I mentioned nothing about her sudden change of heart about calling me by name. I took her back to the bedroom after we exhausted our time in the onsen, and our fingers and toes were wrinkled from the soak. We were both tired, and it was a languid expression of just wanting more of each other, and being free to take it at our leisure. We fell asleep tangled in each other, which had admittedly become a habit for us, except that night it was in a state of complete undress, and I held her close against me. During the night, if we stirred, I would take hold of her face to kiss her, and we would return to sleep instantly. The exchange of comfort and relaxation was beautiful, and I was falling in love with it. The blurry lines that separated the gestures of care and closeness between us had been erased, and I was free to be crazy about her if I wanted.

I woke to the feeling of Ito moving out of my grasp, and I opened one eye to evaluate what she was doing. She had propped herself up on an elbow and forearm, and was fighting to open her eyes fully as she looked around the room. I didn't move, but watched her until she eventually looked back toward me, and settled back down into my hold. "I forgot where I was." She said. "I was startled because we don't usually wake up naked together, but then I remembered."

I laughed with my breath at her, amused by the innocence in her realization. "I hope you don't regret it."

"I only regret your willpower of steel, because I wanted it to happen sooner."

"Did you know for sure you would break me eventually?"

She laughed, but covered her mouth to stop herself. "I wasn't try to break you, I was waiting for the inevitable. Men don't sneak into a girl's bed every night with zero intentions."

"I had zero intentions." I stated as sternly as I could, hoping she would believe me. "My intentions, if I had any, were actually for the exact opposite thing to happen. I was just addicted to you."

"You were trying not to like me?"

"I was trying to keep you out of my world." I felt my expression soften as I told her, even though I wanted to remain stern in what I was trying to convey. "I was selfish to bring you into it just because I wanted to give in to how I feel about you."

"It's not just your responsibility." She grabbed both sides of my face with her palms and kissed me, signaling that she was finished with the conversation. "Just a little more sleep?"

I nodded, closing my eyes to relax into her touch. "Go back to sleep. I'm going to do a workout. I'll make breakfast when you wake up."

I had a feeling of fullness as I descended the stairs to the kitchen, smiling to myself at the thought of how different Ito securing a place in my life had come to feel. I was used to not creating attachments, not developing feelings, living a life of certainty that I could let it all go. I wasn't worried that I wouldn't be good at caring for Ito. I wasn't worried about having the ability or the wealth to provide for her, to offer her a wonderful life. I was worried that I wasn't a suitable person for her in the end.

I wiped the cold sweat from my palms onto my sweat pants and started the kettle on the stove top. I kept a whisking bowl, bamboo whisk, and a sieve on the counter next to the stove, the cast iron tea kettle always at the ready with water that I would fill the night before. I took a tin out of the freezer and popped it open, using a small bamboo spoon to scoop the tea into the bowl. I took a moment to admire the bright green of the tea powder, and smiled to myself at the thought that everything looked renewed after the night had passed. As I whisked the tea in the hot water, I could smell the restoration it would deliver, and I closed my eyes as I lifted the bowl with both hands to take the first sip.

I exhaled deeply with satisfaction. "What's wrong with me." I asked myself, smiling inwardly in spite of the joy I felt.

The gym I had built on the main floor of the house faced the morning and early afternoon sun. The whole room was bright, white, and clean, and it made me feel slightly guilty every time I broke a sweat inside. I turned the air conditioner on, and started the treadmill to wake up my body with a run. I tried to push the flash images of the night before to the back of my mind to focus, but eventually I let them surface to fuel me. I got lost in the sets of weights I accomplished, loosing count and just repeating the exercises until my muscles burned. After, I put on my boxing gloves without much thought, and formed a picture to project over the heavy bag of every person I hated in the world without discrimination. There weren't many, but there were enough to continue to sweat.

Finally, I became distracted by a savoury smell wafting in from somewhere, and I threw a towel around the back of my neck to catch the sweat. I found Ito in the kitchen, looking as though she was halfway through cooking a breakfast of eggs, sausage, rice, and miso soup. "I told you I was going to cook." I said, announcing myself. I could feel sweat dripping down my back still, my gray sweatpants were dotted with dark patches of excess moisture. I used the towel to pat my face dry.

"You've catered to me enough already." It seemed as though she had found the cooking utensils she needed, having laid them out on the counter. It gave me a look into how carefully she planned ahead, so she wouldn't be caught off guard without the specific tool she needed for success. I had seen her set herself up similarly as we trained together, as I spent the nights in her apartment, and I wondered if she applied the same logic to allowing herself to fall for me.

I sat down and gave in to the care she wanted to provide me. I thought there was no need for give and take in a relationship beyond money and clout, but she was quickly giving me insight to the benefits of sharing life with another person. "There's something that's been bothering me." I said. "I want to actually have a conversation with you about it."

She slid a few eggs out of a frying pan onto a plate already dressed with some small breakfast sausages. She sighed heavily as she set the plate in front of me. "I was hoping to never have this conversation." She said, as she opened the rice cooker on the counter and filled a bowl. "It's true, Genji and I used to date. That's why I called you that night when he was hanging out at the club. He was really mad about the way I ended things, and that was the first time I had seen him since."

I shook my head, not expecting her response when there had been something completely different on my mind. She had stopped what she was doing to face me during the confession. She was wearing her oversized t-shirt, her baggy sleep shorts, her hair was tied in a bun atop her head, and she looked like the university student I had come to adore. "Okay, get yourself some food sit with me, we're going to dissect this."

"Are you mad that I didn't tell you?" Her expression was timid, and it made her look even younger, like a child.

"No, Akari, I don't care about who you dated before." I couldn't help but laugh a little at her anticipation. "That's not what I wanted to talk about at all."

I waited for her to gather her breakfast and sit across from me at the kitchen island, and took the opportunity the pause in conversation presented to start eating. "Then I revealed more than I needed to, but I'm glad you know now." She sat down, but she was still rigid. "I didn't know that you knew him when I called you. Are you sure you're not mad?"

I shook my head through a bite of food. "No, I'm not mad. I really don't care. This is delicious." It wasn't as if Genji and I had a particularly healthy friendship, even having been friends in some capacity since we were kids, and we had never fought over a woman. I leaned forward, bracing myself on my forearm. "Why did you think I'd be mad? What were you so worried about?"

It was moments like those when I wished I had known those kinds of things about her before anything serious had happened between us. Taking a woman to bed was nothing special for me. It meant something to her, however, and she was beginning to mean a lot to me. By association, my definition of the act had shifted. I wanted to know what had hurt her in the past, what had made her so afraid, so I could learn to avoid turning into someone who would hurt her as well