Chapter 19: The Night He Never Spoke Of
Elvaria's twilight was soft, but Riven's heart was not.
The silver light over the hills reminded him of a different night—colder, darker, and irreversible. A memory from Tokyo he buried deep, yet it still found its way back in his quietest moments.
Not long after Yui left him, Riven (then Haruto) fell silent. His appetite vanished. He barely made it to class. His chest felt hollow, and every heartbeat throbbed like a bruise.
He had loved her, and she left.
But it wasn't just the pain of heartbreak that followed—it was what came next.
---
It started with loneliness.
He was staying at his father's apartment that winter. His parents had divorced years before, and his father had since remarried a woman named Akari—kind, polite, distant.
Her daughter—Mika—was 25.
Riven was 19.
She was confident, aloof, always on her phone or disappearing late at night. Riven thought she barely noticed him. Until the night she did.
---
It was just after midnight.
Riven got up to get water. He passed the living room and stopped.
Mika was sitting alone, one leg folded beneath her, watching something on her laptop. She didn't flinch when he walked past—didn't even pause.
But when he turned to go back to his room, her voice cut through the silence.
> "Hey."
He turned.
> "You still thinking about that girl?" she asked, eyes still on the screen.
He said nothing.
She looked up. Her eyes were sharp, unreadable.
> "Girls are like that. They love you until they don't. Learn to stop caring."
He didn't know what to say. Her tone was dry, a little cruel.
Then she stood and walked toward him.
> "You look lonely," she said.
Her words weren't kind. They were something else.
> "Come. Sit."
He obeyed—numb, unsure why.
Mika sat beside him on the couch. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt, nothing underneath. Her bare thighs brushed against his. She leaned in, the scent of wine on her breath, and stared at him for a long moment.
> "You're not a kid. You want to feel better?"
He opened his mouth, but no words came.
She kissed him.
---
It wasn't love. It wasn't warmth.
She kissed him hard, deep, pulling him onto her. Her fingers slid under his shirt, then down his pants. He gasped, his body reacting before his mind could catch up.
He didn't want it like this.
Not with her. Not like this.
But he didn't stop it.
> "That's it," Mika whispered, straddling him. "Just feel something again."
She undressed him roughly, tugging at his clothes, throwing them to the floor. Then her shirt came off—revealing soft, full breasts, her body warm and pressed against his.
He was fully erect. And ashamed of it.
Still, she guided him inside her.
It was raw, unfeeling. Her hips moved with practiced rhythm. She moaned quietly, but her eyes stayed open, watching him—not tender, not affectionate, just there.
He lay beneath her, body shaking, heart racing.
He wanted to cry.
But she was relentless.
She rode him harder, hands on his chest, sweat between them. Her wetness soaked his thighs. His hands gripped the couch cushion, not her.
When he came, he closed his eyes—ashamed of how good it felt. Ashamed that he hadn't stopped her.
She collapsed on him briefly, panting. Then stood, picked up her clothes, and left without a word.
---
Riven stayed on the couch, naked, cold, and hollow.
He couldn't explain it.
It hadn't been rape. But it hadn't been consent in the full sense either.
He felt… used. Weak. Filthy.
> "Why didn't I say no?"
"Why did I let it happen?"
"Why did I enjoy it?"
The questions twisted in him like knives.
---
Back in Elvaria, Riven gripped the grass beneath his fingers. His breath trembled.
He had carried that night with him across lifetimes.
Not because of the sex.
But because it reminded him how easily love could turn into something else—how fragile the line was between need and harm.
He had learned, far too young, that not every touch healed.
Some left scars that never faded.