Those Pesky Love Triangles
“I love her,” he said. “My wife, I mean.”
We sat at the counter of a crowded izakaya, surrounded in smoke, clinking beer mugs, and rowdy conversation. On the walls were posters of whiskey highballs, restaurant specials on faded strips of paper, and Polaroid shots of regular customers.
Our mugs were half-empty. It was that kind of evening.
“I do.” He said. “I really do.”
He paused a moment. Shook his head.
“But she’s cheating on me, man.”
His was a story I’d heard before — recently married, a beautiful wife, a spacious house, a healthy child, and the endless salaryman grind to support them.
In this story, a cheating wife or husband isn’t uncommon.
“Really?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
He finished his beer. Stared at a poster on the wall — summer, whiskey, a pretty face, a sugary smile. He turned to a man at the counter, ordered two highballs. Motioned at my mug with his chin. I drank.
“I’m certain,” he said. “I want to believe it isn’t so. I do. But I can sense it in the air. See it in the disconnection. Feel it in the lack of touch. In the end, I didn’t need to dig all that deep. It was obvious.”
“You just knew?”
He nodded. “I just knew. And I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m never home, I’m never with her, and she’s a beautiful woman with a lot of time on her hands. It only makes sense that she found someone else. You know?”
I didn’t. But I did know his wife was something special — svelte, well-spoken, intelligent; something about her. An aura, perhaps. Something like one.
“It’s just… we barely speak anymore,” he said. “I’ve got that long commute. Lots of business trips. Most nights, by the time I get home, she’s asleep. When I leave the next morning, she’s just waking up.”
He took two mugs from the barman, passed one to me. Brought the other to his lips. Thought for a moment.
“It’s weird,” he said, “living with someone you feel closer to in text messages than you do in real life.”
“How about the weekends?”
“Yeah, no, sometimes we go out. We went window-shopping in Odaiba, had lunch in Daikanyama. Once we went to Yokohama. To Chinatown. Stuff like that.” He sighed. “Mostly though, I’m just too tired, man — on the weekends all I want is to watch TV and spend time with my son.”
I pictured him lying on the sofa, his baby son seated on the gentle rise of his stomach, and a few umaibo scattered across the floor. The lazy sound of lawn mowers from afar, a gentle breeze rustling the curtains, and baseball on the television.
“Yeah, no, I get that,” I said.
But I didn’t. Not really.
“You ever think about changing jobs?” I asked. “Maybe move to a more relaxed department, or just move house — maybe somewhere closer to the city?”
“I thought about it, yeah. But I don’t really know if that would help anymore. We’ve just… we’ve grown into different people.”
“Oh? How so?”
“Picture two houses on opposite sides of the street. Over time, the exteriors get replaced — first the doors, then the windows, eventually the roof and the bricks. Everything. What are you left with?”
“Uh… new… old houses?”
He nodded.
“Right. Exactly. From outside, as far as appearances go, those houses look exactly as they always have. But if you think about it, they’re entirely different. Made of different parts. Me and Akiko? We’re those houses.”
“That… that might be one of the most tragic things I’ve heard in my life.”
He shrugged.
“My girlfriend says I should just end it already.”
I watched him sip from his mug. Placed my own back on the counter.
“Wait… Wait. What?”
He shrugged.
“I’m a guy,” he said. “I have urges. Needs. Stuff. You know?”
Every time he asked that, I felt that I didn’t.
“Look, it’s only serious on one side, and that side isn’t mine. I’ll end it when I work everything out. When the time comes, I will. I promise.” He laughed. Sighed. Pondered. “I don’t even know how it started, you know? Sometimes you just kind of fall into things. Sometimes you just want someone to tell you they love you, and mean it. Even if you can’t say it back.”
I didn’t know what to say. I stared at my mug.
I said nothing.
“But I want things to get better with Akiko. Really, that’s it. That’s what I want. But I just can’t see how. It’s like this dark pit and I can’t find a way out.”
I nodded.
“I keep racking my brain, but I never find anything. And she just gets further away, man. Both of us fucking other people to try and fix things. We’re supposed to have this perfect life, you know? We have the family, the house, the money — how did it all go wrong?”
I shrugged. Drank down the last of my highball. I didn’t much want to say what I thought. Felt. Knew.
I motioned to the guy at the counter. Pointed at my mug. Showed him two fingers. He nodded. Disappeared.
“Everything went downhill with Junko, you know?”
“Junko?” I asked. “You mean like, Junko who you went out with in university and broke up with Junko?”
He nodded.
“She was the one, man. She was the one. If I’d been smart, and treated her right, and made sure she was happy, I’d be living a different life. I’m always going to regret that. It was my fault, and it was my one chance at true happiness. I blew it off, man. I threw it away.”
I actually met Junko a few days ago. By coincidence. We went to coffee. She said the break-up was the best thing that ever happened. It opened her eyes. Gave her freedom. Confidence. Drive. She said if she’d settled down — and she could have — she would have regretted it.
She said she was happy.
It was surreal to see how different the other side of the coin looked.
“I don’t… I don’t think you should get too hung up on the past, man,” I said. “It’s not good for you.”
He shrugged. Looked at me. His eyes said, you don’t get it. You couldn’t possibly.
And perhaps that was true.
But really, the whole mess just made me sad. It was like following a recipe to the letter, only for the meal to mess up anyway. Inexplicably.
Probably when you were fucking someone else instead of cooking.
“You think this is fixable?” he said.
“Hm?”
I took the two mugs from over the counter. Passed one to my friend.
“The wife, the girlfriend, the regretful past — you think I can fix it?”
I thought for a moment. Held back the urge to say no. Smiled. Shrugged. Clinked my mug against his own.
I said, “Here’s to tomorrow being a new day, and to making the most of what we’ve got. I mean, there’s always tomorrow, you know?”
Probably, he didn’t.
But we drank anyway.
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