Waste of Time

Miya woke up.
     Her room was still dark. 
     "W-wait." 
     Her eyes widened in fear as she realized what had happened. 
     She began thinking that maybe she'd slept for too long, then remembered Mukashi.
     A tense sigh escaped her mouth in the darkness of her room. As she stood up and started feeling her way towards the light switch of her bedroom, she began recalling what had happened the previous day. She felt her emotions begin to drain when she thought about what she would need to do that day. 
     The lights to her bedroom turned on.
     She saw Mukashi seated at the small table in her room. She suppressed her instinctive reaction to jump in fright. 
     He was seated there, nearly upright, but his head was tilted forward slightly. His shoulders rose and fell in a predictable rhythm. She recalled that the day was Thursday. She had the day off.
     Miya quietly snuck around the table and crouched down to see what Mukashi was doing.
     He was sleeping. 
     Miya had never seen Mukashi sleep before. 
     "O-oh my goodness..." 
     During the previous days, she'd been working for twenty one hours each day. However, Mukashi had been working too. He'd arranged her schedule, escorted her, stayed in her room with her, and done countless other small things she'd grown accustomed to. 
    His sleeping face was peaceful. 
    His constantly guarded demeanor and professionalism wasn't present. In its place, all she saw was a sleeping man who may have been having a peaceful dream, or no dreams at all.
     He must have been constantly exhausted.
     Miya's eyes watered.
     She wanted to cry and tell him she was sorry; she wanted to apologize and make up for her selfishness; she wanted to tell him that she'd do her best without ever complaining again. 
     Mukashi kept sleeping.
     She stifled her tears. 
     He did so much for her, and she'd never heard him complain about his job even once. In the three years that they'd known each other, she'd never heard him say anything negative about her or Zygeist or his schedule. He'd certainly never tried to do what she'd done last Friday. 
     She was pathetic; she'd taken everything he'd done for her and tried to throw it all away.
     How selfish was she, to think that Mukashi should show her any affection? It was like a puppet asking to be loved; puppets didn't need to be loved. They existed only to enact the will of the one pulling their strings. 
     She looked longingly at his placid, sleeping expression. His strong lips were gently placed on top of each other, and his nostrils flared slightly with every breath he took. 
     Loving something that didn't have a soul was pointless; worse than that, it was evil, because it stole love from something with a soul and gave it to something that couldn't appreciate it instead of giving it to something that needed it. 
     If Mukashi loved her, she'd be stealing love from someone else. Someone worthy of it. 
     His gray hair fell and covered most of his forehead as he slept. She stared at it.
     "I-I'm sorry." She whispered as she leaned her head against the table gently. "I'm sorry Mukashi." When the edge of the table touched her forehead, an idea came to her out of the darkest recesses of her mind. She pulled her forehead away from the edge of the table and looked at it through teary eyes.
     For a moment, it was almost like there was another voice in her head, and a thought intruded into her mind that made itself very appealing in the moment. She swallowed nervously and began to tremble as she gripped the edge of the table with both hands and stared at it. Her eyes widened and her tears stopped falling as she gazed at the edge.
     If she was really sorry about what she'd done to Mukashi, she would punish herself for it. 
     The muscles in her arm tensed as her grip tightened. Her forehead began to throb in anticipation of what was about to happen. 
     Slowly, she leaned her head back, still keeping her eyes focused on the edge. 
     Just a few times.
     The muscles in her neck twitched as her head went as far back as it could go.
     Her head flew forward, heading straight for the table's wooden edge.
     Mukashi was still sleeping. 
     Miya stopped.
     Her forehead was less than an inch from the table. 
     Her eyes had seen something on top of it that she'd missed up until she was about to punish herself. 
     On the table, stacked neatly on top of each other, were five envelopes. They were placed in front of Mukashi, and she briefly wondered about why she hadn't seen them earlier.
     Her trembling hands let go of the edge of the table as she stopped crouching and stood up to look at them. Her forehead stopped pulsing. Her breathing returned to an almost normal state. 
     She didn't deserve to read those letters.
     However, Mukashi had obviously retrieved them for her, at her request. It would've been ungrateful of her to ignore them before she finished what she'd been planning to do. 
     "Thank you." She whispered, looking at his quiet sleep.
     She reached out to grab the topmost envelope from the stack.
     She silently strode back towards her bed and sat down on its side. 
     The envelope was light. 
     Her hands shook as she held it tightly. She'd never actually read the letters she received from fans; they'd always been handled by Mukashi. Her stomach tightened as she became conscious of yet another thing he had done for her. 
     She looked down at the letter in her hands and breathed sharply. She decided that she'd read the letters as quickly as she could, then get back to what she'd been doing. 
     The envelope of the first letter fell to the floor.
     "I love you Miracle Miya! Your songs always make me so happy, it's almost like you really are a miracle! I think my favorite is still your first song, 'Message to Mortals;' it's just so iconic. I hope you ascend even higher, until you become the greatest K-Pop idol of all time (even though you're already the greatest to me :3 )! I hope 'Heaven Sent' is your best album yet! Signed, Pom Yun-Ji."
     Miya looked at the letter for a few moments. 
     Her guilt reappeared. 
     She put the letter on her bedside table, then snuck over to where Mukashi was sleeping and grabbed the next one. She exhaled sadly as she sat down on her bed again.
     There were two envelopes on the floor now. 
     "I wrote this letter in order to express my intense feelings of gratitude for you, Ms. Miya. I was introduced to your music by my grandson, and unlike most of the things he shows me, your music was actually rather enjoyable. Thank you for being quite exemplary in the music industry. Sincerely, Logan Henderson Sr." 
     She set the letter aside, then went and took the next one from the pile. 
     Three empty envelopes were clustered together.
     She didn't even remember why she'd wanted to read any letters in the first place. She silently, quietly, slipped back into her practiced role as she read the third letter. It was from a group of young adults, all writing various pithy sayings on it. None of them were any good to her. 
     She retrieved the fourth one, and the envelope joined the others. 
     It occurred to her that she had wasted these poor people's time. 
     All these people, writing letters to her, encouraging her, cheering her name; she was wasting their time. She desperately craved love and affection, but she didn't deserve it. 
     These people were giving it to her, and it was all her fault for making them think she deserved it when all she deserved was...
     She looked at the table. 
     One more letter. 
     Then she'd stop wasting everybody's time. 
     Her footsteps were quiet as she gingerly took the last letter from before Mukashi. Her mind focused on what she'd do after finishing the letter, so much so that she barely noticed when she sat down on the bed one more time. 
     The last envelope of the last letter fell onto the ground. Miya's nearly-lifeless eyes scanned over the words, and she was very clearly going through the motions. There was no point to what she was doing; nothing was going to change; she would still be a waste of time that needed to atone for the unforgivable crime of stealing love from those with souls and wasting it, not even appreciating it as she should. Her throat tightened. Her hands shook. 
     The letter was from some man writing it on behalf of his younger sister, because she didn't know how to spell very well; all the sister wanted to do was ask a question.
     Miya read the question, and something inside her shivered.
     "With all the 'miracle' talk, do you pray for your own soul?"