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In the meantime, they’ve been allocated their own block of flats. The negotiations between the former SDU and the humans have been so fierce that he’s worn to the bone by the time he returns back to them. At least everyone seems to be finally processing and recovering from the whole ‘your memories and everyone you loved were a lie’ thing. At least.
And yet sometimes, despite that, his brain decides to not let him sleep.
It’s nothing new, being something that speckled his Academy days. But that doesn’t make it any less annoying.
And so, after a few long, mind-numbingly boring hours of tossing and turning his tired body, he eventually throws the sheets aside and decides to get some fresh air. He gets his phone out, and uses it as a flashlight through the corridor. Shoulders a little tense, just in case.
He ascends up the steps, until he finds the roof door. When he opens it, he finds there’s someone already there. Legs barely hanging off the side of the building.
He sits himself next to her.
“It’s a bit of a pathetic sky, isn’t it?” Hiruko speaks up first. He looks up, at the unilluminated dome. There is no sky, no dawn, and no stars to greet them. Only a barrier between them, and the vast expanses of space.
“Yeah. It was prettier on the planet.” His mind flashes back to Karua, Nozomi, just for a second.
“An astute observation.” She replies dryly.
“You said it first.” He nudges her shoulder gently. She’s silent, but the mood is light.
“Unable to sleep, too?” She says.
“Yeah.” He replies.
“How?” She asks. “It’s like the one thing you’re good at.”
“The one thing?” He snorts.
“Perhaps the only thing.” She teases, a small smile on her lips.
“What can I say, I’m just a normal guy.” Takumi shrugs lightly.
“Painfully normal.” Hiruko affirms. “But… not average. You… have your charms.”
“Below average then. Got it.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth.” Her smile grows a little wider, but is still light.
Then a silence stretches over them, as they gaze at the shadows of the skyline. In these moments of quiet, he usually takes time to comb over, and sort out his memories from the different timelines. And from them there’s a question that’s been burning in his mind, tactless as it might be, related to that other, bigger thing between them that hasn't quite been sorted out, either.
He debates on whether to say it, or just sit here in silence and enjoy the peace whilst it lasts. But eventually, he starts to realise that with how swamped they are in everything, this might be the last time he gets to talk to her like this for a while. Maybe he should take it whilst he can.
“I’ve been thinking over the new loop memories I’ve been getting.”
“Oh?” She tilts her head towards him slightly.
“And I’ve been wondering.” He shifts his shoulders slightly. “Across all the loops, I’ve ended up with, uh, a lot of different people, to put it lightly.” He tugs at the collar of his hoodie slightly as he tries to convey the thought in his head. “How do you… well…?”
“You want to know how I feel about you having multiple different partners across the loops.”
“Yeah… that’s it.”
Hiruko snorts lightly. “You haven’t learnt an ounce of tact since you asked me if I was crying on that roof.”
“Sorry. I guess I haven’t, have I?” He smiles sheepishly.
“But to answer your question…” She pauses for a few seconds, her gaze returning over the horizon. Fixed, on an immutable point in the distance. “After 40 years of loops, you learn to let go.”
They’re both silent for a few seconds. Hiruko locks the hands in her lap together, fingers crisscrossed together.
She continues. “You are perhaps the only person who will ever truly understand me, but that doesn’t mean you belong to me. How do I say this…” He watches her chest rise as she inhales, and then exhales. “I will only tighten my grip around you if you place yourself into my hands.”
“Well… I don’t think I’d mind that.” Takumi smiles a little, scratching the back of his neck.
“Of course I know that. Do you know how easily you fall in love, you oaf?”
Takumi chuckles, a little sheepish. In the faint lighting, he swears he can see a touch of pink on Hiruko’s cheeks. His are certainly burning.
“So then…” He starts again.
“After everything calms down more.” She replies straight to the point, in that oh so Hiruko way.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too.”
“And if you spout some corny line about sleeping in my bed, or me in yours, I’m shoving you off this roof.”
“...Is it still on the table, though?”
Hiruko exhales from her nose, a small smile on her lips. “I won’t say it’s not.”
It’s a gentle night, at least.