It took him about a minute to work out what she'd actually said.
"And I'm sorry… About Ukai. About all of it, the way I did it — you didn't deserve that."
Raizen sat down on the stool, working backwards through that sentence twice, because the first time he didn't really understand what she meant. It only later clicked – she meant the rejection.
She was still thinking about it. On a bench in Ukai, badly, in a few yet sincere words, with her hands shaking.
And he turned her down, with just as much honesty…
Kindly. Carefully. He'd been so careful about it that he'd been almost quietly proud of himself afterwards. He had spent the flight home not thinking about it at all because there had been Eiden's notes to think about. She, on the other hand, had gone through the rest of the trip with his head on her shoulder.
