Interlude

He could not resist it after all.

The smell wafted up his nose, and he coughed. It had been a while. Though soon the swirling taste was dancing on his tongue, the bittersweet taste of relief.

Katashi closed his eyes and drew a sharp breath, sinking his forehead against his palm.

"I thought you quit smoking," a voice spoke.

His face still hidden behind his palm, Katashi asked. "How'd you know I was here?"

The dark-haired man walked up besides Katashi and casually reached for the cigarette pack from his pocket. "Well, it was either here or your office. And since it is way past working hours…" The man lit his cigarette and took a long drag, leaning back against the bridge behind them. "You're sure about your decision?" he continued.

After a moment of silence, Katashi turned to his friend and nodded. "Yes."

"It still doesn't make any sense to me." The man ruffled his hair, a sardonic smile forming on his lips. "Japan? You'd throw away everything here? For what?"

In truth, Katashi had been questioning himself the same question. There was nothing left for him back there. No job was offered, and nobody was waiting for him. So what was this urging feeling that kept telling him to go back?

"Japan is my home," said Katashi. With a flicker of his finger, the ashes fell down to the deep ground below.

"Home? You have no family back there!" his friend protested.

"And I don't have any here either," Katashi replied with a low chuckle. He did not have any living relatives or even close friends. Not here. Not in Japan. Not anywhere. He was a man with no family, no home, and no identity.

"Not even Tomoko?"

Katashi did not reply to his friend's question. He took another long drag from his cigarette as he stared out onto the city's night sky.

"Are you going to ask her to come with you?" asked his friend.

"That's her own decision to make. I'm not going to ask her to do anything," Katashi replied without hesitation.

His friend turned around to the busy streets below them, his face thoughtful and sincere. "She really cares about you."

Katashi put out his cigarette and put the pack into his pocket. "And I her," he said determinedly as he looked into his friend's eyes.

"Take good care of her." His friend patted him on the shoulder as the two bid goodbye to each other and went their separate ways.

It seemed he was a bit late today. The parking lot was less crowded than usual. Most of the students had already left. Yet Tomoko had not come down. Strange. Did she get upset and go home by herself already? It couldn't be. She would never do that. Katashi shook off the thought and backed his car into the vacant spot.

Turning down his engine, he got out of the car. A little fresh air would be nice. This lot felt a bit too empty, too quiet for a university's campus ground. Not that he was complaining. He looked up to the school buildings.

It had been 3 months since they got back. He never thought Tomoko was one for teaching. She was always so full of life, always moving from one place to another, just bursting with enthusiasm. She was everything he was not. Yet it was what had drawn him to her. A mysterious thing it was, opposite attraction. It was also what surprised him when she insisted she would come to Japan with him.

They were different. She had friends and family, and a promising career in the U.S. He had nothing attached. She had left everything behind to come here with him. At first he was not sure about how to feel about such decision. Relief? Gratitude? Making decisions for others was not something he contended with.

In the end he had decided it should not matter. If fate had meant for them to be together, then so be it. He proposed to her the night they left for Japan. Katashi had never seen his girlfriend happier during all their time together.

Yet ever since, once they came to Japan, Tomoko had become different, somehow. She was no longer as energetic but more composed. They had been so busy with their new jobs he had not got the chance to talk this over with her. Whatever the reason, Tomoko certainly seemed more content. Perhaps he should just leave her be. Wouldn't they fit each other more perfectly this way?

"Sorry I've kept you waiting!" Tomoko called out as she rushed towards him.

Katashi opened his arms to greet his fiancée. "It's alright." He turned around and opened the door to the car. "Let's go."

Reluctantly she let go of his arm and got inside the car. Katashi started the engine and looked into his rear mirror to turn his car around. In that instant a movement from the distant corner caught his eyes, a noticeable color of gold. But as quickly he paid it no more heed and drove out of the school.

"How was school today?"

"It was great. I never knew Japanese students were this wonderful." Tomoko could not help beaming.

"I'm glad you're happy here." He turned around swiftly to smile at her.

"You know, you don't have to come pick me up everyday. My house is not that far away," said Tomoko as silence was about to break in.

"You got lost… twice," he chuckled as he recalled the memories of their first month here.

"I was only settling in then! I'm perfectly capable of traveling by myself now!"

Katashi averted his eyes from the road and onto her face. For a moment she sounded like she was pleading. Her voice was full of anxiety and urgency.

"What I meant was... I love driving you home." His right hand reached out to hers, gently but firmly, reassuring. That half-alarming tone was not a joke. He was sure of it, but he didn't want her to push herself so. He only hoped she would not come to regret her decision. Everything was going perfectly for their life and he intended to keep it that way.

That was until that person appeared on their doorstep.

Little did he know then that the moment he opened that door, he would be the one who had made a regrettable decision coming back to Japan.

Their first meeting left no particular impression on him. To him, she was just another girl, a student of his fiancée. What might have set her apart from the others was perhaps her strange behavior at the end. Why did she cry? Strangely, he felt obliged to keep that particular detail from his fiancée.

But that question didn't plague his mind for long, as other important matters soon did.

They would meet again at her school, and again, and again, until he could no longer ignore this "creature". What was her intention on getting closer to him? She didn't strike him as the type of promiscuous girls. There was something about her. But Katashi would not allow himself to think anymore on that. Nobody would come between him and Tomoko.

"I'll see you tomorrow then. Goodnight." Katashi leaned down and placed a light kiss on his fiancée's lips.

Yet her hands refused to release him, her eyes even more so.

Katashi's hand reached out and softly brushed her hair. "What's wrong?" he asked.

It was a while before Tomoko muttered a soft whisper, "Stay…" Her eyes poured into his and her hands held on to his chest. Her blue eyes had always had a special effect on him. Those cerulean eyes.

Suddenly, he grabbed her face and returned her plead with a kiss, but this time it was not a mere peck. Tomoko's fingers dug into the front of his shirt, keeping her closer to his body even. One of her hand soon reached for the clasp of her nightgown, but just at that moment, Katashi broke away from their kiss.

Catching his breaths, he tapped his head against her, closing his eyes.

"Sweet dreams." With that final whisper, he turned around and headed for the door, leaving behind his stunned fiancée.

It was not that he didn't want to stay. He had an early important meeting tomorrow with a client. His apartment was much closer to his office. He needed to make good preparations for tomorrow.

Yet, nothing prepared him for what was waiting outside that door.

It was the first time Katashi had stopped to actually acknowledge her existence. Perhaps it was because she was standing out there in the cold, in the middle of the night, all alone, and staring blankly at the sky. A beauty, broken and abandoned. Such an image would melt the hearts of even the coldest men.

In that moment, suddenly the contempt he had held for her was gone. And for whatever the reason she was standing out here, he cared not. Perhaps he knew he would not like the answer. To him this would mean nothing more than a kind gesture to his fiancée's student. He took off his coat and walked up to the distraught goddess.

Before he knew it, he was offering to escort her home. Though almost immediately, he had regretted his action. The sort of girl that had the gut to wander the streets alone at midnight wouldn't need such protection, would she? Katashi normally wouldn't judge people he barely knew. But what was he to make of her swollen lips and those… marks on her body?

Nothing. He reminded himself. They were none of his concern. What should concern him, however, was her increasingly bold and unrestrained advances. She was a detestable woman. He needed to stay away. And when by accident he had gazed into the depths of those blue eyes, he knew there was nothing else to do or say to her. He had to stay away.

As soon as he had turned the corner and kept a great distance from her, Katashi called for a cab, and in a matter of minutes, he was back on the doorstep of Tomoko's house. Shoving his spare key into the lock, he rushed inside and headed right to her bedroom. To his surprise, she was still awake. Without a word, he pushed himself on top of her and took her lips in a hungry kiss, his hands yanking off her nightgown in one swift movement.

Their lovemaking had never been so intense. Only weeks later did he remember he had forgotten to use protection that night.

Offering Minako his coat was a bad idea. Forgetting to take it back was worse. To think she would actually come to his workplace. Had she no shame at all, chasing after her teacher's fiancé like this? If this was how she wanted to play, so be it. But he was not going to play her game.

She kept coming to his office every day, and every day he ignored her just the same. Though once in a while, unintentionally, he would turn around and through the glass windows of his top office catch a glimpse of her sitting there waiting, her face always hidden behind her hair. Always, he would turn away immediately.

Until one day, when finally he turned around, the bench was empty. To his surprise, Katashi did not feel the relief he had been waiting for. But it mattered not, it was never anything in the first place, and it was over now.

Or so he had thought.

It was another busy day at the office for Katashi. The paperwork for his cases were piling up and he had not even stepped foot outside his office's door for 7 hours. Not that he really wanted it, but he could really use some justified distraction right now.

And it came just as he wished. Thought if he had known, he would never have done so in the first place.

"Saitou-san, your fiancée just left a message, she said she was preparing dinner and she would love it if you could come home early today," his secretary spoke over the phone.

Katashi put down his pen and rubbed at his temple. Was today any special occasion? Was it their anniversary? His mind was really not in the state for this.

"Thank you, Akari. Please tell her I'll try to come home as soon as I can," he replied.

"There's something else. You have a visitor, Saitou-san. As you said you wanted to clear the schedule for today and not to be disturbed, I had told that person to come back tomorrow but for 3 hours now th-"

"Yes, thank you, Akari," Katashi cut in. Akari was his new secretary. It seemed he had forgot to inform her of his "stalker". In truth, he thought she had already given up. It seemed he overestimated her self-esteem yet once again. "Just let her wait. She'll leave when she's had enough," he instructed.

"I'm sorry? Saitou-san, your visitor is a gentleman."

"A man? Is he one of our clients?" It was not her then. Katashi did not like this tint of disappointment he was feeling, no matter how insignificant it was.

"He only said he had something to discuss with you and that he would wait until you finish work."

"All right, let him in." This shouldn't take too much time, and he really was in need of a change of pace.

Katashi tidied up his desk and went over to his sofa, ready to meet his mysterious guest. He turned around as the door clicked open and a young man walked in.

Upon first eye contact, his visitor extended his hand to him and smiled.

"Saitou-san? Nice to meet you. I'm Mamoru Chiba."

Has this chapter answered that mystery? =) If not yet, wait for the next one.
Just to be clear, all the events in this chapter happened before chapter 5.