[His eyes fluttering open as his steely gaze only lands on her for a short moment before shifting away. Just enough time to take in the obvious anguish she felt as the admissions fell from her lips.
Gaze locking unseeing on a portion of the stable wall, he just listened to her words as nausea settled in his stomach. The tips of his fingers found a single piece of hay, pulling it out in front of him to absentmindedly fidget with it between his thumb and forefinger. He didn't ever look at it. Never looked at her. Only listens as his heart threatens to crush from the weight of her words.
Silence flows between them as he attempts to absorb the truth of what she'd wanted to tell him. Long moments pass without him moving a single muscle except for the way his fingers roll the hay between them in a rhythm as a million questions and comments slip into his thoughts.
If he felt she was capable of doing so, he'd ask her to leave. To give him the space and time to process everything before having to respond. His emotions riot through him in torrents, trying to dissect and understand everything at once. It's an impossible achievement for even someone as intelligent as Zero. Pain stabbing his heart, anger churning in his stomach, his fingers crush the hay in his hand as he tries to quell the shaking that had begun to affect them.
Where could he even begin to react?
Minutes pass in silence before he finally speaks, still refusing to take his eyes off the knot in the wood he'd kept his gaze directed on this whole time.]
You walked away.
[That's the only thing he can manage at first. The only thing he can respond to, the only part of this entire thing that he can find words to grasp onto and actually voice.]
I didn't go anywhere. I still attended the Academy.
It was a choice you made, placing me in the list of things you've lost isn't fair.
I made a lot of mistakes, but I wasn't the one that walked away.