"Tell me... what am I supposed to do with this?"
The moment the final, trembling word left her lips, Mr. Kamitani stopped completely.
The desperate strength in his massive arms vanished in a single fraction of a second.
He let go of his grip on her instantly, his arms dropping heavily down to his sides as he stepped back, completely releasing her from the tight embrace.
Feeling the sudden, freezing absence of his warmth, Mrs. Kamitani let out a faint, hollow huff of a laugh.
'Look at him...' her mind muttered with sharp, bitter irritation as she stared blankly at the dim doorway.
'Where did all that ridiculous confidence go? He can act as wild as he wants...the moment things reached his heart... he couldn't find a single word. What a total coward.'
She bit her lower lip hard, her gaze darting unsteadily around the dark room as a heavy, suffocating wave of emotion rushed over her features.
Her green eyes grew glossy and watery, reflecting the faint shadows of the night. A fragile, quiet smile slowly crawled onto her pale face—but it wasn't a smile of joy.
It was a smile of pure, crushing disappointment. It was the look of a wife who had desperately wanted her husband to prove her wrong, only for him to retreat into silence the moment things became real.
With her back still facing him, unable to look at his face, she broke the heavy quiet.
"Why did you suddenly stop speaking, Ayato?" she asked, her voice dropping into a flat, mocking whisper that carried a deep ache.
"Where did all that confident talk go? Why are you quiet now?"
Deep, suffocating silence crashed right back into the room.
The absolute lack of a response began to make the anger flare right back up in her chest.
'How fascinating... You always seem to have the perfect words whenever you want to fluster me... yet the moment you become the reason I'm crying, silence is the only defense you have left.' she thought, a biting, defensive sarcasm cutting through her mind.
Unable to bear the emptiness behind her, she finally began to turn her body around, her mouth opening to sharply demand why he was still remaining so silent.
"Why are you—"
"Because I am terrified that if I open my mouth, I will break down completely right in front of you."
The quiet, raw confession left his lips like a heavy, crushing weight. It wasn't defensive, and it wasn't angry—it was a low, fractured whisper filled with such a devastating sorrow that it seemed to physically pierce through every single part of her body, making her breath completely catch in her throat.
Mrs. Kamitani's movement locked up instantly. The angry sentence died right in her mouth, her shoulders freezing in mid-turn as she stared at him in wide-eyed, stunned silence.
Her brain completely froze, unable to process the words that had just left his mouth. 'Break down?' she thought, the confusion crashing over her like a tidal wave.
'Ayato? Breaking down?'
That was the unshakeable High Court Lawyer who had looked her right in the eye that morning and coldly told her she was daydreaming.
That was the man who had screamed her name until the kitchen walls shook, standing like an icy wall of total denial.
To hear him admit to such a fragile terror felt completely impossible.
Slowly, her frozen posture began to melt. With her heart hammering wildly against her ribs, she finished turning her body completely around, her watery green eyes searching his face in the dim, quiet light.
"What..." her voice came out as a faint, breathless whisper, all the defensive sarcasm completely draining out of her. "What did you just say?"
Mr. Kamitani didn't look away, but he didn't repeat the words either. He stood entirely still, his tall frame suddenly looking stripped of all its usual legal authority and playful confidence.
"You heard me, Yuna..." he murmured softly. His tone was so low, so exhausted, that it barely carried across the tiny space separating them.
The room fell into an incredibly deep, suffocating silence once again. Neither of them moved a single inch.
Their eyes locked together in a long, painful gaze that seemed to stretch the seconds into absolute eternity.
For the past twelve hours, Mrs. Kamitani had truly believed she was the only one drowning in terror—the only one carrying the crushing weight of what she had seen in Kento's room.
But as she stared deep into his dark, bloodshot eyes, the harsh truth finally hit her.
He hadn't been indifferent. He hadn't been mocking her. He was completely breaking inside, too.
She thought she was keeping her face perfectly still, hiding her shock behind a flat mask.
But the sheer emotional weight of the realization was too much for her defenses to hold. Without her even realizing it, a single, warm tear escaped her eyelashes, silently rolling down her pale cheek. She didn't even notice it had fallen.
But Mr. Kamitani's instincts never missed a thing when it came to her.
Without a single word, he smoothly closed the remaining distance between them. His large hand slowly lifted into the quiet air, his movements turning incredibly tender, warm, and soft.
He reached out, his thumb gently brushing the stray tear straight off her skin. His warm knuckles lingered against her cheek for a fraction of a second, his touch trembling just enough to show how terrified he truly was.
His thumb remained resting gently near her cheek, his skin warm against her pale face, but the absolute vulnerability in his eyes only grew heavier.
"I didn't turn away from you this morning because I thought you were lying, Yuna..."
Mr. Kamitani whispered, his deep voice cracking slightly. "And I wasn't trying to prove you wrong."
He let out a short, broken breath, looking down at her with a raw sorrow that stripped away every ounce of his usual confidence.
"I just desperately wanted reality to be wrong. I wanted the universe to be wrong."
Mrs. Kamitani stayed completely quiet, her breath catching in her throat as she listened to the low, exhausted murmur of his voice.
"The moment you said those words in the kitchen... the moment you mentioned the left side, right below the rib... my entire mind went completely numb." Mr. Kamitani confessed softly, his fingers trembling slightly against her skin.
"Because accepting your words meant accepting that the ancient curse had actually caught up to our innocent boy after eleven years of safety. It meant accepting that Kento was in real, impossible danger, and that I was completely powerless to stop it."
"The absolute terror of it paralyzed me, Yuna. I couldn't bear the thought of it being real. I was so completely consumed by my own panic that the only way I could fight the reality was to reject you instead. I forced myself to call it a daydream... because if it wasn't, then our happy days were already over."
The heavy weight of his confession hung suspended in the quiet air.
Mr. Kamitani took one slow, deliberate step closer, completely erasing whatever distance was left between them in the dim room.
His large, warm hand reached down, his fingers moving with an incredible, trembling tenderness as he gently wrapped them around her slender hand, lifting it securely against his palm.
He tilted his head slightly, forcing his dark, bloodshot eyes to lock directly into her watery green ones with absolute intensity.
When he finally broke the silence, his voice wasn't dramatic or loud. It was nothing more than a very quiet, fractured murmur that vibrated softly in the stillness of the early morning.
"I am sorry, Yuna."
He looked deep into her eyes, refusing to let his gaze waver as he laid out every single mistake he had made, offering no excuses for the pain he had caused.
"I am sorry for doubting your instincts. I am sorry for shouting at you in that kitchen, and for hurting you so deeply when you just needed me to believe you. I am so sorry that I abandoned you emotionally when you were completely drowning all by yourself."
He paused, his chest heaving with a shallow, ragged breath as his grip on her hand tightened just a fraction.
The raw sorrow in his eyes expanded, delivering the final, unforgettable truth straight to her bleeding heart.
"I was trying so hard to protect our son... that I forgot to protect my wife."
The final, devastating line left his lips and vanished into the stillness, leaving the room completely trapped in a suffocating, heavy quiet.
Mrs. Kamitani parted her lips, her mind frantically scrambling to find her sharp corporate lawyer voice to fire back a response.
'No... don't accept this...' her mind scrambled defensively as she stared at his bare, bleeding expression.
'Argue back. Tell him an apology doesn't fix twelve hours of drowning alone in this house. Tell him anything... just don't let him see how small you feel right now.'
But she couldn't.
Her voice completely failed her, the sentences dying right in her throat and leaving her utterly speechless as she stared into his bare, bleeding expression.
The absolute silence that followed was thick and heavy, wrapping around them both. She honestly thought her face was a completely flat, unreadable mask that hid the absolute emotional chaos fracturing her heart.
But as she stood there, her hand still held tightly in his warm palm, her body completely betrayed her.
----
🌸 AUTHOR'S NOTE 🌙
...Well.
I don't think Ayato gave me much of a choice this time. 🥹
For the last few chapters, he kept teasing Yuna, making her blush, refusing to let her escape...
And then, all of a sudden...
He looked at me and said,
"I'm done joking."
Sometimes, apologizing isn't difficult because we don't know the right words.
Sometimes...
it's difficult because the right words force us to admit how deeply we've hurt the person we love.
Writing Ayato's confession wasn't easy.
Not because I didn't know what he wanted to say...
But because I knew he had been carrying those words in silence since breakfast.
And poor Yuna...
She wanted to stay angry.
She really did.
But hearts are incredibly unfair sometimes. 🥹💙
Thank you so much for walking beside these two.
I hope their journey reminds you that love isn't about never making mistakes...
It's about having the courage to finally say,
"I was wrong."
See you in the next chapter! 🌸✨
(^～^;)
----
✦ 🔮 A GLIMPSE INTO THE NEXT CHAPTER 🔮 ✦
"What awaits beyond this page...?" 🌙
(灬･◡･灬)♡
"A-And we... w-we can't... we can't stop it..."
"...You've chosen a very strange example."
----
🎬 BEHIND THE SCENES! 🌸
Ayato: "I finally apologized..."
Yuna: "..."
Ayato: "..."
Ayato: "...Can I have my hug back now?"
Yuna: "No."
Ayato: "...One?"
Yuna: "No."
Ayato: "...Half?"
Yuna: "...Go to sleep."
Ayato: "...I'll take that as a 'maybe.'"
Yuna: "Ayato."
Ayato: "...Goodnight."
✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧
----
🌙 The stars may fade, and memories may sleep...
But the Spiral continues to turn.
Until we meet again beneath the same forgotten sky.
(｡•́～•̀｡)
— SakuraShinomiya