The phrase echoed in his head like a cruel understatement, sharp and grating like microphone feedback in an empty auditorium. Maruki’s expression faltered—just for a moment. The usual warmth in his face dulled, replaced by something more raw, almost visibly trembling beneath the surface.
He leaned forward slightly—not out of disrespect, but instinct. The kind of instinct that came from watching someone walk barefoot through glass and realizing they believed they were meant to.
"Hamuko-san," he said softly, voice thick with disbelief, "you were just a child."
There was a weight to those words—not scolding, but defensive, protective, like someone trying to argue with the universe itself.
"How could it have ever been you who was the problem? You were grieving, displaced, put into unfamiliar places again and again—and yet you're the one explaining yourself? You're the one carrying the guilt?" His hands clenched for a second in his lap, unclenching slowly as he let out a breath.
"No child should ever feel like they need to justify their pain. That they have to perform stability to be worthy of care. It's not your fault they didn’t know how to hold space for your grief. That doesn't make you a burden—it makes the world you were placed in unfair. Inhuman, even."
There was a long pause. The tension in his shoulders hadn't quite gone down, but his voice gentled again, that familiar soft tone of a man trained to speak with hurting people—but whose heart still gets ahead of him.
"...You didn’t make anyone suffer, Hamuko. People failed you. That’s not on you."
He smiled then, quietly with the slightest bit of sorrow.
no subject
The phrase echoed in his head like a cruel understatement, sharp and grating like microphone feedback in an empty auditorium. Maruki’s expression faltered—just for a moment. The usual warmth in his face dulled, replaced by something more raw, almost visibly trembling beneath the surface.
He leaned forward slightly—not out of disrespect, but instinct. The kind of instinct that came from watching someone walk barefoot through glass and realizing they believed they were meant to.
"Hamuko-san," he said softly, voice thick with disbelief, "you were just a child."
There was a weight to those words—not scolding, but defensive, protective, like someone trying to argue with the universe itself.
"How could it have ever been you who was the problem? You were grieving, displaced, put into unfamiliar places again and again—and yet you're the one explaining yourself? You're the one carrying the guilt?" His hands clenched for a second in his lap, unclenching slowly as he let out a breath.
"No child should ever feel like they need to justify their pain. That they have to perform stability to be worthy of care. It's not your fault they didn’t know how to hold space for your grief. That doesn't make you a burden—it makes the world you were placed in unfair. Inhuman, even."
There was a long pause. The tension in his shoulders hadn't quite gone down, but his voice gentled again, that familiar soft tone of a man trained to speak with hurting people—but whose heart still gets ahead of him.
"...You didn’t make anyone suffer, Hamuko. People failed you. That’s not on you."
He smiled then, quietly with the slightest bit of sorrow.