Later that evening, Mr. Hayato returned home briefly from work. As usual, he walked in with that silent gravity that made the air feel thinner.
Rika watched as he removed his coat and checked his phone again—no greetings, no warm words exchanged. She didn't even bother trying anymore.
"You're still awake," he said, surprised.
"I live here," she snapped.
Naoto stood silently nearby, ready to excuse himself, but Mr. Hayato turned to him instead. "How is she doing?"
"She's intelligent," Naoto replied. "She just needs someone who doesn't give up on her."
Rika's chest tightened, though she masked it with a scoff. "Don't talk like I'm not here."
"I'm not," Naoto said gently. "I'm talking to your father. Something I know you haven't done in a while."
That hit harder than expected.
She stormed off, slamming the door behind her. But later, in her room, she stared at the ceiling with a strange heaviness in her chest. His words echoed. His tone—it wasn't cruel. It wasn't mocking.
It was just... honest.
---
The Line She Didn't Expect
The next day, Rika was on the balcony with her textbook open in her lap—not because she wanted to study, but because her thoughts wouldn't leave her alone.
Naoto joined her, a cautious distance between them. He didn't bring up the night before.
Instead, he handed her a small sticky note.
"What's this?" she asked, confused.
"A quote," he said, "from that 19th-century literature you were so uninterested in."
She read it aloud under her breath:
"It is often the people who are hardest to love who need it the most."
Her fingers curled around the note.
Naoto turned to leave, but her voice stopped him.
"…Why do you try so hard?" she asked.
He paused. "Because someone did that for me once, when I didn't think I deserved it."
Rika didn't reply. She stared at the words in her hand, her heart aching in a place she didn't know could still hurt.
A Shift in the Wind
That night, neither of them slept easily.
Naoto kept replaying the small shifts in her eyes—the subtle cracks in the wall she'd built around herself.
And Rika lay in bed with the sticky note on her nightstand, her thumb brushing the edge again and again.
She still didn't trust him.
But for the first time, she didn't hate him.
The war hadn't ended—but something else had begun.
A fragile truce.