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When Guren walked outside and saw a world destroyed, red clouds hanging over the horizon, crashed cars and children crying and bodies everywhere, people collapsed in the street in pools of their own coughed up blood, he felt, for a second, a feeling of relief. Disgusting, he knows. To watch tens of thousands of years of civilization crumble in an instant and to only be able to think of your own place in it all. But before the reality of it all sunk in, before the realization that he did this, he destroyed the world, there was an odd calmness. Looking around at the remains of what was, not fifteen minutes earlier, Tokyo, he let out a breath he’d been holding for sixteen years.
It was over. It was finally over. No Ichinoses, no Hiiragis, wasn’t this what they’d all wanted, in a twisted sort of way? Guren was free in a world that hated him, and he...
He didn’t know what he would do. There was freedom in that.
Maybe he would die tomorrow. He didn’t particularly care. In that moment, he was free for the first time in his life, and he understood more than ever what had driven Mahiru to madness.
Standing in the street now, he drops to his knees, bringing a still-unconscious Shinya with him, and lets out a shout so loud it could cause an earthquake.
And then his phone rings.
His heart sinks — he knows before he’s even pulled it out of his pocket what it’ll say. Sure enough, the screen flashes: KURETO HIIRAGI. KURETO HIIRAGI.
He flips his phone open, accepting the call. “Hello?”
“Guren.” Kureto sounds the same as ever: cold, businesslike, like the whole world hadn’t just collapsed before him. “You’re just about the only person I can reach. Do you have any idea of the whereabouts of my siblings?”
“Uh, yeah. I have Shinya with me. Mahiru is…”
“I see.”
“Kureto, I- can I tell you something?”
He can practically see Kureto sneering on the other end. “I suppose so.”
“I… this call isn’t being recorded, is it?”
“The world just ended. Do you really think my top priority would be monitoring phone calls?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“No, this call isn’t being recorded. You’ll just have to trust me on that one, for once. I know that might be hard for you.”
“Cut it out,” Guren snaps. “Look, I’ll explain properly when I see you in person, but I just- I need someone else to know: all of this is my fault.”
There’s a pause, and then Kureto scoffs in disbelief. “Honestly, Guren, how egocentric do you have to be? Do you seriously think this whole thing revolves around you? Frankly-”
“I mean it literally,” Guren cuts him off. “I, personally, ended the world.”
There’s a moment of silence, and then Kureto says, “You are such a fuck up.”
“Thanks. I try.”
“How did you… never mind. I’ll send my coordinates, bring Shinya here. I can deal with the details later.”
“Okay,” Guren agrees.
After Kureto has hung up and texted him the coordinates, he stares at his phone screen for an agonizing minute.
I don’t have to go there, he thinks. It’s not like before. Everything’s gone to shit, if I ran away right now, before he’s got his wits about him, Kureto wouldn’t be able to find me.
That was what he and Shinya always talked about, jokingly, bitterly. In some world where their families were just a bit less vigilant in tracking their every move, maybe they could run away. They could change their names and live by the seaside or something and have a simple life. Neither of them are really suited to simplicity, but who cares if their shitty self indulgent pipe dreams would be kind of terrible if they ever got to be played out?
Maybe I could bargain with Kureto, Guren thinks, trying to rationalize a way that going to the given coordinates won’t immediately bring him back into the fold and shut down his only shot at real freedom. Like, if I told him I’ll give him Shinya, but only if he lets me leave, or something like that.
He couldn’t do that to Shinya. He knows he couldn’t. He’d do just about anything for Shinya, up to and including ending the world, evidently.
I’ll kill Kureto. I could take him one on one, I know I could, or I could wait for Shinya to wake up and there’s no way we’d lose then.
And then what? Kureto being the Hiiragi who’s most personally involved with Guren’s life is a pain in the ass, but it’s also a shield against the rest of the family’s unfettered rage at anyone who might oppose them. He could kill Kureto, he could cause a panic, what the fuck would that do? Why would he do that when it would be so much easier for him to grab a car and drive in the opposite direction of Kureto’s coordinates and just keep driving until Shinya woke up or they ran out of gas, whatever came first?
He is going to run back to Kureto, and he is going to let himself be put back on the leash he got a brief escape from, and he is going to force Shinya back into it too. Because he’s a coward and a selfish jerk and a horrible, horrible person.
Because he’s never been wild. Because as much as he likes to sit at the window and dream of running away, at the end of the day, he’ll always crawl back to the hands that feed him, tail between his legs.
Mahiru said she loved him before she died. She said it a lot of times, but that last one was the only time it sounded true.
He can’t know if Shinya loves him, he’s never said it. But he loves Shinya, and he aches for Mahiru, in some distant, detached way. They weren’t really friends. They certainly weren’t lovers. They barely even knew each other, in the grand scheme of things.
She must have known that nothing could change the way things were. Guren had to live through the fall of humanity to figure that out for himself, and the weight of it is crushing.
There’s no point in running away. And Kureto is waiting.
Guren picks himself up off the ground. “I tried my best to burn it down, Shinya.” He knows he’s not listening, and so this is Guren’s last chance to speak freely, before he’s trapped by the all-seeing eye of the Hiiragis on one side and the terms of his curse on the other.
He slings Shinya over his shoulder and begins walking through the world that he destroyed.
“God,” he says, even though he knows Shinya can’t hear him, “you’re gonna hate me for this.”