Aiko picked up some dinner at a fast food restaurant near her station and took it home, where Reina beat her by over fifteen minutes. There was another person there as well. Someone Aiko was not expecting as her spouse rummaged through the bag of takeout for her dinner.
“Eri-chan,” she said, encountering her niece in the living area. Eri still wore her winter coat in the frigid room. “What brings you here so late?”
“I was visiting with Yuri-san,” she said. The two of them had more in common than even Aiko understood. If I were Reina, I would wonder if they were sleeping together. Something she never wanted to know, not even for a million yen. “I thought I would stop by before heading home. There’s something I wanted to tell you.”
Reina took that as her cue to take dinner upstairs. Aiko would whine about the crumbs in bed later, but for now she was glad to have the privacy with her niece. “What is it?”
The girl – she would always be a girl to Aiko – rubbed her ring finger on her left hand. “Today my divorce was finalized. I am officially a Takeuchi again.”
Aiko didn’t know whether to congratulate her niece or not. So she said, “I see.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately,” Eri continued. “About my future. About my life. About my ikigai, I guess.” Something overcame her and she laughed at the table. It was the first time Aiko heard such a sound from her niece in too long of a time. “I have no idea what any of it will hold. Does anybody?”
Aiko shook her head. “Certainly not.”
“All I’ve ever wanted since I became an adult was to have a simple life. I wanted to be a wife and mother, even though I am gay. After what happened with…” Eri cleared her throat. “It felt like a sign that I was on the wrong path. Since then I have prayed a lot. I’ve even gone to temples and considered becoming a nun. A simple life, right?” She sniffed, a tiny tear on her cheek. “I love my parents, but they don’t understand. Nobody in this family understands but you, Auntie Aiko. I would be lost without you to look up to.”
“Oh, don’t say that…”
“Seeing you in a healthy relationship all these years, even if I didn’t realize it for so long, has taught me a lot. Namely that I need to follow my heart and do what is right for my life. That’s why Ruu and I are moving far away from here and starting all over again. Together.”
Aiko sat up. Moving? “To where?”
“We’re not sure yet. It won’t be for a while, but she has a cousin in Kyoto who runs a garage and might take her on if we decide to go. There are also bars there that she could get another part-time job at. I don’t know what I will do. I’ve thought about getting a job too in order to support us, but ultimately I want to be a housewife, like you. I just never thought I could be Ruu’s wife. I always thought it had to be a man.”
The cold room became warmer as Aiko reached across the table and took her niece’s hand. “Will you ever try again?” she gestured to Eri’s stomach.
Neither a nod nor a head shake moved the young woman. “I don’t know. I want to, but it will be a while yet. I’m still mourning the loss of my daughter. I can’t even leave here soon in part because I don’t want to leave her side. It would be bad form to leave before two years are up…” At that point, her daughter’s spirit would not be in danger of returning to search for her mother and becoming lost between the planes of existence. “Of course I would come back every obon to tend to her. But right now I don’t want to leave her side at all. When can I?”
“I can’t answer that for you.” Aiko put her other hand on top of Eri’s. “But starting over in a new place might be good for you.”
“It’s scary, though. I’ve never lived anywhere but here in Tokyo. I’ve only spent a year outside of my parents’ home. I’m scared of going it alone in a new place.”
“You won’t be alone. You’ll have your girlfriend.”
“It’s true. She’s too good to me.” Eri wiped her eye. “She put up with my shit when I married because I wanted to be a wife and mother. It never dawned on me that I could have a family with her instead. I don’t know how we’ll do it yet. It may be a few more years.”
“You’ll find a way.”
Eri nodded. “I think I could go, if I knew you would support me with your strong will.”
“Of course, although I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too.”
They embraced before Eri left, taking with her the last of her shattered soul. For the briefest moment Aiko thought she saw the childish grin the Eri of twenty years ago flashed whenever she was about to stir up trouble in her grandmother’s house. She’s going to do it again. This time with a woman whom Junko would have an aneurism over. She’ll blame me. Aiko smiled as well.
She went upstairs with her food and told Reina what had happened while they ate in bed. By the end of their meal Reina had laughed at the image of Junko finding out about Eri’s plans, and the bed became covered in crumbs that Aiko could not bring herself to care about.
By that Saturday, Reina was more or less back to full health, her doctor at the hospital giving her the all-clear before she went to see her therapist to talk about her mental issues instead of her physical ones.
“How would you say this has affected you?” Dr. Katou asked, crossing her legs as she tugged on her ear and tossed an errant bang out of her face. Reina was supine on the couch, her toes tickling the insides of her socks as her feet bounced on the arm of the sofa. “As in any changes in your outlook, or things like that.”
Reina took in a deep breath before rubbing her eyes and collapsing back onto the couch. “I dunno. I haven’t really thought about it. You want me to have some epiphany about my mortality or something?”
“If you think that’s appropriate.”
“Fuck, I dunno. People die. My father died when I was a kid. When something like that happens, you are always aware of your own mortality. If someone as powerful as your own father can die from a nudge, then he’s clearly no Superman. Nobody is. We all die.”
“People deal with that in different ways. You didn’t seem to think much about death. But this tends to change things in people.”
“I didn’t die. I think people are forgetting that.” Like Aiko. Like Jun. Like everyone Reina came across lately. “I could’ve died. But I could die from something every day. I could get hit by a car like my father. I could go down in a plane like my girlfriend’s parents. I could be minding my own business at home when a tree falls on me during a storm. I could get struck by lightning the moment I walk outside. I mean… why obsess over those things? It only makes you afraid, and I don’t want to live my life afraid.”
Dr. Katou wrote something down. Reina always wondered if she was writing judgmental notes. “Still, that was a very trying thing to deal with. Most people would be perturbed by that.”
“I’m not like most people.” Reina bit her lip, as if to bite back the other words forcing their way out. “I’ve got more important things to fret over.”
“Oh? Such as?”
Reina shifted on the couch. “You know.”
“Your gender dysphoria?”
“I guess.”
“How has that been going?”
“Same as always. It’s never going to go away, right? So as long as it’s not crippling me I should be happy, right?”
Dr. Katou folded her hands on her notepad and looked up. “It rarely does go away, it’s true. But you are not forced to feel better because it’s improving. That’s why you come to therapy. To learn how to deal with it, and to face it when necessary. You’ve done a wonderful job at that after all this time.”
“I guess.”
“When was your last episode?”
Like Reina could guess. The word “episode” meant so many things. It could mean the last time she broke down and had a good freak-out over her dysphoria. It could also mean the last time she cringed because her dick wasn’t real. Anything. It could mean anything. And that�
�s what sucked. “Maybe a few days ago.”
“What happened a few days ago?”
“It’s hard to explain.” She was thinking of Shio. While at the time Reina was not bothered by the fact her new friend had a girlfriend, the more she thought about it the more she realized she wished she had more time to explore certain sides of herself with Shio. But I can’t tell her that. Reina glanced at her therapist. “I told you about what happened with that one girl.”
“The trans one?”
“Yes.”
The pencil came up again. “Did something else happen?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about my gender and sexuality. It made no difference to me what kind of body she had, as long as she was a woman inside. Some other people give me shit for that, like it makes me a hypocrite. I love women. But she’s the first one in a long time that I felt really understood me. Even my wife can’t understand things like that.”
“Because she understood what you’re going through with your dysphoria.”
“Yeah. Even though she and I have different outcomes, it felt really good to have a friend like that.” Had. Reina shook her head. “I mean have. I mean… she has a girlfriend now. So I guess we can’t sleep together anymore.”
Was that a cheeky smile on Dr. Katou’s face? Shut up. I know I’m a sex-obsessed slut. The therapist would never say it though. “You wanted to explore new facets of your sexuality with her, is that it?”
“Yeah, maybe.” Few people could offer Reina entirely new experiences… without making her miserable, anyway. “It sounds like I mean I wanted her to help me with my therapy, but that’s not really what I mean. It’s hard for me to find people I can trust like that.”
“Trust is a big issue for you.”
“Obviously.” Reina could think of few people she wholly trusted. Aiko, of course. Her friend Michiko was another, although they weren’t as close now as they used to be. Jun was doing her damnedest to become another person, but that was a different kind of relationship. “I haven’t connected with someone so fast like that since… well, I met my wife.”
At the end of their session, Dr. Katou dug into one of her giant, silvery file cabinets and rooted for something in a manila folder. “Thank you for opening up to me like that today,” she said, handing Reina a piece of paper from the bowels of the cabinet. “This is a worksheet and some exercises I think might help you as you move on from here. You’re not required to do anything, of course. You don’t have to show me the worksheet if you complete it. Just use it to figure out what you really need to do to reach the next stop on your journey.”
Reina thanked her and left. For once, she was not hanging around Shinjuku at the end of her session. Instead she was going home, where she and Aiko voted to have a quiet night. So she went straight to the station and sat down, holding the sheet of paper in front of her face as the train began to lurch through the city.
The questions were simple, but invasive. They asked about Reina’s hard limits in the bedroom, and why they existed. She pulled out a pen from her pocket and etched some things in before the next stop. She didn’t want to have sex with men because they both frightened and disinterested her. She didn’t want to have sex with people or creatures that went against her morality. She also refused to be dominated in the bedroom without express permission for it to happen. None of that seemed strange to her.
Then the questions asked about her gender dysphoria and if it had anything to do with these hard limits. Some things were easy to eliminate, like the ones that challenged her morality. The others, such as sex with men or being dominated, were in part because of her dysphoria. Especially the latter. Men aren’t supposed to be dominated. She admitted that was a patriarchal view of things, but it didn’t stop it from being ingrained into her and a huge source of her issues. The patriarchy destroys everything. She was starting to sound like Mayumi.
Finally, the sheet asked her something so personal that she froze even as it came time for her to transfer lines. Luckily she got a text message from her wife at that moment. Aiko was always saving her.
“Hurry home! You have a visitor!”
Who could it be this time? The excitement behind Aiko’s words implied that it was at least someone special. Was it Jun again? Maybe Ami? Shio? Reina folded up her paper and hopped on the next train that would take her to her station.
When she arrived on her street, she did not expect to see the very first woman she loved.
Michiko knelt beside the fence outside Reina and Aiko’s house, touching the dormant leaves of a rose bush. As Reina grew closer, lost in a daze, she realized that her friend was poking an insect as it burst forth – a butterfly, uncommon at that time of year.
“Reina!” she called the moment she recognized her friend. But she didn’t race to her. She waited for Reina to come running for her.
A blur of greetings whizzed past, right there in the middle of her street. Let the neighbors see us. They all knew anyway. Let them be jealous that Reina got to wrap her arms around this woman with soft brown hair, manicured nails, and a coat straight off the department store rack. She smells like flowers and musk. Feminine and sharp at the same time. That was her Mi-chan.
“I came as soon as I could,” she said, referring to when she heard of Reina’s illness. “I wish I could have seen you earlier, but at this time of year…”
Reina shushed her with a kiss. The curtains from her living room drew shut as her wife became the only one on the street to give them privacy.
“Mite,” Michiko said, turning herself around in Reina’s arms and catching the butterfly again. “It’s not even February yet.”
“They follow you wherever you go.”
“I know. But this one is for you.”
“What do you mean?”
The butterfly perched atop Michiko’s finger before fluttering toward her nose. “I didn’t see it until you must have stepped off the train. Maybe it’s the one that represents your soul, fluttering free around your home and protecting what you hold dear.”
Reina smiled. “Sure. Now come inside and see where we hanged your picture you sent.”
“I hope it’s above the bed.”
“Where else would we put it?”
Michiko could not stay long before she had to fly back to America yet again, but Reina was happy to have her. With Aiko also with them that night, she felt like the one needing the most protection. They were there to shield her from the horrors of the world.
“There are rumors going around that we are dating, Aiko-san,” Takeshi said one Friday evening as he escorted Aiko back home from his place. They had dinner together since Reina was out that night with her coworkers. “At the school, of course.”
I wonder what would give them that idea. Even near Aiko’s neighborhood, she walked with her hand in his. There continued to be nothing sexual between them since that one fateful night, and Aiko doubted there ever would be again, but they did not deny the affection that continued to bloom between them. She could not say if it was platonic or romantic. And I don’t’ care. Aiko was done fretting over her feelings. “How scandalous,” she said. “And here I am, a married woman.”
Takeshi laughed. “And I am not without my other, er, friends.”
It was true. Aiko recently stopped by his house unannounced only to find him locking lips with a woman she had never seen before. Neither of them were ashamed about it. The only negative thing Aiko felt was related to her own inability to make love to him. She talked about it with Dr. Katou the last time she saw her – sans Reina’s presence, since she would never in a million years want to hear about that – and they came to the conclusion that if Aiko were to be sexually involved with Takeshi one day, it would have to be because it was completely organic to her situation, not because she had a fantasy to fulfill. Who knew when, if ever, Aiko would be able to completely give herself to a male. I’m not sure I want to. Tonight was not that night.
&
nbsp; “You’ll get used to people being confused by your lifestyle,” Aiko said with great authority. “Been dealing with that for over twenty years now. Bad enough I’m with a woman. We’ve also got other women running around all willy-nilly. You should see one of our orgies sometime.” She stopped in front of her house and gave Takeshi a wry smile. He was never seeing one of those, and he knew it.
“I don’t mind the confusion,” was all he said. Then, “But I would like to kiss you goodnight, if I may.”
She thought about it. Originally she was afraid that by occasionally kissing him it would only fuel his desires for her, but after some talking they set their boundaries. “You may.”
Takeshi tipped her chin up and gently kissed her lips. Aiko could practically hear the heart attacks happening in the other houses as they continued to spy on her.
She was in bed reading a book when Reina came home, stumbling in the genkan and calling up to her wife. Someone’s drunk. Aiko licked her finger and turned a page in her book. By the time Reina floundered her way upstairs, her wife had finished a chapter.
Although intoxicated, Reina managed to change her clothes and wiggle into bed without harming herself. Not that her conversation was any good. She babbled about absolutely nothing – half the time Aiko had no idea what she was talking about. It also did not help that Reina reeked of cigarettes and cheap beer. Aiko would have to spend her weekend washing the linens.
“Hey, hey.” Reina pawed at her wife as soon as the lights went off and Aiko joined her beneath the covers. “Let’s fool around.”
Aiko batted her spouse’s hand away from her breast. “I don’t want to have sex with you when you’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk.” Reina’s breath was fouler than most beer had the right to be.
Aiko burrowed deep beneath the covers. I don’t need a boyfriend when I already have one man-child to take care of. She thought it pleasantly, but she could hardly stand it when Reina rolled on top of her and fell asleep with her tongue hanging out against her wife’s neck. Panting dogs never complained.
Ikigai Page 28
