[She visibly winces. All of this is something that she very much still needs time to come to terms with herself, even though it's been so many months, so Ragna's less than delicate dive into the topic is poking at some wounds she hadn't wanted to acknowledge.

There's a part of her that feels defensive on Minato's half as well, instinctive and fierce because she loves him and dislikes anyone speaking ill of him and this is his story, besides, something private and not to be spoken of so freely-- but she very firmly pushes that down. Her friends have told her many times over that Minato has done some horrible, emotionally scarring things, and that she can't try to protect him from the consequences of them. Especially when the consequences have to do with her own mental health. Acknowledging his mistakes is important, even if it feels like she's talking badly about him.]

He felt like a burden to our grandparents. [A sigh.] After our parents died, we were split up, since none of our relatives could afford to take in two kids at the same time. Minato went to Jiichan and Baachan, but he was apparently constantly in the hospital due to lung complications after the car crash. [Yeah, the baby Arisato twins had been in the car, too.] I guess he got it into his head that they were better off without him. He stopped writing letters to me just before I got into high school, and I found out later that he'd left home to basically strike it out on his own. That's how we lost touch.