No Blossom

Prologue

My name is Takayama Kiryuu. I'm 24 years old and I work as an assistant for an important government official. But that's about as interesting as it gets. In retrospect my job means bowing down to my superiors and getting kicked around by my colleagues.

I live in a single flat in Kanagawa, which is far from my workplace but it was the only place available that I could afford. I've lived alone ever since I graduated from university and moved out of my parent's place, but lately something has changed.

I'm not entirely sure how it happened because I was exhausted that day and could barely keep my eyes open. But I'm pretty sure it was some time in late September since it was cold and the metro was delayed due to the rain.

I had been working overtime because my boss was on vacation and all of his paperwork kept piling up on my desk. So when I was finally able to leave, it was already past midnight.

Now I'm making my trip home sound more exciting than it actually was, but nothing happened on my way home from work, it happened later. I got home alright, though I'm not sure if I remembered to lock the door properly or if I even left it ajar because I was so beat.

I don't usually have a drink or anything like that after a long day, I don't drink. I take a shower and watch the news. Sometimes I talk with a university friend from Sendai, but I think he's moved on with his life by now.

That night I didn't take a shower, I threw my jacket in the corner and thought I would just go right to sleep. But then I heard someone knock on my door, which was odd since I hadn't noticed anyone enter the building at the same time as I did.

And the thing is, it was a modern apartment building that used a buzzer. If someone wanted to come to my flat, they would need to ring the buzzer first. But that wasn't the only thing that was alarming about the whole ordeal.

Since my family lived all the way back in Sendai, and I didn't know a lot of people in Kanagawa, the only ones that did stop by my place were the mailman and sometimes my boss when he needed something done.

So obviously I was baffled and maybe a bit scared because it was late and I knew there was something wrong about what was going on. The funny thing about all this is that I actually work in security, but I don't specialize in it, all I do is paperwork. Not to mention that I wasn't the most athletic kid back in school.

But maybe because I was so tired, I wasn't thinking clearly and just headed straight for the door, not even taking a look through the peephole. When I opened the door, there was a woman. She looked young, maybe my age and she was wearing a trench coat, if I recalled correctly.

I blinked a few times and asked her what she needed, since she hadn't said a word. But quickly she pulled something out her pocket and handed it to me. "Does this belong to you?" I scanned the item and realized that it looked familiar. It was my wallet.

Hurriedly I grabbed it and scammed through the contents to make sure no money was missing and all my cards were there. They were.

"Takayama Kiryuu?" She asked. I looked at her a bit concerned. "Oh, sorry! I had to look at your ID to know whose wallet it was." Of course, that was smart. Still a bit shocked from the fact that I had been careless enough to lose something so valuable, I asked her where she found it.

"The metro", She told me and assured me it was no trouble at all when I apologized for the time it must have taken for her to come to my place. "But you should be more careful walking around so late, there are a lot of robberies lately", She pointed her finger at me. I laughed it off, but I hadn't actually heard of any robberies in that area.

"Thank you so much..." I started but then remembered that I hadn't even asked for her name. "Saya, Okajima", She introduced herself. What an unusual name, I thought at the time, even though it wasn't a bad name at all. "If there's any way I can repay you..." I went on, but she looked at her wrist watch and shook her hand, telling me not to worry about it. Then she left.

She didn't seem to have an umbrella on her, and it started to rain again. I felt a little bad that she had come such a long way from the subway just to return my wallet. But I was too tired to do anything about it, not to mention I was awkward with people to begin with.

I kicked my shoes off and made sure that the door was locked for real this time, it had not been before. When I finally got to bed, I took my shirt off and decided to go through my wallet once more, just to make sure all my cards were there as well.

As I ran my finger over the cards, I counted them one by one; credit card, debit card, onsen gift card, the Chief's business card, key card... But then I realized that instead of something missing from the wallet, it actually felt more stacked than I remembered. Not because of cash, but because of something else that had been slipped into one of the pockets.

I quickly whipped out the item and examined it. It was a rectangular plastic packaging, about the size of my thumb and had something round pushing in the middle. I had to turn on my bedside lamp to get a better look at what it was, but when I switched on the lamp, I couldn't believe my eyes.

"Is this...a condom?" I had never used one before but I still knew that it was definitely a condom. But how did it get in my wallet? My thoughts first darted at the woman from before. Maybe she had been holding onto it and kept it in my wallet when she was walking but accidentally forgot to take it out. Yes, that had to be the case.

Or maybe the Chief had put it there, he used my wallet from time to time. But the latter possibility made no sense, and over time neither did the first one. I rolled over in my bed and stared up at the ceiling. What did this mean?