Notes: thanks a ton to chibidumpling1198 for the betaing! Haha, I honestly never would have gotten this done without you~
Warnings: abuse, mentions of abusive relationship
People make bad choices all the time. It's one bad choice after another. They just keep coming until someone's six feet under and they don't have any choices left to make.
Or, at least, that's how it feels.
Imagine this: a pretty, smart girl with a bright future meets a guy- a smart, handsome guy- who she swears up and down is her soulmate. Her father likes him, thinks his daughter's new boyfriend is the type of guy he'd like to take care of her: rich, educated, treats her well. Her mother, of course, doesn't like him. She gives him nervous, suspicious looks when he comes to pick up her daughter for dates. She sighs with worried eyes when another package- another gift- is delivered to the door. The daughter doesn't care what anyone thinks. This is love- that's how she feels about it.
The daughter dates the man for a suitable amount of time. One year, two years, three years. Sometimes, she doubts that this is the one, but those doubts are so small and quiet she can hardly hear them over the love she holds for him. That overwhelming feeling of love that always comes with a first love drowns out all the warning signs and red flags. He seems the same as he was at the start. Maybe a little more distant, maybe a little meaner, maybe a little more cynical. But, people mature, right? That was how she wrote it off.
The wedding is a nice thing. There's certainly a lot of pretty flowers. There definitely isn't a bride getting cold feet in a back room, listening to a maid of honor telling her that it's natural, that their marriage will be amazing, that, if the two of them can't make it, what hope do the rest of them have? There also isn't a groom hooking up with a bridesmaid in a back room, getting red lipstick on his collar, feeling surprisingly not guilty for cheating on his future wife mere moments before the two of them say their vows with as much enthusiasm and love as they can muster for someone who they love much less now than they did before.
The first few years are alright. The house is beautiful- nice and airy and comfortable with room for future children to scramble around energetically- and she spends most of her time not at work but in the kitchen, pouring all of her energy into making beautiful, yummy meals. It takes a long time to overcome her ability to ruin any and all food; she was never a good cook. Giving people things she cooked was always more of a punishment than a treat. Slowly, though, she learns how to cook well. After spending so much time watching those cooking shows, it would be really sad if she could still only boil eggs- and that was just occasionally.
She pointedly ignores the late hours her husband stays out and never asks about the perfume she smells on him or the lipstick stains on his collar. She's not stupid. Her job is to be observant and collect information and reason her way to an answer. It's not like she doesn't know. But, what is she supposed to say? 'Why am I not enough?' 'Why don't you love me anymore?' 'Did you ever really love me?' 'Am I just yours for appearances?' What would asking him do? Just confirm her suspicions and make it impossible for her to stay with him? So, she doesn't. She keeps quiet and learns how to cook and tells her friends at work that everything is just peachy.
The baby is a surprise. A good, happy surprise, but still a surprise. An unexpected result from a scheduled moment of intimacy from two people who don't love each other- but a good, unexpected result. She finds herself sitting and smiling down at her belly and stroking her baby bump more and more frequently. She'd always thought having children would be fun, but her dreams of being a mother have slowly been fading along with her dreams of a happy marriage. Her husband doesn't say much when she tells him the good news. He starts working even later.
She starts 'nesting'. She paints one of the empty rooms a pretty blue color- blue like the sky, blue like her husband's hair. She sits on the floor, staring down at instructions, and wastes hours trying to construct a crib. She watches over the installation of carpet on the hardwood floor of the baby's room; everyone on the internet in mom chat rooms insist that you need carpeting if you don't want a constantly bruised baby. She's really gotten into the mommy chat rooms recently- she's got all those baby books piled up by her side of the bed in her bedroom, too.
The whole giving birth deal isn't something she would ever like to repeat, she discovers soon enough. Sure, she ends up with a beautiful baby boy who looks just like his father, but it's painful and she ends up all alone in the hospital, her parents out of the country on a trip, her friends unreachable, and her husband uncaring.
Soon enough, though, she realizes she doesn't care very much about her husband at all.
Her son- Tetsuya- is adorable and everything she ever wanted; he's a quiet baby, but very ticklish, and he has the most delightful laugh. She puts his playpen in the kitchen most days and he switches between watching her cook with big, round, blue eyes and smashing his toys together with sweet, ridiculous little sound effects. Her husband tells her to quit her job, they have enough money without her job anyways, and it would be stupid to waste money on daycare- so she does. Not for him, but for her adorable little Tetsuya.
Six years later, six years of her useless, cheating husband and his verbal, emotional, and occasionally physical abuse, six years of her beautiful baby boy growing up, and she's here, sitting with a black eye on the living room couch, wondering what she can possibly do at this point. No job, no money of her own, no way to leave.
No way to stay either though.
"Mama?" Tetsuya's voice is concerned. "Shh, shh, Tetsuya. We have to be quiet, okay?" Satsuki presses a finger to her lips and gives him an encouraging smile. Once she's sure Tetsuya isn't going to make any noise, she pads over to his dresser, roughly shoving random articles of clothing into a duffle bag. Her eyes settle on a picture resting atop the dresser: it's the three of them at an amusement park, all cuddled up together like they're a real family.
She flips the picture around and drops a few of Tetsuya's toys into the duffle bag.
"Sweetie, could you change out of your jammies and into these? Make sure not to be noisy and put your jammies in the bag when you're done. Mommy will be right back, okay?" The tiny, blue-haired boy bobs his head in understanding. Satsuki feels her chest constrict; they could stay. They could- and she could, she doesn't know, give Hideo an ultimatum- she doesn't have to do this-
Satsuki ignores the path of her thoughts. They're leaving. No ifs, ands, or buts. Tetsuya quietly gets out of his bed- his big boy bed with the blue sheets with little cute sheeps on them- and dutifully pulls off his red and blue train pajamas. There's a bruise on his ribcage.
She makes her way through the hallway towards the bathroom, thanking whatever God is up there that she hasn't used the master bathroom in years, because if she had to go back into that room with Hideo lying unconscious on the bed, she knows something bad would happen. What exactly would happen, she doesn't know. Satsuki just knows it would be another roadblock in the way of getting herself and her baby out of there.
The bathroom is an experience. Who knew using plastic bags to bag toiletries was loud as hell? She winces as she opens every bag and as she closes every bag, trying not to think about what will happen if the stupid snapping plastic bags wake up Hideo. What is a five minute job of packaging the toothbrushes and toothpaste and razors and shampoo and soap turns into a twenty minute job with at least five extra minutes of panicking. Satsuki dumps the bags into one of those oversized beach bags that every mom seems to own twenty of before moving to the cabinet below the sink. She reaches behind the bottles of lotion and sunscreen and other assorted crap, pulling out the two boxes of hair coloring. Those go in the bag with a few hand towels, and then she's carefully walking through the hallway, avoiding the random creaky spots.
Tetsuya is sitting on his bed, lacing up his sneakers, when she gets back. Unsurprisingly, he figured out that they were leaving. "Good job, baby. Clothes in the bag?" He nods and stands up, ready to leave. Satsuki produces two hats from her beach bag, placing one on her son's head and the other on her own, pulling her ponytail through the back of it.
"Can you carry this?" Tetsuya dutifully takes the beach bag and drapes it over his small frame, letting the strap fall across his body. "Okay. We're off then."
For some reason, it's not hard leaving the house. Satsuki was anticipating some more panicking and worry and wondering if it was really worth it- but she feels none of those things. Maybe a little regret, for taking her son out of the place he grew up in, but besides that, she feels nothing for that house or her husband or her life there.
Riko is sitting in her car when they reach the meeting place. It's a five minute walk from their house, by the park with the rusted swing set. "Hey." Emotions are welling up again and Satsuki feels like she's choking on all the gratitude she feels for Riko. She's a coach at the rec center Tetsuya goes to for basketball. She's also the only person Satsuki could ask for help with her plan. "Hey. Get in, I don't have all night." Satsuki nods and stuffs Tetsuya into the back seat with the duffel bag and his dog plushie that she somehow remembered at the last second. He would've been a real handful without his plushie. It keeps him calm whenever they travel.
She slides into the passenger seat and Riko turns the key in the ignition, scowling as her old junk heap gurgles to life. "Sorry for, you know, all of this-"
"Satsuki. It's fine." There's a weird feeling in her chest. It's been awhile since someone called her anything besides 'Kuroko-san'. "Thanks, Riko-chan."
"Yeah, yeah. Let's just get to the train station before you thank me."