Izumo thinking Renzou was acting back at the Illuminati. She knows they're similar - both hiding their true feelings under a façade. Her mask is superiority, it's uncaring, it's selfish, it's survival of the fittest. His mask is different - it's casual, relaxed, uncaring in a languid way, too social, too reliant on others.
But she knows beneath it, they're the same. He wants what she wants - to be loved, to be cared for, to be wanted. I hate them, he'd said so casually, with a big smile on his face. She knew he was lying. Even she liked their friends, and, though they were a lot, she liked his family too. It was the tight-knit community she'd always wanted - people who would have her back no matter what.
He was heartless in the way she was heartless - not at all, feigning it when necessary because connection meant vulnerability, and vulnerability meant weakness, and weakness meant pain, meant failure.
And yet... sometimes it crept up on her. Running down a hallway. Seeking freedom, seeking safety. Only to freeze short when he strolled languidly down the hall. How bright his smile was as he faced her, as he fought her, as he threatened her. How content his voice.
It was an act, she'd remind herself. There were cameras everywhere. He didn't even kill Mike or Uke - just pretended to. He was playing a part. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Still, sometimes, when she woke up with sweat plastered down her back, his threat would echo on her mind. Making her brain-dead. Turning her into a vegetable. All so she'd be of use for an experiment that was guaranteed to kill her. The fear she felt would roll up her chest in nauseous waves.
Sometimes she'd wake, sweat plastered down her back, and wonder what would have happened if the others didn't come in time. If they had been just a few seconds too late. Would he have just stood there and watched as she died, host to a demon she couldn't fight, body a lifeless puppet.
(At what point does a part stop being a part, an act stop being an act?)
Sometimes she'd wake, sweat plastered down her back, and she would remember the flat apology he gave her. They were my brothers, she'd said, and he who had grown alongside three brothers just looked at her with no remorse, no care.
Sometimes she wouldn't need to be asleep to remember it. Sometimes she'd simply be seated near him, near the others, when his family came up in conversation. He avoided going home when he could, had to be coaxed into it by the other two. It wasn't uncommon, either, for them to tell him to answer his phone - that his brothers, his sisters, his mother, his father had asked them to remind him. And he'd laugh it off each time.
And each time that happened, she'd remember his flat affect when she told him that the familiars he'd just killed were like family to her. As though he couldn't understand why that would matter. She'd remember the subtle laugh in his voice when he told her he hated everything - family, friends, the temple he'd grown up in.
Her skin would crawl. Part of her wanted to jump up. To warn them. But she wouldn't. She'd remind herself that it had been act, a part he was to play. He was faking detachment, faking heartlessness. It wasn't real then. It wasn't real now. There was no reason to say anything.
It's all over now, a small part of her would whisper, there's no part to play, so why is he still acting?
Maybe he's not, it would say, and she'd shove thought away, far to back of her mind, refusing to dwell, even as it whispered, Maybe he never was.
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