Ruki questions the course of her adulthood, and learns that growing up doesn't have to mean growing apart.
Junctures
Chapter I
"Milestones"
"…Happy birthday, pumpkin."
A hardy thumb grazed her cheekbone, stirring her. Bleary pools of lilac smiled back. "Hi…"
Ruki Makino's sleepy face and fiery red locks that reached just past her shoulders, whimsically lit by the morning light flitting through the blinds, were striking against the white of their tangled sheets. Ryo Akiyama cracked a smile at his sleep-laden wife and the hand that idly ruffled at his russet locks. Rumiko's persistent nagging about the empty state of her daughter's womb be damned, a year of wedded bliss later and waking up like this was still what made it all worth it.
And now she was another year older—didn't sound too bad. What was another year, right? Sure, her consciousness of their ticking mortality aside, the last twenty-nine were almost just a blur now.
"So… Thirty, huh, babe?"
"Thirty," she repeats.
Thirty. Shit.
She emerged from the bathroom later that afternoon shrouded in the steam escaping out the open door clad in just a towel, their modest apartment leaving little room for neither much movement nor decency. Ryo's faded child-star status, the relocation to an expensive capital city and his somewhat-undervalued niche as an author hadn't exactly left much money to split a decent deposit. Among the usual qualms of moving in with a snarky girlfriend, Ruki's existing socioeconomic status was the most nerve-wracking of all—their little one bedder not exactly comparable to her family's impressive estate.
Despite that, there were the obvious perks; she liked the way she could chit-chat with him from the TV set while he was cooking, or read on the couch while he sang in the shower for background noise. He liked the way she would trail off when that dog rescue commercial came up, for the moment deciding not to disrupt the uncharacteristic gentleness with a smartass comment and watching her softening features through the steam erupting from the saucepan instead. It was a far cry from the way it was at her family home, where her grandma would call her name with no reply, her voice disappearing into the vast empty spaces scarcely occupied by its few inhabitants.
All in all, Ruki loved their shoebox home, even if the thin walls did mean they'd have to be a little quieter. Her deadly sarcasm had no urgency for volume anyway.
Ryo sat at the dining table sorting through their mail, flippantly discarding any brochures that came with unless resembling pizza coupons. Even trifling through mail, he looked the very epitome of the male specimen, with his neatly tousled hair and a ribbed grey sweater hugging broad shoulders. He donned glasses when he was required to read nowadays, his entire career spent behind a computer screen now beginning to catch up with both him and his ripe age of thirty-four.
"So I was thinking," Ryo began, curiously cautious, as he opened the last of their mail, "for dinner tonight, that we should invite Kazu."
The name caught her attention. Dinner used to refer to the booze-fest that was once held every week on rotation, now relegated to a once-annual pleasantry if involving the whole lot of them. Somewhere along the way, Henry and Hirokazu had had a falling out that'd been a turning point in their friendship group. They mostly went their separate ways then; Takato and Juri would occasionally drop by with their daughter if she wasn't keeping them thoroughly occupied, as would Kenta during his visits back home from the US where his lab-work was now based.
Henry, however, avoided their apartment building like the plague upon hearing that Kazu had moved in down the hall from the Makino-Akiyamas. They'd go for coffee dates or picnics at the park with his family instead. He'd then quietly excuse himself before conversation veered too close, too specifically, to those particular events that had unfolded eight years ago. Everyone was living quiet lives, devoid of conflict, scandal… and meaningful companionship.
Ruki took it the hardest. Friends didn't come easy for her, and she wasn't quite sure if loneliness was something she would ever outgrow.
Ryo had been instrumental in making sure that everybody kept in touch however, even if it was just with them and not necessarily with each other. They hoped that Kazu would want to reach out too, but even after becoming their jolly neighbour, he tended to keep his distance from the others. Inviting him wouldn't be a terrible idea though. They could be civil for one night, right?
"Look… I know you're trying to get everybody back together for my birthday. And it's… You know. Thanks." He offered a smile in return. "But you're risking a lot of shit hitting the fan if you invite both of them tonight. As much fun as it sounds to join a brawl on my birthday, believe it or not, the others would probably mind. That's on you, Akiyama."
"No, that's on them. Grown adults, responsibilities and consequences for own actions, all that, remember?"
She groaned, significantly more annoyed than she was a moment ago. "Look, I'm thirty today. Just let my transition into unaccomplished loserhood at least be in peace," she spat.
Ryo opened his mouth to reply by reflex, but abruptly stopped in confusion with a cock of his head and an audible huh? Ruki didn't elaborate, plopping back onto the sofa instead. She grabbed her phone to look for a distraction and settled on scrolling mindlessly through her news feed, only to land on a recent post of a certain bespectacled friend.
'Just landed upon the most amazing valley while scouting locations to set up our temporary lab here in Somoto! Something tells me Nicaragua will be good to us! :)'
Kenta Kitagawa, chronically under-appreciated and unlucky in love, now dwarfed a large majority of his peers with his bounty of achievements. He'd joined a distinguished research team to combat Chagas disease in Central America some years back, and never failed to visit home every year loaded with expensive souvenirs for his estranged friends. Even resident cool-cat Ryo was intimidated by his success.
She was happy for him, she really was, but his damned head in front of that beautiful valley had really rubbed her the wrong way. She huffed her aggravation and tossed a defiant foot onto the coffee table. Ryo usually knew what to do—Ruki was an angry girl by nature—but the sass never used to come with this aura of defeat.
He decided empathy would be his leverage. "…I get it, pumpkin," he said, eyes brimming with compassion, "My book wasn't even translated into English 'til I was thirty-one."
"God." Discarding her phone, she snatched a magazine from the end table and aggressively jerked it open to obscure her face. His dumb head was starting to grate on her too.
Ryo, still confused, didn't even know what he did wrong.
"…Hey, do you guys have a hairdryer I could borrow, I need to—woah, hel-lo Ruki! That's a birthday suit indeed!"
Hirokazu Shiota, with his head poking through the door, couldn't stop himself from shamelessly gawking at the towel-clad redhead on the sofa, her towel covering just enough to reveal the full length of her creamy legs.
Ruki, now accidentally immersed in the magazine article she had randomly opened up to in her strife, peered at him from behind the magazine. "Oh fantastic. Could you not just let yourself in whenever you pleased?" She rolled her eyes and put the magazine down before disappearing into the bathroom, muttering something about pervy neighbours and lease terminations.
"I told you that spare key was for emergencies only, dude, not so you could barge in for a hairdryer every time you watch a hair tutorial on YouTube."
"I'm sorry but I've got a date with this really hot girl I met at work and I've got to up my game." His hand did a little glide through the air as he said 'game'. "Not everyone can look like they just walked out of a catalogue, Mr. Square Jaw. Some of us need to put in some effort, you know."
Ryo ignored the comment. 'Really hot girl' usually equated to 'girl with standards miraculously willing to accommodate Kazu' or 'girl, are you sick?' "In the bathroom, first draw on your left. Help yourself, but please, after my wife puts her clothes on, okay?"
Kazu leaned casually on the doorframe, his hair just brushing the top of it. His shoulders broader, tapering into a slim figure, and form much taller, he now towered over most even without the aid of his signature tall hair. "Okie dokie," he obeyed, a smirk wide across his face.
"And no fantasising!"
His hands shot up in defense. "Okay, okay!"
As Kazu waited for Ruki to dress, Ryo took the opportunity to ask him about the other pressing matter.
"Hey, Kazu… That date wouldn't happen to be tonight, would it?"
"Nah, Monday. Why?" Kazu read Ryo's hesitation and knew right away. He took a deep breath, and exhaled in a sigh. "Look… I've told you guys… I'm just—I'll take you guys out tomorrow night like I always do. Ain't that enough?"
"It's not just that though, it's—" Ryo's voice died down to a whisper, gesturing to the closed bathroom door. "—She's taking the whole 'turning thirty' thing a little hard. Can't you just be there for her?"
"You think I can't hear you?" Ryo and Kazu both turned to face the now-clothed Ruki, her eyes narrowed at her spouse. "It's not about me. It's Henry."
Kazu's lack of protest authorised her to continue.
"He's getting divorced."
Silence.
"And he's losing his son," she added quietly.
Ryo shot her a disapproving look at the slipped detail. Kazu stayed silent, an occasion rare enough to note. They watched warily for his next words.
"…Good."
Despite already knowing how petty it made him seem, confirmed by his best friends' evident disappointment, it was all Kazu could muster. Ryo almost made a move to object—this wasn't the Kazu that they knew to love. Despite the beloved pastime of taunting his many comical downfalls, he was a gentler soul than all of them combined. Albeit quietly, he and Ruki had that in common, and it was that which made their bond so strong.
"I'll think about it, okay?" He quickly said, before the guilt had a chance to set in. "But I'm letting you guys know that it's probably a no."
That was good enough for now. "Ruki'll kick your ass if you don't."
"Well," Hirokazu snickered, "We're all used to those threats by now," he said, eliciting in a hearty laugh from his buddy.
Lilac eyes rolled. "Hilarious."
He let himself into the bathroom to take the hairdryer, but as he came out they invited him to join their Saturday laze-about instead. Gladly taking up their offer, Kazu flopped onto their sofa as Ryo made another joke at Ruki's expense (and revolt), and he momentarily thought back to a time many years ago. He may not have been the same guy that used to smoke behind the gym while rattling off about the girls in his class, but he was sure that the blue-haired pal that used to accompany him in a panic about getting caught would still be the stand-up guy he'd always been.
Hirokazu quickly chastised himself for the thought—whoever he thought Henry was, nothing had changed the fact that Kazu was betrayed in the most spectacular and embarrassing of ways at his hands. He wasn't about to forgive him, even if there suddenly was something at the back of his mind that nagged at him constantly.
He checked his watch, then kicked himself for even considering going to the dinner. As much as Kazu begged for the divorce to feel like sweet victory, he just wasn't that kind of guy. He wasn't Henry, and he was going to prove it.
To be continued