Upon hearing Tiana’s request to leave, Quinn wasn’t even slightly bothered.
“Ah, that’s good timing. I actually was thinking of eating something.”
He stood up, and without tucking his chair in he left the room.
Tiana let out a small sigh once the door shut.
“That man… really is a handful. Though it doesn’t seem like he will be a burden at the very least.”
She smirked.
“I suppose I should’ve had more trust in the people you’ve decided to recruit.”
Kairos waved his hand dismissively.
“Honestly, he somewhat surprised me too. The only reason I brought him was that he was able to create a really nicely engineered barricade and thought it wouldn’t be too much of a burden.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“But it turns out he’s one of those smartasses, and has a Ph.D to prove it. Though it is somewhat weird he never became a scientist.”
Tiana rolled her eyes.
“It’s a good thing someone like him didn’t become a scientist. Or at least, it would be a good thing if the apocalypse didn’t happen.”
Kairos raised an eyebrow.
“Why do you say that?”
Tiana stretched her arms.
“Well he clearly does not even slightly care about human life that isn’t directly related to him. He is one of those that are so insanely logical, that it makes one wonder if he even has emotions left. A scientist like that surely would have found a way to do some shady experiments.”
Kairos scoffed.
“I don’t see how that’s a bad thing. He would be the only scientist in recent times brave enough to actually do a meaningful study.”
Tiana smiled.
“Well, I wouldn’t call it useless…”
Kairos waved his hand dismissively.
“I guess it’s a little unfair to blame the scientists, when it’s really the system itself making things difficult for them.”
Tiana chuckled.
“You seem to know quite a bit about the processes.”
Kairos sighed.
“Yeah, one time I was curious about a lot of things. But anyway, more importantly, you wanted to talk to me about something?”
Tiana nodded and also lowered her voice.
“Yes.”
Kairos waited, but she did not speak. After a minute or so, he couldn’t help but speak up.
“Um, do you plan on starting to talk any time soon?”
Tiana let out a soft sigh.
“Hm… I just… wanted to say that you can look at the charts I have here to get a grasp on the overall state of the city. After all, that’s your job as the one that handles logistics, right?”
Kairos’s face twitched.
“Um, ok. I’ll take some time to go over it.”
Tiana nodded.
“Go ahead then.”
Kairos turned to look at the charts, but soon turned back to face her.
“But for now, could you tell me why you really wanted to have this conversation?”
Tiana let out a quiet chuckle.
“You aren’t letting me go, huh?”
Kairos rolled his eyes.
“It’s a waste of time if you don’t tell me now. It can’t be that bad, right?”
Tiana did not respond for the next few seconds, instead opting to look up at the ceiling as though there wasn’t a white ceiling, but a vast sky.
“Well let me first ask you this.”
She looked back at him with a cordial smile.
“Do you find me trustworthy?”
Kairos instinctively found himself replying, lying as though he were breathing.
“Yes.”
However, in his future vision, he saw that the butterfly attached to the back of her hair abruptly glowed red. Kairos immediately stopped himself from telling that lie. He took a deep breath.
“…No.”
Tiana raised an eyebrow in interest as a smirk spread across her face.
“Hmm. I totally expected that you would lie, as that seems pretty natural to you.”
Her eyes became a little curious.
“But it seems you suppressed that urge somehow.”
Kairos massaged his temple with the tip of his finger.
“Alright, so what does that have to do with what you wanted to talk about?”
Tiana put a finger on her chin.
“It seems you are in quite the rush.”
Kairos’ eyelid twitched.
“It’s you that’s wasting time purposely.”
Tiana laughed.
“I suppose so. I’m not exactly sure how to say this exactly…”
She sighed once more.
Kairos was beginning to lose his patience, but held on for just a little bit longer. And that was when Tiana spoke up.
“I feel like I’m going insane.”
Kairos calmed down, then took a look at all of the papers around him.
“Well, that makes sense with how much work you’ve done. Maybe you can assign some of the stuff to other people.”
Tiana slowly shook her head.
“No. I’m not losing it because I’m overworking myself.”
A strange smile formed on her face.
“Rather, I feel the only time I’m at least somewhat sane is when I’m focused on work. So that’s what I’ve been committing to.”
Kairos found it hard to respond.
“…Oh. That’s not good.”
The corner of Tiana’s lip turned upwards sarcastically.
“Come on, can’t you be a little bit more comforting?”
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
“That’s not my specialty. Honestly, I don’t really know how to reassure people.”
Tiana held on the side of her face with her hand.
“Ha. I feel that’s more you are unwilling to do so.”
Kairos let out a sigh.
“Well, I can’t deny that’s part of it, but I’m actually bad at it, alright? You should’ve found someone else to talk about these problems with.”
A hollow smile formed on Tiana’s face.
“Remember how I asked if you thought I was trustworthy? Well, I think of you in the exact same way, a person I can’t trust at all.”
Kairos adjusted his glasses.
“It seems like quite the dumb idea to confide in someone you can’t trust at all.”
Tiana leaned back in her chair and sighed.
“Exactly. I’m doing so because I don’t have another choice.”
Kairos clicked his tongue.
“You surely had another choice, there were seven billion people in the world before. Although many have died, there are still more than enough.”
Tiana tilted her head to the side slightly, which would’ve been cute in normal circumstances, but instead gave her a bit of a strange air.
“Seven billion people, but not a single one of them was my friend. The only people I could somewhat confide in are my parents.”
Kairos opened his mouth, but quickly shut it after. He remembered that Tiana told him her parents were dead.
Seeing his lack of response, Tiana continued.
“Hearing Quinn talk about the importance of preserving sanity reinforced my realization that I need to manage my own.”
She began smiling, but this time it became creepy.
“I easily understood what he meant, by the sane side reigning in the other. Because I know that a part of me is craving violence. I am sure that before I was a rather peaceful girl, that was disturbed simply by the sight of blood. But now…”
She raised her hands and began clasping them with much more strength than required.
“Whenever I see a person, I immediately think of all the ways I can painfully kill them. Tearing out their eyes, ripping apart their intestines, breaking all of their limbs. Even just imagining eating human flesh gives me a strange euphoric sensation.”
Tiana then took a deep breath, putting her hands back down.
“There is an extremely powerful desire within me to act upon those urges, but the logical and sane side of me always ties it down in the end.”
Her eyes slowly began to widen, and also appeared bloodshot.
“But I can’t help but think that eventually, the sane side of me will just give up. It will no longer desire to stop me from performing these actions. And honestly… that doesn’t even sound too bad right now.”
Kairos became serious, staring at her silently as she explained everything.
“…I honestly had no idea those were your thoughts from how calmly you were speaking earlier.”
Tiana laughed, but it sounded somewhat like a serial killer’s.
“To be honest, I was fooling myself into thinking that I was perfectly in control of my actions. That’s probably how I got by so easily.”
Kairos took a deep breath.
“You do realize this makes me see you as a huge threat, giving me a reason to kill you, right?”
Tiana suddenly calmed down, as an empty look came to her eyes.
“Look, I didn’t want to confide all these things to you either. But there’s nobody else. Nobody else would understand.”
Kairos frowned.
“…You say that I would understand so confidently.”
Tiana grabbed onto the sides of her face. From the way her knuckles were whitening and her face was distorted, it was clear she was using excessive amounts of strength.
“Yes, but there’s a kind of realization that comes when you become like this. For whatever reason… it becomes super easy to sniff out people just like you.”
Kairos clasped his hands in front of his face and didn’t respond for quite a while.
“…I’m no longer like that.”
Tiana grabbed onto the sides of her head, as her eyes widened fully, giving her a fully-fledged insane look.
“THEN TELL ME HOW YOU SAVED YOURSELF.”
Kairos shook his head, which immediately sent Tiana into a rage, prompting her to slam the desk in the middle, causing it to split into tiny pieces. She then lunged towards him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and bringing her face right next to his.
“What? You aren’t going to tell me?”
Her voice was no longer loud, and was in fact pretty quiet. But it was also shaking, as though in tune with how unstable she was right now.
Kairos was immediately surprised by Tiana’s strength, because he could tell that it was higher than his own. However, he wasn’t really focused on that.
With an unconcerned expression, he sighed.
This set Tiana off even more, as her smile grew unnaturally large.
“You think I’m a fool, don’t you?”
Kairos smiled bitterly.
“It’s because I never saved myself.”
Tiana froze in place, not fully understanding his answer.
Though Kairos found this position uncomfortable, he decided to continue.
“Honestly, there was a time where I was quite close to becoming a serial killer. What you said was eerily familiar to my experiences. When I saw my mom chopping a watermelon, I couldn’t help but see her chopping up my dad’s head and eating it.”
Tiana flinched when she heard that and relaxed her grip, though was still holding him up.
Kairos continued as though he was casually talking with a friend.
“Pretty much everything in my life was shit, which made me see everything as hateful. However, there was one contradiction to that.”
A small smile formed on his face.
“That contradiction was called Nicole.”
He closed his eyes, almost like he wasn’t right next to someone incredibly mentally unstable.
“No matter how I treated her, she stayed with me. And I did some… pretty nasty things too. Yet, she was always the one that forgave me.”
Kairos sighed.
“It made me realize that I was becoming part of the world that I hated so much. It’s not like that psychopathic part of me ever disappeared. Actually, it comes in quite handy in some situations.”
He raised a finger, despite their awkward position.
“But there’s also a part of me that still enjoys living, so I fully intend on doing that. Because as shitty as it is, those few flickering moments are worth it for me to continue on.”
Kairos somewhat regretted being so open to Tiana, but there was a part of him that pitied her, making him do so before he realized it.
Tiana’s grip gradually weakened, but out of nowhere, it suddenly strengthened.
However, Kairos didn’t do anything, despite the dangerous situation.
Tiana’s grip only continued to tighten, but right when it seemed like his life was in danger, tears began to spill out from Tiana.
“Then… what am I supposed to do to be saved?”