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He can't tell her how he brought her back.
She's not sure if it's because he doesn't remember or because his silence was part of the ritual.
Maybe both.
He also refuses to be honest about why he brought her back.
"I missed you, that's why", he says and smiles a smile so soft and gentle, it almost makes her sick.
"Then why did you wait so long?"
He shrugs.
She's tired.
They drop the subject.
He gave her memories of things that never happened, maybe to sweeten the taste of the lies she has to tell those who ask were she's been all these years. She doesn't know if he fucked up or if it's by design that they feel like snippets of a movie she's seen or a book she's read instead of things she experienced herself.
He managed to instill a certain sense of age and confidence that comes with life experience in her even, but since he had to base those on himself, she feels older than she looks and more anxious than is practical a lot of the time.
Most of the time they get on with each other and she only resents him a little.
*
It sucks not having a past.
So Amane just makes hers up because hey, who's gonna tell her No?
She had her first kiss when she was 11.
It was with her best friend. A girl named Hanako whose face she can't recall, but she remembers chubby legs with skinned knees covered in magical girl themed band-aids, the setting sun throwing long shadows on the playground and bubblegum breath hitting her lips.
Only sometimes it's lemon candy and at a sleepover and they're 13.
It's nice to be able to pick.
A little sad, too, though.
*
For a while she thought the other one, the one who used to live in the sennen ring, the one her brother calls Yoru these days, that he's into her.
Now she knows he's mostly into how much spending time with her annoys her brother.
Well, and probably into the sex, too.
He was her first.
Maybe not the smartest decision but at the time it felt like the safest.
By now she knows she's more into girls.
They still fool around every once in a while though. For old time's sake and because it's fun to make him kneel.
*
Ryou doesn't approve.
He doesn't approve of her tattoo, he doesn't approve of those of her piercings he knows about, he doesn't approve of her not coming home some nights and he doesn't approve of what she told him she's up to those nights either.
Oh, he still loves her and smiles, but that smile never quite reaches his eyes.
He brought her back because he was lonely.
And now she's out there, connecting to other people, herself, the whole world, while he's lonelier than ever.
Maybe he made a mistake.
Maybe he is still making this mistake.