Second to None

45. break

Tezuka didn't come home until after Mayu fell asleep. When she woke up at six, he was already in the kitchen making breakfast. Outside was a beautiful spring day with cerulean blue skies and perfectly shaped tufts of clouds. In the kitchen, Mayu helped him with dishes as he finished up breakfast. That done, she said that she had to tell him something that couldn't wait and asked him to take the morning off. She watched Tezuka write an email to announce his absence. Only after he closed the laptop did she sit him down on the couch.

She took the seat across from him. Hands linked and eyes looking straight ahead, she didn't allow herself to hesitate. "I was unfaithful to you," she said.

He met her gaze yet her breathing had become so shallow that she couldn't clearly see his face. Hot sun hit her back and she felt faint, but she forced herself to keep talking. "I don't expect you to forgive me, and I'll understand if you resent me. I also know that what I did was wrong, but that realization came far too late. I've allowed myself to keep lying and refused to see my mistake until now. It might not mean much at this point, but I can't not tell you the truth. And I'm sorry."

Tezuka stared at her. In this long stretch of silence, his eyes stayed on her as if he was trying to read beyond her face and her words. After a reticence that felt like forever, he asked, "Who's the other man?"

"You know him."

"I want a name."

She bit the inside of her cheek then said, "Echizen Ryoma."

Tezuka flinched. At that moment, she thought she heard something being broken. When he regained himself, he said, "How long has it been?"

"Since last November."

He nodded, shock receding from his face. "I had my suspicions, except, I've tried hard to convince myself I was wrong."

She nodded, surprised yet really wasn't. "Since when did you think so?"

"The moment you were announced as the Officiating Committee chair. During an offhand conversation, Director Yanagi told me that Echizen had vouched for your return and made a compelling case of your accomplishments to the Minister. Not that I doubted your abilities, but hearing him stepping forward again reminded me of his speech recognizing you at the celebratory dinner." 

He paused, then said, "Trying to reach for the Minister, however, was no trivial matter. He went above and beyond to put you on their radar—something I wasn't able to achieve and blamed myself for a while after your return. I spent a lot of time convincing myself to not project my frustrations towards you and Echizen, or think that something went on between the two of you."

"Your instincts didn't betray you," she said. "I did."

"And I thought you were emotionally volatile because of work-related pressures. But it's really because of him."

"Yes. Everything is exactly what you're thinking."

"Did you have an affair with him because of this job? Because you're angry with me for not standing up for you? For not securing you what he could?"

Mayu hated how petty that sounded. "Of course not—"

"Are you sure?"

She paused. It occurred to her that what she originally believed to be ambition turned out to be anger simmering in the background. The truth was, she never completely forgave Tezuka for taking her out of Europe without warning. She never got over the past version of herself and, in a stubborn will to turn things around, never wholeheartedly committed to starting fresh. There was never a change of plans, only her efforts at trying to reproduce what used to be. When the reins were back in her hands again, she greedily let power take her where they may.

"I'm not sure," she said at last. "I guess I haven't been sure of anything for a while."

"Including the fact that you ever loved me?"

Mayu stared at her knees, clutching onto the hem of her skirt to withstand the hurt from this one question. The man who she'd known for nearly a decade was putting her entire character under scrutiny. 

When that initial pain passed, she looked up at Tezuka's sunlit face and thought he'd never looked more brittle. She thought about the purgatory he might be in and calmed down.

"Is that what you believe?" she asked quietly.

"Aren't you telling me now because you're leaving me for him?"

She shook her head. "It's over with him."

"Then why are you telling me?"

"Because it's my fault and you're a good man. I don't want to deceive you anymore, and I don't want to degrade you further by giving someone else a chance to tell you what happened. I want you to hear it directly from me, hear the first-hand account," she said. "I don't expect you to forgive me. I don't expect a resolution. As hard as it might be for you to believe, this is my last-ditch effort to let you know that I truly love you, and that I'm so sorry about everything."

He didn't speak and simply stared at her in silence, with a faraway look that made the distance they travelled together seemed trivial. She had no gauge of whether he believed a word from her. As they looked at each other without speaking, Mayu knew that everything—tennis courts in spring, pandas rolling downhill, cobblestone streets, pine forests, cherries blooming in April, white-walled apartment buildings—was finished, gone in a flash.

What would remain was this living room acting as the thin divide between one segment of life to another. From now on there would only be memories that they wouldn't want to remember and an ending they'd be incapable of forgetting.

***

a/n: So the truth finally comes out, but we are not done yet... Please stay tuned for Ryoma's segment next!