The dining table was unusually quiet.
Which was weird, considering it was Tobi's Chili Night—a sacred tradition involving six side dishes, homemade sourdough, and enough cheese to sedate a cow.
Yet all seven Sins sat there in a kind of tense, awkward silence.
Except Tobi, who was still eating like nothing happened.
Kei cleared his throat. "So… I guess you all know I found the photo."
Vel dropped her spoon with a clink. "Ugh, finally. I was wondering how long it would take you to trip over the past."
Aera leaned back in her seat. "Can we just agree it was not my idea to keep that thing buried in a drawer next to Nebu's socks?"
Nebu mumbled, "I like socks. They're soft. Unlike trauma."
Aris exhaled slowly, folding her hands like she was preparing to give a eulogy. "There is a reason we don't speak of who we were. Kei… the truth isn't elegant. It's not a fable. It's a scar."
"It's still your truth," Kei said. "And if I'm living with you—if I care about you—then I deserve to know who I'm really seeing."
For once, even Rika didn't argue.
She just stared into her soup like it owed her an apology.
Tobi looked up, lips shiny with chili oil. "I mean, I kinda always thought he should know. I vote for truth. And seconds."
Vel gave her a side glance. "That's because your past is the least depressing."
"I was a chef and a housewife. Sue me."
"You were a war cook in a cursed famine city," Aera muttered.
"Still counts."
---
Kei turned to the group. "You don't have to dump your life stories all at once. I just… I want to understand you. The real you. I don't want 'Sin' to be the only label you wear."
Aris flinched, just a little.
Rika crossed her arms. "You really want to know what I was before Wrath? I'll tell you. I was a soldier. Not a metaphor. I killed people. I watched children die. Then I burned everything behind me and became something stronger. Something that wouldn't cry anymore. That's who I am."
Kei nodded. "And you still cry when Tobi plays sad cooking shows."
"Shut up."
Vel's voice followed next, softer than usual. "I used to be someone's muse. A noble's mistress. I thought if I was perfect enough, he'd love me back. Instead, I watched him trade me for a prettier one. So I broke the mirrors. Became the mirror."
Kei looked at her gently. "But you flirt because you see people. You know how they hurt. You try to heal it… with attention."
Vel blinked like she wasn't expecting kindness in return.
"I used to want to be loved," Aera muttered. "But I couldn't. Not when I hated everyone who had what I didn't. I just copied their smiles. Their dresses. Their whole lives. One day I forgot who I was."
Kei turned to her. "You're still finding her. That counts."
Aris stood up, her voice firm but distant. "We were burned, Kei. Over and over. And when the world stopped giving us names, we gave ourselves sins instead."
Nebu curled into a ball at the end of the couch, a blanket swallowing her whole. "I remember everything. Every version of us. The ones who laughed. The ones who died. The ones who turned their hearts off just to survive another century. I sleep because remembering hurts."
Tobi, for once, said nothing.
She just slid her chili bowl to Kei.
A quiet gift.
He looked around the room—at these seven impossibly ancient beings pretending to be normal.
Pretending to be fine.
And realized something strange.
They weren't protecting themselves from him.
They were protecting him from them.
---
Later that night, as the house returned to its usual chaos—Vel doing karaoke in the bath, Aera critiquing furniture placement, Nebu asleep in a bookshelf—Kei found himself standing in the hallway.
He looked at the photo one more time.
All seven of them.
Centuries younger.
Smiling, just barely.
He whispered into the quiet, "You're not monsters. You're survivors."
Behind him, someone spoke.
"We're both."
Kei turned.
It was Aris.
Her face, for once, didn't carry pride like a crown.
Only weight.
"And that's why we're afraid you'll leave," she said.
Kei walked past her, brushing her shoulder as he did.
"I won't," he replied.
She didn't stop him. She just whispered, when he was already gone—
"…Don't make promises you can't keep, Kei."