Geto had warned you, all those years ago, as you stood tracing your thumbs over his cheeks promising to love him no matter who he became, that he was a thoroughly broken individual. He knew that someday, his hatred would cost him his life. He hadn’t wanted to get you involved at the time, to put you in danger, but his love for you wore him down.

As he lay dying in that alley, you at the forefront of his mind, each treasured memory, good and bad, with the love of his life flashing in front of his eyes like a movie reel, he wishes so desperately he could go back and stop you from making that promise. He knew, somehow, that his body would continue after his soul left. Not as Suguru Geto, but as a much more sinister creature.

You noticed straight away, of course, when his personality took the tiniest shift. When he started to wear his beautiful long hair differently to hide jagged stitches along his forehead, from an ‘accident’. You knew, every time you met his eyes and saw that condescension, that spiteful, amused glint, that he was no longer yours. And yet, you kept your promise.

You try to love the new version of him. After all, it’s still him, right? He’s truly not that different, he’s still Suguru, isn’t he? No. He isn’t. But you don’t know that. “What’s the matter?” He mumbles, pulling you against him and burying his face against the back of your neck as he spoons you in bed. It’s the middle of the night, almost 4:00am. “You’re shifting an awful lot.”