【Novel】To be continued～Chapter 10 (Final) — The New Me That Love Taught Me～

The Morning of My Departure @ Seminyak

Silence filled the room.

I suddenly woke up.

The clock read 4:35 a.m.

Normally, this was the time when I would still be deeply asleep, lost in sleep until the very last moment before departure.

I had fallen asleep with the lights still on, and a lingering heaviness and warmth remained in my body.

Almost as if I were being drawn toward it, I reached for the smartphone beside my pillow.

I turned on the screen.

There was no reply from Theo.

My own face was faintly reflected in the screen that had gone dark.

What if I had never met this love?

Perhaps I would have slept through my alarm without even realizing I had forgotten to set it, and missed my flight home.

I stayed in bed for a while before heading to the bathroom.

“Clink.”

The moment I picked up the glass to rinse my mouth, I dropped it.

I had simply tried to lift it normally.

It had never happened to me before while traveling.

At checkout, I told the hotel staff that I had broken the glass in the bathroom.

“I broke a glass in the bathroom.”

I apologized and paid for the glass.

Considering the cost of living in Bali, it wasn't exactly a small amount.

But I paid it calmly.

Somehow, I felt strangely comforted by the thought that perhaps this glass had broken in place of something else at the very end of my journey.

As though all I had to do was pay for these tiny fragments, and that was enough.

I left the hotel and got into the car heading for the airport.

The air conditioning inside was blasting so strongly that it seemed determined to shut out all the humidity outside.

The driver caught my eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Where are you from?”

“Japan.”

He looked slightly disappointed as he told me he couldn't speak Japanese, then continued.

“Sanur is better. You should stay in Sanur.”

Sanur.

The name carried a sudden warmth through the freezing car.

“I know. I love Sanur too.”

I instinctively leaned forward, and the driver nodded happily.

We talked about the charm of Sanur as if we were friends sharing a secret—the sea, the quiet little streets, the atmosphere.

＿＿Today, Theo is at that studio in Sanur.

Every time I exchanged words with the driver, something deep inside my heart tightened.

The more affection I felt for Sanur, the more real the distance drawing me toward the airport became.

I checked in and sank deeply into a chair at the boarding gate.

The flight departed on schedule.

After transferring in Singapore, the moment I landed at Haneda, the hard, sterile air of Japan began pushing my time in Bali into the past.

My suitcase arrived two days later.

I took out the box containing the perfume and opened it.

The fragrance gently filled the air.

It forcibly brought back the night breeze of Tamblingan Street—

and the warmth of him.

I tapped my smartphone.

No notification appeared.

Sanur, which I had loved so much.

Perhaps I would never be able to go back there again...

After returning to Japan, I didn't feel like turning on the television.

I didn't want to fill the heart I had stripped bare in Bali with unnecessary noise.

I swayed on crowded trains and continued playing the same version of myself at work as before.

But this time, I no longer swallowed my own opinions.

After my vacation, my senior colleague, Etsuko, called me into a meeting room.

Before the trip, I had consulted her about a job we had been handling for a client.

We had been accepting the work for a fee that didn't match the quality we were expected to deliver.

Because we had worked with the client for such a long time, it had been difficult to say anything.

We both knew it.

We had continued like that without even being allowed to question whether something was wrong.

“Rio-san! What do you think?”

On the table were an email from the client and a quotation showing that the fee had been doubled.

Etsuko had presented evidence of the going market rate and had already begun negotiations behind the scenes.

The reply seemed to carry a hint of anger, but that didn't matter anymore.

“Etsuko, thank you so much.
There was no way we should have kept accepting work at such an unfair price...
It means they finally recognized the quality of what we do, doesn't it?”

It was a major change.

When the two of us had finally finished talking about work, I suddenly remembered something.

Back when I couldn't walk, Etsuko had come to visit me at home.

We had intended to talk only about my health and work.

But somehow, before I knew it, I had begun talking about my marriage, my family, and all the feelings I had swallowed for so long.

“Come to think of it, thank you so much for worrying about me back then.”

Etsuko had seen me walking with a cane, my steps empty and lifeless.

She had quietly watched over me when I felt as though I were standing at the edge of death, ready to give up on everything.

“I think I'm going to start showing more of myself from now on.

I'm not divorced yet, but by the time I leave my company,
I'll probably remarry someone completely different from my husband.”

I didn't even know whether I was serious or joking.

The words simply slipped out.

“If it's someone Rio likes, then I think he's wonderful.

Why not?”

On my way home, the evening sky was glowing.

Airplanes crossed the sky one after another.

I walked while looking up, then slipped into another crowded train.

Another solitary evening at home.

After my shower, I applied body cream.

The body doesn't lie.

My suit trousers had become loose, and a single line of definition had appeared across my abdomen.

My body, which had been tense for so many years, had remembered the new rhythm I had brought home from Bali.

It wanted to exist more like the real me.

I booked a trial Pilates class.

And little by little, I began writing my thoughts on note.

Now, I no longer needed to reshape myself to fit someone else's idea of the right answer.

At last, it was time for my usual evening drink.

I poured a beer into a glass and popped a few peanuts into my mouth.

Out of habit, I opened my smartphone.

There was still no little notification badge.

＿＿Me.

I had summoned the courage to invite him.

He had answered.

I had told him how I felt.

And yet...

I wondered what Theo had thought.

I turned on my tablet and opened YouTube.

By chance, there was a live stream from Sanur.

Trees swaying in the dry-season breeze.

Motorbikes passing along Tamblingan Street.

The promenade in front of the Bali Hyatt.

The scenery I knew so well.

It was nothing special.

And yet.

I knew he couldn't possibly appear on that screen.

I knew that.

Even so...

Before I realized it, I was searching for the continuation of that night.

Naturally, tears began to fall.

— Three weeks after returning to Japan.

Under the gray sky, surrounded by the sterile air of the city,

I spent my days buried in work.

Finally, on a Friday night, with the weekend just around the corner, I opened the suitcase I had left untouched for weeks, still filled with souvenirs.

Inside were the same almonds I had given Theo.

I put one in my mouth and looked through the photos from my trip.

Then I remembered something.

The woman at the reception desk of the Pilates studio had told me when Theo had started working there.

It was during my stay in Sanur, when I was still carrying the fragile heart of someone recovering from a difficult time.

The studio was only a five-minute walk from my hotel.

He had been that close.

And yet, we never met.

I thought back to Bali in March.

I checked the studio schedule again.

The class that had been canceled that time…

had actually been Theo's class.

Now, I think I understand a little better why we didn't meet that day.

Back then, I had suddenly decided to try Pilates, and I had simply worn the leggings I already had.

Well, no one is really looking at me anyway.

That's what I thought.

Perhaps the gods of Bali hadn't yet given someone as half-hearted as me permission to meet him.

And then came Bali in May.

I had moved my flight to an earlier date.

I bought that ticket after deciding to put my own feelings first.

On a Saturday I wasn't originally supposed to be there,

I casually booked a Pilates class.

The coach turned out to be Theo.

Wearing my favorite white-and-blue leggings I had bought in Ubud,

I took just three Pilates classes.

And then, one brief evening when we exchanged only a handful of words.

Theo and I laughed.

We walked together.

A series of tiny moments—

quietly piling one on top of another.

Without anyone noticing.

The familiar, flat landscape of Sanur.

But that night alone, it seemed to glow with a quiet light,

as though I had somehow stepped into a distant world.

Suddenly, I reached for my favorite blue travel notebook sitting in the corner of my desk.

The name of the notebook was:

“Continue.”

I remembered the sea and the breeze of Sanur.

I had a feeling that an invisible thread was still connecting us.

“The gods of Bali probably don't know what the future holds, either.”

I knew it.

I would return to Sanur again.

By then, I would probably be just a little more beautiful than I am now.

A new dress swaying in the breeze.

A supple body shaped by Pilates.

And none of it would be for someone else.

“If I truly shine from within,
that light will cross the distance,
and somehow, I believe, he will see it.”

That night,

I discovered love once again.

But more than that—

love had transformed me.

Into a woman who had chosen

the life that belonged to me.

A lady who had finally chosen herself.

So, when that time comes—

find me again.

The rest of the story

will be carried to me

by the wind of the future.

To be continued.

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