𝙃𝙀𝘼𝙍𝙏 || 𝘼𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙠𝙤𝙪𝙟𝙞 𝙭 𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧 || 𝙔𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙚

His Thoughts

Kiyotaka Ayanokouji liked to believe he was rational.

He truly was. Everyone had told him so—his father, his instructors, even those who only briefly encountered him. A masterpiece, they called him. The pinnacle of human achievement.
Stoic, composed, and unflinchingly logical in every scenario. It was a role he had been meticulously crafted for. Emotions were a flaw, a hindrance. He had spent years training himself to eliminate them, to operate purely from logic.

And yet here he was—confused.

It didn't make sense. He had her figured out at first. She was easy to read, predictable in every sense. The first time they met, her demeanor was transparent—her every move falling neatly within the confines of what he expected. But now? Now she was unreadable, her motivations obscure, leaving him with questions he didn't like asking.

Why now?

The feeling gnawed at him—a sense of something slipping through his carefully constructed control. This wasn't supposed to happen. His every interaction with her was calculated, deliberate, each word, each glance, part of an elaborate test to gauge her responses. She was a puzzle he had thought he could solve, an equation with a predictable outcome.

So why did it bother him when she acted outside the parameters he'd established?

Ayanokouji leaned forward, his eyes narrowing, though his voice remained calm. "Sometimes..." he said, the words slow and deliberate, "when people care too much, when they fear losing something... they lose themselves instead. It's not your fault, [Name]. You couldn't have known."

The sentence felt too heavy on his tongue, as though it carried more weight than he intended. His hand hovered just over hers for a moment before he pressed it down, his palm resting against her skin. The warmth of her touch, so familiar yet so foreign, sent an unfamiliar shiver through him. It grounded him in a way that unnerved him, stirring something he couldn't name.

She smiled, faintly at first, almost as if she was reassuring herself. "I know..." she whispered, the exhaustion beneath her voice unmistakable. She laughed, but it was hollow, as though the sound had lost its meaning.

He observed her closely, dissecting every subtle movement—the way her fingers trembled ever so slightly as she wrapped the bandage around his hand, the unspoken tension in her gaze. It should have been easy to dismiss, just another data point in his ongoing analysis. But something about her story—about the girl, Riko—had lodged itself deep within him.

Sacrifice. Obsession. These were dangerous qualities.

"You said you're leaving..." he finally stated, testing her with each syllable. "To meet her."

She didn't hesitate. Her gaze flickered toward him, then quickly fell back to the floor. "Yeah..." she admitted. "It's been a year... I have to face her."

A subtle tightness seized his chest. His mind raced through the implications, the danger inherent in her decision. "You realize how reckless that sounds...?" he said, his voice barely above a murmur, the calmness masking his growing discomfort.

"I know." She sighed, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. The action was deliberate, though she seemed... tired, as if carrying an invisible weight had finally taken their toll.
"But I can't keep running."