(Haruna POV)
The air smelled faintly of spring — soft rain, wet earth, and the first hints of sakura bloom.
I didn't really know why I said yes when he asked me out. Maybe curiosity. Maybe something deeper I didn't want to name.
Scourge—no, the human Scourge—waited by the park gate, hands in his pockets, dressed simply but perfectly. He looked… normal. Too normal for what I knew he truly was.
"Hey," I greeted softly.
He smiled, faint and careful, as if he was still learning how. "Hey, Haruna."
We walked without hurry. The path was lined with fallen petals, a soft pink trail leading nowhere in particular. For a while, neither of us spoke. It wasn't awkward—just quiet.
Finally, I asked, "Do you ever miss it? Being… what you were?"
He looked at the sky before answering. "No. I think I was born incomplete. Everything before meeting you all—Lala, you—was noise. Data without meaning."
I felt my chest tighten a little. "And now?"
He turned to me. His eyes—deep, bright, impossible—met mine. "Now, I'm starting to understand why living things hesitate before they act. Why they hold back even when they could take."
My heart skipped. "You mean… empathy?"
"Maybe," he said. "Or maybe I'm just becoming more like you."
We stopped beneath a sakura tree. The petals drifted slowly around us.
"Haruna," he said, voice lower now. "When I'm near you, I feel something that doesn't belong to the system. It isn't a mission. It isn't a reward."
I swallowed. "Then what is it?"
He reached out—not with hunger, but with care—and brushed a stray petal from my hair. "It's peace. It's wanting to stay still."
The wind whispered through the trees, scattering the blossoms. I closed my eyes, letting the world blur, letting his words linger.
I'd always been afraid of what he was. Of what he could do.
But standing there, under the falling petals, I realized something simple—Maybe the danger wasn't in him.Maybe it was in how easily my heart was starting to listen.
When I opened my eyes again, he was still there, watching me gently.
And for once, neither of us needed to speak.