“You can’t be certain—”
“It’s because of how she looks at you, Kazeyuki. She looks at you the same way Eve used to look at me when we weren’t married.”
“Extremelyinfatuated then?”
It was clear to Konstantin that Kazeyuki was doing everything he could to keep himself from hearing the truth. But since Konstantin had never been a fan of wasting time by talking in circles—
“She’s in love with you, Kazeyuki—”
Konstantin could see a muscle start ticking in his friend’s jaw at the words.
“And that's why I need you to tell me clearly." Konstantin leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and the wooden car sat between them on the glass table like a small witness. "What do you want me to do with how this is playing out?"
Konstantin's question, which Kazeyuki had chosen not to answer, was still playing in his mind when he opened the door to his consultation room and found Katherine standing at his coffee station with a cup in her hands.
What do you want me to do with how this is playing out?
For one moment, he allowed himself to look at her. And most things about her were...familiar.
The auburn waves. The green eyes. The face from her chart, the vitals from her file, the scar on her left temple from the surgery he'd performed to save her life. He knew these things the way he knew any patient's details: accurately, clinically, and at a distance that kept them from becoming anything more.
But that distance had been a wall, and Konstantin had just told him the wall didn't exist.
So he looked. And what he saw wasn't a chart.
Her hair was longer than he remembered it being, or maybe he'd never let himself notice. It fell past her shoulders in loose copper waves, and her hands around the cup were small, the knuckles white from gripping too hard, and there was a faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose that he'd somehow neverregistered in two years of examinations. She was wearing a green sweater that made her eyes even greener, and she'd rolled the sleeves up past her wrists, and her wrists were so narrow that the sleeves wouldn't stay, and one was already sliding back down.
She was twenty-three years old. She was alive because of him. And she was standing in his office and looking at him like she was about to say something that would break her own heart.
“It’s okay,” Katherine blurted out to him. “You don’t have to explain anything.”
“Explain what?”
“I’m saying you don’t have to go through with it.”
He took a step towards her and noted how she visibly struggled not to back away.
“Because I get it, I really do—”
“You’ll have to be more speci—”
“I know you’re not in love with me!”
Kazeyuki went still.
First, Konstantin. And now, Katherine. Two people giving him a way out because, apparently, he looked like someone who needed their help to escape a mess of his own doing.
In front of him, Katherine’s eyes were starting to shine with tears, and his chest started tightening at the sight. Just tightening and tightening the way it had the day his father knocked on his bedroom door and told him that something bad had happened.
Could this be a fucking test?
He didn't believe in God, but he was starting to believe in the Devil because of how diabolical things had turned out, with history repeating itself despite his every effort to be good. Gallant. Gentle. So he wouldn't end up causing someone to lose their life again.
Kazeyuki took a step forward.
And Katherine...
She'd never shied away from him. In two years, she'd never once backed away from his presence. She had instead pursued him in varying ways, sometimes shyly, most times awkwardly, and at times, even rather...sweetly. Showing up hours early with terrible scones and transparent excuses. Faking heart conditions to scare off women who smiled at him. Sitting in the same window seat in the same co-working space, week after week, pretending to work while watching for him through the glass.
