The Burning Letter

POV: Author

It arrived on a Tuesday.

Creased in a small, cream-colored envelope with no indication of who'd sent it. The handwriting on the outside had been agonizingly familiar—stiffed lines, crushed down too aggressively, as though the ink had been hammered into the paper.

Haruka held the envelope, both of her hands cradling it, at the apartment door. Her name was written on it in careful script. Too careful. As if emotion had been squeezed from each curve of the letters.

Kaito noticed she didn't answer. "You okay?"

She didn't reply. Simply walked in, closed the door behind her, and sat on the floor with the envelope resting in her lap. It felt heavier than it looked.

Kaito sat nearby, at arm's length but not budging.

Haruka tore it open after a long silence.

A single sheet of paper inside.

No greeting. No love.

You have one week to come home. Otherwise, all rights to your inheritance are forfeit.

—Father

That was all.

No "how are you."

No "we miss you."

Just a cold blade, slipped between the ribs.

She read it again.

And again.

The words didn't change, but something inside her did.

Her fingers trembled initially. Her eyes lost focus. The world was spinning on its side. She felt the reassuring grip of panic enveloping her lungs—frosty, ethereal fingers around her chest.

Kaito grasped her hand. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She shook her head. She was not ready yet.

She refolded the letter. Not to guard it, but to guard herself against screaming.

That night, the city was wrapped in a blanket of low-hanging clouds. The rain tapped softly against the windows, and the sound of the TV from the next unit buzzed like white noise.

Haruka sat cross-legged on the floor, the only light from a solitary tea candle beside her. The letter lay beside it, creased and rumpled.

Kaito was doing the rest of the dishes, glancing up every now and again, not pushing her to speak.

"I thought I had to earn love," Haruka murmured out of nowhere, her voice little more than that of the burning candle. "By listening. By being perfect. By giving in."

She glared at the letter. "But this isn't love. This is control."

Kaito dried his palms and approached, kneeling down next to her. "You owe them no longer your silence."

She took hold of the letter in both palms. Her palms were steady now.

"I've had enough letting them dictate to me what I deserve."

And with that, she held the edge of the letter over the flame.

It burned quickly. Black roll, then orange. Paper folding in on itself as if exhaling its first deep breath in decades. She sat and watched it burn—slow, deliberate. The ink first, then the rest.

The ash rose, danced for a moment before disappearing.

Haruka did not blink.

They opened the window afterwards, letting the smoke pour out into the Tokyo night.

Kaito didn't say anything, didn't try to assuage her with platitudes. He simply sat beside her, shoulder to shoulder, holding her steady.

"It's not about money," she said at some point. "I don't even want it."

"I know."

"It's the way he did use it. Like a leash."

"You cut it off."

Haruka gazed up at him. "Why does it still hurt?"

"Because even poison takes time to get out of the body."

Later that night, they sat on their futon with the blankets pulled up to their chins, the candle now a stub.

Haruka leaned her head on Kaito's shoulder.

"Do you think… I'm selfish?"

Kaito moved his head a fraction. "For choosing your own peace?"

"For leaving family behind."

He was quiet for a moment. Then:

"I think you chose yourself finally. And that's not selfish. That's living."

Haruka's eyes fluttered closed.

For the first time in her life, living did not feel like a desperate clawing through darkness.

It felt like a quiet room, a crackling fire, and a person who stayed through the silence.

The day after, the world kept on turning. Orders kept on coming. Dough kept on rising. Life, as it always does, went on.

But something was different.

Haruka walked a little taller.

She smiled a little more freely.

And even if the wind still knocked on loose windows, she no longer opened the door simply because it kept insisting on being opened.