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“There. You look beautiful.”
Megumi stepped back, admiring her work. A red ribbon, which normally kept her hair out of the way while she painted, now fastened her daughter’s fishtail braid. She’d noticed her hands trembling more than usual as she threaded each section together. Nerves, perhaps, or perhaps it was just one of those days.
“Did you used to wear your hair like this?” Yusuke asked, gazing into the bathroom mirror. “When you were my age, I mean.”
“Not exactly. On the first day, sure, but after that…” Megumi exhaled a laugh. “I honestly couldn’t be bothered to keep up the routine. Is it obvious I’m rusty?”
“Quite the opposite: I feel confident. Assured.” She straightened her posture. “Like I could walk straight through the gates without any fear.”
“That’s good to hear.”
It seemed Megumi’s prayers had been answered, in a way; transferring Yusuke’s first-day jitters to her mother. She’d tossed and turned for hours, nearly making herself sick over hypotheticals. Bullying used to be her biggest fear. It still was, but in the year and a half since her daughter came out, she had even more to worry about.
She’d seen the headlines, read the statistics. Photos of smiling, happy teens—like Yusuke, like Ryuji—captioned with the unthinkable. Megumi once believed her fate was to end up as a headline, a statistic. Yet another plot device in Madarame’s tragic backstory. Oh, how he’d tried so hard to save his student. At least she’d left something of use behind.
“Mother…? Your eyes… you went someplace else again.” She shifted her focus to Yusuke’s concerned tone, and the room spun a little less.
“Ah- I did, didn’t I? Apologies, it’s just…” Megumi swallowed the lump in her throat. You can cry after she leaves. “Where have the years gone?” Silence followed, and she felt as though she’d chosen her words wrong. “It must be what Mei feeds you. All those health foods—she’s made you sprout like a sunflower!”
The doorbell rang.
Yusuke instantly perked up. “Speaking of which!”
“Of what?”
“Ryuji and I decided to commute to school together. That should be him now.”
Megumi grabbed her cane and trailed after her, confused. “You’re telling me he took the train in the opposite direction, just to immediately turn back around?”
“I tried to reason with him. Nevertheless, he insisted.”
That boy was an odd one, and Megumi was eternally grateful for it. Removed from all he’d ever known, a ten-year-old Ryuji made a split-second decision that would change both his and Yusuke’s lives forever: he said hello.
Unlike teenagers, younger children often choose their friends based on little more than their name and favorite color. Yusuke drew pictures Ryuji liked, ergo they were destined to be together. Watching them grow, while the ten-year-old friendships surrounding them began to fade, theirs remained just as strong as that first greeting.
Yusuke opened the door to her slightly frazzled companion.
“I appreciate going the extra mile, literally, so we could take the train together, but you really didn’t need to run—”
“Yournewuniformlooksgreat…!”
“My… what?”
“I—guh,” he paused, catching his breath, “I said your new uniform looks great.”
Now, Megumi was no expert on romance (for obvious reasons), but Ryuji’s face couldn’t have gotten that red from running alone. Under no circumstance would she stoop to meddling, though. She wouldn’t be the mother who pushed people toward her daughter, even if said person treated Yusuke better than anyone who’d come and gone from her life.
Stop hovering. Don’t hover. If I do, she may never come home.
Yusuke’s lips moved. She’d responded to Ryuji’s compliment, and Megumi completely missed it, dissociating during what very well could be her daughter’s first love. “Where have the years gone?” Buried inside my head, I assume.
She glanced over at the clock. “You two should get going.”
Ryuji stretched his arms above his head, preparing to set off again. “Don’t stress ‘bout us, Miss Megumi. I’ll make sure we’re on time!”
“I entrust no one else.”
*****
Megumi hadn’t spent a day alone in over a month.
Today, she vowed to take some much-needed time for herself. Relax, watch trashy television, sketch a little (if her hands would allow it).
…
This was torture. The apartment never felt so suffocatingly small, yet simultaneously larger than life. Every uneven surface and sharp turn taunted her with endless morbid possibilities. She could trip. Twist her ankle. Die alone. Break her cane. Hit her head. Pass out. Die alone. Have another seizure. Hurt herself even more. Die alone.
Make an orphan of her daughter.
An hour after Yusuke left, Megumi dialed Mei’s number. She wasn’t sure what she hoped to gain from the conversation. The comfort of hearing a voice other than her own, perhaps. Regardless, she couldn’t be alone anymore.
Mei picked up as if she’d been waiting by the phone.
“Feels weird without ‘em, huh?” No hello. No, “Is everything alright?” She had a knack for knowing exactly what to say, reminding Megumi of those students at the atelier everyone flocked to for extra paint and paper. Like them, Mei had experience. You never asked what kind; you simply understood that they’d been places, seen things.
“Admittedly yes, it does… which leads me to my question. Might I stop by later today?”
“You sure you’re up for that, dear?” She’d recognized Megumi’s exhaustion over the line—yet another sixth sense of hers. Ryuji always wore a mask at least a day prior to coming down with anything. She knew he wasn’t well before his immune system did.
Megumi hesitated.
“I’m on my way.”
For as long as they’d been friends, Mei took her son’s first day off work. She already missed so much of his life. Even if she came up a bit short in tips that month, it was well worth being able to give him her undivided attention, and to not miss out on at least one milestone.
Megumi leaned her cane against the side of the couch and laid down. Her vision had a slight staticky filter to it, turning the ceiling into a CRT television at the end of its daily broadcast. With nothing else to watch, she could ignore her body’s cries for sleep no longer.
…
There was a knock at the door.
It couldn’t have actually been a knock, could it? She’d just got off the phone, what, two minutes ago? The static returned, accompanied by the patron saint of migraines singing into her right ear. Megumi rolled over, and it sang louder.
A second knock. That, she clearly heard. “Who- who is it…?”
A third knock, more frantic this time. She’d been too quiet, it seemed.
“Who is it!?” she repeated, fiddling with the dials on her mental CRT until the static cleared. Did Yusuke forget her lunch? No, no, I’m certain she took it. Besides, she’d have no reason to knock. Unless something happened along the way…
“Uhh… it’s Mei?”
“Wh- how?”
“The… train? You don’t sound too hot, dear.”
Megumi slowly stood, praying the floor didn’t fall away from her. “Not ‘how’ as in how you got here—how did you get here so fast?”
“It’s been 45 minutes.”
“Oh.”
Upon opening the front door, Mei wasted no time leading her dazed friend back to the couch. “Rough day?” A nod. “Wait here. I’ll put the kettle on.”
*****
The two teens reconvened at the Kitagawa residence after school, as per Mei’s request.
“I have a decent schedule,” Yusuke explained. “My classes aren’t too far apart, and I can visit my locker during passing period without much issue.”
Ryuji blew a raspberry. “Forget your schedule—tell ‘em ‘bout Goro-kun!”
“Ah, yes, of course.”
“‘Goro-kun?’” Mei leaned forward, brows raised attentively.
“Akechi Goro. He and his mother moved here over the summer—”
“He just moved here!” Ryuji nearly fell off the arm of the couch, enthusiasm proving too great to be contained. “No friends, no close relatives. Sound familiar?”
Yusuke sighed, shaking her head. “You wanted me to tell my side of the story, yet you interrupt me when I do. Am I allowed to continue?”
“Sorry, sorry, gotta little carried away. It’s all yours, Yu!”
“Thank you.” She cleared her throat for dramatic effect, a lasting endearing trait of hers. “We sit near each other in chemistry. His was a face I’d never seen before; one that held a story I vowed to uncover. So I approached after class, and my suspicions were confirmed. Not only was he a new student, he also has a fair bit in common with Ryuji and I.
“We all have the same lunch period, which was when he revealed more about himself to us. He never knew his father—”
“Bet he was a real scumbag…”
“He’s quite athletic,” Yusuke continued, ignoring Ryuji, “riding his bike to and from school each day in his hometown. He learned to play the trumpet when he was just eight years old. He has plans to go into politics when he’s older, specifically to shed light on the normalization of violence against women. There’s more to it than that, but he wouldn’t elaborate. Aaand…” She nudged Ryuji, and he shot upright, taking a few decorative pillows with him.
“And he’s trans!”
Mei beamed. “Ain’t that a wonderful coincidence?”
Ryuji set the pillows back on the couch. “We were thinkin’ of settin’ up a mom meet-n-greet. Goro-kun doesn’t know anyone here—well, besides us—and neither does she. She left everythin’ behind to start a new life with him. Maybe you two could be the start of that new life.”
Megumi wasn’t sure how to comfort someone escaping a situation like hers. Mei, on the other hand, spoke with conviction. She believed her when she said there were brighter days ahead. Pep talks in the mirror never gave the same results.
“The worst is over”? Not necessarily.
“I’m here if you need anything”? I can barely take care of myself.
“We won’t judge what you had to do to survive”? Hmm. I may be onto something there.
“Sounds like a plan,” Mei affirmed. “I’ll check my schedule for the coming week.”
“What about you, Mother?”
Megumi glanced over at one of the pillows: a birthday gift her daughter spent countless hours sewing in home economics the year prior. It depicted a tree with buttons for leaves shielding a navy-haired girl from the rain. Yusuke didn’t need to explain what the tree represented for her mother to understand.
She wondered if Goro’s mother had any handmade pillows, clay sculptures, or trumpet compositions dedicated to her. If she did, she wondered if she was home often enough to appreciate them. Most of all, Megumi wondered what sort of mother she thought herself to be.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, my little tanuki.”
*****
Two weeks later, “Goro-kun” had slipped into practically every conversation.
He was devoted, highly intelligent, and polite, yet unafraid to speak his mind when the situation called for it. Though he wanted to get his name into the public conscious eventually, it didn’t bother him that Yusuke and Ryuji were his only friends. They were all he needed.
Yusuke hadn’t been this giddy since age ten. For a moment, Megumi considered the possibility that she’d fallen in love.
…She’d also assumed the same about Ryuji.
She refused to break her no-meddling policy, of course. If it truly was love, things would work themselves out one way or another… though not without complications. Two people would live happily ever after (or until graduation), while the third picked up the pieces of their heart.
Megumi hoped Yusuke wasn’t that third person.
No. She shouldn’t think something so horrible. She didn’t want anyone to be that third person. Instead of worrying about Yusuke getting her heart broken, worry about meeting her potential suitor’s mother. The next few hours may make or break their entire relationship.
Akechi Aika didn’t smile much. When she did, as the pair greeted her into the apartment, it never quite reached her soulful scarlet eyes. Her teeth were yellow, lips chapped, skin pale and ashy. She looked like she’d seen her fair share of ghosts. Perhaps they’d even possessed her.
Within seconds of sitting down, she proclaimed, “Neither of you were moms by choice, I’m guessing. I certainly wasn’t. Not that I ain’t grateful as hell for Goro, he saved my damn life, but the way he came to be ain’t exactly… ideal.” She ran a hand along her scalp, hair shaved nearly to the skin. “Yeesh, sorry, that’s a shitty opener. I’ll start over: I’m Aika. I used to be a sex worker. Got pregnant with Goro, my life fell apart, now I’m here. Ask me anything.”
“Anything…?”
“You heard me.” She took a long sip of her tea. “I’m tired of breaking my back for people. If they don’t like me, so be it. I gotta second chance at life, and I ain’t wasting it on snobs. Not that that’s what you are—I mean people like- like the employers who won’t hire me just ‘cause of my past. Those people. Get it?”
Mei poured her another cup. “What do you mean by ‘second chance at life’?”
“Took a buncha pills when Goro was ten. As you can see,” Aika gestured to herself, “they didn’t kill me.” She laughed halfheartedly. Megumi didn’t find it funny.
“I also got a second chance,” she finally replied, motivated by Aika’s confidence. “I had a seizure when Yusuke was three. Nearly fatal. Thankfully, I survived, though not without lasting complications.” She stamped her cane a few times to prove her point.
“Well, you look great. Could’ve mistaken you for her sister.”
“Ah, that’s…” If anyone understands, it’s her, Megumi reminded herself. “I… I had Yusuke when I was in high school.”
“High school? Damn. I was 19. He had the gall to try and convince me he was around my age. Knew he wasn’t, but I rolled with it. Come to find out he’s some hot-shot politician, and if his ‘fellow kids’ disguise fooled anyone back then, it sure as hell ain’t now.” Aika polished off her second cup. “Great blend, by the way.”
Two things stood out from her confession. One, she said everything so calmly, almost giddily, despite her lack of a smile. What happened in the past couldn’t hurt her in the present. Megumi wished she could apply some of that mindset to her own life; namely, not constantly fearing the future she’d crafted for her and Yusuke would come crashing down any second.
Two, she would not have placed Aika at only a couple years older than herself. Mid-fifties, maybe, but barely pushing forty?
To the woman in question, Megumi’s silence was deafening. She wasn’t offended, though, no—in an unexpected turn of events, she started to laugh. And her laughter didn’t stop at a soft exhale to lighten the mood. Rather, it grew so intense so quickly that tears pricked the corners of her eyes. Once again, Megumi didn’t see the humor in any of this.
“Oh- ohoho, okay, sorry.” She sounded out of breath. “It’s just- you know I look like shit, I know I look like shit. There’s no need to hide how you feel. ‘Cause, like, it’s the truth.”
Aika’s outburst managed to thoroughly stump Mei, who usually had a response prepared for every situation. “You look fine, dear. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Her expression immediately soured. “‘Don’t be so hard on yourself’? I destroyed myself. All these wrinkles and scars are from the decades of garbage I willingly ingested. Admitting I look like shit is to admit I made shitty choices, and I gotta live with ‘em.”
It was as if another person started speaking in Aika’s place. The other shoe had finally dropped, and suddenly, everything clicked.
She had to make peace with her past, or she’d never live to see her future. She’d joke about it, poke fun at the absurdity of middle-aged politicians roleplaying as teenagers, but not to the point of letting herself off the hook. Taking into account Megumi’s own experiences, she didn’t blame Aika for initially turning to substances for comfort. Megumi, too, occasionally hesitated when faced with a prescription bottle, imagining how she’d feel if she went a little over the limit. She also understood Aika’s residual guilt for raising a child this way.
“Then we’ll ensure you don’t have to live with them alone.” Was now a good time to bring up the part she’d rehearsed? Potentially. “As for your previous occupation, we won’t judge what you had to do to survive.”
“Hear, hear.” Aika had been vigorously tapping her fingers against her palm since the kettle’s steady stream of earl grey ran dry. Mei reached out, and she let her hold her hands, nails bitten bloody. “We all think we can do better as parents, and maybe we can. But today, we’re doing the best with what we have. Goro’s a good kid. You’re a good mom.”
“Wow…” Aika sniffled. “Didn’t expect an intervention first-thing. Had I known, I would’ve brought tissues. I’m—sniff—glad your kids found mine, and me, by proxy.” Her voice softened, losing a bit of its raspiness. “Wish the girls back home were here. Some of ‘em could use the same advice. As young as I was, that ain’t nearly the worst of it.”
“Would you like to talk about them?” Megumi asked.
“You sure you’d be interested? I’m a rambler… as is already clear to you, hah.”
Mei squeezed her hands. “If you’ll tell us, we want to hear it.”
Despite her former Sensei repeatedly hammering in that she’d be alone until she died, that no one would love her like this, Megumi’s sheer persistence proved him wrong. It hurt sometimes, it hurt so bad, but she still made an effort to love the world more than he hated it.
And now, she’d found two women she could share her love of the world with; two women who were once kicked while they were down, who now spat in the face of everyone who’d told them things would never get better.
Things could get better, and the world could love her back.