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“... What do you have there?”
In the middle of a festival on Penacony, Acheron looks at Caelus with a two-meter tall Trash King plush strapped onto his back. Probably a prize from that home run contest she saw before leaving to relieve herself. “A milkshake?” Caelus replied as if that were the issue. “... Did you want some?”
Acheron could say many things about Caelus, most of them positive. His obsession with trash and anything to do with it was not one of those things. Even before Caelus lost his memories, Acheron remembered that trash cans were always something he was obsessed with. And frankly, Acheron was too used to it to press on the issue. “Sure. Give it here.” She replied in her usual monotone voice. “Did you already start drinking it?”
“I did. I could get-”
She interrupted him and took the shake from his hand. “No. It’s fine.” Acheron drank from the straw, ignoring the whispering mention of an indirect kiss from Caelus. It didn’t matter to her. They had done much more explicit things with each other before they were separated that still made her blush when she was alone at night. An indirect kiss was hardly the most lewd thing she had ever done with him. Not that Acheron was going to tell him that. Caelus’s lost memories were something he had to figure out himself no matter how much she wished to help him. “He’d be better off without me anyway.” She thought melancholically. This outing between them was just a courtesy to him because he wanted to celebrate getting cleared from the hospital. After this, she was going to go back to her lonely journey of Self-Annihilation with the possibility of never seeing Caelus again, as much as that hurt her. Regardless of how talented he was at defending himself while they were together or how he hadn’t lost his touch despite losing his memories. No matter how much he had actually improved at fighting since then… the less Caelus was around her, the safer he would be. Speaking of… “How are your wounds treating you? That former friend of yours… whatever his name is. He did a number on your chest with those knives of his.”
Caelus felt slight annoyance from remembering the existence of Sampo. “My fight with Sampo. I definitely wouldn’t say I ever called him a friend. He was always rather annoying…” He also didn’t think the scam artist was so dangerous in a fight. “But don’t worry! The wounds weren’t that bad. It’s nowhere near as bad as the spear that went through my heart that one time!” He smiled while saying it, a complete contrast to the blood draining from Acheron’s horrified face.
“... The what.”
—--------------------
Perhaps Acheron’s fears about her Caelus being in danger around her were unfounded. Clearly, he was doing an excellent job of getting himself into danger without her! But it certainly made her think harder about her decision to leave without telling him. She was in such deep thought for the rest of the night that she barely noticed Caelus shaking her shoulder. “Hm? Sorry, did you say something?”
Caelus looked at Acheron with a worried look. “... You’ve been out of it for a while. Am I bad company, Acheron?”
Acheron shook her head. “Quite the opposite actually. I liked this outing of ours. I… was thinking about us and what we used to be.” Acheron interrupted Caelus before he could even say a word. “Before you ask, I’m not allowed to say much more than that.”
Caelus sighed in disappointment. “Can you at least tell me how close we were? Obviously we were friends, right?”
“... Friends don’t do what we did together.” Acheron went back to her internal dialogue. She still had her own duties to perform as an Emanator of the Nihility that could put Caelus in danger if he was near her… but was it really any more danger than he was in with that Stellaron inside of him?
…
No. She had to do her own duties alone. But that didn’t mean she had to let this be the last time they would see each other. “... I have to confess, Caelus. I was going to leave without telling you.”
Caelus paled at hearing this. “So I’m not going to see you again?”
Acheron gave him a rare smile and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Those are the rules I had originally set for myself. But…” Acheron closed the distance between them and gave him a deep kiss that felt very familiar to Caelus. “Rules are meant to be broken, right?”
Caelus remembered a long lost memory of himself laying in bed with a beautiful woman with long violet hair. Acheron never said she couldn’t show him what they used to be after all. “Is that a promise to find each other again?”
Acheron took a sultry tone that was extremely out of character for her. “It’s a promise of something more than a kiss when we see each other again. You have business to deal with, don’t you, Trailblazer ? Those memories aren’t going to restore themselves.” Perhaps she didn’t have to condemn herself to a life without him. But until then… “The night is still young, and we don’t have to part just yet. I can tell by the grin on your face that there’s something you want to do.”
“Well… there was this nice looking trash can I saw earlier…”
Acheron let out a bored sigh. “No Caelus, we can’t dive through… Oh what am I saying? You won’t listen to me anyway. Let’s go find one.” As Caelus happily drags her to the nearest trash can to dig through, she remembers how there were many things she could say about Caelus. If anyone asked, Acheron would probably say that his obsession with trash was one of the most annoying things about him along with his uncanny ability to attract beautiful women to himself without meaning to. Especially those two… Firefly and Kafka. But… she’d also say that there’s not a thing about him that she would want to change. She loved Caelus the way he was, memories or not.