Aside from Konstantin, Anastase was the only other person in Stanhope to know about Inori, and how that death from decades past continued to haunt him. Anastase's job, unofficially and unpaid, was to watch. To tell Kazeyuki if something bad was about to happen again. If someone was getting too close. If the patterns were forming the way they had formed before.
In all the years since, Anastase had never once flagged a concern, and surprisingly—
Finally, it happens?
Congratulations, Kazeyuki?
Did his friend truly say that?
And if he did, did he mean it?
And if he meant it—why?
Kazeyuki's gaze swept over the room, Katherine’s red hair catching his eye even from across the room.
Good.
She was occupied at the moment, standing within a circle of nurses near the makeshift dance floor that maintenance had cleared by pushing the conference table against the wall. Shewas laughing at something one of them had said, and it was this sound that he found himself carrying in his heart as he asked Anastase for a moment to speak in private.
Ten minutes later, the two men were standing on one of the side balconies off the conference hall, the doors open behind them, and the sound of the party spilling out into the evening air. There was music, laughter, and the clink of glasses, all of it effectively serving as cover to keep their conversation private.
As expected, Anastase had yet to say a word, especially since Kazeyuki had held nothing back. He had outlined everything that happened, even the motives that painted him in the worst light. But he had done so without emotion, having found it easier to treat all the events that led to where they were now like symptoms of a medical case that required diagnosis.
Anastase studied the city spread out below them. The mountains beyond it were dark shapes against a sky that was just beginning to lose its color. And in a way, that was the kind of future Kazeyuki’s life had been leading to...if not for this.
Anastase turned back to his friend. “Konstantin offered to help. Why didn’t you take him up on it?”
Kazeyuki didn’t speak, and that...was interesting.
“What about when Katherine herself offered you a way out?” Anastase pressed. “Why didn’t you—”
“What’s done is done,” Kazeyuki snapped.
“Is it?”
Kazeyuki had never been the type to avoid difficult conversations. Until now. And he hated the fact that he was doing so because of a woman.
“Isn’t this sort of thing your expertise?” he gritted out. “Aren’t you trained to tell your patients not to focus on the past—”
“I’m also trained to keep them from lying to themselves—”
“Look at her!”Kazeyuki had to exert every effort not to gesture furiously back to the conference room.
The pink and red streamers, the heart-shaped balloons that maintenance had inflated from last year's stock, and the buffet table with its trays and wine bottles—
All of it to celebrate an engagement that was never supposed to be.
Anastase slowly shook his head. “I know—”
“Do you, really?”
Because if Anastase did know, then why was he asking his questions? All he had to do was look at Katherine...
She was still chatting and laughing, still shining because even to this moment, she still believed that all of this...was real.
And that was why—
“I just need you to teach me...to fake it.”