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"So, Sumino," Yugamu started with a too-light tone, from the entrance to the library. "How would you kill me?"
Takumi looked up from a book he'd been holding open for the past twenty minutes without reading a single word and blinked.
"Huh? I...wouldn't?" I'm not a killer, he wanted to say, but thought better of it. "Where is this coming from?"
"Just making small talk. Humor me."
"That's not casual conversation to anyone other than you."
Yugamu pushed off the doorframe and crossed to the nearest bookshelf, fingers trailing along spines without looking at the titles.
"It's only a hypothetical."
Takumi closed the book and set it aside on the table, positioning it with unnecessary care while he tried to figure out what Yugamu actually wanted from this conversation.
"I decide to betray you." Yugamu pulled a book out, glanced at the cover - some math book with a bright red spine - and slid it back into place. "Kill you to take your points. It would essentially guarantee that I'd survive the entire invader hunt."
"You wouldn't."
The words came out with more conviction than Takumi had intended. Yugamu turned, eyebrows raised in that particular way that always made Takumi feel like he'd said something especially stupid.
"You sound very certain of that."
"...I am."
Takumi itched to pick the book back up, to have anything to occupy his attention other than that look Yugamu was giving him now.
Yugamu sighed. "Touching. Alright, I sabotage the mission. Destroy the missiles. Make sure the escape pod can never launch. No more hope for humanity or for us. You'd have to kill me."
"I'd find another way to stop you."
"No other way. I can't be reasoned with or disrupted. What then?"
Takumi shifted in his chair. "Seriously, why are you asking me all this?"
Yugamu abandoned the bookshelf. He moved to another section, running his fingers along volumes that probably hadn't been touched by anyone since this all began.
"You were willing to kill Eito. Absorb his hemoanima. Make him a part of you forever."
"Is that what this is about?"
Takumi groaned and closed his eyes. Of course it was.
"Just an observation. I'm wondering what the difference is. Were you two quite close?"
Takumi opened his eyes but kept his gaze fixed on the table rather than looking up. He didn't want to be thinking about this. All the others had made it clear they weren't interested in his explanations or justifications. What difference could it possibly make now?
"We were friends. Or...at least I thought we were."
"Friends. Just friends?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Just trying to figure out what made him so special that you'd carry him around in your blood forever."
It took a moment before he could bring himself to respond.
"I didn't have a choice."
"Of course."
The glib way he said it made Takumi's fingernails dig into his palms. He glanced up, catching sight of Yugamu examining a page with exaggerated focus.
"You know that I don't like that he's...in my head. Or whatever. I wish I could just forget about him." The words come out harder than he'd meant them to. "I keep thinking about it. I can't not think about it. If one of these days I'll wake up, not knowing what I've done, because he'll have found a way to kill everyone, again, and it will be my fault."
He gave up and picked up the book again, needing something to do with his hands. The cover was smooth, pristine. Brand new.
"I wanted everyone to live. Even...even him. So quit...pouting at me just because I don't want to kill you and take your hemoanima. You absolute weirdo."
The silence stretched on. When Takumi finally glanced up, Yugamu had given up pretending to care about the books. Takumi couldn't parse the expression on his face.
"Is that why your interested? Why you think I would? Because of..."
It's not that he didn't believe him when Yugamu told him he'd set aside his original goals. But maybe that would always color how Yugamu saw him. Maybe it should.
"I'm not interested in Eito's ghost. I'm interested in you. Specifically."
"Oh. ...Okay."
Takumi felt a tension loosen in his chest. Maybe, weird as his morbid obsession was, he wasn't looking at him and seeing Eito's shadow.
"Alright. So permanent death is off the table," Yugamu said, and just like that the moment snapped. His usual cadence returned, building up steam as he abandoned the bookshelf and started pacing. "We do have the revive-o-matic. What if I'm injured? Mortally wounded, no chance of recovery. I'm caught off guard, and an invader tears through my abdomen. The pain would be extraordinary, intestines exposed-"
Takumi winced. "I'm gonna need you to dial it back."
Yugamu ignored him, circling the desk with a bit too much enthusiasm.
"What's the instinct? Heart or throat? The throat's easier, but it's messier. You could-"
"I'm not planning your murder."
"We're past murder. This is a mercy killing we're talking about. Why, it'd be downright unethical not to put me out of my misery. Would it make a difference if I couldn't do it myself? Spine severed, unable to use any of my tools."
"Why are you like this?"
Though he was going for annoyed he just sounded tired. Takumi leaned back in his chair, letting his head tip back to stare at the ceiling.
"I'm just curious. There has to be a point where you have to give up and just use the revive-o-matic. What if I'm poisoned? It's slow, but there's no way to develop an antidote-"
"I thought you were resistant to poisons."
When he brought his gaze back down, he found that Yugamu had stopped pacing and was instead standing uncomfortably close to the table, an intense look in his eyes.
"A new poison. Some invader toxin I've never encountered. My organs are failing, I'm vomiting blood, seizures wracking my body."
"Would you just-"
"You'd really make me die like that?"
Was he actually offended by an absurd situation that only existed in his head?
"How cruel..." Nope, nevermind, that expression definitely wasn't offended.
The chair scraped across the floor as Takumi stood up abruptly. "Fine. You want an answer? If you were actually dying, and there was genuinely no other option, and you explicitly asked me to? Then yes. Maybe. I don't know. Are you satisfied?"
"Yes."
Yugamu's smile seemed more sincerely pleased than what Takumi was used to seeing, as if Takumi had given him some kind of gift.
"Great. Awesome. I'm leaving now."
Takumi headed for the door. He was never going to learn anything anyway, and he certainly wouldn't now. Might as well just go back to bed.
"Wait, wait, hang on-"
"No."
"There's still-"
"I'm not doing this anymore."
"Well just consider this advanced permission." His amused voice followed him into the hallway.
"Not listening!"
He went down the corridor, glad that Yugamu hadn't followed him to heckle him any more. With luck, he wouldn't throw himself at an invader in the next defensive battle just to try and see if Takumi would follow through.