Work Text:
It happened two weeks ago.
Satoru could only imagine what it felt like.
For you.
He tried to picture the scene of it.
Light turning green.
Your car pulling off.
The headlights from your left.
The horns honking.
The car spinning.
Your life ending.
He tried to emulate the panic you must have felt burning in your chest.
Tried to recreate the lack of air in his lungs.
He held his breath, tightening his core and kept his lips pressed together as the seconds passed by. He tried not to breathe through his nose, making sure to press his windpipe shut in his chest.
It didn’t work for him.
But it worked for you.
He tried to forget the sound of his phone ringing blatantly on the train.
It was loud and disturbing to the other passengers.
Satoru remembered apologizing silently to them as he answered, pressing the little device to his ear.
And then his apologies didn’t mean anything as he pushed through the crowd.
He didn’t give a damn who he disturbed as he was eager to get off at the next stop.
It’s been hard, you know.
Waking up to sunlight and silence.
Juxtaposing concepts, they were.
The sun glowed through the windows of your shared apartment.
Reminding him that he was alive.
The silence suffocated him within the sheets of your shared bed.
Reminding him that you weren’t.
As if he could forget.
As if he could forget the numerous calls he had to make after your passing.
Telling your family you wouldn’t be coming to visit for the holidays.
Cancelling your weekend dinners with your friends.
Calling your place of work to tell them to take you off the payroll.
That was tough, Satoru thought.
He wasn’t just telling people your life was gone, he was also writing himself out of it.
He couldn’t just visit your parents house anymore.
He no longer had to act cordial with your friends.
Your job wasn’t expecting him to show up and take you home.
Your death meant two existences were being erased.
He tried to live normally, really, he did.
For months afterwards, he tried to drag himself out of bed and go to work.
He’d get dressed normally, ignoring the unlabeled boxes of your clothes in the corner.
He’d eat breakfast normally. Not the kind you used to make him because he, regrettably, never took the time to learn how.
He’d ride the subway normally. Partially out of fear of the roads for obvious reasons.
He’d go to work absentmindedly and come home even more so.
Eventually though, he realized he wasn’t grieving.
He was coping.
Coping with the fact that your favorite show was still airing but you weren’t here to watch it.
Coping with the fact that he had to go grocery shopping alone now without you nagging him to eat less sweets.
Coping with the fact that he could no longer roll over in bed at the end of a long day and complain about it while you pressed pretty kisses across his skin.
Hell, Satoru wasn’t even coping.
He was drowning in the absence you forgot to take with you.
Like you left the loneliness here intentionally just so he’d never forget.
How could you?
You got it easy, he told himself one day.
You died but he had to live with it.
He had to experience your death months after it happened.
After you left.
How could you?
Satoru took your pictures down eventually.
He told himself it was a step towards healing.
It wasn’t.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t be splayed out on your side of the bed.
All your smiles, and laughs immortalized behind a thin pane of glass.
Decorating your half with feelings he’d never get back.
At one point, he fell on his knees by your nightstand and held one of you at the fair to his chest. He cried hard as he hugged, wishing, begging, praying that you’d slip out of the frame and hug him and kiss him and tell him it’d be alright.
It had to be.
He couldn’t afford for it not to be.
Eventually, Satoru couldn’t afford your apartment anymore.
He had to pack up more than just your clothes.
More than just your dishes and appliances.
More than just your toiletries and cleaning supplies.
More than just the memories you burned into his skin.
Satoru locked the door for the last time.
But it didn’t help.
He asked himself if you would like the new place.
He imagined the color scheme you’d choose for the living room, what curtains you’d pick, the furniture you’d buy.
He gave up on painting the walls after that.
Satoru couldn’t stop himself from thinking back to it.
The moment he saw you.
Limp in the hospital bed, body mangled and tangled in remnants of life.
He tried to be with you, tried to tell you it'd be okay.
That you'd be okay.
But you flatlined before the doctors could fully usher him out.
You left him.
You left him.
He reiterated.
Everyday.
Every fucking day he told himself that.
For months he was angry.
Upset.
Heartbroken.
Disappointed.
Angry with the driver who wasn't paying enough attention and cost you the rest of forever.
Upset with the world for allowing someone like you to be taken from him.
Heartbroken because he could no longer call your name down the hall and hear you coming.
Disappointed because he still found little reasons to blame you.
To say it was your fault the ramen he made was too salty.
You were the one who kept up with his health.
It was your fault he spent more days running late for work.
You always managed to get him out of bed on time.
It was your fault he never went out with friends anymore.
You always reminded him he needed a well rounded social circle.
How could you do this to him?
How could you leave him?
How could he let you leave?
You were rushing that day, he knew it.
You had a big event at your job that day and you'd been panicking over it for weeks.
He still remembers the way you kissed him goodbye.
The sound of your voice as you told him you'd see him later.
Why didn't he stop you?
He was happy for you, proud of you, and yet.
Somewhere in him.
Some voice in the back of his skull asked him why he didn't stop you.
Why he didn't save you.
Why he let you die.
That was his fault.
Not yours.
He decided that a year and a half in.
It was his fault he couldn't visit your parents anymore.
He thought there was no reason to hold onto a connection that wasn't there.
Same with your friends.
How was he supposed to enjoy a moment with them when you couldn't do the same?
How was he supposed to do anything without you?
He couldn’t eat, sleep, or breathe without you.
Couldn't wake up without you.
Couldn't feel without you.
Couldn't exist without you.
And yet.
The moment you died, the universe forced him to do just that.
You died for a moment of time and suddenly, the world had no room for you.
Suddenly, Satoru was expected to shrink the space you'd sculpted into his life.
Like you were a balloon full of air he was watching deflate.
Even if all the air was vacuumed out, the rubber shell was still there.
You were still there.
There.
He saw you one day, walking out of an ice cream shop.
You were with people he didn't recognize.
And then you were gone again.
He saw you a few days later delivering mail.
But that wasn't you either.
Where were you?
You were supposed to be here.
You were supposed to attend this party with him.
He told everyone you would.
Last year.
You even went shopping for matching outfits.
You let him pick the color.
Your favorite.
He couldn't bring himself to wear his outfit.
But before he left, laid both of yours out on the bed.
And when he came back, he put his on and went to sleep.
He saw your friend today.
The one you spent half the day on the phone gossiping about your favorite show with.
They were coming into the same store as him.
They smiled at him when they met.
Satoru thought your friend looked like him.
Still grieving over a loss they weren't ready to lose.
They suggested therapy.
Satoru gasped.
Therapy for him?
He was fine.
He was not.
He was moving on.
He was not.
He was gett–
He couldn't even tell that lie.
He took the offer that day.
Hoping that it would help.
Hoping it would fix the pieces of himself that broke in the crash.
He wanted someone to look at the shards and tell him they knew how to fix it.
The past two years, he thought he was doing it for himself.
But he wasn't.
All he did was look at the shards and pretend a brand-new replacement was on the way.
It wasn't.
He didn't know how to explain that to his therapist but somehow, they already knew.
They knew Satoru wasn't being honest with himself.
He wasn't being honest with the situation.
Pushing it off, pretending like he was better than he actually was.
Pretending he didn't break every time a piece of spam mail came to the apartment with your name on it.
Pretending he didn't still know your usual order at your favorite restaurant.
Pretending like time had healed all his wounds.
If anything, it made them worse.
Reminded him that no matter how many days had passed, you still weren't there to tell him “Happy Midnight” at the stroke of 12.
His therapist told him it was okay.
What was okay?
Your death or himself because neither of those were ‘okay’.
Both were far from it.
It would take another year without you for Satoru to learn some semblance of ‘okay’.
For him to be fine with going grocery shopping alone.
For him to finally decide between metallic seaweed or hooker green for the walls.
It would take another twelve months for him to smile again.
It happened at a dinner his friends forced him to go to.
Your friends were there too.
Satoru was happy to know he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t forget.
Your lunch buddy told the group about a new dish they found, one they figured you would’ve enjoyed.
Another one of your friends said they found a new store you would’ve loved.
Satoru told them he found a movie you might’ve cried over.
Everyone started laughing.
Then they started crying.
Would you scold him for crying?
Or would you smile for him finally feeling something in his hollow chest?
Maybe you’d do both.
Maybe you’d do both.
He got a new job.
One that pays better so he can afford to buy a new car too.
He still can’t drive it though.
Your favorite show stopped airing the other day.
Don’t worry.
He recorded them all for you on the VHS your parents bought you for your anniversary.
Maybe one day he’ll be ready to watch them.
Not today though.
Today, he was meeting his therapist again.
Said he should try getting rid of some of your stuff.
He wanted to leave immediately.
But he didn’t.
He asked why and his therapist said to help move on from you physically.
Then he was confused.
He wasn’t going through counseling so he could move on.
He was doing it so he could be better.
Maybe those are the same things.
He probably couldn't tell at the time.
Just assumed he was still allowed to hold onto you.
Still allowed to keep your favorite jacket and your favorite beanie and your favorite right sock. He held onto the pen you always used to sign checks and the sticky notes you pressed against the fridge to remind him of his appointments.
He couldn’t get rid of the bag you used to carry your laptop when you wanted to work away from home. Surely, he couldn’t throw away the blanket you always used when he forced you to watch horror movies with him.
How could he get rid of anything when everything reminded him of you?
Oh.
That’s…
That’s why.
Satoru threw away one of your paperclips and his chest broke.
Everyday for three months, he threw away one of your paperclips.
And then when he ran out of paperclips.
He started tossing your pencils.
That was three weeks.
Four months of getting rid of your safety pins and another two of disposing of your highlighters.
Soon enough, the desk he’d brought with him–the one you always sat at when it was too rainy to leave–had been cleared of everything.
Save for the split in the wood where he stubbed his toe and the wet cup ring where you put a cold smoothie he made you.
He moved onto the bathroom.
Spent three months getting rid of your combs, brushes, bodywashes, and loofahs.
Two months clearing out the kitchen of all your weird contraptions.
Seven months for the closet.
Eventually.
Eventually.
Traces of you were gone.
He moved apartments, sure, but he forced you to move with him so he had no reason to let you go.
All was for naught, it seems.
Satoru couldn’t deny the weight that settled on his shoulders; the despair of knowing you’d never use a paperclip to mark your spot in a book again.
He’d never get to watch you comb through and groom your hair to sit just the way you like it.
He’d never get to come back to the apartment to the smell of you trying some new recipe.
And yet.
Some part of him.
Was okay with that.
Not entirely, of course, but he was comfortable not seeing your signature bodywash sitting inside the shower anymore.
He was comfortable with no longer having to shuffle through your clothes in the closet just to find his own.
He was comfortable knowing.
That things were getting better.
He saw your parents again.
At a wedding, ironically.
A friend of his and a friend of yours.
Friends of friends and friends of family.
Your parents hugged him.
He knows you know.
Your mom smiled at him like she always did.
Asked him how he was doing and everything.
Your father shook his hand.
Told him it’d been a while and asked when he’d be back.
Back?
Was he allowed to?
There was nothing tying him to them anymore.
Sure, you were together for a good six or seven years beforehand, but Satoru had never pursued anything further within your relationship.
He was content with being yours, as were you.
Neither of you felt the urge to push it to the next level, happy with just being together.
So no, Satoru never gave you his last name.
No matter how much he wishes he could.
Maybe that would’ve hurt more, though.
He never promised anything more than him waking up at your side in the mornings and falling asleep there at night too.
He didn’t need to.
You were his and he was yours.
Your family was his and his family was yours.
You shared the same friends, same house, same life.
Maybe it was reasonable to come back.
To visit your parents again.
After all, Satoru had lost you same as them.
It’s been five years now.
Five years without you.
Five years of being okay.
Of being better.
Should it take someone five years to forget about a death?
No, not at all.
And no, Satoru hadn’t forgotten about you.
Never.
He simply learned how to live without you.
He learned how to check the mailbox without expecting the monthly subscription to your favorite manga anthology magazine.
He learned how to go out for dinners with his friends without leaving an empty chair at his side and accidentally ordering a second serving just for you.
He even learned how to date again.
Don’t be mad.
Would you be mad?
It was one time.
He wasn’t going to do it initially, still holding onto the remnants of you.
But his therapist recommended he put himself back out there.
Your friends too.
Even your parents told him he deserved to be happy.
He wanted to be happy with you.
No one could ever replace you.
Satoru knew that all too well.
But maybe he’d cleared out enough of the despair in his heart that he could make room for someone else.
Someone he could share companionship with.
Would you like them?
They like to bake a lot.
In fact, they really like eating. Cooking meals often and trying new restaurants.
It’s nice.
Being able to laugh kind of like he used to.
It’s not the same laugh he used to have with you.
That’s just for you.
But it’s just as warm and it helps him.
Maybe Satoru can’t get over you.
Maybe he never will.
But some part of him thinks that it can get easier with time.
That he can learn to love the memories he made with you. He can learn to love the space you made between the lines of his life. He can learn to live onwards knowing that you aren’t truly gone.
You’re still in his heart–in everyone’s heart, everyone who knows you.
It happened six years ago.
Satoru could only imagine what it felt like.
For you.
p.s. I found your old cookbook yesterday. I might try my hand at a recipe. Your favorite. Wish me luck.