‘At first, I told her I didn’t know what she was talking about. I told her we were friends, even though I knew I wanted so badly for us to be more than that. But I kept thinking about what she had told me long after she left. She was right. I couldn’t deny it. I knew I couldn’t stay at your place indefinitely.’

‘I had no clue.’ At least, not until Eri had told him, though, at that time, he hadn’t wanted to know the truth.

She straightened up and turned to him. She looked into his eyes. After a long time, she finally said. ‘There is something you need to know.’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘It’s about the night we went home together after the reunion,’ she said, lowering her eyes. ‘I wasn’t being exactly truthful. The thing is, nothing happened.’

Shoji’s heart skipped a beat. ‘What do you mean?’

Liyun bit her lip. ‘You misread the situation, and I didn’t make any attempts to correct it. I wanted to make you feel guilty, so you would try to make it up to me one way or another.’ She glanced at him, seemingly waiting for him to react. ‘And I was right. You let me stay in your apartment.’

He swallowed hard. ‘Go on.’

‘I wasn’t running out of money. I wanted to get closer to you, and what better way to do it than to move into your place?’ She paused. ‘But I was wrong. Being physically close to each other didn’t make you fall for me.’

Shoji didn’t know how to respond.

‘Are you angry?’ she asked, shifting her eyes.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘What you did was …’

‘Outrageous,’ she said.

‘Yes, outrageous,’ Shoji said. ‘So, what exactly happened that night?’

‘Nothing much. You were drunk. I volunteered to drag you back to your apartment. It was hard to walk with you leaning on my shoulders, so we stopped at a small playground near your place. You told me about that fortune-teller story from your childhood. After that, we talked about random things. We talked about love. We talked about Yoko, and … You told me how you couldn’t move on from her.’

He waited for her to continue, but when she didn’t, he asked. ‘Was that all?’

She nodded.

‘Why are you telling me this now?’ he asked.

‘You need to know the truth,’ Liyun said. ‘I owe you that much.’

Shoji took a deep breath to calm himself.

‘Are you angry?’ she asked for the second time.

‘It’s in the past,’ he said. ‘It’s not relevant anymore.’

Liyun bit her lip. ‘Are we okay?’

‘If you insist.’

She broke into a smile. ‘Then I insist.’

‘Don’t do that again,’ he said. ‘Don’t play mind games.’

‘All right,’ she said, nodding. Then she paused and bit her lip. ‘But there’s another thing.’

He tensed up. What else could there be?