Goodbye, Hello

01 DIFFERENT

Seven years before she
she said 'divorce'
Koganei, Tokyo
━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Honestly? I think our friends are right, let's just go get married already. Courthouse wedding." Mari took another piece of popcorn. "I say we just do it."

Wakatoshi laughed back then, freely, as he shook his head and took another drink from the glass of water Mari brought over to the coffee table. He forgot the title of the movie that played at an obscenely low volume in the back ─ not that it ever mattered anyway. "You're blunt."

"I'm blunt?" she blinked, "You're literally you, don't even start."

"You're the one who is suggesting that you want to marry me. You can't insult me now."

"Come on. I love you for it, though."

"Yes, you do." He sighed, warmth crawling under the fabric of his shirt as she moved further under his arm and away from the nip of the air conditioning. "Now, you do."

"Hey, come on. I'll love you always."

"You can't promise that."

She grinned. "Watch me," she murmured, her lips trailing up his shoulder and to his jawline, his neck and his cheek; her teeth grazed his skin. "I'll promise you every morning if you want me to."

"Will you?"

Mari nodded with an endearingly low form of laughter, all while he mumbled.

"While I'm flattered, I'm afraid commitments don't work like that."

Marigold frowned as she grew that face he remembers all too well; the face of sorrow? Concern?

          Either way, he remembers it still — the insignificance of it haunts him. Wakatoshi tilted his head with a sigh, smoothing a hand down her side. "You surely can't expect that to be the foundation of a marriage."

"C'mon, I'm joking around." The room heater hummed. "It could easily be our foundation, though. We're different, yeah?"

Wakatoshi furrowed his eyebrows, knitted them together as he did whenever he didn't understand. "From what?"

Mari's hand smoothed along his face. "Different from everyone and everything, duh." She glanced from his eyes to his torso, and back again. "Different from your parents..."

"Mari,"

"I'm just saying!" she covered. "It'll never be easy because I'm me and you're you, but I promise you I'll fight until I can't anymore. And if you do the same," she held out a pinky, her nail painted sage green for the spirit of the season. "Well, we'll last forever, won't we?"

Wakatoshi bathes in the word. "Forever?"

"Forever."

Mari smiled as his rough finger intertwined with her own, the sound of a shattering promise drowned beneath the echo of their young victory. And fate was sealed with a kiss so delicate that it was just wrong to make it the confirmation of the end.

Present day
Warsaw, Poland
━━━━━━━━━━━━

It's the morning of April tenth and Wakatoshi's never had a worse sleep in his life.

Couches aren't recommended for sleeping, and the guest room has been a home gym for years; there's no one to blame and yet no other option than to sleep on sentimental furniture. He may not (think he) love(s) Marigold as much as he once did, but he'll die a gentleman. She'll have the master bedroom until she goes back to the life she had at eighteen before made her a wife. Maybe she'll go back to Pheonix, as far away as can be; begin anew as if she was living before him.

To add to the misery of it all, he heard heavy tears last night. He was hearing things rooms away like he was a kid. He left toast at the door ─ his mother lost half of her weight in tears.

He did not go comfort her. When he was twelve, the door was locked. Even now, at age twenty-nine, he does not try the door he knows is open because he never learned what to do when it opens.

Nonetheless, it doesn't stop the day from dawning and him waking with it. His feet have worn in the soles of his runners this morning, he'd sweat down to the nape of his neck and greeted every familiar neighbour on the street with a nod like nothing is wrong. Wakatoshi is so caught up in routine he even heads to the door of the master bedroom, where Mari lies.

Her eyes are bloodshot, and he ignores the fact on purpose. "What are you doing?"

She doesn't look up. "I'm going to get on the phone with the accountant today, see when we can sort out our finances. Then I'm looking for a lawyer to help us with documents."

          She looks up. "I'm sure you're eager to get this taken care of."

Silence kills everything in the room but his confusion, and she realizes. "...Because of your career?" Her words are coarse, she feels her throat is run raw. "Olympics are coming up. Maybe you'll be back in Japan."

"I suppose, yeah."

She purses her lips as if his voice alone pains her to hear. "Well, that's the plan for today. Figuring this shit out."

"Work?"

"I called in sick."

"Oh." Say something, ask if she's alright. "I have practice in half an hour, traffic is bad it says." Fuck.

"Of course, it's a Monday." She rubs behind her ear and swallows so hard that it's visible, a tsunami is coming and the shoreline is crawling back out to sea. "Get a protein bar and get going, don't be late."

"I won't be."

"Bye."

Say something, she's crying. "Bye."

His feet that carry him feel heavier than a thousand men, the keys to his car sound just that much louder, the strap on his dufflebag cuts into his shoulder a little deeper, and the door slams on the way out ─ it doesn't simply just shut. Doors don't shut in unhappy homes.

The second the walls buzz from the impact of the front door, Mari shuts her laptop and cries without guilt or an ounce of restraint. She heaves so hard her chest hurts, holds his pillow so tightly the cool fabric of the cloth wrinkles, and doesn't dare dial the number of the accountant until hours later. She fears as though she will break the second the line is live.

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