Returning to his apartment in the less-fashionable outskirts of Shibuya, Saionji set the note, the evidence of Touga's return to Ohtori, on the counter. He neither threw the note away nor carried it with him. When he had time, he would turn some attention to it, but until then, he maintained a wary distance from it.
It wasn't often that he had time, though. Returning to school after a five-year stint in the military—one which had ended in disappearance and a dishonorable discharge, at that—and three years of doing very little—though it was, perhaps too mercifully, generally referred to as a period of apprenticeship—wasn't an easy matter. There were classes and studying, and while Saionji had never found those especially challenging, eight years was a long time in which to forget things. He still practiced kendo from time to time, but he couldn't have taken an active role in any sort of club.
Even with the support he was receiving, he'd taken a part-time job at a convenience store. He always worked at not yelling at the customers. Mostly, he succeeded, though his manner was anything but friendly. And the times he didn't succeed were infrequent enough that he'd only gotten a sharp reprimand from his manager.
It was a difficult schedule. Yet, even though he tried very much to make allowances for himself, Saionji felt that he should have been able to make it work. Even though he knew that "could" and "should have been able to" were very different things. Even though the latter had a tendency to get him into trouble.
Most days he was tired. Maybe too tired to keep going for two more years like he needed to. Definitely too tired to go digging up ghosts from his past. But he always thought that he should've been able to handle it. And yet, he was still surprised, more often than not, when he could.
So it was a while before he really got back to the note, and to what it meant. He was tempted to dismiss his immediate conclusion as over-analysis. After all, Touga could have gotten the stationary anywhere. Anthy could have given it to him. It could even have been the hotel's stationary. It was just a piece of paper.
And, to be honest, he would have liked nothing more than to have no reason whatsoever to think back to that night. Juri could say what she liked about the "twenty-first goddamn century," he still hated the lapse in discretion he'd allowed himself to make.
But as much as he might have wanted to, Saionji couldn't just brush the whole matter aside. He knew Touga too well, despite how long as it had been since they had last been in contact with one another. A lot of what Touga said was empty posturing, and it didn't leave a lot of room for real communication. If there was one thing that had put an end to the death throes of their friendship, it had been that. Touga would leave too many important things unsaid, and at some point, Saionji had stopped going through the effort of dragging them out of him.
The thing was, if there was something Touga really wanted to get across, this was how he would do it: in the eminently deniable implications of a passive-aggressive note. In fact, he might very well have arranged the whole night just so that Saionji would see his handwriting on the Rose Crest stationary in the morning.
In that case, Saionji thought he had every right to be angry with Touga. If there was another reason that the two were no longer friends, that was it. Touga did what suited him, with no regard for who got hurt along the way. Or maybe Touga had decided that Saionji should hate him, and when someone as manipulative as Touga was wanted to be hated, it was only a matter of time until they were.
Saionji knew all of these things. He told himself all of these things. Yet what remained was worry, called into being by a sense of loyalty that had long, long outlived the time when it was due.
In all likelihood, the note meant absolutely nothing. Even if it was intentional, he owed Touga nothing or less than nothing. Saionji had every reason to get rid of the note and forget that it had ever existed.
And yet…
And yet…
Ohtori. Touga had gone back to Ohtori. Saionji had some idea what that meant, and it was terrifying.