Episode 2: I wish you would die
Mitsuo is bewildered that Yuka submitted the divorce papers although he knows that that aside, they have come to this point because they both feel this way. Well, he was actually the first to speak of divorce. In any case, he smugly thinks that she will want to discuss it tonight and the possibility that she will cry makes him wince. Mitsuo goes back early in order to talk things over with Yuka, but spots her on a street in the neighbourhood looking none the worse for wear and shaking hands enthusiastically with the Italian TV personality Girolamo. At that moment, Yuka catches sight of him and he ends up being roped in to take a photo of her and Girolamo.
Back at home, Mitsuo is disconcerted to hear Yuka address him as Hamasaki-san. In turn, she instructs him to call her Hoshino-san. She is completely not in the mood to talk or listen to him. In her view, regret and apologies are too late now. Not that Mitsuo intends to apologise. “Why do I have to say sorry?” he demands. Yuka can only manage a little laugh of disbelief as he tries to remedy the situation by saying that it is not what she thinks. Yuka impatiently tells him that she is returning to her hometown of Fujinomiya by bullet train this evening. The movers will come to get her packages later and someone will pick up the cats too. In the end, all Mitsuo can muster to say to her is, “Mind the steps.”
It is true that he wanted a divorce … but to really split up … …
The next day, Mitsuo explains to their employee Yahagi Satoko that Yuka has gone home because her father is in hospital. That night, he runs into Akari’s husband Ryo on the way back from renting an adult video on the hypnotism of another person’s wife from the video rental store. Ryo and Mitsuo had previously been introduced to each other by Akari when they met for the first time, but Ryo cannot remember Mitsuo at all. Ryo has lost the key for his bicycle’s wire lock and is in a fix. On impulse, Mitsuo volunteers to show him the way to a mass merchandise outlet so that he can buy a pair of pliers to cut the lock. He claims that he rented Madagascar 3 when he sees Ryo cast a questioning look at his plastic bag. While Ryo struggles with the pliers, Mitsuo takes the opportunity to ask rather intrusive questions about his marriage to Akari in a somewhat abrasive way. “Have you been married long?” “2 months.” “Are you on good terms? The kind that doesn’t have fun outside and heads straight home?” Ryo takes Mitsuo’s question literally. “I go fishing sometimes.” “I’m not into Monster Hunter,” Ryo offers in response to Mitsuo’s frustrated remark that he did not mean that kind of fun.
After that, Mitsuo ends up bringing Ryo to Kingyo Cafe for drinks because Ryo says Akari would be happy to come. Mitsuo’s grandmother Aiko manages the cafe with Mitsuo’s elder sister Tomoyo and her husband Tsuguo. Just as Mitsuo is attempting to find out from Ryo where he and Akari met, Akari arrives at the cafe. When Ryo leaves the table to join Aiko in a game of darts, Mitsuo asks Akari why she did not immediately tell him that she is married. Akari replies that it is kept a secret since Ryo does not usually say that he is married. Mitsuo finds this arrangement odd and is about to tell her that he saw Ryo with another woman, but she interrupts and asks him to introduce her to his wife next time. She would like them to be close family friends.
Mitsuo leaves the cafe with Ryo and Akari but realises that he has left behind the adult video he rented, and quickly turns back for it. Tomoyo, who has seen the contents of the plastic bag, reproaches her brother for being indiscreet while his father-in-law is hospitalised. At that, Mitsuo wearily reveals that it is a lie. Yuka has divorced him and returned to her family home. Both Tomoyo and Tsuguo are surprised. Mitsuo is offended that his sister immediately jumps to the conclusion that he is in the wrong. She says with conviction that even if Yuka is in the wrong, the fault lies with him. Then there is Aiko’s upcoming birthday to consider. Mitsuo says he has told Aiko about Yuka’s father in the belief that that would solve everything. It is clear to Tomoyo why Yuka left home. She scolds Mitsuo and tells him that Yuka must be waiting for him to come and get her.
Following his sister’s advice, Mitsuo reluctantly visits Yuka’s family home in Fujinomiya and is welcomed by his in-laws Takehiko and Keiko and their relatives. It appears that Takehiko and Keiko still do not know about the divorce. Yuka is out coaching the juniors of her alma mater’s softball club where Tamura, her ex-boyfriend from high school days, is the coach. As if forgetting Mitsuo’s presence, the family recalls how Yuka and Tamura were constantly touchy-feely and even went into a love hotel while in their school uniform. They go so far as to speculate that the two of them would be flirting in the school room now. This is news to Mitsuo.
Mitsuo heads to Yuka’s former high school and sees her fooling around with Tamura. Yuka tells him that she intends to wait until her father has his kidney stones removed before she confesses their divorce to her parents. Tamura offers to leave the two of them alone but Yuka sits beside him and even asks him to stay. Then she announces that she and Mitsuo have divorced. Tamura cannot understand why. Hilariously the first question he comes up with to ask Mitsuo is, “Is it because the meals she prepares are damned bad?” Mitsuo’s eyes gleam at the information and Yuka chides him for looking so pleased to have found a possible ally. The obnoxious know-it-all in Mitsuo proclaims with a long suffering look that the issue is that Yuka does not know what a Japanese ginger is. In return, Yuka tells Tamura that Mitsuo does not know who Maeda Atsuko is and is even proud of it. Warming up to the topic, Mitsuo relates how the two of them once went to a traditional inn and had crab for dinner. He took 30 minutes to carefully take the meat out from the crab and accumulate it into one serving. At the moment he was about to eat it, Yuka reached out with her chopsticks and ate everything in one mouthful.
Tamura is horrified. Proclaiming her deed a crime, he moves over to sit with Mitsuo. Yuka tries to put it in perspective for Tamura. It was a holiday but Mitsuo was so sore about what happened that he refused to speak to her until they got home. Furthermore, instead of using a reserved outdoor hot spring bath together, they went in separately, she complains. This ruined the holiday for her. Playing the peacemaker, Tamura urges Yuka to make up with Mitsuo. After all, Mitsuo has come to get her. Then Mitsuo goes and spoils this by saying that he did not come to bring her back but to ask her to attend his grandmother’s birthday celebration.
That night, Mitsuo finds himself at a huge feast with Yuka’s relatives. It gets so overwhelming for him that he seeks refuge in the toilet and moans about this painful experience. However, the respite is temporary and he is forced to go back out again. Yuka’s brother, who is singing along to a Kobukuro song on karaoke, quickly grabs hold of Mitsuo and thrusts a microphone at him. Mitsuo reluctantly complies and his voice causes the boisterous audience to swoon and clamour for more. But he comically ducks out of the room when pressed to sing another song. Keiko thinks that it is sweet of Mitsuo to come all the way here to get Yuka. Yuka’s response that she will not understand makes Keiko point out that it is the same for anyone who is married. Moreover, there is no room for Yuka here. By the time Yuka takes to the microphone to croon a popular traditional ballad from the Showa era, the mood is now subdued. She gazes over at a drowsy Mitsuo as she wistfully sings the lyrics.
Sometime later when Mitsuo and Yuka are finally alone together, Mitsuo hears the resolve with which Yuka submitted the divorce papers. It was not an easy decision for her to make but she feels good after doing it. She does not think Mitsuo will change. Nor does she want to change him. This is probably for the best, she concludes. Mitsuo remains silent. However, Yuka soberly notes that a divorce is not just about a couple but a divorce of two families. So they decide to carefully explain their divorce to each other’s families over time, especially Aiko, who is Yuka’s favourite. Yuka will tell her father after his kidney stones are passed out. That could be as early as three days or as long as one year, yet she somehow thinks that she can break the news to him in about a month. Mitsuo will also convey this to Aiko around the same time. But Yuka asks him to let her tell Aiko personally after they finish watching the pro wrestling match. Divorce was supposed to be a good thing but Mitsuo feels as if a gaping hole has opened in his heart. He remembers how Yuka’s father once got drunk and repeatedly demanded that Mitsuo return his daughter to him. Now that this is to be the case, he wonders if it will make Takehiko happy.
Yuka comes back to Tokyo for Aiko’s birthday celebration in order to keep up the charade. After that, she returns to her former home with Mitsuo and both of them are initially very self-conscious. Mitsuo is exceedingly gracious to Yuka because he feels grateful to her and offers to let her sleep on the bed. Then Yuka’s friend Mika calls to ask her to go for a drinking session. Yuka does not think men will be interested in her but decides to come along when she hears that the males are of the class that appear in the magazine Junon. Mitsuo cannot keep himself from eavesdropping on the conversation.
On his way home from the supermarket one night, Mitsuo for some reason keeps encountering scenes of Ryo behaving familiarly with two women. Seeing Ryo enter and apartment building with one of them, Mitsuo wonders if Akari is aware of it as he settles down to watch the adult video at home. But his nosiness finally gets the better of him. Abandoning the video, he walks over to her house with some ulterior motive.
Akari is surprised to see Mitsuo at her door. His curious comment that it might be a while before Ryo comes back prompts her to ask what he means. But before he can get the words out, she asks him to come in. They talk politely about nothing in particular. Then Mitsuo mentions how he had passed by the Sasazuka apartment building they once lived in and gone to take a look. He admits that he feels nostalgic for the days when they lived together. It was the best thing in his life. If they had continued to date and got married, the feeling would probably be completely different … … “I got divorced,” he says. In what appears to be an attempt to put an end to this, Akari tells Mitsuo to eat the hot pot she has prepared. Not about to be sidetracked, Mitsuo asks her why she married Ryo. Akari says Ryo was the boyfriend of Ami, a colleague at the salon she worked at last year. Before this, they had met a couple of times at gatherings although he did not talk much and always looked away. He gave her the impression of a flighty person. But on one occasion Ryo drew a map for her when he recommended a restaurant. It was so well drawn that it made her heart thump. Then one day, she saw Ryo at a train station but he did not remember her. Learning that she was going to watch a movie alone, he asked if he could come along. Although she rejected him with the claim she did not want to anger Ami, she was distracted throughout the movie because she had already taken a liking to him. The next day, Ryo called to ask her to go fishing with him and she readily agreed. Being with him made her happy to the extent that nothing else mattered. She had never felt this way before. When she told him that she wanted to get married, he agreed and they immediately went to register their marriage. Akari smiles at the memory.
“It is said that men repeat the same thing again and again,” Mitsuo bursts out and asks if she knows what Ryo is doing now. Akari does not seem to care. She thinks he means no harm and is not conscious of it. Nevertheless, Mitsuo gets worked up on her behalf and plunges ahead. He declares that he just wants to be of help to her because he does not believe she is happy right now. He wishes that she can return to being the lively person he remembers from those good times when they lived together. However, Akari announces something completely unexpected and shocking in response.
“You don’t understand anything even after 10 years.
I don’t have any good memories with you.
When I left you, I wished you would die.
To think you have imagined it into something good.
I love Ryo-san.
I’ve no intention of breaking up with him whatever happens.”
Sometime later, Akari sits in a sauna and tells her companion that she prefers insecurity over being with a tiresome man. Her husband returned home after midnight yesterday and did his best to finish two portions of rice simmered in soup stock. When she saw that, she thought would not mind. In the end, he would come home. Being a couple is not just about the present but a promise for the future. Ultimately, if the wife can be the chief mourner at her husband’s funeral service, that would be good.
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I think Akari really its nuts or something. How could she let her husband cheat on her and just pretend like nothing happend?