Hello. It's been FOREVER.

This scene is set right after chapter 70.

"We need to talk."

The hardness in her voice sent a chill up his spine, but he nodded meekly, casting a cautious glance at his male coworker who merely shrugged in reply, before he followed her into the staff room.

He'd been expecting this. He knew from the moment his plane touched down on Japanese terrain that he was in for a far less welcoming homecoming, maybe even a couple of insults and a good whipping to boot. But nothing else seemed to frighten him more than the prospect of being alone in a room with his teenage daughter, and one who would have liked nothing more than to see through his permanent removal from the café.

He watched as she settled herself against a wall in the far corner of the room, eyes closed, arms crossed, the white fluorescence washing over her thin, pale frame. She had grown so much, he thought. She was not the same little girl – his little girl – that he knew when he had left his home many, many moons ago. Her face was not as he recalled, the childish features giving way to a mature sort of elegance, though they took on a hard edge. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in black, jagged tendrils, and her forehead glistened from the slight sheen of sweat. A flicker of movement caught his gaze, and he watched as her lips formed something of a frown, but not quite.

Something wrenched in his gut.

She looked so much like Minako.

"You wanted to talk?" He said, breaking the silence when she had remained still for a couple of minutes, and he nearly jumped as her eyes snapped open, revealing a flash of brown. She narrowed them in a glare.

"Just so you know, I don't appreciate you barging back into my life without so much of a proper hello." He winced at her sharp tone and started to speak, but she held up her hand and cut him off. "Save your breath. I probably wouldn't have had any of it anyway."

Again, he flinched; her words were like a sharp blow to his stomach, and he found himself swaying a bit on his spot, the air knocked out of his lungs.

"I have one question though." Since it was barely a whisper, he almost made the mistake of asking her to repeat herself, and he looked up to see that she had traversed halfway across the room and now raised an eyebrow at him expectantly.

He nodded his consent; he didn't trust his voice at the moment, for it could betray his desperation for acceptance, for forgiveness.

Her brow notched up higher on her forehead before she uttered, "Why?"

Why?

He knew exactly what she had meant by that one little word. Her body trembled, and her eyes raged, the tumult of questions in them piercing his chest like a glowing blade of ice and fire. Why, father? Why did you choose to leave home to chase an idiot of a man whose debts became yours, and inadvertently, your family's burden? Why did you choose to wander throughout the world to redeem another man's honor, only to lose your own in this blind pursuit? Why did you abandon your wife, who loved you more than anything in the world and got her heart broken as recompense? Why did you abandon your children, they who grew up believing in the countless lies that their mother had told them about their father, that he was a good-for-nothing slob of a man who lived only to drink and gamble his days away? But most of all, why did you come back, after all these years? Why now, just when your shadow of a family was finally starting to put the pieces back together? Why?

He paused to steady himself. Yes, Sakkun, he thought, why?

He was never a man of words. Sakuya would usually let his actions do the talking, throwing caution to the wind and allowing his headstrong determination to carry him through, but it seemed that Misaki would have hit him upside the head or worse if he even so much as attempted to do so.

Instead, he looked around the room and, spotting a chair nearby, settled down into it before motioning to the chair opposite him. She bristled, but remained rooted to the spot, and he had to suppress a chuckle. She was much like him too, if her stubbornness gave any indication.

"I'm sorry." He started lamely, and his eyes widened quickly at his mistake. Misaki opened her mouth to speak, but he added hastily, "Sorry, I know, I wasn't answering your question." And he sighed, at a loss for words.

Twiddling with his thumbs, he sucked in a breath. "I… well, a few years ago, a good friend of mine had accumulated a huge de–"

"I know the story." Misaki snapped, but then bowed her head and nodded for him to continue.

"I see. Uh… Back then, I'd promised your mother that no matter what, I would return home, even if it… if I were too late." She stifled the urge to snort. Sakuya scratched his neck nervously. "Then I told her to tell you any story she could come up with, anything to keep you and your sister from asking for me when I was gone, knowing that you'd probably learn to hate me… as you do now."

Perhaps, it was just his imagination, but he thought he saw a flicker of something pass through Misaki's eyes at his words. His lungs constricted at the thought.

"Still, I promised her I'd return, and I did. I knew it'd be hard. But actually being here, now… I don't even know how to proceed. I guess I never really thought about what'd happen after I got back. Your mother probably saw this coming. She knows very well that I never seem to think things through. Don't know what she saw in me, really." He chuckled nervously at his attempt at a joke, but stopped and bit the inside of his cheek when he saw Misaki's hard face.

He swallowed the knot in his throat, and his hands itched for something to do as he stared sullenly at his feet. "I expected your reaction as much. But..." He looked to his daughter, who held his gaze, her eyes now void of emotion. He spoke again, his voice breaking mid-sentence. "It still hurts."

And then all of a sudden, a hand appeared out of nowhere and snatched his collar, pulling it upwards as his chair clattered to the ground. Misaki's eyes were feral, her dark irises flashing dangerously as a snarl rumbled at the back of her throat.

"You… how dare you?" She growled. "You have no right – no right to feel sorry for yourself. You abandoned us! Mom was absolutely lost without you. She didn't eat or sleep for days! And Suzuna? God, do you know how many times she'd ask for you, saying she missed your stupid beard and your cooking? And don't get me started on all the debts – your debts – that I had to pay off just so we could keep a roof under our heads!"

At this, she gave him a little shove, and he stumbled, nearly falling flat on his back. In the back of his mind, he thought he heard the door rattling and the concerned voices of the staff, but the noises dulled in comparison to the pounding of his heart. Pressure started to build up behind his eyes, and he could feel hot liquid welling up and spilling down his cheeks. He gave his face a quick swipe, sniffing as his vision blurred.

The girl prowled after him, roaring. "Do you honestly think you can waltz back in town and into my workplace and expect me to put up without a fight? You may have fooled the manager and everyone else, dad, but not me. Never again. You're allowed to work part-time here, but that is all. I suggest you hurry up your business here because there is nothing left for you to fix. And just so we're clear, dad," she spat, "you asked for this."

The man staggered forward, his knees giving way as he knelt before his daughter, hands splayed out in front of him to break his fall. Tears rained on the linoleum floor. Sakuya gasped for air.

For a painful while, nothing was said; Sakuya remained kneeling, breathing noisily through his mouth as his nose was clogged from crying, and a few hiccups escaped him here and there. The voices behind the door seemed to cease talking, though they knew that the others were still out there, silently waiting. The air seemed so thick, even Misaki found herself struggling to breathe normally.

When the eerie quiet that pervaded the room persisted, she huffed and was just about to turn her heel, when his voice came out in a raspy plea.

"Misaki…"

And there it was.

Misaki couldn't help it, but the wet sting of tears prickled her eyes, even as she refused to cry in front of the one man she had once trusted most.

Sakuya looked up then, the anguish clear in his eyes, and then an emotion of something else entirely – of desperation, or longing, maybe? – and for a second, Misaki wanted to drop all pretenses, to leap into his arms and move deeper within his safe embrace as she did when she was younger, to feel the arms of her father around her as she cried her troubles away. She never thought she'd live to see the day when she'd see her father – her real father – again, and in that infinitesimally short flicker of a second, he was there.

But barely just.

"Look…" She started, and then sighed, looking up at the ceiling as she did so. "I don't think things will ever be the same again. It was difficult without you, but we managed. For now, let's just… stay that way. You're my co-worker now, even if you're not a full-timer here, but the manager would have my head if I don't treat you with the kind of respect she expects of an employee to one's colleagues."

A glimmer of hope lit up his face, but faded away immediately at the blank expression on hers. Gathering his composure, he responded with a slight incline of his head, and pushed his hands off the floor until he was sitting on his haunches.

Misaki stared at him for a few more seconds, her eyes lingering on his before turning away from the man, her movements clumsy and lethargic as she approached the door. And then she paused before it, nose twitching as it always did when she felt a familiar bolt of guilt jabbing at her chest. She pursed her lips in contemplation; she wanted to say something - anything to clear the air, and perhaps her conscience, but any words of compassion eluded her. Inwardly, she groaned and thought to herself, I guess that's a conversation for another time.

"Back to work." She said tersely, grasping the door knob and walking out to the kitchen.

He listened to the sound of her receding footsteps until he heard nothing more than the labor of his own breathing. He released a shaky breath.

"Everything all right in here, Sakkun?" Manager asked, her voice small as she poked her head through the door. Sakkun looked up at her, concern evident on her youthful face, and a slight but defeated smile graced his lips. Well, his daughter had agreed to be civil with him, didn't she? Seeing as she loathed his guts more than anything, Sakuya thought that that was enough for now – at least, it should have been – and yet he couldn't help the feeling of defeat that engulfed him as he slumped from his perch on his heels.

Forgiveness was obviously a farfetched idea at the moment, and he definitely had a long way to go.