Tamiko awoke alone the next morning. Before she could succumb to the mental anguish of not having Kakihara next to her, something caught her eye. Where he should have laid beside her was a black duffle bag with a note on top. She picked up the note:

Dearest Tamiko,

I am sorry for leaving you like this.

I know that if I was with you when you woke up, I would never be separated from you again. And I must do what I came so far to do.

The bag contains 3 million yen. It was not gained honestly, but I know you will use it for good.

I love you. I couldn't say it to your face, as a man like me does not deserve that happiness. When Ichi finally kills me, I will die with your name on my lips.

Kakihara.

And you should quit smoking.

Tamiko clutched the note to her chest and cried.

40 years later

"Yes, all those boxes must go." Tamiko told the waiting movers flatly. She had just learned that her lung cancer was terminal. As soon as her daughter and son-in-law had heard of it, they had insisted she live out her remaining days in their home. She hated to impose on them like this, but she knew they would be opposed to her dying in a cold and distant hospital bed. And she had no one else to help her. As she watched more boxes being moved out, she remembered her doctor saying that if she had quit smoking earlier, the cancer could have been prevented.

If only I had quit like he asked me to, she mused.

"Mom," her forty-year-old daughter interrupted her thoughts. "Who is this?" She held up a photograph of a handsome blond man.

Four decades later and Tamiko's breath still caught at the sight of him, even if only in a photograph. She had never moved on from him, despite the fact that from the day she read his goodbye love letter to this moment, she had hidden his photograph, not even peeking when she wrote her award-winning piece on the yakuza. She had accomplished so much in her career and her personal life, yet she still felt empty without him.

Tears blurred her vision when she lifted her eyes to her daughter. She smiled sadly, "He was your father."