Echoes|| König x Reader x Ghost

72: Final Stretch Fourth Week

It was early morning, and the fourth week of the 2nd month was here. It was soon moving on three months since we'd been hunting for Makarov. I was working out in a haze of perpetual thoughts at the gym, sports bra and shorts.

"I haven't seen you in a while," I look over to see König walking in for his workout.

"Well, I have been bedridden with itching," I state calmly. Falling off my medication leads to itchiness. He gives me a strange look and walks to the weights.

"What's Austria like?" I ask, turning in the leg machine I'm in. He stops and looks over to me, blinking in silence.

"It's beautiful." He said slowly, "A land of farms, of good quality food, a little slow, beautiful scenery... why?" He asks.

"Should I visit?" He studies me, giving me a strange look.

"Yes." I nod and turn away.

"Does it have an autism policy?"

"What?"

"Places like Australia and New Zealand have autism policies for moving there—"

"You want to leave the US?"

"I don't like this country," I laugh and turn to him, "I really hate it here." König nods and walks over to me.

"I was planning on moving to New Zealand but then they have an autism policy to moving in... I'm pretty sure I will be able to get in, but I probably struggle. I was thinking about Canada, but they suck with their native population..." I sigh and lean back in the chair, "There is no place in the world free of sin... Maybe Switzerland... or Lichtenstein." I laugh.

"Why those places?" He folds his arms.

"I like Chocolate, and snow... mostly chocolate."

König found himself smiling under his hood. He sat on the machine across from her gazing into her striking (e/c) eyes. She had such nice plump lips...

Get a hold of yourself!

"I like to move to a nice calm place away from this hectic world, something that's... predictable." König could feel bad for the young woman, she had the exhaustion of an old man.

"You look tired."

"It's hard being sane in a world where I can get all information at the tip of my fingers. I am drowning in atrocities and nonconformist behavior of the dense rich and influential. I like for a single moment where the rich don't do something stupid, the influential don't be racist or sexist, and governments fucking over their people." She sighs König listens comfortably to her worries.

"You want a slow world, where troubles are far away?" König asks. She nods and smiles.

"I still want to see Charlie but knowing him he never left the US, he's too racially ambiguous to be discriminated against for being every race but white. Hell, that boy can pass for light skin... he got the personality." She jokes but it feels hollow to König.

"You're stressed, aren't you?" Her smile froze before falling away.

"Yeah," She spoke softly. "Honestly if I made the military my career being deployed will always make me nervous." König nodded at her words, he also felt anxious, but it became his life a small discomfort for a world with fewer people and structure.

"I was like that my first few times—"

"I'm always like this, I could be at the top of my profession, and I will always second guess myself."

"Why?" He asks and she slowly shrugs and looks away.

"I have an ego but no pride." She muses with a burst of bitter laughter, "Do you find me confusing?"

"Sometimes." König reached his hand out and she gently took it. Her hands were tiny in his. Her hands were callous but far less than him.

"Sometimes I wish I could be a child again, stupid, oblivious, and a little selfish."

"It sounds like you want security—"

"Don't read me like that, it's too early for me to cry over myself." She grumbles. She was quietly playing with his fingers like she does with Charlie's.

"I—"

"How are you so secure in yourself?" She looks up. König blinks for a second before responding.

"If I second guess myself others can die— my team, the hostages, myself. I can't afford that." She nods and looks past him.

"I never want to be responsible for another person," Y/N said softly looking down at his scarred hands. "I'm so tired."

"Of what?" If König didn't know he he'd scoff and say she knows nothing but, in her eyes, he could see a full story.

"My generation is expected to fix everything, and we are trying, but the generations before us won't let go of power. I wish more people had empathy." She explains solemnly.

"But you said you didn't have empathy—" She let out a long sigh like she had to explain herself over and over again to be understood.

"Due to my autism, I don't feel emotions strongly and have a hard time identifying them. My trauma made it hard for me to feel it too. Alone I am... blank lifeless. I used to be a very empathetic person, but she was being... abused so I killed her. Cognitively I know empathy, but I refuse to feel it ever again." König blinked in surprise, and it finally made sense to him. She wasn't a sociopath, or a psychopath just guarded.

"Many people have empathy—"

"Yeah right, the older generation always complains my generation has it easy which isn't completely wrong, but they always invalidate our pain. They don't show empathy for us, and they act shocked when we don't for them. They call us sensitive for trying to include everyone, so no one feels shame for who they are and call us soft." She let go of his hand and looked around.

"Older people only feel sympathy for those who have or live up to their values. And my generation will respect what you consider yourself but not you as an individual." König didn't understand that part, respect but not real respect.

"Speaking of respect most older people when they speak of respect usually are referring to basic decency and then they lord it over our heads. Respect me I'm your father, respect me this is my house! respect me I'm older!"

"... You really are tired." He sympathized.

"My generation is stuck between revenge and fixing everything or letting it burn because humanity should die." König looked down at her, truly she was a complex being more so than he had first ever thought.

He studied her for a few moments, a pretty girl who seemed to be carrying the world on her shoulder... were all her generation like this? feel the stress of the world handed to them? Growing up now seems a little hellish, all this overstimulation.

ᔕᔕᔕ≼∴≽ᔕᔕᔕ

"... You didn't like me when we first met, why?" I look over at him, he blinks and then averts his eyes.

"You were so small and holding a sniper rifle, I doubted you—"

"There was jealousy too," His shoulder sags and he looks back at me.

"I wanted to be a sniper, but I couldn't sit still and was too tall." He confessed with a hint of shame and annoyance in his tone.

"Ah..." I looked away with a little smirk, I knew it! "Don't be jealous it's mostly being by yourself, hours of silence— You have anxiety don't you." He grew rigid before nodding.

"Me too!"