Despite living in yet another prison, Eory would have had a fantastic previous three years if it weren’t for Maruka disappearing.
He felt good. Better than he ever had in his life. He had friends, hobbies, and the strength and confidence to help protect his friends on the battlefield. The only thing he was missing was Maruka.
When the selkie first disappeared, Eory had cried about it for a month. Because he was determined to behave like a man, he only cried when he was alone, but the pain had never entirely gone away. If it weren’t for Them, Eliita, and Terran, he wasn’t sure he would have made it through as well as he did.
As Eory stepped into the bath in the morning, he wondered, as he did nearly every morning, what he had done to scare the selkie away. Such thoughts turned his eyes somewhat glassy, but he bit back his tears, refusing to cry in front of the other recruits.
Eory sighed. Perhaps he had annoyed the selkie too much, or perhaps Eory took the relationship more seriously than Maruka ever did. Eory knew he was new to relationships—in fact, he was new to almost everything—so perhaps he was overreacting to Maruka’s disappearance. He had only known him for a year-and-a-half, after all.
But somehow, the relationship was inconceivably meaningful to Eory. He loved Maruka’s chubby seal cheeks, he loved his sincerity, his supportiveness, and he loved that he had the power to make the man happy.
Eory brushed his hands through the water, making circular ripples--his mind turning back to a comfortable moment he had shared with Maruka nearly two years ago.
It was a good day and a good time to be alive. Eory seemed to have gotten past his red-blooded desire to sleep with someone, and getting past that made life much easier for Eory to live--because the dark thoughts that had come with that dark desire had disappeared with it. At first, he thought it was the fact that he was an Arrozan that made him think such dark thoughts when it came to pleasures of the flesh, but then he realized that perhaps it was just the turbulence of adolescence that toyed with his thoughts and feelings—making him unable to think of anything else other than evil impulses when it came to it.
Eory liked to sleep in Maruka’s bed back then, even though they never did anything. There was just something comfortable about it. Because Maruka had been kind enough to give him his seal skin, Eory was kind enough to tell him what had happened to his pinky finger.
“I met him—the Red Moon Knight.” Eory had explained drowsily, his arms wrapped around the selkie. “He ate my finger and then promised me he was return in three years to get rid of the doppelgangers.”
Maruka had had a look of brief disbelief on his face, and Eory felt embarrassed and ashamed for sharing such an outlandish tale with him. But then, Maruka’s face changed from one of disbelief to curiosity. “W-who’s this Red Moon Knight? How’d you meet him?”
Eory had explained the story nervously—recognizing how ridiculous it sounded. Maruka would probably be more apt to believe that that Eory had chewed his own finger off himself, since he had proven before that he wasn’t afraid of carving letters into his arm before as well as consistently chewing it.
When Eory had finished telling Maruka about his meeting with the Red Moon Knight and how he had found him, Maruka was quiet, and then he whispered, “You’re selflessness amazes me… w-why did you have to offer so much of yourself to this creature? For these people you hardly know who despise y-you without knowing you?”
Eory had frowned thoughtfully. He took a long time before he finally answered, “It’s the right thing to do. I want to do something nice for this world.”
“To prove that you’re good?” Maruka had questioned.
“No… well, I mean yes, but… I want to thank this world for giving me my life. Getting rid of the doppelgangers seems to be the best way to do it.” Eory had done his best to explain.
“You want to thank this world for your life…?” Maruka had been extremely shocked. He had never told Eory anything about his personal history, but Eory knew the man had been through horrible things. He didn’t know it, but Maruka would never have thanked the world for his life; the selkie would have been happier never existing at all.
But Eory nodded in response. “Of course. I think that, even though my life has been tough… it would have been sad to have never met any of the people here at all. I have so many things to be grateful for. I loved meeting you all and getting to know you. I loved what I saw of the outside world; I even love defending Yharos from the doppelgangers.”
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