Izuna

I had never stopped hoping. I don't think I would have stopped hoping even if years had passed. But I hadn't imagined it like this.

I honestly don't know how I had imagined it. Would I be angry with him? Happy? Neutral? All I knew was that in the scenarios I played up in my head when I couldn't sleep at night, he called to apologise.

But he had called begging for help.

Shit. The joy of hearing his voice was soon exchanged for the worry about what had happened. And where was he? The number was hidden, and nobody at his job knew where he was.

So I phoned Hashirama, remembering he was quite good with technical things. Now Tobirama had actually made a phone call, would it be possible to track him down?

"Can you help me with something?"

"Anything."

When I had explained the situation, I had expected him to become angry with me, or with Tobirama, or both, but he wasn't. Actually, I had never seen him angry.

He was phenomenal. He managed to find out where from Tobirama had made the call, and both of us were shocked to see it was his birth country. He managed to find out he lived in a cottage that he owned far from civilisation. He phoned the hospital in Reykjavik and explained the situation, and they sent a helicopter.

When he was done, Hashirama came over to my place in New York, and we just sat on my bed.

"We have done everything we can now", he said, but not in a way that made me believe he was all that happy about the limitations of the situation. 

"I want to go there", I said, no doubt in my voice.

Hashirama just took my hand and nodded.

"Of course."

The next flight to Reykjavik left the same evening. Hashirama had driven me to Newark airport, and we stood before security, leaning our foreheads together, breathing each other in.

"Thank you", I said. "For everything."

"Don't speak as if you're never coming back", Hashirama said, and I heard he was sad even if he smiled.

"Of course I'm coming back", I said, but at the same time, both of us knew it would never be the same between us again.

Security went swiftly, and it was a direct flight during which I managed to sleep a little. I woke up as we landed in a beautiful landscape. For one moment, I felt excitement over this new little part of the world I would see, but that was soon exchanged for fright as I remembered why I was here. 

As soon as I landed, I took my phone out and dialled a familiar number I had googled the day after Tobirama disappeared. 

"Mr Swanson?" I said.

"Izuna, son."

Tobirama's therapist hadn't had any idea where Tobirama had gone, either, but had promised to call if he heard anything. I was happy to be able to call him first, even if the news seemed bad. I explained the situation to Mr Swanson to the best of my abilities, and told him I was in Iceland, on my way to get an Uber to his home.

"I'll come as soon as I can", he said.

I took said Uber to said home. It was, empty, but I saw traces from the helicopter in the snow meaning the paramedics had left with him, and in turn that he had been ill enough for them to need to do so. It made tears well up in my eyes; they froze on my face.

The cottage door was unlocked, and I let myself in and walked around, looking at the life the man I loved had built for himself. The cottage was made entirely of wood, small but in two stories. On the first floor was a kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom. On the top floor was an open area where his desk was. On it, his MacBook still stood, open. And old mug of coffee stood next to it.

I went down to his bedroom, pulled my fingers over the duvet. He has slept here... I looked into the small closet, containing a meagre supply of clothes good for the Icelandic weather. They still carried his scent.

Finally, I tucked myself into his bed, pulled his duvet up over my face, and fell asleep to that scent. 

Mr Swanson took into a hotel in Reykjavik two days later. I met him for lunch, but I stayed in Tobirama's cottage, having no clue when, or if, he would be back. We were not allowed in the hospital, and the information we were given was sparse, seeing we couldn't confirm we knew Tobirama, and Tobirama either didn't want to, or couldn't, confirm this himself. 

So I made myself at home. After two days of getting rid of my jet lag, I went to the capital to get groceries. He had literally nothing at home except salt and some spices. I bought the basics; flour, olive oil, yeast, pasta, rice, oatmeal, butter. I added some breakfast items to my basket; three different yoghurts, muesli, frozen mangoes, fresh blueberries. I added a lot of vegetables, both frozen and fresh, and some baking ingredients. I added some snacks before I took an Uber home; there was no way I could carry it all the thirty minutes it took from the nearest bus stop to his cottage. I cleaned and filled his fridge, and it looked very colourful and healthy, I was proud to see. I made two snack cabinets, filling them with bags of roasted nuts, raisins, dried pineapple, salt and vinegar crisps and  freeze-dried strawberries coated in yoghurt. 

Then, over the coming days, I got to work. I baked three loafs of breads using bread pans I found. I cooked a creamy cauliflower soup with white beans mixed with it that I froze. I also made a vegetarian mushroom lasagne that I cut up in pieces and froze as well. I made home-made energy bars with oat meal, honey and peanut butter. I baked a lemon cake and froze that as well.

I also cleaned his cottage; vacuumed the floors, mopped them, polished the surfaces, scrubbed the bathroom until it gleamed. I had found some potted plants in the grocery store which I planted in some empty pots and put in the windows. I washed all of his clothes and ironed. I changed the sheets (after I had slept them for a few days and they didn't smell of him anymore; I couldn't bring myself to change them when they still held his scent). 

All of this took several days, and when I was done, I lay down on the floor and allowed myself to release all the emotions I knew I was suppressing with all that work.

I cried.

Two weeks later, I had just been for coffee with Mr Swanson and also to buy some ingredients to make Greek salad with Italian focaccia (cultural shock, I know) for myself for dinner, and was walking from the bus station home. 

Home... Sometime during these two weeks, I had started viewing the cottage as home. After the first few days, I arranged it so that I could continue my New York work from Tobirama's desk, and after I finished, I went for walks, or read books in front of the fireplace, or cooked more to stack in the freezer. The familiar feeling of the cottage that embraced me as soon as I opened the front door to go in was more welcoming than the feeling of any other home I had ever had. 

But this time when I opened the front door, I immediately felt something was different.

Even if I hadn't seen the boots on the floor... Even if I hadn't seen the skiing jacket on the hanger... Even if I hadn't felt the scent of toast, I would have known, just by how it felt.

I tip-toed up the stairs, and the decreasing temperature let me know the balcony door was open. I ascended on the top floor...

And there he was, out, on the balcony, leaning against it. 

He was thinner than I had ever seen him, his clothes hanging off him, but he was there. He wore a thick marine cardigan with a red and white pattern and olive cargo trousers. His hair was slightly longer than I was used to, but as tousled as it always was.

When he heard me arriving, he turned round, and even if his cheeks were more hollow, his lips dryer, the veins in his neck more visible, it was still his face, even the same glasses. 

We stood opposite one another for a long time, me still in my knitted beanie and mittens, my cheeks and nose red from the cold, him handsome as ever. 

Ten seconds passed. Thirty. A minute. I couldn't read his face. I couldn't even read my own emotions.

Then, finally, he spoke.

"Izuna."