji still followed her with the same naive yet hopeful trust he had felt all those years ago.