Lin carefully observed Yama as she cooked in the kitchen. She should be very angry right now, but that Herrscher who looked like her didn't reappear to hunt him. It seemed the condition for its appearance wasn't just extreme emotion. But at least he had taken the first step and found a lead, unlike before when he had nowhere to start. The problem, as expected, lay with Yama.
Thud!
Yama slammed the bowls and chopsticks heavily onto the table. "..."
She sat down expressionlessly. The meal was a simple home-cooked affair: two dishes and a soup. Lin used to cook simply like this when he was home alone, unless Kevin came over. The steaming rice was piled high. Lin right hand was immobile, but he had practiced doing things with his left, so both hands were actually his dominant ones.
However, he...
"My arm can't move. Can you feed me?"
Yama raised her head calmly and parted her thin lips: "I'll feed you a'BEEP'ing stinking 'BEEP'."
"...Why are you swearing?"
"I'm not swearing." Yama took a bite of food and shoveled rice with composure. "I was saying 'BEEP————', do you think you're a 'BEEP'?"
"What is 'BEEP'? I only heard the censoring."
"It's just 'BEEP'."
Communication had broken down. Clearly, Yama had fallen into a sort of crazed state; as soon as Lin spoke, he would be attacked, and she wasn't shy about using profanity. Lin, who didn't want to join a mutual shouting match, lost to Yama in this regard—meaning Yama finally won a round.
Lin could only slowly finish his dinner, one bite at a time. While Yama was clearing the table to wash dishes, he wandered near the refrigerator. After quietly opening it, he predictably found a beautiful snow-skin cake. After finding out Yama secretly ate lollipops and hid strawberry milk, Lin knew she was different from him; she had a sweet tooth. Based on her cooking skills, he knew she could make desserts for herself, so it took no effort for Lin to find her hidden treats.
But before he could make a move, a figure filled with murderous intent stood behind him.
"Do you need me to help break your other arm too?"
"..."
Lin withdrew his hand shyly. Yama slammed the fridge shut, making the ground beneath her feet shake. Seeing Lin looking back every three steps at her cake, she rolled her eyes. Since this guy arrived, she felt her expressions had become much richer. But he was quite honest...
After finishing the housework, the two sat peacefully on the sofa, separated by a coffee table, quietly doing their own things like a normal pair of siblings. Lin was watching TV, and Yama was finishing the homework left by the teacher.
The emotionless reading of a female news anchor from the TV, combined with the sleep-inducing, repetitive scripts, played peacefully in the small room. The soft scratching of a pen on paper was the only sound besides the news. It was unbelievable; Yama felt Lin was a lecherous type of person, yet she could sit with him as if nothing were wrong.
While doing her problems, she peeked at Lin out of the corner of her eye. He sat quietly on the sofa; his face, devoid of emotional fluctuation, seemed so serene compared to his behavior that one couldn't help but feel he was two different people when quiet versus active.
"What are you looking at? Do you need me to tutor you on your homework?" Lin sensitivity to gazes allowed him to notice Yama peeking at him.
"...No." Yama said she was doing homework, but in reality, she could write the answer just by glancing at the problem. It wouldn't take ten minutes.
"Then what are you looking at?" After saying this, Lin belatedly and warily blocked his mouth with his left hand. "I won't let you bite it."
"Bite your ass!"
Seeing Lin covering his rear, Yama face turned completely black. She took back every bit of good feeling she had for Lin quiet moments. Having any expectations for this person was a waste of time.
"Suppose..."
The female anchor's voice was still playing on the TV. But she wasn't the one speaking.
Yama looked up again, looking somewhat annoyed at Lin, whose face was half-lit by the TV glow. He asked quite plainly: "Suppose one day, your life is broken by an illogical disaster. Humanity faces the crisis of destruction. Would you be willing to give up everything you have now to fight for humanity?"
"...Childish." Yama was dismissive. This "chunibyo" had probably read too many novels.
"That's why I said... suppose."
Yama put down her pen. Her eyes swept over Lin. "What kind of crisis? Even world destruction has more than one type."
"Monsters everywhere, incurable diseases, energy outbursts, alien invasions... and like divine messengers, chosen humans becoming agents of destruction. That kind of crisis."
"Even if it were like that, it wouldn't be my turn..."
"But, you would fight."
"..."
"Even if you knew the fate of humanity wasn't yours alone to decide, you would still fight."
Yama suddenly noticed Lin tone was different from usual. She had an indescribable sense of familiarity, just like before...
"But it's a bit different." Lin said something nonsensical, then asked again: "Would you be willing to give up everything you have? Your friends, your classmates, your brothers, your sisters, your best friends... everything."
"...Suppose me fighting could let them..."
"Suppose you had to give them up in order to fight?"
"..."
"Giving up their lives. For the sake of humanity as a whole, discarding your own sensitivity and living only as a machine."
Lin still remembered Yama screaming those words at him with high emotion back then.
"If you truly were an absolute idealist who stayed true to the end! Never giving up your principles! If in your eyes everyone was an equal life! How could things have turned out like that!"
"You would be a great warrior! You would be a heroic hero! Even I would look up to you and love you!"
"But you aren't... you're just a hypocrite who talks the talk... no matter which 'you' it is, they're all exactly the same!"
Such a steady person had desperately spoken those curses at him—curses... at herself. On second thought, what Yama was pursuing was actually her past self. A Lin who wasn't swayed by emotion, who wouldn't make mistakes, who existed only as a machine to save humanity. It was precisely because both she and Lin had broken their own principles, becoming no longer pure or absolute idealists, that she had broken down like that.
Then this Yama... what was she thinking at this moment?