School Girls' Stories - Year 3

Chapter 28 – Righteous Indignation

“We tried to warn you, Yuki dear,” Mrs. Oshidori was telling her daughter. “We told you time and again that that boy was all wrong for you.”

This was when you thought I was Kaori, too. Yuki could not say those words to her mother, though they flirted on the tip of her tongue, and she opened her mouth several times to spat out the words on the floor before her mother’s righteous feet. Instead she sat on the couch, watching her parents’ go on a tirade about how they were right, and she was wrong, and that the best thing to do would be, obviously, to forget about the boy all together.

“What your mother means,” Mr. Oshidori corrected, constantly trying to play the part of good guy while still being right, “is that, even if you pine for him, what good will it do you? Are you going to wait thirty years for him to return to you?”

“I never said anything about any of this,” Yuki pointed out. “Fuji and I were figuring things out for ourselves until you called me home when you saw the news. I have every intention of giving him up,” how come her heart hurt saying that out loud? “and I know he is all wrong for me. I do not need you going about telling me how wrong I am. Maybe I should just allow you to do what Fuji’s parents did and arrange me a marriage when I graduate.”

“If you graduate,” her mother corrected. “You have been spending more time doodling now that you are in that art program than you have doing your homework, and once more your grades are slipping. We thought once that boy was out of the picture your head would come down from the clouds, instead-”

Yuki’s brow furrowed as she ignored the rest. What good would it do to argue, her mother never listened to her anyway? She had gone through so much in nearly three years and where had her parents been through it all? Worrying about the other two children who were already lost to them, instead of worrying about the one they could have saved. Would it have saved Yuki from heart ache and suffering if they had worried about her for one moment longer than the murderer they had for a son or the whore they had for a daughter?

“Yuki, are you listening?” her mother demanded.

“No,” Yuki admitted, then felt guilty and looked up to look her mother in the eye. Her mother looked everything but happy with her daughter, crossing her arms against her plump chest.

“What are we going to do with you?” she sighed unhappily. “What do you want from us?”

“For you to butt out,” Yuki pointed out. “I have things under control. Out of all the children you should have had a tight grasp on, I’m not the one.” Yuki suddenly stood up, and she did not know if the idea was coming to her out of love, or anger, but she blurted out, “I’m going to London.”

“What?” her mother cried, taking a step back.

Her father, always the more logical of the two, straightened his glasses and looked his daughter in the eyes. “How are you going to get to London?” he asked. “You have no job, you have no money, you have no passport, you do not speak English, and you have classes you need to go to and start studying for more often, since you will be taking your entrance exams for college soon.”

“I’m not going to college,” Yuki pointed out blandly, “and I am going to London. I may never see him again, but I can at least say good-bye to him. He may have lied to me, but he gave me something no one, not even you two, ever could. He gave me who I truly am. He gave me a backbone, he gave me strength, he gave me… me. I’m going to London, I’m not even going to finish with school, and you two… I’m sorry things didn’t work out with us, as a family, but… well, I have to go.”
Yuki rushed towards the door, both of her parents closer and faster than her. They blocked her exit, staring down at her, hurt and angered all in one blow. Yuki had said what they had never expected to hear her say. She had told them the truth, that they had missed too much of her life, but no parents was perfect, and they loved her, she knew that. But it was too late to capture what was already lost. They had left Yuki in the time she had needed them most. Their concern had been entirely for Kaori and Nakago when she had needed them, and it had cost them more than they had anticipated.

Her father was the first to step away from the door, watching her defiant eyes grow cold. He looked down at his daughter, seemed to bite his lip, pulling them back till they were nearly invisible, then sighed. “We can’t afford to help you get to London.”

“Honey, what are you saying?” Mrs. Oshidori cried.

“She’s right,” Mr. Oshidori pointed out, indicating his youngest child. “She needs to do what is best for her now, but promise me, if you go, when you come back, you will come back to us and let us… help you get your life together, and we can hopefully learn to be what you need.”

“Oh, Daddy!” Yuki cried, jumping up and hugging her father. “I love you and Mom both, so much, but… I just, I have to do this.”

“Your father asked you a question,” Mrs. Oshidori suddenly blurted out. “How are you going to get to London?”

Yuki bit her lip meekly and looked down at the ground. “Well,” she coughed, “I already know someone who is willing to buy me a plane ticket.”

“Fuji?” Yuki only nodded. Mrs. Oshidori threw up her hands in defeat. “Let us know how everything turns out,” she insisted, then stepped forward and gave her daughter a large hug.

It was not the perfect good-bye, but it was what the Oshidoris had needed to do. Now Yuki’s next step: London.