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Nana's kisses were lukewarm. It never made Shizuha's breath get caught in her throat or her heart skip a jump. But it was still great to be kissed by the other, to feel her lips on her skin even if Kocho couldn't feel the heat pulsing there.
Daiba's touch also never quite got to her, always making her feel a pressure there but never acknowledging it as something more than what it was: fingers caressing her hand, a warm palm on her neck, soft lips on her cheeks.
Maybe it was the lack of something in her chest that made it so hard for Shizuha to act in love with Nana. Her words never felt real in her tongue, void of the feelings that would put some kind of temperature on them — the love who would make it have a meaning, that would fill it with care and worry that she actually didn't feel for the other.
Shizuha knew it was wrong to lead Daiba like that, but what could she actually do? She wasn't a hero anyway, so playing with someone's emotions wasn't that far from what people usually expect from her.
She wanted someone to be by her side, to hold her and tell her that everything would go the way she planned. But she couldn't have who she wanted, so Nana was the best option for it. Even if she didn't love her like Shizuha said she did.
Even if it means that she would lose the only person who wanted to be with her without changing anything about herself.
It was unfair and it was mean, Kocho wouldn't deny it. But that was also all Shizuha ever was. And though the Frontier heroes wanted to deceive themselves and act like she could still be saved, she knew better than that.
She was a villain. Not because the world was a big baddie and hurt her or whatever were the lies that Aruru and Lalafin told themselves, but because she chose it.
She didn't want to be told what to do, didn't want to meet people's expectations of her, didn't want to be just a pretty face with hidden talents so others could feel better. Shizuha wanted to be there, wanted to scream and be heard, to feel and to be seen, to be hated by envious and jealous people while also being loved by the ones who saw her.
And it was very selfish of her to want that. She knew it, was very sure of it, and that's why she couldn't let herself be entirely happy with her choices. Because her egoism didn't stop at that, no, she had to fall in love with the heroes and had to feel the want of having them by her side too.
But Shizuha couldn't have them or their love. Not if she didn't adapt to what the Frontier heroes wanted from her, not if she still wanted to do things her way.
So Kocho settled for Nana, knowing full well that it was a question of time before she lost her. Because while she couldn't give her heart and all the good and fuzzy feelings to the other, she was still greedy enough to accept and shower herself in all the love, care and softness that Daiba gave her.
It was a sad, bitter and frustrating truth that she couldn't deny.
Kocho Shizuha was a villain. And like one, she was fated to fall alone someday.