CHAPTER 7: ONE HUNDRED

THE SAKURA BETWEEN US

CHAPTER 7: ONE HUNDRED

The engagement was postponed.

Officially.

The Sato family statement used six sentences to say absolutely nothing.

Due to private family considerations, the engagement ceremony between Mika Tanaka and Jian Lin has been postponed. Both families request privacy during this time.

Tanaka showed Xiuying the statement on his phone the next morning.

She read it twice.

“That’s a lot of words for Mika doesn’t trust him anymore.”

Tanaka took his phone back.

“The Sato family is very talented at using many words to avoid the truth.”

“Is that an official family skill?”

“Passed down through generations.”

Xiuying smiled.

She was beginning to like Tanaka far too much.

“What happened after we left?”

Tanaka hesitated.

“Do I want to know?”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“Mika questioned Jian.”

“And?”

“Jian blamed you.”

“Of course.”

“Then Chairman Kenji questioned Jian.”

Xiuying raised an eyebrow.

“And?”

“Mr. Jian discovered that being questioned by Chairman Kenji is significantly less pleasant than being questioned by Mika.”

That made her laugh.

“Ren?”

“Argued with his brother.”

“About me?”

“Among other things.”

Xiuying’s smile faded.

“How bad?”

Tanaka considered the question.

“Chairman Kenji used the phrase family humiliation four times.”

“Four?”

“Ren used a different phrase.”

“What phrase?”

Tanaka suddenly became very interested in the groceries.

“Tanaka.”

“I believe the English translation would be inappropriate.”

Xiuying stared.

“Ren swore at his brother?”

“Repeatedly.”

She laughed so hard she had to sit down.

⸻

Ren arrived at eight.

Exactly.

No kimono.

No family crest.

Black shirt.

Coffee.

The Ren she knew.

He entered the studio and looked around.

Twenty paintings leaned against the wall.

Painting twenty-one, Two Rains, was still at Arashiyama.

Xiuying held out her hand.

“Where is it?”

Ren stopped.

“What?”

“My painting.”

“Good morning to you too.”

“Good morning. Where is my painting?”

“Mika has it.”

Xiuying lowered her hand.

“Oh.”

“You gave it to her.”

“I know.”

Ren placed the coffee on the table.

“She asked to keep it.”

Xiuying didn’t know how she felt about that.

“Why?”

“She said she needed to look at it while she decided whether she wanted to marry a postcard.”

Xiuying stared at him.

“She said that?”

“Not exactly.”

“Ren.”

“I improved the sentence.”

“Of course you did.”

He sat.

For a moment, neither spoke.

Yesterday existed between them.

The garden.

The confession.

Her hand in his.

Ren looked at her.

“About yesterday—”

“No.”

He stopped.

Xiuying picked up a fresh sheet of paper.

“Not yet.”

Something like disappointment crossed his face.

Then she continued.

“I have seventy-nine paintings left.”

He understood.

And smiled.

“Seventy-nine.”

“I came to Kyoto to paint.”

“I remember.”

“And whatever this is…”

She gestured between them.

“…I’m not turning it into another thing that decides who I am.”

Ren nodded.

“Fair.”

Xiuying dipped her brush into ink.

“But you can stay.”

His smile returned.

“At eight?”

“At eight.”

“Every day?”

“Don’t become annoying.”

“Too late.”

Xiuying painted.

Ren watched.

And neither of them noticed when eight became nine.

⸻

The days continued.

Twenty-two.

Twenty-three.

Twenty-four.

Xiuying painted Kyoto at dawn.

She painted Tanaka’s grocery bags.

She painted the old woman from the tofu shop laughing with no teeth.

She painted an empty chair.

A cracked tea cup.

Ren asleep against the studio wall after insisting he wasn’t tired.

That one became painting thirty-one.

He hated it.

Xiuying loved it.

By painting forty, spring had begun to disappear.

By fifty, the house in Gion no longer belonged to the Foundation in Xiuying’s mind.

It belonged to mornings.

Ink.

Arguments.

Tea.

And the sound of Ren arriving at eight.

Some mornings they barely spoke.

Some mornings they argued for an hour over one brushstroke.

Sometimes Ren disappeared for days because of Sato Group business.

Xiuying painted without him.

That mattered.

She had once needed his eight o’clock visits to make the house feel less empty.

Now, when he wasn’t there, she still painted.

By painting sixty, Ren stopped asking whether the work was finished.

He simply waited until Xiuying decided it was.

By seventy, Xiuying stopped thinking about Jian every day.

By eighty, she realized she hadn’t thought about him for an entire week.

That painting was completely yellow.

She called it Seven Days.

Ren didn’t understand the title.

She never explained.

⸻

Their first kiss happened on day seventy-three.

Not at an engagement.

Not in front of fifty people.

Not because Ren made a speech.

It happened because Xiuying had ink on her nose.

Ren pointed it out.

She accused him of lying.

He tried to wipe it away.

She slapped his hand.

He laughed.

She laughed.

Then neither of them did.

For a moment they simply looked at each other.

Ren didn’t move closer.

“Xiuying?”

She knew what he was asking.

This time, the decision was hers.

She closed the distance.

The kiss was brief.

Quiet.

When they separated, Ren looked stunned.

Xiuying raised an eyebrow.

“Chairman Sato?”

“Former Chairman.”

“You look confused.”

“I wasn’t prepared.”

“Good.”

She returned to her painting.

Ren sat beside her in silence for approximately thirty seconds.

Then:

“Can that happen again?”

Xiuying threw a cloth at him.

⸻

By day ninety-nine, the studio walls had disappeared behind paper.

Ninety-nine paintings.

Ren stood in the doorway.

Xiuying sat before the final blank sheet.

Neither spoke.

One hundred days ago, blank paper had been an enemy.

Now it was an invitation.

“What are you going to paint?” Ren asked.

Xiuying looked around.

The studio.

The stained floor.

Her brushes.

The maple tree.

Then the entrance.

Two pairs of shoes.

Her worn sneakers.

Ren’s black shoes.

Side by side.

She smiled.

“I know.”

⸻

Painting one hundred was simple.

The Gion house at night.

One window glowing.

A crooked gate.

Two pairs of shoes waiting at the entrance.

No people.

No faces.

Just evidence that neither person was alone.

Xiuying stamped it with her own seal.

LIN XIUYING.

Then, beside it, smaller:

SAKURA.

Ren stared at the finished painting.

“That’s it?”

Xiuying looked offended.

“What do you mean, that’s it?”

“One hundred days. I expected a mountain. A dragon. Possibly me looking extremely handsome.”

“I tried that. The paper rejected you.”

“Understandable.”

Xiuying laughed.

Then looked at the wall.

One hundred.

Her throat tightened.

“I did it.”

Ren’s expression softened.

“You did.”

Not we.

You.

Xiuying noticed.

She looked at him.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For opening the studio.”

Ren shook his head.

“You picked up the brush.”

⸻

The exhibition opened three weeks later.

Not in the permanent galleries of the Tokyo National Museum, as Ren had once dramatically promised, but through a special Foundation-supported exhibition program arranged with museum partners.

Ren had complained about the wording.

Xiuying had told him reality was allowed to be less dramatic than he was.

The exhibition title appeared across the entrance:

TWO RAINS

ONE HUNDRED WORKS BY LIN XIUYING

And underneath, in smaller lettering:

Known during her Kyoto residency as Sakura.

Xiuying stood beneath it for a long time.

Not SAKURA SATO.

Not Sato Foundation’s Sakura.

Lin Xiuying.

Her name.

Around her hung one hundred pieces of the last hundred days.

Painting one:

A raindrop.

Painting four:

The blurred self-portrait she’d almost destroyed.

Painting eleven:

Perfect.

Painting twenty:

The bamboo forest with no light.

Painting twenty-one:

Two Rains.

Mika had returned it for the exhibition.

Painting thirty-one:

Ren asleep.

Painting seventy-three:

A nearly empty page with two brushstrokes touching.

Ren had stared at that one for a suspiciously long time.

And painting one hundred:

Home.

At the center of the exhibition hung another work.

Not part of the hundred.

Rain on Qingcheng Mountain.

The painting Ren had purchased years ago.

Xiuying stood before it.

“So that’s where everything started.”

Ren appeared beside her.

“No.”

She looked at him.

He nodded toward painting one.

“That’s where you started again.”

Xiuying smiled.

⸻

Mika arrived alone.

Xiuying almost didn’t recognize her.

No elaborate kimono.

No Jian.

Simple black dress.

She stood before Two Rains for several minutes before approaching.

“I ended it.”

Xiuying knew exactly what she meant.

“Are you okay?”

Mika laughed softly.

“No.”

Then:

“But I think I will be.”

Xiuying understood that answer better than most.

Mika looked around.

“My father investigated Jian after Arashiyama.”

Xiuying’s expression changed.

“He found photographs. Emails. Files from the Tokyo exhibition.”

Her voice softened.

“You were telling the truth.”

“I know.”

Mika smiled sadly.

“That wasn’t for you.”

Xiuying went quiet.

“Right.”

Mika bowed.

“I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t steal anything from me.”

“I almost married the person who did.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

Mika’s eyes filled.

Then she looked toward painting eleven.

Perfect.

“I think I was marrying a postcard.”

Xiuying smiled.

“Postcards can be pretty.”

“Terrible husbands, though.”

Xiuying laughed.

Mika hugged her.

When she stepped back, she whispered:

“I hope you and Ren are very messy together.”

Then she left.

⸻

Jian didn’t come.

Xiuying told herself she didn’t care.

This time, it was true.

His Tokyo exhibition was being investigated after questions were raised about the authorship of several works.

The story wasn’t finished.

But Jian was no longer the center of hers.

That was enough.

⸻

Kenji came at eight-thirty.

Ren saw him first.

His shoulders immediately tightened.

Xiuying noticed.

“Should I hide the expensive paintings?”

“He’s richer than me.”

“So?”

“Good point.”

Kenji walked through the exhibition alone.

No assistants.

No lawyers.

He stopped longest before painting twenty.

The dark bamboo forest.

He stared at it for several minutes.

Then he approached Xiuying.

“Ms. Lin.”

“Mr. Sato.”

His eyes moved toward Ren.

“My brother has become extremely difficult since meeting you.”

Xiuying nodded.

“He was difficult when I met him.”

Kenji almost smiled.

Almost.

“I believe that.”

He looked around.

“Your work is impressive.”

“Thank you.”

Then Kenji looked at Ren.

“We still disagree.”

“I know.”

“About almost everything.”

“I know.”

“You embarrassed the family.”

Ren sighed.

“Kenji—”

“But.”

Ren stopped.

Kenji glanced toward Xiuying.

“I may have underestimated her.”

Xiuying raised an eyebrow.

“That’s almost an apology.”

Kenji looked mildly offended.

“It was not.”

“Of course.”

Ren covered a laugh with a cough.

Kenji glared at him.

Then walked away.

Xiuying watched him leave.

“Your family is strange.”

Ren looked at her.

“Your grandfather shouts at vegetables.”

“Leave my grandfather out of this.”

⸻

By nine that night, most of the guests had gone.

Xiuying walked alone through the paintings.

One.

Eleven.

Twenty.

Twenty-one.

Thirty-one.

Seventy-three.

One hundred.

A hundred days of herself.

Ren found her standing before the final painting.

“The deal is finished,” he said.

Xiuying nodded.

“Finally.”

“What happens now?”

She looked at him.

“I keep painting.”

Ren smiled.

“Good answer.”

“What happens to you?”

He looked around.

“I suppose I go back to being annoying.”

“You never stopped.”

“Also true.”

Xiuying leaned against him.

For a moment, everything was quiet.

Then Ren reached into his jacket.

Xiuying narrowed her eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“That is obviously a box.”

“It could contain anything.”

“If that’s a ring, I’m leaving.”

Ren looked horrified.

“Why?”

“We’ve known each other for a hundred days.”

“One hundred and twenty-three.”

“That does not help.”

Ren laughed.

“It’s not a ring.”

He opened the wooden box.

Inside was a seal.

Cherry wood.

Xiuying picked it up.

There were four characters carved into it.

Her name.

LIN XIUYING.

She looked at Ren.

“No Sakura?”

“No.”

“Why?”

Ren closed her fingers around the seal.

“Because Sakura was never supposed to replace you.”

Xiuying’s eyes burned.

“It was just somewhere you stopped while finding your way back.”

For once, she had no clever answer.

She wrapped her arms around him.

Ren held her.

Outside, Tokyo rain streaked the windows.

Quiet.

Steady.

For one night, everything was exactly where it belonged.

Xiuying had her name.

Her paintings.

Her exhibition.

Ren.

And tomorrow, for the first time in one hundred days, there would be no number waiting beside a blank sheet of paper.

She thought that meant the difficult part was over.

She was wrong.

Because while Xiuying stood beneath one hundred paintings believing she had finally reclaimed her life, an email was already waiting in the museum director’s inbox.

It contained financial records.

Forty-seven purchase receipts.

Sato Foundation authorization documents.

And one question:

How much did Sato Ren pay to manufacture Sakura?

END OF CHAPTER 7