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Agasa is mostly the same. Except for days when Shiho notices how his hair is a little lighter, or how his laugh lines are deeper than she vaguely remembers. Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko have all grown up so much. And Shinichi?
Shiho hasn’t seen him since coming back. Agasa tells her he’s been busy — tied up with work, bringing it up one time over dinner when Shiho never asked. But she sees him on the news a lot of times, headlined by all his other spectacular titles from his more impressionable years.
—
The first time she sees him in five years, Shinichi strolls in like a storm.
Two days ago, it would be Agasa to convince her to take a trip out of Tokyo. “To celebrate,” he’d say, raising his glass of juice in her name, “to you, Doctor Miyano!” And Shiho would only laugh in return.
It’s been eight hours since their flight landed. They’re at a restaurant in one of the coastal cities of Okinawa, seated next to the balcony that overlooks a shoreline. Agasa likes it so far, enjoying the long stretches of beaches and warm sand, the scenery a refreshing break from the concretes of the metropolis.
The evening starts out to be enjoyable, too, when Agasa starts to recount stories from when she had been gone, animatedly going over details, and occasionally laughing at his own jokes. The jokes are the same horrible puns that Agasa thinks are particularly clever. But Shiho laughs at them anyway.
A few minutes in, Agasa stops too soon and stares past the point of her shoulder. The look of anticipation on his face is a little strange when they’re a thousand miles away from home.
Shiho turns, only to find the reason she left all those years ago.
—
It’s almost strange seeing him up close.
Shinichi is older, taller, his shoulders fitting into a casual suit jacket that Shiho bets would look too big had they been nineteen again. She mentally berates herself for the fleeting thought of coming back to the same boy she fell in love with, whose boyish charms and snarky attitude made for memorable conversations. The same boy who would look at her with pride like he raised her from the dead, and all Shiho would think of was that her life was never hers to begin with.
But five years is a long time and it’s enough time for both of them to change into different people, to grow into spaces they belong to without the other.
The smile Shinichi throws her way is strange. Polite. With a glaring absence of any hint of bitterness or nostalgia.
Shinichi has grown into a man she doesn’t ever remember knowing.
And it's almost a relief.
—
It’s Agasa who breaks into the atmosphere, who’s one of the few bridges between them they couldn’t burn. He deserves far better than losing two of the people who grew up under his care, and they know this. He gestures at Shinichi to take the seat next to Shiho, and Shinichi follows without a word, still smiling politely.
Agasa glances up to a waiter, and they decide on their orders. Shiho asks for a glass of dry sherry for her apéritif. Shinichi takes the same.
—
Things start to kick off when Shinichi finally calls her name, except it isn’t anything like Shiho expected it to be. ‘Miyano-san’ rolls off his tongue along a cleverly disguised insult that leaves her cold to the bone. Agasa looks startled and Shinichi looks amiable as ever.
But Shiho is nothing short of vindictive. So she asks him about Ran, ignores the pang of guilt the moment Shinichi’s perfect smile falters for a second. But he recovers just as fast before telling her that Ran is happier than he’s ever seen her, married to a man who loves her like she deserves. Loves her better than he ever could.
They’re expecting a baby boy in four months.
Silence falls into the space between them, and Agasa takes the opportunity to lighten up the mood by making a toast.
“To moving forward.”
—
The next time they speak, it’s like they’re twenty again.
Agasa is asleep in his hotel room, and Shinichi and Shiho are in the middle of a stand-off in the parking lot, turning themselves into a spectacle for anyone within their vicinity.
Shinichi has foregone all his sense of civility, raising his voice and sweeping his arms in wide arcs to make a point, to underscore five years of pent-up emotions swept into a bottle cracked and bursting to the rim. Shiho resorts to something similar, but instead of gesticulating, she matches Shinichi’s hot temper with a cold indifference.
“I chose you!”
Shiho snaps, “I never asked you to.”
“You just left!”
“And you were selfish.”
—
As warm as it is in the day in Okinawa, the nights are colder in late January, leaving Shiho to shiver with the few layers on her. It doesn’t help that neither of them have had any reason to warm up, not when everything said between them has left them feeling far colder than when they first started.
Shinichi sighs, looking far too tired and older than he has any right to be before making a move to take off his jacket. Except Shiho has seen it coming from a mile away, and she’s far, far too angry with him to tolerate any of his unwanted chivalries. So, she turns away and leaves him before Shinichi follows her into the hotel like she knew he would.
—
They both share a hotel suite, much to Shiho’s dismay.
There aren’t any available rooms left — they checked — and Shiho buries a feeling when she saves him the effort of looking for another place to stay unless he freezes outside. But she could do without the tension that the air has become stale.
Shiho wants nothing more than to retreat into her room because it’s been a long day. But Shinichi is rooted to the sofa, ready to pick up where they left off and looking far too miserable for Shiho’s liking. She’s beginning to hate how she still cares.
“I’m sorry,” Shinichi says suddenly.
Shiho is stunned for a moment. Wonders if this is how he’s changed, or if this is the culmination of emotional exhaustion. His hands are loosely folded together, elbows on his knees, and head hung in resignation. Shiho imagines she could break him with just the small of her finger.
She levels him with a sharp stare. “For what?”
“For making you feel like leaving was the only choice you had.”
Shiho makes a face, creasing her eyebrows together that makes Shinichi smile in that sad way she’s seen him do sometimes. Back when they were younger, when it was them against the world... and when it always used to be about Ran.
“I’ve had five years to think about you. Give me a little credit.”
The banter hits close to home and it opens up a wound Shiho thought she’s healed from but never really did. ‘We can’t,’ is what Shiho wants to tell him but doesn’t, and leaves it for another day.