The two of us took off to Kamakura on the weekend without telling anyone we were going. Aki spoke on the phone to the rest of Guardian often on the weekends, but they never asked where he was, as long as he was close to his guitar to refine a tune or write a new one down. We hadn't been back to Kamakura in a long time, and Aki wanted to 'shake out the cobwebs', as he said, to begin getting ready to move back in.

We had taken the earliest train we could, and arrived while it was still early, the sun barely rising. The nights and early mornings were cold while the sun was gone, and I didn't bother taking my jacket off when we stepped inside. Aki pressed some buttons on the thermostat before he even took his boots off.

"It won't take long to warm up in here." He said, staggering to the kitchen to unload the bags in his arms. "It's not common in old houses like this, but I'm glad my grandparents got fed up with air pumps and put in a proper system."

I looked around as if I were a stranger. "This house has always been a place we just pass through. It's strange to think about living here full time."

"It's strange for me too." I could hear him clearly searching for something in the kitchen, likely taking note of what was expired and what needed to be replaced. "I never actually spent much time here between tours with Guardian. We were always one hotel to the next pretty quickly." He held up a bag of coffee grounds. "We need to get some groceries for the weekend."

The day passed as we cleaned up the house, went out for groceries and coffee, and moved some furniture around to accommodate a plan for what we were bringing from Tokyo. Most of the furniture in our Tokyo apartment was mine, brought over from where I lived by myself. I had told Aki that I wanted to sell the majority of it through a second hand shop that I knew of, but there were a few things we both wanted to keep. The day had gotten warm, but as the sun set again in the evening, it reminded me that winter was looming. It was pleasantly nostalgic to sit with Aki in the living room with plastic bags from the convenience store, take-out food containers, and paper coffee cups. It brought me back to the first time I was a guest in his house, after I had been roughed up at the high school, accused of stealing him from someone. His invitation had been innocent, just his way of showing that he wanted to take care of me, but we had climbed into his bed together with the intent to sleep, and ended up tangled together, unclothed, by morning. He was still very much a stranger then, an enigma that I wasn't entirely sure was real. Even after spending two years with him, marrying him, I still couldn't quite tell.

Just before midnight, we got out of the shower wrapped in towels, with a plan to lounge in bed with tea until we drifted off. Aki searched in the closet, and pulled out a plush, folded blanket to throw across the bed. The tea was already on his bedside table, and he folded back the corner of the blanket on my side of the bed to invite me in.

"It'll get warm quickly, come on." He poured tea for me and handed me the small cup with both hands. "Do you want to watch something? I can wheel the TV in."

It felt like we were completely settling in for the most mundane Saturday night, and I was overwhelmed with comfort. "Can we watch on your tablet? I'll probably fall asleep on you either way." I had meant to say the phrase with both the physical and the conscious state of being in mind.

He produced the tablet effortlessly out of his overnight bag, and set it up on his bedside table along with the tea. "I'm sorry." He said, before he started the task of picking out something to watch.

"Sorry for what? Do you not actually like me that much?"

He leaned over to wrap his hand around the back of my neck and kiss me without hesitation. "I adore you." He said. "That's what I'm sorry for."

"I accept your apology, but it's too late for it, really. You should have said that two years ago." I thought for a moment about the seasons. Spring had come and went in a flurry, and May marked moving into our third year together. "Three years ago, actually."

"I should have." His tone turned serious, but his voice was still light. "I was responsible for you experiencing so many things, just because I fell in love with you. Some of them were really difficult. Some of them were just too soon in your life. I should not have slept with you at eighteen, and you should not be married to me at twenty. I was selfish, and I wasn't thinking about what was best for you, and I should have slowed down."

"You didn't know how old I was." I wasn't sure if he had genuine regret for our life together had turned out, or if he was being a stoic gentleman and saying what he felt he should say. I poked his side with a fingertip. "Are you just figuring out that I'm too young for you?"

He breathed a laugh. "No, even if I knew back then, it wouldn't have changed anything. I just would have proceeded with more caution. Maybe I would have even waited the three years before I instigated jumping into bed together."

"I instigated that." I shrugged against the pillow my shoulder was pressed into, not entirely concerned with what he had to say. I knew he just needed me to hear him. "I would have experienced all these things anyway. It's all just part of living, and growing up, becoming a woman." I normally shied away from speaking about those types of things out loud, but I wanted him to know. To some degree, I knew he already did, and it was rare that I had to express a feeling I had in words for him to understand, but that too, was part of growing up. "I'm thankful that I shared all those experiences for the first time with you. Maybe you were being selfish in rushing, but you were never selfish with me."

"Oh, I was." He said, slipping his arms fully around me and rolling me to my side with him. "You just didn't realize."

"You're talking like you were the only one with a choice in all of these situations, though, Aki." I said, closing my eyes. He was holding me close enough that my cheek was against the skin of his chest, and I relaxed into him, prepared to fall asleep there. "Everything that happened was because I also wanted it."

Winter in Kamakura was cold. The water was close by, and the wind that came from it brought an awkward kind of moisture to the dryness of the air. It was the kind of cold that soaked into the skin and headed directly to the bone. We had fully moved in to Aki's house by the last day of November, Aki's birthday. He had gone ahead in his car early in the day to meet the movers and arrange the large furniture, and unload the boxes. I had told him I would tie up the loose ends at the university and take the train so he didn't have to drive an extra four hours to retrieve me in Tokyo.

I took one last look around the apartment as I got dressed and packed the last of my essential things into my rolling suitcase. Living in the big city like Tokyo had been something I had wanted for as much of my life as I could remember. Looking around the empty apartment from the doorway, knowing it was the last time I would see it, knowing it was the last of my big city life, brought me more joy than I could have ever expected.

I wasn't in a hurry to get on a train to Kamakura. I picked up a package of paper work with everything I needed to continue university through the virtual program, and left the university without anyone to say goodbye to. While I waited at the intersection for the light to change, I stared at the set of rings on my finger from Aki. I was alone in the world in that moment, with Tokyo and Kamakura separate from each other by hours, so too was I separate from the man who had become the other half of me. But in that other world where I was headed, that man was wearing a ring to match mine, and the thought gave me a feeling like my new married life was finally beginning, even though we had actually married a year before.

I passed through the department store in Shinjuku on my way to the station to buy a cake. My intention was for Aki's birthday, since he had sacrificed a celebratory day for a moving day instead, but I knew he would also take the meaning as a housewarming gift. I sat on the train with the cake in a box on my lap, held tightly between my hands, and smiled to myself as I remembered the card I had slipped into his backpack before he left. I hoped he would find it before I arrived, but I knew there was a chance even if he did, that he would wait for me to open it. I had waited for him to leave before I dressed myself in a nice skirt and blouse, sheer black pantyhose, and knee high boots. I had my usual winter coat on, a thick wool trench in a pink kind of colour that was mostly gray. My hair was done, my makeup was minimal but immaculate, and I couldn't wait to see Aki.