Four days before the end of the world, it rained in Vermögenburgh. Daisy disliked rain even at the best of times let alone when she was trying to grieve in peace. Admittedly, it felt appropriate to her mood, but this mood was one she was struggling to move past already. Everyone else needed her ready for fighting and here she was fighting herself.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it, Daisy, get yourself together,” she muttered to herself while curled in a fetal position under a layer of blankets in the dorm room she’d locked herself in.

The cold seeped in with the rain and even after stealing blankets from Natsuko’s bunk Daisy found herself shivering under her pile. Kane, Natsuko, and even Sofiane had come by to get her to come out and talk with them, but their attempts just made her more and more insistent on being left alone.

Something had to give. She knew that. But every time she tried to do something other than think about Yuna, she lost her will. Even poetry made her want to hurl. So too did the footsteps she could hear outside her door, no doubt from Natsuko or Kane making yet another attempt to coax her out.

A knock at her door. “Daisy?”

“Go away,” she replied.

Silence followed as Daisy tried to discern whether or not she was having auditory hallucinations. She checked the Use-Rankings and learned—a day after everyone else—that Pechorin was alive again and, based on the footsteps, was now leaving. The room exploded in a shower of blankets and pillows expelled by Daisy shooting up from her nest. She threw open the door and darted into the hall, staring at Pechorin down the length of it.

“I’m getting mixed signals here,” he said.

She sprinted at him and slammed him into a tight hug and only let go when he started wheezing. With greetings concluded, the two wandered over to the dorm’s common area and sat down. Pechorin had a thermos of tea with him and set it down on a Palanqua table near a window. Daisy grabbed a chair and sat with her chin resting on her hands.

“Y’know, I’ve never seen anyone play Palanqua,” Daisy said.

“We played it a few times, Natsu and I,” Pechorin replied, scooting into the opposite seat. “It’s not very fun. I’m not sure why the Yishang added it, other than I suppose they thought it might be a fun mini-game for the Celestials, who I suspect don’t play it either.”

Daisy felt a strange empathy with the unnecessary game. This was quickly swept away by her recalling why she’d been so excited in the first place. “Pech, you’re back!”

He looked down at himself. “I am.”

“How!? You got dimension-jumped!” Daisy said.

“It won’t work with Yuna,” he said, calmly.

“How did you—”

“Natsuko warned me,” he said.

Daisy blushed. “Oh! But I didn’t mean— that wasn’t the only reason I was—”

He raised a hand. “I know you’re happy to see me, Daisy. I’m not insulted that you also have Yuna on your mind.”

To put the matter to rest, he explained to Daisy how the independent special event field he spent two years setting up operated, and why slipping in a trigger to reset entity coordinates worked with him and Dasiy but not Yuna. As he explained, Daisy’s face projected a tableaux of emotions, now elated, now distraught, now relieved, now uneasy. By the time he was done, he wasn’t sure what Daisy was feeling. Not that Daisy was sure herself.

“Thanks for telling me all that. But I guess if I’m being honest, I was hoping your being alive meant everything was getting better. Now I— I don’t really know. I think I want to go back to bed,” Daisy said.

She hesitated halfway through standing up, feeling as though some kind of cue or line had been missed. She looked at Pechorin looking up at her.

“Is there something else?” he asked.

“Is there something… err, no, there’s nothing else,” Daisy said in confusion. “I just felt for a second like something was…”

Again she felt the sensation that something was supposed to happen which wasn’t. And that the missed cue was Pechorin’s. She furrowed her eyebrows and stared at him.

“You’re not going to beg me to get up?” Daisy asked.

“You are up,” he said, pointing at her standing.

“Not from the chair! From the… I mean, aren’t you gonna ask me to stop moping so we can fight the Yishang?”

“No.”

“Oh…”

“You’re grieving for Yuna right now, aren’t you? I’m not going to interrupt that.”

“But you knocked on my door.”

“Huh. I did, didn’t I? I wonder why I did that,” Pechorin said, tapping his chin. “Don’t forget to take the thermos of tea with you, by the way.”

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Daisy glanced at the thermos resting on the Palanqua table neither of them had touched. The conversation was so awkward at this point that she decided it couldn’t be made any worse by reversing course, sitting back down, and pouring herself the one cup. So that’s what she did. And the cup of tea was exactly how she liked it: Abominably sweet. Sickeningly sweet. With more sugar and milk than tea by volume. As the hot liquid warmed her aching throat, she realized this was what she needed and downed the rest.

“You know exactly how I like it?” Daisy asked.

Pechorin took the empty cup from her and poured some tea for himself. “This is how I like it, actually.”

“Wait, really!? That doesn’t seem like you at all!” Daisy said. “Don’t you like things that are really bitter and dark? You take your coffee black!”

Pechorin took a long drink and sighed. “Not really. For the most part I like sweet things. I claim to like bitter and dark things because they’re cooler.”

Daisy laughed with her louder-than-warranted Daisy snort-laugh. “Why in the world wouldja do that!?”

“Like I said, because it’s cooler.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be wise now or somethin’? What the heck is with pretending to like things you don’t like!?” Daisy asked. “Is it cuz of Natsu?”

“Hmm? No. Why would it be about Natsuko?” Pechorin asked, passing the single cup back to Daisy.

“Who else would you care about impressing!? Clearly not me, and I’m guessin’ not Sofiane either. And if you’re tryin’ to impress the Celestials you’re not doin’ a good job of it.”

Pechorin gazed out the window nonchalantly (though in a very cool way) and said, “I am beyond impressing anyone. What I am doing when I profess to love bitter things while loving sweet things is deepening my inner complexity. When I present myself with irrationality and contradiction, I force myself not to ossify and stagnate. It is the process, not the content of that process, which is the salient point.”

Daisy hummed. “You sure it’s not cuz you wanna look cool in front of Natsu?”

“Yes.”

“Yes as in it is—”

“Yes, I am sure it is not.”

“I missed ya, Pech. Ya know that?”

Daisy grinned. It was easier to get out of bed and stop grieving when she had a project to distract herself, and she very much had a project now.

“Isn’t it even cooler to go against cliches? What if you were a dark, brooding bad boy with a love of sweets instead?” Daisy said, completely ignoring the inner contradiction crap.

He squirmed in his seat. “No. Not really. Black coffee is intrinsically cooler.”

“I’m gonna make you admit out loud you like sweets.”

Pechorin saw something he very much did not like in Daisy’s face. Creeping onto it was the visage of Bad Daisy, who had slipped past Good Daisy’s defenses by convincing her this project was ‘silly’ and ‘harmless.’

Pechorin grabbed the thermos and stood up. “I must be going. Sofiane wished for me to practice with my new ranged FDJ weapons.”

Daisy shot up and placed herself between him and the door. “Oh, don’t worry, this won’t take long. I’ll let you go if you say, out loud, ‘I, Pechorin, secretly like sweet and sugary things and I’m embarrassed to admit it’.”

Pechorin fished around in his trench coat for something. At the last second, Daisy’s brain connected the dots and leapt to take his guns from him so he couldn’t dimension-jump himself to safety. She tossed the two pepperbox pistols across the room.

“Nice try, mister! No easy escape for you.”

“Really, this has gone far enough, Daisy.”

“Oh-ho-ho, you’d be surprised how many times I’ve heard that!”

“I would not be.”

Seeing her gentle persuasion was going nowhere, Daisy decided to escalate things by tripping Pechorin and pinning him to the floor with a foot on his back.

“Say it!” she demanded.

“Never!”

Daisy ground her heel into his spine, doing her best to strike a balance between light pain and exploding his chest cavity. After a minute of this Pechorin started slapping the floor and she realized she was pressing all the air out of him and eased up.

“Stop! I admit it! I put cream and sugar in my tea and coffee! I like parfaits and cakes over steak and whiskey!” Pechorin yelled.

At that particularly unfortunate moment, Natsuko arrived with Kane in tow. Upon witnessing this depraved display, she slapped her hand over Kane’s eyes. Daisy giggled nervously and took her foot off Pechorin.

“O-Oh, hi Natsu. We were just doing some character development.”

Natsuko raised her eyebrows. “Oh yeah? That’s nice. Well, Pech, I’ve gotta admit, you succeeded in cheering up Daisy. Congratulations.”

Pechorin, realizing how this situation might appear to someone who did not have the full context, clarified by saying, “I don’t really like sweet things. I do actually prefer steak and whiskey over cakes and parfaits.”

Natsuko’s eyebrows found still more room to ascend and she said, “uh-huh. So you’ve told me. Many times. It’s just, you know, kind of interesting you would give Daisy a different answer that aligns more with her own tastes. Very strange. I don’t know.”

“Can I have my eyes back now?” Kane asked.

“I was being compelled against my will,” Pechorin answered flatly.

“Yeah, Natsu! I was compelling him against my— I mean his will,” Daisy added.

Natsuko folded her arms. “You sure seemed to be having a lot of fun being compelled. And you, Daisy, were enjoying yourself for someone who’s been grieving the past two days.”

Daisy hung her head guiltily. Pechorin still hadn’t quite figured out what was happening, though he could tell the vibes were off with Natsuko for some reason. If anything, he had expected her to be happier about Daisy being up and about again.

“L-Like you said, Natsu, I, uh, can’t sit around moping while the world ends,” Daisy said.

“Of course. And you might as well have some fun while we’re waiting for the event to start, right? Hell, don’t let me spoil it,” Natsuko said, turning herself and Kane around and leaving with Kane’s innocence intact.

After Natsuko left, Daisy helped Pechorin up off the floor.

“Welp! That was the exact opposite outcome I was shooting for,” Daisy said.

“What do you mean? I confessed, didn’t I?” Pechorin said.

Daisy huffed. “Yeah! But that was supposed to lead to you and Natsu realizing you need to be honest about— heck! You know what, we can still salvage this. I’ve just gotta strategize. Work a few angles and all that.”

Pechorin, who was completely unaware Natsuko was being any more blunt and abrasive than usual, poured another cup of tea for himself without concern. He’d shot his shot long ago and been turned down. It made little difference if there was one more thing she was annoyed with him over. With that thought he sank into a chair and enjoyed his sugary cup of tea.