"You know, I was watching a show once on TV with my mother," Elly murmured, her expression far away. "They did this '<i>say the first word that comes to your mind</i>' thing."
"Oh?" Hizashi raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah. The actress being questioned thought for like, a whole minute before answering, and as a kid I thought, you know... that's dumb. You're picking what you consider the right word, not the first one. Obviously."
"Uh huh. She was probably tryin' to be careful."
"I know that now. But as a child who the rules were ground into, that followed things to the letter - she wasn't playing right. So I said that to her."
He winced.
"She turned to me, and said something like '<i>okay, then you do it</i>'. She snapped out the word 'love', but as she did it, she had this twisted expression on her face. It was evil. Like, so smug and <i>horrible</i> that the only word I could think of was either 'hate' or 'bitch'. I know I thought both, not sure which was the first now, though."
"Babe, you didn't..."
"Nope. One time I kept my mouth shut, because it would have been speaking ill of her. I never did that, though she seemed to do it to me all the time." She paused, frowning. "I remember thinking she looked like some kind of monster. The first time I thought that, and maybe the last? I dunno. It just stuck out in my mind."
"First word I think of when <i>I</i> hear 'love' is you, babygirl." He hugged her.
"Me, too," she told him quietly. "You, I mean."
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