IC Contact [City of Ariel]

[recitings]

Genesis Rhapsodos here. What do you need me for?

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Audio.

[recitings]

[Genesis doesn't think much when he sees the text while he was working. His first thought is that Ai is being very romantic. Maybe more so now that he has the day off and thus, no excuse to be with him that day. And indeed, he smiles for him. His eyes crinkle, too. He knows Ai loves him so fiercely and he treasures every bit of it.

Perhaps the boy was busy with someone else, doing something where he couldn't use his voice aloud. But that won't stop Genesis from replying in the way Aiichiro wants him to. He's done it a few times, sending him the message in text only to be asked right away to say it aloud.

And so tonight, he won't text first.]

Rest well, Aiichiro. I love you, too.

[aidreamofsenpai]

[ He's beyond responding now. There's no way he could even if he wanted; there's no way to focus enough, to make his brain work. He just doesn't have the oxygen, and there's no amount of romantic notion that can substitute for that.

Still, he hears. Receiving the message doesn't take work on his end, and the rushing in his ears can't stop what isn't technically coming in from outside.

He can't thank Genesis now, for that simple kindness of saying it aloud like he likes it, for letting him hear it even when he didn't do the same himself. He can't tell him how very much it means, how even though it doesn't make him not scared, doesn't make it not hurt, it's the very thing he needed the most in this moment.

But he can close his eyes and let those words be the thing that make him glad that in this world, he already knows that death isn't forever.

He can let them be his reason to believe in coming back. ]