LOVELESS
Someone once said a person dies three times; the first ends with the loss of naivety, the second with the loss of innocence, and the third with the loss of life.
Annie died twice already. So should she let the last one snuff out that easily? Should she really give in? Since when was she the type to give in?
Right, ever since she married Mikey.
She loved him though. She really did. She loved him enough to mould herself into exactly what he asked her to be. She allowed him to chip away at her former nature. Until all that remained was a shell, of whom she used to be. All her former resilience and tenacity had been drowned out by his overwhelming dark urges and insecurities. She never even stopped to question him. She just wanted to make her husband happy.
Today, she wondered if she should have stopped to think for a minute. Maybe she should've approached his darkness another way; because Mikey was still not happy. In the end, all her complacency did was make her miserable, and him utterly numb.
"Where did I go wrong?"
The ceiling of their shared bedroom seemed to repeat the same answer; silence.
At this point, it was more like a shared penthouse, because Mikey rarely ever came home. Whenever he did, he arrived in the dead of night, always slept in another room and was gone before Annie woke up.
Annie couldn't remember the last time she had a proper conversation with him. He wouldn't pick up her calls, only ever replied to her texts with a single word and never allowed her to come anywhere close to the Bonten headquarters.
Nowadays, she had to ask Sanzu to pass on her messages to Mikey, who in turn would do the same.
The incessant buzzing of her phone finally snapped Annie out of her daze. She received the call and put it on speaker, she didn't even have to check, and she already knew who it was.
"A thousand apologies Red, but it doesn't look like Mikey will make it home tonight... Again."
"Thanks for rubbing it in Sanzu. What excuse did he come up with this time?"
"...um... well..."
"So he didn't even come up with an excuse this time."
"... Yeeeah...you're absolutely right."
Something was off. Though Sanzu was known to be Bonten's resident airhead, he was being uncharacteristically ignorant today.
Annie sat up, brows furrowed, "Sanzu, where's Mikey?"
"Um ...at his... office?"
"Then why can't he come home tonight?"
"Whaaat? I didn't say that... I said... he'd be home...late tonight! Yeah. He's gonna be... very late."
"...then why will he be very late?"
"...um...Koko! Koko mi-"
"Koko's not even in Japan. Sanzu, don't lie to me! Where is Mikey?!"
Annie didn't mean to raise her voice; especially when Sanzu was only doing his job. Granted, he was doing it very poorly. However, anxiety had slowly begun to plant its corrosive seed in her already vulnerable mind. In all her five years of marriage, Annie had never felt this apprehensive.
She heard Sanzu sigh on the other side. She could also feel him contemplate, (as much as his drug-infused brain allowed him to anyway) if he should tell her or not. Annie knew if she allowed him to think for too long, Sanzu would ultimately choose Mikey's bid over her pleas. In the end, serving Mikey was Sanzu's default.
"Please Sanzu! I'm begging you; tell me what's going on. I'm just so tired of it!"
That was the final straw. The dam Annie had built so carefully brick-by-brick, cracked, and caved in. The first wave of tears was silent. However, that hardly lasted for a few seconds. The second wave was strong enough to wreck her core and the ones that came after that reduced her spirit to rubble. Her violent sobs and heaving breaths were enough to make Sanzu panic.
"Whoa, now Red! Don't cry on me! Mikey's gonna toss me straight out his office window!"
That only seemed to make Annie weep even louder. It's not like she was doing it on purpose. The Lord knows she was trying her level best to contain and control herself. But, five years of this one-sided cat and mouse game had left her thoroughly exasperated.
"Fine! Fine! I'll tell you. Just please stop crying."
"O-okay... I'll t-try."
"Tonight...Mikey's leaving for Yokohama."
It was astonishing, how much Annie learnt from Sanzu, about her own husband. Moving Bonten's main operations to Yokohama was something Mikey was trying to do for the past three years. Tonight was when all his efforts came to fruition. Tonight was when Bonten was moving out to Yokohama, permanently; with the sole exception of Sanzu, who still had to tie up a few loose ends, and she was one of them.
