Chapter 26: Actions Warm Enough to Melt Winter (IV)

Steam still curled around my damp hair as I stepped barefoot into the heart of Kousaka-san's condominium. Yet the cold winter breeze and the lackluster heater worked quickly to replace it.

The condominium was exactly what I imagined a person like Kousaka Akari would live in. If I had to describe it in a word, it wouldn’t be “expensive” or “luxurious”—though both were true. No, it was something like 'cultured'. It's walking into a room that already knew how to speak four languages and didn’t need to prove it.

The air smelled faintly of chamomile febreze. There were minimalist fixtures: pale wood and muted walls, clean lines and functional elegance. But what truly caught my eye weren’t the interiors. It was what filled the space between them.

Paintings.

Not just one, but dozens of them. The entire space was laced with colors from framed masterpieces.

Her muted walls were a private gallery. Cityscapes of Europe, cathedrals and cobblestone streets washed in soft pastels. Café umbrellas in early spring. Rolling vineyards under gold-streaked skies. And one, haunting and beautiful, of the Seine in a late twilight, where the water seemed to ripple even though it was painted on canvas. All of them were so vividly captured that it felt like I could step inside them.

I walked slowly past them, as if not to disturb their slumber.

The signature was always the same: Amélie Fontaine.

And the more I studied them, the more uncomfortable I became.

Because they were better than mine.

Not in technique or color theory—those I could match, but in feeling.

I leaned a little closer to one of the Notre-Dame sketches framed in gold.

The linework was pure artistry. The color restraint was similar to my tastes. The emotions clicked into the contrast. Whoever Amélie Fontaine was, she didn’t just paint what she saw—she painted what the city felt.

“I didn’t know you were into older women.”

I sprung away from the painting as if I was shoved by it.

I turned to Kousaka-san.

And immediately spun back around to the balcony.

It was just a split second yet I've etched her figure into memory.

She stood there arms crossed, towel barely clinging to her curves. Her skin was damp, droplets of bathwater trailing down her smooth and snowy hips.

Her hair, golden and soaked, clung to her collarbones.

Her towel rode dangerously low, exposing the line between modesty and mischief. Any lower and it would've been betrayal to my practiced prudence and nobility.

“A-Are you out of your mind?” I muttered, ears burning.

“I live here,” she said. “You’re the one intruding.”

“Could you at least get dressed before talking about women I’m not interested in?”

“You’re blushing.”

“No, I’m not.” I snapped. “Show some feminine etiquette.”

“I do,” she replied. “I let you use my bath. I didn’t complain about your ghost-walking silence. And I didn’t punch you in the face when you wiped blood on my doormat.”

“That’s not—” I cut myself off and surrendered with a sigh.

She walked away to her bedroom before I could add another word, leaving footprints of bathwater behind her. I fixated back on the paintings, face still burning.

I didn't have the courage to turn around until I heard the soft shuffle of clothes and the clink of mugs.

A few minutes later, she returned in loungewear—simple shorts and a sweatshirt that hung just loose enough to still torture me. She moved with the casual weight of someone who had nothing to prove and everything to hide.

She brewed tea in silence. The kettle whistled like a sad, tired train. When she handed me the cup, our fingers brushed. Her hands were still warm.

I tried not to look at her but I already lost the battle before I could even shout my surrender.

I looked at the paintings again. “They’re all signed by Amélie Fontaine. She’s...incredible.”

Kousaka-san sat across from me, lifting her own mug. “She should be. She’s my mother.”

That made me sit straighter.

“She used her maiden name when she worked,” she added. “Didn’t like being known for anything else.”

“Are these her originals?”

She nodded once. “All of them.”

I exhaled slowly. “She’s better than me.”

The admission came out before I could help it.

“Obviously,” she said flatly.

I gave her a deadpan stare, but she wasn’t trying to be mean. That teasing smirk fell away as her gaze followed the strokes on the canvas nearest to her.

“She was everything I’m not,” she said softly. “She painted so much color.”

That hung in the air a bit too long. When she took a sip, I followed.

“Mama said the world is too bleak to leave it uncolored. So she always painted brightness. Cafes with yellow windows, streets with pink streetlights, and people with expressions they never wore in real life.”

"Figures. Post modernism is the trend back then."

“Her artworks were mainstays in museums in Paris. The money she earned, she used it to run workshops and exhibitions across Europe. Yet her enjoyment was overseas.”

I frowned. “Overseas?”

“Mm.” she nodded. “She offered art therapy in war-torn zones, urban slums and remote orphanages. She gave brushes to children who didn’t even have names.”

Her voice dropped lower. And the reverie that came from the achievements of her mother gave way to a quiet hesitation.

“When I was thirteen, she was in a remote village in South America, volunteering at a shelter.”

I caught the slight tremble in her tone. “You don’t have to—”

“I do,” she replied. “You told me about your upbringings and the story behind the paintings. And I’ve been taking, without giving. I don’t want to be someone who stays behind the page forever.”

I looked at her for a long moment.

And then nodded.

“She caught a disease you don’t hear about unless you dig through disaster relief bulletins. It was manageable in France and other western countries where modern treatments were accessible. But where she was, there weren’t even proper hospitals.”

My throat tightened.

“She came home as light and thin as a feather, and I was the one catering her on her deathbed.”

I remember the time she took care of me meticulously when I was sick. I thought she used to be around someone so close to the edge of life and death.

And right now, I stood proven.

I had nothing clever to say. No smart retort. No dry philosophical quote to ease whatever she's feeling.

“…I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’m not,” she said, and then paused. “No, I mean—I am, but...I understood her. Mama’s always like that. She wants to fix broken things with colors. If she died doing what she loved...maybe she didn’t lose.”

“But you did lose something.”

That silenced the room.

I stared down at my tea, looking at my expression.

Then to her.

Kousaka-san never cried in front of others.

Yet her hands wouldn’t stop fidgeting now.

She went on, quieter now. “After she passed, I shut down on everything. I was erratic. I fought with everyone. I told words that could make grown men cry. My father...he didn’t know what to do with me. So he sent me here to my grandmother.”

“To your grandmother?”

“I visit her every weekend. I just wanted a place where I could practice my freedom.”

She gave a soft, bitter laugh.

“Turns out, when you’re alone, it just echoes louder.”

I nodded. I already went through that feeling before.

Though I already made peace with it because I know that nothing's going to change if I keep myself falling in that hole.

She spoke again after a long pause. “I might be going back to France before the New Year.”

I looked up, feeling something twist right at my chest.

“That’s...soon.”

She shrugged. “He saw that I was doing well academically and socially. Now he wanted me back.”

So for him, Japan is just a ‘successful detour’?

“Guess our parents have the same twisted minds. My father's trying to take me to Tokyo after seeing me survive their abandonment.”

“Are you...going?”

I already answered that question. But now, my mind was swirling with uncertainty.

I know the consequences if I didn't comply.

Putting it all aside though, it came to me like I was wishing to protect Kousaka-san instead of myself.

My father's orders are absolute. Even with his eyes closed, he turns powerful men into his own sheep.

“No. I should be the one asking you.”

“Of course I don't want to. I didn't even have friends back in France. At least here, I could move around without much restrictions or standards maintained being the daughter of an ambassador.”

She paused, her expression a contrast to the positivity behind her words.

“…But I don’t think I’ll have a say for much longer,” she finished. “My grandmother’s trying to convince him. But I can feel her losing.”

Our tea cooled. The light in the apartment dimmed slightly with the setting sun.

Even though it was a mutual agreement to let silence simmer between us, the unanswered question burning in my throat had other plans.

“Did you hate me…for confessing?” the words slipped before I could think better of it.

She shot a thoughtful glance at me briefly before it fell to her cup of tea.

“No.”

She breathed in deeply, mustering herself.

“I hated that I didn’t know how to respond…” she trailed off. “Don't get me wrong, I already received dozens of half-assed confessions before—and I found yours genuine. Maybe you had that fear of trying to love someone might cause their departure. I had that too.”

That hit deep.

Knowing that the girl who sat just 10 meters across me had immense similarity between our personalities and upbringings, I can't help but feel wanting to know her more.

Do I regret making the first move too late? Yes.

But at least I could say that I'm in a position that I'm aware of my mistake and finally making up for it.

“I’m not leaving.”

This is something that I wouldn't just let go. I was the one that stepped on new boundaries, I'm the one responsible for it.

Her eyes darted to mine. “But I might.”

“I don't want that either. If it comes to a day that I would be the one begging your father not to take you away, I won’t hesitate.”

Something shifted in her quiet expression.

I was even surprised that I was able to make such a promise.

I might be thinking that I'm not in the place to make her stay, or I'm just a boy selling dango that happened to stumble upon a broken girl drawing on a sketchbook.

I have no power.

I have no money.

But seriously, scratch all of that.

I have a heart that beats for her.

That's all I needed to give me courage.

“Rest,” she stood up first, taking both empty cups. “You’re not going home tonight. The stall is gone. Your apartment’s probably freezing. And besides…”

I looked up.

“…I owe you. For saving me on the rooftop.”

I started to argue, but she raised a finger.

“No questions, Shimizu. My home, my rules.”

I gave a breath of a chuckle. “You also owned the rules in my apartment. That’s unfair.”

“Isn’t it?”

She walked off toward the kitchen, pausing only once.

“You can take the couch if you don’t want the bed.”

With that, she left me in the dimly lit living room, stepping onto the balcony with her phone pressed to her ear. She spoke in a voice so soft I couldn’t catch a word. I didn’t want to eavesdrop. That wasn’t why I was here.

Or maybe I just didn’t want to hear her say something that would confirm what I feared.

The storm outside had begun its quiet rage—rain racing down the windows like thin veins, and thunder yawning in the distance. Cold air slipped through the sliding doors she left slightly open, brushing against my skin.

I stood up.

I wasn’t trying to snoop. That’s what I told myself, at least.

But my eyes wandered.

Artistic habits.

They always did when they spotted something spectacular.

…or unusual.

I can see that the framed works on the wall were too neat and given too much emphasis to cover everything that stood suspiciously sparse in the condominium.

It was the same thing as my apartment unit.

And the worse I spotted yet, there's no signs of a life lived daily in this place.

A breeze blew past, and I heard it—the fluttering sound of paper.

My eyes darted toward the noise. The wind had caught the edge of a wall calendar hanging beside a modest shelf of books.

It might prop itself as something trivial to a modern suite, but to me, it stood out.

I noticed it.

The date: December 19.

Tomorrow.

The rest of the pages beyond that…removed.

It wasn’t just strange—it was intentional.

I stepped closer, thinking that it was probably a trick of bad lighting. A tremble formed in my chest that hadn’t been there seconds ago.

And that’s when the silence clicked.

The almost clean and empty room.

The wall clock is not moving at all.

The medications by the kitchen sink she never touched.

The half-unpacked moving boxes stacked discreetly in the hallway.

The way she paused just a bit too long earlier when I asked if her return to France was final.

And then...the final sketch of the bench with her and the faceless person next to her.

As if that person was someone she doesn't want to remember.

The blood drained from my fingers.

The coldness I hadn't felt since seeing the dango stall destroyed, returned.

The thunder cracked loud and hard, like an omen.

And I saw her.

Out on the balcony, hands behind her, posture still. Her phone was nowhere in sight now. Her eyes were forward, staring at something I couldn’t see.

The storm battered against the city in front of her. The wind whipped strands of her golden hair across her shoulders. She stood next to the railing—not leaning, but near enough.

Near enough.

It wasn’t the posture of someone admiring the view.

It was the stance of someone…preparing to let go.

“Kousaka-san, you're…”

My legs moved before I could process anything. I crossed the room, flung the sliding door open and stepped out into the cold.

I grabbed her from behind and pulled her into a tight embrace.

Possessively.

Desperately.

She jolted at first, her shoulder blades tensing beneath my hold. But she didn’t speak.

She didn’t pull away.

This silence terrified me more than anything else.

Because just like my dango stall, she dismantled her world quietly—piece by piece—until only one day remained.

The rain lashed against us both now. Cold and relentless. But her back against my chest, her heartbeat against my ribs—it was the only thing grounding me to this earth.

“...You’re trying to jump here tomorrow…don’t you?”