A Severed Connection

The air inside the small apartment was still.

Hale closed the door behind him, Hiro set his briefcase down in the corner, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and exhaled quietly.

Koori said nothing.

She just set her schoolbag on the floor, paused for a moment, then gathered an armful of the books scattered across the living room and held them tightly against her chest.

“Koori…” Hale began quietly.

She flinched, barely, but enough.

“I want to read,” she murmured.

And before Hale could reply, she had already disappeared into her room.

The door slid shut.

A soft click followed, as the lock slid into place on the other side.

Hale stared after her for a moment.

Through his mark came a dull thudding, like a heartbeat muffled behind a thick wall.

The usually bright, clear stream of Koori’s emotions had dimmed into a strange, distant static.

“I’ll make tea,” Hiro murmured, heading toward the kitchenette.

***

In her room, Koori sat cross-legged on the floor, the books arranged around her like a makeshift fortress.

She opened the first one.

Her fingers brushed over the lines of text, but none of it reached her.

She closed it, grabbed the next.

She flipped through it, reading words without absorbing anything.

Her chest tightened.

“Why does it hurt so much?” she whispered without realizing she spoke aloud.

Beneath her blouse, her mark glowed faintly.

It burned whenever she thought of Hale.

She clenched her teeth and reached for a loose sheet of paper wedged between two books.

After staring at it for a long time, she ran her fingers across its surface.

“Théra nenn var kallin mír falyn eðra…”

The paper glowed in icy blue light, slowly filling with script-like markings.

A tiny flame suddenly flickered to life, eating into the corner of the sheet.

Koori closed her hand around it, extinguishing the flame at once.

The paper was singed, but intact.

“Why?” she murmured, unsettled.

She wasn’t sure whether she meant the letter.

Or herself.

***

Steam curled from the cups of tea.

Hale sat at the low table, shoulders slightly hunched, hands wrapped around the porcelain more for the warmth than for the taste.

Hiro leaned against the kitchen counter, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up.

Hale looked up at him.

“Well? Say something, damn it…”

Hiro took a sip of tea, closed his eyes briefly, then set the cup down.

“What is there to say? We both know she isn’t a normal girl.”

“What do you mean by that?” Hale muttered.

“Heiru-san… maybe the real problem is that you treat her like an ordinary high school girl.”

Hale frowned. “But she is a high school girl. At least… now.”

Hiro gave a soft, nearly inaudible snort.

“On the surface, yes. But you know as well as I do that it’s only a façade.”

He lifted his gaze.

“She isn’t a sixteen-year-old girl. She is the daughter of Konohanasakuya-hime. A divine being. A creature that has likely existed longer than this land itself.”

Hale opened his mouth, but Hiro continued before he could speak.

“You expect her to behave like a human. Like a teenager who has to learn how to deal with disappointment, who understands that emotions are complicated, and that you can reject someone without hurting them.”

He placed his cup down and crossed his arms.

“It’s no wonder she doesn’t understand what happened. For her, that wasn’t an ‘unpleasant situation.’ It was a fracture in the order she perceived. A contradiction in a feeling that had been pure and absolute to her.”

Hale rubbed his forehead.

“Great. Now you’re making me feel like I did everything wrong...”

“I’m simply giving you the feeling you need in order to understand the situation,” Hiro replied calmly. “She isn’t human. And when she is hurt… then not only her heart is affected. It hits the core of what she is. And that’s what you faced today.”

Hale glanced toward her door.

A thin blue strip of light glowed beneath the frame.

He wished he could feel something, warmth, anger, anything.

But what seeped through the mark was only a distant, muffled throb.

“I never told her that I'd abandon her. Only that I can't return her feelings right now...,” he murmured, almost pleading.

“For her, there is no difference,” Hiro said gently.

Hale stared into his teacup as if an answer might surface in the reflection.

Everything inside him felt tight and crooked and wrong.

Why do I have to be the one to hurt her like this?

“And what am I supposed to do now?” His voice came out rough, breaking at the edges.

“Give her time. Feelings like hers don’t stop instantly. And above all, show her you’re not abandoning her.“

Hiro set his cup aside.

“And when the time is right, you could start with: 'I’m sorry it hurts so much.'“

Hale tightened his grip around the porcelain.

“And how much time do you think she needs?”

Hiro sighed and glanced at the calendar on the wall, the next day circled in red.

“That’s something only she knows. But…”

He paused, as if weighing the words.

“...tomorrow is your third qualifying match. All we can do is hope she decides whether she can stand at your side tomorrow… or whether today changed everything.“

Silence settled in again.

And Hale felt a quiet ache settle in his chest.

Tomorrow would give him his answer.

But the real question was whether Koori could forgive him at all.