The woman in the mirror had short black hair.

Masami hated it. She hated the bad dye job. She hated the bowl cut bangs. She hated the blunt bob that she had done herself with a pair of kitchen scissors. She hated it. She hated it and she wanted to shave it all off and wait until her hair grew back. It was her hair and she should have been able to do whatever she wanted with it. She shouldn't have had to ruin her hair just so she could live her life. She ruined it and now she looked…

She looked like a stranger.

"What's wrong?" asked Fukuda. He stood in the doorway of the bathroom. His bathroom. This was his apartment. The blinds were all down and the curtains were drawn. Nobody knew she was there. Nobody even suspected. According to Fukuda nobody even suspected him.

He was risking his life for her.

Because he loved her.

"I hate my hair. I hate the cut and the color and just….I hate it! I hate it so much and I just want to shave it off and wait for it to grow back! This is just….not flattering! I look like...like…God, I sound so vain….what the hell is the matter with me…." Said Masami. She was still facing the mirror. She hated this. She hated all of this. She wanted….she didn't hate this enough to want to go back. There was no going back, anyway, even if she wanted to. Even if she wanted to give up this whole plot and just….go back.

Back to what?

Back to her husband. Her husband who was involved in some downright insane shit. Not just shady, they had moved long past shady, and now they were into the realms of cartoonish super villainy. He was honestly planning on gathering enough espers to take over the world with psychic powers…it was insane. It was like he had sat down, watched one of the kids' shows, and thought 'hey, I could get behind that' and just…done it.

According to Fukuda Touichirou had been planning this since middle school…which made an insane amount of sense when she thought about it…..

"Masami, stop it." Said Fukuda

"Why? I sound so vain right now. My husband is hunting me down and I left my kids alone with him and…and I'm here bitching and moaning because my hair looks like something Shigeko would have designed. I'm just…how can I be so vain?" said Masami

"You don't sound vain, you sound scared….but if you really want to shave your head and grow your hair back I can help with that." Said Fukuda. He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. His head rested on her shoulder. She could feel the warmth of him, the everything of him…and she had felt this time and time again and….and this was not about that.

"So you're a cure for baldness, too?" asked Masami. She leaned back against him. She was so starved for….for this. Intimacy. Not even sex, just intimacy. Loving intimacy. Intimacy that she hadn't had to pry out of him. She finally had it…and it would all be over soon. This was not a permanent arrangement by any means. It had been almost two weeks. That was longer than she had ever thought that it would take to…Touichirou was still looking for her.

Why?

He could have any woman he wanted. He could have literally had any woman in Japan but for some reason he was fixated on her. She had no idea why. It wasn't like he loved her. He loved what she did. She was his on call maid and cook and nanny and occasional call girl. He didn't give a damn about her as a person. He didn't give a damn about anyone other than himself. He wasn't sad that she was gone. He was upset that his wife, his possession, had left him. He didn't care about her.

She was amazed that he hadn't just started calling her 'Wife' or whatever at this point.

"If you want me to be. I want you to feel better, Masami, you know that I do…and for the record I don't hate it, the hair I mean. I think it makes you look…distinguished." Said Fukuda. He buried his face in what was left of her hair. It used to go down to her mid back. It was a bob, now, even though she had the wrong face for it…

"So by distinguished you mean 'old'? Because I look at least forty, now." said Masami. She was worried, she was scared, and she hated herself…and probably not because of what she had done to her hair. She hated herself for what she had done to her family…what she was doing to her family…

"You don't look a day over thirty nine. I just mean that you look…is there anything that I can say that will be taken as a compliment?" said Fukuda. Masami reached up and put her hand over his. Compliments…he wanted her to feel good…he wanted her to…he wanted to…Touichirou never complimented her. Not really. He stared at her but he rarely, if ever, said anything nice to her unless she fished for it….

She brought his hand up to her face and kissed it.

"Just wanting to compliment me is enough." Said Masami. He was enough. He had been enough, enough to make her forget….for a time. She still woke up in the middle of the night staring up at his unfamiliar ceiling, a popcorn ceiling, and just…thinking. About how the kids were carrying on…about when she would see Sho again….about what would become of Shigeko….

She didn't want to think about that. About the daughter that she had abandoned.

"Then let me tell you that's your beautiful no matter what color your hair is." Said Fukuda. Masami smiled and kissed his hand again. She was terrible. The worst. She was no better than those women who ran away to be with their lovers….no. She had a good reason to leave and…and she had to good reason to do this…

It wasn't like she'd ever see him again after this.

"I'll let you….just this once." Said Masami. She turned so she was facing him. She took the good with the bad. If she closed her eyes she could have just…erased the past seven years of her life. Erased the years she wasted with Touichirou and replace them with some idealized life with Fukuda. He would have been a good husband. Even if she and the kids would have had to live in his one bedroom apartment at least there would have been love. Love and genuine….genuine feelings. Touichirou…he had no feelings for her. To him she was just a pretty little wind up doll, maybe, one that he could play with whenever he chose and put back on the shelf when he got bored. He was her husband and…and she didn't…she didn't want to be his wife anymore.

So this was ok.

"Only once? Are you sure about that, Masami?" asked Fukuda in a tone that made her heart forget how to do it's job, how to play it's part, or maybe it was playing it's part far too well. She knew what he was doing. He was distracting her, trying to make her feel better, trying to take her mind off of all of it. The fact that she had to disappear. The fact that she wouldn't see her son again for God only knew how long. The fact that she would never see her daughter again…all of it.

He was trying to pacify her worries with kisses and cuddles.

And it was working.

"Yes, any more than that and it wouldn't be sincere." Said Masami. She let him pacify all of her problems with kisses and cuddles. She let his hands roam her back, she let her hands roam across his. This was….she was selfish. She was selfish for doing this and she was selfish, too, for leaving the way she did. She should have tried harder. She should have found some way to at least take Sho with her…but she just…there hadn't been enough time. Touichirou had her stalked at the best of times but he really went all out, it seemed, when he was out of the country…and he would be out of the country again soon. It could have been fall or even winter by the time he came back again. By then it would have been too late to disappear with the children. School will had started, for one thing, and the weather would have turned, too.

It was hard travelling with two children in the cold.

It was hard to travel with two children end of discussion.

"You know that I'll always be sincere towards you, Masami." Said Fukuda. He kissed her, then, lightly. It was on her to kiss him back, to tell him to continue, or to take a step back. That was how it had been the first time. After they had carried the kids off to their beds. When their eyes met in the dark. He was the one to kiss her but she had been so drunk on sweet intoxication that she had been the one to lead him to her bed…

And here they were.

A pair of idiots in love.

"I know." Said Masami. She did not take a step back. She was an idiot like that, a selfish idiot of a woman. She was making this whole thing worse. They would part soon. They would have to part soon. Touichirou was moving the search outside of the city, which was good, but she could not stay here. She could not put Fukuda's life in any more danger than it already was. Touichirou….he was not a man to cross…apparently.

She had no idea what he did to people who not only slept with his wife but helped her plan her escape, too…and she did not want to find out.

She knew that the smart thing to do would have been to stop. They were going to part ways, soon. Her on a train to parts unknown and him…him back to her husband's side. Touichirou would be going abroad again and that would be the time to get Sho to her. There was no way in hell that he was going to take Sho with him. Shigeko, probably, because apparently he had decided that as the next family member with a vagina she was the one who the onus of caring for the house and the family fell onto. She was only seven years old…but there was no way to get her away from Touichirou. There was no way to hide her. Apparently her aura shone bright as a Christmas tree at the best of times…and she was also totally and completely loyal to her father. Touichirou had been good to her all of these years…not like how he had been to Sho…

Masami still did not know the full of what it was that Touichirou did to their son.

But she knew that Fukuda got called to her house to fix a broken nose.

Sho would be…Touichirou would not take Sho with him. He'd sooner find a nanny, one of the rare female espers that he knew, and then it would be easy to get Sho away from her. He was a little escape artist at the best of times. It would only take him slipping away once, just once, and then she'd have her son back. Fukuda could even do what he had been planning on doing, before, and just say that he was talking Sho for a walk and he got away from him. He'd be punished but not killed, her said, because at the end of the day Touichirou didn't see Sho as anything special…

He was special. He was the most special boy in the entire world and she was proud to have him as her son.

"Fukuda…" said Masami as she went in for another drag of sweet intoxication. She didn't want to think about this. She would think about this tomorrow or the next day. When she was on the train to parts unknown, when she was on the train to start her new life, when she was on the train to the place she would be reuniting with her son again….eventually. Hopefully soon. Then she would tell him how sorry she was for…for everything. For the life she had given him.

"Masami…I love you." Said Fukuda. Masami kissed him again. She did not want to exchange 'I love yous' even if she did feel it with every fiber of her being. She was through with love and she was not about to make promises she could not keep. I love you…words that had weight and meaning…weight and meaning which she was not about to…to throw down precisely at his feet right about then…or ever…

Because this would come to an end…..but she could enjoy it while she had it.

The woman in the mirror could enjoy it while she had it.

The woman in the mirror could let herself be carried from the bathroom out onto the bed. The woman in the mirror could allow the black t-shirt she had been wearing to be pulled up over her head. The woman in the mirror could allow every inch of her skin, skin which hadn't been kissed by sun in so long, be kissed by a man who glowed so brightly and so warmly that she couldn't tell the difference. The woman in the mirror would not think about what was going to happen after. The woman in the mirror would not agonize over what was happening now. The woman in the mirror would just….just go with it…

And the woman in the mirror would just go on from there.