Episode 26: I Can’t Go Back. I Don’t Want to Go Back.
I woke at five in the morning.
When I went into the living room, Yuno was still sleeping soundly, breathing slow and even.
Curled head to foot under the blanket on the sofa. Only her soft hair poked out from under the covers.
Last night was still spinning in circles in my head. If our eyes met, I was afraid something would show on my face.
I’d just get breakfast at the café near the station. I just wanted to get out of the apartment, as fast as possible.
I got dressed quietly with that thought, sat at the dressing table, and found dark circles, faintly blue, under my eyes in the mirror.
I layered on concealer, working toward my usual face. A face that gave nothing away.
I finished getting ready before Yuno woke and left the apartment.
The sound of the front door closing seemed, somehow, unreasonably loud.
＊＊＊
This morning — the hour when Yuno cleans the president’s office — happened to overlap with a scheduled client visit. I found myself, somehow, grateful for that today.
I had no confidence I could be alone with Yuno in that office today.
If I came back at eleven-thirty, she’d probably already be done and gone. If I timed it for then…
Catching myself making that calculation left me feeling pathetic.
Just before noon, I came back to the floor where the staff worked, and Yuno was there, pushing her cart, cleaning near the windows.
Yuno glanced up toward the entrance, where I stood. Our eyes met, briefly. She opened them wide for a moment, then narrowed her drooping eyes just slightly.
Thud.
My heart jumped, and I quickly turned my face away, setting my things down at a desk on the floor.
For some reason, today, I stayed on the floor.
I opened my laptop at the desk, worked through some data analysis, and somehow couldn’t take my eyes off Yuno.
She moved through her cleaning, working her way from the windows toward the central cluster of desks, and then toward Saeko’s desk.
Something black spread slowly through my whole body.
It was nothing. Yuno was a cleaner. Of course cleaning the floor meant getting near Saeko’s desk eventually.
I understood that, in my head.
And then Saeko looked up, unprompted, toward Yuno behind her.
In that instant —
I realized I was already on my feet.
I walked over to Saeko and put a hand lightly on her shoulder. Pat.
“Saeko. Let’s go for a smoke.”
Saeko looked over at me. A look of surprise, her sharp almond eyes widening slightly.
“You inviting me — that’s rare, Reina.”
Even as she said it, she gave a small laugh and got up from her seat. I thought I felt Yuno’s gaze on my back. Maybe it was just my imagination. Either way, I couldn’t bring myself to turn around.
We went out to the corridor and pushed open the emergency stairwell door. The outside air hit my cheeks. Saeko lit her cigarette. I took one from the pack too and put it to my lips.
“What’s this about, all of a sudden?”
Saeko said it, exhaling smoke.
“No particular reason.”
“Stressed about something?”
“Not really. Nothing like that.”
“Hm, really? Stress ages you fast, you know. Tell me if something’s up.”
Saeko looked at me with her usual gentle eyes and said it like that. Probably without any hidden motive at all, just out of genuine kindness. That’s the kind of person Saeko is.
Because of whose fault… I couldn’t even say it, couldn’t meet her eyes either, and just smoked, looking off into the distance.
What was the point of any of this. All I’d done was interrupt the moment before Saeko could speak to Yuno. A stopgap, meaningless, not remotely rational.
The version of me before I met Yuno would never have done something like this.
Think it through, weigh the pros and cons calmly, then act. That used to be who I was.
Since meeting Yuno, there’d been more and more I simply couldn’t manage that way.
Something black churned in my chest, painfully.
I drew the smoke deep into my lungs and let it out slowly. But the part of the bitterness that wouldn’t come out stayed lodged at the bottom of my chest, regardless.
＊＊＊
I stayed late at the office that night.
There genuinely was work that needed the overtime. But that wasn’t the only reason. I was afraid, I think, of facing Yuno in the living room.
It wasn’t Yuno’s fault.
But somehow, seeing her face made something itch and ache with irritation, and I was afraid I’d say something unnecessary. Afraid I’d act strangely.
I stared at the words in emails, at numbers in tomorrow’s materials, hardly any of it going in, and the time passed regardless.
Ten at night. I shut down the computer, turned off the lights, and slowly left the office.
On the way home, passing the convenience store, I thought: before Yuno, coming home at this hour usually meant going straight to bed without eating anything.
That used to be normal. I never thought anything of it.
I opened the apartment door to find it completely dark.
I flicked on the light. Quiet, silent, no one there. Yuno had apparently gone out for her night shift.
On the table, carefully wrapped dishes were lined up. Three small plates. Beside them, a note on a scrap of paper.
In slightly uneven handwriting: “Going to work. Eat up.”
My chest stung.
And at the same time, my stomach growled, low.
Now that I thought of it, I hadn’t eaten anything proper since this morning. At lunch I’d only had a coffee at the client’s office.
I heated the food in the microwave. Steam rose softly when I peeled back the wrap.
I picked up my chopsticks, and the flavor was soft and gentle. Not too rich, not too plain, something that settled slowly into the body.
It was delicious.
It was delicious, and yet…
My chopsticks stopped, partway.
The chair across from me was empty. Just that — no one sitting there — and yet the table felt unreasonably wide.
No voice calling out to me. No face breaking into that soft laugh. Just that absence, and I never imagined it could taste this flat.
Before Yuno came, this had been normal. Eating alone, bathing alone, sleeping alone — all of it had been a given.
I can’t go back, I thought.
I don’t want to go back, either, I thought.
“Come back to me.”
“Let’s live together again.”
The lines Saeko had apparently said to Yuno crossed my mind. Surely Yuno would be happier staying close to Saeko. Saeko is kind, gentle, generous of spirit.
She doesn’t run off to avoid facing someone, the way I do. She doesn’t drag someone away with a fake cigarette break. She doesn’t do petty, mean little things like that.
Putting distance between us on my own, doing things like this, accomplishes nothing.
All I’m doing is giving Yuno more reasons to leave.
I looked at the note again. The uneven handwriting. The careful wrapping. The gentle taste of the food.
My chest throbbed, again and again. Not quite pain — more like an ache spreading slowly outward.
I carried the empty plate to the sink and ran the water.
In the drying rack, a plate and cup Yuno had apparently used sat washed clean, turned upside down.
I was supposed to be fine with time alone.
But with traces of Yuno scattered everywhere in the apartment, every single one of them hurt now.
Washing the dishes, I let out, without meaning to, a long, deep sigh.