I don't think that's love. It's something else, something that pretends to be love. It's not the real thing.

[Kariya pauses. The question's difficult to answer, not because she doesn't know the answer, but because it's hard to say. Yet she tends to earnestly answer questions she's asked.]

Someone I care about killed me. I died--slowly. It didn't hurt more than it already did. [It would be hard to hurt worse than the worms, and Kariya's endurance is great.] Then it stopped hurting. Now I feel better again. Dying set back my illness.

But I'd rather not have died like that.