Four Times Ryoutarou Planned to Propose (and one time he didn’t) [La Corda d'Oro, Ryoutarou/Various]
Title: Four Times Ryoutarou Planned to Propose (and one time he didn’t)
Fandom: La Corda d’Oro
Pairings: Ryoutarou/Mizue, Ryoutarou/Kahoko, Ryoutarou/Shouko, Ryoutarou/Len, Ryoutarou/Nami
Rating: Hard R for sexy times (maybe borders on NC-17 in some parts)
Disclaimer: La Corda d’Oro and its characters do not belong to me.
A/N: I felt kinda bad for Ryo while writing this…until I realized he was getting to have a lot of sex. XD What a whore.
[1]
Ryoutarou has given himself, whole-heartedly, to Mizue Sakimoto. Fresh out of Seisou Academy, he works on getting over his probably unrequited feelings for Kahoko by channeling his energy into various activities. He assistant-coaches his younger brother’s soccer team, he plays the piano in nightclubs, he goes jogging every morning, he takes up cooking dinner twice a week, and he loses his virginity to his first sweetheart.
It’s an unexpected turn in the road. They go out to dinner and she admits, over dessert, that she still thinks of him. He walks her home and kisses her. She brings him inside and for the first night in a long while, he isn’t thinking of a certain redhead when he falls asleep.
Three years and six months later, he’s 21 years old and he’s just signed a lease on his first apartment. His stuff is moved in and he and Mizue have properly christened every room. He’s happy. He has money set aside for a vertical piano, but he walks into a jewelry store instead.
He and Mizue have problems, but every couple has problems. They fight over stupid things like unreturned phone calls and what brand of peanut butter tastes best, but they forgive easily and quickly. She laughs at his jokes and calls him out on his mistakes. He can tell what kind of mood she’s in just by the way she wears her hair. They don’t cringe away from each other’s morning breath and they’ve memorized every dip and angle of one another’s body.
The ring he buys isn’t terribly fancy. The diamond is smallish, but shiny, and Mizue has never been one for extravagance. She’s told him several times that her desires are simple-an amusing show on television, a cup of tea, warm pajamas, a cuddle on the couch. And him; “I’ve never wanted anything more in my life,” she’s whispered against his palm in quiet, post-coital moments and he’s believed her every time.
He meets her for lunch at Buco Di Muro. The ring is in his pocket and he’s feeling excited and lucky. A mezzo-soprano is singing in Italian over the restaurant’s sound system and the only word he understands is “amore”; this feels like a sign.
“Miz, there’s something I want to ask-”
“May I tell you something first?”
“Yeah, of course.”
She reaches over the table for his hands. She kisses his knuckles. She says, “I don’t think I can see you anymore.” He can’t say anything. His hands are limp in hers. She sighs, like she’s heartbroken. “You’re beginning this new chapter in your life and I just don’t know what my role would be-”
“What are you talking about? “
“I don’t know.” She shakes her head and strands of hair stick to her lips. He brushes them off on instinct and she starts to cry. “I’m sorry.”
She leaves him money to pay for the food. He sits at the table for a while after she’s gone and looks out the window, watching the Cosmo World Ferris wheel go around and around and around. The mezzo-soprano sings “amore, amore, amore” like a broken record.
[2]
A couple years later, Ryoutarou sleeps with Kahoko Hino. She’s close to his apartment when it starts to rain, hard, and when he opens the door, she rushes into the door, wet and shivering, and it happens. Chopin’s music becomes his second favorite thing to listen to, because nothing can beat the way she gasps his name. She’s beautiful. She’s more beautiful than he ever imagined; he tells her this as he kisses his way down the valley between her breasts and she arches beneath him and clutches his hair.
She starts coming over every day when he gets off work. He gives her a key. She grows a hanging tomato garden on his balcony and keeps spare toothbrushes in his medicine cabinet. He comes home sometimes to find her wearing his Dragon Ash t-shirt and he can’t control himself; he’s almost certain she does that on purpose. They have dinner with each other’s families, endure embarrassing questions from parents and teasing from siblings. They spend a few summer weekends in Enoshima, watching fireworks and getting cozy on the beach. He doesn’t think his life can get any better.
After a year of pure and utter bliss, the impulse hits him. He buys a ring. He doesn’t know when he’s going to give it to her, but he knows he want to, and he wants to do it soon. He’s wanted this for so long and he wants to make sure he’ll always have it. He keeps the ring in the pocket of his Seisou uniform pants, hanging hidden in the back of his closet.
And then she auditions for the Royal Academy of Music. He goes with her to Tokyo for the audition and accompanies her in the first movement of Haydn’s Violin Concerto in G Major and Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen. He’s torn. He wants her to get accepted, but the thought of her going to London isn’t exactly appealing. He tries not to think about it-something she makes fairly easy for him. On the train ride home, she’s hyped up and excited and she pounces on him the moment they get back to his apartment.
He lets her take control so he doesn’t have to think. She straddles him, naked, already warm and wet between her thighs and he groans when she grinds against him, presses him down into the mattress. He slips inside of her with little effort and his mind goes completely fuzzy as she rides him, prestissimo, incalzando. He pulls her down close when he comes, buries his face in her red hair. His chest heaves as he catches his breath and her fingertips follow a bead of sweat down to his navel.
“I love you,” he admits in the silence.
She lifts her head and smiles, slowly.
She leaves for London some months later. She doesn’t ask him to go with her, but she doesn’t break up with him, either. She promises to call, write, e-mail. He takes his mother’s car and drives her to the airport; while he’s getting one of her suitcases out of the trunk, he puts the ring box inside. He holds onto her for as long as he can, and his heart feels heavy when he kisses her goodbye, like he’s kissing her for the last time.
She starts calling him every day, then every other day, then once a week, then once a month. He gets the idea. She never mentions the ring.
[3]
Ryoutarou isn’t with Shouko Fuyuumi very long before he thinks about marrying her. They start dating when she looked him up on his 25th birthday and she brings him cupcakes with chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles. They keep things light, which suits her; she’s too soft and adorable for drama and seriousness. But she calls him one day at work and asks him to come over because she might be pregnant.
He sits beside her on the rim of her tub and puts a hand on her shaking knee. He looks away from the white stick that’s sitting on the closed lid of the toilet. “What are you thinking?”
“I hope he has your cheekbones.”
“He?” Ryoutarou smiles a little, despite his anxiousness.
He thinks, then, about marrying her. A quiet ceremony with a tiny bulge showing through her dress. He thinks of putting a crib together, painting her current guest room a delicate shade of blue. He thinks about holding her hand throughout the delivery, playing the piano to soothe their crying son in the middle of the night. He thinks that this is all happening sooner than he’s planned, sooner than he’s wanted, but he thinks it might not be so bad.
He lifts his hand from her knee and cups her chin. She blushes, like always, and he sees fear and hope swimming in her widening eyes. “We could do this,” he says.
The pinkness of her cheeks darkens to red. “Really?”
When he kisses her, the timer goes off. She closes her eyes, tells him she can’t look, so he does it for her. One solid blue line-negative. He has to remind himself that he’s supposed to be relieved.
[4]
Ryoutarou isn’t sure when his fling with Len Tsukimori becomes something real.
He goes to see the violinist perform an homage to Fritz Kreisler at the Minato Mirai Hall and they decide, on a whim, to take a walk along the seashore when the concert is over. They purposefully limit their conversation to Romantic composers and the weather, to avoid potential disagreements. Ryoutarou is surprised to find himself thinking that Len looks a little beautiful; he blames it on the moonlight, which turns the other man’s hair almost silver and makes his eyes shine.
For a few months, they send casual e-mails to each other. They make plans to meet up in Chinatown and act like running into each other there is a coincidence. And then Len rents a suite at the Landmark Tower. He doesn’t pressure Ryoutarou into anything, but there’s still a nervous tension between them when they have a fancy French dinner on the 68th floor. Ryoutarou knocks over his water glass five times and he thinks their waiter’s eyes silently promise homicide, but Len’s foot touches his underneath the table, which serves as a silent promise of something else entirely. They skip dessert.
Four years later, it’s the night of his 30th birthday; Len is throwing him a party at the Tsukimori manner and Ryoutarou is planning to propose. He hasn’t bought a ring; he doesn’t know what kind of engagement ring to buy for a guy and Len’s averse to most jewelry, anyway. Falling in love again hasn’t been easy, especially since it’s Len-Ryoutarou still thinks he’s an arrogant, socially inept, spoiled rich brat who’s totally oblivious to the way his actions affect those around him and who’s a complete hindrance when it comes to cooking and cleaning-but it’s happened and he desperately wants it to stay this time.
He stands in front of Len’s full-length mirror and frowns at his reflection when Len tells him to tuck in his shirt. “Why?”
“Just do it. I let you wear those jeans.”
“Yes, so I’d wear this tie,” he mutters, straightening said accessory. “Whose party is this?”
“Tuck in your shirt. The guests are arriving.”
Ryoutarou doesn’t know most of the guests. He supposes that’s all right, since he’s already celebrated with his friends and, besides, Misa Hamai is there. There are music professors, composers, members of various symphonies. They discuss Schuller, their yachts, Lindberg, their genealogy, wine, concert dates, money, money, money. Ryoutarou says very little. He just stands beside Len and nibbles on lemon mascarpone cake and looks handsome.
“When you move in with me,” he whispers, leaning in toward Len’s ear, “I’ll show you how to party for real.” He thinks of Len and his friends, slightly drunk, playing video games and singing karaoke.
“Why would I move in with you?” Len whispers back, brow furrowing.
Ryoutarou supposes he might be getting ahead of himself; he hasn’t even properly proposed yet, but he can’t imagine that Len hasn’t at least thought about it in all this time. “Why wouldn’t you?”
Len smiles at him, a little, but it isn’t one of the smiles Ryoutarou likes. “Honey,” he says-and he only calls him sweet names when he’s his most condescending, “you live in a one-bedroom apartment.”
He tries to imagine living this kind of life. Having servants, cooks, drivers. Having so many rooms he doesn’t know what they’re all for. Pretending to care about money. Pretending to be someone he isn’t. Ties. Tucked in shirts.
He knows he loves Len, but he doesn’t propose that night, or any other night.
[5]
Ryoutarou’s relationship with Nami Amou is purely physical. She lets him know early on that she isn’t ready to settle down but she thinks he’s cute and hot and a bunch of other nice adjectives and she likes to have fun. In the fallout of his long and difficult breakup with Len, he thinks that’s just what he needs. He’s tired of being in love.
They don’t leave the apartment often. Sometimes they go out drinking or dancing; once or twice he takes her to a concert or a movie. But most of the time, they stay inside. Whatever they do, it always ends in sex. She reads romance novels to him in a voice that turns him into putty and they have slow, purposeful sex on the couch. She practices interviews while sitting in his lap, rubbing herself against his erection. He cooks her favorite dinner and she thanks him with a blowjob in the kitchen.
She tries on her old school uniform one day and he wonders how he managed to control himself around her, how he missed the way she oozed sex.
“I’m surprised you even knew I was alive,” she says.
“What are you talking about?” He runs a hand up her exposed shapely leg, smirking. “You weren’t exactly the type that blended quietly into the background.”
“Are you saying I talked too much?” She smirks back, shivers as his fingers run along the lining of her underwear. “You only had eyes for Kaho back then.”
Thinking of her sobers him slightly. He undresses Nami quickly and tries not to picture the redhead when they fuck.
A few weeks later, Kahoko comes back to Yokohama. With her breasts pressed to his chest and her breath in his ear, Nami persuades Ryoutarou to go with her to Narita International with a bouquet of bright flowers. He watches the two girls embrace, tries to smile when Kahoko’s eyes meet his over Nami’s shoulder.
“Hi,” she says, meekly, small hand extended.
“Hi.” He pats her on the arm.
They take her home. They have tea and talk about London. Ryoutarou keeps his eyes on Nami as they try to pretend this isn’t awkward or weird or uncomfortable. He says nice things and keeps his expression friendly, but all he really wants is to tell her how hurt and angry he still is and he wants to say he wishes he went with her and he wants to kiss her and he wants to ask her why.
She walks them out and watches them leave. Ryoutarou makes a big show of grabbing Nami by the waist, pushing her against the car, and kissing her soundly. He doesn’t pull away until he hears the front door close.
It’s raining the day Nami calls and says they should break up. Ryoutarou drinks a beer and plays idly on the vertical piano he’s finally bought. He takes down the dying tomato garden. He closes his eyes and imagines a baby boy with his cheekbones. It also has red hair. He thinks of calling and apologizing to Len. He wonders if he should give up on this love thing and take up jogging again.
There’s frantic knocking at the door and when he opens it, Kahoko is there. Wet and shivering. She pulls the ring box out of her pocket and she asks him to marry her. He reminds himself of heartache, of the phone calls that stopped coming. He tells himself to say no.
Instead, he asks, “Why?”
She looks down, blinking water droplets off of her eyelashes. She’s beautiful.
“I love you,” she admits in the silence.
Ryoutarou feels like he should sing an Italian opera aria. Amore, amore, amore.
Fandom: La Corda d’Oro
Pairings: Ryoutarou/Mizue, Ryoutarou/Kahoko, Ryoutarou/Shouko, Ryoutarou/Len, Ryoutarou/Nami
Rating: Hard R for sexy times (maybe borders on NC-17 in some parts)
Disclaimer: La Corda d’Oro and its characters do not belong to me.
A/N: I felt kinda bad for Ryo while writing this…until I realized he was getting to have a lot of sex. XD What a whore.
[1]
Ryoutarou has given himself, whole-heartedly, to Mizue Sakimoto. Fresh out of Seisou Academy, he works on getting over his probably unrequited feelings for Kahoko by channeling his energy into various activities. He assistant-coaches his younger brother’s soccer team, he plays the piano in nightclubs, he goes jogging every morning, he takes up cooking dinner twice a week, and he loses his virginity to his first sweetheart.
It’s an unexpected turn in the road. They go out to dinner and she admits, over dessert, that she still thinks of him. He walks her home and kisses her. She brings him inside and for the first night in a long while, he isn’t thinking of a certain redhead when he falls asleep.
Three years and six months later, he’s 21 years old and he’s just signed a lease on his first apartment. His stuff is moved in and he and Mizue have properly christened every room. He’s happy. He has money set aside for a vertical piano, but he walks into a jewelry store instead.
He and Mizue have problems, but every couple has problems. They fight over stupid things like unreturned phone calls and what brand of peanut butter tastes best, but they forgive easily and quickly. She laughs at his jokes and calls him out on his mistakes. He can tell what kind of mood she’s in just by the way she wears her hair. They don’t cringe away from each other’s morning breath and they’ve memorized every dip and angle of one another’s body.
The ring he buys isn’t terribly fancy. The diamond is smallish, but shiny, and Mizue has never been one for extravagance. She’s told him several times that her desires are simple-an amusing show on television, a cup of tea, warm pajamas, a cuddle on the couch. And him; “I’ve never wanted anything more in my life,” she’s whispered against his palm in quiet, post-coital moments and he’s believed her every time.
He meets her for lunch at Buco Di Muro. The ring is in his pocket and he’s feeling excited and lucky. A mezzo-soprano is singing in Italian over the restaurant’s sound system and the only word he understands is “amore”; this feels like a sign.
“Miz, there’s something I want to ask-”
“May I tell you something first?”
“Yeah, of course.”
She reaches over the table for his hands. She kisses his knuckles. She says, “I don’t think I can see you anymore.” He can’t say anything. His hands are limp in hers. She sighs, like she’s heartbroken. “You’re beginning this new chapter in your life and I just don’t know what my role would be-”
“What are you talking about? “
“I don’t know.” She shakes her head and strands of hair stick to her lips. He brushes them off on instinct and she starts to cry. “I’m sorry.”
She leaves him money to pay for the food. He sits at the table for a while after she’s gone and looks out the window, watching the Cosmo World Ferris wheel go around and around and around. The mezzo-soprano sings “amore, amore, amore” like a broken record.
[2]
A couple years later, Ryoutarou sleeps with Kahoko Hino. She’s close to his apartment when it starts to rain, hard, and when he opens the door, she rushes into the door, wet and shivering, and it happens. Chopin’s music becomes his second favorite thing to listen to, because nothing can beat the way she gasps his name. She’s beautiful. She’s more beautiful than he ever imagined; he tells her this as he kisses his way down the valley between her breasts and she arches beneath him and clutches his hair.
She starts coming over every day when he gets off work. He gives her a key. She grows a hanging tomato garden on his balcony and keeps spare toothbrushes in his medicine cabinet. He comes home sometimes to find her wearing his Dragon Ash t-shirt and he can’t control himself; he’s almost certain she does that on purpose. They have dinner with each other’s families, endure embarrassing questions from parents and teasing from siblings. They spend a few summer weekends in Enoshima, watching fireworks and getting cozy on the beach. He doesn’t think his life can get any better.
After a year of pure and utter bliss, the impulse hits him. He buys a ring. He doesn’t know when he’s going to give it to her, but he knows he want to, and he wants to do it soon. He’s wanted this for so long and he wants to make sure he’ll always have it. He keeps the ring in the pocket of his Seisou uniform pants, hanging hidden in the back of his closet.
And then she auditions for the Royal Academy of Music. He goes with her to Tokyo for the audition and accompanies her in the first movement of Haydn’s Violin Concerto in G Major and Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen. He’s torn. He wants her to get accepted, but the thought of her going to London isn’t exactly appealing. He tries not to think about it-something she makes fairly easy for him. On the train ride home, she’s hyped up and excited and she pounces on him the moment they get back to his apartment.
He lets her take control so he doesn’t have to think. She straddles him, naked, already warm and wet between her thighs and he groans when she grinds against him, presses him down into the mattress. He slips inside of her with little effort and his mind goes completely fuzzy as she rides him, prestissimo, incalzando. He pulls her down close when he comes, buries his face in her red hair. His chest heaves as he catches his breath and her fingertips follow a bead of sweat down to his navel.
“I love you,” he admits in the silence.
She lifts her head and smiles, slowly.
She leaves for London some months later. She doesn’t ask him to go with her, but she doesn’t break up with him, either. She promises to call, write, e-mail. He takes his mother’s car and drives her to the airport; while he’s getting one of her suitcases out of the trunk, he puts the ring box inside. He holds onto her for as long as he can, and his heart feels heavy when he kisses her goodbye, like he’s kissing her for the last time.
She starts calling him every day, then every other day, then once a week, then once a month. He gets the idea. She never mentions the ring.
[3]
Ryoutarou isn’t with Shouko Fuyuumi very long before he thinks about marrying her. They start dating when she looked him up on his 25th birthday and she brings him cupcakes with chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles. They keep things light, which suits her; she’s too soft and adorable for drama and seriousness. But she calls him one day at work and asks him to come over because she might be pregnant.
He sits beside her on the rim of her tub and puts a hand on her shaking knee. He looks away from the white stick that’s sitting on the closed lid of the toilet. “What are you thinking?”
“I hope he has your cheekbones.”
“He?” Ryoutarou smiles a little, despite his anxiousness.
He thinks, then, about marrying her. A quiet ceremony with a tiny bulge showing through her dress. He thinks of putting a crib together, painting her current guest room a delicate shade of blue. He thinks about holding her hand throughout the delivery, playing the piano to soothe their crying son in the middle of the night. He thinks that this is all happening sooner than he’s planned, sooner than he’s wanted, but he thinks it might not be so bad.
He lifts his hand from her knee and cups her chin. She blushes, like always, and he sees fear and hope swimming in her widening eyes. “We could do this,” he says.
The pinkness of her cheeks darkens to red. “Really?”
When he kisses her, the timer goes off. She closes her eyes, tells him she can’t look, so he does it for her. One solid blue line-negative. He has to remind himself that he’s supposed to be relieved.
[4]
Ryoutarou isn’t sure when his fling with Len Tsukimori becomes something real.
He goes to see the violinist perform an homage to Fritz Kreisler at the Minato Mirai Hall and they decide, on a whim, to take a walk along the seashore when the concert is over. They purposefully limit their conversation to Romantic composers and the weather, to avoid potential disagreements. Ryoutarou is surprised to find himself thinking that Len looks a little beautiful; he blames it on the moonlight, which turns the other man’s hair almost silver and makes his eyes shine.
For a few months, they send casual e-mails to each other. They make plans to meet up in Chinatown and act like running into each other there is a coincidence. And then Len rents a suite at the Landmark Tower. He doesn’t pressure Ryoutarou into anything, but there’s still a nervous tension between them when they have a fancy French dinner on the 68th floor. Ryoutarou knocks over his water glass five times and he thinks their waiter’s eyes silently promise homicide, but Len’s foot touches his underneath the table, which serves as a silent promise of something else entirely. They skip dessert.
Four years later, it’s the night of his 30th birthday; Len is throwing him a party at the Tsukimori manner and Ryoutarou is planning to propose. He hasn’t bought a ring; he doesn’t know what kind of engagement ring to buy for a guy and Len’s averse to most jewelry, anyway. Falling in love again hasn’t been easy, especially since it’s Len-Ryoutarou still thinks he’s an arrogant, socially inept, spoiled rich brat who’s totally oblivious to the way his actions affect those around him and who’s a complete hindrance when it comes to cooking and cleaning-but it’s happened and he desperately wants it to stay this time.
He stands in front of Len’s full-length mirror and frowns at his reflection when Len tells him to tuck in his shirt. “Why?”
“Just do it. I let you wear those jeans.”
“Yes, so I’d wear this tie,” he mutters, straightening said accessory. “Whose party is this?”
“Tuck in your shirt. The guests are arriving.”
Ryoutarou doesn’t know most of the guests. He supposes that’s all right, since he’s already celebrated with his friends and, besides, Misa Hamai is there. There are music professors, composers, members of various symphonies. They discuss Schuller, their yachts, Lindberg, their genealogy, wine, concert dates, money, money, money. Ryoutarou says very little. He just stands beside Len and nibbles on lemon mascarpone cake and looks handsome.
“When you move in with me,” he whispers, leaning in toward Len’s ear, “I’ll show you how to party for real.” He thinks of Len and his friends, slightly drunk, playing video games and singing karaoke.
“Why would I move in with you?” Len whispers back, brow furrowing.
Ryoutarou supposes he might be getting ahead of himself; he hasn’t even properly proposed yet, but he can’t imagine that Len hasn’t at least thought about it in all this time. “Why wouldn’t you?”
Len smiles at him, a little, but it isn’t one of the smiles Ryoutarou likes. “Honey,” he says-and he only calls him sweet names when he’s his most condescending, “you live in a one-bedroom apartment.”
He tries to imagine living this kind of life. Having servants, cooks, drivers. Having so many rooms he doesn’t know what they’re all for. Pretending to care about money. Pretending to be someone he isn’t. Ties. Tucked in shirts.
He knows he loves Len, but he doesn’t propose that night, or any other night.
[5]
Ryoutarou’s relationship with Nami Amou is purely physical. She lets him know early on that she isn’t ready to settle down but she thinks he’s cute and hot and a bunch of other nice adjectives and she likes to have fun. In the fallout of his long and difficult breakup with Len, he thinks that’s just what he needs. He’s tired of being in love.
They don’t leave the apartment often. Sometimes they go out drinking or dancing; once or twice he takes her to a concert or a movie. But most of the time, they stay inside. Whatever they do, it always ends in sex. She reads romance novels to him in a voice that turns him into putty and they have slow, purposeful sex on the couch. She practices interviews while sitting in his lap, rubbing herself against his erection. He cooks her favorite dinner and she thanks him with a blowjob in the kitchen.
She tries on her old school uniform one day and he wonders how he managed to control himself around her, how he missed the way she oozed sex.
“I’m surprised you even knew I was alive,” she says.
“What are you talking about?” He runs a hand up her exposed shapely leg, smirking. “You weren’t exactly the type that blended quietly into the background.”
“Are you saying I talked too much?” She smirks back, shivers as his fingers run along the lining of her underwear. “You only had eyes for Kaho back then.”
Thinking of her sobers him slightly. He undresses Nami quickly and tries not to picture the redhead when they fuck.
A few weeks later, Kahoko comes back to Yokohama. With her breasts pressed to his chest and her breath in his ear, Nami persuades Ryoutarou to go with her to Narita International with a bouquet of bright flowers. He watches the two girls embrace, tries to smile when Kahoko’s eyes meet his over Nami’s shoulder.
“Hi,” she says, meekly, small hand extended.
“Hi.” He pats her on the arm.
They take her home. They have tea and talk about London. Ryoutarou keeps his eyes on Nami as they try to pretend this isn’t awkward or weird or uncomfortable. He says nice things and keeps his expression friendly, but all he really wants is to tell her how hurt and angry he still is and he wants to say he wishes he went with her and he wants to kiss her and he wants to ask her why.
She walks them out and watches them leave. Ryoutarou makes a big show of grabbing Nami by the waist, pushing her against the car, and kissing her soundly. He doesn’t pull away until he hears the front door close.
It’s raining the day Nami calls and says they should break up. Ryoutarou drinks a beer and plays idly on the vertical piano he’s finally bought. He takes down the dying tomato garden. He closes his eyes and imagines a baby boy with his cheekbones. It also has red hair. He thinks of calling and apologizing to Len. He wonders if he should give up on this love thing and take up jogging again.
There’s frantic knocking at the door and when he opens it, Kahoko is there. Wet and shivering. She pulls the ring box out of her pocket and she asks him to marry her. He reminds himself of heartache, of the phone calls that stopped coming. He tells himself to say no.
Instead, he asks, “Why?”
She looks down, blinking water droplets off of her eyelashes. She’s beautiful.
“I love you,” she admits in the silence.
Ryoutarou feels like he should sing an Italian opera aria. Amore, amore, amore.