The pressure to tell Sumiko was immense, but they weren’tquite ready yet.
Kaitaro’s normally impeccable sense of timing was off something awful that night, the sea outside of the window in Sumiko’s room pitch black but all lights in the small room ablaze with light to illuminate the two of them sitting side by side on her bed, chatting softly. It had seemed like only a few days ago that she was sitting before them plucking the string from their fingers despite all that had passed in the interim, yet they hadn’t quite expected this outcome at all.
They had been the one to venture the tentative suggestion of a sleepover under the guise of security from murderers but for the actual purpose of just spending more time with her. Despite everything she’d said to them their voice had still shaken and their hands had still trembled to ask but… here they were. Awake later then they’d been in years, talking about things they’d thought no one would want to hear.
With their hands tangled in her hair to pull the gentle locks into a braid as they spoke, one foot brushed against hers to maintain contact as if in not doing so she might disappear, Kaitaro ventured a tentative smile at her. Sumiko Ihara, a scientist for the government’s biological warfare program… but that was fine. She was a good person.
“And Chouko is the older one… she’s twenty five and has a fiancé she’s been engaged to for years but won’t marry so she doesn’t have to leave us… it’s touching, but we keep telling her to just get on with her life, ahaha. Since mom and dad aren’t ever around with them working all the time, she was the closest thing to a mom I knew—less Onee-chan and more Okaa-san, you know? Then there’s Kozue, she’s eighteen, and I guess the best way to describe her is gentle and kind… She’s always positive, even when things were bad. She kept the family’s morale up a lot, even if we didn’t have enough money that day to put food on the table or anything…”
They paused to loop one of the hairbands on their wrist onto the half of her hair they’d been braiding before shifting around to start on the other side to put Sumiko’s hair in two long, twin braids. Their conversation was more a regurgitation of words than anything else, but the duel facet of newly born trust, sleep deprivation, and the looming threat of death at any time prompted them to continue. Maybe, even if they died here, telling someone would let the memory live on; after all, even though they spouted the optimism that they wouldn’t die, there was no guarantee. The weakest, indeed…
“Chizu is next, just a year older than me… She’s kind of like Aiko if I needed a comparison? We’d rough house a lot—it’s honestly crazy how often I’d have to repair her clothing or my own after that. I think she’s the reason most of the hand me downs got so messed up before I got to them, but I don’t mind… just means I can make new things out of them. And then there’s my little sister but… she’s just a baby still.”
Their smile faltered slightly at the last mention, hoping their lack of using a name wouldn’t be too noticeable. On one level them speaking of their family was an open invitation for Sumiko to talk about hers but on another it was avoidance of the real issue they wanted to tell her. But then again, there was no better time than the present. They steeled themselves, tied off the second braid, and spoke.
“…I don’t mean to ruin the sleepover or anything but… I thought you should know that I know. Know that I know, I mean, and about what happened—” They were a mess. Reprimanding themselves mentally to spit it out, Kaitaro tried again. “Yasu-san told me your secret… but I destroyed it so she couldn’t show anyone after me. I’ll tell you mine if you want, to make it fair! I mean, what I think mine is… I’m not actually sure…?”
