Most of the quarter had succumbed to darkness, save for a stubborn pnpircks of yellow light persisting in the hallway. The hum of the generator could be heard, a low, constant vibration, like breathing of a mechanical beast that refused to sleep.
The Major stepped out of the briefing hall, just across Delta’s personal lounge. The cool air hitting their face. A sheaf of unread intelligence reports sat heavy in their hand, but their mind had long since reached its saturation point. Their boots moved on autopilot, carrying them down the large, yet narrow hall of the Almayer’s walkway.
As they neared the lounge of Delta just as they opened the airlock, a spill of tungsten light caught their eye.
The desk lamp was still on.
Major paused. The shutter of the lounge wasn’t closed, framing a view of the desk inside. They had no intention of prying, yet from where they stood, the scene demanded their attention.
Sergeant Kaito was sitting there.
The rough desk before him was a chaotic landscape of military stationary. Crisp paper and standard-issue envelopes. Names were already inscribed on several of them. Major recognized the formatting instantly, a cold knot forming in their stomach.
Notification of Casualty letters.
Kaito sat with his spine curved slightly beneath the harsh cone of the desk lamp, the pen in his hand moving with deliberate slowness across the page. He paused, reviewing his last sentence, his hand hovering but never leaving the paper.
Then, the Major saw it.
A tear detached itself from Kaito’s red eyes.
Not a stray drop. It was steady, silent stream.
The stillness of the Sergeant’s face struck the Major. There was no contortion of grief, no trembling chin, no scrunching of the eyes to hold it back. His expression remained terrifiyingly blank, possessed of a hollow calm, like a man simply filling a requisition form.
But the tears, they fell relentlessly.
One silver line, then another. They tracked down his cheeks, gathered at his bearded jawline, and dripped onto the paper below.
Kaito didn’t lift a hand to wipe them away. He didn’t sniffle. He simply blinked once … and continued writing.
Then … a heavy drop landed squarely on the drying ink. The black script bloomed outward, a small, dark nebula marring the white page.
Kaito stopped writing.
He stared at the smudge. For a few seconds, he was motionless, just watching the ruin of his work. Then, he inhaled deeply through his nose. A sound so faint, it was barely a whisper.
He pulled the ruined sheet away.
He reached for a fresh piece of paper.
And he began again from the very first line.
The tears were still falling. If anything, they were heavier now. Yet his face remained an immovable mask. It was the look of a man who had become so accustomed to holding the world together that his body could no longer knew how to stop weeping, even as his ind refused to acknowledge it.
Standing in the hallway, the Major realized they was holding their breath.
They had seen marines cry before.They had seen them break in the mud of the battlefield, in the blood-slicked chaos of the triage tents, kneeling beside friends who would never wake up. Those tears were usually loud. Messy. Primal screams of anguish.
This was different.
This was silent.
Too silent.
Kaito finished another paraghrap. Another drop threatened the paper. He blinked rapidly, staring at the script, then carefully navigated his pen to rewrite the final sentence, weaving the letters around the damp spot so the satin wouldn’t be too obvious.
On the desk, the list of names waited.
There were so many.
The Major recognized some from the morning briefing. Hours ago, they had been statistics. Numbers in a casualty assesment. Now, under Kaito;s pen, they were being transmuted into heartbreak for families sleeping far, far away across the galaxy.
Kaito folded the finished letter. His movements were precise, reverent, as if the paper itself were made of glass. He slid it into the envelope and addressed it with the same unwavering, beautiful penmanship.
The tears continued. Unchecked. Unwiped. Simply allowed to exist.
The moment the envelope was set aside, he reached for the next blank sheet. There was no pause. No moment to breathe. It was as if he knew that if he stopped, even for a heartbeat, the dam would break completely.
The Major stood in the shadow far longer than they had intended. The files in their hand were forgotten; they was no longer thinking about supplu lines, or operation maps, or the strategy of victory.
Their world had narrowed to that small desk, and the Sergeant who wrote death warrants with a stone face while crying a river of silent rain.
Finally, the Major moved.
They didn’t enter. They didn’t even speak. They couldn’t bear to witnessed in this private purgatory.
Instead, as they passed, they gently pushed themselve away from the Delta’s lounge shutter window. And then walked away into the dark corridor. Behind them, the pool of light remained. And the scrathing of Kaito’s pen continued.
“One letter more.”
Then another.