#truthmissed

Virtual reality. After everything they’d been through, the truths and lies they’d been fed...

Not a single soul had died. Every death had been contained within virtual reality. Though he would assume that fact alone is something most would consider worthy of celebration and happiness, he feels anything but. 

Nothing changes the pain they endured. Nothing changes the fact that most of his friends are still asleep. He’s been making a daily effort to sit beside the bed of every one of them with some tea, just in case they wake up. Right now, it’s time for him to sit by Amami.

Taking a sip of the tea he’d prepared, his gaze travels upwards— falling again once meeting the end of the wires and monitors.

“...You deserve better than this, Amami-kun. You... all do. I’m sorry.”

“...? Amami?”

She supposed they were on fairly amicable terms. It wasn’t as if she had any qualms against him, for that matter. Rather, the problem was... her birthday. Her feelings about it... were complex, to say the least. For as long as she could remember, she didn’t know whether the second of February was the date of her birth. A fact that was only further muddied by the truth of the killing game. A truth the boy, offering her a gift, wasn’t privy to yet.

Home, huh?

It was a nice gesture.

Red eyes trailed from his gaze to the plushie offered to her. Vxlpix, wasn’t it? She reached out after a moment, and took the gift. Strange, wasn’t it? If he had offered this to... months ago, she would have rejected it. Even now, Maki still didn’t quite believe she deserved gifts. Her gaze returned to meet his. She absentmindedly pulled the plushie close. A ghost of a smile formed on her lips.

Yeah, yeah, he’s been reserved for you. Will he survive? 

Having reassured himself that he knew where to restock on food when he needed to - and wow, it was going to take him a long time to process how bountiful everything was here - Hallelujah returned to his assigned room for the evening. Still no sign of his assigned “partner”... he wasn’t exactly clear on what the partner assignments were even for, but hey, if it wasn’t gonna kill him, he could live with it.

“You wanna come out, Chiro?” he asked, opening up the Demon Summoning program on his phone so the fox spirit could stretch his legs, as it were.

“{Yeah!}“ Chironnupu chittered excitedly in the demonic language, and promptly began zipping all around the apartment. “{This place sure is wild, huh, Halle? Humans and sunlight and so much space to explore!}”

Hallelujah couldn’t help but grin as his friend (literally) bounced off the walls, before turning his attention to his ‘welcome package.’ Holy water he could understand, and tissues were always useful, but upon opening the foil packaging, he could only stare in befuddlement at the cards inside.

Were these... playing cards? He’d seen some of the guys in the Ashura-kai with cards before, but they hadn’t looked like this. Were the creatures in the images demons? If so, Hallelujah hadn’t seen or heard of any of them before, and he hadn’t thought his Compendium was that neglected. Maybe they had different demons in Koi than in Tokyo...?

“{Heeeey, I recognize those!}” Chiro belly-flopped onto Hallelujah’s shoulder. He’d found a pair of pants and tied the legs around his neck to wear it like a cape. He’d somehow managed to bedeck his ears with earrings, and he’d found some finger rings and wrist bands to wear, too. Hallelujah realized with some chagrin that the demon had been digging through what was probably his roommate’s stuff.

“{Pokemon cards! I haven’t seen anyone playing with those in yeeeears! Want me to teach you to play, Halle? Or we can invent a new game with -- }” Chiro cut himself off and glanced towards the door, seconds before it opened.

With a gleeful bark, the ever-gregarious demon flung himself towards the new arrival - Hallelujah’s roommate, he assumed - and switched to Japanese, even though Chiro’s grasp of human languages was... limited, to say the least.

“HELLO, HUMAN! ME BEAST CHIRONNUPU! YOU WANT PLAY?”