“It’s okay,” she said, and meant it. She was good at meaning it. “I’ll just head home. Maybe read.”
Sachi stood there for a long time. When she finally walked to the station, her train arrived, and she boarded it, and she went home to the apartment she shared with Haruki. He was still at work. She made tea, sat on the couch, and opened her book. But the words blurred. All she could see was the woman’s back, her hair in the wind, and the sea that never arrived.
She turned. A man stood a few feet away, a paper bag of vegetables in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He wasn’t handsome in the way Haruki was—his features were too sharp, his smile too crooked. But his eyes… they were the same amber as the gallery light. Deep. Patient. And when they met hers, Sachi felt something shift. Not a crash. Not a thunderclap. Just the slow, almost imperceptible tilt of a room whose floor had been level a moment before. kimi wa yasashiku netorareru 1
“That’s all anyone can do at first,” he replied. He dropped the cigarette, crushed it under his shoe, and smiled again—softer this time. “I’m Ren. I own the place.”
And for the first time, she wasn’t sure if she meant it. “It’s okay,” she said, and meant it
He finally looked up. His eyes were warm, familiar—like the sweater she’d stolen from his closet last winter. Haruki was gentle. Reliable. He always walked on the side closest to the road, remembered to buy her favorite brand of milk tea, and never, ever raised his voice. Their love was a quiet, steady river. Safe. Comfortable. And lately, Sachi had begun to wonder if that river had stopped flowing altogether.
“I… I was just looking,” she said, suddenly self-conscious. Maybe read
Ren tilted his head. “Is it? Or is it just honest?”