Not a Monster

The next couple of days in the infirmary were, by Harmonia standards, uneventful. Which, to be clear, still meant weird and slightly concerning. Miyuu’s memories were slowly stitching themselves back together into something resembling coherence. Not that she particularly wanted them to. Honestly, forgetting might've been better.

She mentally kicked herself for acting on impulse like that. What was she thinking? Oh right, she wasn’t. Revealing confidential government secrets by turning into a human glow stick. Genius move, Miyuu. She was lucky the only witnesses were the student council and Florabelle, who, thankfully, seemed more interested in fussing over her hydration levels than filing official reports.

The student council visited regularly, apparently incapable of functioning without Miyuu to irritate them. According to Jun, the manor felt “weirdly quiet” without her, which Miyuu correctly translated as “boring.” She wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a compliment or a thinly veiled insult.

Oddly enough, none of them seemed particularly fazed by the whole “Miyuu-deactivates-virus-bot-with-glowy-powers” incident. Suspiciously unfazed. Like they’d known it was coming. Every time she tried to bring it up, they expertly dodged her questions. It was infuriating. And suspicious. But mostly infuriating.

By the time her infirmary stay came to an end, Miyuu was bored, frustrated, and more than ready to leave. Sure, she’d miss Florabelle’s constant hovering, the excuse to skip classes, and the novelty of the student council actually being nice to her for once. But if she had to stay one more day, she was genuinely concerned that the council might smother her to death with their overbearing concern.

Of course, the prospect of leaving wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. There was also the looming certainty of reflective missions hanging over her head like a storm cloud. And knowing the student council, they’d have a list of them longer than her life expectancy. But still. Anything was better than staying cooped up in that room for one more second.

It was late afternoon. The infirmary’s usual blinding brightness was softened by the golden sunlight filtering lazily through the windows. Miyuu busied herself packing her belongings, mindlessly sliding her EchoDeck into her slingbag. Every few seconds, her eyes flicked to the door, waiting for one of the council members to show up, sign her out, and whisk her to the manor.

The door finally creaked open, revealing Haruki, who walked in looking as calm and put-together as ever. He nodded to Florabelle, who immediately presented him with a clipboard stacked with forms. Haruki quickly signed them and handed them back with a polite “Thank you.”

Florabelle fluttered beside Miyuu. “Hoo-hoo! Take care, dear.” She said. “And remember: no overexertion.”

“Sure, sure.” Miyuu muttered, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll take it easy.”

Haruki raised an eyebrow at her. “Somehow, I doubt that.”

She didn’t even bother to argue. They left the infirmary together, the door sliding shut behind them. Miyuu fell into step beside Haruki, automatically expecting him to lead the way back to the manor. But then he veered off, heading down a path that definitely wasn’t the way home.

Miyuu blinked, confused. “Uh, Haruki? The manor’s the other way.”

“I’m aware,” he replied, not breaking stride.

He eventually stopped at a bench near the park and gestured for her to sit.

The late-afternoon light cast everything in that warm, golden glow that made even Harmonia’s overly-perfect scenery look halfway real. The river behind them trickled softly, a soundtrack that was way too zen for Miyuu’s rapidly spiralling thoughts. In the distance, the greenhouses began their slow descent to the ground, catching the fading sunlight as they floated down like giant, glowing jellyfish.

Nearby, a pair of Pollen Keeper Biomecs tumbled over each other in the gardens. It looked like they were being chased by a duck. Miyuu couldn’t tell if she was watching an innocent game or a turf war, but either way, she was rooting for the duck.

Haruki looked completely at ease, sitting beside her on the bench like they weren’t about to have what was easily the most awkward conversation of Miyuu’s life. She fiddled with the strap of her bag, her fingers pulling at the frayed edges to distract her from the rising anxiety in her stomach.

She could just stay quiet. Let the moment pass. Pretend like everything was fine and go right back to pretending her life wasn’t a giant mess of classified information and existential dread. That was the smart move. Pretending was easy. Well, no, it wasn’t easy, but it was safer. Safer for everyone. She could keep up the act that she was just a normal, annoying teenager and not a walking, talking end-of-the-world scenario waiting to happen.

Except… she couldn’t pretend, not this time. The student council had seen it. They’d seen her glow. She didn’t even know what to call it. Glow, surge, light-up-like-a-human-taser—whatever it was, they’d seen her short-circuit Grand Écrasant with her bare hands. They knew. And now she was here, alive, yes, but exposed. Five people held her secret in their hands, and she had no idea what they planned to do with it.

Haruki was just sitting there, waiting for her to say something. She hated how patient he could be.

She opened her mouth to speak, but the words refused to come. What was she even afraid of? Was it that they’d go public, expose her, unravel her life? That was part of it, sure. If the council told anyone what they knew, her existence wouldn’t just endanger her—it would destabilize the fragile peace the world was built on. But that wasn’t what was twisting her stomach into knots.

No, what really scared her was the thought that they’d look at her differently now. That they’d see her for what she really was and decide she wasn’t worth the trouble. That she wasn’t… human enough.

She hated that thought. Hated how much it hurt. And she hated herself for caring. She’d always told herself that she didn’t need people, that relying on anyone outside of K.A.T.O. was a recipe for disaster. Feelings like these were unnecessary. Unwanted. Unbearable.

But here she was, sitting on this bench with Haruki, realizing she didn’t want things to change.

She’d spent months complaining about Harmonia, about the student council, about the whole system. And yet, somewhere along the line, she’d gotten used to it. Worse, she’d started to care. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She wasn’t supposed to need anyone.

She’d never belonged anywhere—not fully human, not fully machine. Always caught in between, pretending it didn’t bother her. She should’ve known things would end up like this. Secrets had a way of slipping out eventually, even the ones you locked in a reinforced mental vault. Especially those.

But for some reason, Haruki’s presence gave her courage. Like maybe, just maybe, it would be okay to say it out loud.

“Hey,” she started, her voice smaller than she’d intended. She winced. Great start. Super confident. “I need to tell you something.”

Haruki turned his head, raising an eyebrow at her. “Go on.”

Miyuu inhaled deeply, trying to stop the words from tangling in her throat. “I’m not exactly… a hundred percent… human.”

The words hung in the air between them, heavier than she’d expected. For a moment, Haruki just looked at her.

Then, to her complete disbelief, he chuckled.

“You don’t say.” He said.

Miyuu blinked, thrown completely off her script. “Wait, that’s it? No questions? No dramatic gasping? Not even a single ‘what are you’?”

“Not really.” Haruki leaned back on the bench, looking far too comfortable for someone who’d just been told a massive government secret. “The truth is, we’ve known all along.”

Her jaw dropped, and her brain did a full system reboot before spitting out an error message.

Of course, they had known. She wasn’t sure if she was more annoyed at how utterly unsurprised he was or at herself for thinking this conversation would be shocking to anyone but her. “Let me guess,” she said flatly, “my dad told you.”

“Briefed us the day after you moved in.” Haruki confirmed. “He thought it was important for us to understand what was at stake.”

Miyuu frowned, annoyance bubbling to the surface. “He thought it was important to tell a bunch of strangers extremely classified information about my life?”

Haruki smirked, clearly unbothered by her outrage. “More or less.”

“Classic Dad.” She muttered, crossing her arms tighter and sinking into a full-on pout.

Haruki reached out and rested a hand on her head, ruffling her hair the way he and the other student council members always did.

The warmth of his hand was almost unbearable. It wasn’t the gesture itself—it was the weight of everything it carried. The same weight she’d felt every time Kaito left her a perfectly balanced plate of food, or Shion sat beside her for hours, walking her through equations she pretended not to care about. The weight of Jun’s ridiculous jokes, the kind that made her roll her eyes but also made her laugh. Even Riku’s endless teasing carried it, like a string pulling her into a world where she wasn’t just tolerated but… cared for. Accepted.

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Acceptance. It was foreign to her. Dangerous. Too close.

She scowled, swatting his hand away more out of habit than anything else, but the weird warmth in her chest didn’t go anywhere. If anything, it dug in deeper.

“So… what?” she asked, her voice sharper than she intended. “You don’t care that I’m… artificial?”

Haruki tilted his head. “Why would I?”

Miyuu let out a bitter laugh. “Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because I’m not exactly ‘normal’? I’m a science experiment. If I lose control, I could literally destroy the world. Doesn’t that freak you out? Because it sure as hell freaks me out.”

Haruki tilted her chin upward, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Miyuu,” he said, his voice low and even, “you’re not a monster.”

She opened her mouth, ready to fire back with every self-loathing argument she’d been hoarding since she was old enough to understand what she was. But Haruki didn’t give her the chance.

“You laugh. You cry. And yeah, you screw up sometimes—actually, a lot. Like, way more than statistically reasonable.”

“Okay, now you’re just insulting me.” She scowled.

He chuckled but didn’t back down. “You’re headstrong, defiant, and, let’s be honest, a total brat. But that’s all part of the package, and it’s not a bad one. Point is, you’re just a normal girl. You’re not a freak.”

Her breath hitched, and for a moment, she couldn’t speak. She hated how much they hit her, hated the way her chest tightened, and her eyes burned. She wasn’t going to cry. She absolutely was not going to cry.

But then Haruki added, “You must’ve felt so alone this whole time. But we’ll protect you. You don’t have to do this by yourself anymore.”

And just like that, the dam broke.

A laugh bubbled up first, shaky and bitter, but it cracked into a sob halfway through. She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking as the emotions poured out of her in messy, ugly waves. All the fear, all the isolation, all the anger she’d carried for so long spilled out, leaving her raw and exposed.

Haruki didn’t say anything else. He didn’t try to fix it or make it less awkward. He just pulled her into his chest, his arms steady around her, and let her fall apart.

For the first time in as long as she could remember, Miyuu didn’t feel like she had to hold everything together. She didn’t feel like she had to fight to exist in a world that wasn’t made for her. For the first time, she let herself be a little broken, a little human.