WARNING

CUTTING THE LAST LINK THE USER HAS WITH THE FOREIGN OBJECT WILL CAUSE MANY UNDESIRABLE EFFECTS ON BOTH PARTIES.

PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.

I wander into the kitchen, hoping to help with chores again. I'm not sure why, but there's something weirdly satisfying about doing menial, useful tasks like this. I can't help but take a good look at his ass before stopping myself, I think Trin has made me a lot more likely to consider that type of stuff than before, but I'm not sure if I feel comfortable doing it again with someone I don't have a serious connection with. Assuming I want to have a serious connection with someone in the first place, I'm not really sure what I want anymore.

"Where's Inade- I mean Provoj?" I ask the caretaker.

"She locked herself up in her room," he answers, "she does that whenever she feels like she messed up. It's really hard to see her like this, but leaving her alone is the best we can do."

"I don't think she messed up though, she went out of her way to save me and Hotel. Won't the neighborhood be better now that Perseverance is gone?"

"People blame themselves for a lot of stupid things. I can't read her mind, so the best I can do is be here for her when she needs me." He offers me a dirty plate, I take it and scoot over next to him to help with the dishes.

An awkward silence follows, it's occasionally interrupted by the splashing sound of a plate being taken out of the water for me to wipe. It's a simple feeling, rhythmic, organic. He takes one thing, puts it in the water and scrubs it, and then he gives it to me, and I clean all the soapy stuff on it. It feels nice, each action has a place, a clear goal and impact, I don't have to think about it too hard.

"Something's bothering you, isn't it?" he asks, breaking the silence.

"That obvious, huh?" I sigh, missing the quiet already.

"You're not the best at hiding how you feel." He chuckles. "But I don't think you're trying to hide your emotions in the first place."

"It's just...what would you do if you had to leave your kid behind?" I try to concentrate on the dishes, but I can feel his eyes on me. The eyes of someone who knows a lot more than they let on.

"Do you have a choice?"

"I...I think I do."

"Would leaving be better for the kid in that hypothetical scenario?"

I don't answer, it wouldn't. Keeping them tied to my soul is a bad idea for a multitude of reasons. But cutting them off might be even worse, I'm sure I'd recover eventually but...I'm pretty sure Hotel wouldn't. It's like a parasitic relationship gone wrong. Calling Hotel a parasite feels wrong, But their soul became dependent on mine after using so much experience from me, or maybe it's the cloning that made it all wrong. Is this all my fault? If it is...I don't know how to feel about that.

"I'll take that as a no," the caretaker says, breaking another silence. "I don't think family is sacred--not blood family anyway--if your parents are ruining your life, then it might be better to cut ties. But..." He shakes my shoulder a couple of times, as if he's trying to wake me up. "I think you should be there for your kid if that's an option at all, because one day you won't be there anymore. And you don't want to regret spending too little time with your child on your deathbed."

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"I...don't think that applies to me, the whole dying thing."

"Are you a magical girl? Immortality is the worst part about being one. You can technically die from wounds, but outlasting everyone you know can't be a pleasant experience." He tilts his head. "What's your emotion? If that's not too much to ask. It's just rare to meet an unclassified magical girl--assuming my assumption is correct, I might have jumped to conclusions."

"My emotion would be..." I scratch my head, I'm not very good at introspection, or maybe I'm too good at it and that's why I avoid doing it. "It's cowardice."

"A trait based emotion! Those tend to be very powerful since it's fueled by every emotion associated with that trait, but they also affect their user psychologically the most." He explains.

"Yeah, it's been messing with my head for a while. But I'm also not sure if I can change anymore."

"Doing nothing will hurt you more in the long term. Or even worse, it might hurt people you are taking care of." His playful smile leaves his face for a split second before coming back to his usual cheerful expression. "Because it would be really messed up if someone was so selfish they both destroyed themselves and those that depend on them, don't you think?"

"Isn't selfishness part of human nature?"

"You're a piece of shit if that's the excuse you're going with." He says coldly, his 'happy' expression doesn't change.

The last dish is cleaned, and just like that, the conversation ends. He leaves the kitchen without a word, he closes the door behind him and his steps echo out of the room until all I can hear is the gentle dripping of the faucet. I just stand there, staring at the wall with a blank look.

The wall distorts into an unknown shape, after a moment I realize it's my vision that is getting blurry, and that there's nothing wrong with the wall. I lift a single finger up to my eyes, hoping that I'm wrong, that I accidentally splashed some dishwater on my face or something. But there it is, mocking me.

A tear.

I laugh, and more tears come out. This is annoying. I can't see much like this, vision is pretty useful, I'd like to keep it. I have the overwhelming urge to throw my head against the sink, maybe break my skull. Changing bodies would probably fix that, do I have a skill for this? Ho right, the UM isn't working. This wouldn't have happened in the first place if it was working. But maybe I'm the one to blame, I'm the one who designed the UM you know? It'd be very hypocritical for me to blame the UM when I'm the designer, when I'm the one who was supposed to take care of it.

I bury my face in my hands. Did you know that souls actually like to make their host body miserable? It's because extreme happiness and extreme sadness are worth just as much experience, and it's easier to foster negative emotions in general. I'm sorry for failing you. It's very common for universes to communicate with each other, that's very interesting because it usually happens on accident, I've never tried interdimensional communication. You asked something so simple of me and I can't even do that. Sometimes gods do like an exchange program where they trade souls between each other, to add a little spice in their own universe by adding something that doesn't belong here.

Did I ever tell you how charisma works? I'll just do it again, it transfers experience and memories between souls. I'm crying, I don't want to admit it, but I'm crying. But I can do this all day, I've got lots of random knowledge to share, you know? And I can even repeat myself if I ever do run out! You want to know why? Because people cry when they are sad, sometimes you cry tears of joy or when you're laughing too hard, I don't think it's that, but maybe it's a brand-new type of tear linked to an emotion no one has heard about, who-

I-

I break into a sob, I can't stop it anymore. It's overwhelming me. I thought that maybe if I could just keep running, I could at least outrun that feeling forever. But that's all it takes, isn't it? A small break, a moment of weakness, and it falls apart like a deck of cards. It's not the first time I break down like this, it probably won't be the last too. I hate it, I hate how powerless I feel, I hate how no matter what I do, I'm always at the mercy of my own mind. I can try to ignore it all I want, but if I feel like shit, then that feeling is going to make itself known sooner or later, and all I can hope is that tomorrow I'll feel better, but then I don't, but I'm still alive, and I'll have to keep going anyway.

I lightly tug the tendril keeping me and Hotel together, I can barely see anything with my face full of snot and tears, but souls aren't really a thing you see with your eyes anyway.

I run a few ideas around in my head, no matter how I look at it, I can't cut Hotel out without the help of another extremely experienced soul surgeon. I would just pass out before I could finish the surgery, it would be nothing like the superficial changes I usually do on my soul.

I dig around my soul a little, assessing the damage, what Hotel has and hasn't reached, and what I can do about it. There's a massive dark lump taking a huge part of my soul, I ignore it for now, but maybe one day.

I nod to myself. I think can make this work.