Masami had made a mistake.
Pure and simple she had made a mistake. That was all. She had toed the line of sweet intoxication too closely and crossed it. She hadn't set off to cross it. One touch led to another which led to a kiss and she knew that she should have stopped, the smart thing to do would have been to stop, but she hadn't. She had not been kissed like that in so long…and she wanted more. She hadn't thought of her children sleeping in their beds, of the ring on her finger, of the fact that she had been in the bed that she had shared with her husband. None of that even began to cross her mind. No. She had been selfish and she had made a mistake.
One that did not just affect her.
"Mom, is Fukuda coming today?" asked Mob as she tugged on mom's nightshirt. She was in her pajamas during the day again. That meant that she was getting sick again. Mob knew that she should not have been happy when mom got sick, that was not the way to be at all, but when mom got sick that meant that Fukuda was coming.
She hadn't seen him in days.
Which had been normal, before, but was not normal now because he used to come over every single day. Now it had been three days and he hadn't been to their house even once. The house was bigger without him, and sadder to, and Mob did not like that. Neither did Sho. It was one thing to make Mob upset but making Sho upset was crossing a line it felt like.
"Shigeko….go play with Sho, ok? I'm not feeling well today." Said Masami. She made an effort, a concentrated effort, not to be short with her daughter. She reminded herself that Shigeko was only six. She had no idea what Masami was going through and was not trying at all to push her mother's buttons. She was six.
"But I want to play with Fukuda. He used to come by all the time and now he's not. Is he mad at us? Did we do something? If we did can you tell him that we're sorry? I just…I want him to come back. Sho does, too." Said Mob. Maybe mom would listen if she told her how much Sho wanted Fukuda to come back. Sho was mom's favorite after all.
"Fukuda….he has his own life, Shigeko, ok? He has his own things to do and can't be at our family's beck and call, ok? So, please, just go play with Sho." said Masami
"Can we play Wii?" asked Mob after a moment. She liked videogames and she liked Sho…and she liked Fukuda, too. She wished that mom would have just come out and told her what happened.
"Yes, yes, that's fine., just go" Said Masami. Her daughter went about her business then, something which Masami was very grateful for. The children…how could she have done that to the children. She was a married woman. She had a family. She hadn't been thinking…but she had thrown it all away just the same. She had thrown everything away.
This house felt like a castle, a cage, a gilded cage but it was still her home and this was still her family.
She had thrown it all away. All of it. Touichirou…he could never know. He had a temper and he had never given her any indication that he would hurt her…but he could have. He so easily could have. She had never been afraid of him before…but she had never done anything to him to make him feel afraid before, either. She had always…she had always tried to make the best of it. The best of him. But now…she had no excuse for what she had done. There was no excuse and there was no telling Touichirou…he could never find out. That would not have been good or anyone, anyone at all. Especially the children. She had to think of the children.
She could hear them playing, now, and she wondered once again how she could have done this to them.
She was in the kitchen, now, and it was cold and quiet. Fukuda had been helping her make dinner these past few nights. She had thought that he was just doing it to make sure that dinner got made in the first place. That had all gone out the window the other night. He helped her make dinner because he had wanted to be with her. That had cinched it. He had said that he wanted to be with her, to spend time with her, and that had been the end of it. Nobody, no man at least, had ever expressed such an interest in spending time with her.
Touichirou couldn't get away from her fast enough, it seemed.
He was due back, soon, and she knew that he wouldn't even have time to unpack before he was off to the races once again. She had no idea what it was that he did but whatever it was it must have been a hell of a lot more important to him than her and their family. He didn't care for her, it seemed, beyond what she could do for him. He never expressed longing for her, never said that he missed her, and she had to ask him to kiss her. These were pair bonding experiences, he had said, and he didn't understand why they would need so many pair bonding experiences since they were already a pair.
Were they, still?
The last time they had been together…truly together…it had left her feeling cheap and used and just…tired. Drained. He was so draining sometimes. He had bene draining, then too. So draining that for once she was the one who could not get away fast enough. With Fukuda…it had been much different. She had…Touichirou had been better in a purely mechanical sense. He knew what she liked. He knew her body inside and out and he had his powers, too. Fukuda…it hadn't been planned. It had been new. She hadn't been with anyone new in so, very long….
She hadn't been that selfish in so, very, long.
And she could never have been that selfish again. It could never happen again. It would never happen again. She didn't want it to happen again. She…she did and she did not. She wanted….she didn't even know what she wanted. She wanted to live her life, she supposed, and to live it happily. Fukuda made her happy. The attention, the way he spoke to her like a person, like he wanted to know her as a person, all of the feelings that she had been starved from before. All of it. She wanted that…
But she didn't want to hurt anyone.
She could still hear her children. They were in the living room together. They were so very young. She could not derail their lives. She would not derail their lives. They had a mother and a father and…and their mother and father were both very selfish people. The most selfish people that one could ever imagine. Even now she was away from them and wallowing in her own self-pity. Even now she was leaving them in front of a screen instead of interacting with them. Playing with them. They wanted Fukuda back. They had gotten too used to him, too attached to him, and Masami knew why. Their father was across the water and their mother was an incredibly selfish women. She didn't blame them at all.
"Fukuda!" that had been Shigeko. They were missing him so terribly. She shouldn't have let them get so attached….or she shouldn't have let herself ruin it for them. They missed him and he had only been away for a few days. The time passed longer for them, of course, because they were only children. Small children at that. Shigeko had just now started school and Sho was still in kindergarten. They were too young for all of this.
"Shigeko, what did I say?" asked Masami. She was not prepared to leave the kitchen, not yet. She had a meal to cook and she had a cup of tea in front of her that had grown cold ages ago but she may have been ready to start drinking soon.
"You said that Fukuda was too busy to come by but he's here right now." Said her daughter from the living room. Now this got Masami up and out of the kitchen. She expected to see him at their doorway about to ring the bell. She went to the door and saw no one.
"Shigeko, you shouldn't say things that aren't true." Said Masami with more exasperation than she should have let show. She had even come running. She should not have come running. She should have stayed in the kitchen and gotten started on feeding her children before she gave up and just let them eat cereal again.
"I'm not telling lies, mom, I don't tell lies. I can see Fukuda coming. He's coming here right now. I can see his colors." Said Mob
"Big sis knows." Said Sho. Mom shouldn't have called big sis a liar. Of course she knew, she had powers. Sho wouldn't have been much of a little brother if he didn't defend his sister. Even though she cheated at Wii sports by being really good at it.
"Did you two ask him to come over?" asked Masami. She was not angry with her children and she would not be angry with them. They were only children. Even Shigeko was still a child. She was six years old. A six year old girl with her hair in pigtails and a school satchel as big as she was. She was too young to take a hint, to get a clue, and realize that her mother did not want Fukuda to come around right then.
"No mom, we've been playing Wii all day." Said Mob truthfully. She didn't know why mom had thought that she was a liar, before, because she most certainly did not tell lies at all. She was a sweet girl, a nice girl, like mom was always asking her to be.
"You can play too if you want." Said Sho. Mom was by the door looking out the little window. That seemed so boring. He had thought that mom was feeling better, she had been happy enough to jump on the bed after all, but that happiness seemed to be short lived. She seemed to be getting sick again. She was older and maybe older people just got sick all the time. She wasn't an old person yet, he knew because old people had white hair, but maybe she was just on her way to becoming an old person. That was bad. Dad was always talking about when he died and it made Sho kind of sad….but the thought of mom dying made him feel a million times sadder. This was his mom and she could not die. Who would play with him, then, who wasn't big sis?
"What? No…no, that's fine. You two…you keep playing." Said Masami. She could see him, now, walking down her path. He had a grocery bag with him like normal….and she didn't want…she didn't know what it was that she wanted. She wanted to see him again, to have him around, to have someone around who gave a damn about her…and these were dangerous thoughts to have. To have about him. She was going to, what, play house again? Why not just go out to the kids' play house and make grass and leaf salad and hose water soup while they were at it? That was what they had been doing, playing house, and she knew that she had to put a stop to it. She knew that she had to…to slam the door in his face and tell him to get out of her life. Tell him that he had gotten what he wanted from her and now he could hit the old dusty trail. She had served her purpose to him, what more did he ask for?
He was not Touichirou.
He wanted more from her. He wanted…to her he was…and to him she was…and she didn't know if she wanted to be…this was all just too much! This was too much and she wanted him to turn around and go home! He was always there in her home and her life…and he was…he was…she could not even think it. She could not think something so untrue. He was welcome in her life and he was wanted in her life. Maybe even more so now…
"Mom's being all weird again…..you think she's sick?" said Sho softy, so softly that his mom could not hear. She was just standing there looking out of the door window. He wished that he knew what was wrong so he could fix it. There must have been something he could do. There was always something that he could do.
"I guess so. I mean Fukuda is getting really close to the house and he only comes by when one of us is sick so I guess that she's still sick." Said Mob
"She seemed like she was getting a little better, before." Said Sho
"Maybe she pushed herself too hard and then ended up making whatever was making her sick worse." Said Mob
Masami wanted to tell her children that she was not sick. She wanted to tell them that she was fine and that everything was fine. She wanted to lie to them…her own children…but hadn't she been lying to them for years. Their father didn't…no. These thoughts about Touichirou were not the thoughts that she should have been having. He loved them…in his own way…and he may have been cold and selfish, sometimes, but at least he had never betrayed the family. Everything that he did had been in service to his family.
She was more selfish than Touichirou.
And she was going to continue to be selfish. There was a knock at the door. Masami knew that she could have pretended that nobody was home, she could have told him to go away, she could have pretended, even, that her husband had come back from his trip early….she could have done a lot of things. She had options besides opening the door but….but she still opened the door. Because she was just so, incredibly, selfish.
"Hey." Said Fukuda quietly
"Hey." Said Masami. They stayed like that for a length of time that could only have been called awkward. She wanted him to go. She wanted him to stay. She wanted to run away. She wanted to stay there, with him, until she died of old age. Maybe she would have. She made no move to move out of the way after all. She knew that it was rude, not inviting him in, but inviting him in had been the cause of all of this…no. Her own selfishness had been the cause of all of this. She was selfish to neglect the children as she had and she was selfish to have done that to her family. She and Touichirou were two of a kind, it seemed, two very selfish people that couldn't think past their own wants and needs for more than five seconds.
"Fukuda!" ah yes, the children had noticed. They ran from the TV, abandoning it for the first time in hours and pushed past her to hug Fukuda as best as they could. He dropped whatever it was that he had been carrying but Shigeko caught it with her powers. She didn't even have to do anything at all, she just reached out and caught it.
"I knew you'd come back. Big sis didn't think that you were ever coming back but I knew that you were." Said Sho hugging Fukuda with all that he had. This was great! Now the castle wouldn't be so empty! And maybe, this time, he'd stay the night again but not leave super early in the morning. Fukuda was good at making dinner, maybe he was good at making breakfast too!
"I never said that I thought that he was never coming back." Said Mob. She had been thinking it, yes, but she had never said it. She didn't need to think about that anymore, though, because he was back and now everything was going to be ok!
"Well I'm here now you two, so who wants some dinner? Unless your mom already started it, of course." Said Fukuda. Masami shook her head.
"I haven't started it yet. You can help me." Said Masami in a small voice, once smaller than she had ever used before. It would have been so much easier if he had never come back. She hadn't planned on anything happening, it had just sort of happened, and if she could have closed the book there….it would have been the best. She hoped that he wasn't counting on it happening again because it most certainly would not be happening again that night or ever.
No matter how good it had been.
"Us too!" her children both said at once. Masami shook her head. Their little faces fell…well Sho's did, anyway. Shigeko's was just as impassive as always. She wondered what it would take for her daughter actually emote. A lot, probably, since she took after Touichirou even though they didn't share a drop of blood between them. Hell, maybe she took after Masami, too. Maybe she'd grow up to be short sighted, selfish woman like her mother.
That was what Masami was, shortsighted and selfish.
"Not today, ok? You two just keep playing. You can have unlimited screen time, ok?" asked Masami. That, too, was shortsighted and selfish. She knew that if they spent too much time in front of screens it would only hurt them in the long run. She was good at that, hurting her children in the long run. They did not deserved to have someone so selfish for a mother. They did not deserve to have someone so selfish for a father. They deserved so much better than what she and her husband could be.
Shortsighted and selfish.
It had been shortsighted and selfish to let Fukuda in the house, the kitchen, and to start cooking with him like everything was normal. They cooked in silence. Her prepping her part and him prepping his. She couldn't remember the last time that Touichirou had helped her cook…and she needed to come off it. She needed to…to stop comparing what she had to what she could have had. She needed to take what she had and hold onto it for dear life because it was her life. No, not just her life, but her children's lives as well. She could not derailed their lives.
"Masami-" said Fukuda
"The water's boiling." Said Masami
"I know. I just…I'm sorry about-" said Fukuda
"You should really get that soup going." Said Masami
"I will but-" said Fukuda
"And thank you for the pork. You know how Shigeko loves it. I worry about how pale she is, she might be anemic." Said Masami. The kids. Always steer it back to the kids. The kids were the furthest thing from…from what had happened. She just needed to keep away from what had happened.
"She might just not take UV damage…some espers are like that…but Masami-" said Fukuda
"Sho too, maybe, then but he might just be a ginger." Said Masami
"I…Masami-" said Fukuda
"He does burn up something awful in the sun-" said Masami
"Masami. Stop it. Just….talk to me." Said Fukuda
"We are talking." Said Masami. She didn't look at Fukuda, she kept her back to him, because she knew that nothing good would have come from looking at him. Her back was turned and she had no plans of turning around but a hand on her waist changed everything. He wasn't forceful or mean, his hand just rested there on the curve of her waist and kept nudged her a bit. He didn't order her to turn around, he asked her.
So she turned around.
"About what happened, I mean. I want…I want to talk about what happened." Said Fukuda. He had stayed away for days and he knew that it had been wrong. He'd had his own shit to unpack, there. He knew that he had been attracted to Masami for some time now but this was his boss' wife. Not just his boss but Suzuki Touichirou's wife. He'd hurt people, maimed people, for less. He was not a man one wanted to trifle with…and Fukuda had not set out for anything to happen…it had just happened.
A touch.
A kiss.
And then…everything.
And now they were in this mess together. Telling Touichirou was out of the question unless he had a death wish…and he knew that Touichirou cared for Masami in his own way…but he also could not suffer a traitor to live. The man was powerful, possibly the most powerful amongst all espers, and he knew it. He would not let this slight against him stand. Fukuda had always had fantasies about being with Masami. Her family. These kids…these wonderful kids…but he knew that it could never be…but he had still made his mistakes. She was like a sweet wine and he could not help but overindulge and now…now he had made a mess. A mess that he was fully prepared to own up to.
"I don't see what we have to gain by talking about it. It happened and it can never happen again. I am married. I'm a married woman and you…you work for my husband. What, did you think that I was going to…what, exactly? Make this a regular thing?" said Masami
"No. I know that it can never happen again…and it never should have even happened in the first place. I know that I made….I feel like I made a mistake. I care….I care about you and I know that…that I shouldn't. I know that I didn't just cross a line the other night….I threw up on it…and I am so sorry." Said Fukuda. His hand was still around her waist. She was so beautiful…but she was not his. None of this was his. This woman, this kitchen, those children playing in the living room. This was Suzuki's life….he was just keeping it warm for him.
"I…we both crossed a line and it…it can never happen again." said Masami even though she wanted it to…and that was the absolute worst. The fact that she wanted nothing more in the moment than to kiss him…
"Never again." said Fukuda even though the thought of never again holding her, being with her like that, cut him to the core of his being.
"And…and obviously Touichirou can't know." Said Masami. She'd lose the children. She'd lose…she wanted out. She had thought that she had wanted out but she knew that she would never get out. Not when there were the children.
"Of course not." Said Fukuda. That went without saying. If Suzuki didn't get suspicious then nothing would happen. He…he was not a kind and forgiving man…but he also couldn't see past himself. He never would have even considered his wife or one of his most valued subordinates capable of something like this.
"And…and I'm sorry to have….to have been so selfish. I put you in this position and I…I understand if you don't want to come around here anymore." Said Masami. Now that had that had been around her waist moved up to her back. She was pulled close. The water in the pot on the stove was boiling, the water level was rapidly falling, but neither of them cared. She was…she was enjoying this…and that was wrong. She wanted…she wanted this…and she wanted it from Touichirou…but that was not going to happen. Not unless she asked him to…and even then it would have been stiff and short and awkward. This was…she wanted this so badly. It hadn't been about the sex. It had never been about sex. It was about intimacy…and the fact that it had been so scarce in her life up to this point….
"You…there is nothing about you that could ever be seen as selfish. You are…you are the most selfless woman that I have ever met. You put up with so much….nobody could blame you. I…I'm the one that crossed that line with you. Me. This is my fault…" said Fukuda
"….both of us are at fault here…" said Masami
"I…I guess. Yes, both of us…and…and I understand if you don't want me around anymore. Just…just let me say goodbye to the kids and we can go back to how it was before. One of you gets hurt, you call me, I do my job…and then I leave." Said Fukuda softly. All business. He should have kept it strictly business. He was the Suzuki family on call healer since Suzuki did not trust, or was maybe afraid of, hospitals. That was what he had been hired…taken on…to do and that was what he should have been doing. That was how things were going to have to be from now on-
A finger over his lips.
"No. I don't want that. I want…I like having you here and…and the kids love you to. They need someone stable in their lives…they love you…and I…I enjoy having you around…so stay. Please." Said Masami. There was a silence, a pause, through which only the boiling of a pot and the joyous exclamations from the children in the other room could be heard. She knew that she was being selfish, again, but she…she didn't want to be selfless.
"…alright. I can do that." Said Fukuda. He knew that he was gambling with a loaded gun there but he…he did not care. Maybe he was being selfish. This was not his wife, these were not his children, and this was not his family…
But he could still pretend.
No matter how selfish that made him.