Notes:

And here it is, the first part of this long conversation, which, perhaps, will bring a tear or two to your eye, either of sadness or anger.

Anyway, I hope you like it❤

Also, this chapter as well as its continuation, which I will upload later, are inspired by the song of the same name, Dónde está el amor (Where is the love) by Pablo Alboran. As well as more chapters will be inspired by more of his songs❤

So get your tissues ready, put on your music players with your most sentimental songs, prepare your favorite drinks and popcorn and enjoy the episode of this soap opera drama.❤

Chapter 16. Where is the love? Part.1

Continued

Maki took a deep breath, preparing for what was to come. She crossed her arms and, with a direct look into Yuta's eyes, asked.

"When you were abroad, did you sleep with any other woman?"

Yuta swallowed noisily and with difficulty. He even felt that the coffee was going down the other side of his throat. At that moment, the sorcerer knew that the conversation would be difficult for both of them.

Maki could sense that nervousness. So she wanted to take advantage of him as her guest had advised.
"And I want you to tell me the whole truth Okkotsu. Especially since at dinner you said very cheerfully that you met very beautiful women when you were abroad"

Yuta was too nervous. That question was so direct that he did not expect it.

He could see it in Maki's eyes behind those glasses. She definitely wanted to know the truth.

Yuta took a deep breath.
"Well... I..." He kept silent quickly. He couldn't look her in the eyes.

"I'm waiting for your answer..."

The sorcerer let the air out suddenly, he looked away a little, he was looking for enough courage to answer that question. –"I'm not going to lie to you Maki, besides we both agreed that we would tell each other the whole truth…"

She sensed that what was coming was not good. She had unleashed the bomb.

Yuta took a breath to gain courage. "I admit it, I did sleep with another woman…" he confessed.

Maki clicked her tongue. She leaned back in her chair and took a somewhat defensive pose, her legs crossed under the table and her arms across her chest as she listened to what made her heart wilt a little. She felt her tears want to fall from her eyes, but her pride stopped them.

Yuta felt that cold look from Maki.

-"Don't keep quiet, so tell the whole truth!" she ordered. "I want to know from your mouth" It seemed like she was in an interrogation

Yuta sighed, he couldn't lie to her about it.
"It's ok..." he put a hand to the back of his neck and explained.
-"After our 'breakup', I was so broken by our separation, that it took me almost three years to try to rebuild my life and to be able to trust other people and yes, I admit it, I had several opportunities to be with other women while I was abroad but…" he paused, passing his hand over his face and let the air out of his nervousness and the shame he felt for having to tell that.

"But?" Maki grimaced slightly, her jealousy and anger palpable.

"Rika intervened, driving most of them away..." commented Yuta with embarrassment.

Maki raised an eyebrow at that answer.
"I don't believe you…" she reproached.

Yuta quickly moved his hands on the table.
"Believe me Mak!i, I was so hurt with everything that had happened between us that even on the advice of others I tried to forget you, but it was impossible and after three years, I tried to forget you with other women..." Yuta look her in the eyes – "and when it seemed that the thing was going to go further with some of these specific women, which I met in my transfers between countries, in one way or another Rika always ended up scaring them away..."

"How many were there? Okkotsu, How many women did you really sleep with?" asked Maki sternly.

"That was three questions in a row, wasn't it?" Yuta questioned fearfully.

"Consider them as part of the first question" she said seriously.

"Okay, you said you wanted the truth, so I'll tell you..." Yuta sighed and lowered his shoulders.

"Maybe there were about three women with whom I tried something..." he said coyly.

Yuta felt Maki looking at him with murderous eyes.

He continued talking –"But as I said, Rika scared two of them!" he explained –"When things were progressing with those women and when we were about to do it or they were trying to do something else!" Yuta was very embarrassed about what he was about to say, but he continued confessing the truth- "Rika always in one way or another intervened..."- he sighed and lowered his shoulders- "I associate it to the fact that as I kept missing you and thinking you, maybe she didn't want me to make a mistake with those two women or maybe Rika sensed the true intentions of those women... so let's say she 'prevented' me from sleeping with more women..."

Maki leaned her elbow on the table and her face in her hand "I guess I should thank Rika for that" she commented with a sarcastic smile, "Although I'm still surprised that she never attacked me when you and I were had sex...".

"My theory is that this Rika can sense the true intentions of other people or she really knows when my life is in danger"- Yuta waved his hand while explaining "I could prove that abroad when she drove away two of those women who wanted to sleep with me, who were also sorceresses and where some time later I found out that they only approached me with the intention of killing me since they were sent by other people. Even Rika came to protect me from more sorcerers who came with the intention of killing me..."

He continued explaining without stopping looking at Maki – "Maybe this is a quality of this Rika, which, you know that now she is more like a shinigami than a vengeful spirit..."- he left his hands on the table for a moment, very close to the hands of Maki – "so if she didn't attack you at the time when we were together in the past or when we were making love, maybe it was because of that love that me had for you and that I still have for you... besides I had and still have enough confidence in you and I know that you wouldn't be able to hurt me..."

Maki pursed her lips at those words. Deep down, Maki knew that she could hurt him.

At that moment, something didn't add up to Maki.
"Wait, you said that there were three women you had the opportunity to sleep with but you just said that Rika only scared two of them..." She looked at
him "So, Who did you sleep with was that third woman?" she asked seriously.

Yuta took a deep breath, he could see it in her. It pained her to discover this, but he had to tell her the truth.

"Yes..." he confessed.

Maki pursed her lips when she heard that. She blinked several times to keep her tears from falling from her eyes, "And yet you say you love me... how illogical of you Okkotsu..." she blurted out with annoyance.

"As I said, I was too hurt by how you abandoned me and severed our relationship, so I had the right to rebuild my life" Yuta commented seriously.

Maki's hands made a fist on the table.
"And you never thought of coming to look for me? You never asked for me? If you said you loved me so much!" - she asked annoyed, trying not to raise her voice, but still sounding angry, "Where is the love you said you felt for me so much?"

"I didn't come to look for you before because you had been very clear in that message, you didn't want anything with me anymore..." Yuta answered coldly.

"MESSAGE I NEVER SENT!" her nails dug into the table and her voice rose a little.

Yuta sighed and decided to answer those questions she had left in the air.
"And about asking about you!. Yes!, I asked several people, but they all told me they didn't know who you were or that they didn't know anything about you!. Even Satoru never wanted to talk to me about you anymore!" his shoulders slumped, "I asked him about you and the others, but he wouldn't give me any answers. So I just gave up" -his hands tightened on the table -"For three years in a row, I tried to look for answers but got none, plus I wasn't allowed to return to Japan soon. And with that breakup, the less I wanted to return to this country where you had broken my heart..."

Maki leaned back in her chair
"So you just gave up? Wow! Then I guess you never loved me enough to avoid sleeping with another woman if you claimed to love me so much..." she growled and crossed her arms, "You only slept with her? How many times was it?" she asked annoyed.

Yuta sighed, he had no choice but to tell her the truth.
"Yes, I only slept with her and it was only once, it was something very fleeting, a one night thing…" - he confessed – "I met her in China on a mission to identify some curses of unknown category and almost ten months later we met again in Spain and that's where that intimate encounter happened..."

Maki lifted her glasses, wiped the tears that had come out of her eyes and let the air out in pain.
The pain that she had caused herself by asking that question. But that would leave a vulnerable heart to attack.

Yuta wanted to clarify the situation so he continued speaking, "But I can assure you that it was only a one night thing! Besides, I used condom and from there I never heard from her again since our paths didn't meet again and much less have I looked for her!"- he moved his hands with desperation and his eyes were also crystalline.

Maki put her glasses back on her face, took a deep breath and tried to answer in a firm voice, but it was breaking with every word.
"I guess you must have loved her enough in such a short time for Rika not to intervene with her, right?"

Yuta shook his head- "I feel that if Rika didn't intervene with her it was for another reason…"

"Why? Besides, how long ago was that one time you slept with her?" asked Maki firmly. A few bitter tears ran down her cheeks.

The sorcerer looked at his coffee, which had already cooled and he knew that in the face of all that truth it would taste bitter.
"That was about a year ago..." he confessed. –"She was also one of the reasons I finally got up the courage to come back here to Japan. She, this K..." he was interrupted when he was about to name that woman.

"I don't want to know her name... please..." Maki answered quickly.

She let out her breath painfully as a lump had formed in her throat from listening to that confession.

Yuta sighed and stared into Maki's eyes.
"It's okay... I guess she saw that, deep down, even though it had been almost six years since our separation, I could never stop loving you, even though I seemed to have forgotten you." he sighed. "I have a feeling that she did fall in love with me, but I couldn't reciprocate that feeling. That alone would explain why Rika didn't attack her. Besides, she was the one who gave the advice to come look for you a year before Satoru found me and dragged me here with this sorcerer killer case. But, as I said, I only slept with her once and since then I haven't slept with anyone else..."

"And did you come to love her?" asked Maki with a coldness that rasped in her throat and without taking her eyes off Yuta.

Yuta shook his head.
"I tried, but..." the air rushed out of his chest, "my heart still belonged to you, so maybe she saw that in my heart there was no place for anyone else but you"

Maki took a deep breath, unable to hold back the tears.
"Well... knowing this hurts…" her voice managed to come out in a whisper as she wiped her cheeks, " But since you believed that I had abandoned you and our relationship was practically "over", I don't think this could be considered infidelity...after all, we were both separated."

Yuta looked down when he heard that.
"We both thought we had abandoned each other..." He brought his hands to his face –"and now I feel guilty for what I did"

"But such sin cannot be erased… But what's done is done" commented Maki, still wiping away her tears. She sounded quite mature when she said that.

"And now that I've returned to Japan and found out that you had my children and were raising them and taking care of them all this time while I was traveling around the world" he sighed heavily, pain building up in his chest, "To have confessed to this makes me the worst person..."

Maki reclined in her chair while her fingers moved on the table.
"Some people just didn't want us together, so they did everything to separate us and they succeeded. It hurts, but..." She took a deep breath –" as I said we were both 'over', so you were in theory free to sleep with whomever you wanted. But if this had happened when we were still 'something', right now I'd be cutting your balls off" -She made a fist with her hand – "But that doesn't leave aside the desire I have to cut off your balls for not having returned soon... and I don't need reasons to kill you"

Yuta looked at her as he listened to that.
"But now we can do things differently and I want to fight for you and our children... to make up for the time we lost. And by the way, your forgiveness"

Maki sighed when she heard that.
"You came back late... seven years late... that's what hurts me the most"

"And now that we have met again, I can reaffirm that feeling of love that I still felt for you and despite being away for seven years, it did not disappear even though I tried to deceive myself!"- he stared at her– "And I can assure you that if anyone has the right to kill me, it is you..."

Maki stared at him as that sorcerer spoke. It seemed that Yuta was making a binding vow with her.

"You are the only one who can tear out my heart if you wish," he said, placing his hand on her breast. His eyes were filled with a mixture of love and fear, which were still fixed on hers, "My heart still belongs to you and only you can decide its Destiny"

It seemed that those words were only an omen.

They both kept a moment of silence, those words echoing in her mind. Her goal had been accomplished.

"What's done is done Okkotsu" - Maki sighed – "Maybe it will take me some work to forgive you, even a little bit and even more after all this you have told me"- she answered wiping her tears – "especially because now I know that there is another woman out there, somewhere in the world, who also loves you..."

"But I don't love her and I can prove it to you!" said Yuta sadly.

"Even so, thank you for being honest with me... this conversation about what we want to know is not being easy at all..." - she took her cup in her hands, "But we must have it because we deserve answers from both of us" she replied before taking a sip of that cold coffee.

"Yes. It looks like it's going to be a long night..."

"Yes..." she stood up in her place " in a moment I return..."

Maki got up from her chair and went for a moment to the bathroom to wet her face, looked at herself in the mirror and just repeated to herself "This is just part of the plan" to try to calm herself down.

It pained her to discover all this, but it was necessary. She had to ask him, both to dispel her doubts that she had been carrying for seven years and at the same time, that whole conversation helped her gain Yuta's trust. Only then could she get more information about the headquarters and the case Yuta was investigating about the sorcerer killer.

This whole plan had been organized by her guest.

The words of her guest remained engraved in Maki's mind:

"Keep your friends close, but your enemies even closer."

"Besides a man in love will always tell you the truth."

And it seemed that everything that woman said was true with that last sentence.

Instead, Yuta was still sitting in the kitchen waiting for her.
The urge to smoke resurfaced strongly. Especially because of the anxiety and guilt that the initial conversation had provoked in him.

While Maki was returning, Yuta decided to take a breather, so he went out into the courtyard for a moment to relax a bit after all he had said. Although he was carrying a cigarette in his jacket, he restrained himself and resisted the temptation to smoke.

They both cried a little, but there were still other things they needed to talk about like the adults they were supposed to be.

About seven minutes passed and Maki returned from the bathroom. She was thankful that her glasses covered part of her swollen eyes, which had shed a lot of tears from hearing that.

But they had to keep talking about other things that were just as important.

"Okkotsu, Do you want more coffee?" asked Maki in a calm voice, "The night is still long and we still need to talk about more things"

Yuta affirmed with a gentle shake of his head.
"I would like to..."

The clock already read 12:40 a.m. and after refilling those cups of coffee, they decided to resume their conversation.

"Well, I already started this conversation, so now it's your turn to ask what you want to know" replied Maki a little calmer. As she went back to take a seat in front of Yuta.

The sorcerer took a breath and, in passing, drank some of the coffee that his hostess had served him again.

"Well, now answer me Maki san, how did you realize you were pregnant? And why didn't you tell me at that moment?"-asked Yuta, looking her straight in the eyes. His tone of voice was serious, but genuine curiosity could be seen in his eyes.

"Isn't that already two questions?" Maki asked raising an eyebrow.

Yuta applied the same move she did minutes before.
"Consider them as one question"

Maki twisted her mouth at such an answer. She couldn't escape it because it was her turn to tell him the whole truth. Her hands tensed slightly over the cup that warmed her palms. But still, she was willing to talk.

"Ok" she leaned her back on the chair and stared at him, "Remember that Friday we were supposed to meet here in Kyoto to celebrate our anniversary?"

It was definitely going to be a long night for both of them. And even more so when the truth was just a cup of coffee away.

Your favorite family drama To be continued in the next chapter...

Notes:

I hope you liked this first part❤

What do you think of this story?

I can only tell you that the second part will be full of more drama and, by the way, there will be some very important flashbacks for this story. As well as finally finding out who talked to Maki at that train station.

As I said, I had to split the chapter because it was really going to be very, very long and full of a lot of information. And with this division I was able to focus better on what I want to get across to you.

Besides, in this first part I wanted to focus on this part of Okkotsu abroad and his answer about if he slept with another woman, since this answer, as I said in paragraphs above, left a vulnerable heart that will only want to recover the love of his life. And more than that Maki as the murderer that she is in this story, will start to move very carefully her pieces. Especially since we are almost entering her arc in this story and having Yuta doing everything he can to get her love back will give her a bit of an advantage for her future plans.

Actually, I'm thinking maybe later on I'll write a chapter about Okkotsu's journey abroad and maybe I'll talk a little bit about that woman. Would you like to read about it?

I hope to bring you the chapter soon, at the latest at the end of this month or at the beginning of May so as not to make you wait so long.

Well, we'll keep reading❤