[It surprises her and she can't quite bring herself to smile -- but at least her shoulders relax a bit, losing their tenseness. It's hard to address the fact that she can't be with Asch even now, but it's not something that she can really help. After all, she's been working so hard to be even more independent still....]

It's always painful to lose someone....

[In her case, it was painful enough to lose two someones at the same time. But she shakes her head slowly.]

But it's fine. I'm doing my best to keep my head held high about it. [She's not going to apologize really for being sad about it but rather--] I didn't mean to make the air so heavy....