Wow I actually wrote something other than K8 fic? XD

Title: Homesick
Fandom: Utahime
Rating: G
Pairing: Taro/Suzu (...in that Utahime way, so. Y'know.)
Disclaimer: Does not belong to me.
Notes: Post series, so contains spoilers for the ending.



There is a gap in the time between when Taro leaves and when Suzu starts having the dreams. They become so frequent, that she starts to expect them. She keeps a glass of water near the futon for when she wakes up and has to wait patiently for her eyes to close again, shaking and cold, even with Matsunaka's warm body right next to hers.

He tries to hold her the first time, but it's lonely the way his arms wrap around her, touching her only in the physical sense. He leaves her alone those nights, sometimes sleeps through it entirely, and she always falls back asleep even though sometimes she wishes she didn't.

It's those mornings that she wakes up exhausted and wet and her arms are sore from pulling Taro out of the ocean all night.

---

Miwako sends a letter every month.

They're good letters, really. She tells them about Taro (Yu-san, she calls him on the paper), how he's doing. His health is good, she says, and Hamako wonders if she isn't covering up little colds and fevers here and there just so they won't worry. Because as a Tokyo-dweller, with that big city buzzing around all around him, he can't be healthy all the time.

They all start to wonder if, after a while, the letters will slow down, or possibly stop completely. Miwako can't be expected to keep this up forever, can she? But three years later, they still come. Not always to the day, but they always come.

It's more painful at first. Every time Hamako opens one, it's like a wedding invitation she never sent. Ignoring that letters aren't always sent when there is a cause for celebration, that's always what her fingers feel like when she breaks the envelope's seal.

It isn't until after a year that Miwako starts telling them about Sakura.

Sakura loves to sing, is all the letter says. One sentence, then two, then three. Then Sakura becomes as much a part of the letters as Taro. Or maybe it's that she becomes that much a part of Taro. It's also when Sakura becomes a presence in the letters that Suzu stops wiping her eyes when they read the letters together.

It's the little things that Miwako chooses to share. Like, Taro saying that he wants to see the ocean, that he and Sakura sing together, that he's really grown to love movies.

"Should we stop?" Hamako asks. Suzu holds her knees to her chest keeps her hands close to her face. "We can read the rest later."

"No," Suzu says. "Keep going."

Hamako keeps reading, and it's a letter similar to the ones they've read before. She even starts to read the last line casually, like she's expecting a "goodbye" or a "you'll hear from me soon" or the familiar "thank you" that ends so many of Miwako's letters. But, Hamako stops dead right in the middle of a word, her eyes grow wide and Katsuo stands up, reaching for her. No one asks what it is, and the room is so full of silence that Hamako looks up at everyone before she goes on.

"He's..." she says. Then she turns her eyes back down to the paper in her trembling hand. "I hope it won't be too much trouble, but Yu-san wants to come and see a movie at the Orion Stars. He-"

"But why?" asks Izumi. No answer comes except for Miwako's one-sided words on the page.

"He says he wants a break from the thick Tokyo air." Hamako folds the paper in her hands and all of them look over at Suzu. She stays fixated on a pinpoint spot on the tatami floor.

She dosen't always write back, and isn't usually expected to, but this one time, Hamako sends a reply back to Tokyo.

---

When Yuichi tells Miwako that he wants to go back to visit Tosa Shimizu, it doesn't surprise her much. In fact, when he says the words, she breathes out a sigh of relief without even meaning to. Like she's been expecting him to say those words someday.

Yuichi isn't a curious kind of person, but he's the kind of person who is always wanting to learn. And he's also the kind of person who holds things deep down in his heart. There is proof in the way that he touches Miwako after living in a world where he didn't know her for ten years. A hand on her elbow, fingertips on her shoulder, like they'd always been there and never stopped.

Miwako knows that Yuichi is his own man and can make his own decisions, so she doesn't need to tell him that he has to be careful, that he has to remember that there are people there he left behind. He's a shadow of a man who doesn't exist anymore. She doesn't have to tell him these things, so she doesn't say them, has to press her lips together to stop herself from saying them.

She packs bags for three. Yuichi is impossible to read and she keeps her feelings inside of her right up until they're stepping into the car for the long drive.

"Are you sure about this?" She asks. And maybe she only imagines the break in his voice when he tells her yes.

She doesn't mean to pack it in her bag, but it winds up there anyway. Halfway to Tosa Shimizu and when Miwako goes looking for her hankerchief, she feels the edges of the thick, familiar stationary paper. She's read it so many times that just by feeling the texture of the paper, she can almost hear Hamako saying the words herself.

There must be so many theaters in Tokyo, but we always have open seats in ours.

Sakura looks out the window of the car, her chin resting in her hand. Miwako doesn't take her eyes off of her for most of the trip.

---

The Orion Stars has never looked so polished. Every corner of it seems to shine in a way that Izumi has never seen before. Hana-chan is lively and outgoing and runs up to every person who comes inside. People bring gifts, well-wishes, offer to help tidy up. Some just look on curiously, some didn't even know Taro at all.

News of Taro coming back spreads through the town more quickly than there is time to prepare. It seems like the Orion Stars doesn't look good enough or bright enough and some people wonder if it isn't silly to fix something up for someone who probably doesn't even really remember what it looks like. James works the hardest of all, running around busily in stark contrast to Suzu who is so quiet in the days before Taro arrives that it feels like she's disappearing among the crowd.

No one pushes her about it. Especially not Matsunaka, who married her under the assumption that no one else but Taro would ever be her first choice. There is a wall around Suzu and she's built it up high and strong, and even if they all want her to handle this in her own way, there is also this desire to go inside, hold her, touch her, stroke her hair and hope that there is something good enough to say that will make her smile.

Izumi brings her some tea, and sets it down on the table where she's sat down to rest, her hand still wrapped around the end of the broom when she picks up her glass.

"What movie should we play?" Izumi asks.

Suzu still doesn't look directly at her. "Isn't that up to James?"

It seems obvious that they show something new because if visitors are coming all the way from Tokyo, they probably don't want to see something they've seen before. But, even then, they don't get the new movies as quickly as the city does anyway. And it's true that James is the one who runs the projector and is responsible for everything inside of it, but only he really knows what it is they have to choose from.

"He said he wants you to pick," Izumi says, and Suzu looks down into her teacup.

She's still behind the wall, and it's starting to seem like nothing will break through. Then Sabako suggests having a strong drink and Suzu seems to think that's the best idea she's heard in a while.

---

Purely by coincidence, the day that Taro is said to arrive is the day that Merry's daughter turns two. Hamako remembers the day Matsuko was born because she remembers wondering if all of them will keep having daughters until her son comes back.

Then, of course, that feeling in her throat, behind her eyes, in the pit of her stomach when she remembers that he isn't ever coming back. Three years later, and it gets easier by the day, but there are always those sobering moments when she's sure she'll look up and see Taro coming through the door and he never comes.

But there are things to be grateful for. Taro's health and happiness, for one, as she thinks that maybe wishing him back isn't anything but selfishness. Matsuko and Hana, two new daughters. Suzu's love for Matsunaka, that blossomed late and never became passionate, but runs deeper like a stream on it's way to a larger body of water. Suzu smiles the way she used to, and she laughs without holding anything back, and she shouts at Matsunaka when he needs shouting at, which is always, Hamako thinks, a sign of love. She waits for the day when Suzu has a daughter of her own.

It's the night before Taro arrives that Suzu comes home far past late, dragging her feet on the floor. Hamako hears her and Merry come inside, but doesn't get up because Suzu is a woman who can take care of herself. She's only concerned at the dead silence that follows Suzu's entrance.

---

"Why are we coming such a long way to see a movie?" Sakura asks. It isn't impolite, just curious.

Miwako looks over at Yuichi, and he looks back at her. All she knows is that her father was found three years ago, and that it was a miracle that he came back to them. And while there is probably more Miwako could have told her, there are moments like Yuichi looking into her eyes and having no idea who she was, that Miwako doesn't want to relive. Yuichi simply doesn't remember, and can't be faulted for not having more of a story to tell.

"It's a theater we haven't been to in a long time, and we wanted to pay a visit," Miwako tells Sakura, who looks at her parents questioningly.

Sakura is nearly thirteen, and looks exactly like Miwako. She wonders if Sabako will make a remark about Sakura's round face, but then realizes that of course Sabako will make a remark about that. It's been so long, but Miwako can remember the smell of Tosa Shimizu so clearly.

She imagines they'll come into town and so many people will want to see Yuichi. She told him this before they left, just like she told him about all of the people of Tosa Shimizu when he decided that he would leave. She almost feels like she has to remember them for him, has to remember the smells and the sounds and the people who took such good care of him. It's why she won't ever stop writing letters and sending them to this place.

The place where Yuichi should be is here with his daughter and wife, but there was a man named Taro that she can't help but feel she took away.

Then Sakura smiles at both of them brightly. Yuichi takes her to see movies and it's something they've grown to love together. "To come all this way," Sakura says. "It must be a really great place."

The way Yuichi looks at Sakura then is so warm that even Miwako feels it.

---

The morning of Taro's return, Sabako prepares a room. Whether they've planned to or not, they're staying with her. But they should know because memory doesn't die out quite that easily. She rolls three futons at the side of the room and sets a small table. Four hours later, they arrive.

Miwako looks exactly the same as Sabako remembers her, but Taro is different in a way that Sabako can't quite put her finger on. He's stiff. In the way he walks and the way he moves his hands and even when he speaks. He's not quite Taro, but not quite not Taro, and Sabako is mostly content to observe him at first rather than getting too close.

James wanders out of his room and is immediately sent for tea. Miwako asks for some privacy to change her clothes after spending so long in the car. But Sabako thinks maybe she just wants to be by herself for just a moment before it happens.

/>Whatever it is, even Sabako can't say.

But Miwako is only gone for a moment and comes back in a long skirt and a blouse, looking even more uncomfortable than she did when she went inside.

"Sakura, is it?" Sabako says. She gives Sakura a look up and down once and Sakura stands back a litte.

Then Sabako musters up her most pleasant smile. "Do you want to see the beach?" She asks.

Sakura nearly jumps, she's been standing with her arms wrapped around her front and suddenly they hang loosely at her sides. Taro has looked like he wanted to stand that way ever since he walked in, giving off a feeling that he'd like to make himself smaller. But he stands with his arms at his sides, looking more like a military man than Sabako could have ever imagined.

"I do!" Sakura says. "Can I? Can we?"

"Get your things and I'll take you down there myself," Sabako says. She looks from Taro to Miwako. "Is that okay?"

"I-it's fine," Miwako says, smiling but she looks nervous. "It's fine."

"Movie is at eight, then," Sabako says. And they leave.

The truth is that Suzu is stepping off of a bus in about thirty minutes. She knows what day it is, and will probably be looking down at the ground under her sandals more than anything else and even if she does happen to see their guests before she's supposed to, she might just keep walking, looking straight ahead. The truth is that, if that happens, Sabako doesn't want either Taro (who is becoming more Taro even after only being in Tosa Shimizu for all of an hour), or Miwako to have to face it alone.

---

Merry looks for James at the theater and she looks for James at the inn, and she goes all the way to the end of the block (where the street turns into the sand and the town turns into the beach) before turning back and finding him at her bar.

He's behind the counter, pouring a pitcher of water.

"They're here?" She asks him. James just nods.

One week after Taro left, James told her the truth. She can't talk about it to anyone but James, and she can't even really talk to James, but she cried for a whole day afterwards and quite convincingly blamed it on her hormones.

James wanted to contact Taro, but Merry stopped him, suggesting that he ask Hamako to include him in her letters to Tokyo. It usually turns out that he doesn't need to because Hamako will have mentioned him anyway. Except a couple of times she's left him out when it seemed that nothing new had happened since the last time she wrote. In which case James will helpfully remind her that he'd gotten a new haircut or listened to a song that Taro told him about.

"Should we... say something to him?" Merry says, awkwardly. "I mean... it's been..."

"Three years," James says, and Merry half expects him to recite the days, hours and minutes as well.

"But it seems like we should--"

Then Suzu walks in, tucks her hair behind her ear, looks at Merry and doesn't say anything for a long while.

"If it's not too much trouble... we need more drinks," Suzu says, only a little sheepishly. "More guests than we expected..."

"Sure thing," Merry says, already making her way behind the bar. "Hey, Suzu, how are you--"

"Huh?" Suzu says. "I'm... we're really out of drinks."

Merry notices that Suzu doesn't look at James the entire time while she's in the bar. It's like she's turned her body deliberately so she won't see him even in her line of sight. It's so intentional, that Suzu even seems a little shaken when James finally does speak, and it's so quiet for him, like he knows that she can't handle looking at him and he's trying to disturb her as little as possible.

"Did you pick one yet?" He asks. "The movie? I mean, I'll have to have it ready in a couple of hours, so..."

Suzu laughs. "Well, I was thinking that you could! I mean, you always do it anyway, and no one has complained, you know, except for that one time, but I think Geruman was just angry about that duel with Sabako, but... well... I think you should do it! Is that okay?"

She manages to sputter out every word and still not look directly at him. Merry comes from behind the bar holding a small crate.

James swallows.

"Sure," he says.

---

Suzu paces without meaning to and shakes her hands out a few times. She stands behind the theater, thinking that, once she walks inside, everything will be fine. She swallows, puts one foot in front of the other, and that is that. She's fine.

Her mother keeps looking at her with concern, and her husband is giving her so much space that she's hardly seen him the whole day. She knows it's affection, love, not avoidance that's keeping them so far away. But she wants Matsunaka to hold onto her hand and she wants her mother to wrap her arms around her. And they would, easily, but Suzu is too proud to ask them herself.

She walks in the entrance of the theater and wishes everyone would stop trying so hard to not meet her eyes.

Katsuo lays tablecloths on the small dining tables and Izumi fills glasses with ice. Suzu walks to the counter and starts idly moving things around.

Then just moments later, the door opens again and Taro comes inside.

---

It's quiet in Tosa Shimizu. Like it always is just before they play a new movie. Everyone is gathered in the Orion Stars and the streets are bare.

It's quiet, even down to the alleyways, the shops, even the sound of the ocean seems so muted.

When Taro sees Suzu, when he looks at her eyes, it's impossible to keep up the distant, cold act. He falters, but it's so slight that no one notices. His heart races and he has to blink a couple of times to keep everything inside of him at bay.

When Taro sees Suzu, he can't swallow the tightness forming in his chest. He feels so completely exposed in front of her like this, but this is what he wanted. Just to see everyone, just to see that life moves on. Even if it was selfish of him

Miwako waits until they're in the theater to touch him again, then she lays her hand on top of his, softly.

---

Suzu sits in the back of the theater. Miwako, Taro and Sakura somewhere in the middle.

James watches all of them from the projection booth, tries to measure how far they are in relation to each other, tries to understand why they chose those seats. First act, second act, he gets up to change the reel and when he looks again, Suzu is gone.

She's not in the theater and when the movie ends and the house lights come on, her seat stays empty.

She's not in the lobby and she's not outside and James walks to the end of the block before Taro calls him back.

"She's gone," James says.

Taro moves so quickly that James feels a strong breeze when he walks past, down to the end of the block where the lights grow dim and for all James can see, he's disappeared.

---

On that big rock, watching the sea reach for the shore, Suzu feels like she hasn't been here in a very longtime.

Sabako doesn't speak, she doesn't need to, really. Suzu wonders if anyone noticed she went missing, but if they haven't yet, they will.

The silence feels emptier than it should, and Suzu thinks about shouting just to fill it. Sabako won't care, and it will only be between her and the ocean. It's so dark she can hardly even see the water, so it won't matter anyway. She can shout and yell and throw handfuls of sand because he didn't have to come back here. Not after all of this time. He didn't have to come back here ever if this was a place so easy to leave.

Her hand trembles, and she squeezes the end of the rock to keep it still.

"You have a visitor," Sabako says. Suzu hears the footsteps only belatedly.

Taro stands against the dark sky, all corners and angles. Clean cut, short hair, straight back. A soldier, like he would have been if she'd found Yuichi in the water that day. If he would have saved them all a lot of trouble.

"Can I..." he asks, gesturing to the rock. Then sits down anyway.

The sounds of the water curl around Suzu's ears.

---

Thank you for your hospitality, Miwako writes at the beginning and the end of the letter. Framing everything in the middle, but those are the important parts, aren't they? Anyone should be lucky to feel this welcome in a place that isn't their home.

"You know you can't mail that letter until we get back," Sakura says. The countryside seems to fly behind her, and Miwako smiles because Sakura, for all she wants to be grown up, she's still in that space between child and adult. Where there are so many things she doesn't need to know about yet, so many things Miwako doesn't want her to know yet.

"I know," Miwako says. They're only an hour away from Tosa Shimizu.

Taro leaves for the second time.

---

Suzu hunches over a notebook. Thank you for coming to visit, she writes. Then crumples it up and throws it in the trash.

She takes out a sheet of nice stationary from a brand new box that she's had for years and never touched. And she writes the same sentence again, as neatly as she can.

Thank you for coming to visit.

She sat on the rock with Taro until every one of the stars were in the sky. He told her about Sakura, she told him about Hana-chan. He told her about Tokyo, she laughed, she'd tell him about Tosa Shimizu, but here he is.

I know we don't have much to offer, but I hope you enjoyed your stay.

It became cold, so she pulled a sweater around her shoulders, refused when he offered her a coat. She asked him if he liked movies, not really sure how to talk to this man. But he told her that he did, and wasn't it obvious since he came an awful long way to see a movie.

If you ever want to come back, our doors are always open.

She forgot to be awkward after an hour, forgot to be cold after two. She told him about her husband, about their simple, happy life and he told her he was happy, too. And they both didn't talk about his hand on top of hers, between them. It felt like Taro's hand, was Taro's hand, for just long enough.

P.S. I've heard so much about it, so don't let me down. Keep practicing your singing, okay Sakura?

"Suzu..." It's her mother's voice from outside of her room. "Are you okay?"

They should know she's more resilient than that, she thinks, tucking the letter into an envelope, next to a script she's only read once.

"Fine," she says. "I'm fine."

It'll be a while before they make it back to Tokyo. A couple of days, at least. And it wouldn't make any sense to send the letter before then.