"A place where my heart belongs...?"
Kanzaki Kumo repeated the words quietly. A flash of inspiration seemed to cross his mind, but he failed to grasp it.
"Yes. As I see it, you don't seem to have found a place where your heart can be completely at peace. Or rather, a place most people would call 'home.'"
Gyomei nodded in response.
"How could that be? Everyone at the Butterfly Mansion, and my master, are all people I consider family. Isn't wherever your family is 'home'?"
Kanzaki Kumo asked in confusion.
Gyomei did not deny what Kanzaki Kumo said. He merely nodded and offered his own view.
"I believe everyone at the Butterfly Mansion, as well as Mr. Kuwajima, are people you would risk your life to protect. But in your heart, you see them as people you cherish, people who matter to you... yet never as people you can rely on."
"Family shouldn't simply be about protecting and being protected. It should be about relying on and supporting one another."
"You always seem to want to shoulder every danger and hardship alone, to shelter those around you within a small, peaceful world. Because of that, growing stronger has almost become an obsession for you. It's only because you're relatively mature that you haven't shown too much single-minded fixation."
"But however you act, your heart is not at peace. That is an undeniable fact. In your heart, you are someone those around you can rely on, and you're willing to let them see you that way. But you've never thought of relying on those around you when you grow tired, of seeing them as a haven where you can relax your body and mind and rest."
"Perhaps your heart has never known true peace since the night we first encountered a