Warning: this article contains spoilers for episode 10 of Until the T-Shirt Dries, which has already aired in Japan. Netflix release timing may vary by country or region.
Sakiko and Mitsuru divorce at the end of Until the T-Shirt Dries, but they do not separate because they have fallen out of love—let alone because of an affair. They end their marriage because they can no longer live under the weight of fear: she fears that her husband will disappear again, while he measures every move to avoid disappointing her again.
The episode also makes clear that Mitsuru and Azusa never had an affair. The camera never reveals the visitor in the final scene, although the clues point most strongly to Mitsuru’s return. The series leaves a small opening for doubt, in keeping with a story that never wanted to put simple labels on its relationships.
How does Until the T-Shirt Dries end?
The final episode begins with Sakiko determined to end her marriage. Since Mitsuru’s return, their home has stopped being a place of rest. She watches her husband try to anticipate her wishes and avoid anything that might upset her. Mitsuru, meanwhile, lives in fear of being rejected and cannot explain what made him abandon everything in the past.
When Sakiko asks for a divorce, he refuses. He later tries to hurt her with his words so that she will hate him and the split will seem easier. That strategy falls apart when they finally speak honestly.
Sakiko makes it clear that she does not want to erase him from her life: she wants to leave behind the suffocating form their marriage has taken and find a relationship in which neither of them has to play a role.
They sign the papers while still in love. There is no huge fight or conventional reconciliation. The ending chooses something more delicate: Sakiko and Mitsuru accept that staying together at that point would mean continuing to feed the same wounds.
Why do Sakiko and Mitsuru divorce?
Mitsuru’s disappearance shattered Sakiko’s trust. Even after they reunite, she cannot shake the feeling that he could walk out the door and never return. Her husband’s excessive care does not solve the problem either. On the contrary, every calculated kindness reminds her that he is living on high alert.
Mitsuru carries a different kind of guilt. He believes he failed as a husband, friend, and son. Rather than share those feelings, he tries to become the person he thinks Sakiko expects to find. It is precisely this distance between what they feel and what they can say that makes living together unbearable.
The divorce, then, functions less as an emotional breakup than as a rejection of a relationship sustained by fear. Sakiko says she will not hate him. That promise changes the meaning of their goodbye: they are no longer husband and wife, but they do not have to stop being a safe place for one another.
Did Mitsuru and Azusa have an affair?
No. Mitsuru and Azusa were genuinely close, but not romantically involved. They found in each other a space to talk about the frustrations they hid at home. That intimacy fueled the suspicions of Sakiko and Tatsuki, Azusa’s husband, but the final episode reorders the clues that seemed to prove an affair.
On the day he disappeared, Mitsuru was heading to Nagano after learning that his father was ill. During the trip, he had an urge to run away and got off the bus. The vehicle was later involved in an accident in which Azusa died. Mitsuru survived by chance and was left carrying guilt he did not know how to face.
Even the wedding ring he removed gets a less melodramatic explanation: Mitsuru kept it safe while working on his father’s property. The mystery was never a secret romance, but four adults’ inability to reveal their vulnerabilities to the people closest to them.
What do the fireworks and aquarium tickets reveal?
The tickets are concrete proof of how silence distorted the story. Mitsuru had bought the fireworks tickets with Sakiko in mind. Because she does not handle crowds well, he chose seats with more space and away from the bustle. What looked like evidence of a meeting with Azusa was actually an attempt to care for his wife.
The aquarium tickets did not belong to Mitsuru either. Azusa had bought them to visit the venue with Tatsuki. She wanted to visit with her husband first and find out whether their son, Sho, would enjoy the same outing later.
These two revelations do not erase Sakiko and Tatsuki’s pain. They do show, however, that both were trying to understand their partners with incomplete pieces of the puzzle. When the truth comes out, the issue is no longer uncovering infidelity, but accepting how much of Mitsuru and Azusa’s lives remained unseen.
Does Sakiko end up with Tatsuki?
The series does not turn Sakiko and Tatsuki’s growing closeness into a romance. Brought together by doubt and absence, they build a hard-to-define supportive relationship.
Sakiko helps with Sho’s school preparations, spends time with father and son, and watches the fireworks with them in the backyard. Still, there is no declaration of love or confirmation that the two became a couple.
Tatsuki continues caring for Sho and begins to see Azusa more generously. Once he understands where the tickets came from, he realizes that his wife was also looking for ways to protect their family. Sakiko has an important place in that rebuilding, but the drama resists the idea that a new relationship must immediately replace the one that ended.
The same is true of Hikoki café. Mitsuru hands the establishment over to Naoto, while the people who passed through it maintain their bonds. The café no longer depends on one person and remains a place the group can return to.
Who returned to Sakiko’s house?
The visitor is not shown. After a time jump, Sakiko appears more confident and prepares a meal for two. There are two T-shirts, and she even puts pumpkin on the table before taking it away when she remembers that Mitsuru does not like it. When the doorbell rings, her face lights up and she says “okaeri”—“welcome back.”
These elements make Mitsuru the most likely answer. Their goodbye had already foreshadowed that possibility: he leaves saying “ittekimasu,” an expression used by someone departing with the intention of returning, and Sakiko answers “itterasshai,” as someone awaiting that return. A phone call she receives at the café on a Friday also works as a possible setup for the visit.
However, the direction deliberately hides the visitor’s face. The white T-shirt was also associated with Tatsuki throughout the series, which prevents a definitive conclusion. What the episode confirms is not the visitor’s identity, but Sakiko’s transformation: this time, opening the door does not mean returning to her old life.
The meaning of the T-shirts and the ending
Before they separate, Sakiko and Mitsuru wash T-shirts, sheets, and curtains and hang them out together. They agree that Mitsuru will leave when everything is dry. Secretly, both spray water on the items to extend that domestic routine for a few more hours. Neither wants to rush the end, even though they both know it is necessary.
Throughout the series, waiting for a T-shirt to dry turns an ordinary interval into a measure of the time they share. In the final episode, the image comes to represent more than simply staying. The clothes need to dry for life to move forward, but they can be hung out again many more times.
That is also why Mitsuru tells a boy during a bus trip that growing up means gaining new places to return to. The ending does not argue that marriage is the only possible form of love. It suggests that leaving is not the same as abandoning someone—and that a reunion only makes sense when the door can be opened without fear.