Episode 50: In the Alley Where I Picked Up a Woman
Running a company means it can devour you whole before you notice, if you let yourself get absorbed in it.
Look down at documents and time dissolves; type out emails and night deepens; chase numbers and dawn arrives. Even so, I couldn’t stop.
If I stopped, I knew the memories would come flooding back, like a dam breaking.
In the middle of all that —
A hand landed on my shoulder. Pat.
“Reina, you’re working too much.”
I looked up, and there was Saeko.
“…Eh?”
“You look kind of worn down, you know? Let’s go drinking tonight.”
“No, but——”
“I’ll help with whatever work’s left, tomorrow. Okay?”
A gentle smile, and yet one that left no room to refuse.
There’s some strange pull to Saeko’s invitations — somehow I always end up nodding along. I think that every time.
＊＊＊
We ducked under the curtain of an izakaya, for the first time in a while.
How long had it been — I tried to recall, and couldn’t.
“Still no contact with her, since then?”
Saeko asked, taking a sip of draft beer.
“Yeah. I’d deleted her contact info.”
“I felt responsible too, so I tried messaging her — no read receipt at all. Probably blocked.”
Saeko stuck her tongue out, a little.
Unashamed, but not blaming either. That’s just how Saeko is, I thought.
Picking at edamame, propping her cheek on one hand, Saeko said it quietly.
“I wonder what she’s up to. That girl.”
“I don’t know… As long as she’s alive, that’s enough. If she’s doing well somewhere.”
My fingers trembled around the glass.
“But, somehow, I don’t think that’s it. And that scares me more than I can stand…”
Saeko looked at me in silence.
She lit a cigarette, let the smoke rise slowly toward the ceiling. The purple haze dissolved into the izakaya air.
“Well, there’s not much point in either of us worrying when we can’t even reach her, right? Let’s find new love instead.”
“I’m done with love…”
“How about me, then?”
Saeko grinned, joking, that bottomlessly bright laugh of hers.
I shot her a light glare, on reflex.
“Kidding, kidding. We’re really not each other’s type at all, are we.”
“Even if you were my type, someone like you, Saeko, I couldn’t manage.”
“Ahaha! No one’s ever put it to me that bluntly before.”
Saeko laughed, big and unrestrained, slapping my shoulder a few times. That carefree, easy smile, just like always.
Right now, Saeko’s breezy lightness was something I was genuinely grateful for.
“Still, Reina. Don’t keep spiraling toward the worst-case scenario.”
“…………”
“She might just turn up out of nowhere, you know? You might run into her again somewhere.”
Saeko set a hand on my shoulder, pat, and smiled, gentle.
Something in my body, knotted tight for so long, seemed to loosen, just slightly.
I glanced at the clock on the wall — past ten.
“Want to hit a bar after this?” she asked. I shook my head. I just didn’t feel up to it, somehow.
We parted outside the shop, and I walked the night road alone.
＊＊＊
Rain began to fall, sparse at first.
It grew heavier, steadily.
Without any particular reason — truly, without any reason at all —
I found myself drawn, as if pulled, toward that alley.
The alley where Yuno and I had first met.
At first I used to walk that way on the way home, hoping.
Lately I’d taken to avoiding it.
Of course, she wasn’t there.
In the rain, only the gaudy, lurid neon flickered.
I stood there, unprotected, without even opening my umbrella.
That day, had Yuno stood somewhere like this too, lost, in the rain?
My strength drained away, and I slid down against the wall of the building, sinking to the ground.
Cold rain struck my whole body like needles.
In moments I was soaked through. Even so, I couldn’t bring myself to stand.
The winter air bit at my wet skin.
The day I first met Yuno had been a cold, rainy winter day too.
Cold.
It hurts.
Had Yuno been this cold too?
Had she cried, in the rain, like this?
Waiting for someone to pick her up.
Picked up, and discarded once they grew bored.
Tossed around by one adult’s convenience after another, with nowhere to go, just wandering.
I’m no different from any of them.
Forcing my own feelings onto her, refusing to hear hers, driving her out.
“…hh, uh…”
“…Hh…”
“Yuno…!”
A pathetic, broken sob dissolved into the dark alley.
Tears ran down my cheeks, mixing with the rain.
— How long had I been like that.
Then.
Plip…
Plip, plip, plip-plip.
The irregular sound of rain striking an umbrella.
Strangely, the sound was soothing to hear.
The needle-sharp rain striking my skin had stopped.
Puzzled, I lifted my face —
Skin so pale it looked translucent.
Large, brown eyes.
Blonde hair, blurred with rain.
A little more grown-up now, her cheeks faintly hollowed.
A face looking down at me, expressionless, steady.
“…Eh?”
That person, slowly, smiled — soft.
That drooping-eyed, easy smile, the one I knew so well.
— It was Yuno.
Eh……?
I felt my own eyes go wide, wider.
Stumbling, I got to my feet.
“Yuno…? Is it really… Yuno?”
I gripped her shoulders with rain-soaked hands.
Those shoulders felt so slight, so fragile, I might break them — I loosened my grip at once.
“Yeah. …Long time, Reina.”
She laughed, softly. A gentle, sweet voice.
“Really…? Are you… alive… is it really Yuno?”
“Ahah, what’s that. The alive Yuno, yeah.”
That light, easy laugh.
Unmistakably, it was Yuno.
I felt my own lips trembling.
My throat closed up; the words wouldn’t come properly.
“…Uh… I’m— so glad… so glad…!”
What I finally managed to force out was pathetically small.
Before I knew it, I’d wrapped her in my arms with shaking hands.
Face and voice both a wreck, just holding her, tight.
It didn’t matter how undignified, how unsightly I looked.
“I’m sorry… I… Yuno… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
That was all I could say.
Just “sorry,” over and over, pathetically, sobbing through it.
Yuno stood frozen for a moment, taken aback.
But then, gently, she lowered the umbrella, and hugged me back, tight.
And without a word —
Pat, pat, pat.
She patted my back, gently.
In a rhythm I knew, from somewhere.
Yuno’s shoulders, her fingertips — I thought I could feel them trembling too.
For a while, the two of us stood there, holding each other in the pouring rain, without an umbrella between us.
The rain kept falling, hard, without end. But that was fine.
As long as I had Yuno’s warmth — that alone was enough.
— End of Chapter Six —