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“You aren’t thinking of jumping, are you?”
Neon jumps, though not in the direction implied, turning to the surprise voice. And there is Ace, impeccable as always, but the worry blatant in his eyes. She doesn’t deserve it. She doesn’t deserve anything, she is nothing—
Ace comes and sits next to her.
“Well, Nago?” He asks.
“I… no,” Neon says.
She’s lying. She’s not lying. She… She’s not sure. It’s been a week since she turned… 19? 11? Is she alive at all? The whole time’s been a fugue state.
She told Kyuun to leave. He looked at her worried, but he left.
This is the first time she left her hotel room, since. She just wandered, and she ended up here.
“I do enjoy the views from on high,” Ace says. “And you?”
“I don’t think I can see,” Neon says. It’s not literal. But her gaze is empty, and so is her soul. She can’t even look at Ace.
“Alright,” Ace says. A box is shoved in her hands, with a fork. “I brought you a snack. Starvation’s no way to go.”
“I don’t want to die,” Neon says. She looks down, and…
Oh. It’s a cake she’d gotten when they’d eaten out, once. She’d really liked it…
“You want it?” Ace asks. Neon nods, and she opens the box and consumes it.
She’s so hungry, and the food is both delicious and full of kindness, that the tears almost escape the fog.
They don’t.
“Where are you staying?” Ace asks.
“Hotel,” Neon replies. “I never… got this far, before.”
But now no one’s looking for her, and she can’t go back to the salon…
“Can you afford it?”
“Yes.”
“Alright,” Ace says. “Nago—”
“I don’t want your help, Ace,” Neon says. “I can’t… ask for that.”
“Is that so?” Ace asks. “There are people who worry for you, Nago.”
“My fans—”
“Not just them,” Ace says. “But I can’t force you to put your life on the line in this game.”
Neon buries her face in her knees. All her life, the life that is hers… she’s dreamt of finding love, of people who see her , the real her.
But she was just another one of her mother’s dolls. She didn’t have anything real to see.
So she knows what Ace is trying to do, just like she knows this is his way of showing he cares, and she knows if she showed up at Keiwa’s door, him and his sister would let her in.
But she also knows her mother, her obsessive, controlling, but she knows well meaning mother… looked at her in horror and disgusted. And how can she reconcile that with Ace, by her side?
How can someone who isn’t a real person find real love?
“I don’t have a reason to fight, anymore,” Neon says.
“Do you have a reason to die, then?”
“…I don’t know,” Neon says. All she knows is the haze, and the guilt. “I just want to disappear.”
Arms around her, and Ace gently kisses her head. Tears almost escape once more, and she weakly leans against him.
“How?” She asks. “How do you live?”
He must suspect, just like she is. He must know he was already built. That must be why he’s searching, trying to learn if he’s like or loved.
“I don’t know,” Ace says. “It certainly won’t be the same for you.”
“I know,” Neon says. “I…”
She wants to go home. Where is home? Certainly not the place she grew up.
In her head, in a flash, it’s the Salon. Keiwa and Ace and Tsumuri are there, and maybe Michinaga. Ace is probably annoying one of them. She’s laughing at the antics, and they’re Kamen Riders in a moment where the battle is far away…
It’s even farther away, now.
Neon struggles from his grip, and Ace easily let’s go.
“I think I’m leaving, now,” she says. “Maybe I’ll be back, when I have a new wish.”
She doesn’t look at him, it’s too hard. Ace is far kinder that he seems, and if she looks back, she…
“I’ll see you then, Nago,” Ace says simply.
Neon nods, and she runs.
Does she want to die?
…She wants to disappear.