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chapter twenty-eight
true faith
THREE DAYS LATER
We were curled up on the couch, a bowl of popcorn between us as we watched a movie called 'The End Of The Tiny World', courtesy of my Netflix access since Tetsu still couldn't guess Naomi's password. When the film ended, Tetsu got up from the couch and stretched, a tired yawn escaping his mouth.
"I should probably start getting ready for work." Tetsu sighed. He turned to me. "Gilly, you're really lucky, you know that? You just get to hang around the house all day, no responsibilities."
I laughed, moving the popcorn bowl aside and giving him a hug. "Not for much longer. Once my resident status comes through, I can start applying for jobs in courthouses around the area. I already have a court in the Rascal's district interested."
Putting in my resignation for the courthouse in Toronto physically hurt me. I'd be saying goodbye to Kiana, to Judge Cheng. The people that had been my only friends through the end of my step father's life. Ultimately, however much I didn't want to let my old life go, it was time for me to move on. It's what Yuki would have wanted.
Tetsu came runnning back down the stairs, struggling to pull his hoodie over his head. I stifled my laughter as I filled up a pint glass form the Bar Odake with the filtered water pitcher. "Meet me at Ryusei's for dinner?" Tetz suggested, a dumb grin on his face as I pulled him in for a kiss.
"Sure. I'll see you later, baby."
Once Tetsu had left, I made my way back upstairs, eager to draft another email to my mother. I'd spent all week making a list of talking points and I was looking forward to writing back home. Mom seemed to be doing well now that she was back in Santa Fe. She sent me a pre recorded video of her and my grandparents, and I'd sent one back, Tetus hovering awkwardly behind me. As I sat down at the desk to power my computer on, something sitting near the windowsil caught my eye.
Yuki Morizono-Wagner's moleskein journal.
The answers I had been putting off finding.
I closed my laptop and reached for the notebook, running into the other room to grab Steve the axolotl before curling up on the guest room bed as I opened it to the first page. The first few pages were mundane, there wasn't a lot going on in Yuki's life at the time. Not much changed, the journal entries recounting motorcycle trips, long nights in the garage and parties at Itokan. And then I turned one page and everything changed. The handwriting became more frantic, everything made less and less sense.
But I knew when it must have been written. The night Ryu Izawa died.
My heart leapt into my throat as my breath hitched. Every word was painful to read, having to imagine what it must have felt like as Yuki grappled with what had occurred that night when they went up against the Hyugas. Ryu was only nineteen, with a wife and baby at home. He had a bright future ahead of him, and Yuki couldn't deal with the fact that he he had ended that.
