Mori drinks a little too much one weekend, so you try to get her cut off her intake for the night. She doesn't like this one bit. She flies into a rage and beats you, forces you down to the ground and kicks you while you're down. She rants at you all the while, berating you for trying to control her, trying to take away one of the few things which helps her to unwind after week upon week of nonstop work. You're sure you can feel a rib or two crack under the abuse. Blood flows freely from your nose and is smeared across your face. One of your eyes has swollen shut. You don't make a sound, you don't resist. All you can do is look up at her, at those beautiful eyes you fell in love with in a seemingly distant past. Eyes dulled by her drunkenness and bloodshot from both emotion and fatigue. And slowly, you watch those eyes widen, bit by bit, with realization. The flow of vitriol from her lips finally stops, and out come the apologies and the excuses. She drops down to her knees next to you and reaches out to you. She loves you, she says, and she never meant to hurt you. The drinking, the abuse that follows, she'll stop! And things will go back to how they were...
But they never do. She always says this, and she always goes back to the bottle, and cycle begins again.
And the worst part of it is, you believe her every single time. You believe that maybe, just maybe, this time will be the last. A part of you knows that she wants to change, that she hates what she's become... but another part knows that such a change may be beyond her ability entirely. And despite this, you stay by her side, knowing what might be waiting for you at the end of each week. Because whatever else might have changed, you look at those eyes, and remember that old love.
