Free Web NovelChapter 34: Chapter 31 — Elena, the Bathroom, and How Did This Happen
Her hand was warm.
He helped her up from where she’d been backed against the rock — steady, practical, the same way he’d helped people up in alleys and corridors and wherever else the situation had required it.
She stood.
Looked at him.
Up close she was — he registered this the way he registered most things, as information — extraordinarily beautiful. The kind that arrived before you’d decided to notice it. Auburn hair loose around her shoulders. Honey-coloured eyes that were currently doing something complicated. The particular figure of someone who had spent years being looked at and had learned to hold it.
He was not looking at her the way people usually looked at her.
He was looking at her face.
"Are you okay?" he said. Still the first question. Always.
Her internal monologue, which had been running at considerable speed since he’d appeared on the beach, produced the following in rapid sequence:
Dark hair. Calm eyes. Appeared from nowhere. Said ’hey’ like it was simple. Those three men left like he was a wall that had decided to have opinions. Hand extended. First question — are you okay. ARE YOU OKAY. Not ’wow you’re beautiful’ not ’hey aren’t you—’ just ARE YOU OKAY like I’m a PERSON—
This is the scene, she thought, with the specific clarity of a woman who had read approximately four hundred manga volumes and knew exactly what this was. This is the scene. He’s the one. He’s exactly the one. He looks like the ones in the panels. He moved like the ones in the panels. He ASKED LIKE THE ONES IN THE PANELS—
"I’m fine," she said. Her voice came out completely normal. Professional, even. She had been performing for crowds of forty thousand. She could produce a normal voice.
"Good," he said. He looked down the beach where the three men had gone. Back at her. "They won’t come back."
"I know," she said. "Thank you."
He nodded. The simple nod of someone for whom helping was just a thing that happened and didn’t require ceremony.
He’s not going to ask for anything, she thought. He’s just going to nod and leave and I’m going to watch him walk away and that’s going to be—
"Are you staying at the resort?" he said. Practical. Just checking she had somewhere to go.
"Yes," she said.
"Same direction then," he said. "Come on."
He started walking.
She looked at his back.
He’s going to walk me back, she thought. He’s walking me back. He didn’t ask. He just—
She walked.
They walked along the waterline.
The resort lights were visible in the distance. The ocean was doing its thing. The stars were out.
"You’re not from here," he said. Observational. Not prying.
"Half Japanese," she said. "My mother’s side. I travel a lot."
"For work?"
"Mm." She looked at the water. "What about you."
"I live in Tokyo," he said. "Okinawa for a few days."
"With?"
"Friends," he said. The word doing a lot of work.
She looked at him sideways. In the dark, with the ocean and the stars, he had the quality of someone from a panel — the profile, the calm, the particular ease of someone who existed without requiring anything from the space around them.
I’m going to combust, she thought. I’m going to combust on this beach and they’re going to find me in the morning and the headline is going to be—
"I’m Elena," she said.
"Shirogane Kaito," he said.
She waited.
He kept walking. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
"Elena," he said, testing it. "Italian?"
"My father," she said. "Yes."
He nodded. The nod of someone filing information.
Not — the Elena. Not — Elena Rossi. Not — aren’t you the Elena who sold out three consecutive stadium tours and has forty million followers and whose last single broke streaming records in seven countries.
Just: Italian. Your father. Okay.
Her internal monologue, which had been loud since the beach, went quiet for a moment.
Then it came back louder.
He doesn’t know, it said. He genuinely doesn’t know. He’s walking beside me asking about my father like I’m a normal person he met on a beach. He’s not performing. He’s not calculating. He’s not—
He has no idea.
This is the best thing that has ever happened to me.
"What do you do?" he said.
"A bit of everything," she said. Technically true. "You?"
"Café," he said. "And investing. I’m at university."
"University," she said. "How old are you."
"Nineteen."
She looked at him. At the profile. At the calm eyes catching the resort lights as they got closer.
Nineteen, she thought. He’s nineteen. He saved me on a beach. He doesn’t know who I am. He asked if I was okay first. He has a café job. He’s studying. He’s—
He’s exactly what I’ve been reading about for fifteen years and never found in real life.
I’m going to marry him, she thought, with the complete, unbothered certainty of a woman who had decided something and saw no reason to be coy about it internally.
I’m going to marry him and it’s going to be great.
They reached the resort path.
"I’m okay from here," she said. "Thank you. Really."
He looked at her. The direct, present attention that she was going to need a moment with later.
"Get some rest," he said. Simply.
"You too." She paused. "Kaito."
His name in her mouth. She noted this.
He nodded. Turned toward the other wing.
She watched him go.
Waited until he’d turned the corner.
Then she looked at the stars.
"Okay," she said quietly, to herself, to the Okinawa night, to the general universe. "Okay okay okay."
She needed the bathroom.
The resort bathroom near the lobby was empty at this hour.
She went in.
The door closed.
What happened next was, from the outside, audible.
The lobby had three couples, one family with a sleeping child, and a resort staff member reorganising brochures.
All of them became aware, at approximately the same moment, of sounds coming from the bathroom near the lobby.
Sounds that were — the staff member adjusted the brochures. The couples looked at each other. The family covered the sleeping child’s ears on instinct and then felt confused about having done so.
The sounds were not — they were clearly — someone was clearly—
The family relocated to the far side of the lobby.
One of the couples went to get drinks.
The staff member developed a sudden urgent interest in the brochures at the far end of the rack.
After several minutes the door opened.
Elena walked out.
She looked, to the lobby’s remaining occupants, like a woman who had resolved something important.
Her face had the specific quality of settled satisfaction.
She crossed the lobby with the composed, unhurried walk of someone who was fine, actually, and had no comments to offer.
The staff member organised the brochures.
On the other side of the resort, in the private hot spring section, Shirogane Kaito was sitting in the water looking at the ceiling and thinking about the day.
The hot spring was good. Quiet. He had found it on the resort map and had come here to finish thinking — the Yoru conversation, the Nana conversation, the evening, Elena on the beach. A lot had happened. The water was helping.
He was almost settled when the door opened.
He looked up.
Aoyama Satsuki stood in the entrance of the private hot spring in a towel with the expression of someone who had arrived at a destination and found it already occupied.
They looked at each other.
"There was a booking," she said. Composed. Warm. The eyes doing the complicated thing.
"There was a booking," he confirmed. His eyes doing the thing where they stayed very calm because the alternative required more processing than was currently available.
She looked at him.
He looked at her.
The hot spring steamed between them.
"Coincidence," she said.
He looked at the ceiling.
"How," he said, to no one in particular, in the voice of a man reviewing his life choices, "did this happen."
The hot spring offered no explanation.
