Chapter 35: Chapter 32 — I Chose You. That’s All.

The hot spring steamed between them.

Kaito looked at the ceiling.

Satsuki looked at him with the warm, composed expression she wore for most things — the one that had a second layer and a third layer and, underneath all of them, something she had been keeping very organised for eleven weeks.

"Coincidence," he said again, to the ceiling.

"Mm," she said. She moved to the other side of the spring — the rocks along the edge, the warm water, the steam doing what steam does. She sat. Settled. Like a woman who had arrived somewhere she had planned to arrive and was not going to rush it.

He looked at her.

She looked back.

"Satsuki-san," he said.

"You can drop the san," she said. "We’re in a hot spring."

He looked at the ceiling again.

She waited.

He had, she noted, the specific quality of a man who was running out of ceilings to look at and was going to have to have a conversation eventually.

"How," he said, "did you know about this resort."

"I chose you," she said.

He looked at her.

Not the ceiling. Her.

"That’s all," she said. Simply. Directly. The voice she used when she had decided to say the real thing without architecture around it. "I walked into your café eleven weeks ago with a bad day and you said take your time and meant it. And I looked at you and I chose you." A pause. "I know that sounds—"

"No," he said.

She looked at him.

"It doesn’t sound like anything except true," he said.

Something in her expression shifted — the composed layer and the warm layer and all the layers doing something simultaneously, moving aside for a moment to show what was underneath all of them. Which was simply a woman who had wanted something completely and had been patient about it for a long time.

"I know about the others," she said. Directly. No performance. "I know about Yoru. Nana. The girl from his class. The tall one. Yuki. " A pause. "I know everything."

"How," he said. The mild puzzled tone.

"My father," she said, in the tone of someone closing a topic. "Is in a position. I receive summaries."

He looked at her for a long moment.

"That’s—"

"Thorough," she said. "Yes."

"I was going to say concerning."

"That’s also accurate," she agreed warmly.

He looked at the water.

She looked at him.

"I’m not asking you to choose," she said. "I’ve never been asking for that. I just—" She looked at the steam. "I’ve been sitting on that stool for eleven weeks and I’ve never wanted anything the way I want you and I’m done being the woman who sits on the stool."

"What do you want to be," he said.

She looked at him directly.

"Yours," she said. The simplest word. No architecture. No calculation. Just the thing itself.

The hot spring held them both.

He looked at her.

She looked back — the full, unguarded version, the one she kept for things she hadn’t decided to present yet. The warmth and the sharpness and the patience and underneath all of it, the simple fact of having chosen and meaning it completely.

"I’m not running anymore," he said.

"I know," she said. "I heard you at dinner."

"Then you know I have—"

"Conversations," she said. "Yes. I know." She moved through the water — unhurried, the easy grace of a woman who had decided. "I’m not asking you to have mine tonight."

She was closer now.

Close enough that the steam between them was no longer a distance.

She looked at him.

"I’m just asking for this," she said.

She kissed him.

Not tentative. Not calculating. The kiss of a woman who had waited eleven weeks and had decided that was enough waiting for tonight — warm and direct and completely, characteristically her. The boldness that had always been there, that had shown up on a café stool and in a bathroom corridor and in every composed smile that had a sharpness underneath it.

His hands came up.

She kissed him again.

The steam continued.

The hot spring did what hot springs do, which is exist warmly and without judgment.

He came out twenty minutes later.

His face was red.

Not slightly red. Thoroughly, committedly, from the jaw to the hairline red — the red of a man who had experienced something and had not yet finished processing it and was going to need a significant amount of time and possibly a cold shower.

He walked to his room.

Looked at the door.

Looked at his face in the corridor mirror.

Still red.

He went inside.

The girls had gathered in Yoru and Nana’s shared room.

This had happened organically — Yoru had knocked on Nana’s door, Nana had opened it, and somehow within twenty minutes all six of them were there: Yoru cross-legged on the bed, Nana against the headboard, Tsukasa on the floor with her hair down, Haruka in the chair by the window, Yuki sitting against the wall with her legs stretched out, Satsuki on the other bed with the composed energy of a woman who had recently had a hot spring and was not going to discuss the details unless asked.

Hana and Saki were asleep next door. This had been confirmed twice.

The room had the specific atmosphere of a sleepover that had something real underneath it.

Nobody spoke for a moment.

Then Yoru said: "I went first."

Everyone looked at her.

"Beach," she said. "This morning. We talked. He told me everything. Asked me to wait." She looked at her hands. "I said okay."

Silence.

"He cried?" Tsukasa said.

"No," Yoru said. "I hit him."

"Good," Yuki said.

"Then I cried," Yoru said. "And laughed. And said okay."

Nana looked at her with the warm expression that had settled between them — the rivals-who-were-honest thing, which had become, over Okinawa, something closer to the thing before rivalry that people don’t have a word for.

"Ice cream," Nana said. Offering her turn.

"Ice cream," Yoru confirmed.

"Same answer," Nana said. "He asked me to wait too." She looked at the window. "He went very red when I mentioned—" She stopped. Smiled. "Never mind."

"What," Yoru said.

"Siblings," Nana said.

The room absorbed this.

"You said the siblings thing," Yuki said flatly.

"I did."

"To his face."

"He looked at the ceiling fan for quite a long time."

Yoru pressed her hand to her mouth. Tsukasa’s shoulders moved. Haruka looked at the window with an expression that was technically composed.

"Hot spring," Satsuki said, into the laughter.

Everyone looked at her.

She looked at the wall with the warm, settled expression of someone who had arrived somewhere and found it good.

"You were in the hot spring," Yuki said. Flatly. The voice of someone connecting dots.

"Mm," Satsuki said.

"With him."

"Mm."

"How."

"Coincidence," Satsuki said.

Yuki looked at her for a long moment.

"Your father," she said.

"Has a very efficient operation," Satsuki confirmed warmly.

The room was quiet for a moment.

Then they all laughed — the full real kind, the kind that arrives when something is absurd and true simultaneously and there’s nothing to do about it except laugh.

Tsukasa laughed quietly into her knees.

Haruka looked at the ceiling with an expression that was not laughing and was completely laughing.

Yuki’s shoulders moved twice.

Nana laughed with her hand over her mouth. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Yoru laughed loudest.

When it settled the room had the warm exhaled quality of people who had shared something real.

"Tomorrow," Tsukasa said quietly, when it was quiet. She was looking at her hands. "I want to tell him. About the memory. All of it."

The room listened.

"I’ve been waiting," she said. "A long time. I want to stop waiting."

Haruka looked at her. "Then tell him."

"Yes," Tsukasa said. Simply.

Haruka looked at the window.

"I want to—" She stopped. Started again. The composed voice doing more work than usual. "I want to show him something. I don’t know what yet. Just—" She pressed her lips together. "Something real."

"You gave him both drinks," Tsukasa said.

"That was real," Yuki said.

Haruka looked at the wall.

"I have a plan," Yuki said. To the wall she was looking at. She did not elaborate.

Everyone looked at her.

She continued looking at the wall.

"Yuki," Yoru said.

"I have a plan," Yuki said again. Same tone. Final.

Nobody pushed it.

They sat in the warm room in Okinawa and talked until the talking became quieter and the quieter became the specific silence of people falling asleep in the same place, and the night went on outside, and the ocean did its thing.

The next morning.

Market day.

The group moved through the Okinawan market in the comfortable formation they had developed — Hana leading at considerable speed, Saki managing the speed, everyone else in approximate order behind them.

Colour and sound and the warm salt air and the particular chaos of a market that had been exactly itself for a hundred years and didn’t need to try.

Riku found something fried and ate it. Kenji photographed everything. Nana found a shop with fabric and went inside. Yoru found a stall with accessories and stood in front of it with the focused energy of someone making important decisions.

Kaito moved through the market in his usual way — present, unhurried, noticing things. He bought Hana something she pointed at before she finished pointing. He stopped at a bookstall and looked at the spines with the attention of someone for whom books were genuinely interesting.

He did not notice, because he was not looking for it, the figure in the wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses moving through the market approximately thirty metres behind the group.

Auburn hair tucked up. Honey eyes behind the glasses, tracking the group with the focused attention of someone conducting important research.

A wide-brimmed hat.

Sunglasses.

A notebook, in which she was writing things.

He bought the child something before she finished asking, the notebook said. Without being asked. Before she finished asking.

She watched him stop at the bookstall.

He’s looking at the spines, the notebook said. He reads the spines before picking anything up. He’s been standing there for two minutes. He’s actually reading them.

The group moved further into the market.

She moved with them, thirty metres back, hat tilted, notebook open.

The purple-haired one is buying earrings, the notebook observed. She keeps looking over at him while she looks at them. She thinks nobody notices. He notices.

She paused.

Watched Kaito look up from the bookstall, glance at Yoru at the accessories stall, and look back at the books.

He noticed, the notebook confirmed. And he’s pretending he didn’t so she can keep choosing without feeling watched. He’s—

She stopped writing.

Looked at him over the notebook.

The hat was very wide.

The sunglasses were very dark.

She had forty million followers and had performed in stadiums and had been on magazine covers in seven countries and had, last night in a resort bathroom, experienced a feeling she was not going to describe in this notebook because some things were private.

And she was standing in an Okinawan market in a disguise following a boy who pretended not to watch a girl choose earrings so she wouldn’t feel self-conscious.

"I’m going to marry him," she said quietly, into the notebook.

She wrote it down.

Underlined it.

Twice.