Chapter Text
“Four hours.” I say it out loud as if to make time behave.
The second hand ticks, indifferent.
I start with the cake because it’s the only thing I can’t rush.
The sponge is cooling on the wire rack. I turn it. My fingers hover just above the surface. I feel the residual heat.
The kitchen smells like vanilla and sugar and the faint bitterness of dark chocolate ganache waiting in its glass bowl.
“Small cake,” I remind myself. “No leftovers. You hate leftovers.”
So this one is six inches. Two layers. Enough for two people with room for seconds.
I level the top with a serrated knife, rotating the sponge as I go. Fine crumbs dust the board. I want it to be perfect. Flat, even. Not because you’d complain. You never do about my cooking.
I set the first layer on the turntable and spoon ganache onto it. I spread it out to the edges. It’s glossy and soft and thick enough not to run. The motion is soothing: spread, rotate, scrape the offset spatula clean, repeat. The second layer goes on top, slightly off‑center. I nudge it until it’s right.
The frosting is light pink. I almost went with plain white, but you’d rolled your eyes at that last year — no, two years ago? three? — and said, “If you’re going to go through all the trouble, at least make it cute.”
Then you’d insisted on helping pipe tiny strawberries around the edge, even though your hand shook when you tried to control the pressure.
“Pink,” I say now. “Cute. Just like you.”
I whip the cream cheese frosting again, even though it doesn’t need it, just to feel the drag of the whisk. Then I slather it on, working quickly so it doesn’t warm too much under the lights. Crumbs try to escape into the frosting; I trap them, smooth them in, and cover the evidence.
By the time I’m tracing a simple border along the top edge, the clock has marched forward thirteen minutes.
You can leave right at six. Forty minutes on the train since it’s not rush hour, ten minutes to walk, fifteen if you buy something on the way — which you will — and that still leaves more than three whole hours before midnight.
More than enough to prove my devotion.
I pipe a small heart in the center of the cake. It comes out slightly lopsided. I fix it with a toothpick, nudging the curve into symmetry.
The room is very quiet.
I wash the piping bags, set the cake into the fridge, and open the next tab in my mental checklist.
Dinner.
Sakura shrimp aglio e olio, because you like the garlic but hate it when it lingers. A simple salad with cherry tomatoes you’ll stab one by one, complaining about their skin getting between your teeth. Chicken sautéed with lemon and capers, because you say it tastes like something from a restaurant but still somehow “home.”
I’ve marinated the chicken since morning. The meat is pale gold with lemon zest, a confetti of green herbs pressed into the surface. I pat each fillet dry and line them on a tray. The pan waits on the stove, heavy, black, oiled and ready.
I measure pasta portions for two. Exactly two. We don’t have a pasta measure, but my hands remember how the bundle looked when your palm once pressed over mine to pinch off just a little more.
“Don’t overdo it,” you’d scolded.
“You can take leftovers tomorrow,” I’d proposed.
“I won’t,” you’d answered. “If I eat your cooking at work, everyone will ask for some.”
I line the spaghetti in the jar like a bouquet. I count the portions out as I pluck strands. My fingers twitch to add a little more, because what if you’re hungrier than usual?
I don’t.
You always finish exactly what’s in front of you.
The champagne is chilling in a bucket I bought specifically because you complained that my “celebration aesthetic” was too much.
I set two flutes on the table. They’re thin, elegant. Expensive. You never let me use them.
I take them out now because you’re not here to complain.
Three hours and nineteen minutes.
Plenty of time.
I set the table: the good linen runner I’d bought on a whim, then immediately regretted because it required ironing. The plates with the blue rims. The little glass dish for lemon wedges shaped like a slice of citrus, tacky in a way that makes you delighted.
“You can’t only have tasteful things,” you’d declared when you first placed it on the table. “There has to be at least one ugly thing. For balance.”
Forks on the left, knives on the right, blades turned inward. I fold the napkins into simple rectangles; I can’t remember how to do the fancy fan I’d once learned from a YouTube video. Our chopsticks rest parallel above the plates, wooden ends aligned.
Two hours and forty‑seven minutes.
I could finish early, if I wanted. Have everything ready and waiting for when you —
My phone lies face down on the counter. The urge to flip it over tugs at me.
I dry my hands on a towel and pick it up. The lock screen glows with the time. No notifications. Of course there aren’t. I haven’t given the universe a reason to send me any.
I open our chat. The last message timestamp feels abstract.
The text box at the bottom is empty. Clean.
Happy birthday.
I hope you didn’t eat much today.
I made your favourite —
I delete the phantom words before they even reach my thumbs.
Happy birthday, Shiori. I—
The cursor blinks in the blank field like a tiny metronome. Tap. Tap. Tap. Keeping time with my hesitation.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard. Falls. Retreats.
Two hours and thirty‑nine minutes.
I lock the phone and set it down, face up this time. The empty screen reflects a warped version of my face.
“It’s fine,” I tell the apartment. “I still have time.”
I go back to cooking because chopping is easier than thinking.
Garlic first. I crush the cloves under the flat of my knife, peel them, slice them thin. The cutting board fills with pale moons that release their scent when I press them into a pile. Olive oil warms in the pan until it shimmers. When I slide the garlic in, it hisses, tiny bubbles celebrating around each piece.
Shrimp next. Tiny pink sakura shrimp I bought from an old man at the farmer’s market, because the supermarket version never tastes right. They hit the oil with a quiet crackle, curling more tightly as the heat kisses them.
I drop the pasta into boiling salted water. Steam fogs my glasses; I wipe them on the edge of my T‑shirt and remember you complaining that you couldn’t stand the idea of contact lenses touching my eyes.
“You’d look beautiful in glasses,” you’d said when I tried to mount an argument.
Just like that, all the fight in me was gone.
Two hours and twelve minutes.
The pasta water timer beeps. I drain it, toss the strands into the pan, coat them with oil, garlic, shrimp. The smell is like every late night we ever salvaged from overtime and trains that didn’t run on time. I plate two servings, twirling the noodles with tongs so they mound neatly in the center of each dish.
The chicken cooks next. It browns beautifully, the skin going crisp and golden. I deglaze the pan with white wine, then lemon juice. Capers tumble in, their brine cutting through the richness. When the sauce reduces to a glossy sheen, I spoon it over the chicken on the plates: one for me, one for you.
The salad is an afterthought. I halve cherry tomatoes so they don’t roll, slice cucumber into thin half‑moons, tear lettuce with my hands because knives bruise it. I sprinkle salt, pepper, a drizzle of dressing, and arrange everything loosely.
I carry the plates to the table. The sky outside the window has faded to deep blue. The city glows in patches.
One hour and fifty‑nine minutes.
“Perfect,” I tell the chair opposite mine. “Look, I actually timed it right for once.”
I sit.
You may be stuck at the office. Your boss may have made you stay. The train may have been delayed because someone dropped their phone on the tracks. You may have stopped to pick up something.
I pick up my chopsticks.
“Itadakimasu,” I say.
The word hangs there, weightless, waiting for its partner.
“You’re late,” I scold you. “Everything’s going to get cold.”
You appear in the doorway. Your bangs stick to your forehead, slightly damp from the mist outside.
You shrug off your bag, muttering about the weather app being a liar.
“The train stopped between stations for, like, twenty minutes,” you say, unlacing your shoes with clumsy fingers.
“You should have messaged me,” I reply.
“You would have just stressed out more.” You sit down across from me, eyes already on the food. “Wow. You really went all out, huh?”
“What, this?” I wave a hand like it’s nothing. “It’s just what I had lying around.”
“Liar,” you say, but your voice is soft. “You even used the ugly lemon dish.”
“It’s for balance,” I remind you. “You taught me that.”
You pout, “You didn’t have to do this. We’re not twenty anymore.”
“It’s your birthday,” I correct. “Highest of national holidays.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“I love you,” I answer. The words are too loud, even though I only whisper them.
You roll your eyes. “I know.”
“Stingy,” I tease.
You sigh like this is the biggest burden ever placed on you. “I love you too,” you concede. “There. Happy?”
My throat tightens. I take a bite of pasta to keep from answering, the garlic hot and sharp on my tongue.
The second bite is harder to swallow.
I force myself to eat.
I lift a bite of chicken, hold it up across the table. “Try this. The sauce turned out really good.”
On the other side, air stares back at me.
The fork hangs there too long before I lower it and put the chicken in my own mouth.
I can’t keep playing. The illusion has seams, and they’re all starting to show.
The opposite chair has a thin patina of dust on the backrest, because no one ever brushes past it anymore. Only one of the napkins bears the faint imprint of lips from my lipstick. The second glass of water remains perfectly full.
“You’re late,” I say again, but the joke has gone flat.
You’re not late.
You’re not coming.
You haven’t been coming.
This is the third time I’ve done this.
The first year, I told myself it was instinct. Habit. I’d just lost track of the days, and suddenly it was your birthday and my hands moved on their own.
I set the table for two. I waited until midnight. I kept telling myself every sound in the hallway was your footsteps.
The second year, I swore I wouldn’t.
I did anyway.
This time, I didn’t even bother pretending I’d resist.
The cake comes out of the fridge, its frosting perfectly set. The little heart is still slightly uneven if you look closely.
“Happy birthday,” I say, this time to no one in particular.
I cut two slices.
I set one on my side of the table and one on yours. I wait for you to complain about the size.
I taste the cake.
It’s sweet, dense, a little heavier than I planned. You would have said it was “too serious” and demanded ice cream to lighten it up. I eat both slices.
The champagne waits patiently in its bucket.
I hesitate, fingers on the neck of the bottle. The foil crinkles under my thumb.
“You’re not allowed to drink without me,” you’d declare whenever I reached for alcohol in the past. “You turn pink after half a glass and start seeing ghosts.”
“I do not.”
“You do. Last time you apologized to the rice cooker for ‘taking it for granted.’”
I smile despite myself.
You would not approve of the way the cork pops, loud and uncontrolled. A little foam spills over the lip; I catch it with my thumb, lick it off. It’s cold and sharp and bitter.
I pour.
Two glasses.
I shouldn’t. You’re not here to steal sips and pretend “I drank it too fast.”
Somewhere between the first birthday party for no one and the second, the champagne stopped being a treat and became an invitation.
I take a sip, then another. The bubbles prickle their way down my throat. Warmth crawls up the back of my throat.
Once, I only drank when you were around because I liked how you took care of me before I started slurring my words.
After you left, the rules dissolved.
At first, I didn’t drink at all. The thought of opening a bottle without you watching felt like sacrilege.
Then, one night — not your birthday, not any special day, just a Tuesday that refused to end — I found myself in front of the convenience store cooler, fingertips resting on a row of canned highballs.
“You always wanted to try the grape one,” I told the empty air. “But you said it looked too sweet.”
I bought it.
At home, I cracked it open, took a sip, scrunched my nose at the artificial flavour. It was awful.
That night, I dreamed of you sitting cross‑legged on the bed, hair mussed, scolding me for my bad taste.
“You should have gotten the lemon one,” you said in the dream, stealing the can from my hand. “Have some self‑respect.”
Your thigh pressed against mine, warm and solid.
I woke up aching, convinced, for a few disorienting seconds, that you were still there.
There was only empty space and the stickiness of spilled alcohol.
After that, it was easy to draw the line in my mind: drink, and see you.
Not right away. Not every time.
The dreams started small.
You at the kitchen counter, flicking through my phone and tutting at my search history.
You perched on the arm of the sofa, throwing popcorn at the TV when a character made a decision you hated.
You leaning over my shoulder, telling me my emails sounded too stiff. “Write like a human,” dream‑you scolded, tapping the screen.
Then they shifted.
“Do you think this is healthy?” you asked once, in a dream where we sat across from each other at this very table. “Using me like… this.”
“Using you?” I echoed, hurt blooming in my chest. “You’re mine.”
Your eyes had softened in that dangerous way. “You’re not supposed to drink alone, remember?”
“You left,” I reminded you, voice cracking.
Your gaze had dropped. You didn’t deny it.
Later, the dreams grew heavier, sticky with a different kind of longing.
Sometimes you pushed me back against the mattress, palms pressing my wrists into the sheets with more force than you ever used in waking life. You took me apart with slow hands, murmuring reassurances whenever I flinched.
Sometimes I climbed into your lap, clutching your shoulders, our foreheads knocking together as we laughed into each other’s mouths. I took you, selfish and desperate, chasing the illusion that if I held you tightly enough here, you couldn’t slip away when I woke up.
I always woke up alone. Drowning in sweat and cum and the fog inside my head.
The champagne glass in my hand is half empty.
My cheeks are warm. The room has softened at the edges.
I set the glass down before I drain it in one go and do something pathetic, like bringing the bottle to bed.
My phone is still on the counter where I left it. I pick it up without really deciding to.
Our chat is still open. The blank text box still waits.
My fingers move before my brain can stop them.
I’m lonely.
I stare at the words.
They sit there, jagged and exposed. Too raw to send. Too true to delete.
My thumb hovers over the paper airplane icon. The outline glows faintly blue.
If I press it, the message will shoot off into whatever corner of your life you occupy now. Your train home. The living room of the family house. A hotel room somewhere between.
Maybe your screen will light up. Maybe you'll see my name and let it go dark. Maybe you’ll turn the phone over, face down, and pretend you didn’t notice.
The thought of that small, imaginary, private dismissal hurts more than the silence I already have.
I lock the phone.
The words remain, trapped in digital amber, unsent and unsilenced.
“I’m lonely,” I repeat, this time to the room.
The room, helpfully, stays quiet.
The champagne has loosened a knot in my chest.
My mind drifts where it always does when I’m drunk and tired and trying not to think.
Backwards.
To the point where backward and forward stopped looking different.
It started out cute, how we built our lives around each other.
If I had a client meeting, you blocked the same slot in your calendar so you could be on standby in case I needed someone to scream into.
If you had a pitch, I rearranged my whole day without thinking, so I could hear how things went before your colleagues did.
If they booked you, they were quietly booking me too.
It was fine until it wasn’t.
Until the day I stayed on a call with you all the way from Narita to Osaka because you had to fly out for a two‑day workshop and the idea of you sleeping in a business hotel without me made my chest feel wrong.
We turned work trips into logistics puzzles: red‑eye flights back, night buses instead of hotel stays, taking half a day off to meet at the station at 3 a.m. with a change of clothes so that technically we had still “slept together” that night.
We maintained our zero‑nights‑apart streak like it was a badge of honour and not a giant red flag.
Everyone else saw it long before we did.
You once came home from one of your “I’ll just stay for dinner and be back by last train” visits to Maika’s.
You moved like you’d lost a fight with a sofa.
When I finally bullied the story out of you, it was mostly fragments: Maika’s guest futon already laid out. Maika telling you, for the third time, to just sleep over. You, for the third time, insisting you had to go home because I’d be alone.
At some point, even saintly Maika apparently snapped and said something along the lines of, “You know she can survive one night without you, right?” and stomped off to smoke on the balcony.
I never knew she smoked.
“She doesn’t…” you’d said. “She tried it once before, I think, but that’s it.”
And then there was Mio’s take on a similar debacle. I didn’t have to imagine, I was there for that one.
Her wedding was western‑style, white aisle and fake rose petals and a DJ who kept forgetting we’d asked for city pop, not ballads.
I was in a dress I’d let her choose because “you’re my maid of honor, at least pretend to let me have a say,” holding a bouquet that made my hand cramp.
My eyes, which were supposed to be on Mio at all times, kept seeking you during the reception — once during the speeches, once during the first dance, once while we were lining up for photos.
Each time, I glanced, saw you, felt a jolt of panic at other people surrounding you and how uncomfortable you’d be, and half‑stepped away from whatever moment was supposed to be about Mio.
At the third flinch, she caught my eye. The look she gave me wasn’t angry. Just… tired.
When we finally had a quiet minute in the dressing room, her veil skewed and her lipstick half gone, she said, “She’s okay. You can give me today.”
There wasn’t much to argue with there.
A few months later, on an ordinary evening that had nothing to recommend it except that all four of us were miraculously free at the same time, the chatter about work and clients and terrible dates thinned out.
A silence landed with a weight to it. When I looked up, Mio and Maika were trading one of those loaded glances people do when they’ve practiced this conversation without you.
Mio cleared her throat. “So,” she said, in the voice she used when easing into bad news on a call. “Have you two… talked to anyone?”
You frowned. “We talk to lots of people. My entire job is—”
“Not like that,” Maika cut in, more gently than her words. “I mean. Someone whose job isn’t to love you.”
I laughed, because that was the reflex. She didn’t.
“We’re fine,” I said too fast.
“Sure,” Mio said, and there was nothing sarcastic about it, which made it worse. “It’s just… it might help. Having a place that’s not this table for the heavy stuff. For both of you. Together, or not together, whatever they’ll let you do.”
Nobody used the word “therapy.” Nobody said “codependent” or “unhealthy” or “joined at the hip.” They didn’t have to.
You picked at the label of your beer can. I rearranged an already‑straight pile of receipts on the table.
“Just think about it,” Maika said eventually. “You don’t have to prove anything to us. We already know you’re… whatever this is.” She made a small, helpless gesture that somehow encompassed the apartment.
Later, when we were in bed and the lights were off, you muttered into my shoulder, “You know they’re right.”
But for all the ways we were tangled up, there was still a strip of land neither of us stepped on.
I didn’t ask about your parents much, because the second I did, you’d be entitled to ask about mine. It was like handing you a box even I refused to open.
You knew things were bad on my side — enough offhand comments, enough cancelled trips home, enough tense phone calls — but you never pressed.
Extended family stayed a weird neutral zone. It wasn’t a rule we agreed on, just a shared instinct: we could share deadlines and debt and insomnia and even toothbrushes, but parents lived behind their own line, and neither of us dared to cross it.
That held until your phone rang that day.
I remember exactly how it sounded, which is stupid, because it was just your normal ringtone. I was in the kitchen. You were in the living room. You glanced at the screen, frowned, and answered.
You didn’t say hello. Just “This is her,” and then listened.
I wiped my hands and leaned in the doorway. You were sitting on the floor, one knee up. Whatever they were saying hollowed you out. Your face went blank.
“Shiori?” I said.
Nothing.
Thirty seconds stretched into a minute, into five. The call ended at some point — you lowered the phone, and let the screen go dark.
You didn’t speak. You just stared at the floor.
“Hey,” I tried, crossing the room. “What’s wrong?”
No answer.
I’m not proud of what I did next, but I’d do it again: I pried the phone out of your hand.
The call log showed an unknown number and the kanji for a hospital back home.
I hit redial. Got bounced around reception, the switchboard, some recorded menu where every option felt wrong. “Who called from this number just now?” I kept asking, and all I got was, “Do you have the patient’s name?”
“My father is dead,” you said. You’d been silent so long the sound of your voice shocked me more than the words. “He was alone in his house for three days before they found him.”
Those were the last full sentences you managed for a while.
Everything after that came in pieces. Me putting your shoes on. Me explaining at the hospital desk that yes, you were the daughter, no, you were not in a state to fill out forms, please just tell us where to go. Me spelling your name, our address, your phone number, mine. Me standing in a sterile room that smelled like antiseptic and old air while you stared at a sheet until the nurse pulled it back.
You didn’t cry then either. You just… folded in on yourself a little more.
Grief, it turned out, was ninety percent paperwork. There were forms for everything: identification, release, cremation, the funeral home, the temple.
You were there for all of it, but you were operating on fumes. Someone had taken the Shiori I knew and left a very polite, very quiet decoy in her place.
Every time someone asked a question —“Who will be the contact person?” “Does he have any other children?” — you looked at me first, as if you were waiting for a cue.
I answered because someone had to. I signed what they shoved at us because no one questioned the woman with the steadier handwriting.
Except legally, I was no one. Not a spouse. Not family. Just “friend,” if anyone bothered to ask. I could stand beside you while you stared at urns. I could catch you when your knees buckled in the hallway outside the consultation room. But when it came to things like taking time off on your behalf, calling your company, explaining to HR why you weren’t coming in “for the foreseeable future,” I hit walls I couldn’t push through without outing you to people you weren’t ready to tell.
I lied through my teeth about “a family emergency” to my own boss because that was the only phrase that made people stop asking questions.
When you finally cried, it was three days in. No warning.
We were in the kitchen; you were holding a cup of tea you hadn’t drunk, staring out the window like you could see all the way back to whatever your father had done on his last normal morning.
The cup slipped. Didn’t fall — just tilted in your hand. Tea sloshed over the rim onto your fingers and that tiny shock was enough to tip something inside you.
You made a noise I’d never heard from you before and then you were shaking apart in front of the sink. No lead‑up, no graceful pre‑tears. Just full, ugly sobbing.
I caught you. Pressed your face into my shoulder. Let you soak my shirt through. I held you tightly, rocked you, even though every shudder felt like it might crack my collarbone. When you choked on air, I made you sip water.
There was nothing I could say that didn’t sound like a platitude, so I didn’t say anything. I just held you until your body ran out of tears and sank, exhausted, against mine.
“I never told him about us,” you said later that day. No lead‑in, no name. Just that.
“Shiori…” I started, then immediately hated how useless my voice sounded. “Maybe it’s… I mean, it might have been for the best.”
I remembered him as polite, distant, with a practicality that weighed heavier than anger or disappointment ever could. I also knew he mattered to you in ways you rarely articulated. In the way you’d say “my dad” with a strange mix of pride and exasperation. In the way your shoulders dropped every time he called, as if bracing for impact.
You shook your head once, “I’d like to think he would’ve been okay with it,” you went on, quieter. “Let me have that at least.”
There were a dozen things I could have argued — about reality, about odds, about all the fathers who weren’t okay with it — but you were looking at the blank TV like you could project a version of him that hadn’t already disappointed you.
So I swallowed all of it and just nodded. “Okay.”
The day of the funeral, the sky was a flat grey. Everything felt temporary.
We stood together outside the hall, you in a black dress with sleeves slightly too long, me fussing over your collar.
“You don’t have to come inside,” you had whispered. “It’s going to be depressing. And full of relatives who don’t understand boundaries.”
“I’m not here for them,” I’d replied.
You glanced at my face. “Okay. Stay close, then.”
I did. Through the cloying incense and the bows and condolences. Through the formal speeches. Through the murmured gossip in the corridors.
Then she arrived.
Your mother.
I knew her from photos, from the way your voice changed when you said “my mother” versus “my dad.” The former was a fact. The latter was the man who raised you, or at least had stayed in your life until the end.
She had slipped in late, hair tied back in a style a few years out of date, clutching a small bag to her chest.
When our eyes met across the room, I felt a jolt of narrative closing in. I felt your hand tighten on my sleeve.
“It’s fine,” I whispered. “You don’t have to—”
But your mother had already seen you.
“Shiori,” she said, breathless, like your name had been rustling in her mouth and finally broke free.
You stared at her.
My instinct was to step between you. To block. To shield.
Your fingers slipped from my sleeve. “Let’s go,” you murmured.
I didn’t know whether you meant away or toward until you moved.
You led us back where the smell of incense had thinned and the hum of voices blurred into white noise. Your mother followed, eyes fixed on your back like she might lose you if she blinked.
You stood in front of the low altar with your father’s photograph. The two of you were reflected faintly in the glass over his face; for a moment, you looked like a family portrait that once was.
“He was… a good man,” your mother said. “He tried.”
“You left,” you answered, matter‑of‑fact.
“Yes,” your mother said. Her voice didn’t wobble. “I did.”
You didn’t cry. You didn’t shout. You stood there, hands clenched at your sides.
I hovered by the doorway, unsure of what to do.
Then your mother turned to me. “And you are…?”
“Sendai Hazuki,” I supplied. “Her—”
“Friend,” you cut in. “She’s my friend. She came to help with the arrangements.”
The word punched the air out of my lungs.
Your mother’s gaze swept over me, my conservative black dress, my careful makeup, my polite posture. “Thank you,” she said. “For taking care of my daughter.”
I should have hated her for the audacity of claiming any ownership over you after abandoning you.
Instead, I hated myself. For how ready I was to accept “friend” as long as it came from your mouth.
“She doesn’t deserve to know,” you explained once she was out of earshot.
Two days later, when it was time to sort through your father’s things, we had a plan.
“I’ll stay with you,” I said. “I’m good at throwing things away, remember?”
You smiled weakly. “You cried when the rice cooker died.”
“It was a good rice cooker. It deserved respect.” I tried to make you laugh.
You obliged, but the sound came out thin.
At the house, boxes waited like accusations. The air smelled like dust and old cigarettes.
We were opening drawers and making piles when the doorbell rang.
Your mother again.
She stood on the threshold with a hesitant expression and a plastic bag full of bottled tea.
“I thought…” she began. “If you’re going through his things, I should be here. He was… someone I loved. Once.”
You looked at her for a long time. You could have said no. You could have said, “You left. You don’t get to do this part.”
You didn’t.
“Okay,” you said. “If you want.” You turned to me. “Hazuki. Maybe you should go home for today.”
The words hit me wrong. Like a note fallen just off the chord.
“I can help,” I protested. I’d been helping. Since the phone call. Since the hospital. Since the moment you forgot how to put sentences together. “I should be here.”
“I know,” you answered, and I knew you meant it. “But… we’re already… you know.”
I did know. Unfortunately.
We needed to prove we can do some things separately.
You needed space that wasn't immediately filled by me.
You needed to know I can exist with people who aren’t you.
Your mother’s vicinity is territory where I didn’t belong. At least, not yet.
“Hazuki,” you said, softer.
I could hear the strain. The part of you that didn’t actually want me gone.
So I swallowed down the petty, miffed part of me that wanted to say, “Oh, now it’s a problem that I’m here? Now that she is?” and nodded instead.
“Call me if you need anything,” I said, because I didn’t trust my mouth with anything more honest.
You nodded. “I will.”
Your mother stepped aside to let me pass, as if the threshold of that house was a border I wasn’t cleared to cross in the capacity I wanted.
That night was the first night we spent apart since your runaway episode at Maika’s.
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening for a key that never turned in the lock.
The apartment felt wrong, like a hotel room I’d accidentally rented under your name.
My phone stayed on my pillow, screen brightness turned up because I didn’t want to miss even the faintest glow.
You didn’t call until the morning.
A few days later, you mentioned “I had coffee with my mother.” Your eyes were on your phone. You were trying to sound casual.
I blinked. “Oh.”
“And my step‑sister,” you added, like an afterthought. “She’s in high school. She likes photography.”
“Mm.” I could feel my smile trying to curl the wrong way. I forced it back. “That’s… nice.”
“It was weird,” you admitted, finally glancing over. “But not… bad. She’s… trying.” You shrugged, a stiff, defensive little movement. “I thought maybe I should try too.”
Try. The word had been working overtime in our home for months.
Over the following weeks, I’d started receiving: “At my Mother’s. She invited me for dinner.” and “At my sister’s club exhibition. She asked if I could come.” and other similar texts.
They weren’t outrageous requests. They were normal. Reasonable. Healthy. The kind of things therapists put little ticks next to.
They still scraped something raw inside me every time.
One night, when you said you’d be staying over there — “just to help nee-chan with a project, it’ll be late, no point coming back” — something broke.
“We belong to each other,” I said.
The words had been camping at the back of my throat for months, building a little village out of swallowed arguments and half‑finished sentences.
You froze with your toothbrush in hand. “What?”
“We belong to each other,” I repeated, heart thudding. “You and me. So you should at least… ask. Before you stay over. Before you change your… our… plans.”
Your reflection in the mirror met my eyes, then slid away. Your toothbrush moved again, slow, mechanical. I watched the muscles in your jaw work instead of your expression.
That night, you crawled into bed without another word. You lay perfectly on your side, like there was a line down the middle. You didn’t reach for me. I didn’t dare reach for you.
In the morning, I hid in the kitchen with the coffee machine, and thought, “Okay. Line crossed. Congratulations, Hazuki. You finally said the thing out loud. Now you live with it.”
You came out. You stood on the other side of the counter. “What you said last night,” you began.
I stared at my mug. I gripped it tighter. “I know,” I said quickly. “I was… intense. Forget it. It’s fine. I just—”
“It’s not ‘fine,’” you cut in, too fast. You forced yourself to slow down. “You’re not wrong.”
That startled me enough to look up. You took a breath, eyes on the floor between us.
“You have a point. And pretending it’s normal is not helping.” Your mouth twisted. “I started it with you and my mother. So you get to be upset. That’s allowed.”
For a second, hope flared in my chest, ready to start clapping. Then you went on.
“But,” you said, and the word landed like a stone in my stomach, “you can’t be the only one who gets to say hard things.”
You finally looked up at me. You were about to say something you knew would hurt and were going to do it anyway.
“You need to fix things with your parents,” you said. “Before they pass away. And with your sister. Properly.”
I stared at you. “Shiori—”
“I know it’s hard,” you rushed in, like you could pad the landing. “I’m not saying you have to forgive everything or visit every weekend. I’m saying…” You exhaled, shoulders sagging. “I don’t want you to end up like me and my dad. Getting a phone call and realizing you ran out of time.”
I looked down at my coffee. The cream had finished its swirl and settled into a muddy brown.
I swallowed. My throat too tight for words, so I went for the smallest, most ridiculous ones. “Can I… get a cuddle first?”
Your mouth twitched. “Now?”
“We didn’t cuddle last night,” I said, trying for lightness and missing. “I think we’re owed damages.”
You rolled your eyes, but came to me anyway, opening your arms. I stepped into you, let you pull me in so my cheek was pressed against your T‑shirt, your chin resting on top of my head.
We ended up on the sofa under a blanket. You were very gentle with me, like every time you know you’ve just pressed on a bruise. You pressed soft pecks to my hairline, my temple, the corner of my mouth.
I kissed you back, slow, then a little harder, and the next thing I knew I’d said, “I can’t live without you,” against your lips.
You glared at me, then promptly started wailing on my head and shoulders with both hands. Not hard enough to hurt — just a flurry of muffled hits that had me throwing my arms over my head.
“Stop saying stupid things like this,” you scolded, landing another smack on my upper arm. “Idiot. Don’t joke about that.”
“I’m not joking,” I protested from behind my forearms.
“Exactly,” you snapped, then sighed and slumped forward, forehead thudding against my chest. Your arms slid around my waist. “That’s the problem.”
I had drifted from my parents precisely because their expectations were a noose.
Top university, I’d failed that entrance exam neatly enough to make my mother’s sigh audible three prefectures over.
Top company, I’d stumbled out of that too.
Top husband, I’d never even made it to the starting line.
Every time I missed one of those checkpoints, a new chasm grew between us.
My sister was the easy one. We texted sometimes. She told me about her kid. I told her about clients in vague, de‑identified ways. It was surface‑level, but it was manageable.
My parents, though.
The first reconnection hadn’t come from me. It had come from you, indirectly.
You’d thrown my phone at me. “Just call once,” you’d said. “If it’s awful, you can hang up. If it’s good, you get… something. And if it’s nothing, at least you tried.”
So I did it. I called a number I hadn’t dialed in years. When my mother picked up, her voice was exactly as I remembered: bright and sharp, like broken glass held up to the sun.
“Hazuki?” she said. No hello, just my name. “What’s wrong?”
“Nice to hear you too,” I said weakly. “Nothing’s wrong. I just… thought I should check in.”
A beat of silence, then a huff that might have been a relieved laugh. “You never call out of the blue,” she said. “Of course I thought something happened.”
Dinner came a week later. She insisted on it, like the call had been a precursor to some confession she wanted to stage‑manage.
At the table, my sister really did try to play buffer. She asked about my work, my clients, Tokyo trains, the weather. Every time the conversation wandered too close to the fault lines, she’d jump in with a story about her daughter’s school or some drama at the supermarket.
My mother, of course, was not so easy to redirect.
“You’re still in that same apartment?” she asked, midway through the pickled vegetables. “The one from university?”
“Mm,” I said. “The rent’s reasonable.”
“With the same roommate,” she added, not a question.
My shoulder tightened. “Yes.”
“It’s not normal to share like that after graduation,” she said, turning to my sister as if presenting evidence. “Your sister lives with her husband. That’s what adults do.”
“Times are different in Tokyo, Mom,” my sister said quickly. “Rent is—”
“Men will think it’s strange,” my mother went on, undeterred. “It looks bad.”
I poked at my rice. “I’m busy with work. I’m not looking to settle down right now.”
“I see.” she said, and I knew she meant she’d made up her mind.
Later, when I escaped to the bathroom, my sister followed on one pretext or another. She cornered me by the sink.
“So,” she said. “That girl you live with. Your… roommate.”
My heart did something unattractive against my ribs. “What?”
Her look said, Come on.
I stared at the tiles behind her. The grout was a little discoloured near the floor. I focused on that. “She’s just someone I live with,” I said.
“She seems important,” she said carefully. Then let it go with a small nod. “If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here. Without Mom.”
Back at the table, my mother had apparently used our absence to sharpen her agenda. By dessert, she’d pivoted to “there’s a very nice man in your aunt’s neighbourhood.” It was said in the same tone used for seasonal fruit. Limited time offer. Act fast.
On the train home, I typed and deleted ten different versions of a message to you. Ended up sending nothing.
When I walked into our apartment, you looked up from the sofa.
“How was dinner?” you asked, eyes searching my face for damage.
“Fine,” I said, kicking off my shoes. “Normal. They’re loud. Food was good.”
You wanted to probe then let it go. “Okay,” you said. “You must be tired.”
Later in bed, you slid closer, very submissive — kisses along my jaw, fingers playing with my hair, the whole I’m‑sorry‑without‑saying‑sorry routine.
I knew the strategy and it worked every time. All you had to do was open your legs for me and I was on you like a bitch in heat.
Not that night.
I still touched you enough to prove I wasn’t that angry. I tangled our thighs, our hips rolling that slow rhythm, our clits grinding together, finding that closeness that made us forget where your body ended and mine started.
You watched me with that dazed, earnest concentration, and I swam in it, drown just long enough to get us both over once each, our bodies shaking sweetly.
“I’m tired,” I mumbled into your shoulder before you could make this into an apology you’d fuck into me.
You stroked my back. You pretended you believed me. I pretended you did. It was easier than admitting I was trying to put the brakes on something I had no idea how to stop.
I decided to bide my time. There was no reason to declare anything drastic. It was just one dinner, one phone call, one set of pointed comments. At some point, you’d see sense about my parents. I’d fix things enough to pass inspection, then we’d go back to our little world where we belonged only to each other.
The universe, obviously, had other plans.
My mother’s calls didn’t stop at that one check‑in. Her voice kept coming through the line, bright and sharp as ever.
“Your aunt’s neighbour’s son,” she said. “I showed him your photo. He’s interested.”
I couldn’t tell her about you. If I did, the fragile, makeshift bridge I’d been building between us would snap in two. And you… you’d see exactly how little space there was for us in that version of my life.
I tried.
I met my parents for dinner. I listened to my mother describe potential suitors. I nodded in the right places. I laughed when my father made jokes. Then I came home to you, exhausted and angry and ashamed.
Somewhere in those weeks — between my mother showing me photos of strangers and your mother texting you goodnight — you started noticing.
One day, you looked at me and went quiet. Two mugs between us, neither of us drinking. My phone sat face‑down in the middle like the world’s ugliest centerpiece.
“You’ve been calling them,” you said finally. You didn’t make it an accusation. “Your mom. Your sister.”
I opened my mouth to say something light. What came out was, “Yeah.”
You flinched like I’d confirmed a diagnosis. “So you’re not doing it properly,” you said. “You’re doing it to satisfy me.”
“I can’t lie to you,” I said, which was only partly noble and mostly just true. “It is. I’ve been… trying. For us.”
You nodded, jaw tight, eyes going glassy. “I have to go,” you said.
My stomach dropped. “Where?”
You blinked, a little startled. You’d forgotten I might not keep up with your train of thought. “I mean go,” you said, voice cracking on the second word. “As in… this. It won’t work. Not like this.”
The room tilted.
“I’ll be more serious,” I blurted. “I can be more serious about it. I’ll call them more. I’ll—”
“Hazuki.” You said my name like you were putting a hand over my mouth without touching me. Tears had started making tracks down your cheeks, and you didn’t bother wiping them away. “I’m sorry. It was already unfair. Making you fix a lifetime of family stuff just so you’re allowed to keep me.”
“It’s not —” My own eyes were burning now. “I’m the one who kept dodging it. You were just… you were right. I’ll try harder. I’ll—”
You shook your head, tears flicking off your lashes. “If I stay, it’s just going to turn into homework,” you said. “Me checking if you’ve called them, you pretending it’s for you when it’s for me…”
Something in my chest splintered. “If you leave,” I said, voice going thin, “I won’t eat until you come back.” It was childish and manipulative and honest. “I’m serious. I won’t.”
You shut your eyes like the sentence physically hurt. When you opened them again, they were red and furious — at me, at the universe, at yourself. “If you love me even a little bit,” you said, each word dragged out of you, “you have to eat.”
“That’s unfair,” I sobbed, as if what I tried with my own ultimatum was noble.
“I know,” you said, and now the tears were running unchecked. “I know I’m unfair. I’m sorry. I still… I can’t.”
We were both crying so hard by then that the words kept slipping. I reached for your hand; you let me take it, let me clutch it.
“I’ll wait,” I managed, hiccuping around it. “I’ll wait for you to come back. However long it takes. I’ll—”
“Don’t,” you whispered. “Don’t wait like that.”
But you didn’t pull your hand away. And I, idiot that I am, took that as permission to keep hoping even as everything else in the room rearranged itself into a before and an after.
We came apart.
With a series of decisions that all felt, at the moment, like the “wise thing.”
Give you space.
Let you see your mother.
Don’t upset my parents yet.
Try to be less dependent.
Try to be more honest.
We followed every sensible piece of advice, and still ended up here.
In an apartment that smells like garlic and champagne, with a table set for two and only one person left to clear it.
I blink.
The present seeps back in, like water through a thin crack.
The champagne glass on the table is nearly empty.
My vision blurs when I stand. The room tilts and then rights itself.
“Time for bed,” I tell no one.
In the bedroom, I fumble with the buttons of my blouse. The fabric catches on itself. I almost topple when I try to pull my jeans off without sitting down.
I manage to get into my pyjamas. I brush my teeth. I splash water on my face. I stare at myself in the mirror and see someone I almost recognize.
“Third time’s the charm,” I tell my reflection.
She doesn’t look convinced.
I crawl into bed.
I always sleep on the same side, always leaving the other half unclaimed out of habit more than hope.
I close my eyes.
I don’t pray. I don’t bargain. I don’t whisper your name like a spell.
I’ve learned that if I chase the dream, it runs.
Instead, I let the alcohol tug me under.
There’s only darkness. The pleasant, heavy kind that feels like a weighted blanket over my thoughts.
Then sound filters in.
The rustle of fabric. The slide of the bedroom door.
“You threw me a party,” you say.
Your voice is exactly as I remember it. Slightly hoarse, vowels stretched lazily when you’re tired.
I open my eyes.
You’re standing by the bed, still in your work clothes. Your blazer is unbuttoned, blouse loosened.
“For you,” I reply. My tongue feels thick, but the words come out clear. “Obviously. I always do.”
You sit on the edge of the mattress, the dip of your weight so convincing I almost reach out to test it.
“You’re silly,” you tell me, leaning down. Your hair falls around your face, tickling my cheek. “You should have moved on by now.”
Your lips brush mine, soft and familiar. The kiss is gentle. Chaste. Small and quick.
I cup your cheek. Your skin is warm. “I belong to you,” I say. The words have been waiting in my chest for this exact moment. “I always will.”
Your eyes are impossible to read. They always were, even when I had the right to ask.
“You can’t leave your property behind,” I continue, a humourless laugh escaping me. “And expect it to find a new owner.”
Your mouth curves, but it’s not quite a smile. “Property, huh? I don’t think that’s right anymore.”
“What else would you call it?” I ask.
Outside the dream, the apartment is dark and still. The unsent text sleeps in my phone. The third birthday party for no one has ended.
Inside the dream, you reach out and trace the line of my jaw with your thumb.
“I’d call it a haunting,” you say.
Then you kiss me again with the certainty — however false — that for as long as I can keep dreaming, you haven’t gone anywhere at all.