Sunokaze Tsuji pulled out his chair and sat across from Kasaki. On her end, Kasaki received a glass of water from the waitress with a smile which tilted her head slightly. Tsuji watched her fingers grasp the glass at its midpoint, and he kept watching as her left hand slid to the bottom so she could softly place it on the table. Her fingers were not particularly slender—they did not remind him of poetry at all—but they were the ones which were attached to her palms, and those were things which were soft. Her parents both made decent money and she lived in a house a station away from him. On that account, Tsuji wanted to overcome the spite that such a situation grew within his chest. 

The waitress gave him his water as well, but he let her set it down on the table for him. She bowed to them and went to the rest of her customers in the restaurant. It was fairly busy for a Thursday morning. Tsuji wished they were all at work. Then, he should have been as well, so there was a kind of eagerness to blend into the crowd. If nobody could recognize him, or if his face was not memorable, then the entire outing itself may as well have never happened. Kasaki smiled over at him while she began to drink from her glass. 

“So, are you feeling pathetic yet?” 

“Yes,” Tsuji nearly sighed. 

“This is what you would have wanted. This is what you would have asked for. Aren’t you happy? After all, you get to sit across from Miss Aguro Kasaki.” 

Her grin gave him no comfort. The heart in his chest beat insatiably. He pulled out his watch and threw two fingers to his neck. The ticking counted from fifteen, and he pulled away. Twenty-eight beats. If he multiplied that number by four that was one hundred and twelve. His mind was absolutely empty but his chest burned with panic. He had been exposed of his own accord. He had invited her there, and had promised himself to say those things which needed to be said to fill such a thing as that rapidly-pulsing creature. 

“I just wanted to help you out, since you were going through a lot.” 

Kasaki frowned and pushed her glass away. 

“Then why’d you say it?” 

“I don’t know.” 

She crossed her arms and sat back in the chair, observing him like a general. 

“You do know, you just don’t want to say it. Go on then.” 

The year before his best friend had proposed to his girlfriend and their marriage was already coming up. It was better to work, better to focus on himself. If someone could love him at all, it would not be until he became someone worth that love. He had to do better. 

Only better was always a day away. Tomorrow he would be a better person, and it never came. He was himself, and through nights drinking late with friends he returned to his small flat and found no respite in the silence of the sheets. He could not even build up the courage to embrace his state of affairs like a human being. He would not allow himself to grow numb, no matter how much he wanted to be. That was why he had told her those things, because to hold them in would be the same as lying to her. Her hair was perfect. 

“I know we aren’t really friends or anything, but I think we do have good conversations and I want to be the person you go to when you’re having a hard time. I don’t regret saying it. I just wish you would say yes. Then I could start over, I could be better.” 

Kasaki glared. She leaned forward, resting her folded arms on the table. 

“I think you should get yourself figured out before you skirt-chase.” 

“It really isn’t like that Kasaki.” 

She remained locked onto him and drank her water. She had said to him, in no uncertain terms, in such confidence as one does to a true ally, that she did not care to go into any relationship for any reason. She had been burned, and it was not something she took pleasure in exposing to the air. Tsuji knew that to say what he felt was to betray that trust. He was a man pleading to the dead as if they could live again. Her heart was strong and would not waver to his measly claims of romance. 

“Well, I had to say it.” 

“Did you?” 

“Yeah, like…if I didn’t, you know, I’d regret it. I don’t want to live with regret. I don’t want to lie to you.” 

“You’re a jealous person.” 

Tsuji was stunned by the insult. 

“You told me what you thought about Keito and I believed you. Maybe I’m an idiot.” 

“No!” 

The betrayal materialized. It must have been a misunderstanding. She must have thought that his opinion on her ex-boyfriend was born from a feeling of vicious jealousy. Then, was it not? He had met the man a few times but did not have any real experience with him personally. Keito and Tsuji barely spoke, but Tsuji had developed such a vile notion of the man that he could nearly justify vilification. He had told her everything he thought when she had asked him. Was he no better than a placating liar? 

Kasaki stood and dropped a bill on the table. 

“I’ll pay for my water. Goodbye, Sunokaze.” 

Her eyes turned from him with a mixture of disgust and pity. All of the tears had dried up, cried weeks before into the shoulders of a man who had no business drinking them. It was not that Tsuji was Tsuji, it was that he was there at all. 

He wanted to reach for her hand but she had already gone. He sat at the table, breathing deeply into himself. He went to his watch again and tapped his neck. The heart beat rapidly and uncontrollably. Tsuji felt lightheaded, time seemed to drag on and on. He could almost think he saw a few other customers staring at him over their shoulders and whispering to each other. The woman had walked away, the man remained, how must it have looked to those who had no context for what had really happened? For how he had been treated? She had rejected him, he was ready for that, but she had also cut ties with him. That was too far, it was too much. Panic, sweat melted from his head and his hands shook so much he lost track of how fast his heart was beating. He swayed in the seat. The world turned and fell away as he passed away into unconsciousness. 

Would she visit him? He knew he would be staring at the door to his hospital room every day. The corners would be sharp in his eyes and they would never move. In his mind he knew that, but his heart swayed and expected her. He knew she would not go to him because she must have hated what he had become. Kasaki was walking away from him as though he was nothing more than burnable trash. Her arrogance in her self-assurance was something he could almost resent as he faded under the medication.

Tsuji woke up on the floor of the restaurant with an ambulance medic looking over him. 

“Don’t move, you’ve had a heart attack.” 

A heart attack? He was only twenty-nine. Then, it did run in the family. How many times would he check his pulse out of fear? It was always unjustified. He was making a big deal out of nothing. Kasaki was nowhere to be seen, but she must have noticed him collapse when she left. Had she really loathed him so deeply? He could feel his chest burn with pain, the medic lifted Tsuji’s head a bit as another man dressed in the same outfit brought in a gurney. He would be hauled away to the doctors without any restraint. His heart was bad, and everything would be worse. Still, as the city swam by outside the ambulance window, he could hardly keep his mind from seeing her rageful expression. 

How could he hate something so beautiful?