Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Uva wakes up, he just feels addled with sleep. His brain doesn't turn on at first, the confusion setting in very slowly until it hits him all at once and he jolts up from where he was lying on the pavement.

His first question is how he wasn't destroyed. His second question, much more urgent:

Why... don't I have any medals..?

Not even cell medals, he notices. In a quick, instinctual panic, he touches his abdomen as if he'll find his core medals there after all.

He doesn't, but he does... feel..? He just feels.

His third and fourth questions come at the same time. Why is the world so bright now? What's wrong with his hand and his stomach that they're so oversensitized? He rubs at his shirt curiously, feeling the soft fabric against the skin of his hand and his abdomen. The material of his jacket feels different than that of the shirt. Same for his pants.

He stands, unsteady, and tries to walk normally rather than stagger to the tree nearby. He recoils at the feeling of the bark, much rougher and sharper than he'd imagined. Then, looking higher to the low-hanging leaves, he gently takes one between two fingers, rubbing at it with his thumb. He seriously considers biting into the leaf out of curiosity, just to see if he could find out what tasting is like, but he's already getting enough strange looks from nearby humans as it is. When he lets go of the leaf, he still feels the phantom sensation of the bark scraping his palm, as if the memory has stored itself in his skin.

He hears little things he didn't used to pick up on, too. The footsteps and murmurs of passersby, one of those flying transport things he forgets the name of way overhead, an evening bird cooing in the distance as if to beckon the sun to set.

The sunset. The sun is setting...

Uva bursts into a sudden sprint, heading anywhere that doesn't obscure the horizon with buildings or trees. He stops several times, always freezing at the sight of neon signs and wasting time taking them in. He keeps a hurried pace whenever he does move, and finds that he gets tired out rather quickly.

Even minor exhaustion is strangely visceral now. He stops at the top of a flight of stairs to a platform overlooking water, heaving for air that feels so solid in his throat and in his lungs. Walking slowly to the railing, he takes in the vibrant colors of the setting sun and the sky. They shift and change the longer he stares, and then he sees something completely new to him, not just enhanced.

Uva's vision had been so impaired previously, that the night sky was a mere sheet of black. None of the other Greeeds had insinuated that they could see otherwise, and Uva had thought the stars humans spoke of were things they could only see with their telescopes.

But no. He sees them now-- a smattering of tiny lights all across the sky, like a heavenly colony glimmering with life. He stares and he stares, and it only occurs to him after hours have passed and the number of humans around has significantly decreased that he should be more concerned that he's missing all of his cores.

A slight tingle starts spreading under his skin as he worries about his situation, and he wonders if anxiety can physically affect a body. He stares at his hand, human in appearance, and waits for it to change, waits for medals to roll until his skin becomes chitinous, but nothing happens.

Curious yet at the same time not even thinking about his actions, Uva digs his nails into his palm. It hurts in direct correlation to the pressure he applies, and he feels the urge to stop himself before he's even caused any damage. Tiny crescents have sunken into his skin, and he touches them with his other hand.

He starts connecting the dots in his head. His memory is intact, as far as he's aware. He'd been in the middle of fighting OOO, then that shithead Maki had thrown way too many medals into Uva despite him repeatedly telling him to stop. He remembers feeling such helpless fear, remembers running as far away as possible, his mind leaving him in favor of sheer panic at what he knew was coming next.

He remembers begging for help. He remembers feeling everything and nothing at once-- way too much, much too little, a black hole, a clean shape, so chaotic yet so orderly. He remembers feeling OOO there, and he remembers that he was no longer quite able to "think", yet somehow he felt that OOO must have heard his cry for help, must have responded like he does for everyone else.

And now, in retrospect, Uva thinks that would equate him to humans. He can imagine himself thinking it in the moment, too, were he actually able. Maybe the fleeting thought that he was more human than Greeed for just one moment could have caused some type of karmic transformation...

No matter how many times he runs it through his head, every explanation as to how he's truly alive right now is just coming up OOO.

Uva believes in the concept of debt. He believes that no betrayal should go unpunished, and that all favors should be repaid. He doesn't know how to even begin making up a favor to the man who saved him, who may very well have given him true life without even meaning to, just as an unforeseeable consequence of destroying what he'd become. What he does know is that OOO has every reason to detest him.

Then again, he seemed to put up with Ankh just fine...

Uva wanders into the dimly lit streets and he begins to fear his vision is returning to what it once was. He practically darts between street lights, constantly checking to make sure he can still see, can still feel, focusing on the chirping of crickets and fearing every second that they'll begin sounding muffled.

Maybe being able to feel so acutely isn't such a good thing after all, either, because Uva starts feeling... maybe sick? Humans sneeze when they're sick, but he doesn't get the urge at all. He just knows his energy isn't coming back like it was before, and he feels strangely tired. Maybe this body just can't stay awake for very long. Uva staggers to the closest building, sliding down the wall and sitting there until he falls asleep.

Impossibly, he wakes up feeling even worse. Despite his physical ailment, he gets this sort of hopeful excitement at the realization that the sun is coming back up. He's never been so happy to greet an acquaintance before.

"Mister, are you alright..?"

Uva jolts at the voice, unexpectedly close to him. He looks up and to his right to see a human woman holding a purse, brow knitted in curious concern.

"I don't know," he answers honestly.

"Did... you sleep out here?" she asks.

Uva nods, closing his eyes.

"Oh, mister, come inside! Let's get you something to eat," she insists, and Uva's eyes fly open when she yanks him up off the ground, attempting to drag him into the building he'd slept against, the world going dark for a moment at the sudden movement. His feet follow along of their own accord, and he finds that the inside of the building is not what he would have expected.

Some kind of restaurant, maybe.

"My name is Chiyoko," she introduces herself when she's returned from the kitchen with a glass of water. "And you are?"

Uva accepts the glass. The only thing he drank as a Greeed was alcohol, because it was a fascinating poison that he could feel, yet it wouldn't kill him. Drinking water for the first time feels nice. It's cool and smooth and it doesn't sting at all. He realizes that he craves more.

"Uva," he answers, breathless after downing the entire glass. "Could I..?"

Chiyoko's expression flickers for a split second, but then she smiles and takes the empty cup, briefly stepping away again to refill it. It has cubes in it this time, for some reason. They interfere slightly with drinking, and they cause odd patches of temperature in the water.

Uva fishes one of the cubes out and pops it into his mouth, instantly finding that it's freezing cold.

"Oh, ice," he dumbly surmises, flitting the cube to different corners of his mouth as his nerves scream for mercy and warmth. It's unpleasant, it has to be, but there's still something nice about it that makes him want to keep it in his mouth.

It's flavorless, though.

"Ohhh, I knew it! It's a common trait, isn't it!" Chiyoko exclaims, vaguely. She disappears into the kitchen again only to run out with...

Ah. Ankh was obsessed with these things. She knows, doesn't she? She knows, and yet she doesn't push him away.

Uva hesitantly accepts the ice cream, rubbing his thumb along the grooves of the wooden stick as if to memorize them. It's just now that he realizes he feels a hell of a lot better than he did this morning, or even last night.

Right. If this is a human body, it has many needs. Water is one of them.

Food is another, so Uva pulls the wrapper off and swallows the last of the ice cube before replacing it with a bite of the popsicle. His teeth scold him for it, but his shoulders fall in relief when the flavor hits his tongue, sweet and tangy and extant. He really does have all five senses now.

"Hopefully you don't eat as much as Ankh... but, I did get used to buying extra for him, and I'm running low on freezer space now because of it! Let's help each other out," she says with a smile and an outstretched hand.

"Uh... yeah," Uva nods, reaching first with the wrong hand and then switching the popsicle to that one in order to match Chiyoko's. He doesn't dare question her motives, or why she's so ludicrously fine with Uva being there, even knowing what he is.

Wait. Somehow, it only just now clicks that Chiyoko knew Ankh, and therefore must have known OOO. He could ask where he is now...

No, as a former enemy, that'd be too suspicious. Right now, he should...

"And anyway, you need to eat real food, too. I'm going to make breakfast for you, okay? Eat it once you're done with your ice cream!"

Uh, right now he should do as she says, probably. He has no idea how long food takes to prepare, so he's quick about finishing the popsicle. Left waiting after that, he chews on the stick, finding the dull, dry taste of wood fascinating.

Then, he swears he feels something smack him in the back of the head. He flinches in recoil and turns around, squinting in confusion when nothing is there. He looks around the room, still finding nothing.

When he turns back around to face forward, the kitchen door opens out of the corner of his eye. Chiyoko comes out with a hot plate of... something.

"Today's special is Finnish cuisine, so I hope you don't mind!" she says with enthusiasm. "Be sure to eat all you can!"

While Chiyoko walks around, setting up the shop, she hums and mutters to herself about various nonsense. Something about how somebody has time off, about how the smell of smoked salmon made her hungry again, about being short-staffed, about a television show she was watching last night, about wishing she had a few extra hands to help set up...

Uva allows himself enough time to register and savor the flavors before him, and then he scarfs it all down and hops off of his seat.

"If you need help, it's the least I can do," he offers, seeing her struggling on a ladder with a banner that is too wide for her armspan.

"Oh, thank you so much, Uva! Here, can you grab this end?"

This is a strange, funny little restaurant, it turns out. Uva doesn't understand any of it, but Chiyoko is inexplicably kind to him with no apparent ulterior motive, so he quickly grows to like Cous Coussier.

Chiyoko is readily friendly and trusting, too. She almost instantly starts referring to Uva affectionately and keeps praising him as being reliable and helpful whenever he so much as reaches a high shelf. It's extremely weird, and it leaves him bashful and confused, completely out of his element.

A loud yawn from behind catches both of their attention.

"Oh, good morning, Eiji!"

Ei...ji..? No, it couldn't be...

Uva slowly turns around, finding that, yes, the Eiji, OOO, just so happens to live in the building Uva inexplicably found and fell asleep next to.

Eiji stares at Uva, narrowing his eyes with a quick tilt of his head as unseen gears turn, and then his eyes widen with a gasp.

"Ahh-- Uva!"

He starts looking around frantically, patting at his waist like he's expecting the belt to be there.

"Relax, OOO," Uva tries, though he doesn't feel nearly as confident as he sounds. "It's all over, alright? You already won."

That isn't even close to the sentiment he'd wanted to express. Later, once Eiji has calmed himself, Uva will have to properly thank him.

"That's... true... but..." he waffles, fidgeting restlessly in place like he can't decide whether to walk towards Uva or run away from him.

"He's been such a great help already! He's definitely very responsible," Chiyoko chirps with an approving nod directed at Uva. Now it's his turn to fidget awkwardly, sort of turning to her, sort of opening his mouth, sort of not really.

"Well... what I want to know is, how are you back?" Eiji asks, a question Uva can't even answer.

"I can only offer you my theories. I really don't know," he admits.

"Oh... in that case, maybe mister Kougami would know."

"... Who?"

Who the hell could this Kougami be that he would know such a thing?

"Now, now! You two can figure out the finer details later. We have a restaurant to open!" Chiyoko reminds the two of them. "Now please get changed!"

She holds out two outfits pulled from an impressive hoard of clothing. Both of the options look rather unflattering, but a large green cloth catches Uva's eye from the hoard. He carefully pulls at it.

"Maybe this..?" he suggests cautiously. It's his color, after all, though a bit more muted than he'd immediately grown accustomed to since yesterday. It looks closer to how he used to see brighter shades.

Chiyoko pulls the outfit out for him and gasps when it unfolds into a long dress, the green cloth serving as an apron. Eiji stammers behind him.

"Um... I'm sure that wasn't what you meant to choose, but... just so you know, it's a viable option!" Chiyoko says.

"Huh?" Uva doesn't quite understand why the atmosphere suddenly changed. "Yeah, it looks good."

It's definitely the best option that he sees. It doesn't quite fit with his usual aesthetic, but he doubts any of these strange, foreign clothes will anyway. He finds the dress troubling to change into, already having had trouble with figuring out smaller clothes before, but he manages to get it on and smooth it out. When he steps back out into the restaurant, Eiji is wearing one of the silly outfits Chiyoko had held out to them just prior.

When Chiyoko is out of earshot opening the front doors, Eiji leans over to Uva.

"I kind of envy you for that, you know... I guess I don't have that kind of flexibility," he says.

Uva doesn't understand, but he supposes the dress was a little difficult to fit into, so he nods stiffly.

Working is surprisingly easy, smoothed along by Chiyoko's understanding that of course a former Greeed would have no idea how to prepare food for humans. Instead, he essentially acts as a barmaid, and he socializes shallowly with absolutely fascinated customers. A few groups of girls in particular smile at him far too much. He narrows his eyes with a tilt of his head, assuming they must be up to something, but none of them end up causing any trouble.

During slow moments, Uva finds his eyes gravitating to Eiji in contemplation. Of course he still sees Uva as a threat, he has to. He'd be an idiot to accept him so easily. Therefore, should Uva maybe wait to show his appreciation? If he makes any big gestures too quickly, won't it seem like he's trying too hard to win Eiji's trust, therefore making him suspicious? Then again, if he waits too long, Eiji might assume Uva forgot about the debt completely, or never even appreciated what he did for him.

It might be the toughest spot Uva's ever been in, and he died just recently.

Chiyoko gives him food again for "lunch break", and insists that he spend his free hour doing whatever he'd like. During that time, Uva eats slowly, fully registering every flavor and texture. It makes him wonder how humans just eat like it's nothing, though he supposes they've had much more time to get used to it.

It's after the restaurant has closed for the day and Uva has changed back into his preferred outfit that he hears Eiji talking to Chiyoko. When he turns the corner to see them, he catches Eiji bowing.

"I'm sorry, I'll pay for anything he ate today," he says. The money he pulls out is just a few coins, though...

It seems to him like an opportunity has just revealed itself. As Eiji is walking back his way, Uva pulls out a stack of yen, remembering that he'd rubber banded them together in groups of fifty thousand for easy organization. He holds it out to Eiji, who looks between him and the money, surprised.

"Oh, no thank you," he declines with a polite little shake of his head. Uva falters, his hand lowering slightly.

"But why? You need money, don't you?"

"But... you didn't earn it honestly, did you?" Eiji just knows.

Uva finds his eyes averting themselves. Of course Eiji wouldn't want to accept such a thing. He ceases his insistence then, placing the cash back in the inner pocket of his jacket. The ever so slight weight of it feels heavy and disgusting now that he knows Eiji isn't fond of it. Why is that?

"Well, you already have it, and it's... probably too late to give it back, isn't it? Use that money to pay Chiyoko whenever you eat here, alright?"

It would make sense, wouldn't it?

"Am I hired?" he asks. "Do you know?"

"Uh... I assume so?" is Eiji's confused answer.

"Right. Then I'll use the money I earn here instead," Uva decides. The rest is all dead weight from now on, unusable as far as he's concerned.

Eiji looks openly surprised. Then, for some reason, he smiles.

After that conversation, he leaves for the day, forgetting to talk to Chiyoko again. When people have jobs, they usually go to them every day, so he'll just return tomorrow at around the same time Chiyoko found him outside. He'll figure the rest out from there.

When he gets to his studio, the first thing he does is empty all of his pockets. He throws open a drawer intending to stuff the cash in there and forget about it, but finds that his stash of cell medals remains untouched. He'd kept some here as backup, but he'd somehow figured they'd all be gone just like his cores.

He runs his hand across them, feeling bumps and grooves he never could have acknowledged previously. Then, with a little hesitance, he picks one up and presses it to his chest. Nothing happens, and he flicks the medal back inside and shoves the drawer shut.

"So it's a human body after all..." Uva says to himself, though he supposes that's painfully obvious by now.

He'll have to stay on top of taking care of it. He's learned of quite a few things today, needs that he was already aware of previously but that he never knew could feel so bad. Thirst is a big one, and Chiyoko had commented at one point in the day that he was drinking a lot of water. Does water cost money, too?

He walks over to the drum set while he's thinking, smacking the cymbal like he always does, but this time he recoils, startled. Was it always so loud? Abandoned warehouse or not, humans must have been able to hear him from miles away with how sensitive their hearing is. He touches it gentler this time, experimenting with how much impact he can get away with before it's too loud again. The second time he hits it hard-- maybe because it doesn't catch him off guard again-- he finds that he likes it after all.

Sleep takes him easier than usual, but he wakes up noticeably sore. He even finds it difficult to rise from the pile of miscellaneous objects he'd lied in, belatedly discovering that they don't make such a good nest after all.

Still tired, he heads straight back to Cous Coussier as soon as he's on his feet.

When he arrives, the doors are locked. He knocks, thinking that maybe Chiyoko is already setting up, but there's no answer. He leans his back against one of the doors, deciding to wait, but then the other one cautiously swings open, and he turns his head to find himself face to face with Eiji.

"Oh, you're back! Uh... come in! I think that's fine," he says, stepping back and holding the door open for Uva.

Uva looks around, finding that the decorations from yesterday are still up. He's about to ask if there's anything he should be doing without Chiyoko's instruction, but then Eiji says his name and walks over to the counter, staring at Uva in anticipation until he follows him.

"Um..."

Eiji looks a little hesitant, a little determined, and then he pulls something out of his pocket and sets his closed fist on the counter. Slowly, his fingers open, revealing two halves of a falcon medal. He maintains contact with it, the gesture along with the look in his eyes communicating how important the broken medal is to him. Uva knows it's all that's left of Ankh.

Uva tries to look without touching. He's sick of medals, anyway. He's not sure even one of his own cores wouldn't turn his stomach by this point.

"Do you... know anything about this? About... how to fix this?"

Uva looks between him and the medal, trying to come up with an answer for him. He thinks he's failed, but just as he's about to solemnly shake his head, it lifts in realization.

"Desire..." he says, an obvious guess. "If your desire to fix it is strong, that should be enough. It's a core medal after all."

Seeing the hope in Eiji's eyes makes him feel bad for guessing so brazenly.

"... Well, I've never seen a broken medal before, so I don't know for sure..." he admits as a disclaimer. Eiji shakes his head.

"No, that makes sense," he says, sliding the halves off of the counter to stare down at them in his palm. "Thank you."

He offers a short bow to Uva, who feels entirely like it's unwarranted. He still hasn't even managed to get his feelings of gratitude across to Eiji, so what exactly is he doing bowing to Uva?

Chiyoko shows up before Uva has figured out any solutions to try. She announces that there's not a special today and has Uva and Eiji help her with taking yesterday's decorations down.

"Next week is Ireland, but one of the costumes is still stuck in transit," she tells Eiji with excitement. "Ohh, I hope it gets here in time!"

The outfit Uva wears today is a lot less colorful and foreign. It makes him look like a normal waiter, from what he's seen.

"And, um, Uva? If you want, I could maybe have some adjustments made to your uniform," Chiyoko offers. Uva looks down, confused. Does it fit strangely somewhere that he doesn't know about?

"This is fine," he says. He hopes it's fine?

Maybe she's being considerate of Uva's obvious color preference, but he won't die if he doesn't wear green for a while.

A few hours into the day, Chiyoko comes running to him.

"Alright, I'll admit it! The customers yesterday really liked seeing you in that outfit! I guess a look like that is really popular with young women!"

"... Eh?"

"Well, it seems like word spreads quickly and... some people came today just to see you," she says, somehow sad about it. "Ohhh, but you weren't wearing a dress this time!"

"Uh... huh? What?"

Uva can't even begin to figure out what he even needs to ask to quell this incredible confusion. Chiyoko clasps her hands together and gets very close to Uva, who instinctively leans back.

"It doesn't have to be all the time, but if it's not too much trouble... would you mind terribly, wearing dresses more often? Just while you're working?"

"Uh..."

Still bewildered, Uva nods numbly.

"Oh, thank yooouuu!" she squeaks, spinning in place.

"You're... welcome..?" he says, but he isn't certain she hears it.

"I can see it now! Tomorrow... maid cafe!" she pitches to herself with unbridled enthusiasm as she walks off.

"It looks like you've ended up in a bit of a mess..." Eiji comments. "Sorry about that."

"OOO, do you know--"

"Ah, please, just call me Eiji! Or, Hino would be fine."

"Ei...ji..."

Uva pauses on his name, forgetting the many questions he had for him. Eiji waits for him at first, but then is quickly distracted by a group of customers.

When they're closing for the day, Chiyoko comes to talk to Uva.

"Uva, do you have a place to stay?" she asks. "If not, you can live here with Eiji!"

With... Eiji?

"I already asked him, he doesn't mind. Isn't that right, Eiji?" she calls out, drawing Eiji's attention from the hallway.

"Of course. Just, uh... don't touch Ankh's nest, okay? I don't want anything to change about it before he gets back."

"I--"

"Oh, of course! I can lend you a spare futon," Chiyoko offers.

"Oh, we'd be sharing a room, by the way," Eiji mentions like it's nothing. "If that's alright."

Something about it feels very not alright.

"You would willingly share a room with me so soon after we used to be enemies? I haven't even done anything to earn your trust," Uva reminds him. Maybe he should sound hopeful, but his disbelief feels more... irritable than that.

"It's okay... you're human now. I can see that you're trying to change. And if you do go back to your old ways, well... I'll stop you," Eiji says, determined.

Still, Uva can't accept it. He thinks he understands now, why Ankh was repeatedly heard calling Eiji an idiot.

"What proof do you even have that I'm not liable to stab you in the back?" he asks, potentially compromising himself for no reason, seeing as it isn't even true.

"Uva..." Chiyoko says quietly, like just the suggestion hurts her.

Eiji doesn't flinch.

"I don't think it's fair, that you guys were created just to want and never have. You couldn't even feel..."

Uva supposes Eiji knows from experience, however short it might have been.

"I think... not even just you, or Ankh, but... all of you Greeeds deserved to have a real chance at life. You deserve to have all your senses, to figure out what you like and dislike. You deserve to wear the clothes you want and eat the food you want, you deserve to have hobbies... Maybe it's just wishful thinking, that I want you guys to be able to be human. Still..."

With every word Eiji says, Uva thinks again and again that he would do anything for him. This is a debt that he could not possibly repay-- for the very first time, somebody cares about him.

No, not just him. He looks to Chiyoko, reflects on how kind she's been just over the past two days. Is this what it means to be a pack animal?

"... How can I refuse, then?"

Eiji and Chiyoko both smile, relief and joy evident on their faces for reasons Uva truly cannot discern. He thinks trying to do so might be futile, at this point.

Chapter Text

The "maid cafe" thing, as it turns out, is something Eiji is made to participate in as well. The three of them have slightly different outfits, but they're all black and white. It makes Uva frequently look around for color.

In fact, one source of color turns out to be Eiji's face. It's faint, but there's a slight red across his cheeks that Uva doesn't recall being there before. Was it always like that? It's possible Uva simply wasn't color-starved enough previously to notice.

For some reason, an inordinate amount of young women flood the restaurant as the day goes on, staying longer than they need too. A few of them ask Uva if he's "single". He doesn't quite know what that means, so he awkwardly dodges the question each time. Strangely, he witnesses Eiji doing the same. Maybe human women have a different language that isn't widely known?

"What does that mean, anyway? Single?" Uva asks Eiji, who is on his break now.

"Oh, they mean to ask if you have a romantic partner. Like, uh..." Eiji trails off and scratches at his cheek, unintentionally reminiscent of Kazari. "I guess I never asked Ankh. Do Greeeds ever fall in love?"

Love? Oh. Uva turns to look over the groups of customers, none of the ones present having asked him the question of his relationship status, but it's hard to tell these droves of humans apart anyway. It can't truly be that their goal is to land him or Eiji as a mate, right? Then again, both of them are strong and would likely result in good offspring. But then, how could they know that without knowing Eiji is OOO or that Uva is a Greeed? Or, was.

"Uva? Do they?" Eiji repeats. Uva snaps back to look at him again.

"Uh... no. I don't think so? No, no," he settles on. Emotions were sort of a hollow echo of what they should be as well, just like physical senses. Uva could probably experience love now, though, in this form.

Actually, that is worrisome.

"Oh no... that's really sad... but then, what about Mezool and Gamel?" Eiji asks, bringing up a decent point.

"Mezool was just pretending. Gamel... well, who knows about him?"

Uva has to leave Eiji when he's waved over to a table. A woman is sitting there alone and holds a little too much mirth in her eyes when Uva gets close. She asks him to sit with her, moving over in the small booth, and Uva takes a second to consider it before obliging. He sits with his legs facing outward, not bothering to swing them under the table as if he's planning to stay there for a while. As a result of the position, he's only half-facing her.

She asks way too many questions about the menu for Uva. Most of them he's able to sort of answer just by looking at the very same menu she's reading from, but he doesn't know what to say when she asks for a recommendation. He dodges the question at first, but upon her insistence, just says the first thing that comes to mind.

"Why don't you pick something green?"

He cringes a little at his own words. Surely, normal humans don't pick their food based on color. She appears delighted by the answer, though, smiling widely and playfully batting him on the arm.

"Oh, you're so sweet. Maybe I should get something healthy after all," she says.

She finally gives him her order and Uva is grateful for the excuse to get up. He brings the little note he made to Chiyoko in the kitchen, who takes it and trades him a dish with three bowls on it for another table.

As soon as Eiji is back from lunch, Uva takes his break. He lets Chiyoko choose what to give him, and he ends up with a plate of assorted fruits. Uva is immediately taken with them, finding them a more palatable type of sweet than the ice cream in the freezer. They're also easier to eat than most foods, as he's not being expected to figure out utensils this time. Not that they're too difficult to pick up, but it's a pain to adjust to new tools.

When Eiji happens to pass by, Uva calls out to grab his attention. When he turns around, Uva holds out a sliced strawberry. Glancing down at it, Eiji smiles and takes it from him, leaving with a nod and a "thank you".

He'd thought for a second that that would be a good way to show his appreciation, to share food with Eiji. It's an incredibly meaningful act, after all, to take care of another's needs unbidden. Then again, he realizes, it's not like he even went and got the food himself; Chiyoko is the one responsible for that. If humans are pack animals, she must be the leader of this particular pack.

It seems Uva will have to keep trying to come up with the perfect solution.

When closing time comes around, Uva overhears Chiyoko telling Eiji about how someone is coming back from vacation tomorrow.

"Oh, good! It'll be nice to have Hina around again," he says. "Um... I know it's still fifteen minutes until closing, but could I, uh..."

He tugs at his clothes, sheepish.

"Oh, sure! You can go get changed."

"Thank you," Eiji sighs in uplifted relief.

Uva isn't quite so urgently eager to get changed, waiting until the last group consisting of a couple and their small child has left. He pulls his preferred clothes on in their shared room, pausing to stare at some of Eiji's own clothes. He's pretty sure Eiji has a strange "fashion" sense, based on what all the other humans around seem to prefer. It makes him wonder what that's meant to convey about Eiji.

"Hey, Uva?" Eiji addresses, slowly opening the door without stepping into the room yet. "I've been meaning to ask. What do you want to do from now on?"

Now would be a good time to openly acknowledge his debt, he supposes.

"When I was suffering, you saved me. I don't know how, but you gave me life in the process... I'll do anything to repay you. I'll spend my whole life doing it if that's what it takes."

Eiji jostles, surprised.

"N-no, I... that's really not necessary!" he laughs nervously. "I'm sorry, I never meant to make you feel like you needed to repay me. But... thank you for the thought."

Now he's thanking Uva..? Something in Eiji's brain must be twisted. That would explain some of his strange behavior. After a moment, Eiji finally walks into the room, gently closing the door behind him.

"I guess I don't have to worry about you causing trouble, then. You wouldn't do anything to make me sad, right?"

"Even if I wanted to, I'm not a Greeed anymore," he reminds him. "What's the worst I could do?"

"Well... humans are capable of bad things, too. Twisting desire the way you guys used to, I figured you would have known that by now."

"... Good point."

Then again, it's not like Uva particularly counts himself as a human. Physically now, yes; there's no other explanation for what this body is. But he wasn't born as a human, and he's really only so-so at blending in as one. He doesn't feel quite like a Greeed anymore, he's too hypersensitive for that now, but he still doesn't think he's human.

Eiji sits down on his bed. When Uva turns to face him, even though he can see Eiji just fine and knows he isn't moving, he swears he feels a hefty shove against his chest. It makes him take a step back, looking down in confusion.

"What's wrong?" Eiji asks him, standing right back up.

"I... don't know," Uva says, unhelpful. Maybe he needs water again.

"Could it be that you've been pushing yourself..? Why don't you sit down?"

"No? I haven't done anything to exert myself. And anyway, I wanted to go back to my studio today..."

"Studio?" Eiji asks.

"It's where I was staying before this," he says. "There's something there that I like..."

Although, he could stand to avoid the cell medals and the blood money.

"Huh... If you don't mind, could I tag along?"

"Yeah," Uva instantly agrees without thinking. "... Wait, what? Why would you want to go?"

"It's just that I don't have much else to do," he admits, a hand on the back of his head. "It's fine if you don't want me to come."

"No, you're allowed. Obviously, you're allowed..."

Should he have cleaned the place up a bit last time he was there? Eiji probably won't be impressed at all. Besides, he's so much more familiar with any of the human things that fascinate Uva, thus surely finding them mundane and uninteresting.

Still, he'll do anything for Eiji. So, he leads him to his studio. It's a peaceful walk, though they don't talk much. They travel mostly without incident, except...

Eiji, distracted while trying to explain what some sort of foreign food tastes like, happens to smack his forehead on a brittle bundle of low-hanging branches. He seems surprised more than hurt, instinctively apologizing to the tree and ducking out of the way of its branches, so respectful.

Uva, on the other hand... He'd been looking right at Eiji's face, saw the innocent hurt and confusion when he'd registered that something had hit him. Suddenly overcome by an ungodly-- and frankly unnecessary-- rage, Uva snaps the offending branches off of the tree, throwing them to the ground.

"Hey! There's no need for that!" Eiji protests, grabbing Uva by the shoulders and pulling him away before he can cause any more damage. "Please be kind to nature. It does so much for us!"

"Does it matter? It's in the way."

He knows what he said is wrong, because Eiji looks so very disappointed in him.

"I guess... Greeeds are just sort of like that, huh..." he laments. "Ankh was the same, no matter how hard I tried..."

Now Uva's frustration redirects to himself. Unsure what to do with that energy, he just storms off towards his studio. He hears Eiji hesitate for a moment behind him before running to catch up to him.

As soon as they're inside, an idea occurs to Uva.

"Hey, come over here," he says, heading towards his stash of cell medals. He pulls a drawer open and looks expectantly at Eiji.

"Cell medals?" He doesn't seem to get it for a moment, and then his face brightens in realization.

Carefully, he pulls out the broken core medal, setting the halves gently on top of the pile. They wait, but nothing happens.

"Damnit, wake up already, Ankh," Uva says, dropping a cell medal atop the broken core. "You have someone waiting for you!"

"Ouh, please be careful!"

Eiji hurriedly collects the halves, holding them to his chest like they're an injured baby bird. They might as well be, considering. He presses the halves together, but they don't stick at all.

"I guess it wouldn't be so easy, huh? It's okay. I'll just have to figure something else out."

He's not very easily discouraged, it seems. Well, that's good.

"So, what was this thing you said you like?" Eiji asks, reminding Uva of why he came along to begin with.

"Oh..."

Uva slowly approaches the drum set, unsure of how to introduce Eiji to it.

"You know how to play the drums?!" Eiji instantly assumes, cheer in his voice. "That's good! It's good for you to have a hobby!"

"Uh-- no, I..."

"Wait, where are the sticks? I don't see any. You don't just use your hands, do you..?"

Uva doesn't answer. What sticks? How do you "play" these things?

"... Right, I guess you wouldn't just automatically know. Sorry, it just seems obvious to an average person like me," Eiji says, as if he could possibly be described as an average person.

"Do I... go get some sticks..?" Uva asks hesitantly, still not certain he's even understood the concept yet.

"Well, there are special sticks specifically for playing the drums. I'll get some for you, and then I'll show you how to use them. Sound good?"

It sounds... like another favor...

With a quiet sigh, Uva nods, accepting more debt.

"Hey, so I was thinking. Tomorrow afternoon, we should go see mister Kougami," Eiji says, mentioning that name again.

"Who is that?" Uva asks, seeing as he neglected to last time he'd heard it.

"Oh, mister Kougami is... um... right, how to put this... He's sort of, uh... Well, you'll meet him."

He's painted a very vivid picture with his words, there. Uva guesses he'll just have to find out for himself tomorrow.

"In the meantime, what's with all this other stuff? Is this all yours?" Eiji asks, walking over to one of many little piles of objects.

"Yeah. I don't know what most of it is, but I collected them."

"Um, a lot of it seems to be..."

He trails off as he picks up a colorful piece of cardboard, checking both sides of it as if looking for its value.

"Well, as long as you like it," he finishes. Uva can't help but feel that wasn't originally where his sentence was going.

He looks around at more of Uva's collection, naming things that he recognizes. Apparently, Uva has a "collector's tin" of some kind, a "rice cooker", a stuffed mascot that he still doesn't recognize even after Eiji says the name, a broken "gramophone"--

"Oh, this is eyeshadow," Eiji comments upon opening a thin rectangular object, which Uva hadn't even realized could be opened. "You have a lot of various things, huh?"

"Does that mean anything?"

"Oh, not really..."

It is sort of nice, watching Eiji wander around the studio in fascination, wondering what strange item he'll find next.

"A hot glue gun?"

Gun? Uva didn't realize he'd gotten ahold of a weapon.

"Huh, I guess you don't have any sticks for it. If you did, you could glue stuff together with this! Did you know?" Eiji turns to ask him, the gun in question in his hand.

"Do humans use a lot of sticks?"

The question seems to surprise Eiji, and then he starts laughing.

"I'm sorry, I'm not trying to make fun of you," he apologizes, quickly trying to stifle his laughter. "I guess you're right. There are sticks of gum, too, you know. And pens are just sticks with ink in them, if you think about it..."

Whatever the case, the conversation is making Eiji smile. Uva bears with feeling a little stupid for that reason.

Tomorrow is a day for meeting more humans, it seems.

Chapter Text

Before Cous Coussier has opened, Chiyoko is sweeping the floors with an everpresent enthusiasm Uva still can't wrap his head around. Though he can't wear a constant smile like her, he still helps a bit by straightening up here and there. He feels a bit lost without any directions from her.

"Okay, have a good day at work, alright?"

That voice sounds familiar, somehow. When he turns around, he immediately sees why. Shocked, Uva points at the man in the doorway.

"Ankh!" he shouts. Ankh looks just as caught off-guard as Uva feels.

"Uva!" he shouts back. "... Wait, no! I'm not Ankh! But, how--?!"

"Oh, Uva! Sorry, I should have explained!" Eiji runs in between them, bowing to both of them. "I'm really sorry for the confusion. First, Uva, this is Shingo. Ankh was borrowing his body for a while. And now, Shingo, um... How to explain this..?"

The girl beside him looks terrified, backing away slowly from Uva and tugging on this "Shingo"'s sleeve as if to bring him along. Then, with perfect timing, Chiyoko walks back into the room.

"Oh, Hina! Welcome back! Say hello to our newest employee!"

"... Eh?"

Eiji rushes to explain things.

"Hina, Shingo, um... so, this is Uva, but you already knew that... We're not really clear on what happened, but he's a human now, and we're pretty sure it's my fault?" He puts his hands together and bows again. "I'm really sorry for surprising you two. And you, Uva."

Hina, dumbstruck, lets go of Shingo's sleeve, who dons a smile completely uncharacteristic of Ankh as he walks towards Uva. When he raises a hand, Uva automatically catches his wrist, redirecting it from himself and fixing him with a glare.

"Uva!" Eiji scolds without even needing to say anything. His tone of voice is enough, and Uva releases Shingo's hand.

"I just wanted to let you know that I get it. You probably don't really care, but you don't have to worry about me not trusting you," he says, inexplicably.

"Why... would you trust me?" he asks, looking to Eiji and remembering having a similar conversation with him.

"I wonder why?" Shingo cheerfully echoes the sentiment. "It's just a feeling I get. Maybe it's from being possessed by a Greeed for so long."

"Then, Uva is... like Ankh now?" Hina asks. She still looks cautious, indicating to Uva that she might be the only human around here who actually has any self-preservation instincts.

"Not quite, Hina! Ankh was precious, but Uva..!" Chiyoko holds her arms out to him in a gesture Uva doesn't recognize or understand. "He's so responsible! And he helps around the restaurant! And he's--"

Then she gasps, running over to Hina.

"I have so much to tell you about what happened while you were on vacation!" she practically squeals, giddy with excitement.

"Oh no... I guess that includes yesterday?" Eiji laments with a nervous smile.

"By the way, Eiji," Shingo says, his expression dropping to one a bit more serious. "Since one Greeed has returned... any luck with..."

Eiji sighs, eyes averting in somber disappointment as he pulls the broken core medal out.

"Not yet..." he says, closing his fingers over it. "But... I can't help but feel like I'm close to figuring something out."

Shingo goes on to encourage Eiji, and Uva passively witnesses their conversation until he's distracted by the feeling of something touching his cheek. He looks to his side, finding nothing, and brings a hand up to touch the same cheek. He still detects nothing even after glancing around a bit more, so he decides to forget about it.

"Oh, right! We were going to see mister Kougami today!" Eiji remembers. "I've already asked him about Ankh before, but... I don't know, maybe he thought of something else. Or, seeing Uva might make him think of something!"

"Do you two want a ride?" Shingo offers, pointing a thumb over his shoulder.

"Oh, no thank you! We can get there on our own. Are you ready to go, Uva?"

"What about the restaurant?"

"Well, Hina's back."

"... Huh? Don't I work here, though?"

"Uva... you don't have to work every single day!" Eiji says, walking forward to grab Uva's hand. "Now come on!"

Uva doesn't get it, but he'd prefer to do what Eiji wants either way.

"Oh yeah, I forgot to ask," Eiji brings up along the way. "I saw a few golf clubs at your studio... it was pretty much the only thing I saw more than one of."

"Golf clubs?"

"Oh, it's... another stick," he laughs, "with sort of a thing on the end. You know, like..."

He presses his fingers together and holds his hand out, moving it around in an unsure manner before retracting it and becoming a bit sheepish.

"It's unexpectedly hard to describe..."

"The firm, long ones, right?" Uva guesses, seeing as those sticks are the only ones he collects in particular. It's unlikely that he's talking about anything else.

"Yeah, yeah! Those are golf clubs. So, does that mean you like golf?"

There's a pause as Uva tries to figure out what that could be.

"What does golf mean..?" he asks.

"Oh, it's a game. Or maybe it counts as a sport... well, it's not a very active sport, I don't think..." he tries to explain.

"It's not active? What are they used for besides smashing things?"

Eiji double-takes, apparently taken aback by that.

"N-no, you're supposed to hit a ball with it, not smash things! And, you're not supposed to hit the ball very hard... or, wait, I guess you have to if it's a big field."

Hitting a ball? Uva could look into that, maybe.

The building this mister Kougami resides in is huge. Eiji at one point speaks to a disembodied voice, asking forgiveness for visiting without an appointment. The voice tells him that Kougami is already expecting him.

"That's just like him," Eiji says. "Have you ever been on an elevator?"

Uva watches as the metal doors part, revealing a tiny room. Eiji steps inside and gestures for Uva to join him. He doesn't see the point, but he obeys nonetheless.

"See, the buttons are basically commands for the elevator. Like, if you hit the button for the top floor..."

He presses one of the buttons. It lights up in response and the doors start to close on their own.

"Hey!"

Uva takes a quick step forward, but Eiji yanks him back to the railing.

"No, no, that's supposed to happen. It's safer for it to move with the doors closed as opposed to opened," he calmly explains.

"Move? The room is moving?"

Uva can feel it happening, and it's absolutely fascinating. He can't see that he's moving, and his body is still, but he can sense the room going up. It doesn't take long before the elevator makes a high pitched noise and the doors open, revealing a different floor. Eiji leads Uva down the hallway.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!"

Uva instinctively raises his fists at the shout, which greets them the moment they walk through the door.

"Hello, mister Kougami," Eiji greets, unrattled.

"Please! Come in," Kougami insists with a wide smile. The exclamation had put Uva on guard, but he sees now that this man isn't the one he's used to.

"Just curious, but... do you already know why we're here?"

Kougami laughs silently, his smile only growing. On the desk in front of him is a large box decorated with a green bow. He delicately removes the top, revealing the contents of the box.

Happy birthday,

Uva

"Wow, you really did know!" Eiji says. "Are we allowed to take this?"

"Of course! What is a birthday without a cake?"

"... Huh?"

"Uva, this is for you!" Eiji tells him, carefully lifting the cake off of the desk.

"...... Huh?"

Kougami laughs at Uva's readily apparent confusion.

"Uva! You've been given a new life. A miraculous BIRTH! What's more, you've proven that it's possible for Greeeds to evolve... into humans!" Kougami exclaims, excitement incarnate. "It's truly... FANTASTIC!"

"About that! We were wondering if... maybe you knew how that happened?" Eiji asks.

Kougami's face twists a bit with a disappointed noise, and then he snaps his fingers, arm swinging to the side.

"Unfortunately! I do not," he admits. "But, I have theories! Uva, who had become the medal container and gone out of control... Eiji Hino, who destroyed the new form that resulted... What if, that new form were a cocoon?"

"A... cocoon?"

Eiji looks to Uva as if he could possibly have answers for him.

"Yes! A cocoon gathering energy for a new transformation! Like a caterpillar to a butterfly!"

"Well, I guess that makes sense for you," Eiji quips with a knowing glance.

"... Hey."

Eiji laughs and Kougami joins him.

"This human form could be an accidental byproduct, resulting from the cocoon being destroyed. Or, perhaps... it was the goal all along. Either way, no matter what, it's a wonderful new birth!" Kougami concludes, his smile long having made its return.

"I guess that makes sense, but..." Eiji's own smile fades now, and he sets the cake back down to reach into his pocket. "I know I've already gone to you about this before, but... I was wondering if you had any new ideas?"

Kougami considers the broken medal, bringing a hand to his chin in thought, though he does look a bit more like a petulant child than a wise man.

"Perhaps another evolution is in order. The only problem... is that the core medals are gone!" he practically cries.

"Cell medals don't work either," Eiji adds, dejected. "But, Uva said that maybe desire would work? A desire to fix it?"

Kougami's eyes widen, his fingers snapping again to point at Eiji.

"Now, that is a theory," he says. "Work with that for now. Think day and night about how very much you want Ankh to return to you!"

Eiji nods with an important determination, pocketing the medal again.

"Thank you, mister Kougami."

He bows, then turns around to leave.

"Eiji!"

Eiji turns back around, surprised, and then scrambles to pick the cake back up.

"Right, sorry! Thank you!"

Uva feels very much like he's just been through a whirlwind. It's all he can do to remind himself to follow Eiji out.

The walk back to the restaurant is spent with Eiji explaining to Uva what birthdays mean to humans. Apparently, they're important in a sentimental way as well as being a method of timekeeping. Eiji also mentions that you're supposed to light candles on the cake before making a wish and blowing out the fire.

It's then that Uva realizes he doesn't know what he wishes for. He tries to search his mind, to grab at anything he could desire, but nothing occurs to him. The only thing he can think about is what's right in front of him: Eiji.

He takes a closer look at the cake when they begin to near Cous Coussier. The surface is a light green, with darker dollops along the edges and some little green slices sticking out of them. He picks one up out of curiosity and is delighted to discover that it's a fruit.

"Wait until we get inside to eat it! ... Those are kiwi slices, by the way," Eiji tells him.

Hina is significantly less intensely guarded than she had been before they left, even greeting the two of them with a smile. Chiyoko is particularly excited about the cake, apparently to the point of keeping the restaurant closed today, because "Wednesdays are slow anyway!"

The three of them are rather insistent about giving Uva a "proper birthday". Chiyoko heads off to a store, apparently, and Eiji has to guard the cake from Uva, who doesn't understand the point in waiting.

"You have to blow out the candles before you can eat the cake! We don't have any candles yet, so that means you'll have to wait."

"Do you know what you're going to wish for?" Hina asks.

Uva still doesn't know.

"... You said those are kiwis?" he asks to confirm. Eiji looks over his shoulder at the cake.

"Yup, kiwis," he says with a nod of his head.

"Then, I guess I wish for those."

Eiji and Hina look at each other in silence, and then Hina has to stifle a laugh. Eiji doesn't do as good of a job.

"What's funny about that? Why are you always laughing?!"

Still, it's not like he can actually get angry. Not so long as it's Eiji.

As soon as Chiyoko returns, the three of them start setting things up. Uva pesters Eiji about the candles, who finally caves and puts them in early, rushing the preparations. They circle him and start singing some strange song, and Uva ends up with some frivolous cone on his head that his hand comes up to remove-- that is, until he sees Eiji wearing an identical one, then his hand falters and falls to his lap.

Though no one is close enough to have swiped it, Uva finds it suddenly lopsided, sitting at an awkward angle and wishing to hit the floor if not for the thin string holding it in place. Confused, he corrects it, and then wonders why the hell he cares.

The inside of the cake, it turns out, isn't green like the exterior. It's a sort of middle ground between white and yellow, split into three layers with more kiwi slices in between, immediately granting the wish Uva had made. He quickly learns what love is after just one bite and decides he'll have to remember to repay Kougami at a later point.

"Don't forget! Besides just cake, birthdays are for presents!" Chiyoko claims, holding a bag out to Uva.

"Oh, did you pick something out?" Eiji asks, trying to peer into the bag without touching it. "Open it, Uva!"

"Well, I didn't have any idea what to get him, but then I happened to see this and thought it was perfect!" she says, hands coming together giddily.

Inside the bag is a small box. Uva pulls the top off and Eiji makes a small noise of wonder beside him. Inside the box is a silver necklace, the charm themed like a praying mantis, with scythes and wings interlocking. A small green drop-shaped opal hangs from the bottom of the charm, secured with more silver.

"It's really nice!" Eiji awes, gently running a finger along the edge of a scythe. "I can't believe you found something like this!"

"I know!" Chiyoko squees. "It's too perfect! Uva, do you like it?"

He looks up, somehow not expecting the question.

"Of course I like it," he says truthfully, believing it really does go without saying. He pulls it out of the box and is halfway through putting it on before Eiji taps him on the arm.

"Uva! Say thank you!" he whispers.

Uva quickly stands up and bows to Chiyoko.

"Thank you," he says.

"Oh, there's no need to stand on ceremony! Here, let me help you put it on."

She clasps it in the back for him. The charm is a little weighty against Uva's collarbones, but it feels good. Chiyoko is another person he owes a huge debt to, and he doesn't know how to begin chipping away at it.

For now, though, he'll just enjoy this day.

Chapter Text

On a "day off", Eiji takes Uva out for a walk, claiming to have some things to show him.

"So I looked up where to get drumsticks, and I also figured I could show you this shop that makes fruit smoothies."

"What are smoothies?"

"Oh, it's like... fruit turned into a drink! Not juice, though. It's thicker than that."

"Do they make them out of kiwis?"

Eiji laughs.

"I'm sure they can, if you ask!" he says with a little smile.

Along the way, though, Eiji gets distracted by a lost child before they've reached any of the shops he'd mentioned. She's just standing in a park all by herself, looking miserable.

"Hey, are you okay? Where are your parents?" Eiji asks, but the child doesn't answer him.

"What's your name?" he tries instead, but she just shakes her head, bottom lip quivering.

"Oh, no, it's okay, there's no reason to cry! Do you know which way you live? How about you point me in the right direction and I'll take you home?"

She still doesn't talk, just sniffles, but she grabs onto Eiji's hand and doesn't let go. Eventually, she points south.

"Sorry about the detour, Uva," Eiji apologizes with a slight bow. "I wasn't expecting something like this."

"Do as you like," Uva says, coming off more indifferent than he means to.

Eiji tries his best to cheer the child up, even gets her to swing their hands together, but she still doesn't say a word. Uva follows along, feeling misplaced somehow. It's strange to see such a tiny human, and she sure is good at demanding all of Eiji's attention.

"It's... it's you..."

The group turns to see a man Uva vaguely recognizes. He can't put a name to the face, but he knows he must have hired him to do some legwork for him at some point in the past.

"Why did you disappear like that? No, more importantly, do you have any jobs for me again?" the man asks, oddly frantic as he approaches Uva.

"No more jobs. No more money," Uva tells him, seeing as he's abandoned his blood money and therefore has none to his name. He believes the phrase is "tapped out of cash"? Something like that.

"No more..?"

"Hey, are you--"

The man grabs the little girl by the hood of her jacket and pulls out a gun, aiming shakily at Uva.

"Just-- just give me all you've got and nobody has to get hurt!" he demands, not at all intimidating.

"No, please, put the gun away! At least let the little girl go, she has nothing to do with this!" Eiji pleads, falling into a stance Uva has come to see as defensive and submissive, hands raised as if to silently beg for mercy.

Uva can't have that.

He raises a hand from his side, expecting claws where there are none. Confused somehow, even though this has been his situation for a while now, he improvises. One thing that can be said about this human body is that it can still throw a punch. The human recoils, the force sending him sprawling to the ground, cupping his jaw where Uva had hit him in a pained daze. Uva yanks the child by the arm and shoves her away.

"Run!" Eiji calls to her, hurriedly beckoning her away. "This w--"

Uva doesn't hear the rest of Eiji's sentence over an extremely loud bang. He thinks he's had another phantom sensation of getting pushed, too. Just as he grabs the floored human by the collar, a crawling pain starts to seize Uva, creeping its way through his side and sinking its claws into his flesh. He realizes it feels oddly cold there now, and the pain only increases, stealing energy and focus away from him.

"UVA!!!" Eiji shouts at the top of his lungs, sprinting back to him.

Uva realizes now that the human used the gun on him. He'd never been successfully shot before, but he looks down now and sees so much red soaking through his shirt, thick and sticky and tacky. He touches the wound, flinching heavily at an unexpected jolt of pain, and his hand comes back red, too. When he punches the human again, inexplicably weaker this time, the red smears across his face.

"Uva, stop! We have to get you to a hospital!"

His ears are still ringing, barely able to make out what Eiji is screaming. He also hadn't heard the gun clatter to the ground at some point, but the human is unarmed now, shielding his face and trembling with fear. Uva rears back to hit him again, but finds his arm is stopped by something.

"I said stop! That's enough!"

Oh, Eiji wants him to stop. Eiji...

As soon as he lets go, the human scrambles away, leaving the gun behind. Uva feels himself being drained even more quickly by the pain in his side now, staggering when he tries to take a step forward. Eiji is instantly at his side, pulling Uva's arm around his neck and taking on some of his weight for him.

He wants to ask why, but he can't figure out how. He's not even certain what he'd mean by it. Eiji is mumbling something that he can't understand, and Uva starts panicking, thinking his senses are dulling again. No, the last time he felt like this...

"No, I don't want that again," he barely grits out, and his voice doesn't even sound like himself. He swears he catches a glimpse of Maki, of that stupid doll, and he breaks out into as much of a sprint as he's capable of.

It isn't much, especially with Eiji trying to support him. They both end up falling to the ground, and Uva flips around, frantically looking around for where Maki went.

"Uva, calm down! It's okay, you're not gonna get hurt anymore!" Eiji tries to tell him, but he doesn't get it.

"No, my-- my medals..."

Uva clutches at his chest, hating the helpless feeling of being unable to take them out again. He has too many, they're going to destroy him again!

"You don't have any, remember? You're not a Greeed anymore. You're a human now, and your body can't take the kind of strain it used to. You have to come with me to a hospital, okay?"

There aren't any medals? Not even cell medals?

"That's a lot of blood... come on, stand up. I'll help you."

"You're going to help me?"

That's right, Uva had been calling for help. OOO always comes when someone needs him.

"You're going to help me..." he repeats, believing it to be true.

"That's right," Eiji assures him, and with Uva's panic dissipating, he can see his face clearly again. "Come on, easy now..."

He's beautiful.

Uva had thought the OOO of old was a bastard king, undeserving of his crown. Today's OOO is the opposite. He might be an angel.

"You're fine with letting humans like that live?" Uva asks once he's stable, sitting on a hospital bed and facing Eiji. Of course, he still doesn't consider his debt to that one repaid-- a couple of punches do not equal a bullet wound-- but he cares less about that than about what Eiji wants.

Eiji considers the question, looking down at the little girl still at his side.

"He was just troubled and desperate. I could tell... Of course, I can't forgive him for taking a child hostage like that, even if she's not injured, but... he seemed terrified after he shot you. He didn't really want to use that gun."

"You could really tell what was going on in his mind? ... Then, how about mine?"

Eiji looks at him, surprised. His eyes trail down, as if uncertain, and then back up to meet him.

"Even if... maybe you don't understand everything that's going on... you're becoming a good person," he says. "A person I can be proud to call my friend."

His words resonate strangely with Uva, and this is a feeling he never would have encountered as a Greeed. It's too complicated, too meticulous, too confusing. It feels like so many tangled strings, and he tugs at them to no avail.

"Hey, I have another stupid question," Uva says, a hint of a smirk teasing at the corner of his mouth. "What's, uh... what's a friend, really?"

"A friend is someone you can share tomorrow with," Eiji answers with surprising ease.

Someone you can share tomorrow with? Indeed, Uva thinks he would be lost if there were to be a tomorrow without Eiji.

"Then, you're my friend," he concludes. The first he's ever had.

Eiji smiles at him, so genuine and harmless.

"As a favor to a friend, then... please don't get shot again."

Uva would bear that pain as many times as it took to make Eiji happy. If that number is zero, so be it.