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“Welcome home, Rika!”
A round of cheers went up around the table, glasses raised high into the air. Sake for the adults, juice for the kids.
Rika let the warmth of their affection wash over her, and it brought a wide smile to her face.
It always felt good to return to Hinamizawa, after being away. To see her friends—no, her family, again. To spend time with the people she loved the most in the entire world.
Keiichi and his son Keitaro. Mion and her daughter Tamaki. Rena and her son Kihiro. Satoko and her daughter Sakiko. Precious people. Precious bonds.
“Thank you,” Rika said, bowing her head. “It’s good to be back.”
Keiichi slammed his cup onto the table, his grin still big and stupid, even as an adult. “Must be nice to get out of that hospital bed, and into Hinamizawa proper. How are you feeling?”
Rika made a show of rolling her shoulders, and flexed a little. “I’m a little sore, and a little tired. But it will take a lot more than a little fall to get the best of me!” She giggled, but then she swept her gaze across the children. “I’m so sorry I had to miss Watanagashi. But I want to hear all about it, everything you’ve all been up to. You all just started high school, right? How has that been going?”
Keitaro leaned forward, his exuberance a mirror of his father’s. “It’s great! There’s so many people, and I’ve been doing my best to make friends with everybody! There’s even this one girl, who—”
“Blah blah blah,” Sakiko interrupted, waving her hand in front of Keitaro. “Who caares. It’s just highschool. It’s mostly the same as middle school. Kind of boring. There’s new people, we’re studying. Same old, same old. There, you’re all caught up. Now, Aunt Rika. Give us the good stuff!”
Satoko groaned, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Sweetie, please. Rika isn’t just here to give you gifts and tell you cool stories, you know. She wants to be a part of our lives.”
Sakiko turned towards Rika, her eyes getting big and wide. “Auntie Rika pleeease! You always bring back such cool stuff!”
“Maybe if you stop calling me Auntie, I might consider it.”
Everyone laughed. Rika paused for dramatic effect, then started searching her pockets. “I know I have it somewhere…”
The four children leaned closer, waiting with bated breath.
“Oh darn,” Rika said, not managing to feign sincerity. “I must have dropped it somewhere. Children, would you be willing to help me look for it? Retrace my steps?”
Stars shown in Keitaro’s eyes, and he stood up, raising one finger into the air. “It’s a scavenger hunt! You’re on!”
He was halfway to the door before Keiichi had grabbed him by the back of his shirt. “Not so fast. It’s already dark out.”
“Well that just means—”
Rika shook her head. “The first clue won’t be visible until morning. So you’ll have to wait.”
Plus, she still needed to set it up.
Keitaro fell to the ground in despair. “So you’re just teasing us, and now we have to toss and turn all night wondering what sort of traps will be lying in wait!”
“That’s right.”
“Curse you, Auntie!”
Another round of laughter around the room. It was always lively here.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” Kihiro added with a soft smile.
“But seriously,” Sakiko added. “How was Berlin? Did you do anything cool?”
Rika let out a soft sigh. “I’m afraid there isn’t much to tell, this time. I spent some time with a friend I’d met on previous trips. The weather was pretty awful though, so there were a lot of indoor activities. Museums, plays. Some really excellent cafes and restaurants. I even went to some dance clubs a few times, though the music that’s popular these days is a little baffling.”
Tamaki grinned like a shark who sensed blood in the water. “A friend, huh? Who is this friend of yours? Are they by chance, a distinguished gentleman ?”
She was at that age, after all. Rika placed a hand over her mouth coyly. “Well well. I wonder.”
“I knew it!” Tamaki let out an ear piercing squeal, and practically crawled across the table towards Rika. “I want to know everything! Is he tall? Does he have a beard? Does he wear a suit?”
Rena let out a faux gasp, covering her hand with her heart. “Oh no, it can’t be! Is our Rika finally being taken away for good?”
Mion rolled her eyes. “As if.”
Rika stared into the hopeful eyes of her niece for a little longer before she burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. But I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. My friend's name is Annabelle. And I assure you she’s anything but distinguished.”
“Awwwwwww!” Tamaki slumped down onto the table, dejected, which led to a round of laughter from everyone.
Kihiro studied Rika thoughtfully, silently. That boy was too observant, sometimes.
Rika began telling more stories about Berlin, about the people, and the countryside, and the beautiful shops, and the wonderful times she’d had. There was a willing audience here, many who had barely known the outside world, consuming it all vicariously through her stories.
It felt good.
Tamaki had remained slumped on the table for most of it. Near the end of the story, she perked up, looking up at Rika again. “How come?”
“Hmm? What’s that?”
“How come you never got married, Auntie?” Tamaki’s voice was uncharacteristically quiet, vulnerable. “You’re so beautiful, and smart and kind. Surely there must be a legion of men out there willing to sweep you off of your feet.”
Rika bit her lip, hesitating. It was a question she’d deflected a thousand times before, but there was something more to it, coming from Tamaki. It was impossible to truly know the heart of another, but teenagers so often wore their hearts on their sleeves.
And she could see it in Tamaki’s eyes, in her expression, in the subtle edge of desperation to her voice. What Tamaki was really saying was something like If there’s no hope for you, then how can I expect to ever find someone myself?
She’d have to handle this delicately. “I appreciate the sentiment, Tamaki. But I don’t think marriage was ever in the cards for me.”
“But I don’t understaaand,” Tamaki whined.
“Some people just aren’t interested in romance,” Kihiro snapped, a little more harshly than the situation warranted.
Rika shook her head. “It’s not that. The concept does appeal to me. But… I do love to travel. If I were going to be with someone, they’d have to be someone who would stay by my side, no matter where I’d go. Or at the very least, they’d have to wait for me to return, to be willing to love me, even when I’m gone. Maybe someone like that exists out there, but for them to also be interested in me? For me to be interested in them? For them to be single? In an infinite span of worlds, with infinite time, I might be able to find such a miracle. But this world is finite, and so is my time on it.”
She kept her gaze focused on Tamaki as she spoke, deliberately not looking anywhere else in the room.
“That’s so sad,” Tamaki said, sniffling.
“There there.” Sakiko patted Tamaki’s shoulder consolingly. “Maybe Aunt Rika isn’t the type to settle down. But I'm sure that doesn’t mean she’s entirely lacking in romance.” Her gaze turned to Rika, her grin mischievous. “You’ve traveled so much, right? There’s got to be some out there somewhere. Brief flings. Wild affairs. Star crossed lovers, wishing you could reunite but knowing you’ll never see each other again? You’ve had that kind of passionate drama, right? I bet you’ve left behind heartbroken men on every single continent!”
Keitaro gasped. “Even Antarctica?!?”
“Especially Antarctica.”
Rika giggled, covering her mouth again. “You children sure have some lively imaginations. Maybe I have been in situations like that. But it wouldn’t be very ladylike to tell, would it?”
“No way!” Tamaki and Sakiko both looked up at her, pleading. “There’s got to be something! Tell us. Just one, please please please!”
“Hmm. I wonder.”
“That’s a lie.” Kihiro spoke, his voice calm, quiet, but cutting through the commotion all the same.
Everyone turned their attention to him. He wilted a bit, but continued on. “Or well. Not an outright lie, I guess, but… Aunt Rika?”
Ah, darn. Well, she supposed she wouldn’t have been able to avoid having this conversation forever. She met his gaze, calm, serious. “Yes, Kihiro?”
“In all of your stories about your travels, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about men very much. But just now, when you talked about love, or even just jokes about trysts… it felt like it was true. Something you had experienced before. But in so many of your stories… you’re spending all of your time with a female friend. Someone you’re staying with, who’s showing you around, going on hikes with you, whatever.”
There was a tension in the air, everyone listening with baited breath, not everyone fully understanding what Kihiro was saying. Rika smiled softly. “Go on, Kihiro. Say what you mean.”
“I, uh, well.” His face colored a bit, and he scratched his chin. “Aunt Rika, do you maybe… prefer the company of women?”
Shocked silence hung in the air.
Rena smacked Kihiro on top of his head. “Rude! That’s rude! You can’t just go asking people if—”
“I do.”
All eyes on her. Wide. Unsure if they’d heard her properly. She took a deep breath.
“I’m a lesbian.”
Silence. She could hear her own heartbeat. One. Two. Three.
Then everyone started talking at once, an explosion of energy and noise and enthusiasm.
“Whaaaaaa—!”
“Cute! That’s so cute! How is it possible that you’re even cuter!”
“Oh my god, it makes so much sense now.”
“That’s so cool! Auntie, you gotta show me how to make girls happy!”
“Tell us! Tell us! Who is this Annabelle girl to you, really? I wanna know!”
“... I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No boys, huh? Gosh, I can’t even imagine that.”
Overlapping voices, difficult to parse, to take in. Rika kept smiling. Ultimately, they were her friends, her family. They’d love and accept her no matter what.
She knew that.
She answered questions as best she could, and they kept coming. Her fellow club members all seemed a little stunned, but the kids were incredibly enthusiastic. It was a lot more normal for them.
Rika quietly sipped at her sake, once things had died down a bit. She looked across to see Keiichi studying her carefully. Thoughtfully.
He cleared his throat. “I’m really happy for you, Rika. And I hope you understand that we all love and care for you, no matter what. I mean, love is love, right?”
But
“But…” He looked at her, a bit hurt. “I wish you had felt like you could have trusted us with this sooner.”
“Yeah!” Rena pumped her fist into the air. “You’re my cute little Rika no matter who you like!”
Mion clenched her fist. “If anybody ever gives you trouble about it, they’ll have to answer to the Sonozaki’s. I promise.”
“I know.” Rika smiled back. “I believe in all of you. Things were… complicated though.”
She tried to ignore the absence in the room, the voice that wasn’t speaking up, wasn’t congratulating her. That kept her eyes down, that was trembling.
“Complicated how?” Keiichi leaned forward, his eyes soft. “We want to hear it. To know this side of you too.”
Rika let out a soft sigh. “Well. Things were different back then. When we were kids. It wasn’t the kind of thing anyone ever talked about. I didn’t even know there was a word for it. But my friendships with women were… close. Intense. There were girls back in St. Lucia who utterly adored me, and… well. But that was expected. It was just a thing girls did sometimes, in an environment like that. Something you stop doing when you grow up.”
Sakiko pursed her lips. “I’ve read about stuff like that in manga. It’s called Class S or something.”
“Mmm. But I didn’t grow out of it. I still felt the same way as an adult. I started traveling the world, to see things I’ve always wanted to see, beyond the borders of Hinamizawa. And I met women there, like me. We would fall into each other. It was always secret affairs, rendezvous after dark. Always an expectation that it would end, that it had to be hidden, that it was shameful.”
Tamaki made a cooing sound, her eyes sparkling as she imagined the romance of it all, oblivious to the underlying sadness of it.
“But then things began to change. This would maybe be in the late nineties, early two thousands? I began to meet women who not just loved each other in secret. But who were out and proud. I learned names for the things I felt. Was able to put a label on it, categorize it. And learned that I wasn’t alone. I marched in a pride parade in New York City. I threw a brick at a cop.”
“Woah, that’s so cool!” Keitaro pumped his fist into the air. “Fight the system, Auntie!”
Rika smiled, and raised her fist in solidarity. “But when I returned home to Hinamizawa, things were still the same. Nobody ever talked about it. It was a dirty little secret. The rest of the world continued to change bit by bit for the better. It was amazing, really. This last decade especially so. Even here in Hinamizawa. There are kids at your school who are out, right?”
Kihiro nodded, smiling softly. “Yeah, there are.”
“Maybe I should have come to you all sooner. I know you would have accepted me, even before society did.” Rika bowed her head. “If there was someone special, truely, then I would have crossed that gap. But my romance has all stayed overseas, and it never lasted. So it never really seemed like there was a reason to bring it up.”
She took a deep breath, and realized that it was a bit shaky, and there were tears brimming in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Shuffling around the table. Movement. Then an embrace. Keiichi, Rena, Mion, all held her tight, squeezing.
“We love you, Rika.”
“Thank you.”
It was good, for the moment.
She was still waiting for the pin to drop.
“Hey!” Keitaro stood up, his grin wide. “It’s still June, right! We should totally organize a pride event at school! That’ll really bring people together!”
Kihiro beamed. “That’s a great idea, actually. I’m sure we could get permission.”
“Oh!” Tamaki wiggled in her seat. “I wonder if there will be any cute boys there!”
Sakiko smacked her forehead with her palm. “If there are, they wouldn’t be interested in you. ”
“What? How come?”
The kids laughed. The adults pulled out of their embrace, smiling.
Rika looked up, across the table, to where Satoko was still sitting.
“Is this some kind of sick joke?” Satoko growled under her breath.
Her words cut through the happy atmosphere in the room like a knife.
“Mom?”
“You really think… that something like this is okay?” Satoko slammed her fists on the table. “It’s not funny, Rika. It’s a disgusting joke. Hurry up and get to the punchline already.”
Her eyes were wild, a little crazed, her breathing ragged. She was shaking so hard the table shook with her.
Rika looked down on her, her eyes cold. “This isn’t a joke, Satoko. This is who I am. This is who I’ve always been.”
“Liar!” Satoko screamed. “If that’s true, then why are you saying any of this like it's okay? Talking about your sick fantasies in front of the children?”
Keiichi reached a hand out. “Woah, Satoko, calm down, okay? We can—”
Satoko slapped his hand away. “Shut the fuck up! How can you all just sit there and be okay with this? That Rika is some kind of faggot? It’s disgusting! Perverted!”
“That’s enough, Satoko.” Rika snapped. “I don’t care what you say about me, but don’t do it in front of the kids.”
“Where do you even think you have the right!?” Tears streamed down her cheeks, and Satoko stood up and turned her back to Rika. “Come on, Sakiko. We’re leaving.”
“No way. What the hell is wrong with you, mom? I thought you were better than this.”
Satoko clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palm, then stormed out of the room, leaving shocked silence in her wake.
Nobody seemed to know what to do or to say. Sakiko broke down sobbing. Kihiro looked on the verge of tears as well.
Rika let out a long sigh. She should have had this conversation thirty years ago. Saved the kids from having to witness this. She reached out, putting her hands on Sakiko’s shoulder, Kihiro’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I’ll take care of this.”
“I… I don’t understand.” Sakiko sobbed. “She’s never been like this before. One of my friends is gay, she knows that, he’s been to our house, and she never… I’m so sorry.”
Her heart broke a little, and cold anger poured in to fill in the cracks. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. This is… about an old fight, between your mother and me. She’s just saying things she knows will hurt, and not caring who gets caught into the crossfire.”
Sakiko sniffed. “What fight?”
“Well, it’s a bit of a long story.” Rika pursed her lips. “And it’s not fully mine to tell. But I can promise you, I’ll drag her back by the ear and make her apologize if that’s what it takes.
Mion’s eyes widened, as if she’d finally connected some dots. “Shit.”
Rika smiled at her sadly. “Yeah. It’s long overdue.”
Worried gazes at her back, Rika stepped out of the room into the night air, to go find Satoko.
To deal with things, once and for all.
It wasn’t hard to find Satoko. Rika knew exactly where to go.
She found her on the cliff outside of where their old house once stood. That perfect little scenic overlook where one could take in the entirety of Hinamizawa below, and the entirety of the sky above.
Satoko sat on the ground at the edge of the fence, face buried in her knees.
“Geez,” Rika wheezed as she approached. “You should go easier on an old woman like me. I just got out of the hospital, you know? It’s a long walk.”
“I’m not trying to make it easy on you,” Satoko growled, though it lacked the bite from earlier. “Go away.”
Rika clicked her tongue, then leaned on the fence, staring down at the picturesque village below. “Forty-eight years old, and you can still be such a childish brat sometimes. I guess some things never change.”
“You’re a disgusting freak. I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“Oh, give it a rest already, will you?” Rika rolled her eyes, her voice dripping with contempt. “You’ve already hurt me in so many different ways. Do you really think your words are going to make a difference now? It’s just a single drop of blood in the ocean.”
Instinctively, she ran her fingers across her stomach. Prickles of phantom pain trailed behind her touch. Memories of knives, of bullets, of hot irons. Of a hoe, tearing apart her guts, exposing them for the entire world to see. Echoes of sins that resonated throughout a sinless world.
Even the myriad of scars paled in comparison to some other pains she carried.
Satoko looked up at her, finally. Her eyes were red, her cheeks puffy. She’d been crying. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
“It’s quite simple.” Rika knelt down in front of Satoko. “I’m here to hurt you. To really twist the knife. Gouge the stomach and kill. All the more pain for as long as I’ve put things off.”
“I don’t understand.” Satoko shied away from her, flinching. But she didn’t run away. There was nowhere left for her to run.
“I’m gay, Satoko.”
“Shut up.”
“I love women.”
“Shut up!”
“I love to kiss women, I love the way women smell, the way women taste. I love the feeling of my fingers inside of them, their gasps and moans and sweet sweet ecstasies.”
“Shut up shut up shut up!”
“I’ve fucked women in every country I’ve been to, on every single continent. Even Antarctica. I’ve left behind broken hearts and had my heart broken. I’m a witch who’s lived for more than a hundred years, and have made more than a hundred women scream my name.”
Satoko covered her ears and screamed at the top of her lungs. Her anguish echoed throughout the valley below, for all of Hinamizawa to hear.
Rika waited for it to end, watching coldly as Satoko shook before her. Time to deliver the killing blow. “But all in all, that’s just what I’ve been up to. It’s my business. Why do you care? ”
“I—” Satoko sucked in a short gasp of air, her eyes wide, panicked. Tears glistened on her cheeks. “It… it’s wrong! And that means that you… when we were young… you were looking at me like… like that, and…”
“I was.”
A simple truth. One that carried a force behind it as if she had punched Satoko in the face.
Rika laughed, the sound hollow and bitter. “It’s funny. That’s a pretty common refrain from ignorant buffoons. When someone comes out as gay, and others react with ‘ew, I hope you’re not into me!’ As if. Just because someone is gay doesn’t mean they don’t have standards.”
Satoko bit her lip so hard it bled.
“But in this case, it’s a hundred percent true. I was in love with you when we were young, Satoko. It’s not something I fully understood at the time. But it was there. I thought about you constantly. I wanted you by my side, forever. I wanted to steal kisses from you in darkened corners. I wanted you in my bed at night, figuring out how our bodies worked together.”
She paused, then Rika hung her head. “Time changes a lot of things, but there’s a part of me that’s still in love with you, Satoko.”
Satoko trembled, sobbing heavily, unable to say anything.
Rika watched her cry, trying to remain cool and detached and cruel, but a part of her own heart was breaking inside as well. She’d always thought Satoko was beautiful. And age had only ever added to that. The wrinkles near her eyes, her smile lines. The way she’d gotten a bit more plump. Rika wished she could have known her better. Wished she was hers.
“W-why?” Satoko choked out, her words interrupted by her sobs. “If all that is true, then why… why? Why didn’t you stay? ”
“I couldn’t stay. You couldn’t come with me. We had that fight already. But that’s not the important question.”
“Then what is?”
Rika opened her mouth, and hesitated. She’d kept her distance, so far. She’d have to really open up, to be vulnerable. Expose herself. If Satoko lashed out again, this time it might actually hurt. She took a deep breath.
“Why didn’t you wait for me?”
Satoko met her gaze, and the regret and pain there was enough of an answer.
Rika pressed forward. “It was only two more years, at St. Lucia. But when I came back… you were all over Kisaku. You couldn’t even wait for two years!”
‘Kisaku is a good man,” Satoko said, her voice shaky. “You were gone. And he was there for me. He was kind and sweet and charming and… and… that’s what you’re supposed to do, right? Settle down with a nice boy, and get married. There weren’t any other options. Did you really think something else would happen? That we could be together? That’s just a delusional fantasy.”
“A fantasy.” Rika spat on the ground. “Of course. Something as impossible as two women loving each other, being together, is the realm of fantasy. Of witches. Only a miracle that can happen in the sea of fragments, unbound by the chains of society.”
Rika’s gaze was fierce, unyielding. “Except it wasn’t. I walked that path anyway, and found that miracle as a mortal.”
“But not with me.”
“But not with you,” Rika agreed. She moved closer to Satoko, and she didn’t flinch away this time. “Do you know what, Satoko?”
Satoko sniffed, a blob of snot hitting the ground. She’d always been an ugly crier. “What?”
“I hated Kisaku. Utterly despised him. On your wedding day, I wished you the happiest blessings with the biggest smile I could muster. And then when you were away on your wedding night, I cried, so so hard, bawling my eyes out. I got drunk, so drunk I was numb. I wandered away, found my way up here, to this very spot. I stood over this cliff. I thought about jumping. Flinging myself into the air, letting gravity take me. To find another world, where I could make a different choice. Where we could be together.”
There it was. Some of the ugliest parts of Rika on display at last. What a worthless creature she was. “But I didn’t. I just sat here and cried until I didn’t have any tears left to cry. And then I left. I ran away, because I was too afraid to ask you to leave again. So I found some small slivers of happiness elsewhere.”
Satoko didn’t respond. She sat there, her head hung in silence.
Rika didn’t rush to fill it this time. She sat there too, with the woman she once loved, still loved. The cicadas cried around them, the light of the moon bright in the sky above.
“Why?” Satoko finally whispered. “Why are you telling me all of this? What is it supposed to accomplish?”
Rika shrugged. “I don’t know. But I do know I should have said this a long time ago.”
Satoko shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing will change. Nothing can change. Kisaku is my husband. He’s a good man, who’s blessed me with a wonderful daughter. Sakiko is the most important thing that’s ever happened to me, and I wouldn’t trade her for anything.”
“Of course. Sakiko is wonderful, and I’m so glad I can be a part of her life. But there are things that could change. Choices we could make.”
“What do you mean?”
Rika reached out, cupping Satoko’s cheek gently. “We could have an affair.”
Satoko sucked in a sharp gasp, but she didn’t pull away.
“We could get together behind closed doors. Sneak around. Every time I come back to visit Hinamizawa, we could be together. I could show you everything you’ve been missing.”
A fire danced in Satoko’s eyes as she considered it, truely. But eventually her gaze was averted in shame. “Don’t be ridiculous, Rika. Kisaku doesn’t deserve that kind of betrayal. And if Sakiko ever found out…”
Rika moved forward, pushing Satoko to the ground. She loomed over her, feeling the excitement burn inside of her, seeing that same excitement reflected in Satoko. “You could get divorced. Tell Kisaku the truth about your heart. He’d be heartbroken, but he’d step aside gracefully. Sakiko would understand. It’d cause a splash of drama in the town, but who cares? We’re strong enough to weather anything.”
Satoko shifted below, her hips underneath Rika’s as Rika straddled her. There was a deep longing there, a hunger burning within. But once again, she looked away. “No, Rika. I… it’s too cruel. He has absolutely no idea. It would destroy him. And if he didn’t take it well, if custody became a fight, if Sakiko didn’t want to see me anymore, then…”
One last push. Rika traced her hands up Satoko’s sides, delighting in the way she shivered at her touch. Her hands came to rest on Satoko’s neck, and she squeezed, just a little, enough pressure to feel her, to let her know that she was capable of far more. “Then we could die,” Rika said, her voice heavy. “Throw this world away and find another. Dance through the sea of fragments together for eternity.”
Satoko’s eyes reflected the moonlight, and they almost seemed to glow red. The temptation of infinity was great. What love could they find within each other there, depths of devotion and despair that mere mortals could never hope to understand?
But Satoko turned away for a third and final time. “I already told you, Rika. Sakiko is the most darling part of my life. I would never give her up for anything.”
“Ah, whelp. Guess that’s it then.” Rika stood up suddenly, her voice cheery. “Those were the only options I had. It's impossible after all.”
Satoko lay on the ground, still breathing heavily, disoriented from the shift in mood. “I… yeah. It’s impossible.”
Rika made her way back over to the fence and leaned on it. Her hair fluttered in the breeze. “Of course, I can’t help but notice none of your reasons given were ‘because Kisaku is the love of my life and I’m meant to be with him.’”
Silence. Satoko didn’t bother to reply. She stood up, dusted herself off. Came to stand next to Rika.
They stared over Hinamizawa in silence for what felt like ages. A prison. A battleground. A place to come home to.
“What now?” Satoko asked.
Rika glanced at her. “Well. In the short term. You have some apologies to make. And I need your help to set up the scavenger hunt for the kids. There had better be some particularly incredible traps to make up for it.”
Satoko winced. “I’m… sorry, I said all those things. I… it hurt. I was lashing out because I was jealous. Because I hated myself for the way I felt. But that doesn’t make it right.”
“There’s the actual adult with self awareness.” Rika smiled. “But Satoko?”
“Hmm?”
Rika’s voice turned cold, her expression hard. “I’m not the one who needs an apology. I don’t care what you said to me. I knew where it was coming from, and believe me, I’ve heard far worse. But you said all of that hateful crap in front of the kids. You’re supposed to be someone they can trust, that they can count on to love unconditionally. If any of them are gay, are trans, are queer in any other way, they’ll be doubting themselves now, scared. Wondering if Satoko will hate them, think they’re disgusting. Kick them out of the house. And even if they’re not, they have friends who are, and they know your home is no longer a safe space to bring them.”
“Oh god.” Satoko clasped her hands over her mouth, the dawning horror growing in her eyes. “Sakiko, I… oh fuck.”
“Yeah. You screwed up, big time. You’d better be prepared to get on your hands and knees and beg for forgiveness.”
“I will. I promise.” Satoko hung her head in shame. “I’m sure it’ll be quite the horrible punishment game.”
Rika laughed, then clapped Satoko on the shoulder. “Yeah. I’ll make sure they cook up a good one for you.”
Silence hung in between them once more, but the air was lighter, less full of tension.
“Rika?”
“Hmm?”
“What happens next? In the long term?”
“You continue your life with your family. I continue traveling. I think I might visit New Zealand next. Beautiful country. And I’ll continue to love women wherever I go.”
Satoko took a deep, shuddering breath. “The thought of that hurts. A lot.”
“I know. But I won’t stop.” Rika paused, glancing over at her. “Not unless you give me a reason to stay.”
She didn’t respond. Rika turned away. “Come on, everyone is probably worried sick.”
She started walking down the road, back to town. Her muscles already ached. This was going to be a hell of a hike.
“What if I did?” Satoko called out from behind her.
Rika turned back, looking over her shoulder.
Satoko had her hands clenched up, wringing the hem of her shirt. “What if I did get divorced? Would you stay?”
A hope. Maybe a painful one, but Rika dared to let herself feel it. “I would still travel. But I’d take you with me sometimes. And I’d always come back to you.”
“And the other women?”
“There are no other women, if I could have you.”
Satoko’s blush was hard to see in the darkness. She took a deep breath. “I… I’ll think about it. What I really want. It’s a huge decision. I can’t just upend my life on a whim.”
Rika bit her lip. “Take your time. You know how to get a hold of me.”
“I…” Satoko paused, took a step towards her. “Would you wait? Refrain from your… trysts?”
A part of her wanted to be the boundless romantic, and proclaim that she would wait forever. But the truth was that she couldn’t. She wouldn’t allow herself to be chained down by Satoko’s indecision. “For how long?”
Satoko glanced over at the village, in the direction of the festival stage. “One year. The Watanagashi festival next year. I’ll give you my decision before then, one way or another.”
Rika smiled. “Watanagashi it is then.”
“Okay. Good.” Satoko took a deep breath, then hurried to catch up with Rika. “In the meantime, we’ve got a lot of work to do, huh?”
“Yeah. But it’s okay. We’ll take it one step at a time.”
