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"How are you finding it?"
Tetora glances at him, legs paused mid-swing. Understands.
He'd meant to ask sooner. After the lectures. It hadn't ever seemed like a good time. It never does, if he's honest, but that's true of a lot of things.
Beside him, Tetora laughs musically. It sounds natural. She's probably been practising. Shiroe's secondhand anxieties are somewhat tempered.
"It's good. Better, I should say." Her eyes return to the lazy flow of traffic beneath them. "I... it wasn't as bad as it could have been, I think. Crazy disconcerting, you know? But I'd always..." She trails off, wringing her hands nervously. It's an uncharacteristic tic. Telling. Tetora sighs.
Shiroe rests his head on his arms and remembers crouching beside someone he barely knew as they dry-heaved in a public bathroom stall. Imagines doing that for her.
"It's different." Her hands still. "When you make it all that way and then..." And then this. And then Elder Tale. "It wasn't a choice. It's like you're right back at square one."
Some great tension in Tetora diffuses like snapped elastic. "Yeah," she says. Her gaze flits over him hesitantly. "You-?"
"First year," he says, simply. "We were taking the same course. I only knew for a few weeks. Almost dropped out after... after."
Her fists clench. He knows the feeling.
"I was saving up for it. The treatments, I mean." It's a soft admission. "It felt right, after so long." She smiles wryly. "I guess the apocalypse means I get to pay off my student loans after all."
Shiroe watches her face. Watches for that desperate, hateful misery, and doesn't see it. Sees someone who wants to be happy.
He smiles back.