Kei didn't sleep that night.
He couldn't. The journal lay on his desk like a secret too loud to ignore, the photograph tucked between its pages burning in his memory. He kept looking at their faces. The same women who now bickered over takeout and stole his blankets had once stood like ghosts carved into time.
He didn't know what shook him more: the realization that they had been human… or that none of them ever told him.
By morning, the house had resumed its usual chaos—Vel humming in the shower, Tobi blending something dangerously neon, Aera trying on her fourth outfit in the mirror.
But Kei had only one destination in mind.
The basement gym.
Where Wrath would be.
---
He found Rika mid-set, lifting a barbell like it was filled with feathers. Sweat glistened on her shoulders. Her red ponytail swung with each repetition.
She noticed him instantly. "You look like you haven't slept."
"I didn't."
Rika dropped the barbell with a heavy thud. "Okay, dramatic intro. What's wrong now? Did someone swap your toothpaste again?"
Kei held up the journal, expression serious. "Why didn't you tell me you were human?"
Rika froze.
For the first time since he met her, silence hit like a punch.
"…Where'd you get that?" she asked, voice low.
"It was in the study. I found the journal. And this." He showed her the photo. "That's you. All of you. That's not five hundred years ago. That's way older."
Rika rubbed the back of her neck, glancing away. "Damn it, Nebu. I told her to burn that drawer."
"Why hide it?" Kei stepped closer. "Why act like you're just demons? Like this is all you've ever been?"
She stared at the photo. Her jaw tensed. "…Because it's easier to be Sin than to remember what came before it."
Kei's voice softened. "You're not just Wrath. You had a name."
"I don't use it anymore."
"You lived. You suffered. You became something else. I deserve to know."
"…Why?" she snapped suddenly. "So you can pity us? So you can start treating us like broken women instead of weird roommates?"
Kei didn't flinch. "No. Because you matter to me."
That shut her up.
"…You don't get it," she muttered. "Being human doesn't make it better. It makes it worse. We weren't cursed by some god. We walked into this. Eyes open. All of us. And once we crossed that line, the world forgot us."
Kei looked down at the photo. "But you didn't forget each other."
Rika's hands clenched into fists. "Barely."
---
Later that afternoon, Kei found Aris alone on the balcony, sipping tea with the regal grace of a fallen empress. The wind tousled her golden jacket, her gaze distant.
"You found it," she said before he could speak.
"You knew I would?"
"I knew you'd be curious. That's your best trait… and your worst."
He sat across from her. "How old are you, Aris?"
Her lips curved faintly. "Older than guilt. Younger than denial."
"Can you stop answering like a riddle?"
She chuckled. "We were born in an age that forgot to write itself down. History remembers kings and wars. Not women who burned quietly."
Kei frowned. "But you chose to become Pride?"
"We didn't choose Sin. We chose survival. The world handed us a story: 'You're too loud. Too angry. Too selfish. Too hungry. Too much.' So we wore the masks they gave us. Until the masks wore us."
Kei stared. "So you became monsters to live?"
"No," Aris said. "We became monsters so we wouldn't be erased."
---
That night, Kei sat in the living room, the photo between his fingers.
Nebu curled up beside him on the couch, her hair hiding most of her face.
"You shouldn't worry about the past," she mumbled. "It's heavy. Like a wet blanket. I'd know."
Kei looked at her. "You remember everything, don't you?"
"…Yeah."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because it's nice… pretending we're just weird roommates. Even for a while."
Kei didn't argue. He placed the photo back into the journal and set it on the shelf.
"Okay," he said. "We don't have to talk about it now."
Nebu yawned, already dozing against his shoulder. "Thanks… Kei…"
He sat there in silence, the weight of the truth pressing in around him.
The Sins were ancient.
They had lived and lost and changed beyond recognition.
And yet somehow… they were still here. Still laughing. Still arguing. Still waking him up with sleep-teleportation and existential dread.
They weren't just sins.
They were survivors.
And Kei wasn't just living with them anymore.
He was becoming part of whatever story came next.