Note: There is a heavy usage of dialogue and ellipsis in this chapter. It is meant to indicate trailing off, doubt, a sort of dreamy, slow melancholy. I hope I could get this across right without interrupting much into the flow of the story. I apologise for the quality but this series have turned surprisingly difficult to write without getting repetitive. I really have no idea what I'm doing by now. A lot of this chapter has to be implied and read between the lines, so if you have any thoughts about it, please share below.

After much consideration and the fact that Fanfiction won't let me use really long names, the chapter was titled after a song by Thirteen Senses. It is, however, unrelated to the lyrics.

I don't know how to not be lonely.

It's a nice colour, he thought, cream.

The place was well-lit, with one big window behind a desk and fantastic illumination, the sort of office space Sora would probably kill for if she could get her hands on it. He made a mental note to tell her about the building and then, upon second thought, dismissed it. No, he certainly wouldn't like to run into Sora here.

"How many days has it been?"

The question brought him back and he blinked lazily, staring back at the woman who sat on the personal couch. The chair had a high, arched back, and was the sort of pretentious furniture his grandmother liked, probably. She was wearing her hair down, bangs falling over her cheeks as she leaned into her notes, jiggling one foot to an imaginary tune he could've followed, if she hadn't been completely tone-deaf.

"How many days?" he scoffed, "I don't keep track."

The woman tapped her pen against her paper, nodding once.

"Okay then."

"Don't do that," he pursed his lips, displeased. "Please."

"Don't do what?"

"Say it like that."

"Like what?"

"Like it's a goddamn vice."

She stared at him, as though surprised. "Well, that's how you've been referring to it, I'm just following your lead. People are allowed one vice, it's only human."

"But it isn't," he insisted, his calm tone persisting despite feeling anything but. "A vice implies I can quit, like a bad habit. Like smoking, or drinking."

"You've indulged in them before," she said. "Smoking, drinking ... and quitting."

He ran nervous fingers through his fine blond hair, sighing before taking a seat and closing his eyes to avoid the image of caramel hair, honey eyes, the sweet smell of summertime. It didn't work.

"We're not talking about that," he murmured.

"What are we talking about, then?"

"My work ... you know my boss sent me here."

"Kojima-san only wants the best for you, you know that."

"I'm fine." He did not insist on the lie.

"She says you're distracted, irritable, early to work and late to leave," she said, reading from what he assumed was a detailed list sent by his boss, a woman so concerned with his well-being she had mandated these silly, weekly sessions.

'Since you'll talk to no-one at the office', she had told him.

Sometimes, he thought he hated the woman.

"So I'm a workaholic, big surprise. So was my dad," he paused again, and it was surprising how clearly he could see her then, stark blue eyes against dirty blond hair. "And my mother."

"Do you want to talk about that?"

He snorted, amused. "No."

"You've already mentioned four things you don't want to talk about," she said, lips pursed. "Yamato-san if you don't talk to me, then it doesn't make much sense for you to keep coming to therapy."

He shrugged, shoulders rising and falling in a practiced movement. "That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"You're being especially difficult today," she said, choosing to ignore him. "Did something happen with...?

"I'm obssessing over her," he blurted out, and it was this, finally, that piked her interest.

"Okay," she said softly, putting her notebook down. "Why don't you tell me about her?"

"I don't like talking about her."

The admission was met quietly and he stood up again, walking around the room. He had always been irritated by the way Taichi never seemed to be able to stand still but, he now realised, it was more difficult than he remembered. He stopped before a painting of the ocean, fighting the urge to reach out and touch the painting, wondering why he was channeling Taichi so much today. It was the sort of thing he did, after all, move from one place to another, reach out to touch this, and that, and everything around him.

It wasn't what Yamato did, though.

"That's probably why you should," she said, not unkindly. "Do you miss her?"

Yamato paused, looking past the painting.

"I left her." He imagined the understanding smile on her face, the quiet nod of her head. "Or I let her go, which ends up being the same thing."

"That doesn't mean you can't miss her," her voice came. "Why did you leave her?"

"I was lonely," he shrugged, "so I did lonely things."

He could hear the gentle scribble of her pen against paper, wondering why a woman like her would choose a regular pad and pen instead of a laptop, a tablet, any of the great commodities technology had to offer. It was a silly question, but he only knew how to answer those.

"You've never mentioned that before," she said. "Was it a particularly difficult separation?"

"Not particularly," Yamato said, slowly circling the couch before settling on it. Feline. "It was natural, really. I moved away, she moved away. We were a long way from where we..." and he stopped, suddenly bashful. "Mind if I smoke?"

"If it'll make you feel better..."

"It won't," came his flat answer, but his mind reached into his pocket for a packet of Marlboro Red, the good kind, that he found only in really sketchy corners of Shinjuku and were dealt as viciously as hard drugs. He lit the cigarette, raking in a long drag and savouring the sweet tobacco.

"Yamato-san..."

"It happened somewhere else. We were away from home, both of us, and found each other quite by accident. I don't think it took us more than a week to get together, and more than two weeks to realise that was all we wanted." He breathed out. "Do you know what that's like? You meet someone so far away from home ... they could be anyone else, and I couldn't help falling in love."

"You loved her?"

"Still do," Yamato breathed, shaking his head and decidedly avoiding his therapist's inquisitive gaze. "How could I not?"

"Young love tends to be intense. Was it your first time?" He gave her a look that probably betrayed his feelings, because she smiled softly, tilting her head to one side. "I meant..."

"I know what you meant," he said in a breath. "It was ... I wasn't the first person she loved."

"Did you resent her for having a past?"

"No," he answered truthfully. "I loved her for it. She was all these things and I had never met anyone like her before. I kept thinking 'I could've known this girl before', but I didn't, not until I did and then ... I think it was right."

"But you still left her." The question lingered in the air, but Yamato dismissed it with a steady stream of smoke. "Is that when you picked up smoking?"

Another careless shrug, this time, accompanied by a sad smile.

"I was still lonely, so I did even lonelier things."

"Should we talk about those lonely things?" she asked, but Yamato shook his head.

"Nothing like that, sensei," he said. "I was just out of it a lot. Sparce. Figuring everything out."

"Did she ever tell you she missed you?"

The question was unexpected, and that was what surprised him the most. He wasn't used to being surprised by very many people, especially not by his very own therapist.

"Sometimes," he began slowly, unsurely. "Though it was more in the I-miss-having-sex-with-you way more often than not." She was polite enough not to make a face, a sound, a lilt of a smile. So different to her, who would've squealed in delight, laugh and say 'well, I do', if she had been there.

"And..."

"And one day she said I hurt her, when I left like that. I had no excuse really, and she didn't ask for any. Still, I don't think my answers were very good." There was silence, a scribble of notes and then he sighed, putting out the remains of his cigarette in the ashtray he knew she reserved for him. "She called me a coward."

"She may have needed some sort of closure, and your reasons may have not been enough. It is difficult, leaving the things we love. It is more difficult than when the things we love leave us." Matsuda-sensei closed her notebook, placed her pen on the coffee table between them. "And this—,"

"Five hundred and twenty six."

A pause.

"Excuse me?"

"It's been five hundred and twenty six days since I last saw her."

It took a while for her to find her voice but when she did it sounded strange, distant. "I thought you didn't keep track."

"I lied. You knew," and he buried his face in his hands, as though the very act of breathing reminded him he was not whole. "I told you; I'm obssessed with her. With it. With them."

"Yamato-san," his therapist finally said, sitting up straight and frowning at him behind stern brown eyes. "What exactly is going on?"

But he was already on his feet, already at the door, already...

"Mimi's coming back," he deadpanned. "She's coming back and I don't know what will happen when she does."

She called out his name once more before he closed the door, muttering he'd be back next week, thinking he never would.

Forgive me, I was lonely so I chose you.

But it had never been his choice.