Banished Divinity: Learning to be Human

I entered the director's office. Mum and Dad were there seated. Mum gestured me to sit in between them.

Across from us were the parents of the five girls—furious, confused, demanding answers. And in the corner, wrapped in an expensive coat that she was using like a shield, was Yuna.

The director was a small man with large glasses and the kind of face that had seen too many parent meetings to be surprised by anything anymore. He looked at the group of us. He looked at the parents. He looked at me.

"Let me understand this," he said. "These five young women are telling me that Sera—alone, without assistance, without weapons—attacked them and demanded money?"

The parents nodded vigorously. Yuna's mother clutched her daughter's arm. Yuna herself was staring at the floor.

"And you," the director said, turning to me, "are telling me that they attacked you first?"

"Yes," I said.

"And you defended yourself."

"Yes."

The director sighed. He took off his glasses. He polished them. He put them back on. "Five of you," he said, looking at Yuna's group. "Five of you are telling me that this one young woman—who is significantly smaller than all of you, I might add—beat you up. Alone."

Silence.

"Five of you," he repeated, "against one. And you lost."

One of the girls shifted in her seat. Her mother shushed her. The director's eyes were very sharp behind his glasses.

"She bullied us," Yuna said. Her voice was small. "She demanded money. She—"

"Enough."

Everyone turned. Yuna's father had stood up. He was a tall man, broad-shouldered, with the kind of face that looked like it had been carved from stone and left out in the weather. His hands were clenched at his sides. His jaw was tight.

"Father—" Yuna started.

He moved.

It was fast. Faster than I expected. His hand came up, and before anyone could react, it connected with Yuna's cheek. The sound of the slap echoed off the walls like a gunshot.

Yuna's mother gasped. The other parents froze. Yuna herself stumbled back, her hand pressed to her face, her eyes wide with shock.

"Shut up," her father said. His voice was low. Controlled. The voice of a man who had spent a lifetime learning to contain something that wanted very badly to escape. "Shut up, and do not speak again."

The room was silent.

Yuna's father turned to the director. He bowed. It was a deep bow, formal, the kind of bow that acknowledged a debt that could never be repaid.

"I apologize," he said. "For my daughter. For her actions. For the lies she has told in this room." He straightened. His face was grey. "It seems my daughter has been... protected. For too long. She has been allowed to believe that her actions have no consequences. That the people she hurts are less important than her own desires." He looked at Yuna. She was crying now, silent tears streaming down her face, her hand still pressed to her cheek. "She made a mistake. She hurt people. And in the end, she chose the wrong person to hurt."

He turned to Mum and Dad. He bowed again.

"I am sorry. My daughter's actions have caused your daughter pain. There is no excuse for it. There is no justification. And I will not offer either." He straightened. "I will withdraw my daughter from this university. I will send her away—to live with my sister, in the countryside. She will learn what it means to be responsible for herself. She will learn that the world does not revolve around her wants. And she will learn—" He paused. His voice cracked, just slightly. "—she will learn that her father loves her enough to do what is necessary, even when it hurts."

Yuna's mother stood. "You can't—she's our daughter—she's twenty-two years old—"

"She is twenty-two years old," her father said. "She is old enough to know better. And she is old enough to face the consequences of her choices." He looked at Yuna. "She will not become a person who hurts others and feels nothing. I will not allow it."

The room was very quiet.

One by one, the other parents stood. They apologized. They made promises. They looked at their daughters with expressions that were somewhere between fury and despair. The director listened. He nodded. He made notes on a pad of paper that he would probably keep in a drawer somewhere, a record of a day that no one in this room would forget.

And through it all, Yuna stood in the corner, her hand on her face, her tears falling, her world crumbling around her in ways she had never imagined possible.