Goodbye, Hello

prelude

WAKATOSHI REMEMBERS THE DAY he met Marigold when he was twenty years old and at a bar in Tokyo with friends he hadn't seen in a long, long time.

Bars aren't anything romantic, and he never wished once that they were in order to say that he had met the love of his life in an encounter of fate. In a way so good, people could write books about it. Because dimly lit rooms and creaking bar stools were their thing, and he loved it all the same. Even if it left them with migraines the next morning and startlingly little recollection of what transpired the night before.

He was perfectly okay with cigarettes fucking with their lungs; he was sure she was to take his breath away and bury it all the same.

It was April sixth, pouring rain and maybe nine at night. It could've been ten, but the place was so crowded that he didn't bother to try and look for a clock. Though, he's sure it was April sixth, and he remembers the way she stumbled in looking for a familiar face, and the way hers lightened up when she spotted him off sipping a glass in the corner.

She asked his name, still dripping wet from her eyelashes to her toes and she was too excited when he answered. Her hair was matted down by water ─ still flattering, anyway.

"Oh, I know you!" she said, even though he figured out that much. "You're a friend of my friend, yes ─ he actually told me to meet him here, do you know..."

Mari didn't need to say much else for Wakatoshi to gather that he'd been set up on a date with his 'friend's friend,' and more importantly that he was not even mad about it.

April sixth turned into April thirteenth, a week later, and he took her to his place. A few movies, a pizza brought by a pizza delivery guy who could've pretended to like his job a little more than he had; a first date made in heaven. A humble evening so good that even his 'friend' was sending him messages after about how Mari (Marigold Hano, he learned) was over the moon. The moon.

April twelfth the next year around was the day Wakatoshi decided that he was in love with her. He was twenty-one, sick of only joking about living together, and was three words away from a completely new perspective when he told her;

I love you, he said. Over and over and over again until she was satisfied, and he didn't even mind if that would be until their alarms went off. I love you I love you I love you

(No period required ─ because back then, these statements were something akin to endless.)

April twenty-seventh was the day he proposed, five years after the first date and after careful deliberation with himself. A commitment like that, he thought of it as a weight heavier than their planet itself, but the second she smiled and told him yes he felt as though it was nothing more than a breath of air. Marriage came soon after, because the wait is overrated, no? And the honeymoon,

Well. The honeymoon has always been (and always will be) a memory of an old work in progress.

But Wakatoshi has never remembered dates quite like this one, April thirtieth and a day full of frigid rain like never before that whole year.

          Marigold says the word divorce over dinner, and wine had never tasted so bitter. Poland has never seen a dimmer day, he's sure of it.

She trembled when she said if, as though her teeth were not hers and rather something stolen and she found it hard to admit that. Marigold had never spoke without certainty, not until then. Her words lingered, they caused ripples but they did not move ─ how was he supposed to stomach that over pot pie?

On April thirtieth he heard what he'd been waiting to hear for months, but had been too fearful to even think about, or grow the courage to say himself. He felt like he was five years old, sitting as a child at an adult table in silence while he was the only one who even ate. He heard things as though he was nine, listening to his father tell him he'll be going to stay somewhere else for a while, but he'll be back sometimes. He will be back. He felt like he was twelve, listening to his mother cry two rooms away.

"I think," Marigold spoke like someone who had lost it all. "I think that this isn't going to end well, is it?"

She took his slowed breathing and cold stare as an answer in itself. "It's right right there, Wakatoshi, and we know it. We've seen it coming."

He had seen it coming. He wished that he had been blind. The sandbags were already lined up for the flood.

Wakatoshi said nothing until the next night, when he screamed his thoughts loud and clear, found going to sleep on the living room sofa rather than in his own bed. Nothing changed but their words, but of course he could not sleep next to her now. At least he was chivalrous amidst the acceptance that their marriage had an open grave ─ the shovel clutched in his hands.

He had never seen the dynamic of a relationship change so quickly. He remembers the gradual downfall of his own parents in his childhood, broken in stages between They'll be okay and Wow, even counselling can't save this one. But he supposes that's due to the fact his mother never pretended everything was fine, they never tried as hard as Marigold did.

          And it's what he regrets the most, how everything she did to keep their house a home never really paid off.

He blames it on all he could've done that he didn't do. Though, he'll never tell her. He won't get the chance. He's heard it so many times before bed, sat constitutionally at the kitchen island talking about how to go about it all.

          I love you replaced with court talk, how it can all come out to their friends after finances are toyed with ─ a meeting with an accountant set in stone.

Wakatoshi remembers dates like a calendar that's full, but he's never wanted to forget one more than April thirtieth; the day their funeral had a date.

Here lies all we have known.

⠀