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Kaiser once believed that, because he possessed great knowledge about humans and how their minds worked, he would never find anything truly fascinating in any of them. After all, everything had always been nothing more than mere science. Their tastes; the reasons they smiled, felt, desired.
For everything there is a scientific and psychological explanation. And, despite being human himself, Kaiser never imagined he would be trapped in this thing called love. He knew too much. He understood too much. And sometimes, knowing too much means losing too much. He had lost his passion for humanity.
Yet, Kaiser never stopped being astonished by Ness’s humanity. Ness had always been a perfect portrait of what it meant to be human. He felt and did everything with intensity. He didn’t mind smiling when he was happy, and he never hesitated to cry when he was sad. He didn’t mind being human.
Something completely unique, in Kaiser’s eyes. After all, what kind of human didn’t mind acting like one? Humans were made of flesh, bone, and shame.
When Kaiser realized that his love for Ness was not only made of desire and fervor, like Eros, but also of admiration and reciprocity, like Philia, he finally gave up pretending. Pretending that his heart didn’t beat ten times faster whenever Ness smiled. Pretending it didn’t ache as quickly as it could race whenever Ness cried. Pretending that, even knowing all the tricks of human consciousness, he himself was not also condemned.
He accepted that, no matter how explainable all those feelings and actions might be, Ness was still Ness. Perhaps he finally accepted that Ness could, in fact, be a sorcerer. For how else could it be explained that Kaiser, an emperor, had fallen in love with Ness, his servant?
Ness, even without knowing, had taught him how to be human. Or rather, how not to be ashamed of being one.