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Denji loves his house. He loves all the good food he can eat. He loves his new clothes (ones that smell good! He can wear different things every day!) He loves the view of the city: so much more immense than the one he could see from the slums. He loves that he can read some of the billboards now. He loves that he’s maybe a little bit smarter now. He loves that he can sleep without an aching stomach. He loves that he can actually build muscles. He loves how many girls he knows now. He loves that he smells better. He loves that he feels better.
And he loves them. Because this, too, is love.
So, he never really thought it would hit him. Not until it showed up at his door, and launched itself at him ruthlessly. Even then, it didn’t really hit him.
He has a heart. Or, he did, he thinks. The shitty heart his mom gave him worked well enough for sixteen years. Until it killed him. He has a heart now… kind of. Pochita was always in his heart, though.
So he does have a heart. But maybe it doesn’t beat. Or it just doesn’t work. Maybe it’s not wired to his brain right. Because he just can’t feel it.
Denji has only really, really felt his heart beat a few times.
When Makima gave him the one and only hug he’s received his whole life. When he was under Himeno. When Reze showed him the love he always wanted, for the three seconds it lasted.
But those were all good times, if Denji can call them that. Being happy isn’t hard, not for him. Being content is even easier (at least pretending is).
Being sad? He can’t remember ever being an “important sad”, as he would call it. He was sad he didn’t have parents, and sad he had to starve everyday, and sad Reze didn’t come back to see him, and sad when he’d hear Power’s screams. But he got over all those things. He was fine. He was sad, and then he was fine.
He’s never not been fine. Not until these days. When the home he loves is bare. When he can’t find the energy to put on new clothes. When there’s nothing in this city he wants to see anymore, nothing that doesn’t make him think of them. When there’s no one left to teach him how to read billboards. When he’s never felt so dumb before. When his stomach hurts again and won’t let him sleep. When he’s gotten thinner. When the family he had is gone. When he smells like shit, because he feels like shit.
It’s a solemn, somber scene. You don’t really know sadness until the profound moment you put your heart, soul, and the little else you have into opening the door, and fall apart at the realization that there’s no one there.
There’s no one there.
Winter is coming;
and there’s no one there.