Tokyo Puts on Fake Smiles

Prelude

What Is Love You Ask?

It's hard to explain what a person feels when they fall in love. The heat and the cold torment you until your skin goes numb every time, unintentionally, you anticipate a touch. A strange sensation that claims pleasure from pain, the stillness amidst chaos, the antithesis of happiness. A cocktail of emotions that you don't know how to handle, perhaps because of your young age, corners your heart, you blink, he blinks, you take a breath, and it explodes.

But, after so much time converging on the same plane like two parallel lines, from one moment to the next, you cease to be. The lines converge, they touch. They caress, they kiss, an orchestra plays in the distance, and boom!, love has emerged.

How could I forget the moment the plane disappeared? I fell into the welcoming clutches of emptiness. On his face, an uncomfortable smile.

"Ayumi," he said my name after finishing reading my letter. "I don't know how to tell you this..." he sighed, rubbed his neck with one of his hands, and handed me the piece of paper. "I'm engaged."

I laughed. A small laugh escaped my lips. "What? No, impossible," I said, bowing my head.

The night breeze pinched my skin, but the warmth emanating from my body made me immune to coldness.

I raised my gaze; his face, the one I had missed for so many years, had changed, but his tone of voice had not. It remained the same, I remembered it the same.

☻☻☻

The voice that, in front of the sunset over the bay, tore my heart apart in the blink of an eye.

"I'll be leaving at the end of this month," he declared in a dry tone.

And although I remember that from within I tried to force myself to stay calm, after hours of trying to get him to speak and tell me that horrible secret, I couldn't control myself. "You're leaving?" I asked.

Not crying for the only person I had loved for 12 long years was impossible.

I couldn't remember a single day before I met Makoto. He was always by my side, he had been the only person I had ever dreamed of marrying. His gestures had made me believe for a long time, and up until that moment, that our feelings would finally, someday, be mutual.

"Why now?" I asked, choking back the sob, "Aren't you going to fight to stay?"

I heard him click his tongue, "It's something that will do me good, Ayumi."

Even though I was used to his coldness, that response struck my ears with more force. Was I being selfish? I hadn't even clung to his shirt, nor had I thrown myself into his arms. Even though I wanted to.

"But," the knot came undone, I felt my voice slowly breaking, "I'm going to miss you so much!" Ashamed, I covered my face with my hands and let the tears flow freely.

"And I'll miss you too, Ayumin," he whispered, stroking my hair.

I managed to see his sideways smile as I wiped my eyes. His attitude was so unfair. He was so unfair.

"But I'll come back, for you and for everyone."

"Huh?" I swallowed hard. "Really?"

"Really," he extended his pinky finger, "it's a promise."

The warmth of the sunset blended with his smile, warm, welcoming, familiar. Feeling a bit better, I sealed the promise by interlacing our fingers.