How I Stole Your Mother (IzukuxMitsuki)

V: Wall Of The Past

Mitsuki: So you've decided what you want to do with the house then?

Masaru: Yeah, we're just waiting for you to get here so I can share with everybody. How far are you?

*taptaptap*

Mitsuki: Just got off the train and heading over there now. I'll be there in a few minutes.

*tap*

With her thumb tapping the send button to deliver her message a deep but shaky breath was inhaled through Mitsuki's nostrils as she pocketed her phone into the purse hanging by her left shoulder, an uneasy exhale streaming through the tiny opening of her mouth. A sickly feeling churned like rough butter in the core of her body, the world around her feeling as if every object suddenly had a pair of eyes and were watching the woman walk down the street on her return to the home she once loved for so long. Key word, once, for now it was a home of barren memories, and broken dreams.

Today was a day that she had been dreading so long of it's existence, stemming all the way back to even before she and Masaru said their vows to each other. If the former husband has decided to do what she thinks he's going to do with their former home, then it is the just and true signal that she has failed the promise that her younger self had made about twenty or so years ago. The promise that she would never allow anything or any event separate her ideal vision of a family no matter how dim the world may seem. A promise that she's been thinking of for so long since her late high school years, a promise forged from her own experience of when her family had been separated during her adolescence. But like glass as precious and delicate as it was, it shatters so easily.

For the entirety of her shift today the dread loomed over her head, every minute her eyes glancing up to the clock in her office wishing nothing about the situation was real. But wish as she might, it was as real as can be. Unfortunate events have stacked like dominoes to form the unfortunate outcome that the home she once loved and resided may in fact undergo the drastic change she feared it would. It's a difficult pill to swallow but, despite the difficulty in accepting what it will soon become, it's a pill she knows she must come to terms with at some point in her life. How easy the prospect of death must be, knowing how difficult life can be at times.

Traversing through these neighborhood blocks she remembers the path back home like it was the back of her hand. It was something that became a constant on her mind following the divorce after all. Not the path itself rather, the memories of it. She could see it now, a vivid image of her previous self walking alongside a younger Katsuki after picking him up from school, the two making a right turn at this upcoming intersection and continue straight for only three blocks exactly. Then from there, they would cross the street at a T-Shaped intersection where there home was only five units away from the crosswalk. From the fourth unit they could see the roof of their house reaching into the sky, by the third being able to see the front of the garden that was once tended to on a daily basis. By the second and first the images of mother and son began to fade into what no longer is as their duty of guiding Mitsuki back to where she once belonged was fulfilled.

Leaving the former housewife to stand completely by her lonesome in front of the house she once lived in for so long.

Change. So much feels as if it's changed but at the same time, it feels as if nothing has changed in even the slightest manner. The garden out front that was once under her care looked the exact same as the last time she it, probably due to Masaru's need of finding something to keep himself from thinking about what's happened to his family. Mitsuki feels pity in wondering just how much of a failure he must feel when it came to being the man of the house. Seldom was it that he spoke about their son after his death but, she knew. She knew their son was the only thing on Masaru's mind day in, day out. Night in, and night out. She knew.