Mask

MASK 30: ARRANGEMENT

Athira's POV.

I'm currently here in my mother's villa trying to clean up but all of a sudden something caught my attention and it was the dust on the wooden drawer.

But it wasn't supposed to be there because I've always cleaned this room.

I didn't even know why I opened it—some part of me told me to. Like instinct. Or fate. Like maybe... maybe something in me already knew this would be the last message I'd ever hear from him. Not a command. Not another cold stare or passing glance of duty. But his actual voice—unfiltered, stripped of power. Stripped of pride.

Inside the drawer, tucked beneath faded folders and crumpled letters there was a small black USB.

And scratched in permanent marker above it—"For Athira."

I felt my throat tightened and it took everything in me not to drop it right then and there. My hands started to tremble, I have a feeling that this was from him.

I plugged it into the nearest laptop, fingers cold and clumsy but even though I'm hesitant I still pressed play.

"My dearest Athira...

If you're listening to this... then the world has already shown you its worst. And maybe now... you'll finally understand mine."

I froze.

I didn't blink. Didn't breathe.

His voice. My father's voice. But not the version I knew—the one that shouted across long hallways, the one that never looked at me during family dinners, the one that made me feel like my presence was a mistake he kept trying to erase.

No. This voice was tired.
And... broken.

"I know what I looked like to you. Cold. Harsh. Distant. You probably grew up wondering if your own father ever truly loved you. And that's the part that breaks me the most. Because the truth is... I did. With everything I had left in me."

Tears stung behind my eyes.

No.

No, no, no— I didn't want this. I didn't want to feel this.

Not now. Not when I already buried the idea of loving him back. Not when I thought I was free from needing his approval.

"But I couldn't be the soft father you needed. Not in this world. Not when I felt it—knew it—that someone close was going to betray us. I didn't know who. I didn't know when. I only knew I had to act like I trusted no one... Including you."

I pressed a hand over my mouth.

His voice cracked on the last word. "So yes... I pushed you away. I yelled when I should have held you. I punished you for surviving—when all you ever did was protect yourself."

I felt something sharp twist inside my chest. Something like grief. Like resentment. Like the version of myself who used to sit in my bedroom, eyes red from crying just wishing he would knock on my door and tell me he was proud of me.

"You thought I hated you for killing them. But Athira... you were right to do it. And I was proud. But I couldn't show it. Not when eyes were everywhere... Not when the walls had ears."

I closed my eyes.

The weight of that sentence broke me.

"I needed them to think you were just some spoiled girl with no place in this game. Because if they saw who you really were... They'd try to break you before you even understood how powerful you could be."