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“Thanks for coming today,” Kikoru says. A wicker basket with a plain, white picnic blanket draped over the top hangs off her arm as she and Reno make their way up the road to her family’s estate.
“It’s no problem. I wanted to come.” He smiles and places one hand on her lower back. “It’s an important occasion, after all.”
Last night, Reno asked Kikoru to marry him. Seeing him down on one knee with a diamond ring in hand brought tears to her eyes. Of course, she said yes. She cried as he placed the ring on her finger, the rock simple and elegant, but its weight overwhelming nonetheless. Kikoru never dreamed of marriage, nor children, not even a pet - the latter two she’s still unsure about. Up until now, she lived and breathed for the Defense Force. Her entire life prepared her for the cause and left little to no room for anything else. When she met Reno, she thought having a work companion wouldn’t harm anyone. She never expected herself to make so much space for him in her life, and vice versa. No one had ever prioritized her before, especially not over the mission of exterminating kaiju, so ending up committed to this person who placed her above all else in his life is… unsettling. Unnerving. She thought she would love being first in someone else’s life, but now that it’s happening, all she feels is guilt.
She cried all night long after Reno went to sleep. Out of joy for her future, but also for something else. There exists an ugly core deep inside of her that keeps saying she doesn’t deserve this, that she’s being selfish. When she stares it in the face, that core looks a whole lot like her father.
“Do you have the key?” Reno asks as they approach the front door. Kikoru fishes it out of her coat pocket and hands it to him. “Thanks. I’ll get that for you.”
He unlocks the door and holds it open for her, his face glowing despite a sad smile on his face. It’s the first time she’s asked him to visit her parents’ graves, her father’s ashes buried on the estate grounds right next to her mother’s.
Kikoru often wonders how her mother would feel about the decisions she’s made up until now. She herself married and had a child while in the Defense Force, so surely she wouldn’t hold it against Kikoru for doing the same? Or did she want something else for her daughter, much like Isao did? She misses her mother more than anything, her memory lying heavy in her chest to the point where it sometimes gets hard to breathe, but it’s her absence that hurts the most.
Out in the yard, two unmarked graves rest under the shade of a plum tree in full bloom.
“Right is mom, left is dad.” Kikoru sets the basket down in front of her father and takes a seat on the grass.
“No names?”
“They didn’t want to be found,” Kikoru says with a shrug. “So they could spend eternity together in peace, or whatever he said.”
“Director Shinomiya said that? I guess it seems fitting, he wasn’t someone who cared much for attention.” Reno sits down next to her, across from Hikari, and crosses his legs into a pretzel.
“Don’t know for sure. He didn’t tell me.” Her voice cracks. “He told Narumi.”
“Oh.” A short pause. “I’m sorry, love. I should have-”
“Not your fault,” she mutters under her breath, her chest tight at the thought of Narumi being here, spending years with her father while she was shipped off to America for training. “Anyway! Enough about him. Mommy, this is Reno.”
Reno lowers his head in respect when he faces her mother’s grave, his voice soft and heartfelt. “Captain Shinomiya, it’s truly an honor to meet you. You’re an inspiration to us all.”
For a moment, Kikoru wonders what it would actually feel like to introduce the love of her life to her mother. She likes to think it would be warm and cozy without tears threatening to spill in the corners of her eyes, the nagging feeling that she’s been robbed of something precious that she can never get back. She blinks the stinging sensation away. It’s no use to linger on what could have been.
Reno talks to Hikari’s grave earnestly about his intentions with her daughter, their plans for marriage, the questions they’ve been having about whether or not they’ll have children down the line. “How did you do it, ma’am? Being a captain in the Defense Force and having a family seems impossible, but you did it as flawlessly as anyone could in your position. I can only hope to be as good of a parent as you, but some days it seems impossible to juggle being on the Defense Force and having a life on the outside. Having a child in the mix seems… daunting. Way more terrifying than a kaiju, if you ask me,” he chuckles.
“She was amazing,” Kikoru says more to herself than to Reno, but he nods all the same and covers her hand with his, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
“Just like you.”
She smiles, but it’s hollow. If Reno notices, he doesn’t comment. He knows when to give her space and when to force an issue, that’s one of the things she loves most about him: he never expects her to be anything but herself.
Kikoru closes her eyes and listens to Reno talk to her mother as though she’s here sitting in the flesh with them, asking him questions and laughing about the stories they share. Maybe she would cry when Kikoru showed her the ring, or maybe she would appraise it and wonder why it isn’t bigger. Either way, Kikoru likes to think that her mother would be happy for her, but it’s the not knowing that leaves her feeling empty on days like today when she should be feeling full.
“I’m going to run inside and get more water,” Reno says, standing up and brushing stray strands of grass off his pants. “Do you want me to get anything else?”
“No, I’m good. Thank you.” He leans down and kisses her before he heads inside. Kikoru watches as he gets smaller and smaller the farther away he gets.
She stretches out one leg and kicks her father’s gravestone.
“I think I hate you,” she says, her voice sharp as glass. “Some days I love you, but all the other days? Most days? I hate you, Daddy. I know I shouldn’t. I know everyone else respects and admires you. Some even seem to love you more than I do, maybe even more than I should. I know of the sacrifices you made… but I just don’t care. I hate you. I hate that you sent me away while you trained Narumi yourself. I hate the way you looked at me like I was Mommy’s ghost. I hate-” Tears fall down her face before she has a chance to catch them. “-that I was never good enough for you… no matter how hard I tried… no matter how perfect I was… I was perfect, Daddy. Why wasn’t that enough for you to love me back?”
She buries her head between her knees and squeezes her eyes shut, her breaths heavy and frantic. She hasn’t cried like this since the day he died.
“I should be happy - I’m getting married, for fuck’s sake. And I am happy, but…” Her sighs collapse on themselves. “Why do you always have to ruin my best things?”
Isao’s grave does not answer, but that isn’t much different than when he was alive. Kikoru kicks his gravestone again and feels the force of it reverberating in her bones.
“Reno’s my family now,” she says, wiping her eyes and staring down the plain, gray rock. “And I’m his. I’m not lonely anymore, so I don’t need y-” The word catches in her throat, not allowing her to disparage her father anymore than she already has. “Just watch me. Wherever you are, don’t look away from me now.”
The sun is setting on her back, heat stretching across her skin like a warm embrace. Reno returns with a pitcher of water and doesn’t comment on her red, puffy eyes. Instead, he places an understanding hand on her back and sits with her in the silence until the sun goes down. She can still feel its heat long after it sets.
“Reno?”
“Hm?”
“I love you.” Kikoru leans into him and rests her head on his shoulder. “And I love our family, no matter what form it takes.”
Reno kisses the top of her head and draws her in closer to him. Closer to home.