She nodded, knowing that’s what she was meant to do. Fuck him, put him from mind, move on without another thought. “Right.”
“The good news is there are plenty of spares out there. Siblings and grandparents. Put yourself in front of one of the teenages; they won’t care if you serve the wagashi properly or not.”
She nodded again, forced her mouth into a smile, and followed Yuriko to join the group.
Sumi didn’t know why she was surprised. He hadn’t returned her calls in days, and her text messages remained unread. She knew she could have simply gone to his shop, staked him out in the parking lot or in front of his house, but that would have been forcing a final draw, and her bravery had run out.
Her DMs, too, had been quiet.
Since she’d sent that last message to ChaoticConcertina, there had been no reply.Thatshe had not handled with nearly as much grace as she was attempting to pretend for the ceremony. She had gone to bed that night tight with anxiety, too nauseous to sleep, too aware of what she was risking.You might lose both of them.Even then, knowing what sheknewto be true, it was nearly impossible to separate them in her head.
When no reply came, she had sobbed. Cried over her silent laptop, wept under the hot blast of her shower, chest heaving at the thought of not having him there, notification appearing on her phone in the middle of the day. The thought of her days and nights being silent of that little chime, the notification that there was someone in the world thinking of her, someone who understood her to her core. A little chime, a message from him. And her whole world felt brighter.
She had felt the moment he’d flinched away from her in her bed. He’d asked if she was a teacher, only it hadn’t come out of his mouth as a question.An accusation. His body had flinched, the same sharp reaction in her store over her knowing toomuch about his daughter’s schedule. A pull-back, a ripple in the surface of the their two existences, and Sumi had known the time had come to meld them permanently.
And then he sent her that message.
Asking Pinky to meet, to solidify her existence, as if he were begging her for it to not be true. The realization that she may have lost them both was one she was not yet willing to face. Not until she got through her tea ceremony.
The group entered, bowing low to their guests, who bowed low in return. Each member of the group played a part in the ceremony. She was relieved that she had not been given the task of whisking the matcha, certain she would have slopped it on someone’s shoes with her shaking hands, barely holding her composure together.
The chakin was just a little napkin, inconsequential and unimportant in the grand scheme of the world. But in this context, to this ceremony, it was a venerated tool, one worthy of study and mastery. She was responsible for wielding the napkin throughout the ceremony that afternoon, ensuring that it had achieved the appropriate level of wetness, that she wiped out the tea bowl fully, and that she didn’t accidentally whip Yuriko in the face.
He wasn’t there.
She didn’t need to dwell on his absence during the ceremony itself, being fortunate enough to have a bored-looking tween seated in front of her, the younger sibling of the teen kitsune in their group. She didn’t need to focus on his absence as she wiped out her tea bowl, and didn’t have the embarrassment of an empty seat before her.
Afterward it was different.
Yuri gripped her wrist, putting on a bright face. “Come on, you’re coming to dinner with us. We have a reservation. They can add in another —“
“No. I think I just want to go home.”
Her friend pulled a face. “I don’t want you sitting at home dwelling on this asshole. Come out with us, take your mind off —“
Sumi shook her head, already feeling the tears burning their way into existence. “Later, maybe. Later this week. I really just want to be alone right now.”
She had parked at the shop. The benefits of having her own storefront in the downtown landscape meant that she wasn’t forced to use the municipal lot, often crowded on weekends, as it was then. She had parked in her own little lot and walked up the hill, and now she was relieved for that as well. Sumi didn’t want to face any happy families in the park, see couples strolling hand-in-hand, getting ice cream and sushi, being disgustingly in love.Love is a fucking racket. So fucking Ohio.
She had never considered her own rizz to be mid, but she supposed she was going to be forced to take the L in this case. Too bad the L meant a broken heart.
Letting herself intoPink Blossom,Sumi closed the door in relief, slumping against it. She might not even bother going home.May as well just stay.After all, she owed the demise of both her relationships to this place. May as well stay and work on tomorrow’s orders, just sleep under one of the tables in her cinder block sweatshop. Making money was all she had to look forward to now. Never mind that she didn’t have anyone to spend it on.This is how billionaire sociopaths probably start. This time in ten years, you can have your own rocketship.
She had just moved to the front of the store, when she saw it. Something near her front door, moving low against the floor, a great creeping beast. Grabbing a broom, she approached slowly . . . When a hand landed on her elbow from behind, making her scream.
Ranar scrunched his nose, wincing at the noise.
She dropped the broom. For what felt like a tiny eternity, all they did was stare at each other. Her heart crashed. Crashed against her lungs, crashed against her skull. She could scarcely believe he wasn’t able to hear it.
“What do I need to do to get you to start locking your back doors? This is pathologically stupid, and I’m sorry to put it that way, but I feel like strong language is the only way to get it through your thick skull. This is how you get robbed or worse.”
Her hand went to her throat, the laughter that burbled out of her sounding unhinged even to her ears. “I’ll have to remember that. At least, I’ll try.”
“You’lltry? You shouldtryto remember to change your clocks ahead of daylight savings. This isn’t something you try for. This is something you do.”
“If only I had someone sensible in my life to remind me.”
At that, he huffed, turning away. Ranar was quiet for a long moment, and when he spoke again, there was a bitterness in his tone that she’d never heard before. She’d inferred it, through text. She’d been able to feel the bitterness seeping out of each letter in his messages about his custody arrangement with his ex-wife, his bitterness over the giant that had steamrolled his industry. And now, bitterness for her.
