Mischievous Marriage

Honeymoon in Distractions Part 2

The Blue Horizon was a floating palace of forced joy. As soon as we stepped onto the gangplank, we were swallowed by a sea of white linens, sparkling crystal, and the rhythmic thrum of a jazz band that seemed far too upbeat for my mood.

Attendants in crisp uniforms greeted us with practiced smiles and glasses of champagne. I took one, not because I wanted to celebrate, but because I needed something to do with my hands. Honoka, on the other hand, looked like she had stepped into a dream. Her eyes were wide, darting from the highs vaulted ceilings of the atrium to the grand mahogany staircase.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she whispered, almost to herself.

"It's a boat, Honoka," I replied, my voice flat. "Let's just find our table and get this over with."

She flinched slightly, the light in her eyes dimming just a fraction, but she nodded and followed me. We were led to a secluded table near the stern of the ship. Through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, I could see the wake of the ship cutting a white scar across the dark indigo water of the Pacific.

The silence at the table was heavy. I stared at the menu, but the words blurred together. Every time I looked at Honoka, I saw the ghost of a different woman sitting in that chair. Hana would have known which wine to pair with the sea bass. Hana would have engaged in sophisticated conversation about the architecture of the ship.

Honoka just sat there, fidgeting with her cloth napkin, looking like a child who had accidentally sat at the adults' table.

"Furukawa-kun," she said, breaking the silence. I looked up, one eyebrow arched in a silent demand for her to continue. "Did you... are you having a great time? Because, well, I'm actually having a lot of fun. I've never been on a ship this big before."

She gave me a small, hopeful grin. It was so innocent it made my chest ache with a sudden, sharp irritation.

"Carefree," I murmured, turning my gaze back to the ocean. "I suppose it's easy to have fun when you don't have the weight of two families' reputations on your shoulders. I would enjoy this if Hana were here. She understood the gravity of things."

I watched her flinch again. It was a physical reaction this time, a small recoil as if I’d struck her. She went quiet, her gaze dropping to her plate. The guilt flickered in my gut, but I pushed it down. If I was miserable, why should she get to be happy? We were both trapped; she shouldn't be allowed to pretend the bars of the cage were made of gold.

"Do you know where she is?" she asked suddenly, her voice barely a whisper. "The detectives... have they found anything?"

The question was like salt in a fresh wound. I gripped my wine glass until my knuckles turned white. "Do you think I'd be sitting here, wasting my time on a cruise, if I knew where she was? Use your head, Honoka. The moment my detectives locate her, this farce ends. I'll go to her."

She nodded silently, her eyes glassy. She didn't say another word for the rest of dinner.

After the meal, the air in the dining room felt too thin, too saturated with the smell of expensive butter and perfume.

"I'm going to the bar," I announced, standing up without waiting for her. "I need a real drink."

"I think I'll go to the deck," she replied, her voice steady but hollow. "I need some fresh air. The bar... it makes me feel a bit uncomfortable."

"Fine. Go wherever you want," I snapped. "Just stay where I can find you. I don't want to have to call the coast guard because you got lost between the buffet and the bow."

I spent the next thirty minutes at the mahogany bar, nursing a glass of neat scotch. The burning sensation in my throat was the only thing that felt real. But as the ice melted in my glass, a nagging sense of unease began to settle in my chest. Where is she? I set the glass down and wandered out onto the deck. The night air was cool, carrying the scent of salt and fuel. I scanned the shadows of the lounge chairs until I saw her.

She wasn't alone.

She was standing by the railing, talking to that guy again. He was leaning in close, laughing at something she said. Honoka was smiling that same radiant, warm smile she had given him at the hotel. My blood turned to ice, then immediately began to boil.

I approached them, my footsteps heavy and deliberate on the wooden deck.

"Honoka," I called out. My voice was a low growl that caused several nearby guests to turn their heads.

She jumped, her face instantly paling. "Furukawa..."

The guy turned to me with an easy, confident smile that I wanted to rip off his face. He extended a hand. "Hi, I'm Jun Matsumoto. We didn't get to properly meet earlier."

I stared at his hand as if it were a piece of rotting meat. I didn't take it. "I'm Yuki Furukawa."

"Ah," Jun said, retracting his hand without a hint of embarrassment. He looked back at Honoka, then back at me. "So, you're Honoka's big brother. She mentioned you were a bit... protective. What a reliable brother you are."

Big brother?

The words felt like a physical blow. I looked at Honoka, whose eyes were darting around as if she were looking for an escape hatch. She was telling this man, a stranger, that I was her brother? She was pretending to be single while wearing my family's ring?

"Brother?" I repeated, the word tasting like poison.

"Honoka, I think I need to go," Jun said, sensing the sudden drop in temperature. He tapped her lightly on the head, a gesture so intimate and familiar it made my vision blur with rage. "Glad to see you again. See you next time."

He walked away, leaving us in a pocket of absolute, freezing silence.

"Brother?" I hissed, moving toward her.

"I-I didn't tell him that!" she stammered, backing away until her heels hit the base of the railing. "He just assumed, and I didn't want to explain everything... I used your family name, Furukawa-kun! I told him I was a Furukawa!"

"Really?" I stepped into her space, trapping her between my arms. The wind from the ship’s movement whipped her hair into my face. "If you're going to flirt with every man who looks your way, don't you dare drag my name into the gutter with you. Do not bring shame to the Furukawas."

"I wasn't flirting, you old man!" she yelled, her voice cracking.

"Really?" I smirked, but there was no humor in it. "Your behavior is pathetic. You're a low-class woman, Honoka. You're loud, you're impulsive, and you have no sense of decorum. You are nothing compared to Hana. Are you even related? Why can't you act like a lady? Why can't you just be more like her?"

The tears started then, spilling over her lower lashes and racing down her cheeks. "Stop it! I am not Hana-neechan! I will never be her! Why does everyone keep trying to bury me under her shadow?"

"Then give me a reason not to!" I grabbed her wrist, my grip tighter than I intended. The rage was a physical thing now, a blind, deaf beast. "Act like a wife! Act like a Furukawa!"

"I don't want to pretend anymore!" she screamed, pushing against my chest with everything she had. "I know we were forced into this, but you have no right to treat me like trash! If you hate me so much, then divorce me! I don't want this sick relationship!"

She shoved me one last time, a desperate, final burst of strength. I didn't budge, but the momentum carried her backward. Her heel caught on the slick, salt-sprayed edge of the deck.

Time slowed down.

I saw her eyes widen, not with anger anymore, but with pure, paralyzing terror. Her mouth opened to scream, but only a small, broken gasp came out. She tipped backward, her small hands clawing at the empty air, reaching for me.

And then, she was gone.

​The sound of the splash was the most terrifying thing I had ever heard. It wasn't loud just a sharp, hollow thud followed by the churning of the wake but it echoed in my skull like a gunshot.

​"Honoka!"

​I lunged for the railing, my fingers scraping against the cold, wet metal. The cruise ship was a leviathan, moving forward with an indifferent momentum that felt murderous. Down in the churning white foam of the engine's wake, I saw a flash of fabric. A hand. Then, nothing but the dark, unforgiving blue of the ocean.

​My heart, which had been frozen in bitterness for days, suddenly detonated in my chest. What have I done?

​I didn't think. If I had thought for even a second about the height, the speed of the ship, or the fact that I was still half drunk on bourbon and grief, I might have frozen. But instinct took over, a primal, jagged need to undo the last thirty seconds of my life. I kicked off my shoes, climbed the railing, and leaped.

​The fall felt like an eternity. The wind tore the breath from my lungs, and then I hit the water. It wasn't like a swimming pool; it was like hitting a brick wall made of ice. The cold was a physical assault, a million needles piercing my skin at once. I sank deep, the bubbles blinding me, the pressure roaring in my ears.

​Find her. You have to find her.

​I fought my way back to the surface, gasping for air that tasted of salt and panic. The ship was already a distance away, its lights shimmering like a cruel birthday cake on the horizon.

​"Honoka!" I screamed, my voice cracking.

​I saw her. She was twenty yards away, bobbing in the swells. She wasn't screaming. She wasn't splashing. She was simply sinking, her long dark hair splayed out around her like a shroud.

​I swam with a desperation I didn't know I possessed. Every muscle in my arms screamed as I fought the current. My lungs burned. By the time I reached her, she was sliding beneath the surface. I reached down, my fingers catching the fabric of her pajamas, and I hauled her upward.

​Her head fell back against my shoulder. She was limp, her skin the color of marble.

​"Honoka, breathe! Damn it, breathe!"

​The next ten minutes were a blur of terror. I kept her head above water, treading with legs that felt like lead weights. I watched the cruise ship slow down, a lifeboat being lowered like a silver thread in the distance. Every second felt like an hour. I looked at her face. The girl I had just called "low class," the girl I had told was "nothing."

​Please, I prayed to a God I hadn't spoken to in years. Take me instead. Just don't let her die because of my mouth.

The transition from the water to the deck of the lifeboat was a chaotic mess of hands, shouting, and the smell of diesel fumes. The attendants hauled us up, but I didn't feel the warmth of the blankets they threw over me. I only felt the silence coming from the girl lying on the floor of the boat.

"She's not breathing!" someone shouted.

"Move!" I roared, pushing a crew member aside.

I knelt over her. My hands were shaking so violently I had to lace my fingers together to keep them steady. I placed them on the center of her chest and began to pump. One, two, three, four... I counted the rhythm in my head, the same rhythm as the ticking clock in my father's office, but this time the stakes were life and death. I leaned down, covering her mouth with mine. Her lips were ice-cold, tasting of salt and the metallic tang of seawater. I forced air into her, watching her chest rise, then fall.

"Come back," I whispered against her skin. "Honoka, come back. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. Please."

I went back to the compressions. My ribs ached, my arms were numb, but I couldn't stop. If I stopped, the silence won. On the tenth cycle, her body suddenly convulsed. She let out a jagged, wet cough, spraying seawater onto my shirt.

She sucked in a lungful of air, a ragged, desperate sound that was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. She didn't open her eyes, but she was breathing. She was alive.

I collapsed beside her, buried my face in my hands, and for the first time since Hana left, I let out a sob that had nothing to do with heartbreak and everything to do with relief.

The Okinawa Prefectural Hospital smelled of floor wax and antiseptic. It was a sharp, clinical contrast to the salt soaked chaos of the ocean.

I sat in a hard plastic chair in the hallway, dripping wet, wrapped in a hospital-issue blanket that smelled of industrial laundry. My clothes were ruined, my hair was a mat of salt and sand, and my pride was non-existent.

Every time a nurse walked by, I stood up, my heart in my throat. Finally, a doctor emerged.

"Mr. Furukawa?"

"Is she...?" I couldn't finish the sentence.

"She's stable," the doctor said, offering a tired smile. "She has some water in her lungs, and she's suffering from mild hypothermia and shock, but she's young and strong. We've started her on IV fluids and antibiotics to prevent pneumonia. She's sleeping now."

I let out a breath I felt I'd been holding since the cruise ship deck. "Can I see her?"

"Briefly. She needs rest."

I walked into the room. The only sound was the steady beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor and the hiss of the oxygen mask over her face. She looked so small in the hospital bed, swallowed by the white linens. Without the "soft girl" aesthetic she tried so hard to maintain, without the ribbons and the trendy clothes—she looked like exactly what she was: a eighteen-year-old girl who had been thrown into a lion's den by her parents.

I pulled a chair to her bedside. I looked at her hand, where a thin plastic ID bracelet sat next to her wedding ring. The gold band looked heavy on her finger. Too heavy.

"I'm a monster, aren't I?" I whispered to the empty room.

I thought of the words I'd said to her. Low class. A replacement. I had been so obsessed with my own pain that I hadn't realized I was drowning her in it. I had been waiting for Hana to come back and "save" me, never realizing that the person actually standing by me, the one who bought me soup and helped a lost child and tried to make me smile, was the one I was actively destroying.

I reached out, my fingers hovering over her hand. I didn't dare touch her. I didn't have the right.

"Hana left me," I murmured, the truth finally coming out in the dark. "She left me because she didn't want this life. She didn't want the Furukawa name or the business or me. And I took that rejection and I turned it into a weapon to use against you."

I looked at the heart monitor. Each beep was a reminder that she was still here.

"You aren't a replacement, Honoka," I said, my voice thick. "You're a victim. Just like me."

Her eyes suddenly flickered. The monitor sped up slightly. I sat back, my heart racing. Her eyelids fluttered open, unfocused and glazed with exhaustion. She looked around the room, her gaze finally landing on me.

"Furukawa-kun...?" she rasped through the mask

"I'm here," I said, leaning in. "Don't try to talk. You're in the hospital. You're safe."

She stared at me for a long beat. Then, a single tear tracked its way down her temple, disappearing into her damp hair. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry I'm not her."

The words felt like a knife to the gut. "Don't you dare apologize," I said, my voice stern but trembling. "I was the one who pushed you. I was the one who was careless. I'm the one who should be begging for your forgiveness."

I reached out then, and this time I didn't pull back. I took her hand, her fingers feeling cold and light in mine.

"Let's stop," I said.

She looked at me, confused. "Stop what?"

"Stop the comparisons. Stop the fighting. Stop the 'old man' and the 'kiddo' nonsense. We're married, Honoka. It wasn't our choice, but it's our reality." I squeezed her hand gently. "I can't promise I'll be the husband you deserve right away. I'm still angry, and I'm still broken. But I won't ever let you fall again. I promise you that."

Honoka stared at me, searching my face for the lie, for the smirk, for the sarcasm. When she found none, her lower lip began to tremble. She didn't say anything; she just closed her eyes and let the tears fall, her hand tightening around mine.

"Where are we?"

"Okinawa. The hospital. The doctors say you'll be fine."

She didn't answer for a long time. I thought she'd fallen back asleep, but then she spoke again, her voice barely a thread of sound. "Let's go home. I don't want to be on a honeymoon anymore."

"Okay," I promised, pressing her hand to my forehead. "As soon as they let you out of here, we're going home. No more cruises. No more distractions."

I stayed there all night, watching the sun rise over the Pacific through the hospital window. The water outside was beautiful and blue, but I knew now how deep and dark it could be.

And as I looked at the girl sleeping in the bed, I realized that the "Old Man" had a lot to learn about the "Kiddo" he had married.