Reborn into The Promised Neverland//RayxReader//

//Realizations//

It's been a LONG time since I wrote so many drafts for a single god dang chap. Enjoy, you fools, else I'll retire from this profession completely.

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I walked down the concrete floor, flourescent white lights lighting up the hallway and beyond. There were no windows in this area, so I eventually paused, trying to remember the general layout of the Gracefield Headquarters, (I'd memorized it ages ago, but that memory had long since been buried under an onslaught of other information).

I thought for a moment, mapping out where I was in my head– a medical area with no access to windows... and from there on the layout of the rest of the headquarters expanded in my mind. I started forward now, for a moment, before pausing in my step again.

I realized then that I had no idea where Ray was– let alone where any of the others would be. I considered going back to ask Mujika if she knew, but decided against it– it would take a while, and quite frankly, I was lazy. So I started walking in the direction of one of two exits of the massive headquarters– one led toward the bridge and the other to the 5 remaining (and abandoned) Gracefield houses, poking my heads into doorways and hallways as I did so.

I was approaching a corner when I crashed into someone walking the opposite direction. Not used to the weaker body that accompanied hardly moving for 2 months, I fell to backwards onto the floor dramatically. "Ugh, damn." I grunted, starting to pick myself up off the ground.

Then I remembered what had caused my fall, and looked up at who I'd walked straight into. Norman had been chattering happily moments earlier– I had been too lost in thought to register his voice, and now his eyes that had been gleaming moments earlier were replaced with something else– not so much dark as it was hesitant, timid, maybe.

I finished standing to my feet, lightly brushing off my knees. I made eye contact with Norman now, right as a voice came down the hall, "Norman? What're you doing, just standing around–" Emma rounded the corner now too, and that same sparkle in her eyes faltered as she looked quickly between myself and Norman, a question in her expression.

"...Where are you going?" Norman asked me, without demanding. It was a simple question, but it made my gut wrench, because to them, it would seem that now I had just woken up, and was already looking to leave; to escape, to run away again. Norman didn't look ready to stop me now, as he did before, and neither did Emma, if anything, they just looked like they wanted an answer before I went on my way– a reason, maybe, or a location, perhaps so they would have something to tell the others.

"...I'm just looking for Ray." I said apprehensively, before a sheepish smile found its way to my face. "He disappeared after I woke up, so..." I paused a moment to shrug my shoulders in that same sheepish way, not mocking them for their worry yet acknowledging that I saw it and understood. "I'm not going anywhere, really..."

Something akin to relief, or maybe closer to guilt, flashed in the air before quickly dissipating. I looked at Norman now and came to a quick conclusion, remembering that moment we locked eyes as I had made my way into the vent; at the time, I had chalked it up to my imagination and ignored it, not bothering to pay it any mind.

But I realized now that something that had been nagging at me since what felt like forever ago; how I'd managed to make it to my location despite was who I was up against, and how Norman's step had slowed a little as he saw me in that vent, a pace or two, and I knew I was good but never as good as my elder look-alike; I'd never bested Norman in a game of chess, and tag would turn out no different, or it shouldn't have. He had given me a choice, I realized, and I had chosen, and left, and come back bloody and half-dead.