by C. P. Santi
Ryo was just too handsome. Adrian’s looks were average and yet he still managed to screw her over.
Ryo didn’t do long-term relationships. Well, after what happened with Haruna, she couldn’t really blame him. Would he be able to give a real relationship a go?
Ryo was leaving. Aya tried not to think about Ryo leaving soon. It hurt too much. But she’d known his plans from the very start. Would they be able to work out a long-distance relationship?
Why was she even torturing herself like this? It wasn’t as if she were in love with the guy.
Was she?
She was definitely in lust. But love?
She’d never had to face emotions like this before. Adrian had been affectionate, steady, and welcoming. And the guys she had dated before him had also been of the same mold. They were easy . . . they were safe. Not one of them had challenged her. Or made her want to scream in frustration. Or want to jump in joy on a public street. Or laugh until tears ran down her face.
No one had made her want to alter the plans she had for her life. Not one of them had ever touched her heart.
Until now.
And that realization scared her more than anything ever did.
Chapter 16
“So, that’s it?” Aya asked.
Ryo squeezed her hand as they walked out of the plush Suntory offices in Shinjuku into the mid-morning sunshine. “That’s it. We’re officially a part of the competition.”
They had just submitted their entry for the Suntory design competition and Aya felt as if a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders.
Aya was optimistic about their entry.
She and Ryo had spent the last couple of weeks slaving over their boards. After they finalized their concept and scheme—incorporating the comments received at the critique—they cleaned up their drawings and made several more. Ryo wrote the concept paper based on the draft that he and Aya had worked out. Aya digitally edited the photographs they had taken of their study model. She incorporated images of people, plants, and lights to complete the vignettes they would include. Then they laid out their drawings on the two boards they had been allotted.
As other competitions also had looming deadlines, the lab was filled with groups doing all-nighters. Matsuura and Dei had even brought suitcases and had taken to sleeping at the lab.
When Ryo and Aya were done working for the night, they retreated to Ryo’s apartment, which was only a short walk from the university. In the mornings, they woke up, ate a quick breakfast, and headed back to the lab to repeat the same frantic cycle.
Aside from the compe, they also kept busy with other things. Ryo had to deal with course requirements. And aside from reviewing for her language class finals, Aya also had to prepare an application for her formal entry into the Master’s program.
But now it was all done. Aya had submitted her application last week, and she would sit the entrance exams next month. And she had finished her language exams yesterday. While she had been taking her exams, Ryo had had their boards printed and mounted.
Aya looked up at the steel and concrete jungle that surrounded them. Shinjuku was a maze of towering buildings. Sunlight glinted on the windows and highlighted the hollows and planes of the buildings. She turned to smile at Ryo. “Otsukaresama.”
“Otsukare.”
“So, what now?”
“Now, we wait.”
“Okay. But what do we do for the rest of the day?” As always, at the end of a big project, she wanted to celebrate.
“Well, let’s have lunch first, then go back to uni. I’ve got something special planned for us this afternoon.”
“You do?”
“Yup. I’ve a surprise for you. I think you’re going to like it.”
“Yay! I can’t wait!”
+ + +
She was going to kill him. And she would make sure that it would be a slow, tortuous death.
“Hai, hai. You hate me and you’re going to chop my fingers off and feed them to the turtle in Sanshiro Pond. You’re repeating yourself, Aya. Just get on the damned bicycle.”
Aya stomped her foot. “I don’t want to.”
“Well, tough. You’re going to learn to ride a bicycle today.”
It was humiliating. Here she was, a grown woman who couldn’t ride a bicycle—not that it had ever bothered her before. After all, back in Manila, if she needed to get around, there had been cars and public transport. But in Japan, trains were the most efficient mode of transportation. If your stop wasn’t near a station, you rode a bicycle. In her case, she walked. Sure, the walking distances were sometimes longer than she was used to. But what choice did she have? They didn’t exactly have pedicabs in Tokyo.
She had never learned how to ride a bicycle. When they were kids, her Ate Yumi scraped her knee while trying out their neighbor’s bike. That was about the only time Aya had seen her Lola Anita go ballistic. Ate Yumi had complained for weeks about the stinky smell of sebo de macho that their Lola had slathered on her knee. Lola Anita had worried endlessly that Ate Yumi had damaged her ‘assets.’ Even then, Aya loathed any kind of drama. Thus, she had never even thought about learning to ride.
“Why do I need to?” Aya pouted.
“Because you live in Tokyo and it’s a useful skill.” Ryo repeated for the nth time. “C’mon, Aya-chan. On the bike.” He held the bicycle in place and looked at her expectantly.
Aya glared at him.
Unfazed, he raised a brow in challenge.
“Ganbatte, Aya-san!” Dei cheered from where he was sitting on the pavement. He, Naruse, and Matsuura had been on their way back to the lab when they saw Aya and Ryo. They decided to sit and watch.
“Go, Aya! You can do it, girl.” April hooted beside him. Reggie, who was sitting beside April, actually had her camera out, ready to start filming.
Those traitors. They had sold her out. They had been there—with Ryo’s bicycle—when he and Aya had arrived.
They were near the iconic main entrance of the university, where faculty and students marched across on graduation day. The famous vista where tourists always had token souvenir photos taken. Aya wanted to melt in embarrassment as a group of elderly tourists pointed at her and smiled. Why here? Why did she have to have an audience?
Of course, when she asked Ryo, he told her that this was the only even path in the whole university. Everything else was either uphill or downhill. Sure, that made sense, but Aya thought she’d feel better without an audience.
“Ne, Aya. Any time now.”
“I said I don’t want to. You can’t make me.”
Ryo raised a brow then leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “Remember that thing we tried last night?” He drew back to look at her and smiled in satisfaction. “I see that you do. If you get on that bike right now, we might do that again later.”
“Are you bribing me?”
“Whatever works.”
Their gazes held for a few charged seconds before she looked away. With much grumbling, she mounted the bicycle. “There. Are you happy?”
Ryo told her to put her feet on the pedals. He explained the parts of the bike and what she was supposed to do.
“Are you ready?”
She bit her lip. “What if I fall?”
“Then you get up again.”
“But what if I hurt myself?”
Ryo rolled his eyes. “Aya, you’re wearing a helmet and protective pads. You’ll be fine.”
“Don’t you have training wheels or something?”
“What are you, five?” Ryo laughed. “C’mon, it’s about time you learned.”
He told her to pedal and find her balance while he supported the bicycle from behind. They did this a few times up and down the path.
She concentrated on keeping her balance as she pedaled. “I don’t know why I have to learn. I’m perfectly fine with walking. And besides . . .”
“A-ya-chan.”
It suddenly dawned on Aya that Ryo’s voice came from far away. She
risked a glace over her shoulder and was surprised to find that she had been cycling alone for the past minute. She promptly lost her balance and crashed into a nearby bush.
“Aya!”
Everyone started running toward her. Ryo reached her first and helped her stand up. “Daijoubu? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“Now he worries.”
“Baka.” He smiled, but his hands continued to examine her arms for scratches.
“Aya! You did it!” Reggie and April cheered.
“I did, didn’t I?”
“Always knew you could.” Ryo picked the bike up. “Ready to try again?”
A few minutes later, Aya was able to do the whole length by herself. With Ryo’s help, she practiced turning and braking. Thirty minutes later, Aya wondered why she had never tried cycling before. The feel of the wind on her face was exhilarating.
“That wasn’t so bad, now was it?” Ryo asked as he unstrapped her helmet.
Aya made a face, but ruined the effect by laughing and launching herself at Ryo. “I can ride a bicycle!”
He laughed and spun her around. “Lucky you’ve got such a great teacher.”
“Yes, lucky me.” Aya laughed and kissed him full on the mouth.
Chapter 17
“I hate you.”
“Sure you do, Ate Yumi.”
Onscreen, her older sister glared at her. “How could you do that to us?”
Aya yawned. ‘Melodramatic’ was her Ate Yumi’s middle name. “It was just a parfait, Ate.”
“But it looked ginormous!” Beside Yumi, Kit gestured with her hands. “It was what, two feet tall? I thought you said their servings over there are tiny?”
“I thought they were!” But then Ryo had brought her to one of those places that served gigantic parfaits. The guy really knew what tickled her fancy.
“You really ate all of that?” Kit’s sigh was filled with longing.
“No. There were four of us.” Aya wished Reggie hadn’t posted those pictures and tagged her on Facebook. “And just to make you feel better, it wasn’t ice cream, but soft cream. Also, the bottom fourth was filled with cereal.”
Boo. She had been actually disappointed at that.
“But, still. It had sparklers and fruit and everything.”
“You are so taking us there when we visit.”
“Fine.” Aya smiled. It would be a blast if her sisters could visit her.
“So what else have you been busy with, Ate?” Kit asked.
“You never post any pictures!” Yumi complained. “If people didn’t tag you, we’d never have believed that you’d learned to ride a bicycle.”
She still couldn’t believe it herself. But with Ryo at her side, it seemed she was scaling one mountain after the other. “Well, we went to karaoke last night to celebrate our graduation from language class.”
“You went to karaoke, Ate? Willingly?”
“And sang a song?”
Aya nodded. Granted, it had been a Japanese pop song and hadn’t required much vocal prowess, but still. Everyone had been having fun, and her friends egging her on, she had taken the microphone. Somehow it hadn’t been as traumatic as she had thought. Ryo had been beside her the whole time, a supportive hand on her waist. He didn’t laugh—not once—though he almost died laughing when Dei had tried rapping earlier in the evening.
But the real surprise of the night had been when Ryo had taken the microphone to sing Maroon 5’s “Sunday Morning”. He was so good that Aya wanted to kill him.
“Wow. Ate Aya sang and the world didn’t end?”
“More importantly, her guy didn’t run for the hills.”
“Ha-ha. Very funny, you guys.”
“Wow, Ate. I’m impressed!”
“So, when will we be meeting your hunky new boo?”
“He’s not my boyfriend. He’s leaving soon, remember?”
“What do you mean?”
Aya shrugged. “We aren’t together. We’re just . . . you know . . .”
“Friends with benefits? Wow. I didn’t think you had it in you, Aya.” Yumi raised a brow.
“No!” Aya frowned. Somehow that term didn’t sit well with her. “We’re just going out, I guess.”
Her sisters exchanged a look. Then Kit turned back to look at her. “Have you asked him about it?”
He keeps bringing the subject up, but I put him off.”
A frown appeared on her younger sister’s brow. “But why?”
Why indeed? She cocked her head to the side as she answered. “Maybe . . . maybe I just want to enjoy this before it ends.”
Her older sister sighed. “Oh, Aya. Why think about endings when it’s barely started?”
“Because it will end. He’s leaving and I can’t . . . I can’t take it, if it ends like it did with Adrian.”
“Ate . . . don’t do this to yourself. Ryo and Adrian are different people.”
“I know that.” Aya knew that what she felt for Adrian and what she felt for Ryo were two very different things. And perhaps that was one of the reasons why she was holding back.
Logically, she and Adrian ought to have worked out. But they didn’t.
On the other hand, she and Ryo ought to be at odds, but for some reason, they just clicked.
She’d been content without him. Maybe if she had never met him, she’d go on with her life, not feeling as if she had missed out on something. But thinking abstractly about love was very different from being caught in the maelstrom of emotions that comprised it.
The thing was, now that she’d met Ryo, nothing was ever going to be the same again.
Everything had changed. And the thought scared her silly.
Chapter 18
“You’d never be able to live in a place like this.”
Aya ran her hand over the perfect joinery of the wooden cabinets. “Oh yeah, why?”
“Because your clothes wouldn’t fit in that closet.”
She hated it when he was right. The closet was big by Japanese standards, but she’d never been a minimalist when it came to clothes.
She walked over to where he was lounging against the doorjamb. “You wouldn’t be able to live here either.”
“Why not? This space is perfect!”
They walked into the kitchen and she gestured around. “Because the kitchen is tiny. You’d never be able to fit the industrial-sized refrigerator you’ve been mooning over.”
“Zannen. We’ll just have to look for a new place to live in then.”
“Ha-ha. You wish.” Aya picked up a flyer from the dining table as they entered the living-cum-dining area.
Turning, she surveyed the space and marveled at the architectural genius of Maekawa Kunio. The house he had designed for himself was modern, yet its bones were classically Japanese. The spaces were utilitarian and compact.
Though she lamented the lack of space, it was still beautiful.
A guided tour group started filing into the tiny house. Having looked their fill, Aya and Ryo put on their shoes and headed out.
It was a lovely summer’s day. She almost forgave Ryo for dragging her all the way to the open-air architectural museum in Koganei to catch an exhibit.
Though she had grumbled about their early start, she stopped once she saw the place. There was a matsuri or festival going on and the park in front of the museum was filled with booths and people. The smell of food cooking mingled with the joyous yells of children throwing water balloons at each other. People lounged on mats, enjoying the shade that the canopy of trees afforded them. Ryo and Aya stopped to eat some takoyaki and yakisoba before entering.
Within the open-air museum, the atmosphere was relaxed and carefree. The museum was home to a mélange of architectural styles from different periods in Japanese history. The government had painstakingly relocated and reconstructed important buildings in order to preserve them.
They wandered through the east zone, where various traditional farmhouses had been reconstructed. Elderly museum volunteers were b
usy with traditional craft activities. In one farmhouse, children sat on the floor, learning how to weave cloth slippers. A lively group of kids stood near another farmhouse, playing with take tombo—a flying toy made of bamboo—while parents cheered them on. In other farmhouses, people simply gathered at the hearth, chatting and drinking freshly brewed tea.
For a time, Ryo and Aya sat with an old couple in one of the farmhouses. They drank tea and made paper pinwheels. The man and his wife were very taken with Aya and complimented her Japanese language skills. Ryo had a good laugh at Aya’s alarmed expression when the man said he hoped she would give Ryo fine babies one day.
Although the sun was high, the heat and humidity were still bearable. Cool breezes wafted in between the trees, making the leaves rattle almost melodiously. Hand in hand, they walked through the park, chatting about random topics. Sometimes, they stopped to linger and examine the buildings. Sometimes, they stopped to snap photos. Most of the time, they walked leisurely along.
Aya had never been happier.
Then Ryo uttered the four words that were capable of shattering her perfect little world.
“We need to talk.”
The smile died on her face. “What do you want to talk about?”
He drew her to sit on one of the benches that lined the path. “You do know that my soubetsukai is tonight, right?”Aya nodded.
Soubetsukai. His farewell party. Kyoko had timed it to coincide with the lab’s summer fireworks-viewing party. The lab secretary had gleefully organized a barbecue and nagged everyone to attend in traditional yukatas or summer robes.
“We’ve never talked about it, Aya. You haven’t even asked when I leave.”
Aya wiped suddenly damp palms on her jeans. “When do you leave?”
“Next week.”
“Oh.” After a pause, she pasted a bright smile on. “So. Are you all set? Do you need help packing your things?”
Ryo frowned. “Aya, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to talk about this.”
“This?”
He reached out to squeeze her hand. “This. This thing we’ve got going on.”
She bit her lip. “Ryo . . . you’re leaving in a few days. Why don’t we just enjoy the time we’ve got left?”