At first, Kyle was speechless. Caught between conflicting emotions, the surprise that came with her reappearance mixed with the lingering frustration from still only moments ago as his painstaking attempts to remain invisible while standing by the door were mysteriously and continuously thwarted by several departing customers. To say that he hadn't been expecting this from her would be obvious, but the sheer depth of his surprise ran so deep he could neither explain it nor push it away. That feeling, at least, was familiar to him where Freya was concerned.
Happy birthday. Two words that in the grand scheme of things didn't amount to very much, and yet in the moment Kyle wasn't sure he wouldn't have preferred being stabbed between the ribs. That pain, at least, he could understand. But not this... ache, that had crept up on him like cold steel. Sharp, and heavy, sitting in the center of his chest like a weight he hadn't realized was there until two seconds ago.
Kyle didn't know why, but he immediately thought of his mother, and how different tomorrow might have been if she were still alive. Something Kyle hadn't known to not take for granted at the time until it was already too late, and by then, it was easier just to forget. To push it all down, bury it underneath the anger and thirst for revenge that he felt daily. Leave the past where it belonged, to wither away and die.
Disappointed in himself for the slip up, Kyle blinked, and the memory of his mother faded to be replaced with Freya smiling in front of him. An image that caused a different sort of emotion to stir in his chest, even with the lingering confusion of her gesture. Something much closer to the heat of a thousand suns. Swallowing, Kyle aggressively forced those things down and back where they belonged too, out of sight and out of mind. Especially out of mind, since he couldn't trust his around her.
For a pause, Kyle was unsure of what to say, gaze moving from her face down to the book in her hands that she held out to him. Then, after eying it skeptically for another moment like it might blow up, he seemed to snap out of it enough to do something other than stare stupidly at the gift. Because that's what it was, a gift. How very strange.
Reaching out slowly, almost hesitantly, Kyle took hold of the book and their fingers brushed against each other as he asserted his grip on it. Almost too aware of this fact, Kyle raised his eyes to meet hers and finally spoke. "Thank you," he managed, thinking to himself that no one had given him a birthday present, much less a book as a gift, in a long time. He might have said so, but something told him she already knew.
His chest feeling oddly tight, Kyle continued to look at her, dark brown eyes searching Freya's light green ones. Powerful light, powerful dark. He stared as if he could somehow figure out the mystery behind her actions if he just simply stared at her for long enough.
Freya's choice of gift interested him more than he would admit. Wondering to himself why she had chosen this of any book in the place for him was intriguing in ways that had nothing to do with their training and everything to do with how she saw him, if this is the gift she'd chosen. Dragging his eyes away from her to glance at the cover again, the corner of his mouth twitched in an attempt for reserved though his demeanor was far from the usual formal. "... I don't have anything for you."