One was handwritten: ‘I write your name over and over to get it off my mind but, instead, it sinks to my bones.’

‘Why would anyone write a person’s name to forget about that person?’ Shoji asked. ‘Don’t you think it would have the opposite effect?’

Getting up, Liyun took the quote off the wall and crumpled it into a ball.

He hadn’t expected that reaction. ‘Why did you take it down?’

She threw the balled-up paper into the bin. ‘It’s embarrassing. I made that up when I was drunk.’

Then why did you put it up in the first place, he wanted to ask, but didn’t. Liyun looked flustered. Was he being too personal? He looked away from her and glanced at her stationery box. Next to it, he saw a tin of his favourite mints.

‘They sell these in Singapore?’

Shoji reached for the tin and opened it, but there were no mints left. He was about to throw it into the rubbish bin when Liyun took it from his hand.

‘I know it’s empty,’ she said.

‘Then why …?’

She held the tin as if it were something precious. ‘This was yours,’ she eventually said. ‘The day I left, I fished it out of the kitchen bin when you weren’t looking.’

He stared at her.

‘I wanted a souvenir. Something to remind me of the brief time we were together.’

He was taken aback by her honesty. ‘I didn’t know.’

Liyun chuckled. ‘Of course you didn’t know. That’s why I took it. Who would’ve noticed if an empty tin went missing from their bin?’

‘I …’

She leaned forward. ‘Are you worried I’m still in love with you?’

He froze.

She waited for his answer, but when it became obvious he wasn’t going to respond, she laughed. ‘Aren’t you full of yourself?’

Shoji couldn’t utter a single word.

Liyun stretched her arms. ‘Honestly, I did love you, until the day I left your apartment. I knew you were hurt. You were afraid of people leaving you. You were not in a position to start a relationship. I was aware of all that.’

He felt a lump in his throat.

‘But if you wanted me, I would’ve stayed. I would never, ever have left you, as Yoko did.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he finally said. ‘I didn’t know how you felt.’ Or rather, he’d preferred not to find out.

‘You didn’t understand a thing about me.’ She took a deep breath. ‘That’s fine, Shoji. You want to chase after a shadow from your past. I can’t say I liked it, but I accepted my defeat.’

He tried to think of something to say to her. But it seemed that whatever he said wouldn’t be something she wanted to hear. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, again. ‘I was clueless.’