Asol sat in the chair beside her bed with his elbows resting on his knees and hands loosely folded. Fujiwara lay beneath white sheets, hair fanned across the pillow in a careful spill. Her face was calm. Too calm like a doll made with perfect intent and then set down to be admired. Something perfectly constructed, perfectly arranged, and perfectly… absent.
Asol stared at her lashes. At the faint rise and fall of her chest. At the way the light caught her cheekbones. He hated how graceful she looked while he was falling apart. He hated that the world could freeze her like this and keep moving. He didn't realize how long he'd been sitting there until the door slid open with a soft hiss. The CEO entered without announcing himself, because he never did. He moved like this place was part of his skin—steady, precise, and quiet enough that even the machines seemed to make room for him.
He didn't walk to Asol first and instead walked to the vase on the windowsill. The lilies inside it had wilted as their petals sagged and were brown at the edges. The CEO lifted the vase, dumped the water in a small sink, and replaced the bouquet with fresh flowers from a bag he'd brought that was filled with white lilies again, but newer, crisp, and bright with life.
He adjusted them until they stood the way he wanted, then he crossed the room and took the chair on the other side of the bed. Asol didn't look at him immediately. The silence wasn't awkward, but it was the kind shared by people who'd run out of words long ago.
Then the CEO broke it.
"Thank you."
Asol blinked and finally turned his head.
"…For what?"
The CEO didn't smile. He kept his gaze fixed forward, hidden behind his shades, like he was looking at something only he could see.
"I never thanked you," he said. "For bringing Fujiwara back, back then."
Asol's jaw tightened.
"No. I didn't bring her back," he said quietly.
"Yet, she is here," the CEO interrupted, voice calm. "Alive and breathing."
Asol shook his head once, sharp.
"Don't thank me."
The CEO's mouth twitched.
"As always," he murmured. "You refuse gratitude like it's a trap."
Asol stared at Fujiwara again.
"Because it feels wrong," he admitted. "You're thanking the person who couldn't prevent the state she's in right now."
The CEO's posture stayed immaculate, but his voice softened by a fraction.
"But it was my fault," he said.
Asol turned sharply.
"What?"
The CEO leaned back slightly, hands resting on the chair arms.
"If I hadn't followed my visions," he said, "if I hadn't treated prophecy like policy… perhaps she'd be awake right now. Perhaps she'd be smiling. Perhaps you wouldn't be sitting here trying to convince yourself you didn't deserve to breathe when she couldn't."
Asol's throat tightened. He didn't have a response ready. He didn't have a joke. He didn't have anger, but The CEO continued.
"I have borne witness to many sufferings," he said. "Most of them… began the same way."
Asol swallowed once.
"Loss," he said.
The CEO nodded slightly.
"Loss," he agreed.
Asol hesitated, then asked what had been gnawing at him since the raid on the Saviours hideout.
"…Did you lose someone?"
The CEO didn't answer right away, but then the CEO spoke.
"I had a daughter," he said.
Asol's eyes widened slightly.
"She was around your age," the CEO continued. "Long ago. Before I became… this."
He tapped one finger against his shades.
"Back when I still had my vision, I was only a man who cared about one thing. I was a Chief in the KAC," he said. "I was well known, respected, and feared. When the Kaiju threat descended, I went to meet them. When other enemies rose, I buried them."
He paused.
"But there was one battle I never won."
Asol's fingers curled slightly around the edge of his seat.
"My daughter," the CEO said softly, "was my world. I loved her so much I would have burned the planet down if it meant she'd never cry again."
Asol's chest tightened at the blunt honesty.
"But then, I received a vision of her death."
Asol went still.
The CEO's jaw set.
"I saw it clearly," he said. "Her body was in my hands. Her blood was on my uniform. And her eyes, her eyes were lifeless. I didn't know how she would die. I didn't know when. Only that it would happen."
He exhaled through his nose.
"So I tried to control everything."
Asol already knew where this was going. He could feel it.
"I chose her school," the CEO said. "Her schedule. The people she could talk to. The hours she could leave the house. I built a cage out of love and called it protection."
The words were quiet.
"Her smile started to fade," he added. "She didn't say it outright, but I could feel it. Every time she asked to go somewhere and I said no. Every time she looked at me like I was both father and warden."
Asol's throat went tight.
"Then one day," the CEO said, "the sky tore open."
Asol's eyes flickered.
"A hole," the CEO continued, "ripped into the clouds. Bright light spilling through like the world had been cut open. And the Kaiju poured out."
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't dramatize. That made it worse.
"They came in numbers the KAC at the time had no means to handle," he said. "They were spread across multiple cities, countries, and continents. We were on the field everywhere, trying to hold a line that didn't exist."
The CEO's hands tightened slightly.
"I was deployed."
Asol whispered, almost without meaning to.
"And she was at school."
The CEO nodded.
"Yes."
He swallowed once, and for the first time Asol heard something in his voice that wasn't control.
"I received a report," the CEO said. "Her school had been attacked."
Asol's grip on the chair tightened.
"I ran as fast as I could," the CEO continued. "I left my unit. I broke the rules. I cut through the streets like a man possessed. Because in my head I kept thinking: I can still beat the vision. I can still arrive before it happens."
He paused for a moment and continued.
"But I was late."
The room felt colder.
"When I arrived," the CEO said quietly, "the building was rubble. There was smoke, ash, and screaming. The Kaiju had already left to its next destination. But I didn't care about it. I needed to find my daughter."
Asol's heart hammered.
"I searched," the CEO continued. "I tore through concrete. I lifted beams until I broke my own fingers. I didn't stop until I found her."
His voice went almost flat.
"When I finally did, I she was lifeless."
Asol's stomach turned.
"I held her," the CEO said. "Just like the vision. Exactly like it. And in that moment I understood something I didn't want to understand."
He tilted his chin slightly.
"Sometimes you cannot protect what you love by tightening your grip."
Asol couldn't breathe properly. He forced the air in anyway.
"…What did you do."
The CEO's head turned slightly toward Fujiwara's bed, as if the answer belonged here.
"I gouged my eyes out with my own hands," he continued. "Right there in the rubble. Because what good was my vision if all it did was show me suffering, I couldn't stop? What good was prophecy if it turned me into a tyrant in my own home?"
He leaned forward slightly.
"I wanted to punish myself," he admitted. "I wanted to remove the part of me that thought control equaled love."
His hands relaxed again.
"And after that," he said, "I became what you know now. I took in lost children who had no place in the world. That is why I feel responsible for the state Fujiwara is in right now."
The CEO let the silence return for a moment, then spoke again.
"Asol," he said, "I understand the pain you are in."
Asol's throat tightened.
"No," Asol whispered. "You don't."
The CEO didn't argue. Instead, he nodded once.
"You're right," he said. "I do not understand your exact pain."
His voice sharpened a fraction—not harsh, just firm.
"But I understand what it feels like to hold a cold body."
The CEO's voice softened again.
"So listen," he said. "Do not let the deaths of those who sacrificed themselves for you be in vain."
Asol's jaw clenched.
"Your friend didn't die so you could rot," the CEO continued. "And your mother certainly didn't die so you could become nothing but guilt. And Fujiwara—"
He glanced at her.
"—is not lying here so you can drown yourself in what-ifs."
Asol swallowed, throat burning.
"So what am I supposed to do," he rasped, "when I can't fix it?"
The CEO's answer was quiet.
"You live and you continue moving forward," he said.
He let the word sit there, plain and brutal.
"You will fight," he added. "You will protect. You will laugh when you can. You will eat lunch with people who annoy you. You will train until your body stops shaking when your mind wanders."
His voice lowered.
"And when Fujiwara awakes," he finished, "you tell her how you feel. I know how much you love her, even if you denied it. I've watched you."
Asol's gaze dropped to Fujiwara's hand in his.
"The truth you say?" he echoed.
"Yes," the CEO said. "It is the only thing that can't be taken away by monsters."
Silence filled the room again as Fujiwara remained still.
But Asol felt something inside him ease. He wasn't the only one carrying a grave. Asol exhaled, slow and shaky.
"…Thanks..."