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“I wish you’d eat more. You look far too skinny.”
Those are the types of things Shoko hears during her weekly calls with her father. No matter how busy her schedule gets as a biology major in college, Shoko finds the time to check in with him. Her older sister calls their father sometimes, not as often as her, but that’s because she has kids to raise. They always end up talking about the same things on the phone: Shoko would tell him about all the exams she’s studying for, and her father would then complain about how their family never gets together anymore. He’d suggest they all go on a vacation, but Shoko would have to tell him how she has school or how her sister has her own family now. She doesn’t like that she is the one who has to butcher her father’s yearnings and whims with reality, but someone has to do it. She’d rather tell him the truth than make him optimistically wait for his daughters to one day come back home.
After a while, her father likes to direct their conversation to Shoko and her well-being. He never truly scolds Shoko for her nasty habits, at least not on call, instead deciding to disguise all his apprehensions as wishes.
I wish you’d sleep more.
I wish you’d smile more.
I wish you’d take care of yourself.
She thinks he does so to soften the blow. So that, in a way, he isn’t forcing her to do anything, just vigorously encouraging her to. Even when her father’s urges and worries borderline nagging, Shoko smiles and thanks him over the phone because it’s heartening to know that someone cares for you that much.
“Don’t worry Dad, I’m eating fine,” Shoko reassures him through the face call. Her father doesn’t look satisfied with her answer, his face scrunching up and eyebrows furrowing deeper.
He sighs, heavy and aged, the tension gradually departing his face, “I just want to make sure you’re alright. Your eye bags get darker every time I see you, Shoko.”
“I know,” Shoko says as she begins entering the door passcode to the apartment, it rings a cheery chime when she presses “Enter”. Her hand curls around the handle and slowly twists it, “I have to get going now, but I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Okay, okay,” her father acquiesces with a waving motion. “Would you do me a favor and tell your sister to call me? I miss my grandkids.”
Shoko nods. “I’ll do what I can. Bye, Dad.”
Her father is the one to end the call. Shoko relishes the few seconds of silence she is given before fully opening the apartment door. The moment she steps in, Megumi’s white dog welcomes her happily with sporadic barks. Jumping on her legs, tail wagging feverishly.
“Hey,” Satoru grins at her. Without any requests, he takes the tote bag resting on Shoko’s left shoulder and places it carefully on the couch. The design on the bag reads, “Be your own daddy. Make your own sugar.” in big, bold, black letters. Satoru had bought it for her when she started to grumble about how bulky and inconvenient her backpack was becoming. He told her he hoped she’d live by the motto, to which Shoko replied that she wouldn’t be studying to be a doctor if she didn’t want to spoil herself.
“Hey yourself,” Shoko greets back as she scratches behind the dog’s ears, coaxing low and appreciative grunts out of him. She eyes Satoru, who now resides in the kitchen area, occupying himself with cooking dinner. Tonight, he has opted to wear an apron that reads, “Mr. Good Looking is Cooking”. Shoko would wheeze at the sight if it weren’t so familiar already. Satoru has taken on a peculiar liking for collecting aprons, especially the ones with stupid, cheesy quotes printed on them. He claims their energy aids him to cook better, but Megumi rebuts him. According to the seven-year-old, Satoru’s food tastes the same regardless of the delusions and superstitions he has convinced himself of believing.
A shrill voice questions out loud from within one of the bedrooms, “Is that Shoko?”
“Yeah, it’s me!” Shoko confirms, matching the voice’s volume so that she can be heard past the walls.
Megumi pries his bedroom door open, scuttling to the living room in quick paces, as fast as his short legs can carry him. He stops in front of Shoko and stares up at her with the most serious expression a child can attempt to muster. She has to stifle a snort because of how silly he looks: round and boyish facial features contorting as if he were a sunken old man.
He blinks and in a very plain manner, says, “Something’s wrong with Tsumiki. Can you do something about it?”
It’s a classic display of Megumi masking his affection for his sister with indifference. He cares much more than he lets on, liking to show his consideration through his actions rather than his words, which for Tsumiki, is enough. Shoko wonders if she and Satoru should be more concerned that the young boy feels the need to hide his soft emotions with aloofness.
“What do you mean?” Shoko frowns. “Did something happen to her at school today?”
“Megumi!” Satoru interrupts, waggling his wooden cooking spoon to gesture for Megumi to come over. “Do you mind helping me out a bit?”
Megumi scowls but says nothing in protest, dutifully walking to the kitchen to assist a beaming Satoru. Satoru hands him the spoon, instructs him to watch over the pot of soup until it begins boiling, and then leaves the kitchen.
“You said I would help you—not do all the cooking for you,” Megumi grouses. Satoru just pats his head in response.
“Sorry, buddy. Got to talk to Shoko,” he chirps. “Be back in a minute.”
When he faces Shoko, Satoru grows staid; smile dimming and eyebrows faintly knitting together. Shoko cocks her head, crossing her arms over her chest as uneasiness swells throughout her body, “What’s the matter? Is Tsumiki okay?”
Satoru clicks his tongue. “I’m not sure,” he murmurs honestly, and Shoko can hear the worry etching onto his words. “She wasn’t crying or anything when the kids came back home, but she seemed so quiet, you know? Like subtly sad or something.”
“Did you ask Megumi about her? Maybe he knows?” Shoko suggests.
“Nope,” Satoru says with a feeble shake, “he doesn’t know what’s going on either. I tried to talk to her, but she dismissed me pretty quickly. She hasn’t gotten out of her room since they got here.”
Shoko frowns again. She expects the brooding from Megumi but not from Tsumiki.
“That’s—” she pauses, “not like her.”
“I know,” Satoru sighs. In any other circumstances, Shoko would laugh at Satoru for paralleling an overworked mother with how he’s standing: a hand resting frailly on one hip and a defeated expression on his face, plus that dumb apron to top it all off. But this isn’t just any other circumstance, and Shoko is too busy fretting over Tsumiki to really process anything else.
“I’ll try talking to her,” Shoko says after a minute, “see what I can do.”
Satoru grins, relieved and grateful. “Thank you, Shoko,” he says earnestly.
She doesn't say anything in return, choosing to cup his elbow with her fingers instead. Satoru grins impossibly wider when she gives it a gentle squeeze, his eyes sparkling yet mildly hazy.
“Gojo! It’s boiling!” Megumi abruptly yells from the kitchen, snapping Satoru out of his daze, “Gojo!”
Megumi’s alarmed squall makes Satoru realize he has left a child alone and unsupervised in a space that contains both fire and sharp tools. Immediately, he rushes to the kitchen in long strides, hurriedly squawking back to Megumi, “I’m coming! Don’t panic! And don’t touch anything hot!”
Shoko takes that as her cue to begin walking. Slowly, she makes her way down the hallway and to Tsumiki’s bedroom. She brings a fist up, raising it so that her knuckles barely graze the surface of the door, and hesitates.
Shoko is almost certain that she does not have a single maternal bone reposed in her body. She never had any kind of pets as a kid, unlike Satoru, who had ponds of fancy koi fish, or Suguru, who ministered to three cats. In lieu, she had an older sister, who took on the role of being Shoko's only female influence; educating her on all the womanly affairs their mother wasn’t there to teach. Shoko has never possessed a motherly nature of any sort, always preferring to rely on her sister rather than attending to things herself. Of course, that changed a bit when she was forced to live alone in a dorm system during high school, but even then, the only two breathing, living organisms she really had to fuss over were Satoru and Suguru.
Now—in the present—Shoko ponders how she got into a situation like this. How on earth did Satoru ever manage to rope her into taking care of not one, but two orphaned kids? Are they even appropriate for the job? Even sufficient? She’s not sure (she’s not confident, either).
But then she hears a sound resembling too close to a sniffle from inside the room, and just like that, Shoko’s diffidence vanishes, her doubts seeming trivial. She knocks on the door promptly, lingering patiently to hear a reply.
“Yes?” Tsumiki answers thinly. Shoko breathes out a short exhale, glad that she hasn’t been pointedly shunned.
“Tsumiki, it’s me, Shoko,” she softly says. “Can I come in?”
A few seconds pass before the door creaks open. Tsumiki peeks through the crack, inviting Shoko in with a shy pull of the arm. The lights in Tsumiki’s room are turned off, but her lamp provides an apricot warmth that is enough for Shoko to observe her face in the dull-lit room. Neither Tsumiki’s eyes nor nose display any indications of crying: nothing red, swollen, or watering, so Shoko deems that as a win. She takes a seat on the bed near where Tsumiki is sitting silently, fidgeting with the stuffed bunny plush Satoru bought for her during his trip to London. Shoko waits for Tsumiki to speak first.
“I’m sorry for making you and Gojo worry,” the young girl whispers contritely, her head low and voice quavery like a kicked puppy. “I didn’t mean to misbehave.”
Shoko blinks at her, stunned that Tsumiki feels obligated to apologize for being sad. It takes a moment for Shoko to get her bearings back.
“There’s no need to be sorry, Tsumiki,” Shoko says, frowning. “Why would you think you need to apologize to us?”
She lifts her head, lower lip trembling ever so slightly, “Because I was rude. When Gojo tried to talk to me, I ignored him. Even though he was just trying to help.”
“Tsumiki, listen to me,” Shoko says, hand reaching out to lay on the girl’s knee in solace. “There’s nothing wrong with feeling down sometimes. We all have our bad days; they happen. Me and Gojo understand that.”
“But I—”
“No apologizing,” Shoko repeats firmly. “Not for this, okay?”
Tsumiki’s eyes flicker at Shoko, mouth ajar before nodding in absorption. Tentatively at first, and then accumulating in steadiness and assurance, “Okay.”
Shoko inches closer to her so that their knees are now touching. She watches Tsumiki carefully, thinking about whether she should probe more or stop the meddling and let Tsumiki be.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Shoko decides with caution. “About why you’re upset?”
Tsumiki shrinks into herself, tiny fingers abandoning her stuffed bunny and playing with the hem of her skirt instead. She avoids Shoko’s gaze—almost shamefully—and in a hushed tone, utters out, “My teacher assigned us a project at school today. I need to bring in photos to share with the class.”
Oh.
“Family photos.”
Oh.
Fuck.
Shoko is on the verge of shouting out for Satoru and letting him sweep in and steal this case from her. She doesn’t know how to navigate through this conversation—she doesn’t even know how to start it. All Shoko can think of doing right now is to curse Fushiguro Toji to the depths of hell. She curses Tsumiki’s mother too (she doesn’t know her name or what she looks like, so in her mind, Shoko swears at a faceless blob).
She swallows thickly. “Are you scared that your classmates will judge you?”
“I guess,” Tsumiki falters. “Won’t they make fun of me? Their families are all normal. They’re not like me and Megumi.”
Tsumiki stills.
“I don’t even have a mom,” she whispers.
The line is well-acquainted with Shoko. She has heard it countless times before from her sister and has said it many times herself. Often late at night, in the abyss of her bedroom; her younger self crying weakly to her father, puling and asking why her mother was gone. Tsumiki appears as a reflection of that.
Gently, Shoko takes Tsumiki’s hand, holding it and caressing it consolingly in her palm. The little girl has always been too mature for her own good. Doing dishes, changing bed sheets, cooking for Megumi, and never once complaining, rather just accepting it as a responsibility laid on her now that their parents were no longer in the picture.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Shoko hums, to which Tsumiki nods twice. “I don’t have a mom, either.”
Tsumiki broadens her eyes, drawing in a small, surprised breath at Shoko’s admission, “You don’t?”
Shoko laughs blithely. “I don’t,” she says, tenderness slowly unfolding. “My mom left when I was young too. She went off suddenly and lived her life—even started a new family.”
“Why would she do that?” Tsumiki purses her lips.
Shoko shrugs. “I’m not sure. For a while, it made me really sad; I would always envy my friends whenever I saw them with their moms. It’s funny, right? The title of ‘mom’ seemed so ordinary to everyone else, but for me, I never had anyone I could call that.”
“Yeah,” Tsumiki smiles faintly, “I feel like that too.”
“And that’s completely okay,” Shoko tells her, returning the smile, “it’s completely normal.”
There is an air of joy and gratitude that eclipses Tsumiki’s demeanor. The corners of Shoko’s mouth tug higher, eased at the sight.
“You must miss her.”
Tsumiki tilts her head, “My mom?”
Shoko nods. “Do you miss her?”
Tsumiki replies after a few seconds. “Yes.”
There is a strange something in her reaction to the question that Shoko muses upon. Oddly enough, Tsumiki doesn’t seem convinced of her own response. Shoko doesn’t know much about Tsumiki’s mother, only that she had left a few years ago, near the time Toji disappeared from the two siblings’ lives. Shoko wonders what she was like; wonders how a parent could have the audacity to desert their children like how she did: alone and forced to fend for themselves.
“Do you—” Shoko continues warily, “do you remember her?”
A beat. Tsumiki stares down at her feet, picking at a loose thread on the ankle of her sock.
“I miss her more than I remember her,” she finally says.
Shoko inhales. She gets that, she really does. She’s just sad that Tsumiki is able to relate to her. The familiar emotion of abandonment, of loss; no child deserves to experience such a thing.
“And how about you?” Tsumiki asks, eyeing the older girl. “Do you miss your mom?”
Shoko thinks it over. Really contemplates the question with her entire brain.
“I miss the feeling of having a mom more than I miss her.”
She doesn’t allow her comment to steep, passing it quickly with poise, “But that’s alright, and you know why? I grew up, and along the way, I found people I care about, people who care about me too.”
“Really?” Tsumiki says, looking at her sideways, almost skeptical.
“Really,” Shoko grins. “People like Gojo. And your brother. And you.” Tsumiki giggles when Shoko presses a knuckle into her cheek, rubbing the baby fat that bulges out adoringly.
“Can I tell you my secret?” Tsumiki bashfully says, ears tinging a pale hue of pink.
“I’m all ears,” Shoko encourages, patting the girl on the shoulder.
“My classmates talk about their parents a lot,” she starts, surveying Shoko discreetly, “stories about their trips, about all the things they do together, and sometimes… I like to join in.”
Shoko lifts her eyebrows. Tsumiki carries on.
“I tell them how my mom likes to braid my hair and how she likes to put ribbons and tie bows in it. I tell them about how she’s the smartest person I know; that she can memorize all 78 organs in the human body,” Tsumiki gingerly confesses causing Shoko to suck in a sharp breath. “And I tell them about my dad; how he would win prizes for me at the arcade and buy me souvenirs every time he went away on a business trip. And my friends would always get so jealous that I have a dad who makes up the time to spend with his kids.”
Tsumiki gulps. “Really, I’m just talking about you and Gojo. I don’t like that the universe gets to play favorites, picking and choosing what to give and who to give to. Sometimes, I can’t help but hate the world for leaving me and Megumi behind. But in a way, I think the universe apologized by giving us you two. I like to think that you guys were always meant to be our parents.”
Shoko feels her throat tightening, her vision glazing. She blinks at the small girl, feeling the utmost love for her.
“I hope you don’t mind that I draw you and Gojo in the family portraits I make at school,” Tsumiki says quietly. “I hope you know how much you two mean to me.”
The door opens wide. Tsumiki squeaks in embarrassment when she sees Satoru walk into the room, hands tucked in his pockets. Urgently, Shoko turns her face away from him, clearing her stuffy throat with a cough. She’s thankful for his unexpected disturbance; she was just shy of hugging Tsumiki and his intrusion prevented it. Shoko’s not ready to take stock of how attached she is to the children yet.
“Sorry for sticking my nose in your business,” Satoru says, taking a seat next to Tsumiki, who is now sandwiched between him and Shoko.
“It’s no problem! I’m the one who’s sorry!” Tsumiki blurts out, making Satoru laugh.
“Hey, I’ll tell you what,” he nudges, “let’s go out with each other tomorrow, just the four of us. We can go to an amusement park, or movie, or museum—whatever you want—and maybe even catch a nice dinner together afterward. What do you say?”
Shoko doesn’t think she has ever seen someone elated with such happiness as Tsumiki is now. Her eyes are blown wide, irises basically twinkling. A toothy smile is plastered on her face as she stares at Satoru in disbelief.
“You mean it?” she says excitedly, hands clasping together.
“Of course,” Satoru grins. “We can take all the photos you want. Use them for your project if you’d like?”
Tsumiki beams. Shoko lets a smile escape her, glancing at Satoru fondly.
“Thank you,” Tsumiki says, wrapping her arms around Satoru’s neck before doing the same to Shoko. “I’d like that very much.”
Satoru ruffles her hair, “You’re a good kid, okay? Shoko and I are always going to be there for you and your brother, no matter what. Don’t forget that.”
“I won’t.”
Shoko brushes strands of brown hair away from Tsumiki’s face, tucking the locks behind her ear while simultaneously flattening the frizzy mess on top of her head, “Can you help Megumi outside? I bet he’s probably setting the table for us.”
“Okay,” Tsumiki pipes compliantly, running out the door and into the living room. She smiles at them as she leaves.
Once she’s exited, Shoko begins dusting her pants, waiting for Satoru to stand and pull her up along with him.
“Thanks,” she says when he’s done exactly that. “How much did you hear?”
“Not all of it,” Satoru admits, tidying the bed; he places the stuffed bunny right in the middle of two pillows, “but most of it.”
Shoko crosses her arms, sighing. “She’s such a sweet kid. Smart too. They both are.”
He chuckles. “They are, aren’t they?”
They both stand like that for a while, completely silent, thinking over everything Tsumiki had said. Shoko tugs Satoru’s shirt, grabbing his attention.
“Are we doing this right?” Shoko lowly asks, biting the inner of her cheek. “This whole guarding thing?”
Satoru guffaws incredulously. “Guarding? You make us sound like dogs, Shoko. I think the term you’re looking for is ‘parenting’. It has a much nicer ring to it, don’t you think?”
Parenting. That’s a word Shoko would have never thought to be associated with her, let alone for her to be actively doing.
“Parenting then, if you insist,” she says, “are we any good at it?”
Satoru looks at her.
“We’re doing our best. As long as we do that, we’re alright.”
“You think so?” Shoko whispers with a ghost of a smile.
Satoru grins back large as if they’ve just shared a secret between only the two of them, “I know so.”