He raised one hand from the wheel to once again say, “It’s a—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Dawn cut him off with the roll of her eyes. “It’s a surprise.”

He was saved from answering any more questions when he got back onto the highway and needed both hands to drive.

They sank into a companionable silence as they listened to a Jack FM station dedicated to playing a random mix of music from the 90s to the current decade. Dawn tried to posit a few more guesses about what his surprise might be, but she didn’t get anywhere close.

Which made it even better when she saw their destination.

“Oh, my God….” Dawn clapped her hands together, and her entire face lit up with wonder when she saw all of the cherry blossom trees surrounding Washington DC’s famous Tidal Basin. “It’s cherry blossom season! Just like in Japan!”

Deflecting all of her questions…the long drive…taking the chance that he’d be at least seven hours out-of-pocket if Kuang decided to ask for one of his last-second meetings...

The look on her face alone made it all worth it.

It was a bit of a line to get into the parking lot along Maine Drive. And he barely got the car stopped before she jumped out and ran toward the trees.

This was something else he’d forgotten about her. Her unabashed enthusiasm for all the things she thought were beautiful. Like anime. Cherry blossom trees. And him.

He caught up with her at the top of the trailhead path after he finished paying for parking.

“It’s so beautiful!” she called out to him. “I can’t believe you brought me here!”

He couldn’t believe he’d brought her here either. It was one thing to run Operation Good as New 2.0 back in Rhode Island. It was another to do something like this. Something that reminded him of the fool he used to be. Specifically when it came to her.

It was raining now. Cherry blossoms, not droplets of water. The petals floated down, catching in Dawn’s braids.

She was so beautiful. He stopped in his footsteps, then feet away, because suddenly it hurt to look at her.

The cherry blossoms showering down on her were delicate and fragile. Yet, they could only grow after a winter’s frost. In Japan, the pretty pink petals served as a symbol of many powerful things: life-and-death, beauty and violence, and the ephemeral-yet-cyclical nature of all four.

His relationship with Dawn was like these cherry blossoms. It had come around once again after a cold winter. But it would soon be over in just a matter of weeks. It would disappear just like the cherry blossoms. This…whatever this was…would be done on May 25th when they’d both go their separate ways. Her to an animation job in Pittsburgh. Him to a loveless marriage.