It was a few days before your departure to Paris. The bags were packed at the door, and the house was cold.

He showed up at the front door with his innards on display and his breath ragged—a no-longer doll bruised, broken, beaten. It wasn’t long before he passed out from blood loss, slumped against the wall. Questions were left unanswered.

You didn’t know how this happened.

It was a few hours later that his faulty, disgusting body had woken up again to your face. One eye, the eye of despair—lazuli—the one not smashed in, slowly moved up to meet yours. Voice cracking under the weight of words, Mika whispered a breathless, “Oshi-san, yer here.”

A slight, lopsided smile was on his marred face, and when Mika felt your warm, human arms wrap around him, it bloomed into a grin. It felt so nice; it felt like maintenance—like being repaired. He knew distinctly well that that was never possible, though.

Mika was shattered far before this.

Those promises that he spat out at the Repayment Festival were a lie. His body couldn’t hold itself up without you. He couldn’t live without you next to him. The self-inflicted bruises festering on his skin were just a solution to stop him from crumbling. A simple, great one.

After all, the bags were no longer packed at the front door. The cost was just his body, and really, he could do without it.

He loved you far more than he loved himself.