[attr="class","skullbody"]Seeing Genny cry like this was agonizing. And yet, Isaac could only imagine how much worse it felt for her to bottle it up inside.[break][break]
Isaac was glad that she was a better, stronger person than he was. When Kiryu died, something broke inside of Isaac. He stood there in stunned disbelief, even as a sniper trained his gun on him. He ran in a desperate escape from a fight that he and Ash had somehow won. He prepared to scale Mt. Pyre's peak on a suicide charge, half to hurt the League how he hurt him and half to die by her side.[break][break]
Yet here Genny was, all iron until she was all tears. He wished that he could be as strong as her. He approached her, calmly and gently, to hug her as she worked her tears out. Grief, while personal in the end, was always such a heavy burden. Sometimes, all someone needed was to have that burden shared as they processed it. He didn't dare interrupt her thoughts with words. Instead, he simply let her remember, let her feel, let her be.[break][break]
He remembered seeing Kiryu for the first time. A rock type among a ground specialist's ranks, she was always the odd one out. Maybe that was why Isaac was drawn to her. Or maybe it was because she was huge, and shiny, and badass. Like a knight and a dragon from a bedtime story, rolled into one.[break][break]
He remembered her flustered attempts at keeping his rambunctious ass out of trouble. He remembered falls and scrapes, flights and frights, all sorts of chaos he kicked up in his wake. And somehow, they always laughed.[break][break]
He remembered how worried she was the one time she couldn't be there for him, when he and
El Sunderland snuck out to catch a Pokemon on their own and the worst happened. He remembered promising he'd never worry her like that again, and he hated how it became a lie.[break][break]
He remembered how, when he ran away from home, she chose to run away with him. He wished he could have given her a better life than a teenage runaway burnout's tagalong. And yet, they had so many precious moments together, didn't they?[break][break]
He remembered the triumphs and the trials. The smiles and the tears. The clouds and their silver linings.[break][break]
He remembered her last moments; those rasping breaths he still heard in his nightmares, the placid smile on her face as he buried her, and how even her spirit refused to leave his side.[break][break]
He wasn't alone in his comfort. Megalon threw his arms around them, perhaps a bit too jovially even if his heart was in the right place. Wyrm waddled up and nestled her head against Genny's hand, with Carmen waddling up to clumsily faceplant into her in turn. Alfred refilled her drink, free of charge.[break][break]
When Genny was ready to part, and he returned to his seat, he was startled to find that the Aron had snatched it on him. She really was drawn to him, wasn't she? It was strange. It was worrying. Isaac was terrified that this one, too, would only end up hurt, lost, disappointed.[break][break]
Kiryu never was disappointed, though. Not for a moment. Not even when he deserved it.[break][break]
Genny's suggestion confirmed what Isaac feared. Her words hit him like a ton of bricks. While placid on the outside, on the inside he felt like he was drowning.
"I . . ." he stammered, looking from his team, to Genny, to the Aron, to the window, to the wall, to his reflection in his tea, to everything and nothing all at once.[break][break]
Finally, his gaze settled on the Aron.
"What do you think, buddy? Would you like that?"[break][break]
[break]