Like it's okay if you want to be something that isn't nothing.
They had, once, forgotten what chocolate tasted like. They knew it was something good on a theoretical level. They knew they were supposed to like it. But they had forgotten the experience, had forgotten the why, had been oblivious to how much they'd lost hold of, all until Frisk pulled a chocolate bar from the kitchen and handed it to them.
Their throat had constricted under the weight of a warm, safe memory, and they'd lied and pretended they didn't taste anything at all.
"Demons don't sleep," they'd told Frisk later that same day. Their arrival here had been an endless refrain of I don't need, I don't need, I don't need. Everything had been hidden out of sight, pressed between the wall and mattress or concealed behind drawers, because things you aren't allowed to have will always get taken away.
And now Frisk tells them that they want it to be okay if they don't want to be nothing.
That they've noticed all the hiding places. The conscious grooming of a tidy room, hair an utterly unchanging length, the static, manufactured clean slate of a doll on a shelf. They don't call it out as ridiculous. They don't mock it as tiring edgelord pretension. Of course they don't buy into the thin illusion that Chara cares about nothing, has no ties to speak of, is nothing but function and LOVE and pragmatic purpose.
Chara has to duck their head suddenly, because their throat feels as tight with a welling emotion as if they were remembering chocolate for the first time.
"I don't want to be hollow," they choke out, softly. They can't lie about it. Not here, not now, not like this. "I want to know who Chara is, too. I don't want to be resigned. I don't want it to be such a hard question."
no subject
They had, once, forgotten what chocolate tasted like. They knew it was something good on a theoretical level. They knew they were supposed to like it. But they had forgotten the experience, had forgotten the why, had been oblivious to how much they'd lost hold of, all until Frisk pulled a chocolate bar from the kitchen and handed it to them.
Their throat had constricted under the weight of a warm, safe memory, and they'd lied and pretended they didn't taste anything at all.
"Demons don't sleep," they'd told Frisk later that same day. Their arrival here had been an endless refrain of I don't need, I don't need, I don't need. Everything had been hidden out of sight, pressed between the wall and mattress or concealed behind drawers, because things you aren't allowed to have will always get taken away.
And now Frisk tells them that they want it to be okay if they don't want to be nothing.
That they've noticed all the hiding places. The conscious grooming of a tidy room, hair an utterly unchanging length, the static, manufactured clean slate of a doll on a shelf. They don't call it out as ridiculous. They don't mock it as tiring edgelord pretension. Of course they don't buy into the thin illusion that Chara cares about nothing, has no ties to speak of, is nothing but function and LOVE and pragmatic purpose.
Chara has to duck their head suddenly, because their throat feels as tight with a welling emotion as if they were remembering chocolate for the first time.
"I don't want to be hollow," they choke out, softly. They can't lie about it. Not here, not now, not like this. "I want to know who Chara is, too. I don't want to be resigned. I don't want it to be such a hard question."