77: Lifeless

"Raphael, can I ask you a question?" On the way to the temple, Azekiel asked, breaking the silence.

"Anything."

"If you were a boy who had a stepmother who hated you... And she sent you away from her, essentially abandoning you and making you leave your own home. Would you hate her?" Azekiel asked.

Throughout the way, he had been trying to make sense of the young spirit's actions, yet he couldn't come up with a logical conclusion. He wondered if Raphael could make some sense of it.

Raphael tried to imagine himself in the situation that Azekiel talked about. "Possibly. I can't say for sure since I'll have to be in that situation myself to know what I'll do, but most probably, I won't like her if she does that."

"What about you, Lia?"

"If my mother was like that, I'll surely hate her to my core. Fortunately, my mother was nothing like that."