Chapter 178 CHAPTER 178
Two Months On
Two months had a way of reshaping grief into something that looked like routine. It did not heal everything, it simply taught people how to carry new weights without collapsing. For some in the city, time had become a thin membrane stretched so tight it threatened to snap.
For others, it had offered a small mercy: the moments of rawest fury and disbelief no longer rose unbidden at the sight of a familiar street or a remembered laugh. They softened into memory, and life moved forward around the missing pieces.
Julian sat across from Ares in a meeting room that was more of a law office than a celebratory send off venue. The walls were a nondescript gray, the kind of neutral that made faces look tired and businesslike. Outside, spring light struck the glass and failed to warm the space; inside, the air was dense with a conversation that had been postponed and postponed until postponement no longer served anyone.
“Tokyo hasn’t been entirely kind to me,” Julian said finally, fingers tapping a rhythm on the file he had carried in. His voice held the same easy cadence it had always had, but under it there was a new steadiness, a patient weariness.
He’d had sleepless nights because of choices, because of what he had seen and what he had felt responsible for. “I’ve taken some calls. They want me to go build something from scratch. Not here. Somewhere quieter.”
Ares watched him with the careful attention a man reserved for those who had once been his confidants. In the months following the upheavals, Ares’s expression had hardened into something more resolved, less performative. The scandals, the deaths, the shifting loyalties, they had taught him the cost of divided attention. Julian had been family in a way that wasn’t blood, and family merited a reaction that wasn’t mere courtesy.
“You’re leaving?” Ares asked, the question straightforward and smaller than it might have been a year ago. It felt like one of those small, private losses that stung differently from the public grief that had hollowed out the family.
Julian nodded. “I’m leaving,” he said. “But not because I want to disappear. Because I want something steady. Dorcas and I have spoken. We…” He paused, searching for the right shape of words for what had become their plan. “We’re going to start fresh elsewhere. We want the baby to grow someplace where our names aren’t tabloid fodder. Where Dorcas can walk into a shop without the whole world recognizing her.”
The news struck Ares with a complicated relief, his friend’s departure made a piece of the puzzle simpler, and yet it brought a pressure all its own. “I will miss you, we will all miss you,” he told Julian, because there was no other honest thing to say. Julian had been both joy and solace, a man who’d sometimes tested Ares’s edges and sometimes steadied him when those edges frayed. But always, he had Ares’ back.
Julian smiled, small and apologetic. “I’ll miss you too,” he said. “But I’ll come back. When things settle.”
Ares nodded. “Thank you for being here. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me and my family.”
Julian leaned forward. “You’re my brother…no need to thank me. And thank you too for being a very honest business partner. Let’s not forget you invested in me even when my family thought I was a failure and disappointment.”
The two friends hugged each other.
Outside the room the city moved on. Babies were born, deals were brokered, arguments flared and cooled. Inside, two men who had been through more than most pondered the thinness of fresh starts.
Dorcas’s news to Tessa and Ayisha had been a private ceremony of coffee and packed lunches, of drawings left with neighbors and promises made with an awkward intensity.
She came that morning with a small rolling suitcase and a face both bright with expectation and drained with the exhaustion of someone who had decided to choose herself. The pregnancy had been a quiet miracle, and the prospect of leaving with Julian had turned the fragile hope into something almost joyful. Finally life was giving her what she deserved.
They sat at the small kitchen table, scarred from months of heavy hands and laughter and Dorcas spoke with a softness that made Tessa’s throat tighten.
“I’m leaving with Julian,” she said, letting the words land between them. “We’ll go to the south. He’s found another work; they have housing lined up for us. He also bought a private home there. He promised me he’d be there. I’m…” Her voice broke into a laugh that hovered very near a tear. “I’m scared, but I’m ready.”
Tessa’s response was immediate and whole. “You deserve it,” she said, the words stern with affection. “You deserve a life that’s yours.”
Ayisha squeezed Dorcas’s fingers, proud on behalf of a friend she had watched grow softer and stronger in equal measure. “We’ll come visit,” she promised. “You’ll come back with stories. You’ll come back with a baby that looks like Julian.”
Dorcas laughed then, and the sound seemed to fill the cramped kitchen with sunlight. “I’ll miss the kids here,” she said, voice thick but steady. “But they’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. I’ll keep praying for you guys.”
Tessa reached across, putting a careful hand on Dorcas’s shoulder. “We’ll be here,” she said. “When you come back, there will always be a plate on the table.”
When Julian came to collect her, the departure scene was both tender and mundane, a kiss, a folded shirt, a promise to call. The street outside him hummed with everyday life, oblivious to the small domestic revolution happening beneath the apartment’s thin ceiling. They left with bags and a determination that felt as fragile as paper but as re
silient as a new shoot breaking through concrete.