Lifting his hand from her head, he lowers it to his side, fingers curled tight into a fist. He has a certain biased point of view, but he keeps those secrets close and closed away in his heart. Riku can't help but be reminded of when they were both still so new to this world, how she had clung to him and cried, scared he would leave and never return.

"Mary," Riku says, shaking his head, "That's awful."

He understands a little better now why she had been so afraid.

"Your brothers and sisters didn't miss your father? Not at all?"