CHAPTER 9: THE GIRL WHO CAME BACK FROM THE

THE SAKURA BETWEEN US

CHAPTER 9: THE GIRL WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD

No one moved.

Rain had started again in Gion.

Not Chengdu rain.

Kyoto rain.

Quiet. Thin. Almost polite.

Aiko stood beneath it with one hand gripping the wooden gate and the other holding the handle of her suitcase.

Ren stared at her.

“Aiko.”

It was the second time he’d said her name.

The first had sounded like a question.

This time, it sounded like a memory.

Aiko smiled faintly.

“You look older.”

Ren said nothing.

“So do I,” she added.

Xiuying watched them from the engawa.

Yesterday, she had stood beneath one hundred paintings with Ren beside her.

This morning, she had discovered that he had secretly collected dozens of her works using Foundation money.

Now a woman Ren had mourned for years was standing at their gate.

Xiuying wondered briefly whether she could simply go back to bed and wake up again.

Preferably in Chengdu.

Ren finally moved.

He walked toward Aiko.

Then stopped.

He didn’t touch her.

“Kenji told me you died.”

Aiko’s smile disappeared.

“I know.”

“The hospital—”

“Was instructed not to release information to anyone except my parents.”

“My family held a memorial.”

“I know.”

“I mourned you.”

Her eyes filled.

“I know, Ren.”

His voice cracked.

“Then where were you?”

Aiko looked down.

For the first time, Xiuying noticed the way she stood.

One hand remained firmly around the gate.

Her left leg barely moved.

“I was unconscious for eight months.”

Ren went completely still.

“When I woke up, I couldn’t walk.”

The rain continued.

“My parents moved me to Nagano for rehabilitation. Your father and my father agreed it would be better if you believed I was gone.”

Ren stared at her.

“Better?”

“You were supposed to inherit Sato Group.”

“What does that have to do with whether you were alive?”

Aiko gave a bitter laugh.

“Everything, apparently.”

She stepped forward.

Her leg dragged slightly.

Ren instinctively reached for her.

Aiko lifted one hand.

“Don’t.”

He stopped.

“I can walk.”

Slowly, she crossed the threshold herself.

“I just can’t walk the way your family wanted.”

⸻

Inside, the Gion house suddenly felt too small.

Tanaka quietly disappeared into the kitchen.

Xiuying suspected it was partly to make tea and partly because even he didn’t know what to do.

Aiko sat at the low table.

Ren sat opposite her.

Xiuying remained near the studio doorway.

She felt like an intruder inside her own house.

Aiko noticed.

“You must be Lin Xiuying.”

Xiuying nodded.

“Aiko Tanaka.”

“I know.”

Aiko looked surprised.

“Ren told you?”

“Not enough.”

Ren flinched.

Xiuying didn’t regret saying it.

Not today.

Aiko glanced between them.

“I saw your exhibition yesterday.”

“You were there?”

“For twenty minutes.”

Xiuying stared.

“Why didn’t you come to us?”

“I saw Ren.”

Aiko looked down.

“And then I saw the way he looked at you.”

Silence.

“I wasn’t ready.”

Xiuying understood that more than she wanted to.

Aiko looked toward the empty studio.

“Painting twenty.”

Xiuying frowned.

“The bamboo forest.”

“You remember it?”

Aiko smiled sadly.

“I stood in front of it for ten minutes.”

Her gaze shifted to Ren.

“It looked like him.”

Ren’s expression changed.

“When everyone told me you were dead,” he said quietly, “I stopped going home.”

Aiko looked at him.

“I know.”

“How?”

“Kenji sent reports to my father.”

Ren stared.

Something colder than anger entered his face.

“He knew where you were.”

“Yes.”

“For three years.”

“Yes.”

Ren stood abruptly.

The low table rattled.

“He knew.”

“Ren—”

“He watched me mourn you.”

Aiko’s eyes filled.

“And my family watched me learn to walk while telling me you had moved on.”

That stopped him.

Ren looked at her.

“What?”

Aiko swallowed.

“They told me you knew I survived.”

Ren didn’t move.

“They said you visited once while I was unconscious.”

“I never knew.”

“They said when the doctors explained the injuries, you decided…”

Her voice broke.

“…that I wasn’t suitable anymore.”

Ren’s face went white.

“No.”

“I know that now.”

“No.”

He crouched in front of her.

“Aiko, I never knew.”

“I know.”

“I would have come.”

“I know.”

“I would have—”

“Ren.”

She reached out and touched his hand.

Not romantically.

Like someone touching a grave and discovering it was warm.

“I know.”

Xiuying looked away.

Not because she was jealous.

Because this grief didn’t belong to her.

It belonged to two people whose families had stolen three years from them.

⸻

Tanaka returned with tea.

Three cups.

Then noticed Xiuying.

He silently added a fourth.

Xiuying took over.

“I’ll make it.”

Ren looked at her.

“Xiuying—”

“I need something to do.”

She went into the kitchen.

Her hands shook.

She hated that.

She had confronted Jian.

She had painted before the Sato family.

She had survived one hundred blank pages.

But somehow making tea while her boyfriend’s supposedly dead former fiancée sat five meters away was beyond her abilities.

She burned it.

Of course.

Xiuying stared into the pot.

“Perfect.”

She carried four cups out.

Aiko took one.

She drank.

Her expression changed immediately.

Xiuying sighed.

“It’s bad.”

“Very.”

Tanaka stared intensely into his own cup as though refusing to participate.

Ren drank without reacting.

Aiko looked at him.

“You hate burned tea.”

Ren took another sip.

“I have adapted.”

For the first time, Aiko laughed.

A real laugh.

Small.

Surprised.

Xiuying found herself laughing too.

The situation was so ridiculous that there was nothing else to do.

Yesterday: museum exhibition.

Today: financial scandal and returned fiancée drinking terrible tea.

Aiko looked at Xiuying.

“You really do have ink on your fingers.”

Xiuying glanced down.

“Always.”

Aiko smiled.

“Your paintings make sense now.”

“What does that mean?”

“The exhibition was beautiful.”

She paused.

“But it wasn’t clean.”

Xiuying looked at her.

“That’s a compliment.”

“I meant it as one.”

⸻

Then Aiko’s eyes landed on the cherry-wood seal sitting near the studio.

LIN XIUYING.

“Ren gave you that?”

“Last night.”

Aiko nodded slowly.

“He used to give expensive jewelry.”

Ren looked offended.

“I was twenty-nine.”

“You had terrible taste.”

“I had excellent taste.”

“You bought me a diamond necklace shaped like a swan.”

“It was handmade.”

“It looked like an expensive duck.”

Xiuying covered her mouth.

Ren stared at both women.

“This morning has become unnecessarily hostile.”

For one strange minute, the room felt normal.

Then Tanaka’s phone rang.

His face changed as soon as he answered.

“Yes?”

He listened.

Then stood.

“Chairman.”

Ren looked at him.

“What?”

“Kenji-san is coming.”

Ren’s expression hardened.

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Tanaka looked toward Aiko.

“He knows.”

Aiko went pale.

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

Tanaka looked toward the gate.

“And he’s not alone.”

Ren stood.

“Lawyers?”

“Two.”

“Anyone else?”

Tanaka hesitated.

“Reporters.”

Xiuying’s stomach dropped.

“How many?”

“At least three followed the car from central Kyoto.”

Ren swore under his breath.

Xiuying walked toward the window.

At the far end of the narrow street, she could already hear voices.

Camera shutters.

People calling Ren’s name.

Her name.

“Sakura!”

“Sato-san!”

“Ms. Lin!”

Questions traveled through the rain.

Ren closed the paper screen.

“They can’t come inside.”

“That won’t stop them,” Xiuying said.

Aiko slowly stood, using the table for support.

Ren immediately turned.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m talking to Kenji.”

“No.”

Aiko stared at him.

“Excuse me?”

“He lied to you for three years.”

“Exactly.”

“He used you.”

“Exactly.”

“And that’s why—”

Aiko smiled without humor.

“Ren. You have known I am alive for approximately one hour. Please do not start making decisions for me already.”

Xiuying looked at him.

Ren noticed.

“This is becoming a theme,” Xiuying said.

Tanaka suddenly became interested in the ceiling.

Ren exhaled.

“Fine.”

Aiko adjusted her coat.

“I want to hear him explain it.”

Another shout came from outside.

Then another.

The scandal was reaching their gate.

Xiuying looked around the house.

The stained floor.

The burned tea.

Aiko’s suitcase.

Ren’s abandoned phone.

The cherry-wood seal bearing her name.

Yesterday she had thought painting one hundred was the end.

She had been wrong.

Maybe there would never be an end.

Maybe there would only be another blank page.

Xiuying walked into the studio.

Ren followed.

“What are you doing?”

She pulled out paper.

“Painting.”

“Now?”

“Especially now.”

She placed the paper on the table.

“What are you going to call it?”

Xiuying looked through the open doorway.

At Aiko.

At Ren.

At three cups of burned tea.

At the rain beyond the gate.

“One Hundred and One.”

She picked up her brush.

“What will it be?”

Xiuying dipped the tip into ink.

“Three people sitting around terrible tea while the entire world outside decides which one of us is lying.”

Aiko looked at her.

Then, unexpectedly:

“Make my nose smaller.”

Xiuying stared.

Aiko smiled.

Xiuying laughed.

Outside, the reporters grew louder.

Then someone struck the gate.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Kenji had arrived.

END OF CHAPTER 9