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She’s gone and he's still here. It makes him not want to be here. Did he ever really have that to begin with- a will to live? What is it that's kept him alive all these years anyway? Part of him has always been dead, suffocated, murdered at that fucking compound.
She saved the part of him that was still alive. Or maybe he just wanted her to. No, that's wrong- he loves her, loved her, loves her. that's what it is right? This fucking emptiness hollowing him out, this pain in his chest choking out his heart. It hurts. It hurts. It fucking hurts.
But he knows what he does with pain. Drowns it. Forgets it. Locks it away until the screams fade.
Screaming. That's right.
The baby is screaming. Megumi is crying—he hasn't stopped since his mom was buried. Is it because he misses her?
'Does he know?' he wonders. You'd think he does, the way he cries like he's so full that it's bursting out from his tiny body. Tears streak his face, snot runs from his nostrils in thick, shameless globs.
"No matter how much you call for her," Toji bends over the crib. "She won't come."
To Megumi, to himself.
He reaches down and picks him up, holds his baby against himself. He rocks him, rubs his back. He's so tiny. so delicate. So breakable. Nothing like that should be anywhere near someone like him.
Megumi doesn't stop crying. Why would he? Toji isn’t the one he wants.
He rests his cheek on top of Megumi's head. Feels his tears soak through his shirt. Feels the cries right through it. What a miserable sound.
Then, Toji blinks.
Diapers, bottles, formula, dirty clothes, sleepless nights, bills.
He hasn't changed anything in the apartment. Hasn't thrown out her toothbrush, hasn't cleaned her clothes out of the closet, hasn't put away the shopping list she was working on before Megumi was born.
Diapers. Bottles. Bibs....
He blinks again.
He's lying in bed with Megumi sprawled on his chest. It's nighttime and the lampshade on the bedside table has been tilted to cast the light against the wall.
Toji's arms diamond over Megumis body, his fingers crooked together to form shadow puppets. A dog opens his mouth in soundless yaps.
Little Megumi stares, then reaches his stubby arms towards the dog.
"Doggy...."
His fingers move again and a bunny takes its place, hopping once on the wall.
Megumi squirms.
"Doggy..."
He adjusts, trying to elongate the ears.
"Doggy..."
"That the only word you know?"
Megumi flips onto his belly, opens and pouts his little lips. His little fingers grasp at Toji's chin.
"Daddy.”
This part is easy. This part makes him think everything could be okay. Like he could do this.
He strokes Megumi's hair.
"Yeah."
But then there's reality. He never planned on doing this himself.
The screaming, the crying, the fucking everything that isn't this moment right here.
He needs money. The bills are piling and the way he makes money...
Megumi squirms on top of him, babbling some sweet kind of nonsense.
This kid isn't going to be a kid forever. He'll grow and he's fucking responsible for that. For the person he becomes.
He can't fucking do this.
"Daddy...." Megumi mumbles again.
Toji doesn't answer.
When he blinks again, it's deliberate. He grabs up all the bills from the table, stacked so densely he can't see the wood beneath, and flings them in the garbage. They cascade from his hand like petals from a dying flower.
Now he's walking away from Naobito.
Ten million. Could he have gotten more? Damn.
That's right. That's the kind of shit person he is. The kind that wonders if he undersold his kid.
Isn't he?
Ten million is good money. So why does he feel nothing?
They'll take care of him. Better than he could.
That's what she'd want, right?
Take care of Megumi, she'd said.
Take care of Megumi.
Now he's done that, so he's free now.
Isn't he?
Now he can forget. Forget it all. Forget that part of him that lived, even just for a little.
So, he forgets until he doesn't.
"I named him Megumi," he remembers.
"Daddy."
No. He doesn't want to remember.
Blink.
How did he get here? A dead man standing dying for nothing but his pride.
For the child locked away inside that always wanted to be something more than nothing.
It all started in the compound, didn't it? In that cursed pit where he realized he was worth nothing. Nothing to his family. Nothing to the people that brought him into the world.
That he wasn't blessed.
But he is.
Fuck he is.
Megumi.
"Two or three years from now..."
· · ────── ✦ ────── · ·
Like a distant memory. Like a dream.
"What's your name?"
"...Fushiguro."
"Not Zenin? ...I'm glad."
Megumi laid on his heart. Puppets on the wall.
“Daddy."
"...Yeah."