Look at them. Look at the pair of them. Castoffs, unwanted things, fleeing to leap into a pit in the ground because the alternative was too terrifying to comprehend, too hateful, too horrifying. It should be wrong for kids like them to feel like this, empty and bereft and...tired. Tired before their time. Hard to know how old Chara really is, but it's not difficult to imagine them older. Taking the lead so easily, so much more assertive than meek, too-quiet, too-stammery Frisk.

"That's not you," says Frisk, and bile swells in their throat for a horrible moment. "Not your fault." Real parents. As if parents like that deserve the word "real" as a prefix. They don't remember much from something Chara so viciously blocked out, but there was that surging hatred, that angry, bitter loneliness associated with humanity. Or maybe those were Frisk's memories. Things shattering, the anticipatory tensing of your shoulders before the other thing happens. Slip a knife from a cabinet so no adult gets to come close to you ever again, not without your say-so.

Humans can really suck sometimes. Anyone that provokes that reaction from a kid, makes them run and hide and see a long drop and just let it all fall - maybe there's enough hatred in their heart for that. For people like that.

"I don't love you 'cause I think I'm gonna get something out of it," they say, the corners of their mouth twitching as they struggle to smile but don't quite make it. "I don't love you to make anything happen. I love you 'cause I do. I can't change that, even if I wanted to."