I waited as she took one pensive sip, then another. I figured that just staring at her while she thought would put unnecessary pressure on her, so I took a bite of some of the food that was still left on the table. It was important to determine whether a partner’s silence was merely a step toward a statement of intent or whether that silence itself was the statement. In this case, I knew that Saitou was trying to think of something to say, so it was best for me to simply wait.
After a gap, I felt her aim her sights on me.
“Like you said before, Kaya-kun, I don’t think that any time spent with you could possibly be a waste.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So, if you’re all right with it, I don’t think the distance is enough to break us up immediately, but I do think we should decide which way this is going to go.”
She had a showy way of putting it, as usual.
“You mean whether we’re going to break up now or later?” I asked, tilting my head. She smiled thinly, shaking her head like a tree branch swaying in the wind.
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
Then, what did she mean? “Which way,” she’d said.
She took another sip of her drink in place of taking a breath. Then…
“Maybe I’ll just quit.”
“…Huh?”
Despite my confusion, the thin smile on her lips rippled across her whole face.
“Maybe I’ll just quit my job and go with you.”
For the first time in ages, someone had actually managed to surprise me, but even the shock of that soon faded.
“I think we should discuss this when you aren’t drunk.”
“Delusional” was the apt term for her current state of mind. Saitou would never throw her career away for some man. Even if she wouldn’t have used the word “gust,” she herself should have realized that her youth and her raison d’être were likely based in her work.
“I am drunk, but that’s not why I’m saying this.”
“Then…?”
“I’ve thought a bit about this before.”
“About what…?”
“I’d wondered what I might do if something happened with you and I couldn’t continue my current work.”
That wasn’t even worth considering. That kind of absurd thinking didn’t suit her in the slightest.
“Obviously, my work is important to me, and it’s given me a lot of irreplaceable experiences. But if I had to quit my job to live with you, I do think that option is on the table. I still feel that way.”
She was talking about a slight misunderstanding as though it were something quite grave. I was willing to spend the effort to correct this.
“Even if you came with me, there’s no guarantee you’d be able to find a job like the one you have now.”
I said this in a sincere, non-judgmental tone.
“That’s true. I’ve always wanted to try working at a record shop or something, though. Wonder if any would be hiring.”
It didn’t seem like she’d gotten what I was trying to say in the slightest. I immediately gave a “Listen,” as she talked about this, as though she was thrilled about this future full of possibilities, pressing my lips in a way that I normally wouldn’t. Drunk or no, she was talking nonsense, and my irritation was starting to show.
“You really need to think this over,” I said.
“Do you not want me to come with you? Is this your subtle way of breaking up with me…?”
“That’s not it, but weren’t you the one who just said that your work is irreplaceable?”
She agreed without any hesitation. “Yeah.”
“I can’t let my circumstances take that job away from you.”
That job, or her gust of wind.
“Bold of you to think you could take anything from me. I’d never let anyone take that from me. No one’s circumstances matter but my own. If I need to quit, then I’ll quit of my own volition. I said it before, didn’t I? People should change for their own sakes.”
I supposed she had said that. I had no idea when though; it felt like it had happened both recently and a long time ago.
“So, I’m saying that if I quit my job, it’s because I want to go with you. And, I mean, there’s still a chance you won’t be transferred, and I still have some work I’d need to wrap up, so it’s not like I could just up and leave either.”
I listened closely to what she was saying. Chills ran down my spine. Why hadn’t I realized it sooner? It felt like I had just rounded a corner and suddenly come face-to-face with something terrifying.
“So I don’t need you to feel responsible for this. I’m just saying that, if the time comes, I’ll be prepared. Though if this isn’t what you want, then never mind. Of course, you’ve dated me long enough to know that I won’t back down without a fight, even if you tell me no.”
She gave a clownish grin and took another drink.
Bit by bit, I was realizing what those chills meant.
No way.
It was dawning on me what it was Saitou had been hiding from me all this time. If what I was thinking was true, then what a monumental fool I had been. But that was understandable, perhaps. How could I have known that the person here beside me would have such a ridiculous thought, even for a moment? I instinctively took another sip of my own drink. I didn’t want to believe this.
“Now that I think about it, we have been dating a while.”
As she said, the two of us had spent quite a lot of time together. I thought about our relationship up until now. Then I looked again at the face of the woman in front of me. Our eyes met, the expectancy in her gaze confirming for me the identity of the terror I felt rising inside of me.
The signs had been everywhere. I hoped desperately that she was lying.
“Kaya-kun? What’s the matter?”
“I…”
I was thinking. Had I misread her? Was I wrong about what I should have felt toward her? I stared into her eyes. All this time, I had envied that light that lingered in her eyes. I had dated her thinking that she was someone still being blown by her own wind, that she was someone who would enjoy that wind for a long while yet thanks to her work, and that she was someone who might hold the secret of living an enviable life.
But I realized now that I might have been fully mistaken.
“Were you actually planning on breaking up with me today?”
She said this jokingly, but there was a sincere fear in her eyes, and I tried to gauge what was going through her mind. Why was she looking at me like that? What was so scary about the idea of being without me? For Saitou, I was nothing more than one of the many men she might meet in her life. It just so happened that we were former classmates, and that, through a number of coincidences aligning, we had reunited. So why would she be so afraid that I, just one of the various men she had dated, might disappear from her life? Couldn’t she just find someone else? Wasn’t she just keeping me around so that she could have someone to satisfy her lust and her need for approval close at hand?
Was that…not it?
I hallucinated cracks forming in her eyeballs.
I cursed my own foolishness.
“Sanae.”
“Mm?”
This was out of hand.
“I have to do this. We need to talk.”
“Wait, what now?!”
Her fear redoubled, and I could see that she realized this, trying to twist herself away from it with the power of will and alcohol. The smile she faced me with looked to me like nothing but sorrow.
“There’s something important I have to tell you.”
“What? You’re scaring me…!” She voiced her own terror.
“Sorry for scaring you.”
I meant that sincerely. If I were my normal self, the person I had been until now, I might have chosen my words with a bit more consideration for how her heart worked.
“But I have to do this.”
I had to tell her the truth.
“Please don’t look at me like that.”
She had to know the sort of person I truly was. It would be far too cruel for her to have to live not knowing that.
“I’m sorry.”
If I did this now, there might still be time. Without that gale—that briefest time in a person’s life—you could not be saved. We had to be allowed to live our lives dwelling on that time alone. Naturally, even Saitou deserved that chance.
She couldn’t live her life thinking that I was her gale.