Left and Leaving
Title: Left and Leaving
Rating: R - please see warnings
Characters/Pairings: Yoshioka Toru/Watabe Izumi (Majo Saiban)
Summary: She's alone with the enormity of what her life has become. What a lie it has been for so many years without her knowledge or consent.
Notes/Warnings: Some triggering issues involving consent, abuse and mention of suicide. I wrote this months ago but only posted it as a comment in Katy's journal. This takes place a year after the final episode, so spoilers abound for the whole series. Some issues that the drama never addressed to my satisfaction.
She's nearly hit 'send' on the phone a hundred times, but every time she's stopped herself. Even with her intentions, he's still the first to make contact after nearly a year.
She never told him. They all had to put the horrible trial behind them, and the last thing he needs to know is that the man who manipulated him shares her bed every night.
Not of her own volition, she always reminds herself when she's in the bath, turning the water hot enough to scald her skin and try washing him away. “Be a good mother,” her husband always says when he reaches for her in the night. Her fear keeps her in place. The threat of her daughter being taken away outweighs any shame.
Until he goes away on “business” and she's alone with the enormity of what her life has become. What a lie it has been for so many years without her knowledge or consent.
Her husband is away when Yoshioka calls, and she'll have to wipe her phone's call memory when he returns.
“I'm sorry to bother you after so long,” he says, and she remembers the day she met him, crazy hair and colorful clothes. “I was wondering if we could talk?”
She says yes without a second thought. Mai's at her mother in law's (does she know that her son...?) when the bus lets her off at the hotel. Her idea, to avoid being seen in public. Even after a year, she doesn't know how many of his spies trail her.
He looks different. His permed, highlighted hair is shorter and just one color now. His face has lost some of the energy and lightness it once had, and with the way he looks at her when they shake hands, she has changed in his eyes as well.
Yoshioka has given up the t-shirt business, working almost full-time in a call center. His powers of persuasion serve him well on the phone all day, but he is quieter in person than he used to be. She soon discovers why. For all that he remained devoted and loyal, for all that he tried to be the better person. Even taking a brick to the head hadn't been enough.
“She had some long-term assignment in Kyoto,” he lets her know as they sit on opposite sides of the hotel bed. “Met someone. Didn't come back.”
She doesn't know why she takes his hand, after so many months. She doesn't know why the words come tumbling out before she can rein them in. About her husband, how he holds Mai over her even when he's in another country manipulating others just as cruelly. How he tells her she's brought this on herself when he forces himself on her.
Toru cries before she does, and it breaks her. His fingers are in her hair, and she's closer to him than she's been in a year, and even then they were never like this. He smells like soap and cigarettes, a nasty habit they both seem to have picked up over the past several months.
They don't make love. They simply lie together. He holds her the way he'll never hold Kaori again, and she relaxes the way she never can when she's home. It's soon time for her to pick up Mai, and he has a late night shift of calls ahead.
When she gets home, she deletes his number from her phone. Then the house phone rings. Her husband's flight is the following morning. Izumi sinks into the bath and dreams of a life she can never have as her daughter gently snores in the next room.
--
She doesn't know which number to call a few months later when her life is destroyed. His number's gone from her phone, forgotten.
Her husband vanishes and takes Mai, taking the thread still keeping Izumi fighting. He snaps it, severing her completely. Birth certificate, photographs, even the toys are gone from her home when she returns from grocery shopping. He's left her a nearly empty house in just over an hour.
When she goes to the elementary school, there is no record of her daughter ever having attended. The teachers she saw every day deny Mai's existence to her face, and she knows her husband's money has done the talking. Her mother-in-law won't take her calls, won't answer the door. The neighbor threatens to call the police on her.
It's when she gets home and finds an envelope that he's ruined her completely. Fabrications, she knows, but her husband is good at his job. Photographs of Mai with bruises, cuts - all manipulations, but the note attached reads “I'll tell them you did this. Don't come looking.”
There's no explanation given, no reason. He's just gone. Mai's just gone. She can't bring herself to call her parents, not yet. What could she even say? How could she begin to explain something she cannot understand?
She remembers the call center, though. Remembers how he'd spoken about it in that detached way when they'd met up that day. Izumi doesn't know how she gets there - it's nearly 2:00 in the morning and he's there, sitting in one of his Think Twice shirts trying to help someone with their computer.
All she gets out when he tosses off the headset to greet her is “I think I want to kill myself.”
--
He takes off a day from work, then another, before calling in to quit. He sleeps on her couch. At the very least her husband has left her the couch. Mai's room sits empty, as if she'd never existed, and Izumi aches, remembering the baby growing inside of her. How she'd hushed her cries, changed her diapers, helped her with homework. Why had he waited so long to do this?
Toru keeps her alive, forcing her to play card games and cooking for her. She doesn't sleep, instead watching him on the couch. He cries in his sleep - is it for Kaori still or is it for her now? He reminds her with each passing day that they have to fight. He's saved up enough money from his job to travel, and she has small savings. Mai's college money. They'll go anywhere. They will find where he's taken her child.
“We'll get her back,” Toru says every day. “Stay in this world for her.”
If she sees her husband, she may kill him. She'll do anything, she vows, as Toru helps her regain her strength, regain her resolve. Finally, she's strong enough that he leaves her alone during the day - he works at the call center again part-time, and she spends her days making phone calls. Gets in touch with the one person she wished never to speak to again.
Kashiwagi Kyoko is a murderer.
But she is also a mother.
It takes a month to find an address in America that may or may not be legitimate. Kashiwagi's contacts are not what they were when she was on trial. But it's the most solid lead she's found, and when she gets home, even Toru comments that she looks different.
In her joy, she falls against him. She's exhausted. Mentally, physically, but his hands on her skin are so gentle. She's been living for Mai, but tonight she'll live for herself. Mai deserves a happy mother. His lips kiss away her tears. Where her husband took, Toru gives.
He gives her all of himself.
--
Their hands are linked for most of the flight over, and together they are jumbled nerves and worry. She's compiled what evidence he didn't manage to take away from her - the photographs from her mother's home, Mai's baby book, even wedding photos.
Let him use his false images against her - she's come this far. She won't leave without her daughter. To her shock, it seems her husband is in an American prison - for fraud, breaking several American federal laws. The government of Japan cannot call him home - he erased his existence when he erased Mai's. His tangled web has collapsed in on him.
Mai's in an American foster home. This is the address Kashiwagi-san has uncovered. Perhaps the woman knew all along. Toru straightens her hair and kisses her forehead first. “I'm here.”
She nods and greets her daughter with a warm smile.
“Mama!”
It takes all of her willpower not to collapse in sheer joy when her child's chubby hands wrap around her leg. There is much legal finagling to be done, but an American news reporter takes an interest in her story. Mai is returned, and the flight back to Japan is far less nerve wracking than the flight to America.
-
To ease Mai's readjustment to life in Japan, Toru decides to keep his distance. This lasts all of two days before her daughter is begging for him to stop by.
He stays.
Rating: R - please see warnings
Characters/Pairings: Yoshioka Toru/Watabe Izumi (Majo Saiban)
Summary: She's alone with the enormity of what her life has become. What a lie it has been for so many years without her knowledge or consent.
Notes/Warnings: Some triggering issues involving consent, abuse and mention of suicide. I wrote this months ago but only posted it as a comment in Katy's journal. This takes place a year after the final episode, so spoilers abound for the whole series. Some issues that the drama never addressed to my satisfaction.
She's nearly hit 'send' on the phone a hundred times, but every time she's stopped herself. Even with her intentions, he's still the first to make contact after nearly a year.
She never told him. They all had to put the horrible trial behind them, and the last thing he needs to know is that the man who manipulated him shares her bed every night.
Not of her own volition, she always reminds herself when she's in the bath, turning the water hot enough to scald her skin and try washing him away. “Be a good mother,” her husband always says when he reaches for her in the night. Her fear keeps her in place. The threat of her daughter being taken away outweighs any shame.
Until he goes away on “business” and she's alone with the enormity of what her life has become. What a lie it has been for so many years without her knowledge or consent.
Her husband is away when Yoshioka calls, and she'll have to wipe her phone's call memory when he returns.
“I'm sorry to bother you after so long,” he says, and she remembers the day she met him, crazy hair and colorful clothes. “I was wondering if we could talk?”
She says yes without a second thought. Mai's at her mother in law's (does she know that her son...?) when the bus lets her off at the hotel. Her idea, to avoid being seen in public. Even after a year, she doesn't know how many of his spies trail her.
He looks different. His permed, highlighted hair is shorter and just one color now. His face has lost some of the energy and lightness it once had, and with the way he looks at her when they shake hands, she has changed in his eyes as well.
Yoshioka has given up the t-shirt business, working almost full-time in a call center. His powers of persuasion serve him well on the phone all day, but he is quieter in person than he used to be. She soon discovers why. For all that he remained devoted and loyal, for all that he tried to be the better person. Even taking a brick to the head hadn't been enough.
“She had some long-term assignment in Kyoto,” he lets her know as they sit on opposite sides of the hotel bed. “Met someone. Didn't come back.”
She doesn't know why she takes his hand, after so many months. She doesn't know why the words come tumbling out before she can rein them in. About her husband, how he holds Mai over her even when he's in another country manipulating others just as cruelly. How he tells her she's brought this on herself when he forces himself on her.
Toru cries before she does, and it breaks her. His fingers are in her hair, and she's closer to him than she's been in a year, and even then they were never like this. He smells like soap and cigarettes, a nasty habit they both seem to have picked up over the past several months.
They don't make love. They simply lie together. He holds her the way he'll never hold Kaori again, and she relaxes the way she never can when she's home. It's soon time for her to pick up Mai, and he has a late night shift of calls ahead.
When she gets home, she deletes his number from her phone. Then the house phone rings. Her husband's flight is the following morning. Izumi sinks into the bath and dreams of a life she can never have as her daughter gently snores in the next room.
--
She doesn't know which number to call a few months later when her life is destroyed. His number's gone from her phone, forgotten.
Her husband vanishes and takes Mai, taking the thread still keeping Izumi fighting. He snaps it, severing her completely. Birth certificate, photographs, even the toys are gone from her home when she returns from grocery shopping. He's left her a nearly empty house in just over an hour.
When she goes to the elementary school, there is no record of her daughter ever having attended. The teachers she saw every day deny Mai's existence to her face, and she knows her husband's money has done the talking. Her mother-in-law won't take her calls, won't answer the door. The neighbor threatens to call the police on her.
It's when she gets home and finds an envelope that he's ruined her completely. Fabrications, she knows, but her husband is good at his job. Photographs of Mai with bruises, cuts - all manipulations, but the note attached reads “I'll tell them you did this. Don't come looking.”
There's no explanation given, no reason. He's just gone. Mai's just gone. She can't bring herself to call her parents, not yet. What could she even say? How could she begin to explain something she cannot understand?
She remembers the call center, though. Remembers how he'd spoken about it in that detached way when they'd met up that day. Izumi doesn't know how she gets there - it's nearly 2:00 in the morning and he's there, sitting in one of his Think Twice shirts trying to help someone with their computer.
All she gets out when he tosses off the headset to greet her is “I think I want to kill myself.”
--
He takes off a day from work, then another, before calling in to quit. He sleeps on her couch. At the very least her husband has left her the couch. Mai's room sits empty, as if she'd never existed, and Izumi aches, remembering the baby growing inside of her. How she'd hushed her cries, changed her diapers, helped her with homework. Why had he waited so long to do this?
Toru keeps her alive, forcing her to play card games and cooking for her. She doesn't sleep, instead watching him on the couch. He cries in his sleep - is it for Kaori still or is it for her now? He reminds her with each passing day that they have to fight. He's saved up enough money from his job to travel, and she has small savings. Mai's college money. They'll go anywhere. They will find where he's taken her child.
“We'll get her back,” Toru says every day. “Stay in this world for her.”
If she sees her husband, she may kill him. She'll do anything, she vows, as Toru helps her regain her strength, regain her resolve. Finally, she's strong enough that he leaves her alone during the day - he works at the call center again part-time, and she spends her days making phone calls. Gets in touch with the one person she wished never to speak to again.
Kashiwagi Kyoko is a murderer.
But she is also a mother.
It takes a month to find an address in America that may or may not be legitimate. Kashiwagi's contacts are not what they were when she was on trial. But it's the most solid lead she's found, and when she gets home, even Toru comments that she looks different.
In her joy, she falls against him. She's exhausted. Mentally, physically, but his hands on her skin are so gentle. She's been living for Mai, but tonight she'll live for herself. Mai deserves a happy mother. His lips kiss away her tears. Where her husband took, Toru gives.
He gives her all of himself.
--
Their hands are linked for most of the flight over, and together they are jumbled nerves and worry. She's compiled what evidence he didn't manage to take away from her - the photographs from her mother's home, Mai's baby book, even wedding photos.
Let him use his false images against her - she's come this far. She won't leave without her daughter. To her shock, it seems her husband is in an American prison - for fraud, breaking several American federal laws. The government of Japan cannot call him home - he erased his existence when he erased Mai's. His tangled web has collapsed in on him.
Mai's in an American foster home. This is the address Kashiwagi-san has uncovered. Perhaps the woman knew all along. Toru straightens her hair and kisses her forehead first. “I'm here.”
She nods and greets her daughter with a warm smile.
“Mama!”
It takes all of her willpower not to collapse in sheer joy when her child's chubby hands wrap around her leg. There is much legal finagling to be done, but an American news reporter takes an interest in her story. Mai is returned, and the flight back to Japan is far less nerve wracking than the flight to America.
-
To ease Mai's readjustment to life in Japan, Toru decides to keep his distance. This lasts all of two days before her daughter is begging for him to stop by.
He stays.