5 Months Later
Los Angeles, California
With a few strokes of the pen, Mori finished signing the contract.
The manager of Senbazuru* reached across the table to shake her hand. "Welcome to the team, Miss Fukutomi. We're happy to have you."
"I'm happy to be here," Mori said, returning the gesture. "It's always been my dream to have this job." She couldn't contain her smile now that she'd signed with the second top gaming company in the country.
"We can hardly believe our luck in having you come to us," the manager said with a shake of his head. "You'll be emailed the rest of the necessary info—roster, practice times, and the like—if you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact one of the coaches."
Luck had nothing to do with it. Mori inclined her head in a partial bow. "Will do. I look forward to it. Thank you so much for your time today." She rose from the plush office chair, picking up the umbrella at her feet.
On her way through the lobby, she smiled at the secretary who waved at her. Hundreds of paper cranes hung from the ceiling, their message clear as the giant silver kanji written behind the front desk. One read Hope, the other Healing.
Adjusting her purse over the strap of her blue dress, she pushed through the rotating glass doors to step out into a perfect late summer day. Her phone rang in her purse, prompting her to send the call to her earpiece with a few taps on her watch.
"Moshi moshi*," Mori said.
"Hey!" Ren squealed through the line. "How'd the interview go?"
Mori checked her watch, quickening her pace to reach the bus stop in time. "Great! I signed the contract today. They'll be training me for a few months before releasing the news, so hear that? No spilling the secrets."
"Ugh, fine." Ren groaned, the sound of her mouse clicking coming through. "You know I'll keep it quiet, but I'm still mad at you for not coming to Fearless with the rest of us. We could've been on a team just like the old days! Even if you don't care about us, you know that there's a certain Riku Takahashi who came back from hiatus and signed here too..."
"Mmm, nope." Mori smiled. "I'm not budging from my seat with Senbazuru. If you want to be on the same team you'll have to get up and move your butt down over here."
"Girl, you're asking me to break contract." Ren laughed. "I love you but not that much."
"Yeah, I wouldn't actually expect you to," Mori admitted. She paused at the sight of her face on a billboard touting the savior of Facing Fear. As always, the title gave her pause and she fidgeted until the board's slide changed to a skincare advertisement. "Hey, I'm about to catch my bus, but can I call you back later?"
"Sure," Ren agreed. "Just don't ghost me."
Mori sighed. "Are you ever going to let that go?"
"Never. See ya, Mentos." The call went dead.
She tucked her earpiece into a pocket of her dress while the bus hissed to a stop, doors opening. Mori climbed the steps, eyes darting to the seats across the aisle. Please be here this time.
Her gaze lasered in on a man in a dark grey hoodie, sitting diagonal to the seat by the bus' entrance. Bingo.
As the driver shut the doors behind her, she edged over to the seat next to him and sat down. With his eyes directed at the phone in his hands and the sweatshirt hood covering his face, she couldn't be one hundred percent sure it was the same guy. She almost lost courage and went back to her regular seat, because how embarrassing would that be, offering a stranger an umbrella on a sunny, high 90s day?
Then again, someone wearing a hoodie on this hot a day can't really judge.
Finally, before she chickened out, Mori tapped the stranger on the shoulder. "Excuse me, I think this umbrella is yours...?"
The words died on her lips as the man looked her in the eyes and the blood drained from his face. Maybe she'd asked the wrong person, but no, she knew those dark brown eyes and high cheekbones with the messy black hair. "I'm sorry to bother you," Mori tried again. "But you lent your umbrella to me earlier this spring and I wanted to—"
"Mori?" the stranger whispered. His eyes darted down to her neck then back up to her face.
Mori's life flashed before her eyes—her life in Valor—of almost falling to her death, of the look on Ronin's face when she left him, of Tokiwa's lullaby. The bus lurched into motion and she fell into him while he attempted to steady her with a familiar hand on her shoulder.
"Ronin?" she asked.
He chuckled, the action softening his intimidating expression. "I guess. If that's what you want to call me." Ronin slipped his phone into his pocket and leaned back, stretching out with his arm resting behind her.
Mori could hardly think, so she said the first thing that came to mind. "Did you not want to see me?"
"You're the one who stopped riding the bus," Ronin pointed out.
"I quit my job," Mori stammered. "But I didn't know it was you riding the bus!"
"Would you have tried to catch it sooner if you knew? You knew my real name. You could have contacted me."
Gripping the umbrella in both her hands, Mori whispered. "I was afraid you might not...want to see me. Not after everything that happened." Not after losing your sister forever. Not with how disappointing it'd probably be to meet me in the real world.
"Mori, I was waiting every day for you to board this bus, wondering if you'd recognize me." Ronin leaned over and rested his arms on his legs to look past her curtain of hair. "I know I could've contacted you, but if you met me as Riku, I wanted it to be on your terms. We've both needed time to heal and I don't even know all of what happened."
Mori sat back, studying his face. He looked his age in this world, with all the roughness worn smooth, a little awkward shyness present in the way he couldn't hold her stare for long without smiling and looking away. "I don't know why you'd wait for me," she said. "I'm sure you could've bought another umbrella."
"Maybe because I think you're prettier and kinder in person and the Mori I met in Valor can't compare to the girl on the bus who gives up her seat and helps the elderly catch their rolling fruit before someone steps on it," Ronin teased, taking the umbrella from her, his hand brushing against hers.
Even with the time that had passed, Mori cried easily at anything that touched her heart, fragile and hurting as it still was.
"Hey, you okay?" Ronin asked, concern shining in his eyes. "I noticed you don't have your coin anymore."
"I got rid of it," Mori said with a small laugh. She blinked the tears back. "Ronin, would you hate me if I told you that I had the choice to bring us out of Valor and leave our sisters alive in there, and I didn't take it?"
The bus stopped to let more passengers on while Ronin stared out the window.
"No," he said. "I think you made the right choice. Leaving them behind in that state would have been cruel."
"Shiori helped me make the choice," Mori said. "She's the real hero, even though the world thinks it's me."
Instead of disagreeing with her like everyone else, like she expected him to, Ronin nodded. "The real heroes are the ones we left behind, right? We have the chance to live again and be better, because of them."
"Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it." Mori turned her hand over to hold Ronin's, resting her head lightly against his shoulder. When he tensed up beside her, she murmured, "Would you rather I call you Riku?"
"No," Ronin whispered, relaxing. "You can keep calling me Ronin."
"What are you up to in this life?" Mori asked.
"Signed with Fearless, as I'm sure you've heard. Attending law school on the side."
"Law school, huh?" Mori tilted her head to look up at Ronin. "I always did like guys with a lot of brains."
Ronin blushed and pretended to shove her away. "Stop flirting. Where are you planning on getting off the bus?"
Taking stock of their progress, Mori wrapped a strand of hair around her finger. "Trying to get rid of me already?" she asked.
"Maybe. Maybe I'm trying to decide something." Ronin ran his hand through his hair, the hood of his sweater slipping off unnoticed.
He looks cute when he's flustered. Mori shouldered her purse and propped up the umbrella between them, as if she were preparing to leave. "Where's your stop?"
Ronin hesitated, the panic rising in his eyes. "It might've been a couple back."
"You got off early the day you gave me the umbrella too," Mori said, watching the fact that she'd noticed him before register in Ronin's mind. "Thank you, for everything. I couldn't have done it without you." She smiled. "And I guess you were right too—it's a small world."
Reaching for her hand, Ronin stumbled over his words in the hurry to get them out. "Mori, would you like to go out with me? There's this really good sushi place on 5th Avenue. My treat."
The bus suddenly fell quiet around them as it came to a stop—her stop. Mori took Ronin's hand, cheeks coloring from the eyes of the other passengers around them.
Once more, she remembered Valor—of Ronin's hand gripping hers to keep her from falling to the sky, of their handshake before they parted ways, of the desperation with which he held on to her as he fell asleep. She held his hand and looked in his eyes, seeing fear and hope intermingled.
But more than that, Mori saw something else—something beautiful and real—and she knew her eyes reflected it back.
"I'd love to," she said.
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Chapter Word Count: 1661
Total Word Count: 37470