— Asia Argento —

  The morning wind was cold against my cheeks.

  The suitcase wasn’t what felt heavy. Something else was.

  I’d tried to be strong. I’d tried not to cry. But every step echoed with the same sentence they’d thrown at me the night before:

  “You don’t belong to that devil.”

  Freed’s voice had been mocking. Raynare’s—soft, like poison diluted in sweet water. And the priest… cold. Distant. Like he was judging me from a place my feelings couldn’t reach.

  And I…

  I believed them.

  Or I wanted to believe them. Because the alternative was admitting I’d hurt someone I never wanted to hurt.

  I sat on the edge of a planter, squeezing the cross between my fingers. It felt warm—like a trace of the light that once guided me was still there, very small.

  But that light had cracks now.

  I tried to pray. The words wouldn’t come.

  Lord… I don’t know if You can still hear me.

  A shadow fell in front of me.

  I looked up.

  It was a boy. Tall, dark hair, holding a map—or, rather, looking at the map I had, with an expression that wasn’t pity or curiosity, but something simpler.

  Genuine attention.

  I didn’t know his name yet. I didn’t know who he was. But when he spoke, his voice sounded sincere in a way I hadn’t heard directed at me in a long time.

  He asked if I was lost.

  And I… told him yes. Because it was true in more than one way.

  He gave me directions. Simple, clear—without asking more questions than necessary. Without asking why a girl alone with a cheap suitcase was standing on a street corner in Kuoh, staring at a map like it was a foreign language.

  I thanked him. Too much, probably. I always thank people too much for small things because small things are the hardest for me to accept.

  He left.

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  And I kept walking where he’d told me to go.

  But my steps stopped on their own in front of a bus stop.

  I sat down. Not because I was tired.

  But because the weight of what I’d done—what I’d said—finally caught up with me there, on some random corner, with the sun still low and the city waking up around me.

  Issei.

  His name arrived before I could stop it.

  He’d looked at me with so much hope. With that way he had of being completely transparent—no layers, no calculation—like he hadn’t learned how to hide what he felt yet.

  And I’d said the words they told me to say.

  That he was dangerous. That I was going to stay away from him. That I wouldn’t come back.

  Every word had been a lie.

  And I’d said them anyway.

  Why, Lord? Why give me this gift if all it does is put me in the middle of things I don’t understand?

  I squeezed the cross harder.

  I wasn’t expecting an answer. I just… didn’t want to keep feeling this alone.

  A voice.

  “Hey… are you okay?”

  I looked up.

  The same boy as before.

  Seeing him there surprised me—not because it was impossible, but because I didn’t expect someone who’d already helped once to stop again.

  People don’t usually do that.

  People help once and keep walking.

  He didn’t keep walking.

  “Ah… you’re the boy from before,” I said.

  He told me his name—Kaelan—and then, without being cruel, without softening it either:

  “You look bad.”

  I don’t know why that made me want to talk. Maybe because he didn’t try to tell me I was fine when I clearly wasn’t.

  I told him the truth.

  Or part of it.

  “I think I hurt someone. Someone who was really good to me.”

  I didn’t say the name. I couldn’t. But in my mind Issei’s face rose so clearly it stole my breath for a second.

  Kaelan listened. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t offer solutions or ask for details he had no right to.

  He only said, “If you feel that way, it’s because that person matters to you.”

  Something in that sentence hit me in a way I didn’t expect.

  It wasn’t empty comfort. It wasn’t the kind of thing people say to fill silence.

  It was… an observation. Like he was naming something I already knew but couldn’t say to myself yet.

  “He matters. A lot.”

  And it was true.

  More than I could explain in that moment—on that street corner—to a stranger who had no reason to listen.

  Kaelan suggested a park. Said it was close. Quiet. That nobody went there at this hour.

  I hesitated—a second of that habit I have, evaluating whether I can trust. It had grown sharper after everything that happened with the Church.

  But his eyes had nothing hidden in them.

  Only… presence.

  The kind of presence that doesn’t ask for anything.

  I accepted.

  I stood up.

  And when I thanked him and he said, “I was just trying to help,” I believed him completely.

  I walked toward the park.

  Halfway there, something stopped me.

  Not a sound. Not an obstacle.

  A feeling.

  Like an invisible thread had given a small tug from somewhere behind me. Something warm. Brief. Like brushing past someone in a hallway and, for one second, feeling their presence before it disappears.

  I turned around.

  Kaelan hadn’t moved from the bus stop. He was standing there, looking in another direction, with that expression of his—like someone processing things he doesn’t say out loud.

  He wasn’t looking at me.

  But I’d felt something.

  I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t have a name for it.

  I tightened my grip on the cross.

  “Please… guide me,” I whispered.

  And I kept walking.

  I didn’t know someone else would be in that park.

  I didn’t know fate had already made its decisions.

  I didn’t know my steps—since I arrived in Japan, since I accepted that mission, since I said those words to Issei—had never been completely mine.

  But as I walked…

  For the first time since I left the church…

  I didn’t feel completely alone.

  (Revised Edition – 2026)