[attr="class","kap"]Being a good person is thankless. He paused at that. He... couldn't see eye to eye with Eirin there. One of the first things that didn't make sense to him. He admitted that it was far more exhausting, but it offered him a peace of mind that he wouldn't have otherwise.

He stayed up at night, wondering if what he'd said hurt people. Wondering what prospects were left to him after his taboo. Wondering if his work could bring death and destruction, or if it could move mountains. And he knew he would always focus on the negatives.

He drowned enough of that under bottles of alcohol. He didn't need to add to the count with revenge. Being good may not have changed things for others, but it changed it for himself.

Maybe it would be easier not to focus on those things and instead move on, but he couldn't. He just wasn't that kinda person.

He came out of his thoughts as they stepped into he next room. He stopped hard. The feeling didn't creep in. It didn't try to subtly settle around it. It smothered him.

He was sweating. A short whimper, something that he muffled down, forcing himself to stand tall despite the doom. He knew this feeling well. He worked around this feeling. At one point it was just as much home as his house had been. Now it was just a stark reminder of loss and anguish.

His eyes drag up to the sliver of a barely infantile rupture. He forced his feet to move, one step at a time, into he was standing beside Eirin. He had dropped several shades of color, but he was still standing.

This right here. This was his work. His defiance against the thing that ripped his wife and child from him. His life's work. Their greatest accomplishment yet. "Never thought I would see the day," he breathed out, "in five days... Imagine what we can accomplish in three months." His lips quirked at first, and then the smile spread fast across his face.

He was trying not to cry, but the tears came anyway.

Janice, if only you could see this now.