“I enjoy being here with you too,” Koyamo answers. However, she quickly looks away after saying this.
An apprehensive feeling comes over Nora. She’s always been the direct one in their relationship, especially compared to her somewhat reserved Japanese professor girlfriend, who’d only managed a few guilty dates with other women before Nora burst into her life.
But Nora can’t bring herself to ask if something is wrong. Perhaps because she already knows the answer to that question.
Yes, something is wrong. And it’s all Nora’s fault.
So she continues to walk along with Koyamo in tense silence, the buzz from the warm wine fading rapidly no matter how many more sips she takes.
“How about if I run back out to the corner store and grab a bottle of glühwein after we get home,” she suggests when they’re only about a block away from Koyamo’s apartment. “We can heat some up and watch Netflix.”
Nora insists on them going out most nights, so she thinks Koyamo will be happy to stay home.
But instead, she says, “Nora, I am happy you’re back. But there is something we must discuss. My fellowship here is coming to an end in May. And I will have to start looking for another job. I would like for the next one to be permanent. But I am not sure what that means for us.”
Koyamo tells her this in a burst of words. As if she’s been holding it inside, and it’s all coming out now like the rush of air from an untied balloon.
Nora’s stomach drops.
“You have to leave Geneva?” She never stutters, but she trips over her words as she asks, “Where—where were you thinking of applying?”
“That is the problem,” Koyamo answers, her gaze on the ground. “I do not wish to go back to Japan. I wouldn’t be comfortable there. We wouldn’t be comfortable there. So I was thinking of Norway, but I don’t really see you in Oslo. So I considered Berlin…but then I felt silly for planning my life around you and where you would be comfortable when you’ve made me no promises.
Nora looks away, shame, not the glühwein, heating her cheeks.
“If I could make you promises, I would,” she tells Koyamo, her voice laced with bitter sorrow.
There comes a long, terrible pause. And Koyamo says, “I suppose I have my answer then.”
She slips her hand out of Nora’s, taking it back.
The loss of Koyamo’s hand leaves Nora desperate and bereft, and she looks back up. “Choose wherever you want. I’ll follow you. Wherever you want. For as long as I can. It doesn’t matter where you go. I’ll follow you.”
Nora puts all of her heart, all of her emotions, every ounce of love she feels for Koyamo into that statement.
But all Koyamo seems to hear is the temporary part.
“For as long as you can,” she repeats. Now her voice is full of bitter sorrow as well. “I will have to settle for that.”
Nora hates this. She hates that she isn’t free. Hates that someone as great as Koyamo should have to settle for anything. Especially her.
“I’m sorry,” Nora says, unable to keep the misery out of her tone. “I don’t deserve you. I know that.”
“It’s not about deserving,” Koyamo shakes her head, “I just don’t understand. Is there truly nothing you can do? No way for you to live your own life?”
“The answer to that question is complicated,” Nora answers.
“Then explain it to me,” Nora insists with uncharacteristic exasperation. “I don’t understand. You say you love me, but you have so many secrets.”
“It isn’t safe for you to know my secrets,” Nora tells her, her voice flat. “Suffice it to say, we come from two different worlds. And I would never forgive myself if my world touched yours—”
Nora suddenly breaks off and stops walking.
And it’s not because of the very real discussion she’s finally having with Koyamo.
Two men are standing outside of Koyamo’s building. So obviously not locals. They wear hard expressions under tilted eyes and gelled back hair.
Triad. Nora can spot one from a kilometer away. Even in Geneva.
But they’re not her father’s guys. Her father doesn’t have any business contacts in Geneva. That was one of the reasons she’d chosen the coastal city for her MBA program.
Besides, the members of the 24K typically wear leather jackets in semi-deference to her father, who always wants to be the best-dressed man in the room. Her brother’s men in Hawaii dressed even worse. In T-shirts and shorts without any kind of uniformity at all.
But the two men standing in front of the apartment were both wearing suits.
And there was only one organization that she knew of that made all of its members wear suits, even at its lowest ranks.
The Silent Triad.
“What’s wrong?” Koyamo asks beside Nora. “Why did you stop walking?”
Nora turns back to Koyamo and kisses her. Kisses her with all the adoration and passion in her frustrated heart.