Page 110 of Kotori
"Sometimes," Kaito says with careful control, "people must face consequences for their choices. Even when those consequences are painful for everyone involved."
Anhourlater,Istand outside Mizuki's door listening to the sound of muffled crying. The soft, broken sobs of someone who's given up trying to be strong, who's finally allowing herself to fall apart in private.
After that brutal dinner, Kaito disappeared into his study without a word. When I tried to follow, to ask what the hell that was about, he looked at me with such cold fury that I stepped back instinctively.
"She made her choices," he'd said with deadly quiet. "Now she lives with the consequences. And so do we all."
But now, faced with her obvious pain echoing through the door, I can't stand by and do nothing. Whatever Kaito believes she's done, whatever evidence he thinks he has, this is still the girl I've come to love like my own daughter.
I knock softly. "Mizuki? It's Paige. Can I come in?"
The crying stops abruptly, replaced by frantic movement. Probably wiping away evidence of tears, trying to rebuild the composure that's been her armor.
"I'm sleeping," comes her muffled response, thick with recently shed tears.
"No, you're not. And that's okay. Sometimes sleep is impossible when our minds won't quiet down." I rest my forehead against the door, speaking softly to the girl I've come to love like my own daughter. "I brought tea. The chamomile blend your mother used to make for you when you had nightmares."
Long silence. Then the soft sound of footsteps on tatami, the slide of the lock being undone.
She opens the door just wide enough for me to see her face. Red-rimmed eyes, tear-stained cheeks, the kind of devastation that comes from crying until there's nothing left. She looks so young, so broken, that maternal instinct floods through me like a dam bursting.
I step into her room, setting the tea tray on her low table before turning to really look at her. "Come here."
She hesitates, pride warring with desperate need for comfort. Need wins. She stumbles into my arms like someone who's been drowning finally reaching shore, clinging to me with the desperate strength of someone who's been carrying an impossible weight alone.
"I can't," she sobs against my shoulder, words barely comprehensible through her tears. "I can't do what they want me to do. I can't marry him."
Ice floods through my veins. Marriage. Kaito mentioned political pressure, arranged matches being considered, but seeing Mizuki's terror makes it real.
"Who wants you to marry whom?" I ask carefully, keeping my voice gentle while my mind races through implications.
"Daichi-sempai says Otou-san has already agreed to consider his proposal," she whispers, the words emerging like something toxic. "He says I've compromised myself, that no traditional family will want me now unless someone 'generous' overlooks my behavior."
The way she says behavior, like it's something shameful and dirty, makes my stomach clench with understanding that I desperately don't want to have.
"What behavior, Mizuki? What do they think you've done?"
She pulls back, and I watch her face cycle through shame, confusion, terror. Eighteen years old and carrying a weight that's crushing her.
"They have messages. Pictures." Her voice cracks. "Evidence that I was inappropriate with older men."
"Were you?"
"No!" She collapses forward, and I catch her instinctively, maternal instinct overriding everything else. "I would never. I don't even know how to be inappropriate with men. But they have proof, and everyone believes it."
Her bewilderment is so complete, so genuine. A child trying to understand how she became guilty of crimes she never committed.
"They say marriage is the only way to save the family's honor."
I stroke her hair, my hands steady with protective fury.
"Tell me about the messages."
She flinches like I've struck her. "Daichi-sempai said I was naive. That I needed to understand what makes men happy if I wanted to be worthy of marriage someday." The words pour out in a rush, like confession. "He said it was educational."
The rage that floods through me is so pure, so fierce, that for a moment I can't speak. This bastard convinced an eighteen-year-old girl that exploitation was education.
"When did this start?"
