Empty your pants....
Damn this shit made even me emotional.
---
Enid had always believed she could handle anything.
Vampire drama? Fine.
Werewolf pack politics? Manageable.
Wednesday's emotional constipation? A daily workout.
But nothing—nothing—prepared her for this.
She sat on the edge of her bed, legs tucked beneath her, trying to look encouraging and harmless.
Toji stood in front of her, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the floor. He looked like a soldier being forced to recount a war he never volunteered for.
Enid had asked a simple question.
"Toji… what happened to your mom?"
She expected silence. A glare. A deflection.
Instead—
He told her.
Not all at once. Not cleanly. Not gently.
He spoke like someone dragging barbed wire out of his own throat.
He told her about Naoya.
About the abuse.
About Shoko begging for kindness she never received.
About the night everything broke.
About how he snapped his father's neck.
About how his mother died in his arms.
About Hester finding him in a pool of blood.
About the prophecy coiled around his blood like a curse waiting to bloom.
He told her everything and laid his heart bear for her.
And Enid—Enid Sinclair, with her bright sweaters and sunshine voice—sat there listening as the world inside her slowly cracked open.
At first she stayed quiet, nodding, trying to be strong for him.
But the deeper he went…
the smaller she felt.
And when he finally said:
"It wasn't me who killed him. It was something inside me. Something hungry."
That was the moment Enid broke.
She didn't wail.
She didn't gasp.
She didn't scream.
She just sat there, eyes filling, breathing trembling, heart collapsing quietly in her chest.
"Toji…" she whispered, voice thin as thread, "you were just a kid."
He shrugged.
As if what he lived through was normal. As if it was nothing. As if he hadn't just torn his soul open and handed her the pieces.
Enid's tears spilled before she could stop them.
And Toji froze.
He'd seen people cry before.
Beg.
Beg for mercy.
Beg for life.
Beg for anything.
But no one had ever cried for him.
His jaw tightened.
His hands curled into fists.
He didn't know what to do—he didn't know how to handle softness. It was easier when people were afraid. He understood fear.
But Enid wasn't afraid.
She was devastated.
"Why are you crying?" he asked, voice low, confused.
Enid swallowed hard.
"Because you didn't deserve any of that. Not a single part. You're—Toji, you're not a monster."
Something flickered behind his eyes—panic, maybe disbelief, maybe anger at being pitied.
He looked away.
"You don't know what I am."
But Enid reached out—not touching him, just placing her hand close enough that he could if he wanted.
"And you don't know what kindness feels like. But you deserve to learn."
Toji flinched.
No one had ever said that to him.
No one had ever looked at him like he was worth anything more than his pain.
The silence stretched between them—fragile, trembling, alive.
Enid's tears kept falling.
Toji stared at them like they were something foreign. Something impossible.
And for the first time in a long, long time…
He didn't walk away.
Enid didn't try to wipe her tears.
She let them fall—slow, trembling, each one cutting her cheeks like glass. She didn't sob or hiccup. She cried the way people cry when they've reached their limit. Quiet. Honest. Irreversible.
Toji watched her, stiff and motionless, like he was watching someone bleed in front of him but had no idea how to stop it.
No one had ever cried for him.
Fear? Yes.
Pain? Always.
Obligation? Plenty.
But grief—grief on his behalf?
It made something in him twist painfully.
"Toji," she whispered, broken, "you were just a little boy… holding your mother's body. Alone. Terrified. Why—why didn't anyone come for you? Why didn't anyone protect you?"
A muscle in Toji's jaw jumped.
"I didn't need protection."
Enid's voice cracked.
"You did. You absolutely did."
Toji looked away sharply, as if her words stung worse than any blow. He dug his nails into his palms until his knuckles turned white.
"You're crying over the wrong person," he muttered. "My mother—she's the one who—"
"Don't," Enid said through her tears, her breath trembling. "Don't do that. Don't pretend you weren't hurt too."
He inhaled sharply, the sound harsh, almost panicked.
"Enid," he said quietly, "stop."
"No," she whispered. "I won't."
She wiped her face with the back of her sleeve, breath uneven.
"You don't get to stand there and act like your trauma is some kind of… footnote. Or inconvenience. Or something that doesn't matter because you survived."
He looked at her then.
Really looked.
And for a second— just a second— there was a flash of something hollow and agonizing in his eyes.
"Toji," she said, voice shaking but steady enough to carry the weight of what she meant, "you were a child. A child begging for safety in a house built to crush you."
He clenched his fists harder.
"Stop talking like I'm—"
"Human?" she cut in, raw. "Because you are."
The words hit him like a punch.
His eyes widened—barely, but enough. His breath stuttered. His whole posture shook once, like something cracked under the surface.
Enid's voice softened, thick with emotion.
"Toji… no one held you while you cried.
No one cleaned your cuts.
No one protected you.
No one listened.
No one loved you the way you deserved."
She wasn't shouting.
She wasn't lecturing.
She was mourning him.
And he couldn't take it.
"You don't understand," he said, voice sharp, trembling with something close to desperation. "Enid… I'm not—"
"Bad?" she finished for him. "Cursed? Damaged? A monster?"
Toji flinched.
Enid moved closer—not touching him, not daring to, but closing the space he'd kept between them like a shield.
"Toji," she whispered, tears falling fresh, "you were a little boy who watched the only person he loved die in his arms. And then you walked out of that house alone."
He said nothing.
He couldn't.
His throat worked, but no sound came out. His breathing stuttered, harsh and uneven.
Enid swallowed, voice collapsing into a whisper.
"I'm crying because you should've been held. You should've been saved. You should've lived a life where someone chose you. And you didn't get any of that."
Something broke.
Toji's shoulders shook—barely, but enough for Enid to see it. Enough to crack her heart wide open.
He turned his face away, eyes burning with something he didn't want her to witness—something he hadn't allowed himself to feel in years.
"…Stop looking at me like that," he muttered.
"Like what?" Enid asked softly.
"Like I'm worth something."
Her breath hitched.
"Toji," she whispered, "you are."
He squeezed his eyes shut.
"Enid—"
"You are," she said, firmer this time, through tears.
"I don't care what you think you are. I don't care what you've done. I don't care what prophecy or curse or trauma you think defines you."
She took one last trembling breath.
"You're worth crying for."
He froze.
Completely.
As if the world had stopped moving.
And in the quiet that followed—
not loud, not dramatic, not cinematic—
Toji Zenin broke.
Not with tears.
Not with screams.
But with a single, shaking exhale—
—as if he was finally allowing himself to be seen.
And Enid stayed there with him.
Not touching.
Not pushing.
Just staying.
Exactly the thing he'd needed all his life and never received.
---
Author note.
While Hecter was there for him she wasn't with him.She only saw him as her mistake. She looked at him like she owned him something.
She never got that close to him because she thought she didn't deserve him.
Toji at the end of a day, Recarnated or not was just a child looking for comfort, for protection which he never got after the death of the only person who ever loved him.