Masako didn't know when she stopped seeing Mai.
Maybe it had been a week. Lin has said something about her phoning them, saying she was sick and she would be gone awhile before the line went to static, but she was in the next day.
She looked okay, but her eyes were bloodshot. She made tea, nodded at Masako with a bright smile, put a finger to her lips and left without delivering the cups. Masako happily did it for her, it was a chance to see the elusive Oliver. He was even quieter now that he was back from England, which she thought odd. She thought he was quiet because he was thinking of where his brother was, but she wasn't sure now.
But it had been a few days without tea that she became worried. There had been no call since that one, and Naru had grumbled of sacking her.
Three weeks, and the group decided to go to her house.
The smell at the door didn't reach her until she found the body, laying in her bed. Her mouth was opened in a silent cry of pain, and a stack of money lay next to her, crumpled in her decomposing hand. A letter on the bedside table described it all.
Mai was sick with pancreatic cancer. She stated that she knew that the chance of her living was minimal and the treatments much too expensive and painful. She said she knew she would probably die at home, and had saved for rent- the money they had found in her hand. She described how she did not want to worry anyone, and finished it with telling them not to pay for her funeral, to just bury her- the fees, of course, she had covered.
She even suggested a woman who would make a good replacement, with excellent tea skills. The bottom was signed with her signature cheerful smily face and thanking everyone for being so wonderful to her.
The next day, Masako had gone to work to pick up Mai's things, and there she was. Mai. She was making tea. The kettle was silent when steam started whistling, oddly; Mai turned and poured the water into their bosses favorite cup before smiling at Masako, cheeks sunken. She put a finger to her lips and glided out the door.
If it wasn't for her legendary composure, Masako would have gotten sink right there. As it was, she managed to instead lower herself onto the couch and hold in the sobs that threatened to drown her.
She saw Naru walk into the kitchen and freeze as he saw the tea, smelled the slight citrusy scent of her shampoo. He stopped right there, staring, before whirling on her. He gazed right into her eyes, his own filled with fear and urgency. She did not answer. She did not need to. They stared at one another, her with a mannequin like detached coolness and him regaining his composer. He shuffled off to his room, seemingly normal. She knew he wasn't.
It became normal. Mai stuck in the same pattern, his absentmindedly picking up a cup, cringing, and striding forward as if nothing had happened. He never acknowledged her.
Everyday Masako watched as Mai's smile became wider and faker while her eyes became more and more pained and her body more and more rail thin. She saw what she had failed to see before.
The last time Mai was there she had a sign around her neck: sold. She looked at Masako, and this time, she was not smiling. She tried to, her lip twitching, but her smile would not come.
Masako didn't know when she stopped seeing Mai. But she knew as she watched a sudden gust of wind move Oliver from a car as he exited the building, the exact same day Mai left with her sold sign, that she would never be as kind as the deceased girl.
She knew that Mai had sold her soul for Oliver to live.