[ It's something of a novelty to him, wearing many faces and many more hearts. To have incompatibility schism where they meet, leaving room for any number of oily, kaleidoscopic things to well between the cracks. Ingenuity, mercilessness. A predilection without a name. But here they are, all the same. Pressurized, pulled upwards, dredged... so that Kizuna may look on his own terms rather than lay himself at the bottom of Matoba's well. For now.

Her voice traps itself between them and Kizuna knows the shape and color of the emotion that births it. His body turns them clockwise, obedient to the beat, hands spinning them like a compass with a broken magnet. ]

I've had good guides through. [ — is what he settles on, nervy and mellow. ] But our surroundings don't exactly lend themselves to not making the same mistake twice, do they?

[ Restraint is a virtue; man would risk it all for a higher payoff. The nature of gambling, of addiction. ]