Work Text:
“It’s weird, isn’t it?”
Emu pauses. Parado’s voice is so serious, from the other room, but not enough for Emu to have felt something off with his partner.
…okay, More off. Parado is still recovering from the whole “two years in a universe where Emu was dead, and Japan was moments from open Civil War” thing.
God. Emu knows it was hard, if how clingy and nervous Parado has been is any indication.
Neither of them ever liked being alone. That was, you know, why they were them. Because Emu, the relatively innocent and truly lonely child that he was, dreamed up a friend, and Kuroto is…
The absolute nicest way to put it is Kuroto is Kuroto.
(The way Emu thinks of it when he’s in a particularly bad mood involves a long string of curse words.)
“Not really,” Poppy says. “I’m always me.”
“That’s just it,” Parado says. “For obvious reasons, I’m never really going to be complete, and— I don’t want to be. Emu is my… I don’t know. I thought a lot about it a lot on the other World. And I just - I wonder.”
“About what?”
“About M.”
It’s such a tiny change of inflection to say M or Emu, that, in retrospect, Emu’s amazed how hard it was for some people to catch, even before he… stopped being M.
(Before, he thinks, there was a Parado.)
It’s always enough for the one who coined the damn name.
(Or did he, asks a quiet thought that never quite leaves and sounds a damn lot like Parado.)
Emu hurries past. He’s clearly not meant to hear this conversation.
“What about M?”
“Well…”
(He already knows exactly what Parado means.)
Emu always knew his imaginary friend wasn’t real. He wasn’t stupid. He knew he was just lonely, and weird.
But it just made sense, you know?
There was him, and Other Him. Confident and a little bit bitter in ways he wasn’t sure how to be. And sometimes, they talked to each other.
They certainly played games together. At least in Emu’s head. But he always knew it wasn’t real.
(Until one day it felt like another head was leaning over his shoulder, or the divide was too stark, and he didn’t know what the other would say before he said it, not quite.
But how could he know that, suddenly, he was two-and-one? M certainly thought of himself as just part of Emu, at the time.)
Other Him was an outer face, a bit protector, a bit aggressor, and a bit just… cool. A partner.
He remembers being around age ten when he realized how sad that was.
“‘Emu’ and ‘M’ sound the same, huh?” He asked one day. Which one doesn’t matter. He mumbled to himself when he’s alone so much that it blurred together.
(He still does it. He wonders what that means.)
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Definitely.”
“Maybe we should use M.”
“For what?”
“This competition application. Duh.”
“Oh, right. M. I like that. You’re always different playing games.”
“It’s certainly been easier on the arcade machines.”
“Got a point there.”
They didn’t put an explicit name on who was who. They were both Emu. They were both M.
(But sometimes M felt like he was taking control, and Emu felt like a strong presence was watching him, and, even silently, neither would quite say it to the other.
It was around here where two-and-one began to be felt, but neither worried.
They were still one, in the end.)
Emu wakes up in a strange place, not sure of why there’s a gap in his memories but sure it must be fine. He feels fine, certainly.
It’s quiet, strangely so. But he must just be tired. It’s probably too much to keep competing and prepare for medical school.
Yeah, there’s nothing wrong, and he’s himself.
(And he’s alone. )
(He dreams of tests, of something wrong, but not for long. He’s still himself, even if M feels a little less strong and a little less separate. He’s a grown adult, he doesn’t need a whole other persona to survive, and hey, it still comes out when he needs it.
He has no way of knowing that he is only one. )
(Far away, M is alone, and he is scared, and he is hurt, and he is tire, and he just feels lesser .)
“I’d never change anything about us, but I just kind of wonder about me. About us. About M. And what it… means.
“I’m probably just overthinking it.
“Probably.”
(They still don’t talk about it.)