"Because I love you."
The words left Erza's lips like a blade drawn from its sheath, sharp, sudden, impossible to take back.
Her voice echoed through the apartment, cutting through the hum of the refrigerator, the distant sounds of traffic, the soft breathing of the child who sat between them at the table.
It dominated everything, filled every corner, left no space for denial or escape.
Yuuta was silent.
His frustration, his desperation, his desperate need to understand why she was pushing him away, all of it vanished, replaced by something he had not expected. Shock. Disbelief. The words did not make sense.
They could not make sense.
Erza did not love him.
Erza was cold, distant, untouchable.
She had threatened to kill him on their first meeting.
She had called him a mortal, a fool, an idiot.
She had told him, again and again, that their bond was physical, accidental, meaningless.
