"One day, like any ordinary day, I noticed Yuuta's eyes were darker than usual." Fiona's voice had dropped to a near whisper, as if the memory itself demanded reverence.
"Not the glowing red that frightened the other children. Dark. Hollow. As if he had not slept in days."
Erza sat motionless, her violet eyes fixed on Fiona's face, her hands still in her lap.
The evening light continued to fade around them, the shadows pooling at their feet like dark water, but she did not notice.
She was listening, truly listening, for the first time.
"The first day, I didn't see anything unusual," Fiona continued. "People have bad nights. I assumed he had stayed up too late or had trouble falling asleep. But the darkness in his eyes did not fade. It grew worse. The second day, I saw him exhausted, slumped over his desk, his head barely lifted, his hands trembling when he tried to write. I almost asked him what was wrong. But I didn't."
Her jaw tightened.
