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“It’s okay not to smile,” Kris reassures Ralsei, in the warm sort of tone they’ve reserved for only the rarest of occasions, these days. She understands, usually, why they don’t bother doing more than letting the words they utter fall from their mouth in a monotone blur. They aren’t Kris’s choice, after all.
But to hear the rise and fall of Kris’s breath, hitching with emotion, to hear the way they mumble ’okay’ into a softened ’kay’, or the way they pause naturally between words… it makes Ralsei feel, for a moment, wanted. Cared for. Not the Soul’s pet, but Kris’s friend.
Ralsei only begins to tear up when Kris kneels, careful not to scare her with the sound of their metal armor on stone, and wraps their arms into a hug close enough she can smell their shampoo. That’s why Susie says they taste like apples, she thinks, followed by the realization that Kris looks entirely comfortable, here. Nobody’s told them to hug her. They just… did.
“K… Kris? Kris, you… Haha…” It’s you, she wants to say, wants to scream into the neverending glass halls of the Sanctuary. She wishes they could think of Susie, now, extend this moment so that nobody was watching the two of them, that there was no chance of Kris’s choices, Kris’s moves, Kris’s presence being anything other than their own wonderful self. She wanted to ask them if it was okay to wish to be a girl, if it was okay to be herself, with only Kris there to answer.
After all, as important as the Soul was, it was Kris that she loved. And Ralsei never wanted to let go.