Page 8 of Sixty Meters Under

Ryosuke Kato sat at his work table, drawing fine lines on white thin paper with extreme precision and care, and slowly brought a two-dimensional picture to life. The lines converged and intersected at different angles while his hand steadily moved along the ruler. The soft scratch of ink on the surface and the faint scent of graphite created the perfect bubble of concentration.

Intensely focused on his task, Ryosuke heard a ping from his cell phone. He laid the pen aside and saw tiny symbols that read: Ayame, a text from his fiancé.

Hey love! The filming is postponed. I’m heading home. See you soon! Love you!

Ryosuke checked that there weren’t any other messages he had missed, and replied:Ok, see you soon,and put the phone away. He took the pen back between his fingers, but it was hard to regain his focus. An unsettling feeling washed over him, he wondered why Ayame’s filming got postponed.

?

It took Ryosuke about half of an hour to finish a part of his project. When he was done, he left his work room and headed for the kitchen. He assumed that Ayame would be hungry by the time she got home, so he decided to make dinner earlier than usual.

While the dish was cooking, he heard sounds in the entrance hall; Ayame had arrived. The sound of footsteps followed, and he turned his head towards the door. The red-haired woman appeared in their small kitchen, and approached him in a few brisk steps. She wrapped her arms around him from behind, and spoke, “Hello, my love!”

“Hi.”

“How are you? I missed you so much!”

“I missed you too,” Ryosuke forced a small smile. “I’m okay. How was your trip?”

“It was great! It’s just a shame that they had to postpone the filming.”

“Is it because of the ongoing situation?” Ryosuke asked and continued to stir the sauce.

“Yeah… Mmm… This smells delicious. What are you cooking?” Ayame perked up on her toes to look over his shoulder.

“Curry.”

“Yummy! But you shouldn’t have bothered. We could have gone to a restaurant.”

“I was in no mood to go out… Maybe tomorrow?”

“Oh, okay. I was just saying…”

Since Ryosuke remained quiet, Ayame added, “Okay! Gimme a kiss, and I’ll leave you to finish.”

He turned, and when she loosened her grip, he leaned in. He gave her a quick peck on the lips and retreated.

Ayame didn’t seem thrilled by the kiss, but she smiled anyway. Ryosuke felt a pang of guilt.

“I’m going to take a shower.” She turned towards the door.

“Sure. Take your time.”

?

Once they were sitting in the dining room, eating and chatting, Ayame hurriedly added, “I forgot to tell you something.”

Ryosuke glanced up from his plate, his chopstick halfway to his mouth. “What is it?”

“I looked up some bunkers a couple of days ago, again, and found one that looks pretty interesting.”

“You still haven’t given up on that idea?”

Ayame shook her head. “No. I couldn’t. I can’t sleep at night. Everything that’s happening in the world right now–”

“You don’t have to worry yourself with that. The government’s not that stupid. I’m sure everything will be okay.”

“That may be the truth… but I thought that I should keep searching anyway. And I was lucky this time! I found one that is not that expensive, I’ll show you,” Ayame said, and grabbed her phone.