Second to None

34. miscalculation

Once the mural was complete and Tezuka flew out of the country, Mayu was suddenly left with all the time in the world and nothing to do. In the last week of August, the busiest city in the world seemed to slow down ever-so-slightly to bask in the last glory of summer. Children and teenagers zipped around on bikes or played soccer in the park. Street festivals popped up in a different neighbourhood every day and fireworks went off at night. Whenever Mayu saw neon ink color the velvet skies, she'd feel a pang of longing, for a signal, for a sure future, maybe.

She saw Hirose once to watch a movie and saw Fuji the next day to see his new office on the Keio campus. Hirose seemed to have moved on and Fuji acted as if nothing ever happened. It left her with an odd unease to individually see two people who were once together but were no longer.

Tezuka called every other night to check on her. He was in Munich but had no time to see the glorious city beyond the four walls of his hotel. On his third call, he sounded especially worn out. She wasn't sure if the signal was deteriorating or whether his voice was fragmented from exhaustion. 

When this went on for another few minutes, she interrupted and asked, "Is everything ok? You sound kind of strange."

A drawn-out silence filled the receiver followed by a heavy sigh. "You picked it up. I wasn't planning on telling you."

"Meaning it's bad news."

"Try not to think of it that way." Another break of silence passed before Tezuka said, "Our meetings are not going well. Director Yanagi is interested in having deeper discussions about training plans with a number of French, British and German directors and coaches. The problem is, there is a language barrier. Ryoma is only helpful with English speakers. My French and German are simply not advanced enough for a highly technical conversation."

"What about the interpreter from the association?"

"Some of these foreign directors have a bit of a regional accent that confuses the interpreter." 

"These representatives don't have a Japanese interpreter?"

"We're the minority here. I hate to say this, but Japan's presence at this conference is not as significant and we didn't set ourselves up in an advantageous position. Worse, we look ill-prepared in front of Minister Yazawa—"

"Hold on," Mayu interjected, "Minister Yazawa's there too?"

"He is—"

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"He joined us last minute—"

"Last minute, as in when? Before you left? After you got there?"

"A day after we got here. He was attending a conference in Germany and Director Yanagi invited him to join us."

"And let me guess, he didn't bring an interpreter."

"No, only his assistant. He knew we had an interpreter."

"Yet you waited until now to tell me?" she demanded. "If you told me as soon as he joined, I would've jumped on the next flight to be your interpreter!"

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you right away. I thought you wouldn't want to hear about it. You seemed reluctant to come when I first invited you."

"I didn't have this context! Now it looks like I'm some bratty woman who refused to help the association when it was needed the most! I never would've turned the invite down had I known!"

"I didn't have any context either, Mayu."

She laughed through her nose, her eyes stinging with tears. "You never have any context, do you? Just like when we first moved to Tokyo, I'm falling down a professional cliff and all you do is stand by and watch!"

Depleted of words, Mayu disconnected violently. She collapsed into the nearest chair. Head on her arms, she bawled into the dinner table, knowing she'd killed off the path she'd so painstakingly carved out.