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She woke up again at midnight. That had been her ritual for the past month. It's like the old insomnia demon had been engulfing her again. She could not sleep at night anymore since the day, he left.
He left abruptly, disappearing with no trace, leaving his entire family behind.
It felt surreal to her to think how Her family never stayed.. abandoned by parents, rejected by clan, being a witness of twin sister's death....when Her tragedy trodden soul finally found love and home, she thought she might have won against her destiny...but alas..such a fool she was to think that her trial against her fate had come to an end..
She thought Mai would be the last one to witness her helplessness against fate, but Iori, her own blood, her own creation, proved her wrong anyway.
Four decades later, the old vengeful destiny came back and broke another rib of hers, just like it did the last time, except this time it took out the life out of her too.
Silent tear trickling down the crease of her cheeks, the heartbreak, the dark ceiling, the darkness of night....choking down her lungs. She needed to breathe...a bit of fresh air...she knew it wouldn't heal her pain, but it wouldn't let her suffocate.
She tried moving out of the bed, and then she realised she was lightly embraced by her husband.
She tried to gently remove his arm without waking him up....but instead she stopped on her track when her eyes fell on his sleeping figure.
He looked so peaceful during his sleep. A faint calmness resided in his face..
Her gaze softened...with a light hand, she started caressing his wrinkles.
Forty years is no joke...
She had witnessed how the anxious yet jovial face she first saw in her teenage years slowly got adorned with soft wrinkles before her very eyes.
Over four decades, the world had changed, the jujutsu regime had changed, but he didn't change his love for her.
The same pair of hands that tightly grabbed her hands with assurance during her Labour to birth their son..
The same pair of hands gently hold her and console her the whole night when she broke down behind the door after the disappearance of the same son...
The news hit him too like a truck...but with the piling up responsibility of the infant grandkids, a mourning daughter-in-law, questioning clan members and above all consoling a grieving mother - he barely got to grieve for his son
She remembered the night when she broke down in his arms, he barely had any tears in his eyes...which felt surprising to her because that's now how her overemotional husband behaved.
//////////// flashback ////////////
"How can you be so calm? Your only son dissipated from his existence?"
She asked him once..., but to her dismay, he replied nothing instead kept playing with their 2-month-old granddaughter ...
She understood... only she could read him..
He was trying his best to cope with that Overwhelming grief in his own way.
"Maki, have you ever thought that maybe my decision to take over as clan head invited this upon us, maybe if we raised him in our home, distancing ourselves away from the clan politics...maybe this day wouldn't come?"
"What are you even saying? Could you actually run away that time leaving the responsibilities shouldered upon you ? " , Maki had to counter her husband's self-blame game... but deep down her heart had been fretting over the unanswered question
"She looks exactly like him, Right Maki?"
He continued without looking at her or waiting for a reply
"I can see him when I look at her...When I hold her, it reminds me of the day when I first held him in the nursing home. He was this small delicate....oozing warmth..little limbs...tiny fingers wrapped around my finger..faint whimpers....Little bundle of joy made of us under your care....Those days are gone. It feels so awkward to believe that I won't probably be able to see him before I die...I don't know even if---"
His sentence was not finished before he realised he was engulfed in her embrace.
And with the surroundings of his safest corner, hell let loose in his emotion.
And Maki realised unlike the past, this war is not theirs to win anymore....
Destiny had their lifeline snatched from and laid open out there.
But who is to blame?
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
A chain of thoughts jumbling up one after
Another as Maki pondered over it.
Suddenly decades there...something flashed in front of her eyes...
Dead bodies were mangled here and there.
Blood on everything...on the corpse, on the wall, tainting her face, body, soul...
She was not scared...
She hated them all....all the participants of the crass show of abuse..
She didn't repent at all...until a face contorted in pain flashed before her slitted throat, face crumpled with pain and hate...same hatred that was imprinted on her soul.....
She recognised her mother...
"I hope you suffer from the same curse as mine"
Maki jolted...that nightmare she first had the night before Iori's disappearance.... had been creeping her out all the time..
Her train of thought got on hold..
When a warm wrinkly had gently held her face.
She didn't realise Yuta had woken up too...
"You are awake again?"
"Yuta, is it my fault? Is it my payback time for the killing?
Her voice sounded so desperate for the assurance...she didn't even know what she was even saying.
"Who told you this?"
"None but I believe I am responsible for this.. I am cursed by my mother... it is probably her way of snatching it back from me---"
And with a muffled cry she realised, she was already, she was pulled into a warm safe hug
"Didn't we agree that it's none of our fault? Iori is an adult with his own mind.... we can't control her, and that clan needed to die for the greater good. It's not your fault.."
In the mid the conversation Yuta realised , she was hugging him back tighter.. with that caressing her head....he continued
"You are not paying back for anything... our son's disappearance is not a settlement of our sins.. that massacre was needed for your survival... "he kept consoling her as
His finger was slowly running across her silver strands.
"Don't Blame yourself...Maki.., it hurts..."
Enfolding her in his embrace, he felt that small affirmative nod she made against his shoulder..
"I wanna go out, Yuta...it feels so suffocated"
A faint smile appeared on his face.
"Let's go"
As they headed outside the porch bathing in moonlight and the old couple nestled at the corner with her head lying on his lap as he caressed her face.. little did he know
Maki just made a selfish prayer ..
"Let me go first, I won't be able to sustain the weight of living alone again"