Paradigm Shift

by Squit Ayumin

Two best mates: Tai, a bachelor who is afraid of commitment and Matt, a monogamist who has just been dumped. Their roles are switched as Tai falls hard for a girl and must learn what it means to be in a relationship, while Matt must cope with being single for the first time in thirteen years.

29. Progression

Just as another warning, this one is insanely long at 2.5x the average length of a normal chapter, so have a cup of tea ready. I'll try to make them shorter moving forward.

Paradigm Shift
Chapter 29: Progression

Compared to himself, Tai always woke up early and managed to get so many things done to start his day. Even though he was the one who had to leave for work earlier than Tai, it was not unusual for him to wake up to find that Tai had already run the block, showered, gotten ready for work, and caught up with overnight world news over breakfast.

"Good morning," Tai would greet perkily, when Matt would saunter sleepily into the kitchen to make his coffee, in a bad mood simply for the fact that it was morning.

This was their usual morning routine, so Matt was irritated that this was the one day Tai had chosen to sleep in.

He had woken up before his alarm clock—unusual for him. He had woken Megumi up in the process, and while she was even less of a morning person than he was, she too had woken up fairly easily. She had a job interview scheduled for later that morning, and the anxiety kept her from falling back asleep. Having spent the first three months back unemployed, she had now started to look for work after facing the pressure from her parents. He wished her luck as she left, though he already knew she would do well.

She had had such a specific interest in her career during her time in the UK that he was surprised to find that she was far more generic upon her return. Her only requirement was to not work a traditional Japanese company, which is what made her turn down Tai's offer when he offered to pass her CV to his company. As far as companies went, Tai's was one of the most lucrative in the country but also one of the most conservative. Her previous company in Tokyo had been the same, and she didn't want to return to that environment.

His office culture was better in that regard, so he had given her a list of open positions at JAXA. With his referral, they'd likely give her an interview, and despite her not having any aerospace background, she had acquired a genuine interest through him over the years. Still, she only saved the email he had sent her and only committed to think about it.

Much to his exasperation, Tai was still not awake by the time he had finished getting ready for work. Because he had to leave before Tai in the mornings, if he didn't wake up soon, he wouldn't be able to see him until later that evening, possibly with Megumi around. He tried everything to indirectly wake him up, from cooking breakfast to turning on the TV to blasting his music to slamming doors.

It wasn't until he heard Tai's alarm clock go off that he finally emerged from his room a few moments later, naked and his hair in a state of disarray.

"Why is it so loud?" he croaked, sounding as if he hadn't spoken in years.

Matt turned down his music and walked up to him before he could enter the bathroom, blocking his path. He jumped to the point, seeing no reason to lead into it.

"Why were you with Mimi last night?"

Tai groaned, pressing his fingers into the side of his forehead. "Move. I have to vomit."

"But why were you with Mimi last night?" he repeated, not budging.

"I'll vomit on you. I don't care."

With the threat of Tai's throwing up on his work clothes, he moved, and his flatmate walked inside. To his annoyance, Tai didn't throw up but instead began to brush his teeth.

"Why did Mimi bring you home?"

Tai looked at him through the reflection of the bathroom mirror, furrowing his brows as if he had no idea what he was talking about. "Mimi brought me home?"

"Yes."

"I don't remember," he muttered.

"Why were you even hanging out with her?"

"She has hanging out with Sora," Tai said, yawning.

"But why did she bring you back instead of Sora then?" he demanded further. "You knew Meg was here, you idiot!"

Tai spat his toothpaste into the sink. "Stop yelling at me. I'm hung over."

He wanted to press further, but Tai kicked him out to shower. Tai was usually quick to get ready, but today he stood under the water longer to sober up and came out looking significantly more alert.

"Good morning," he chirped, as if they hadn't seen each other yet. His nose led him to the stove, where Matt had made breakfast earlier in an attempt to lure him out of his room. "Is this for me?"

"You can have it," Matt offered as if it wasn't for him, even though it was.

Tai looked delighted, digging in straight from the pan. Matt cringed as Tai dragged his metal fork across the non-stick pan.

"Are you mad?" Matt hissed, grabbing it. He found him unbelievable as he plated it for him. Tai had seated himself on the dining table, waiting as if he were his child. He aggressively slid the plate to Tai to show his displeasure, not that Tai noticed.

"I was so drunk last night."

"Yeah, I saw. You hit on my girlfriend last night."

Tai laughed with food in his mouth. "Don't worry. I'm not interested in Meg."

"You also come home with Mimi of all people. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Calm down. We didn't do anything."

"I didn't think you guys did anything," Matt snapped, frustrated that Tai wasn't putting the dots together himself. "I want to know what the hell happened that you thought it appropriate to bring Mimi back to our flat! Meg was here, you idiot!"

"Can you get me water?"

It was astonishing to him that Tai, for claiming he was so hung over, still found it in him to push his buttons. He was clearly doing it on purpose.

He got it for him anyway, and Tai finally disclosed what had happened. Rather succinctly, he told him he had gone out with his friends and had accidentally run into Sora and Mimi at a bar.

"But why did Mimi take you home instead of Sora?" he asked, trying not to sound as annoyed as he felt.

"Mm…" Tai hummed, taking another bite of the food he hadn't been able to eat while speaking. "Oh, right. She left with us, and we dropped Sora off first because she lived closest to the bar. I guess I must have blacked out after that."

Matt frowned. "That's all?"

"Yeah, what else would it have been?" Tai asked, finishing his plate. He sighed contently, patting his stomach. "I feel much better after that. Thanks Matt."

"Why the hell did you get that drunk anyway?" he snapped. "She carried you here. I'm surprised you didn't break her back."

"I helped her exercise," Tai said with a shrug, though a more serious look came across his face.

"What is it?"

Tai stood up with his plate and put it into the dishwasher. With his back to him, he said, "Sora and I got into another fight."

"You guys fight too often," he noted dismissively. "How do you guys even have that much to fight about?"

Expecting Tai to shoot back with some snarky comment, he was surprised when he instead told him—rather calmly at that—a longwinded tale of his week, of meeting Sora's ex-boyfriend, of a fight he had somehow misunderstood as a breakup, of how the run-in at the bar had actually gone, and that he had cried.

He had to admit he was surprised, not only by the details of what had transpired but by how serious Tai sounded. In all the years he had known him, he felt like Tai's emotions ranged from overly excited to overly annoyed but nothing really past that. The way he spoke of himself, he made it sound like he had had a full mental breakdown.

"Sorry I made fun of you the other day," he muttered when Tai had finished, now feeling guilty.

"Hey, do you remember my friend, Kenji?" Tai asked suddenly, appearing fine despite what he had just told him. "He texted me this morning to ask me to set him up with Mimi. He was all over her last night. It was embarrassing."

He knew Kenji, Tai's friend from school who was just like him.

"Your friends have no chance with a girl like Mimi."

"Why not? Her standards aren't that high, considering she dated you." Tai smirked. "Izzy was in love with her too."

"I don't think he's her type."

Tai laughed condescendingly, which he knew was directed at him. "Don't worry. I told them both she's your ex-girlfriend."

He was annoyed but didn't say anything, the explanation being enough for him.

Tai stood up and stretched. "I have to go to work."

"Are you coming home tonight?"

"Maybe."

"You're going to Sora's?"

"Mimi's," he said, disappearing into the corridor.

From his tone, he couldn't actually tell whether he was joking or not.

He knew that Tai, being Sora's boyfriend, would have instances where he'd run into Mimi, but he also knew that Tai and Mimi didn't like each other much and tended to avoid each other. After all, they had barely interacted even while he had dated her.

For them to become friendly wasn't wildly strange, considering their shared connection to Sora, but he still didn't like it.

---

He had chosen to drive to work that day, partly because driving relaxed him in a way that commuting via metro did not and partly because he wanted to get to Sora's as soon as possible once work was over. They had been too busy to talk on the phone during the day, but they did text each other quite a bit more often than they usually did. It made him feel better about everything. He could remember fooling around at the bar, but with alcohol no longer a factor to improve moods, he was nervous about where they actually stood.

He was dead set on leaving on time and remained hyper focused throughout the day. After two consecutive days of getting nothing done, his work had piled up, but he ploughed through them and was rather proud of himself for how much he was able to accomplish.

The moment he was contractually allowed to leave, he flew out the door and waved goodbye to his assistant, who seemed taken aback by how he was in such a hurry. Even compared to the earliest he'd usually clock out, he was still leaving thirty minutes early. He rushed to his car, phone against his ear.

"Hello?" Sora answered, her voice at nearly a whisper. "Tai?"

"Guess who got out of work early?" he bragged, even though he had only gotten out on time.

He heard Sora's muffled voice excuse herself, a few more seconds passing before he heard a door sliding shut and her voice a bit louder.

"You got out early?" she asked him belatedly, sounding surprised. "What's the occasion?"

He frowned. "Are you still working? I was going to go see you."

"Ah, yes," she said distractedly. "Sorry, I probably need another hour. I didn't realise you could get out so early."

He felt disappointment but told her not to rush and that he'd head to her place later once she was out. She was always already out of work by the time he usually got off, so he hadn't expected that she'd need more time.

His adrenaline significantly lowered, he got in his car and instead headed towards what he had hoped would be his second stop that night.

---

He hadn't told her he was coming, but it seemed like she had expected him. Mimi was already yelling at him from the moment she buzzed him into her apartment complex, and when he reached her door, she threw a bag at him without so much as a greeting.

"What's this?" he asked. Having caught it, he peeked inside.

"It's my dress that you ruined last night," she snarled. "You're getting it professionally cleaned for me. You got vomit on it, you big jerk! Do you realise this dress is worth more than your life?"

He put the bag off to the side as he took off his shoes. "Can I come in?"

"No."

But he came in anyway. Despite her hostility, she stepped aside to make room for him to enter, and she even offered him some fancy tea that he didn't want in expensive-looking china.

"Thanks for taking me home last night," he said, declining when she offered him sugar.

She glared at him. "That's it? You owe me a way bigger monologue than that! You should be kneeling before me and begging me to forgive you."

"Thank you very much for taking me home."

She frowned, watching as he took a sip of her tea. It was too floral for his liking, but he didn't dare say this to her when she already looked just about ready to kill him.

"You know, you're just as inadequate as Sora makes you out to be."

He frowned too.

Mimi often made stabs like this, but after what had happened the past few days, this one actually stung. He wouldn't have been surprised if Sora had confided in Mimi and used a few choice words to express her disappointment in him. He had talked about her to Matt and Megumi too, but he hadn't insulted her.

"Did she really say that?"

A poker face Mimi could not keep, so although he was certain that she didn't want to convey it, he saw a glimmer of pity on her face.

"No," she answered pointedly. "That was my own inference, but that doesn't mean she isn't thinking it. And she has every right to."

Even though he had just declined, she dropped a sugar cube in his tea. He looked down at it as it dissolved, knowing his tea was now probably too sweet.

"How is it possible that you're here instead of with her?" she asked him. "Don't you have a conscience?"

He took another sip. It wasn't to his taste, but it was fine. He'd finish it.

"I'm going to her place afterwards," he muttered, not revealing that he had in fact wanted to go to Sora's first.

Her eyes watered. "How could you do that to her?"

He didn't know how much Mimi knew. Probably everything. He had a feeling that Sora confided in Mimi even more than she did with him.

"Answer me, you idiot," she demanded when she saw he was stalling. "You told her you loved her, so how could you do that to her?!"

"I wasn't going to do anything with that girl."

He flinched when she suddenly shifted in her seat, thinking she was going to hit him, but she only glared. "I don't mean just that. I mean everything. Do you have any idea how sad she was all day yesterday? What did you do to her?"

"We just fought. It was a misunderstanding. We made up last night."

She looked furious. "Did you? Because she cried at work twice today."

He felt his heart sink. He and Sora had been texting all day, and aside from sending him more heart emojis than she usually would, he hadn't thought anything was amiss. When he thought back to the night before, their conversation had ended at a weird moment, but they had then spent the rest of the night being affectionate, albeit intoxicated.

"All of this over what? Her dumb ex-boyfriend? Are you seriously that insecure?"

"No, I'm not," he countered defensively, the adjective one he had never heard anyone use to describe him. "I don't know what happened. I just saw her with that guy, and I snapped. I couldn't stand it, especially after what happened between y—" He stopped himself. "I just freaked out. I don't know."

"What? Do you mean after what happened between me and Matt?" she asked him angrily, not letting it slide.

He looked down at his teacup, tracing the pattern of gilded gold with his eyes to distract himself.

"I think you're way worse than Matt. I think you're the worst kind of man, because even though what he did was awful, at least Matt did it to stay loyal to the same woman. You're both birds of a feather, but I'd rather be me in my situation than be Sora in hers, because he was clear about what he wanted. He didn't stand there insulting me and accusing me and—"

She stopped speaking. He wasn't sure why. Maybe she had gotten too emotional, or maybe she had caught sight of him and was disgusted.

He was still only staring at his cup. He didn't have anything to say because he couldn't defend himself anyway.

"Are you even listening? Do you even care?"

He looked up, nearly flinching when he saw her face. Even when Mimi had gotten angry with him in the past, she had the kind of sweet-looking face that didn't come across very scary at all.

He had always thought she had the beautiful appearance of a picturesque doll, but in her anger towards him, she had morphed into something more spiteful.

"I'm listening, and I do care," he answered.

She stared at him, and he noticed for the first time the flecks of gold in her large, honey coloured eyes. She closed them.

"Tai, I'm only going to tell you this because I know Sora won't, but it makes me angry that I even have to say this because you should have figured it out yourself." Her voice trembled, and she opened her eyes again. "Joe isn't Sora's Megumi."

This time, she was the one who broke eye contact, her slim fingers moving from her cup to her lap in small fists.

"I know he never loved me," she added quietly before raising her voice to a normal volume again, "but Sora loves you a lot. For some inexplicable reason that makes no sense to me, she does, and I hate it because she waited a really long time to be in love again, and it makes me so sad that of all people she fell for you."

She was insulting him, but he didn't feel like he could actually say anything in his own defence, so he took it.

"I love her too."

She raised a hand, and he again expected her to hit him, but she only slammed it against the table.

"Well, I feel very sorry for her if this is the best you can do."

He felt like a child getting in trouble with his mother. He mumbled an apology, though he wasn't sure why he was now having to apologise to her.

"If I were her, I'd save myself the disappointment and just break up with you, but it's Sora, so she won't. She's going to forgive you, you know. You must know. She'll forgive you each time like what she did with Joe, but you hurt her a little more each time. She has more love than anyone I know, and she deserves better than that. She deserves better than you." That look in her eyes was back. "I didn't like you in the beginning, but I thought you must be okay if you could make her that happy. That was until I also the other side yesterday. You didn't see her face when we first saw you last night. I've never seen her look that frightened. I hate that she's going to forgive you, because I don't think you deserve it. I think what you actually deserve is a slap across your stupid face, you stupid jerk."

Her eyes grew misty. If he weren't so busy feeling like shit, he would be impressed by her ability to empathise with her friend. It was a trait he did not share.

"I'm not trying to hurt her."

"Then don't! Just try to think about it from her perspective, Tai. She already thought she liked you more than you liked her—"

"That isn't true," he interrupted, feeling wronged.

She glared at him with an intensity that made him retreat.

"Maybe to you, but that's what she thinks. You never talk to her about anything, and whatever was going through your empty head last night, it definitely looked like you had replaced her."

He knew he wasn't supposed to get defensive, but he did anyway. "I talk to her about a lot of things."

"Like what? How you want to quit your job?"

He frowned. Just exactly how many of their conversations went back to Mimi?

"Don't get your knickers in a bunch. I only know because she's always talking about how great you are. Did you know Sora's kimono design was recently picked as the winner for a nationwide competition? You don't, because she didn't tell you. Why? Because she said you were too busy studying for some dumb exam, so she didn't want to distract you. She had this major achievement. Our whole company celebrated it, and I work in a completely separate department. If that were me, I'd tell everyone I've ever met, but she's never once bragged about it because she's too busy bragging about you."

"I couldn't have known that unless she told me. Why didn't she say anything to me…" he mumbled, more to himself.

"Because she only cares about other people, Tai! How long have you been dating her, and you still don't realise this?!" He and Mimi butted heads often, but now she actually looked like she hated him. "The last time she invited you to her gala to celebrate her accomplishment, you left her there by herself. If you were her, wouldn't you think you don't care either? What have you actually done to make it look like you do?"

"I care," he refuted, feeling snubbed from her bringing up something from so long ago. "I just can't be there for her when she doesn't tell me anything either. It's not like I can read her mind."

"I can't either, but I can still observe. It isn't like Sora came over to me and told me any of this. You're her boyfriend. You should be able to do it too. You should be able to do it way better than I can, you big dummy."

Her G-rated insults would have been amusing to him if it weren't that everything else she was saying outside of them made him feel so inadequate.

As inadequate as Sora made him out to be, she had said.

Mimi was fuming, and he recognised her expression in himself.

It brought him back to when he had confronted Megumi. She hadn't done anything directly to him, but the fact that she had hurt his friend was enough to make him hate her at that moment. He remembered his merciless determination to kick her while she was down, make her feel even part of the pain he had seen in Matt.

He saw that same desire in the look Mimi was giving him.

He often said that they hated each other, but he also thought that with all the time that had passed between them, that aversion had just turned into banter, and that they liked to say they hated each other more than they actually did.

It was an unreciprocated perception, because her expression showed that she did in fact genuinely dislike him.

"Do you know how hard she's also been working on the kimono for your mother and sister? She works on those as much as she does for the ones she actually gets paid to make. She stays late every single day to work on them. If you know she's working late, you could have just asked her why. I bet you never did."

He hadn't, because it was because he had been staying late too. He always got out after her, so every time he texted her when finished, she would already be out of work. He didn't say this, knowing Mimi would not accept it as an excuse.

He had gotten out on time today though. He wondered if that was why Sora still hadn't finished.

"She does it because she tries so hard to get close to your family, but when was the last time you asked her about hers? Probably never."

It was true that he didn't really ask about her family, but it was because she rarely talked about them to begin with. She was as dismissive about it as she was with nearly anything that dealt with herself. He wanted to say this, but he didn't, because he could remember that even Joe had asked her about them.

He had an answer for everything. That was what his parents and teachers said growing up whenever he got in trouble as a child.

"You know, I only made her go out last night because she was so upset. I just wanted her to unwind a bit, but now I feel like it's my fault too, because otherwise she wouldn't have seen how horrible you are. You proved to me yesterday that you're still the same jerk I saw the first time I met you. That's just the kind of person you are, Tai."

He felt like a human punching bag. Although her verbal beating didn't make him feel great, he also thought that although Mimi had no issue disregarding his feelings to harangue him, he couldn't ever imagine Sora saying these words to him. If he really thought about it, they had never reached this level of depth in any of their fights.

"While you were out partying with your dumb friends, Sora and I spent hours drafting her apology to you, which I hope she's thrown away by now. She's the strongest woman I know, and she's already so careful, but nobody makes her as self-conscious as you. I hate that you do that to her."

"I'm not trying to traumatise her. I'm not Joe."

"This has nothing to do with him. It's you. It's all you. Fix yourself, Tai."

He winced. He wanted to, but most of this was news to him. How could he fix something he didn't even possess awareness of?

"I'm not good at this kind of stuff. I need her to give me a hint."

"I just gave you a million! You should honestly be thanking me right now."

He didn't think he was so selfish a person as others thought, but when he thought about it, perhaps those weren't just empty insults. When given direct instructions or thoughts, he could act on them with the other's thoughts in consideration, but when it came to deciphering it for himself, he knew he lacked in that area.

Even Matt, who was so introverted, was easier for him than Sora, because at least he was so volatile that he had no problem calling Tai out.

"I know I made a mistake," he said finally. "I'll try harder. I know it may not seem like it to you, but I love Sora very much."

He thought he should elaborate on it, but he didn't think it was necessary to do it to her.

Her glare faded, and her overall demeanour softened. She reached over to pick up a pink tin from the middle of her table, opened it, and extended it out to him.

"Do you want a pink champagne truffle?" she asked.

He looked at the chocolates inside and took what he assumed was Mimi's extended olive branch to him.

"They're expensive," she bragged.

He held the chocolate between his fingers, wondering for a second whether she had poisoned it beforehand. Even she couldn't be that outraged at him.

"I'm sorry if I sound harsh, but I'm not only telling you all of this because I love Sora," she said to him firmly. "You told me last night that we're friends. Do you remember?"

"Kind of."

"Well, you did, so as your friend, I thought you should know." She paused. The livid look in her face was gone despite her eyebrows pointed downwards and her lips downturned into a frown. "But I still don't like you."

He nodded in response. "You were extremely clear."

She crossed her arms like him. "You should consider yourself lucky. I promised Sora I wouldn't beat you up, but otherwise that's what I'd be doing right now."

She flexed her right arm at him, and he chuckled seeing no difference in definition. He tried to imagine a scene in which Mimi would try to physically assault him. Physically, there was no doubt he'd have the advantage, but he could see where he'd end up losing and not only because he wouldn't hit back.

He made eye contact with her and saw that she was looking at him oddly. At first, he thought perhaps she was annoyed that he had laughed, but she didn't look irritated or cross anymore.

"Do you remember anything that I said to you last night?"

He finally bit into the chocolate that had started to melt against the warmth of his fingers. His mouth full, he shrugged his shoulders at her.

She frowned. "What does that even mean?"

He chewed. The truffle was too decadent, and it took him a while to chew it enough to swallow.

"It means I remember you telling me about Matt, if that's what you're getting to."

A rosy flush appeared on her cheeks, and he pretended he hadn't seen. He reached for another chocolate.

"How can you eat two of them in a row?" she asked him judgmentally. "They're so rich I can only ever have one at a time."

"I'm good at eating."

She didn't have anything to say to that, and he finished the second truffle in silence. True to her warning, he felt a bit sick after the second one. With the conversation having fizzled, he took it as his sign to leave, and he stood up.

"Thanks for the tea and the snack, and sorry again for last night. I'll see you later."

"Wait."

She reached out to grab his forearm, then pushed him back down. He looked at her, but it took another moment to speak, the colour in her cheeks appearing again.

"How is he? He looked well yesterday. He looked healthy."

He could see how embarrassed she was to ask him, her disposition having changed completely since yelling at him.

"Don't think I care so much or anything," she added quickly. "I just wondered because I saw him. That's all."

If she was being her usual annoying self, he'd have no problem telling her the truth, but the low way in which she spoke made him feel sorry for her.

He shrugged. "I thought you were over him."

"I am. I can be over him and still be curious."

"Well, I think he's fine. He's the same as he always is."

"Good for him," she said after a pause.

He shifted uncomfortably. "I know it must have been uncomfortable for you to come to my place after everything that's happened between you two. I'm sorry I was so drunk that I let it happen."

"You got vomit on my dress."

"I know, and I'm sorry. I'm going to get it dry cleaned, remember?"

She nodded and stood up, signalling that she was now okay with him leaving. "It better be spotless."

"I'll buy you another one if it isn't."

"It's a seasonal piece from last year, you dummy."

He didn't exactly know what that meant, but he assumed she was inferring that he couldn't replace it. "I'll tell the cleaners to be extra diligent or else my life is on the line. My dry cleaning lady loves me."

He picked up the bag that he had placed by her front door.

"Tai."

He was trying to stuff his feet into his dress shoes but turned his head slightly to her to indicate he was listening.

"Are you friends with Matt's girlfriend?"

He furrowed his brows, not knowing how to answer. Was he supposed to be honest or tactful in this situation?

Had she asked a few months ago, she would have probably liked his answer then, but his previously close friendship with Megumi had proven to be an obstacle in the forgive-but-don't-forget approach he had set to uphold. He had originally said he would only allow himself to act normally in front of her, but he had already begun to once again enjoy her company, and the more time passed, the less he cared that he was failing in his initial intention.

Not that he thought Mimi needed to know that.

"That's random," was his only response.

"She called you Taichi last night."

He was confused. "So? That's my legal name."

"It's a stupid name."

"I'll be sure to tell my parents you think that."

She laughed bitterly. "He was so upset when I tried to call him Yamato. All because she calls him that. It's just a stupid name. You would've thought I insulted his mother."

"If you're trying to ask me whether you can call me Taichi, you're welcome to. I don't mind," he said, knowing that wasn't what she was trying to say at all. He also withheld the fact that Matt would have probably preferred she insult his mother, with whom he had a precarious relationship at best. Having dated him herself, it was strange to him that she didn't know this.

"He looked happy."

He didn't give a response, thinking it didn't warrant one. Evidently, he was wrong, because his silence made her then ask, "Is he happy?"

He cleared his throat. "I don't think I should—"

"Just tell me. Sora won't because she's trying to look out for me, but you don't care about my feelings, so just tell me."

He sighed, wondering what was the right thing to say. She had said she was over him so many times, so it was odd to him that she was now so curious about his state.

"First of all, I care about your feelings," he corrected, "but if you really want to know, then, yes, I think he is very content in his current relationship."

He couldn't read her face.

"I'm much prettier than her."

He smirked. "Are you?"

He was just teasing. Not that he'd ever admit this to her directly, but Mimi was easily one of the most beautiful girls he had ever met in his life, though sometimes her personality could drive him to forget. He considered Megumi to be attractive too, but she was no Mimi.

"Whatever, I win because I'm prettier," Mimi huffed childishly.

He almost called her out on her immaturity but didn't, thinking instead how Sora would always tell him he was better-looking than Joe. That hadn't made the slightest of difference when he had met him.

"I don't know what you want me to say in response to that," he said in an attempt to keep neutrality.

She frowned. "Just go tell Sora you're sorry. And get my dress dry cleaned."

He obediently agreed, crossed the threshold out of her flat, and waved a hand to say goodbye. She didn't wave back, closing the door on him instead.

In all honesty, if he had to rate his friendship between Megumi and Mimi, he had certainly been closer to Megumi than he had ever been with Mimi, but he felt no desire to offer any sort of support in favour of either. He didn't want to be caught in the middle of this, especially when it was obvious to him that it was already a done deal.

---

He couldn't tell whether he regretted having gone to Mimi's first. She had given him insight he had never considered, but he also wondered just how clueless he had been to have never noticed such things.

He could admit he hadn't done enough, but on the other hand he wasn't sure he could ever be that person for Sora either. He was never going to be the sensitive type who could read her mind, no matter how hard he tried.

Was he only justifying himself?

Even if he hadn't been in a serious relationship prior to Sora, he had been around those who had, such as Matt and Megumi or TK and Kari. When he thought about how they had been throughout the years, they had made everything seem so easy. He hadn't ever thought about it for himself, but he supposed he had assumed that whenever he'd find the person he was supposed to love, it would come much simpler. He had assumed compatibility automatically came with a level of understanding that transcended personality differences, but when he thought about everything that clashed between them, he wondered whether they were even compatible past a certain level.

He walked up the steps to her floor to bide himself some time, rehearsing key points he wanted to convey that would likely fly out of the window the moment he saw her. In front of her doorstep, he rang the bell with sunflowers in hand.

By the time he had left Mimi's flat, Sora was still not home, so he had used that time to buy her flowers. He remembered her telling him months ago that sunflowers were her favourites, but this was the first time he had actually gotten them for her.

Sora opened the door, her expression impossible for him to read.

"Hi," he said as his greeting, giving her a sheepish smile.

She looked to him and gave him a smile as fake as his own. "Hi."

They always kissed hello, but he didn't know if he was allowed, and she didn't make any attempt either. He stuck the flowers at her instead. "These are for you."

She stared at them for a moment before taking the bouquet from his hands. She thanked him with a kiss on his cheek, then turned around to walk back inside. He followed her to the kitchen like a puppy with its tail between its legs, then watched her fill one of her numerous vases with water. She snipped off the ends of the sunflowers, arranged them in the vase, and placed them in the centre of her dining table.

"They're beautiful," she commented with a smile, turning to him. "You got out so early today. How was work?"

Her question made him sad. As he had made his way over to her place, he had replayed every large argument they had ever had in his mind, and he noticed that when he really thought about it, there had never been a time when they had successfully concluded a fight. It was always brushed under the rug, same as now, where one would get over it and the other would have to follow suit.

To be honest, this was usually enough for him. He knew he was quick to forgive and quick to forget. He never stayed angry for very long and very rarely held grudges, so it wasn't uncommon for him to simply forget a major squabble.

Of course, he knew not everyone in the world was like that. His sister, far more sensitive than he, would stay hurt and guilt-ridden after any of their sibling arguments as children, crying the second he showed forgiveness. He and Matt had once not spoken to each other for two days, but when he went to end it, he couldn't even remember what the argument had been about, enraging Matt further.

When he looked at Matt and Megumi or TK and Kari, they shared far more similarities than differences. In his inexperience, he had always thought that was requisite of a successful relationship, so when he had first met Sora, he had been delighted that she was so similar to him. She had seemed so laidback, her humour matching his, her interests aligning with his own, but the more he got to know her, the more their differences became so apparent to him.

He ignored her question.

"Sora, let's talk."

"Have you eaten?"

"Not yet."

"Are you hungry?"

"Not yet."

"Do you want a snack?"

He stared at her, silently imploring that she take him seriously. She turned back to her flowers and moved one of them slightly for no reason.

Thinking this was as good as it was going to get, he spoke.

"Sora, I want to apologise for the past few days. I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me. I just became so angry. I couldn't stop myself. I don't care if you see Joe, and I went out to relieve some stress, but there wasn't even a small part of me that wanted to hook up with anyone. I love you so much. Can you please forgive me?"

She looked back at him, her expression neutral. "Tai, it's fine. I already forgave you last night. I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have tested you." She began to walk, brushing past where he stood and into the kitchen. He saw a red tin sitting atop her kitchen counter. He had never seen it before, so it was likely new, wrapped in a gold bow. "I have something for you too. They're just biscuits."

She undid the bow for him and opened the tin, holding the contents out for him. He felt his hand shake as he reached for one, feeling more guilt than he could ever remember feeling. He took one.

"Do you like it?"

He couldn't answer verbally, so he just nodded, chewed, and swallowed.

"When did you even find the time to make this?" he asked. She had only just gotten home.

"I baked them after work yesterday. Sorry they aren't warm."

Mimi had said that they had worked on her apology to him yesterday. He put the lid back on the tin, his hand still shaking a little. He balled his hand into a fist to stop it from showing.

"I'm sorry I went out yesterday."

"I already said it's all right."

"I wasn't going to do anything."

"I know you weren't, but even if you thought it, you thought you were single, so it's okay."

"No, but she—"

"Tai, I don't want to talk about that girl."

She smiled at him, took a step closer, and kissed him on the lips for the first time that day.

"Sor—"

She kissed him again, tugging at his bottom lip as she threw her arms around his neck, pulling herself up to him so even when she pulled away, she was just centimetres from his face.

"I love you, Tai. If I ever made you doubt that, then I'm sorry."

He told her that he loved her too, and she closed the gap between them again. They had kissed the night before, but it had been in a drunken stupor, fun but empty. Strangely, despite them both being sober, this felt just the same, though it didn't stop him from returning it.

Whenever they had moments of passion, it was usually he who led and got into it more than she did, so considering she was not happy with him, he was surprised by her sudden enthusiasm. She pressed herself to him, using one hand to pull his body closer and the other to keep his head close to hers so that he could barely breathe between kisses.

He tried to create some space, but with her force on him, he stumbled a bit as his back hit her kitchen counter, one arm dropping to hang on and keep him from losing his balance. She paid his blunder no mind, her hands now at the tie still around his neck, her fingers undoing the knot. She dropped his tie on the counter with one hand and began pulling his shirt out of his trousers with the other.

Her forwardness surprising him, he broke the moment, subconsciously using his arm to block her hand. Pressed between her kitchen counter and her, he had to lean back just to put enough distance between them so he wasn't talking directly into her face.

Her hand was back at his half-untucked shirt, and she pulled the rest of it out. She let out a low giggle, then leaned over to kiss him again. He felt her hands—still cold from washing the flowers—slide against the flesh of his stomach up his torso, as she drew her own body forward again so that her lips were against his ear.

"Tai, let's have sex."

He didn't have time to control his reaction, and he felt his jaw drop in shock. He gaped at her, unable to believe his ears, trying not to grin so widely but knowing he was failing. "Are you serious?"

She nodded with a coy smile, stepping closer to him somehow even though he felt like there was already no additional space between them.

She kissed him again, and with her green light, he immediately felt ten months of unsatisfied lust overcome him. He pushed forward, all attempt at self-control gone, ravishing her, she ravishing him back as she led out of the kitchen and into her bedroom.

She pushed him onto the bed, and he eagerly brought her down with him, pressing her body against his as she began to unbutton his shirt. One of his hands was on her thigh, pushing the hem of her A-line dress upwards, the other looking for the zipper to remove said dress. He found it going down the entire length of her back just to where her butt began. One pull and the entire thing would be off.

He found her intoxicating, her physical presence blurring his focus. His body told him to keep going, but his head questioned it. He parted from her and looked her in the eyes before he could reach a point of no return.

"Sora, are you sure about this?" he asked her breathily.

"I'm sure," she affirmed, staring back at him. She sat up so that she was straddling his lap, his hands touching her thighs at either side of him. From his resting position, he could see a sliver of the black lacy panty underneath her demure dress. He wanted to touch it. She leaned back down to give him another slow kiss on the lips before moving to his earlobe. "I want to make you happy, Tai."

He felt goosebumps rising along his body, hairs on end. It was the way she had said it that suddenly made him feel filthy.

He sat up, lightly moving her off of him, removing his view up her dress. "Sora."

She was still trying to unbutton his shirt, and even though he so wanted it, he moved her hand away.

"Sora, let's talk."

Her face turned red as frustration began to flare. "This is what you want. We can talk afterwards, but this is what you've been waiting for, so let's just do it. It's not even that big of a deal."

"Sora," he grunted as she tried to force herself on him. "Sora, stop."

He jumped as her hand met his trousers.

"Why don't you want it?!" she cried frantically. "You've been trying to get me to do this for ten months, and now that I'm willing, you don't want to?!"

He pinned her hands down so she'd stop reaching for him.

"Sora, you're being crazy."

"Stop calling me crazy! I'm not crazy!" she said, her voice loud and shrill. He saw her nostrils flare, releasing a small dose of the emotion she held inside. She lowered her voice. "I'm not crazy, and I don't appreciate you calling me that."

He furrowed his brows, at a loss of what to say. "Sorry. I didn't mean you're actually insane."

"Good, because I'm not."

"I know you're not," he said, letting go of her hands that had started to shake. He placed his over them again. "Sorry."

Somehow, he felt like they were in that alleyway all over again. He didn't know what to say, and they sat in an uncomfortable silence, she glaring down at her lap or perhaps his. She was still seated on top of him, her chest heaving in and out as she fought to control her breathing.

He placed a hand on her chin, raising her head so she was looking at him.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She stared at him, her eyes watering. "Stop telling me you're sorry. I'm the one who yelled at you, so just give me a moment to get over it, and then I'll apologise. You don't always have to be first. That's why I take advantage of you, you idiot."

"Okay," he said, confused by her words but letting her have the moment. Her head pointed downwards again, staring at either his lap or hers.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you," she said after a few minutes that had felt far longer due to the awkward silence between them.

"It's okay," he said, forcing a light chuckle that she didn't return. "And I'm sorry I called you crazy. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

She cracked a smile, and her hands slipped underneath his grip as she raised her arms around his neck. She bounced once lightly against his lap.

"Sora." He peeled her off as gently as he could, afraid of another outburst from her or his own failure to contain himself. "Why didn't you tell me you entered a design contest?"

Her smile disappeared, her arms growing limp against his collar.

"Did you think I wouldn't care?" he asked. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it wasn't a big deal."

"But you won."

"I was going to tell you later."

"When?"

"Later."

"Later when?" he insisted, knowing his persistence was only making her more irritated.

"It was a small contest. Only a few people entered, so it wasn't that meaningful. I didn't tell you because I didn't think it was important with everything you have going on. That's all."

"Is it because I didn't care when you had that gala?"

"No," she said defiantly, her eyes unblinking. "That gala was a much bigger deal than this stupid contest."

She finally lifted herself off his lap, moving back so that she was now seated in front of him. She slid her hands from underneath his and placed them on her lap.

When he thought back to how he had left her at the gala, he had only thought at the time that he was being a good friend to Matt. He never imagined that he'd be scarring her too.

"I'm sorry I left you there."

"That happened ages ago. Why are you apologising for something from that long ago?"

"Because you still remember it."

She smiled tightly at him. "It had nothing to do with that, Tai. I just didn't think it was a big deal. That's all. Let's stop. I don't want to have another fight."

"We aren't fighting. We're talking."

"It's going to end up becoming one. Let's just stop. Please. We just got over one argument, and I just want to enjoy my time with you. Can we do that?"

She sounded fraught, so he stopped pressing her even though he didn't want to stop.

"Fine," he said, giving up, "but I don't like how you're just trying to brush it under the rug. You're always saying I don't take anything seriously, but when I try to, you don't want to talk about it. I don't know what you want me to do here."

Her expression softened from its desperate plea.

"Tai, you're pouting," she said, rubbing his bottom lip with her thumb before pushing the side of his lips upward to make it appear as if he were smiling. When she moved her fingers away from his face, his lips fell back to their original stance. She chuckled lowly. "Stop pouting."

"I'm not pouting."

She turned and moved to sit beside him, leaning against her headboard to copy him. He tilted his head slightly towards her and saw she was doing the same to him.

"I'm sorry I met Joe, even though I knew you didn't like it."

He grunted and shut his eyes. "I don't want to talk about that guy."

Her shadow darkened his line of sight even with his eyes closed, so he opened them to see her staring down at him.

"I'm really sorry, Tai."

Feeling a bit bad, he shifted a bit, suddenly remembering how much Sora hated when he got on her bed without changing into clean clothes. She was in her workwear too.

"I can tell you about Joe if you want me to."

He grunted, then turned his head to hers. He expected her to look conflicted, but she seemed rather peaceful.

"It's okay if you don't care, but I don't mind telling you if you're curious."

Part of him didn't want to know. It seemed irrelevant at this point, and he didn't trust himself not to get blinded by rage again.

But she was right in that he was curious. He couldn't not be given everything, not only as a result of their fight but in every other way that it had potentially affected their relationship.

"Only if you want to talk about it," he mumbled to her.

He mentally prepared himself, half afraid that she was going to admit that she still loved him. She leaned to kiss his shoulder. Realising his shirt was still half open, he began to button it up again as she spoke.

"Joe was the first man I had ever been with. I had never been in love before, so my whole world revolved around him."

He already had to remind himself not to get jealous. He tried to keep a poker face, knowing he couldn't, fumbling with the final top button on his shirt. Sora reached over and buttoned it for him, patting his chest as she finished.

"We met at uni. He approached me because he knew my father was a professor at the university. Joe was always looking for ways to make connections—not in a bad way, but that was just how he had been raised. It was similar for me growing up, and we ended up bonding over never being enough for our families. I thought it was just something we had in common, but I realised later that it had affected him far more deeply than it had ever affected me. He was so shaped by that that everything he ever did was to live up to their expectations, including talking to me. I was the daughter of a Kyoto University professor, the kind of girl he thought his parents would want him to date."

He frowned. He had never thought about it that way before. He supposed if he thought about it, Sora did come from an esteemed family. Her mother was the headmistress of her own ikebana school, her father a professor at one of Japan's finest universities. In comparison, his father was a typical salaryman and his mother a housewife.

"Joe's a really nice guy, but he had these frequent moments of neurosis. He has two older brothers who had done everything right, and even though I always thought Joe had a brilliant mind, he thought he'd never catch up to his brothers." She shook her head. "I didn't mind when he got like that though. I like helping people, and I wanted to help him too. I tried to understand the immense pressure he was under. All he ever wanted was to make his family proud, so he was forever prioritising his studies and career over everything else, including me. He saw me as a support system, but I like to think he genuinely loved me too. At one point. He must have."

She seemed lost in a trance as if recalling a private memory, and he tried not to interpret or misinterpret it as anything.

She shook her head, laughing a bit. "Even if he did, in the end I was only competing with his obsession of his future, even when I knew I wasn't going to win. I felt him getting more disconnected, but I still loved him so much. He was my first love, even if I wasn't his. I didn't want to lose him, so I thought if we made our relationship physical, then it would make us connect more. I was still young and raised in this ultra conservative family, so it was a big step for me, but again it felt like the right thing to do. He wanted it, and I loved him and wanted to make our relationship work."

She retracted her hand from his, because now she was the one who was shaking. Even if it wasn't for him, he reached out to hold hers, rubbing his thumb against her palm.

"It did the opposite, and he became so detached. If we had spent an hour talking before, it became minutes. He was already so stressed trying to get into medical school, so I felt like I was always in his way. I convinced him to move in together, because then he wouldn't have to schedule me in. He would just be going home, but it didn't get any better. If anything, he just studied and worked even harder, and then all I'd have to do was give him food to survive, clean to take over his chores, and have sex with him to relieve all of his stress. I felt like some sort of prostitute housekeeper, even though I knew that wasn't his intention. I felt like I couldn't talk to him about it either, because I was so scared to add on any additional pressure on him. He seems really calm on the outside, but inside he's always high stress and high anxiety. That's probably why I always felt so helpless to help him. I knew it wasn't healthy and that there was nothing of sustenance left in our relationship, but he was my first real boyfriend. I loved him so much, and I couldn't let go even when I knew it was failing. He eventually tried to break up with me first, saying it was to focus on his studies, but I…"

Lines began forming between her eyes from scowling.

"Instead of accepting it was over, I begged him not to give up on us and told him I could wait for him. I think he must have felt sorry for me because I was so desperate and crying so much. When I think about how desperate I must have looked to him, I'm so ashamed, but it worked because he agreed to give me another shot. I tried even harder, but nothing got better. He broke up with me again a couple months later, that time saying it was because he had hooked up with someone from med school."

She paused and took a sharp breath.

For a moment, he thought of Kiko, who had been so angry and hurt when he had told her that he had cheated. He had never loved her and hadn't cared as much as he should have, but he didn't think she had ever really loved him either. He knew absolutely nothing of her life after their breakup, but he wondered if he had scarred her in this same way, whether she had told a new boyfriend about her ex who had not only cheated on her but had also shown no remorse afterwards.

Belatedly, he regretted his actions. His jealousy towards Joe turned to anger, hatred pulsing through him to know that another being had made her this way, though perhaps he had once done the same thing.

"The funny thing is…" she continued again. "I can't actually tell whether he actually cheated on me, or whether he was just making it up. He probably thought a physical mistake would be easier for me to get over than just admitting that he didn't love me anymore. He's like that. He's one of the smartest guys I know, but in some ways, he's just as clueless as you."

"Guess Dr Joe isn't as smart as we thought," he mumbled.

She laughed and stroked his face. "You know that isn't what I meant."

He grunted.

"I don't hate him though. For a long time, I blamed him for traumatising me, but in the end, I know I'm the one who brought it upon myself. It was just easier for me to blame him. I was so obsessed with someone who didn't love me the same way, and I couldn't reconcile those two feelings. He was my sole example of a relationship, and I often thought back to try to see what I had done wrong, because at one point he did love me too."

"It sounds like it was his problem," he offered.

"He didn't traumatise me because he cheated on me. He traumatised me because I loved him so much, but he didn't love me nearly the same way. He was my everything, but I was second to his career, maybe third to his pride. I think of everything I gave up for him, and I hate that girl. He didn't give up much for me, so in the end he had less to lose, whereas I was left with nothing and had to run away to Tokyo. I told myself I'd never let a man make me feel that way again, and then I met you, and you're even worse."

She had said it as a joke, but he couldn't help but feel it was laced with truth.

"When I first met you, I thought you were a refreshing change to him, but there were times when you'd remind me of him too. Joe hadn't wanted to introduce me to his friends and family either, and I always thought it was because I wasn't good enough for his family. He first talked to me because of my father, but I ended up studying fashion design instead of going into academia. Meanwhile, everyone in his family is a doctor, and I always felt like he was embarrassed that I wasn't in a more prestigious line of work. When you also wouldn't introduce me to anyone, it brought back all of those memories. After a while, I realised it was just because you had commitment issues, whereas Joe just had issues with me. It wasn't the same thing, but whenever these small similarities came up, I became so scared because I didn't want to relive it." She squeezed his hands and stared into his eyes. "I want to be very clear about this, Tai. I didn't compare you to him because I wanted another him. I compared you because I never wanted to meet someone like him again. I never wanted to feel that desperate to be loved by someone ever again."

The atmosphere was too heavy. He didn't know how to respond, but she was already continuing.

"When Joe reached out to me over the weekend, it was the first time I had spoken to him in three years. I knew better than to agree to meet him again, but I convinced myself I had to do it for closure. You're always so easy-going, so I didn't think you'd care if I met him. I was surprised to see how much you didn't like it. I knew from your initial reaction that I should have cancelled, but I went anyway because I thought you would forgive me."

She trembled slightly.

"You're right that I would have gotten so angry with you if it were the other way around. I know I put up a double standard for you that you didn't deserve. I've thought about it, and even though Joe was never controlling—he wasn't invested enough for that—I somehow let him control me anyway. In comparison, you always let me have my way, and I let it get to my head. I knew I was taking advantage of your kindness and depending on you for being so forgiving. Obviously, no person can withstand that forever. I shouldn't have done that, Tai. I'm sorry."

Before he could tell her it was all right, she talked over him.

"It's just that I really did want to see him. When we broke up, my parents thought I was going mad. I couldn't get out of bed, I wouldn't eat, I started skipping class, and my grades slipped. I almost got kicked out of the university, so they thought the best thing to do is reach out to Joe on behalf of me. Tai, I—" Even her eyes were shaking. "I'd never been more humiliated in my life than the day he actually came to see me. He had this new doctor girlfriend and was set to accomplish everything he had ever wanted. Meanwhile, what he must have seen was this broken little girl whose life was falling apart and having a mental breakdown. I don't even remember what I did. I blocked it from my memory, but I think I screamed at him to leave."

The thought of Sora in hysterics would have sounded too farfetched to him had he not seen a glimpse of it the day before. He felt himself grow angrier, wondering how Joe could have stood the sight of seeing her the way he had yesterday.

"That was the last time I saw him until this week. I know I shouldn't have gone, but it's just that I felt like I had lost so badly back then. I wanted to show him just how well I was doing, that Tokyo wasn't just an escape but a calling, that I had made it here with this great career and this amazing new boyfriend—"

"Maybe not so amazing," he mumbled.

She smiled at him, her eyes still shaky. "You're not very good at hiding your feelings, you know. You're so easy to read. It's pathetic."

"Thanks."

His sarcasm made her the whites of her eyes pinken.

"You were so obvious about how much you didn't like it. I knew from the moment I saw your reaction that I shouldn't have agreed, or at the very least just tell you why, but it became so important to me to go. I never thought I was capable of being so proud, but I wanted to redeem myself—and for what? You saw how he was yesterday. He didn't care at all. He was genuinely happy that I was alive and well."

"Except for maybe that you have a crazy boyfriend," he corrected.

She laughed lightly.

"You're not crazy. I'm crazy. I know I'm crazy, and I know I'm too harsh. In the beginning, I justified it because you made such stupid errors that it was impossible for anyone to side with you. The fights back then were obviously your fault, but then…" Her voice drifted off, as did the look in her eyes. "One day, I realised that the situation had reversed, and that I was the one who was constantly wrong. I could see how much you were trying, but I wasn't doing the same. I know I'm lucky to have you, and that if it were anyone else, he would have broken up with me by now. When I think look at myself through your eyes, I would have broken up with me too."

"I don't think that," he told her defiantly.

"Because you're so kind. Even when I'm yelling at you or ignoring you or just being plain awful to you, you were still always so nice to me."

"You do yell at me a lot," he agreed with a laugh, "but you're exaggerating. I've never thought of it like that, Sora."

"You said it when we fought the other night."

He winced. "To be fair, I was being a little crazy. I don't know what came over me."

"It was me," she answered without skipping a beat. "You never freak out, yet I somehow made that side of you come out, right?" She gave him a soft smile that was all too fake. "I've thought about it for days. I think that makes me a terrible girlfriend."

"Okay, I admit you drive me crazy sometimes, but I like it," he insisted. "Sora, you're the first girl I've ever given a shit about—"

"Tai."

"Cared about," he corrected with a laugh, "and I think a lot of that is because you have no tolerance for my bullshit—"

"Tai."

"—like how you're always challenging me and putting me in my place and telling me to stop swearing even though I know you swear too and—"

He was trying to lighten the mood, but the change in Sora's face was darkening with each word.

"Sora, come on. I'm obviously kidding."

She stared at him. "I didn't tell you about my competition because I knew you were stressed, and I didn't want to get in your way."

"Sora, I don't only ever think about one thing at a time—"

"I don't mind though," she continued. "I like helping you with your exam. I like seeing the side of you taking something so seriously, and I like that you were sharing things with me too! It felt really nice, because sometimes…"

She stopped herself and looked away.

"Sometimes, Tai…" she said to her window.

"I'm too sexy?" he guessed, taking her chin to turn her head towards his again.

Her eyes had gone from a dry pink to a damp red.

"Sometimes I think you don't like me nearly as much as I like you."

He felt his heart drop as Sora looked up slightly, trying to suppress her tears back into her body, blinking and swallowing hard.

"That's ridiculous," he said, thinking back to what Mimi had already told him.

"I look at you, and you're always so confident and in control and independent. You don't need anyone but yourself, so I wonder what I can really do for you."

"You're all of those things too," he argued.

"I'm not. All of it is just a front, but the truth is I'm not any of those. I just pretend, and that's why I called that dumb bluff when you said I couldn't talk to Joe. I thought you'd let me have my way the way you always do, but when you wouldn't back down, I became so scared that I'd lose you but couldn't say anything because I didn't want you to think I was weak. How pathetic is that? And then in the end, it had taken me three years to get over Joe, but you… you only needed—you needed—needed one—d—"

She stopped herself, turning her head again and taking a deep breath.

"Sora, I—"

"I want to finish," she said, turning back to him, trying to remain poised. "I know I instigated the fight. I know it was my fault and that I should have apologised first. It's just that when I saw you at that bar, and when you said you thought we had broken up, and when I realised that this was how you would have handled us breaking up if we were to have one—" She gasped for air, though he wasn't sure whether it was because she had spoken too quickly or was just short of breath. "When I think of all of that, it made me realise we're imbalanced."

"Okay, I realise that I'm repeating myself, but despite what it looked like on the outside, I was a mess inside. I just have more passive feelings."

"You never talk about your feelings."

"Because I have very, very passive feelings," he stressed to her. "Sora, I swear on my life I didn't get over you in a day. Do you want to see what I accomplished at work the past couple of days? I'm lucky my manager never checks in on me, or I would have been fired. You can ask Matt too. I was so sulky, you would have thought Megumi had left the country. And my friends. They literally hated me all night long until you showed up. Sora, I love you—as much as you hopefully still love me, probably more, but definitely not less." He stared into her eyes that were still glazed. "Whatever you're thinking, just stop. It isn't true."

She stared at him without speaking, her lips pursed together to keep them still. He saw her swallow a lump in her throat.

"Well, anyway, that's how I felt," she said quietly. She had managed to say everything without a single tear, though he could see them rimming her eyes. He didn't know why she was trying so hard to keep it in. "I only told you because you asked."

Her voice quivered, and she turned her head to look away from him.

"Are you crying?" he teased.

"No, I have something in my eye."

"I've seen you cry a hundred times in the past couple of days. You saw me cry too. You can admit to me that you're crying, Sora."

"I'm not crying," she snapped, still looking away. She raised a sleeve and pressed it against her face.

He turned her head to him again. She had already wiped the tears away. He was trying to be light-hearted, but the constant tears were eating away at him too.

"I told you I'm not crying," she said to him brazenly. "I haven't dusted yet, so there's just been a lot of dust flying around. I'm going to do it today because I really shouldn't be breathing this in. It's probably bad for my lungs."

"We can dust," he told her.

"Right, I haven't had the chance to clean yet. I'll do that now," she said quickly. She started to move to get up, but he held her wrist so she couldn't. "Tai."

"Don't I get a turn?" he asked her. Without waiting, he added, "I'm sorry I misunderstood our fight as a breakup."

"It's okay."

"It isn't," he insisted. "You know, now I understand why you only ever told me that I'm better-looking than him. Based on what you're saying, I'm nowhere near as accomplished or driven or smart. Hell, I might even be unemployed soon."

"Tai."

"You even told me he's taller. I checked. He's definitely taller than me, the bastard."

"Stop it. There are more things you are that he isn't, and it isn't just your face."

"I'm not looking for compliments," he clarified. "I'd much rather be me than him anyway. I'm just saying I'm not him. Sora, you told me that Joe was the first person you loved, so you made mistakes while you were in that relationship. I'm the same way. You're the first for me, so I know I'm making stupid judgment calls, but the same way you think I'm forgiving, I think you are too. I'll try harder. I'll try really, really hard, but I'm never going to be that sensitive type who can read your mind. I know it drives you up a wall that I tend to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission, so I'll try to be more mindful that this isn't how you are, but you have to also recognise how dense I am."

"You're not that dense."

"I'm pretty dense."

She laughed lightly, her fingers brushing his hair. "Maybe a little dense."

"See? In situations like this, you can't try to euphemise it. You just have to say it like it is. That's how I know. I'm not good at reading between the lines because I just expect everyone to say the truth the way I do."

She smiled, it looking the most genuine out of all the ones she had given him today. "Deal, but you better not get your feelings hurt."

"My feelings don't get hurt very easily," he assured.

"I've definitely seen you get your feelings hurt."

"Maybe you're the only one good at hurting my feelings then," he said with a laugh. "Let's make a pact here. Moving forward, I'll be as supportive of you as you are to me. I'm sorry I ran away from your gala, but don't think that means I don't care about your achievements. You say you like helping me with my job hunt, but I also want to support you with your aspirations too. I just can't if you don't tell me about it. Even if you win in a competition against one other person, I still want to know. Beating one person still makes you first place, Sora. You've seen how I get when I beat you at tennis. I'm super competitive."

"You've only beaten me once."

"Still a win," he countered. He paused. "See? Super competitive. I want to brag to everyone about how my girlfriend is a winner. You know what I want from you? The next time you win anything, I want you to tell me how you're the best designer in your whole damn company."

She laughed, and he used the time to move a lock of her hair from the top of her head that had been askew for a while.

"I'm not."

"So lie to me. How would I know who the best designer is? Just brag a bit, Sora. A little exaggeration never hurt anyone. It's not like I'll fact check you."

She rolled her eyes. "You're telling me to lie to you? Tai, I really question your integrity sometimes."

"Come on, it's not really a lie, is it? Picking the best designer seems to be based off subjectivity, wouldn't you agree? You're definitely my favourite designer in your company."

"You don't know any of the other designers on the team."

"And therefore I can honestly say you're my favourite," he concluded proudly.

"You're so dumb," she said, laughing. "Fine, I accept your compliment, even though I'm receiving it from someone with zero fashion sense."

"I'll have you know that the stupidest thing in my wardrobe is that pink silk shirt you gave me."

She laughed again. "It looked good on you."

He opened his mouth, but she spoke first.

"Everything looks good on you," she said for him.

He smiled, finding it funny that she stole his line from him. She called him predictable and leaned forward to kiss him, much less aggressive than before but sweet just the same.

"I love you, Tai Kamiya." She sighed and nuzzled against him, her head against his chest and her legs stretched right beside his. "I'm tired of relationship drama. I just want to be in an easy, comfortable, boring relationship. I want to have that peace for once."

"Well, I'm not very boring, but I can try to be."

She laughed. "You know that isn't what I mean."

He slipped an arm around her, tapping her shoulder with his fingers to a tune he had made up in his head. He wondered what she was thinking about as they sat in silence.

"Sor?"

"Hm?"

"Why were you working late tonight?"

She shrugged. "No reason."

He frowned at her and put on a fake annoyed tone. "You're lying to me, Sora Takenouchi."

She turned at him, confused.

"Mimi told me you've been working late to make kimono for my mum and sister."

Her lips formed an 'o' shape. "Oh, no, don't feel guilty about that. I genuinely love doing that for them. Tai, they're so nice, and I—"

"Yeah, they're great," he interrupted dismissively. "The point is if you're doing that, you can tell me. I want to know about the things you're doing too."

She smirked. "Are you sure? I can go into pretty boring details. It'll probably put you to sleep. For example, I spent a really long time trying to decide the perfect shade of pink for Kari's kimono based on her skin tone. Tell me, do you know the slight variation that exists between sakura pink and ume pink?"

"I know that Sakura was the name of my high school girlfriend."

She pulled away from him, frowning.

"You just told me all the intimate details of your relationship with Dr Joe. Surely, I'm allowed to tell you the name of some girl I dated when I was a teenager. Let me make you jealous too."

"Hmph, I'm not jealous," she said, leaning against him again with her eyes shut. He traced her features for signs of tension but saw none.

"How are your parents, by the way?"

She opened one eye, then both.

"That was a weird transition," she said, calling him out.

"I just haven't asked about them in a while," he said, trying to sound casual but knowing she saw right through him. She stared at him, and he cleared his throat. "I went to Mimi's before I came here."

"Oh?" she questioned, not understanding the correlation.

"She gave me a very large shove in the right direction regarding my shortcomings."

Sora giggled, her laughs vibrating against his chest. "Tai, I was trying to hide this from you, but I think you should know this. I don't think Mimi likes you very much."

He laughed too. "Oh, believe me. I already know. Nobody has scolded me that much since I was a child. I thought she was going to murder me."

"She'll forgive you eventually," she said. "And my parents are fine. Thank you for asking."

He chuckled nervously, not knowing how to follow up. He wasn't one to ask for many details beyond what he was given.

"You don't have to pretend to care, Tai."

"I care!" he shot back, nearly shouting. "I just don't ask, but I care when you tell me. I'll try though. I know I'm not that attentive, but I'll try. I just need you to tell me what the underlying issues are if there is one—and don't set any unrealistic expectations for yourself about my ability to figure it out. It's going to be an uphill battle, got it?"

She nodded, still leaning against him.

"I'm still sorry about yesterday. I'll make it up to you."

"You already got me sunflowers."

"I'll do something else. Tell me what. Tell me something you wanted from Joe that he never gave you. I'll beat him."

She laughed. "Why are you competing when you've already won?"

"Because I want to feel better than your accomplished doctor ex-boyfriend," he declared without a hint of shame. Hearing what he was saying, he laughed at himself.

She smiled a little and rubbed the side of his face. "I'm always so amazed by how quickly you get over things."

He shrugged in response. "What's the point of getting caught up over old news?"

"I wish I could be more like you."

She made a humming noise as she went in for a kiss, and he flipped over so that he was on top of her. He deepened their kiss, drawing back a little to ask,

"So, er, about what we were doing earlier…"

"I'm not having sex with you right now," she shot down.

"But you wore cute underwear for me. I saw it."

"I always wear cute underwear, and I wear it for myself. Get over yourself, Tai."

He laughed, sighing as he rolled off her. "I should have taken advantage of you while you were vulnerable and willing to sleep with me."

She frowned at his joke, not finding it funny.

"But I didn't," he emphasised, "because I love you."

She rolled her eyes, then swung her legs over her bed to stand up. He looked over at her, and she raised her dress to show him her underwear for a second before lowering it again.

"I hate you," he said, his expression not changing.

She took him by the hands and tried to lift him off her bed.

"How much do you hate that I was wearing regular clothes on your bed?" he teased.

"I've been hating it since you got on it," she confirmed, making him laugh. "I'll have to change the sheets later."

He laughed as he stood up and kissed her, his lips touching her smiling teeth.

"Cook me dinner, Tai."

He couldn't hide the sudden confusion. "Now?"

"No, not now. But someday. Surprise me."

"I must say I think you'll be very underwhelmed."

"The entire time I lived with Joe, I made every meal because he was too busy to cook. I want to know what it feels like to have a dinner made for me by my boyfriend too."

He felt a little guilty, not only because he cooked very little, but that he also had bummed every meal from her so far.

"All right. You've got it," he said with a confidence that made him sound like he was a world-renowned chef. "I can even do your laundry. I'm better at laundry than cooking."

Sora raised an eyebrow. "You strike me as the type of person who just throws everything in the wash without actually separating the colours or adjusting the temperature or spin cycle…"

He laughed loudly, feeling called out. "Well, as you know, I only own casual clothes that you hate and work clothes that I dry clean, so I suppose that's true."

"No thank you for the laundry then."

"Or you can teach me how to do it, and I can do it correctly."

"I don't want you to ruin all my clothes," she teased.

He pretended to look offended, then reached down to pick up her pillow from her bed, taking the case off of it.

"What are you doing?"

"Changing your dirty, disgusting sheets."

"Tai, I was kidding. I don't care that you were on it."

He smirked. "Well, how else are we going to stop the dust from getting in your eyes?"

She smacked his arm. "Shut up."

He gave her the naked pillow and picked up the other one to do the same.

"You know, you should really get a housekeeper," he suggested.

"No, I'm not lazy like you."

"I'm not lazy. I delegate."

They kept giving each other counterarguments, and their bickering continued as they stripped her sheets, put them in the wash, and replaced the bed with new ones. He pretended to dust her pristine room, while she stood off to the side and criticised his inability to reach every nook and cranny. Eventually, he let her on his shoulders so that she could get the corners of her ceilings herself, she shrieking whenever he pretended to lose balance, locking her legs around his neck in genuine fear. Her unusual strength made him feel for a split second like she was actually going to choke him to death, but it was worth it each time to get a reaction out of her.

"Are we boring yet?" he asked when they were done, before leaning backwards so that she tumbled from his shoulders onto the newly changed sheets, she yelling at him immediately for his hazardous prank that was not in his opinion very dangerous at all.

---

Even in the middle of summer, the sun always set early in Tokyo. He remembered visiting London with Megumi over the summer once, years ago. The sun hadn't set until well past 10 PM, a culture shock to him who was used to darkness by 7 PM at the latest.

Despite the lack of sun, the heat hit him from the moment he stepped out of the office building, the thick, humid air suffocating him almost immediately as the effects of air conditioning evaporated in an instant.

He definitely preferred the winter to summer.

He took off his suit jacket and swung it over his shoulder, not wanting to walk with it on, but as he straightened himself again to walk to the station, he saw a figure sitting in the sloped courtyard in front of him, waving her arm out to get his attention.

Smiling, he walked over to her, suddenly less bothered by the temperature.

"Hi," he said, stealing a quick peck that made her smile. "What are you doing here?"

"Surprising you," Megumi said matter-of-factly, hopping up from the ledge from where she sat. In her hands were two cups of takeaway iced tea, and she held both of them out to him. "Green or black?"

He would have offered to let her pick, but she was indecisive, so he took the black one. He took a sip, the icy drink instantly refreshing him from the summer heat. She held her straw out to him in a bid to get him to try hers too. He did so, then let her link her arm around his as they began walking to the station together.

"Yamato, guess what," she said after a minute.

"What?" he asked, distractedly drinking his iced tea.

"I got a job offer."

She had said it in such an unemotional tone that it took him a second to digest what she had just revealed.

"What?" he asked, turning to her. "Meg, congratulations! Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

They had been texting each other throughout the day. Surely, she hadn't just found out.

She shrugged. "I don't know. I just wanted to tell you in person. I still told you first."

"Well, tell me more. Is it from the interview today?"

"No, yesterday."

"The analyst one?"

She nodded. Just like him, Megumi was not one to disclose much in ways of big news, so whenever she did announce something, whether it was very exciting or very sad, she made it sound like it was nothing. She always accused him of the same, which he had to admit he did. In fact, he was probably worse than her.

Knowing this about each other, they always had to compensate for the other's lack of excitement, and now was his turn. She didn't want him to make a big fuss, but he insisted that they needed to celebrate one way or another, so they agreed that he could at least take her out to dinner. They went to a semi-formal Italian restaurant in downtown Shibuya, one of her favourites. In his work clothes, he could fit the dress code, and Megumi always dressed a little formally.

"You're too excited," she teased, when he congratulated her for the third time and made a toast in her honour. "It's just another desk job."

She had given him more details since first telling him. It was in analytics, which wasn't the field she had originally wanted, though he thought it fit her skills and left-brained persona well. She accepted the offer because the company was headquartered in London with potential travel opportunities for tenured employees.

He thought it sounded perfect for her, and his grin was spread from ear-to-ear.

"You look scary when you smile like that. Stop," she teased, reaching across the table to press his cheeks together between her thumb and the rest of her fingers.

He pulled his face away from her grip.

"You're mean. I'm just excited for you. Someone has to be because you're not excited for yourself."

"I am excited," she corrected. "I'm just waiting until I actually start."

For him, his enthusiasm didn't only come from the fact that she had found a job. It was that this seemed to be another step in the more permanent direction of her settling back. Since coming back to Japan, she had chosen to take time off from work to focus on their relationship, but with all of her attention on him, there were other gaps in her life that she now wanted to fill.

For the first month, she didn't even have most of her belongings, which had taken forever to arrive from the shipping company. Once the boxes came, however, she never unpacked them, keeping them piled in her childhood room at her parents' for when she'd move into her own flat—a flat she was not willing to get when she didn't yet have stable income.

Not that she was ever home anyway. She mostly stayed with him, which was better for him because they got to spend so much more time together. She had spent her days while he was at work trying out new hobbies, but her parents finally started getting worried that she had been unemployed for too long. She must have felt the pressure too, though she didn't let him know about it.

"Once I start working, we'll probably have to see each other less," she bemoaned.

"Didn't you say the office is in Shinjuku?" he asked, confused. "That's pretty close to where I live."

"Yes, but I'll have to go home more often. I can't be commuting from your place all the time, Yamato. My parents will definitely ask me where I am when I'm supposed to be going to work the next day."

He frowned.

"How are your parents anyway?" he asked her. "I haven't seen them. Maybe I should visit?"

"Hm…" She looked in thought as she tore a piece of bread. "Sounds good. I'll ask them to have you over, but just so you know, I've been telling them I've been staying with my sister."

He was confused.

"Why don't you just tell them? They know we've been dating forever."

"I know… We're just different from your family. They won't like it if they find out I'm living with you."

She always said that her parents were harder on her because she came from a family of two daughters, whereas he came from a family of two sons. He had understood what that meant as teenagers and even into their early twenties, but now they were established adults. It no longer made sense to him.

In his family, his father never cared what he or TK did as long as they stayed alive. That being said, he could also recall that when TK had first moved in with Kari, neither of his parents had cared, whereas Kari's parents and Tai had shown much more reservations. He remembered this because he had thought at the time it had been ridiculous.

"So what am I supposed to say if they ask me about whether you stay over? Lie?"

"They won't ask."

"How do you know?"

"I just do. They probably already know, but they aren't going to say anything. I'll handle it in the off chance they do."

He begrudgingly agreed, even though he still didn't get it. Her parents liked him, and he thought himself as being pretty close to them. Sure, he was not at TK's level, who was so close to Kari's parents that he would see them on a weekly basis, but he had often tagged along with Megumi whenever she visited home. He had spent some holidays with her family too. He even used to see Megumi's mother more often than he saw his own.

"I'll look for my own place once I start getting a paycheque though," she told him. "I feel bad bumming off you guys and my parents all the time."

"You know I don't mind."

"I know you don't, but I feel sorry for Taichi too."

"Tai doesn't mind either."

She shrugged. "If I were him, I would."

"Meg, I know him better than anyone, and I'd be willing to bet my entire life savings that he doesn't care. He's probably never even thought about it."

"He told me that he doesn't like it."

He felt his blood boil hearing her words. He had thought Tai had gotten over everything. "He said that?"

"He said it a few months ago."

His anger disappeared. "You mean when you first came back? He's gotten over that. You know that, right?"

She shrugged.

"Stop getting caught up from something that long ago," he told her.

"I'm not getting caught up, and it also wasn't that long ago. I just think it's better if I get my own place. That's all."

He took a sip of his wine to hide that he was frowning. Once he swallowed, he said, "Well, for the record, Tai and I don't care, so you don't need to overanalyse that."

She smiled knowingly at him. "Are you annoyed?"

"No."

She continued smiling.

"I'm not," he insisted, knowing he sounded annoyed. "I just don't want you to think you're being a burden when you aren't."

"Okay," she said, taking his hand from across the table. Her hands were always cold, though they'd warm up in a bit holding his.

For as long as they had been together, he and Megumi had never lived together. They had talked about it previously, but plans had always fallen through, whether he had wanted to try living with his brother to make up for a misplaced childhood, her parents had disapproved of her living with her boyfriend, or existing lease contracts couldn't be broken. Now seemed like the perfect opportunity, but he'd first have to check when his lease was up before bringing it up to her.

He pivoted the conversation to congratulate her on her new job again, peppering her with questions about her company and role that she couldn't exactly answer yet. Her starting salary, he noted, was lower than the one she had at her previous company.

This was weird to him not only because of the general expectation that her salary should have increased or at the very least matched, but also because he knew how hard she had fought to get salary raises in the past. Compared to him, who was more interested than the work than pay, salary had always been one of her top priorities.

It was worth giving up a few hundred thousand yen for the company benefits, she justified. It sounded uncharacteristic of her, but he accepted it anyway.

She noted that she was starting anew in analytics. She didn't even consider herself tech-savvy or good with numbers, but he insisted that the hard skills could be learned. She thought it was easy for him to say. He had pursued exactly what he had studied in university.

"Most people don't stick to their majors," he reminded her. "Tai didn't."

Tai, who had studied political science and economics, had ultimately ended up going into the most capitalist of all companies.

"He told me he's going to try to move to the public sector soon," she reminded him. He had forgotten about that.

"Well, that doesn't change that most people don't stick to their majors," he insisted, as he began listing off other mutual friends of theirs who had not. Megumi listened as he tried to remember their friends' occupations, though it did very little in terms of changing her mind.

He could still remember when he had taken a sudden interest in aerospace engineering. Everyone around him had thought it was so random for him to go into science, but Megumi had not only been supportive but delighted for him too. She had always liked space, ever since she was young. She had dreamt of him becoming an astronaut before he had.

She was the one who was always there to support him through everything and lifted him up when he was down. She made him feel like he could do anything, but sometimes he wondered whether she felt the same. Rather than make her feel like she could do anything, he saw her unconvinced demeanour and thought perhaps he was doing the opposite and made her feel like she was limiting herself.

"Do you ever regret leaving London?"

The sudden question made her perk up in alarm. "What? No! Where did that come even come from?"

"You had your dream job there," he reminded her.

"Yamato," she said, her voice firm but her expression not. Her hand, warmed now, held tightly onto his. She didn't even like holding hands. "I thought it was, but even though everything on paper looked right, the fact that you weren't there made me hate my life every day. I love the city, but I don't regret coming back. I don't want you to ever second guess that. Do you hear me?"

He felt bad, not having said it to make her feel bad. She had always taken her English language studies seriously, even choosing to include it as one of her majors in uni. She had worked hard not only to learn the language but to constantly improve it, considering it an invaluable skill to know for the international scale of work she had always envisioned for herself.

She had fallen in love with England during her year abroad, and he had even accompanied her on two occasions throughout the years. He remembered letting her do all the talking and planning because she could speak English while he couldn't. He just remembered following her around and looking up at the sky in the middle of the afternoon, able to look directly to where the sun was hidden because it had been so grey, even when the sun itself wouldn't set until a couple hours before midnight.

"You know that, right?" she repeated, sounding more like she was making a plea.

"I know," he affirmed. "You just don't sound that excited about your new job is all."

"I am excited," she emphasised, suddenly making more of an effort. "I just don't want to get ahead of myself yet. Once I start, I'll get more excited. For now, I'm most looking forward to wearing my work clothes again."

He cracked a smile. "I thought everything was still in boxes."

"They are, but I'll take them out." She looked off dreamily into the future. "Maybe you can help me unpack when you come over for dinner. That'll be fun."

He laughed, looking into her eyes that were focused elsewhere. "I can't wait."

---

Megumi preferred linking arms over holding hands, but she eventually let go because it was too hot even during the night. She got hot and cold easily and was fanning herself with a pamphlet she had picked up somewhere as they walked from the restaurant back to his place.

"I'm sweating," she complained. "How is it so hot?"

"It gets hotter every year."

He turned to fan her face with his hand, making her smile appreciatively despite it being of little help. When the pedestrian light up ahead started blinking, she grabbed him by the wrist to cross the street.

"You're sweating because you're running," he told her as they reached the other side. "We didn't need to cross that street, you know. It's a straight line from to my place. Have you forgotten?"

"I think I'm going to Ariake tonight."

He was confused and frowned. "Why?"

"Because I haven't told my parents about my new job yet, Yamato!" She laughed with exasperation. "I need to tell them so they can be excited for me too."

"Can't you spend the night with me and tell them tomorrow while I'm at work?" he asked, pulling her to him.

"I'm sweating," she reminded him, pulling away. "They work too, and I need to show my face to them every once in a while."

She tried to walk again, but he stood his ground on the pavement. She tried to pull him forward in the direction of the station, while he tried to pull her back to him instead.

"Stay with me," he tried to coerce.

"Why are you so obsessed with me?" she joked. "Aren't you supposed to be the cool and collected one? You're breaking my image of you, Yamato."

His verbal and physical attempts to keep her there intensified but ultimately ended in the same result. She wouldn't give in, mentioning again that she felt bad for Tai for always being over. She thought he'd prefer having one less person at their flat no matter how much he told her that Tai had zero preference. Still unconvinced by the time they reached the station, she gave him a kiss goodnight and left for the train, leaving him to saunter home alone.

When he entered his flat, Tai wasn't even home. He took a picture of his dark, empty living room and sent it to her as photographic evidence as to why she should have stayed. She only sent him a laughing emoji back.

Disappointed, he opened a drawer in their TV stand where he and Tai kept important documents. He found their lease and checked the end date. He found the contract was renewed in April and could vaguely remember Tai telling him about it.

He wondered if he could convince Tai to let him move out earlier. Tai had an endless list of friends and would probably have no problem finding a new flatmate, or maybe he'd have Sora move in. He made a mental note to himself and hoped he wouldn't forget, then got ready for bed.

By the time he was out of the bathroom, Megumi had texted him that she was home and that her parents were ecstatic for her new job. They were also happy to host him for dinner soon. She said they had missed him.

He called her from his bed to chat, meaning for it to be short, but it ended up going for over an hour before Megumi's mother called for her in the background, and she had to go.

As he laid in his bed, he was so used to her being beside him that his bed now felt large and empty without her. He didn't know why he felt so much more attached to her, because prior to their breakup, it wasn't like they had spent every single night together.

He was usually good about not using his phone before bed, but Megumi kept texting him, and he kept texting her back. He couldn't remember falling asleep, just waking up in the morning, his dying phone still in his hand.

'I love you. Good night,' was the last message he had from her, sent sometime after when he must have fallen asleep.

---

28 December 2020

I know the past three chapters have been very long, and now I'm about to follow up with an unnecessarily verbose notes section. You're welcome to skip them, but this has been such a long time coming that I thought I'd at least comment on a few common points that kept appearing in the reviews on the topic of Tai and Sora. (I also get pretty recurring themes for Matt, Mimi, and Megumi, but I'll save that for another day.)

In particular, from all of the characters I've ever written, this Sora has had the most tweaks done based on reader feedback, and I do feel bad for her because I think she is quite misunderstood. I realise I am at fault for being unable to convey her properly, so I have no choice but to just lay it out in endnotes and work towards my own improvement in writing.

1. As many have pointed out, Sora's direct thoughts have never been shown, so everything about her is seen through Tai's perception of her. This is intentional. I think showing Sora's direct thoughts would make the story too easy for Tai, and in real life we can't read our partner's mind. However, where I've struggled is that while Matt is exceptionally perceptive even when having a meltdown, Tai never really is even in the clearest of mindsets. For example, take this scene from their most recent fight in Chapter 27:

"…After every single thing I've had to give up for you, surely you can give this one thing up for me."

He saw another change in Sora's expression, one that now also more closely mirrored his. He saw her eyes water, but her emotion did nothing for him. "So what? You think you're the only person who's given up something for this relationship?"

"I certainly ask for less that you do. I gave up my entire lifestyle to fit yours."

This is as direct as Sora gets, but Tai doesn't even so much as pause to wonder what she means. If Megumi had said this to Matt, he'd probably break it down to some degree. I still want to keep everything in the boys' perspective, so to work around that, I did a cop-out by using Mimi, who I felt would have zero hesitation to speak her mind in defence of her friend. (I also thought people would just appreciate having her back.)

2. As a general rule, I didn't want any of the characters to be overly flawless or overly flawed, each one coming with their own set of positive and negative traits while making mistakes of varying consequence. (Maybe I made an exception for Kari, who really seems to be quite perfect all the time.)

Therefore, while quite a few people have dismissed Sora as a bad girlfriend, I must admit that had never really been my intention. I just imagine her to be a lot more subtle and insecure than Tai, but I suppose I made her a bit too subtle, placing tiny hints in word-heavy chapters, such as attempting to get closer to his family without his actual presence, sewing holes in his clothes without telling him, and giving him the bigger and better pieces of whatever food they're sharing. Maybe it's just me, but these are the subtle details in relationships that I personally like the most. However, they were being missed, which is why I chose to expand on a bunch of those this chapter through Mimi and Tai.

3. Similarly, I wasn't trying to make her completely closed off either, but her self-consciousness can get the best of her sometimes. For example, in Chapter 25, she makes a genuine attempt to open up a bit more about Joe, but Tai only ends up misunderstanding her and hurting her feelings by saying "I guess for me… I just can't relate. I've never loved anyone that much." As soon as he says that, she withdraws again.

In my mind, Tai is someone who is not very in tune with his feelings, whereas Sora is but can't express them, which makes her just as inexperienced as Tai. I imagine her to be someone who tries very hard to put up a front in an attempt to protect herself, which is "good enough" for Tai's more laissez-faire, detached personality. Some examples:

- In Chapter 8, she says "Don't be silly. I wouldn't cry over you. What makes you think you're worth crying about?"
- Chapter 10 ends with "I never said I needed you. I said I wanted you there. They're different. Remember that, okay?"
- In Chapter 13, she flat out asks Tai "Do you even like me?"

All three situations are in response to when Tai has wronged her in some way. I meant for her tough girl words to be merely a façade, which she does capitalise on when she realises such harsh words don't actually affect him. I imagine her saying these words, knowing she's being wrong, then beating herself up over it once he's gone, while Tai never thinks about it again. I've obviously exaggerated it in fanfiction, but I did this because I like that in the series, Sora is very kind to everyone but seems to only ever get annoyed with Tai, who never seems quite bothered by it.

Anyway, thank you to anyone who took the time to read this. I don't usually like to just lay everything out, but I do think I made some errors along the way and wanted to convey my thoughts. In any case, it was a valuable learning experience, and I'll do better with the next, which, as you might imagine, is coming.

Lastly, I've gotten more guest reviews lately, so here are some replies to questions/comments I've received for which I can't PM answers:

- I currently have the length of this fic at just around 50 chapters. That being said, while I already have all events up to the ending planned, I'm constantly combining or breaking up chapters or creating new scenes based on feedback. For example, I kept having to push back this latest Taiora fight because everyone hated Sora so much, which is also why these past few chapters have been so heavy. I couldn't have them fight when everyone was on Team Tai because then I thought his behaviour would have been excused purely for being such a beloved character.
- That being said, the way you guys imagined Tai's mind to go this chapter—from hooking up with Mimi or taking advantage of drunk Sora—had me feeling bad for our goggle boy! He's dense, but he isn't evil! I hope it was also clear in that while he was reacting poorly overall, he never really toyed with the thought of having a one night stand. I don't think I could have written their way back together if he had!
- Izzy and Joe are not going to be recurring characters.
- I am indeed watching the reboot. I don't love it, but it has certainly brought out the Takari lover in me.
- I've started using Time Machine on my laptop to avoid any deleted file mishaps. Thank you for the suggestions.

Thank you all again, and stay safe!