Chiaki stood silent for a moment, her eyes fixed on the now-folded letter in Temoshí's hand. The words still echoed in her head—words that changed everything.
But then her brows furrowed. Confusion twisted into something sharper.
"…You had that this whole time?" Her voice rose, tight. "Back at Sennecroft Holm. After Hailstone. All of this, and you never said a word?"
Temoshí flinched slightly, but didn't back away. "Chiaki, I—"
"You read this, and you didn't think I had the right to know?" she snapped, stepping forward. "My brother wrote that. And you kept it from me."
Temoshí met her gaze, calm but firm. "I wanted to tell you. Believe me, I did. But Blythe—he gave Ralphie a message. Not just the letter. He told him it had to wait. That you couldn't know yet."
Chiaki's fists clenched at her sides. "Why not? What was he so afraid of me knowing?"
Temoshí's expression softened. "He wasn't afraid of you. He was afraid for you. He said the truth carried weight—and if you learned it too soon, it wouldn't set you free. It would crush you. He trusted that when the time came, you'd be strong enough to handle it."
She shook her head, disbelief and fury tangled in her breath. "So everyone just decided for me. Again. Like I'm some kid who can't handle her own life."
"I didn't want to keep it from you," Temoshí said quietly. "But in the end… I did trust him."
Chiaki turned away, her hands trembling. "Well, good for you. I didn't get the choice."
Temoshí stepped forward but didn't reach out. He knew better.
"You have the choice now," he said. "And I swear—I'll never hold anything back from you again."
Chiaki looked at him, eyes burning. She didn't respond. Not with words.
Chiaki stood rigid, the letter trembling between her fingers as though it carried more than ink and paper—as if it contained everything she was never allowed to hold. Her breath was shallow, her chest rising and falling with the weight of emotion she could no longer contain. And when she finally looked up, the fire in her eyes was not from confusion or sorrow, but from betrayal.
"I trusted you," she said, her voice low and razor-sharp. Not a whisper—no, this was something steadier, something controlled. Controlled enough to hurt.
Temoshí opened his mouth to speak, but she raised her voice just enough to silence him.
"I trusted you with everything. With myself. With the parts of me I didn't even understand. I gave you that—and you decided, all of you decided, that I wasn't ready to know the truth?" Her voice cracked slightly, but her stare never wavered. "You acted like I was fragile. Like I couldn't handle it. You looked at me and saw someone to protect, not someone to believe in."
Temoshí took a step closer, cautiously. "It wasn't about that, Chiaki. We did it because—"
"Because Blythe told you to." Her lips curled into something bitter. "Because you thought he knew best. And maybe he did. Maybe he saw the worst in me before I even knew it was there. But you? You were supposed to be different."
She took another step back, clutching the letter tightly to her chest now, like it was all she had left. Her voice lowered, but the words came out cold.
"I don't want your comfort. I don't want your guilt. And I don't need your permission to face what's mine."
There was a pause—just long enough for the silence to settle like dust on broken trust.
Then she turned on her heel, her clothes sweeping with the motion, and began walking away, not with haste but with intention. It wasn't a retreat. It was a rejection.
"Chiaki, wait—" Temoshí's voice called out to her again, laced with urgency. He moved after her on instinct, closing the distance.
He reached out and caught her arm gently, not to stop her, but to anchor her. To keep her from drifting further away.
But the moment his hand touched her sleeve, Chiaki whirled around—and her palm struck his face.
The sound was sharp, the kind that cuts through air and silences everything around it. Time felt like it stopped.
Temoshí staggered slightly, more from shock than the force of the blow. His hand rose slowly to his cheek, fingers brushing over the warm imprint left behind. His eyes met hers, wide with disbelief.
She had never hit him before. Not even in their roughest moments. Not in all the years of hardship, of clashing tempers and shared pain. Never once.
Now she had.
Chiaki stood there, her chest rising and falling, her lips parted slightly—but no apology came. No remorse touched her expression. Only that same burning anger layered with something far deeper: the ache of trust undone.
"I trusted you," she repeated, this time softer, but not gentler. "And you made that choice for me."
She turned her back again, slowly this time, the tension in her shoulders unmistakable. And then, without another word, she walked away—deliberate, defiant, distant.
Temoshí didn't move. He remained where he stood, one hand still on his cheek, watching the space she left behind as it slowly closed in around him.
For the first time in all their years together, he didn't know what to say.
For the first time... she had left him behind.
Chiaki's figure faded into the distance, swallowed by the quiet stillness of Lyvoria Crest, her steps unhurried but firm, like someone who had already made her decision long before she'd spoken a word. The path she left behind felt colder in her absence, not from the wind, but from the hollow stillness that always follows after something irreversible has happened.
Temoshí remained rooted in place, unmoving, his posture straight but distant, as though his body were present but his thoughts had detached from the world around him, floating somewhere far removed from the grave-marked hills and the faces still watching him. His hand had lowered to his side, but there was a lingering tension in his fingers, like they still remembered the heat of the moment, the echo of contact, and yet no pain followed—just the dull resonance of something broken in silence.
The others stood in a loose ring around him, none of them speaking, none of them sure what to say. Fioren shifted subtly, her weight transferring from one foot to the other, her eyes flicking between the empty path and Temoshí's unreadable expression, uncertain whether he needed comfort or distance. Her mouth opened once, a breath barely escaping, but the words caught before they formed, and she closed it again, her hands folding in front of her as if even her presence felt intrusive now.
Razor, often the first to pierce the tension with some half-serious remark, leaned against a tilted headstone nearby, arms crossed and gaze lowered, but her usual edge was nowhere to be found. She didn't speak, didn't scoff, didn't fill the quiet with her usual dry humor—instead, she just stood there, watching the space Chiaki had walked through like it still burned with the shadow of her footsteps.
Yuka stepped forward slowly, her approach cautious but not hesitant, as if she was testing the edges of a moment that felt too delicate to disturb. She stood beside Temoshí without speaking at first, but after a long pause, her voice broke the silence with quiet restraint. "You're not going after her?"
Temoshí didn't answer immediately. His eyes remained focused on the horizon, on the fading curve of the trail that wound its way between the ancient graves, his breathing steady but almost too calm, like he was anchoring himself against something unseen. When he finally spoke, his words were low, even, and unshaken.
"Not yet."
Yuka turned her head slightly toward him, confused. "Why not?"
He inhaled slowly, the breath drawn deep through his nose, then released just as slowly through his mouth—as if he needed the time to shape his answer properly, to be sure he didn't say more than what was true.
"She doesn't need someone running after her right now," he said at last, his tone distant but not cold, more contemplative than defensive. "She doesn't need apologies or explanations. She needs space... to feel everything she's been swallowing down."
His eyes narrowed slightly, not with anger, but with something quieter—something weighted with thought.
"She's been carrying this for a long time," he continued, "and I think... she's only just now realized how much. It wasn't about the letter. It wasn't even about me. It was about the pressure. The silence. The weight of being told who she is, what she isn't, and never once being given a moment to just be angry about it."
No one responded.
Temoshí's hands closed loosely at his sides, his fingers curling not in frustration but in focus, as though some piece of him had finally begun to understand something he'd missed—something quiet, emotional, and not easily put into words.
"She's not lost," he said, almost more to himself than to the others. "She's just burning through something."
He blinked slowly, his gaze softening without losing its focus.
"And maybe... she needs to do that without the rest of us watching."
No one disagreed.
And for the first time, they didn't try to fix the silence. They just stood there, with the ghosts of the past and the weight of the moment, waiting—knowing full well that Chiaki hadn't walked away to be chased.
She had walked away to finally stand alone.
The silence lingered only a moment longer before Yuka stepped in front of him, her brows drawn tightly, her voice low but steady, the kind of calm that came not from peace—but from restraint.
"She's not in a state to be alone," she said firmly, her eyes locking with his. "You saw her—what she's carrying. If we let her go out there like this, without anyone, and something happens—"
Temoshí cut her off, his voice harder now, not angry but sharpened by command. "I know what I saw."
Yuka didn't flinch.
He stepped forward, closing the gap between them just slightly, his presence steady, unshaken. "But this isn't a group vote, Yuka. I'm responsible for all of you. And if I tell you that giving her space is the right call, then I expect you to trust that."
His voice wasn't loud, but it didn't need to be. It carried the weight of someone used to being followed.
The tension hung between them for a heartbeat, heavy and brittle.
But Yuka didn't look away.
Instead, her voice softened—but it lost none of its edge. "Then maybe you should remember something, captain."
Temoshí's eyes narrowed slightly.
"I'm not part of your crew at the moment."
The words were quiet, but they struck clean.
For a breath, nothing moved. Fioren's gaze dropped. Even Razor blinked, shifting her weight just slightly, sensing the shift in tone.
Temoshí didn't respond right away. He just stared at Yuka, that cold distance in his eyes flickering—replaced by something heavier. Not anger. Not offense.
Something closer to realization.
Yuka took a step back—not retreating, but removing herself from his authority in full. "You may be in charge of them," she added, gesturing faintly toward the others. "But not of me. Not right now. And certainly not when it comes to her."
She turned and began walking, her steps brisk but composed.
The silence around Temoshí lingered longer than any of them liked.
Yuka had already vanished beyond the slope, chasing after Chiaki, her conviction louder than any argument. But the rest remained—for just a breath longer—waiting, watching, wondering if their captain would move.
He didn't.
Fioren looked away first. Her expression was calm, composed as always, but the subtle shake of her head was more than enough. She took a step back, then another, her voice quiet as she passed him.
"I don't know who you're trying to protect anymore," she said softly. "But it's not her."
She didn't wait for a reply. She simply followed the trail after Yuka and Chiaki, her silhouette disappearing into the pale mist that still clung to the grave markers like a second skin.
Razor stayed behind, staring at Temoshí as if she were debating whether to throw something at him—or say something even sharper.
She went with the latter.
"Well, Captain Commander Dead-Eyes," she muttered, pacing a lazy half-circle around him, "you finally got what you wanted, huh? Standing tall. Saying nothing. Brooding in a graveyard while everyone you care about walks out of your life like it's the last episode of a drama series."
Temoshí didn't respond. His arms remained crossed, his gaze locked on the horizon as if he could stare the consequences into submission.
Razor scoffed, threw her hands in the air. "Unbelievable. You're like a handsome rock—except the rock would've moved by now!"
She turned and started stomping away, then called back without looking:
"Don't worry, we'll send a postcard from the emotional fallout you're trying to ignore!"
And with that, she marched off down the path, trailing behind Fioren with exaggerated steps and a dramatic sigh, muttering under her breath about "silent hero syndrome" and "men who confuse leadership with standing still."
For the first time in a long time, Temoshí was left alone.
The wind rustled through the graveyard, lifting the edges of his sweater.
He didn't chase them.
He didn't say a word.
He just stood there—between stone and silence—as the people who once stood behind him ran forward without him.
With everyone rushing after Chiaki, the energy between them fractured, scattering into the wind like the remains of a conversation cut short. The words they had exchanged—once so full of purpose and weight—had thinned into little more than a whistle lost in the distance, fading with every step they took away from him.
Temoshí stood alone now, the sound of their footsteps long gone, swallowed by the hush that settled over the graveyard. He didn't move. His eyes remained fixed on the sea of tombstones ahead—markers of forgotten names, of people buried with truths no one bothered to remember.
Slowly, he slipped his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his posture relaxed yet unmoving, as if bracing himself against something invisible.
"You guys don't understand…" he whispered, the words barely audible, like they weren't meant for the world but only for the ghosts listening.
To be continued...