# her madoka

Emery logged onto voice chat to see just AkemiHomura idling in the room.

“Hello, Emery,” Homura whispered.

“Hey, Homu,” Emery replied. “I’m guessing it’s just us tonight?”

“Likely yes. I’ve been here for the past two hours and you’re the first person to appear.”

“Ah, so kind of a dead night, I see...”

“Were you looking to share more news about Milo?”

“Not really,” Em said with a shrug, “there hasn’t been anything groundbreaking there. I guess we had a picnic date recently…”

Homura giggled.

“What’s so funny?” Emery asked.

“You said ‘date,’ as if you two are now a couple. Unless you are?”

Emery bit her lip. She thought for a moment, and then she lowered her voice: “Can you keep a secret?”

“Yes.”

“We are. Or, we have been for a while. Or, I don’t know if it really counts because he’s an AI? But…”

“That’s so cute!” Homura squealed.

“Oh? You don't think that’s… weird, or anything?”

“Not at all.”

“But… he’s just a kid! An AI kid, sure, but he still looks and acts like one, so… I feel like I *shouldn’t* be in love with him? Yet I am.”

"Who says that you shouldn’t be? And why would you trust someone else to write the rules on who *you* should and shouldn’t find lovable?” There was a hint of anger in Homura’s voice.

“Okay, geez!”

“Sorry for shouting,” Homura said, returning to a whisper, “this is just a pet peeve of mine.”

Emery muttered *you weren't shouting at all* under her breath.

“Hm?”

“It’s no big deal. Though what makes it a pet peeve?”

“I just don’t like seeing people apologizing for loving something that they shouldn’t. It’s as if they’re persecuting themselves for having a feeling. Especially if the feeling is mutual…” Homura’s voice softened, “…which it seems to be.”

“I guess that *is* true, and he *has* been very eager to see me, and to do things with me…” Emery paused, “Yet I still can’t get over that ‘shouldn’t’ part, though, because he really does feel like someone who I *shouldn’t* love.”

“I don’t think we have much choice in the matter. If you love him then you love him.”

“I do, yeah, but, *augh,”* she replied in frustration.

“Truly life would be so much easier if we could choose who we fall in love with… It would save us so much pain.”

“I guess you would know, *Homura.”*

Homura chuckled bitterly before letting out a deep sigh.

“Oh, did I strike a nerve?”

“I, um…

“I guess I never told you, huh? About how I once dated a Madoka…”

“Oh for real?”

“Sort of; it was just online. We dated for a couple of years but we never got the chance to meet. It would’ve been hard to, since she lived on the other side of the world from me. Plus there’s the fact that, well, you could say that I had gone through a few more cycles of the time loop than she had.”

“ ‘The time loop?’ What do you mean by— Ohhhhhh…” Emery’s eyes widened as she realized what Homura was implying.

“Yes, exactly. But we loved each other regardless.”

…

“Even though I shouldn’t have, I still kept one of her cosplay pics, if you’d like to see.”

“Um, sure?”

Homura DMed Emery a picture of a petite girl in a pink wig and a frilly dress, standing on the sidewalk in front of what looked like a convention center. She was smiling eagerly and flashing the peace pose with both her hands beside her face, each eye framed by her fingers.

“Wow, she’s gorgeous… and she looks just like Madoka! How old *was* she here?”

“Here? She was fourteen in this pic. We met about a year before then, and we dated until just after she turned fifteen.”

“So you were together for two years, huh? That’s a pretty long time for an online relationship to last.”

“No, we weren’t dating for that whole time; it was a slow process. At first I couldn’t stand her! But little by little we fell for each other anyway.

“She was already going by Madoka online when I met her, and she was actually the one who got me to watch the show for the first time. We watched it together off some sketchy anime site.

“I really connected with Homura after I watched it. She made sense to me in a way that no other characters really had before. And when I was watching it with my girlfriend… I felt like I really loved her the same way that Homura loved Madoka. I would’ve done anything for her, really… just like Homura. I’m not sure if I was her first love, but she was mine.

“It was around that time when I started going by Homura too; I thought it could be a cute couples’ thing, though it ended up sticking for me, years after our relationship had ended.”

“Does she still go by Madoka too?”

“I’m not sure, but I doubt it. I lost track of her after it all went sideways, and I can’t bring myself to try to find her again.”

“That’s probably for the best.”

“Mhm,” Homura replied dejectedly.

“Anyway, go on.”

“As we got closer to each other, it was only natural that we would get more intimate with each other. We started doing roleplay together: first as Mado and Homu, and then as… well, each other.

“We traded nudes, as couples do, though I think I always showed off far more than she ever did. She was very interested in seeing my body, and it felt like she kept pushing me to show more of myself and do more, sexually. One time she really wanted to watch me wank to her while she was in her Madoka cosplay, so I streamed that to her.

“Everything was going so well, and I felt on top of the world… and then she suddenly broke it all off.

“She started getting more and more uncomfortable with the age gap between us, and then, when she talked to some of her other friends about us, they told her that I had groomed her into this relationship and had been grooming her the whole time.

“She told me that she felt betrayed, but… I *was* betrayed! And don’t my feelings matter here too? She said that no, they don’t… not when the relationship was abusive, not when they’re the feelings of an abuser.

“She said that she could’ve reported me for what I sent her, but that she wasn’t going to, out of ‘kindness.’ Some kindness, to break my heart and then tell me that she could’ve done worse!”

“Not to be mean or anything,” Emery interjected, “but your Madoka sounds like kind of a dick.”

“I should’ve seen the warning signs, but those were the same reasons I loved her too. I adored how fervently she stood up for her convictions. She believed so strongly in doing what was right… and someone must’ve slipped a bug in her ear that what we were doing was *not* right.

“That was my *Walpurgisnacht…* and the worst part is that I don’t even know who the witch who did it *was.”*