"Mom, Sister doesn't seem to like me very much," Illumi looked up at Kikyo.
Back then, Illumi's height barely reached Kikyo's waist, and he had already realized this was a problem unrelated to Millus's personality.
"Mellus has always been this way; she doesn't talk much and doesn't like to get close to people," Kikyo had replied at the time, citing personality.
Standing at this moment in time and looking back, the corridor of time seemed to stretch endlessly. Yet, the time that had passed was long enough for an infant in swaddling clothes to grow into an adult. Now, Illumi was 24, and Millus was 25.
Ah, yes, because Millus always threw tantrums like a child who would never grow up. In Kikyo's eyes, Millus was still a child who needed her.
In many ways, Millus had remained consistent from childhood to adulthood, such as her consistent distance from Illumi.
Sending them to Meteor City for training to foster their bond had yielded minimal results. For a period afterward, Millus even completely ignored Illumi, treating him as if he were air. There was nothing that could be done; it could only be attributed to a fundamental incompatibility – Kikyo had already accepted this situation and no longer forced it.
So…
What exactly did Millus want to do now?
Kikyo absolutely did not believe that any interaction remotely resembling intimacy would occur between Millus and Illumi.
That's right, without a doubt, the scene she saw was a deliberate performance.
Even 12-year-old Killua could skillfully evade the mansion's extensive surveillance, let alone Millus and Illumi. The correct answer was obvious: they wanted Kikyo to see this as a silent invitation.
Or, perhaps, a public provocation.
Kikyo met their eyes in the surveillance footage. She took a deep breath, adjusted her breathing, and switched the monitoring for that specific area to be visible only to herself. The surveillance room screen now showed only an empty corridor.
This was a public yet secret meeting.
What did Millus want?
Kikyo followed the last segment of footage from the electronic eye, stopping before a door. This was Illumi's room.
As she had expected, the door was indeed ajar.
"...Millus."
What do you want?
"Mellus."
What do you want me to see?
There was no surveillance here. Kikyo turned off the monitoring display of her electronic eyes, using the cameras of the eyes themselves to capture the scene before her. The state of having only one field of vision felt very much like the sensation after removing her electronic eyes. Kikyo always felt it was akin to blindness.
As she walked into the room, she extended her hands forward, as if trying to grasp something for support from thin air.
Support?
What kind of support did she want?
She wasn't sure, but she had finally reached the stage and seen what Millus wanted her to see.
Illumi looked up. "Mom, you're here."
"...Mellus." Kikyo stood still, simply watching Millus.
Mellus paid her no mind. Illumi felt the pressure of her hand on his head and lowered it again.
"Mellus," Kikyo finally took a step closer, lowering her head to meet Millus's gaze, her voice unusually calm. "What exactly do you want?"
"..." Millus closed her eyes with a cold expression. "To see... how happy I am... Mom."
"Why do you want me to see this?" Kikyo said dryly. "I have no objections to what you want to do. You don't need to let me know."
"I want you to... hmm..." Millus paused. "To see..."
"..."
Mellus fell silent, and Illumi said nothing.
Kikyo maintained an unusually long silence, never once looking at Illumi, her gaze fixed solely on Millus.
"...Come on, Mom," Millus's tone was languidly drawn out as she raised her arms towards Kikyo.
"..." At this moment, Kikyo finally cast her gaze upon Illumi's face for the first time.
A face that seemed to have been molded from the same mold as her own.
Kikyo removed her electronic eyes and let down her hair.
Look, how alike they are.
If one only looked at their faces, disregarding the difference in their build, Kikyo and Illumi were like twin sisters. The only difference was that Kikyo wore lipstick. Thus, she thought, Millus desired her, and Illumi was merely a substitute in another form.
Next, Kikyo acted like a commentator, no, more like a voice actor, describing Illumi's actions as her own.
"Millus..."
Kikyo covered Millus's eyes, her expression one of feigned intoxication or perhaps a wry smile.
"No," Illumi suddenly spoke.
"..." As if startled awake from a dream, Kikyo shuddered and looked up in disbelief.
"Mom, I am not your clone," Illumi said plainly. "Neither is Sister."
"From birth, from the moment the umbilical cord was cut, we are no longer a part of you."
"Now, I am the one doing all of this," Illumi lowered her eyes. "...It is mine."
"Mellus..." Kikyo frowned at Illumi.
"I need you too..." Millus raised her arms again. Since Kikyo was covering her eyes, she followed Kikyo's arms and touched Kikyo's chin. "Mom, love me a little more..."
"..." Kikyo remained still, allowing Millus to trace her lips with her fingers.
"Hold me more..."
"..."
"Mom."
Kikyo lifted her shoulders and silently embraced her.
...............
............
...
"Do you want to go back to your room, or do you want Mom to stay with you?" Kikyo kissed Millus's forehead.
In other words, it was a choice between Millus's room and Kikyo's room.
"You wouldn't want to sleep in a messy place, would you?" Kikyo smiled. "I know this is also one of the reasons you chose to come to Illumi's room."
Although Millus had not yet reacted, Illumi had already affirmed Kikyo's guess. "..."
Mellus thought for a moment and clutched Kikyo's sleeve.
The answer was obvious.
After Kikyo and Millus left together, Illumi sat on a chair and took a one-jenny coin from his pocket, biting it with his teeth, like gnawing on a hard candy.
"..."
Meanwhile, Seba, who was forced to be alone due to circumstances beyond his control, lay on his bed contemplating: Although Millus said she preferred Dad when she was little, now she still prefers Mom... right?
But no matter what, as long as she was close to anyone in the family, it should be a good thing.
Seba recalled the previous year's end, when Millus gave him and Kikyo apple pie as a return gift.
At that time, Seba had stayed home for a while regarding the gift. In his free time, he had sparred with Zeno in the training grounds, sustaining minor injuries. Those injuries healed suddenly after eating the apple pie. However, this was probably not Millus's intention; Millus didn't know about the sparring or his injuries.
Mellus would taste the food she made herself; she couldn't possibly not know the special effects of those foods. Was "handmade" perhaps one of the constraints? Were the effects of her creations random? Besides "healing," were there other effects?
Come to think of it, why was Millus hiding this ability?
If she were willing to reveal it, she could gain more recognition from the family. She craved praise – wasn't this what she wanted?
As expected, he still couldn't figure out what that child was thinking.
While Seba was pondering these things, Millus lay in Kikyo's embrace, listening to Kikyo's heartbeat and falling asleep with her arm as a pillow.
Kikyo stroked her hair and softly hummed a lullaby.
It was as if she had regressed to the time when Kikyo first became a mother.
It was a melody without lyrics.
But that didn't matter.
What Millus was thinking also didn't matter, because she herself might not even know.
"..."
enjoythegame.
That's all.