Always: getting up, the sun too bright, the day already too old. When it was Before, or During, he'd never see the sun like this. He remembers twilight, sun coming up, sun going down, sun behind clouds, sun through a screen. Now, lying in bed for so long he thinks he is becoming part of it, and then - light. Pecco doesn't know what to do with it all. Doesn't know what to do with himself.

Always: breakfast, lunch. Inconveniences, annoyances. He gets to skip one of them, not both, but the drip of nausea into his stomach never stops. Before, During, he was hungry all the time. Now, hunger weighs, morphs his world. Different. Not as bearable. Luca says, "one egg," in that tone of his. Handler, but trying not to be. Pecco can't say if he'd want him to, again. Can't say if he wants anything at all. Sometimes he eats, sometimes he doesn't. Luca keeps insisting, "at least this meal." He can try to be good for Luca.

Always: his head, bad. Having a thought like trying to hold water in his hollow hands. It's there one moment, he is sure it's there - and then, a hole. What scares him is that he can feel the shape of the absence. It's not like he can't think, he didn't lose that much of himself in the Mecha. It's that he keeps forgetting faster than he can spell things out. It's that he doesn't even care about that, really. Words are raw and misshapen in his mouth, like he only heard them once and has to put them back together from memory. On really bad days, he wonders if anyone can even understand him.

Always: out at sea. Bezz, coming by - better, now. Pecco can't quite understand it. Used to be able to make sense of his fear and the feeling that the world was ending, used to be able to fight all that, During, physically. Now, swimming in it. But Bezz. His smile and the tone of his voice and his side against Pecco's, knees knocking together, and his hands in motion. Pecco can't follow what he says half the time, stupid from trying to keep his head above water, but Bezz doesn't seem to mind. Seems happy enough to be there, which loosens the tight curl of Bad in Pecco's stomach. Sometimes he even finds himself trying to cling onto a moment, hoping to remember it later, pinpricks of light, seconds of ground under his feet. When he goes outside and lies in the grass, his head in Bezz' lap, Cele someplace close, speaking too loud, laughing too much, it sometimes doesn't feel as terrible.

Always: the setbacks, the exhaustion, the carelessness, the sliding on ice, the it-doesn't-matter, the cold, the inability to feel. The having someone near that doesn't reach his heart, or his brain. The day Luca affords him before he says, "get up, come on." The guilt. The kitchen knives vanishing, Luca staying in when he can, Franky or Cele or someone else coming over when he can't. The one time, panic a black cloud surrounding him, when Vale comes to sit by his side. The crying, into Vale's shoulder, so surreal that it doesn't even feel like something that's happening to him, Vale's words just platitudes of comfort that don't stick. The waking up, gasping, sure that he is dying, and then he isn't.

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Epithet OC designs (Gacha Life 2)

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