He fought like he had already lost.
Not in the way of some people she came upon, who saw her coming like Azrael and knew they would surrender or die. No, he fought like he’d lost a long time ago, like one who gets too far behind enemy lines and has to fight his way to follow his retreating comrades. He wasn’t fighting this battle. He wasn’t here.
And for all that, he still gave her a challenge she couldn’t overlook.
Maybe that was why she took him with her. Maybe that was why she tended his wounds and saw that he ate
On the third day, when woke, the first word he said to her was “why?” She was standing in the doorway, studying him, and he wasn’t quite awake enough to blush.
“Because I haven’t figured you out yet,” she said. She spent another minute looking him over, as if her answers might turn up on his skin at any moment, then turned and left him there. From the next room, she could hear him experiment with walking. She knew how much pain he had to be in and she was impressed with his attempts, though by tone of his voice she could tell he was not.
“I’m Yui,” she said later, when she brought him dinner.
“Hyuga,” he answered simply. “What have you yet to figure out?” She set the tray on his lap and stepped to the chair next to his bed.
Yui looked him in the eye. “I’ve been considering that myself. I think my question is… what killed you?”
“My guess would be you,” Hyuga glanced around the room, “but unless this is some uncharted realm of the afterlife, I suspect I’m not actually dead.”
She shook her head, wished him good night, and left without argument.
It was two days before she pushed the matter again, when she walked in to see him staring out the window. His eyes looked so empty she thought he must have left his soul out there. She stared at him unabashedly, but he didn’t look away.
“Someone you loved,” she said finally, stepping into the room. He jumped, but recovered very quickly. Yui imagined that if she hadn’t been looking for it, she wouldn’t have noticed. He asked what she’d said.
“You lost someone close to you. A lover, I’d guess.”
He didn’t say anything, but he looked at her and gave just a hint of a nod before he started eating.
“We all lose things in a war,” she said. “It’s how we make use of what we have left that determines if we live or die.” Yui set the tray down.
Hyuga didn’t seem to have heard her, only took the spoon and tried the broth. He nodded to himself, then looked up at her and smiled.
“Thank you.”
