"No, no. Quit the hushed tones. It's fine," she says, too quickly. "Everything's fine, babe."

"You know. It's just..."

She shrugs again, eyes falling away from Mary Anne's again.

To confess that she came here for companionship as well as sex, because her bed has been empty far too often of late... well, that's a big thing. She's sure Mary Anne will understand. But to say it, to admit to a feeling of loneliness in Miho's absence, is hard. Especially when one has spent so many lifetimes in happy and necessary independence.

Yes. She loves Miho. But there are many levels of love. To even entertain the thought that she might be semi-reliant on another being—it's an affront to her existential logic.

The whoring and other random liaisons should be enough, for fucks sake!