At daybreak, Mayu woke up to the summer sun hitting her face. She rolled over to check the time then checked on Ryoma: he slept on his side facing her, his shoulders falling and rising with the long, rhythmic breathing of sleep. Ever so cautiously, she inched off of the bed, grabbed her clothes from the floor and tip-toed into the living room.
Outside, the eastern skies were lighting up while most buildings stayed dark and still like sleeping giants. She put on the clothes she'd come with and hung up Ryoma's shirt on the back of a dining chair. On the table were the dozen roses, slightly wilted from never having been put into a vase. She considered taking them, knowing they'd go into the trash otherwise. In the end, she decided against it. It was better to leave without any evidence of yesterday.
In the kitchen drawer, she found a pen and ripped off a blank section of a tennis magazine.
"I'm going home and I'll be fine," she wrote. "Don't worry and don't call. Good-bye."
She tucked this piece of paper under the roses. Quietly, she picked up her purse, slipped on her shoes and took the elevator down. The doormen weren't there and Mayu was relieved that the concierge didn't look at her twice.
She made it to the station in time to catch the first train. It was only six a.m. by the time she got home. A letter stamped "URGENT" had come in while she was gone and the building manager had slipped it through the bottom of the door. The address showed it was sent out from Germany yesterday.
She ripped open the top to find a single piece of paper inside with Tezuka's hasty writing: "I'm so sorry, Mayu. Please call me. I'm worried about you."
Mayu read his note once then again and slumped against the door, eaten up with guilt even though she felt justified in her rage only a day ago. The rising sun cast red shadows into the room. They fell against her open palms like she had blood on her hands, like the guilt she could not wash off.
All of a sudden, her phone started ringing and jarred her back to the present. On the screen was Ryoma's number. With some hesitation, Mayu picked up. "I told you not to call."
"Yet you picked up anyway," he said, sounding angry. "How could you have left like that? It's not safe for you to go home alone that early."
"I got back fine, as you can tell."
"Wake me up if you need to. Don't pull a disappearing act again."
"There's no need. There's no 'again'."
"And if I want to see you?"
"You won't anymore," she said, and she hung up without a goodbye.
Mayu called Tezuka that night to tell him to focus on work and they could talk later. That done, she reconnected the landline and unblocked his number.
Tezuka came home a day later with a bouquet of pink roses so similar that Mayu had to wonder if he and Ryoma had visited the same florist. With the flowers, he also bought her a box of handmade truffles and a beautiful silk scarf from a luxury store in Ludwig Beck. When she didn't accept his gifts right away, he apologized again and asked for her forgiveness.
She looked at his face, haggard from work and a long flight, and sighed. "You don't have to apologize again. Neither one of us could've foreseen this. It's bad luck and it's not meant to be."
"Don't say that."
"Tell me the truth, Tezuka: was Director Yanagi mad that I didn't show up? Was the Minister mad?"
"From what I've seen, more disappointed than mad."
She let out another sigh and looked out the window. "So it's worse than I expected."
He touched her shoulder. "Nothing's happened yet. Let's not assume the worst-case scenario."
"But it's the worst-case scenario I have to prepare for." Running a hand through her hair, Mayu said, "God, I can't believe I let an opportunity like this pass."
"Why did you let it pass? Even a month ago, you wouldn't have hesitated to say yes."
"What are you trying to say?"
"You've been high-strung since the celebratory dinner in July." Taking her hand, Tezuka held it and looked into her eyes, "Did something happen while you were on the national tryout project? I'm aware that the senior executives are older men and could be imposing. If anyone behaved improperly..."
Knowing what he hinted at, Mayu shook her head. "Nothing against the rules happened. I just..." Words caught in her throat, Mayu stared at the floor and swallowed the real reasons why. "I'm burnt out and I wasn't capable of making good decisions when you invited me. As you said, I should've picked the association then stuck to that one job. Now I blew it."
Tezuka shook his head. He pulled her in and hugged her tight. "It's a mistake that made you miss one chance. Another will come along for someone brilliant like you. Any organization would be lucky to have you."
His words rushed past her ears like a gust of summer wind. She pressed her eyes shut; she had never felt less enough.
***
Come September, no calls from the association came. Not wanting to give up hope, Tezuka gently probed Director Yanagi about Mayu's return and received a polite answer of "it's being considered". Mayu knew instantly that vagueness meant no, she wasn't returning to the association.
Yet more humiliating than rejection was having to negotiate for her full-time job back at the academy. Thankfully, the principal took her time at the association as an experimental interlude and didn't give her a hard time.
By September, she was back to teaching children Japanese and foreign languages. It was autumn, but Mayu felt she'd fallen back to the spring: again her work was aimless and she had nothing to do outside of work.
When leaves started falling en masse in October, Mayu's hopelessness deepened with the death and decay surrounding her. Once in a while, Hirose would invite her out to dinner, yet her meals with the younger girl were only a painful reminder of how far she'd fallen. Soon, she started turning down dinner invitations and stopped visiting Tezuka at work. To forget all that went wrong, she had to stay away from the association.
***
"Say goodbye to Miss Ohara, or else she might not realize you're leaving with a stranger."
Snapped out of her daze, Mayu looked up and saw Ryoma standing in the half-empty classroom. It was a chilly autumn afternoon and a wild, northern wind tore through the academy courtyard.
She stood up. "What are you doing here?"
"Picking up Suzu," he said, "while you're clearly not doing your job."
"I was grading quizzes."
"You were spacing out."
Mayu ignored this. "Did something happen with Suzu's mom again?"
"No. But there was no other way to get through to you."
Mayu glanced at Suzu nervously. Fortunately, the younger girl was engrossed with her friend's new comic book. In a low voice, she warned Ryoma, "This is not the place to talk. And I can't believe you used Suzu to get to me!"
"I miss you. What else am I supposed to do?" he asked.
These simple words strangely moved Mayu but she refused to reciprocate.
"Looks like I was right to check on you," he continued, taking a hold of her wrist. "You've gotten thinner. You need to take care of yourself."
She shook him off. "I had things on my mind."
"Still hung up on the association, aren't you?"
Thinking he was going to sprinkle salt on her wounds, she glared at him, "If you're here to taunt me, I don't want to hear it."
"What if I'm here with good news?"
"What kind of good news?"
He leaned forward and swiftly slipped something into her pocket. "Come see me tomorrow and I'll tell you. Six o'clock."
That said, he rocked back on his heels and turned towards Suzu. "Come on, you! If you catch me, we'll go to your favourite restaurant!"
Hearing this, Suzu squealed with glee and dashed out of the class without a goodbye. Mayu waited until the last children were picked up before reaching into her pocket to see what Ryoma had left: it was a key card to a hotel room.
***
a/n: We all know Ryoma's not the type to give up this easily, and in this case it's perhaps not a good thing. So the downward spiral continues... and I hope the Tezuka fans are hanging in there!! Thanks for reading!