Return

It's a dreadful curiosity that's brought her back here. This is the sight of her first betrayal. The office is the second. Or maybe the third? The first was really whatever put them here in the first place, wasn't it?

It's as if her feet follow an already laid path, treading lightly through shelves upon shelves of toys and games, soft plush animals with little smiles. Mocking little smiles. They don't care that she died here, they don't care that she very well may do so again and wouldn't that just be cruel? To have gone through all of that just to do it twice and for good this time? 

... They find the spot where the shelf had fallen, stare down at the sparkling clean linoleum floors. Of course it's been cleaned. She doesn't know why she was half expecting a dried puddle of blood, or a pair of blank blue eyes to be staring back at her. Feels like there should be a body here, still. Feels like there is, if she closes her eyes and thinks too much. 

Somebody certainly died there. Not the Lani who's standing, hunched over in her partner's jacket, no. But someone who deserved to live. Who deserved to never taste the bitterness of betrayal, of fear.

The feeling rises like bile in her throat until she has to look away, has to try not to think about wriggling like a pinned bug against the ground, has to try not to think of the dampness on her clothes, the iron taste in her mouth. 

And so she turns and is faced with a new dilemma. Who made this shrine? 

It kind of makes their stomach drop to realize they even had one. It's a mix of people cared enough about me to make this? and ... unless it was Zachary. Because god, how fucked is it for someone to watch you die without lifting a finger and then make you a fucking memorial? 

It was supposed to be quicker, zey'd told her. 

And then she actually reads the thing and it--

. . . 

She very quietly sinks to the floor, and hugs herself. And, I'm sorry to tell you, but every ounce of whatever feeling is pounding in her ears has turned to bitterness. A monument on survival. For how long? They thought they'd gotten out with nobody on the outside noticing, but now...? 

"A-Adri Mizusaki, you p-piece of shit." They grit their teeth around the name, and let their head meet their hands. 

She trusts Tomas, don't get me wrong. Trusts him with everything she is, every fiber of her being. But that Lani who bled out just a few strides from where they're sitting had a certainty in their heart, and it's a certainty they're beginning to share.  A self fulfilled prophecy, maybe. Dead at the hands of her own family.

And they're a whole other matter entirely, aren't they? Luciano. Lola. Zachary. And oh, how people have welcomed them back. Hugged them and held them and loved them in ways that makes her heart twist. It's splitting her in two from the inside out, to the point where she feels maybe she really will lie down and die again and this time the only weapon would be her heart. 

The part that loves them - the Ailani from before -  is glad for it. She's happy to know they have someone to hold them, to wipe their tears, because god knows she isn't going to do it. 

But there's another part, a much uglier one, that's raging inside her ribcage. It is very difficult, you see, to watch someone you love treat another that's done you harm so tenderly. To pretend that nothing's wrong. 

The Ailani who died on the floor will never live again, and neither will the one who so proudly wore that tattoo on their shoulder. Who loved everyone in this market with no complications, no hesitance. How can anyone go back to how it was before without seeing with unclouded eyes the hurt that's been caused? 

Sometimes, and this is from the deepest and most bitter part of her heart, she has to wonder what the point of coming back was. Maybe it would've been better if, once the darkness had clouded her vision and taken her, she'd stayed there. She thinks if the hands that hold Lola's with no hesitation had helped build this shrine, then they simply shouldn't have bothered.