Rainy Sunset

Reika’s appearance was unsettling brief—no glances, no lingering greetings. A few quick words at reception, then we were dismissed. Whatever storm she carried waited for a later hour.

We moved onto the main deck. The sun hovered near the sea, wind warm and salty, humming through the railings. The cruise was almost empty—just a few distant silhouettes, no noise, no crowd.

Ryoji walked beside me, quiet, eyes scanning. At the upper sun deck, past glass windbreakers and bolted lounge chairs, he slowed. There she was again.

Reika Yamada. Hair caught in the wind, a thin shawl off one shoulder. She didn’t turn. Didn’t need to. Her presence pulled you in.

There was a table nearby, polished teak and clearly unused. Ryoji placed a hand on my back, then slid his arm around my shoulders. Not a flourish. No flirtation. Just quiet presence.

“Come,” he said, his voice low, almost mournful. “Let’s talk.”

I nodded, letting him guide me. We didn’t go to Reika. We walked the opposite way, past the filtered glow of the deck lights turning on automatically, toward the quieter end of the deck.

Reika didn’t say a word.

She just watched us walk away.

At another table, a little further from the rail, Ryoji sat down and placed a large envelope between us with a muted thump.

“Here’s the contract,” he said.

I blinked. “What?”

He slid it toward me, motioning for me to open it.

Inside—paperwork. Neatly ordered. Official.

My eyes scanned the name at the bottom, and my stomach twisted.

Stefano Amauri.

My agent.

Luciana’s assistant. The man who’d signed off my tours for the past three years.

I looked back up at Ryoji. “This is…”

“It’s the official bodyguard contract,” he said quietly. “Bring it back to Luciana. It’s already signed, dated. The job’s covered.”

I shuffled through the rest—there was a folded check attached to a receipt note. My name on it.

“This covers your performance for Yamada Industries,” he said. “Minus the cost of the contract. You’ve been paid, Natsumi. We’re all set.”

The wind lifted the corner of the papers like it was trying to read them too.

“What is this?” I said, voice barely above a whisper. “What are you doing?”

“Just paperwork,” he replied, too calmly.

He reached again into the envelope and pulled out something else—slim, crisp, and devastating.

A plane ticket.

Hong Kong to Venice.

Direct.

I stared at it like it was in a language I didn’t understand.

“I struck a deal,” he said. “With the Eastern bloc.”

My head snapped up. “What?”

“They’ll stop coming after you,” he continued, eyes locked on mine. “In exchange for your father’s extraction. No more agents. No more safehouses. No more hiding.”

He leaned back slightly, voice even and careful. “You’ll stay aboard this cruiser until it docks in Hong Kong. Then you’ll take that flight back to Italy. Back to your life.”

I looked at the ticket.

Then at him.

My heartbeat sounded distant. Like it was echoing through a glass shell.

Back to Italy?

Back to my life?

He said it like it was so simple. Like my life hadn’t already shattered into a thousand pieces the moment I stepped into that airport in Venezia.

And now… he was putting it all back in an envelope. Like that could fix it.

Ryoji didn’t flinch.

“Krisha was intercepted,” he said flatly. “Before she could recover. My network got to her first. The entire Scarlet Wind cell was compromised. East had no choice but to take the deal.”

He didn’t look at me when he said it. Just stared at the horizon, the fading orange of the sun streaking across the sky like wounds left open.

“Sendo will escort you on the last leg,” he added, like it was nothing. “Back to Italy.”

I jolted. “Wait—what? No—no, Ryoji—”

My voice cracked. I stood abruptly, the chair scraping.

“I haven’t even seen my father yet. You’re sending me away? You made a deal with them behind my back? You traded him for me?!”

His expression didn’t change. If anything, it hardened.

“That was the point, Natsumi,” he said.

The words landed like a blow.

“My mission was to draw him out. And I did. The Eastern bloc will take him. He’ll be treated well. You’ll be safe. That’s the arrangement.”

I took a step back, heart pounding so loud I could barely hear anything else.

The light behind him turned gold, then crimson, outlining his figure like a silhouette in a memory. The wind carried salt, and the distant sound of a ship’s horn echoed faintly across the water.

“I used you, Natsumi,” he said.

Cold. Controlled. Final.

“This is what we do. We deal in intel. In pressure. I needed him to move. You gave him a reason.”

The sky blurred. No—not the sky. It was my vision.

I was shaking. Rain. I could hear it. But it wasn’t falling here. Not now. It was memory—so loud it drowned the waves and the ship and the sunset.

It was falling in Shinjuku.

Four years ago.

When someone else I loved told me, without flinching, to just walk away.

And here I was again.

Hearing it from someone I trusted.

Someone who made me feel safe. Someone who made me believe I wasn’t just being used.

But I was.

Again.

“I won’t let him be taken in my place,” I said, the words barely making it past the knot in my throat. “I won’t let my father be put in danger because of me—”

“That’s what your father has always done, Natsumi,” Ryoji cut in, quiet but absolute. “Protecting you. That’s why he disappeared. That’s why he doesn’t reach out. He doesn’t want you tangled in the world he’s drowning in.”

His voice didn’t rise. He didn’t waver. There was no anger—just that calm, merciless certainty I’d come to recognize in him when something had to be done.

“Honor his sacrifice,” he said.

Then he took the envelope—the contract, the check, the plane ticket—and pressed it into my hands. I didn’t reach for it. I just let it touch my fingers, trembling.

I met his eyes.

And I wished I hadn’t.

Because what I saw there wasn’t malice, or guilt.

It was resolve. Cold. Unwavering. Determined.

He wanted this to be a farewell.

He was cutting me out—clean, painless, efficient. Like I was just another operation. Another success. Another sealed file.

My chest twisted. It felt like I couldn’t breathe.

This wasn’t a trick.

Not a cover.

Not a phase.

This was real.

He doesn’t want me in his world.

This is the end of our journey.

And still—I stood there.

Fingers curled around the envelope.

Eyes brimming.

Heart shattering quietly behind my ribs.

I wanted to scream.

But all I could do was whisper his name in my head.

Ryoji…

“The ship is Yamada-crewed,” Ryoji said, his voice even. “It’s safe from here.”

He paused, just long enough for the wind to brush his coat sleeve. Then added, almost like a formality:

“The threat’s been dealt with. So, from now on—my bodyguard service ends.”

His eyes didn’t flinch. Didn’t soften.

Just a clinical dismissal.

And then he walked past me.

That was it.

No dramatic goodbye.

No second glance.

Just the scrape of his shoes against the deck… and the silence he left behind.

I turned slowly, the envelope still clutched in my hands, and watched him walk—not toward her—but past Reika Yamada, seated and silent, and then vanish back into the corridor of the ship.

Reika didn’t move.

Sitting like a painting—elegant, unblinking, composed.

Waiting.

For what, I didn’t know.

Was Shizuka sitting like that, too?

No.

She wasn’t even there that night.

I don’t know where she was.

She just disappeared from my life after that.

School ended.

We never saw each other again.

Not for a long time.

And now here I was again. Alone.

Watching a man I had followed through backroads, rainstorms, fever dreams and bullets—walk away.

Like I had never mattered. Like I was just a chapter in his report.

On this side of the ship, the wind picked up.

The air felt wet against my cheeks.

I blinked—and realized it was raining.

No thunder. No downpour.

Just that soft, steady fall.

Like it had on that day.

The day it all broke.

The day I cried out “Darling” and no one turned back.

Now the rain was falling again.

And no one turned back.