Ikigai Read online

  The other woman bowed her head. “I’m sorry for my outburst earlier.”

  “Oh, it’s not a big deal.”

  “By the way...” Hitomi continued to stare at the ground. “Your spouse wouldn’t happen to be... Reina?”

  I knew it was her. “Yes. We are still together.”

  “Still? You remember who I am?”

  “Of course.” Aiko smiled. “How could I forget?”

  It was the same Hitomi from nearly twenty years ago. The same Hitomi from Reina’s college courses who said terrible, homophobic things to her for months. Then they discovered that Hitomi was actually attracted to women as well, but committed to marrying her boyfriend, whom she also loved. I was her first. Until that moment, Aiko never realized that tidbit. Their time together in Reina’s bedroom was something she had not forgotten.

  Their conversation was brief, but in that time Aiko learned that Hitomi did marry her boyfriend. “We were married seven years,” she said. “Then he divorced me, because it turned out I couldn’t have children.” At first she took it as a sign to start her life over, possibly with a woman, but her family quickly introduced her to another man who fell in love with her. They were still married. “He’s a nice and kind man, but he doesn’t do anything for me, if you know what I mean. Even my first husband was someone I was attracted to.” She said it felt wrong to cheat on such a kind husband.

  Aiko offered her some encouragement with a touch of the hand. “I do not envy your position,” she said. “I can’t even imagine.”

  “Please send Reina-san my regards,” Hitomi said. “I must go now.”

  Yuri picked Aiko up shortly after that, and together they left the building and walked the chilly streets of San-chome. “Thank you again, Aiko-san,” she said. “I enjoyed the meeting very much. I think next time I could come on my own.”

  What a subtle hint. “It was my pleasure.”

  Before they reached the end of the street Yuri stopped in front of a chain café . “How about a quick bite of cake? I’m in a good mood right now. Oh, but you have work tomorrow...”

  Aiko stood in front of the display window and looked at wax representations of the desserts offered inside. “Cake sounds delicious.” She pulled out her cell phone to text Reina she would be home later. As they entered the café and sat by the window, she got a reply saying, “Damnit I wanna make out.”

  “What would you like, Aiko-san?” Yuri asked, perusing the menu. “I think I’ll get the strawberry and vanilla one.”

  Aiko ordered green tea cake for herself, and chocolate to go for Reina. She’s fighting off the bloody horde, so she’ll need it. Aiko was three days late. If she were sleeping with men, she would be worried a little.

  She wondered, as the waitress took their orders and gave them small glasses of water, if Yuri worried about those things still. She had never asked her friend whether or not she still had sex with her husband. Aiko wondered how this was any of her business.

  “I know I keep saying this, but I really appreciate you coming with me.” Yuri took a bite of cake and sipped her water. “It’s been a long journey for me to reach this point. Ever since my daughter became more independent and is home less often, I’ve had more time to self-reflect. Thinking about who I am... oh, you don’t want to hear this.”

  Aiko scraped some of the frosting off her cake before licking it off her fork. “I don’t mind. What are friends for?” And neighbors. And lovers.

  Yuri smiled prettily, the kind of smile Aiko would be weak to if she had more energy. “I’m trying to decide what it is I ultimately want from life. I’m happy with my family, even if my husband does have a girlfriend he’s never talked to me about. I haven’t talked to him about you either, so I guess that makes us even. But what I struggle with is deciding if I want to be out or not. I know I can’t, really, given my social standing, but sometimes I’m so envious of you and Reina-san. The whole neighborhood knows you’re gay and...”

  “What?” Aiko’s water glass slipped in her hands. “They what?”

  “Oh, you didn’t know? I figured you knew that you and your spouse were gossip.”

  “No.” Deep down Aiko accepted that people on their street must talk about her home life behind her back, but like Reina she chose to shrug it off. Unless they were actually caught doing the nasty homosexual thing, nobody would say anything – and even then they would be too embarrassed to even bring up the children of the neighborhood. Think of the children!

  Yuri lost her smile. “They don’t usually say cruel things. Just that it’s obvious that you and Reina are a couple. The aunties who were there before us said they figured it out when you two had been together a few years without any men coming and going from your house. That and the way Reina-san acts and dresses...”

  “I get it. But I hope that you are not ostracized for being my friend. Or that there are rumors about you.”

  “I don’t know about that last part, but people talk to me often enough. They probably think I visit you because we’re near the same age. Anyway, I guess I want to explore some new things in life. Isn’t there something you’ve always wanted to try but never had the chance to?”

  Aiko looked away. At this rate she would have to get the rest of her cake to go. “I suppose there are some things.”

  “Like what?”

  Motherhood. It wasn’t something Aiko thought about much anymore. She had made her decision to forego motherhood and accepted it, but thinking of it was not pleasant. She forced herself to think of another answer. “More traveling, I suppose. I’m happy with the life my spouse and I have, but I do wish we made more money simply so we could travel. I know she would at least like to visit our friends in America.”

  “I understand.”

  Aiko captured her friend’s old smile. “Like your host-sister when you were seventeen.”

  “Ara, you are too much.”

  The door behind Aiko chimed as someone entered the café . It was a man. Just a man. Tall, clean-cut, a stubbly beard that he wiped with his hand as he looked for a place to sit. I’ve never kissed someone with a beard before. Reina could do a lot of things like a man, but growing facial hair was not one of them. “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be with a man.”

  Yuri dropped her fork.

  Is it that shocking? “Of course what I mean by that is someone anatomically male... since sometimes my spouse... well, you know.”

  “Absolutely.” Yuri picked up her fork again. “Is this a sudden thing?”

  “I don’t know. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while.” Ever since I first met Takeshi. Aiko hadn’t felt an attraction for a man in a long time. Maybe ever. When she dated them before meeting Reina, she would go out with anyone who was nice enough to her. Physical attractiveness never meant much.

  “Are you... bisexual?”

  By now Aiko was using her fork to draw spirals on her cake plate. “I don’t think so. I don’t want to date a man. Certainly not leave my spouse for one. I wonder sometimes...” She glanced at the man having a coffee next to them. “What would it be like to have sex with a man?”

  Yuri nodded as she stared at the table, contemplating her friend’s curiosity. “Of course I have been with both. They are very different, and yet not so different at all.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “What I mean is on an emotional level it’s similar, although women are easier to trust. Physically, however... women are nicer. Men tend to be angular, and it feels more animalistic.”

  More so than it can be with Reina? Somehow Aiko didn’t believe that. “Sometimes I wonder,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper as Yuri leaned across the table to hear, “what is a real one like?”

  A flash of shock appeared on Yuri’s face as she realized what her friend meant. “Oh my goodness... does your spouse know?”

  “No!” Aiko’s plate almost went flying across the room as she cupped her hand around her face
. “I mean, she would flip! And not because she’s anti sex with men, but because of her, you know, issues.” No doubt that Reina’s biggest meltdown would be because she wasn’t “man” enough in bed. Two years of therapy would unravel like a spool of thread hooked to the back of a motorbike. “It would be impossible to get her to see that wasn’t an issue. But in the end, having sex with a male person would be entirely different from sex with Reina.”

  “With respect, I don’t think anything compares to sex with her.”

  You would know. Aiko had watched her spouse do some gymnastics in bed with Yuri before. Imagine her husband knowing about that! The husband who was anatomically male.

  Aiko didn’t expect to think about it so much, yet it was still on her mind when she and Yuri left the café to go home. The train ride back to the suburbs was fraught with fantasies of sex with men, be they the salarymen falling asleep in their seats or the tall foreigners shifting backpacks on their shoulders. Fantasize is the wrong word. More like curiosity. Aiko knew what it was like to kiss a man, make out with a man, and even be felt up by a man, but...

  She was grateful to arrive home before it consumed her too much.

  “I’m home,” Aiko said, taking off her shoes in the genkan. Reina appeared from the back of the house and took the box of cake from her wife. She hasn’t showered yet. Dressed in her work clothes, Reina praised God for sending her chocolate and went to eat it while watching TV.

  Aiko took a shower alone, and Reina showered after her. While she waited for her spouse to be ready for sleep, Aiko sat up in their room, cross-legged on their bed, and flipped through the last book Takeshi loaned her. She had marked a page with a piece of string indicating a scene she wanted to read over again. A sex scene.

  It was sparse, like most novels where romance is a subplot, but she focused on the descriptions of the man’s body and the way he made love to the heroine. It sounds like Reina. Yet she knew that it felt different, even if she didn’t know how.

  “I’ll be glad to be done with this bullshit,” Reina said, walking into their bedroom with her pajamas on. “I’ve had cramps for two days now and I’m so over it.” She crawled into bed and huffed into her pillow. “Are you done with yours yet?”

  “Haven’t even started.”

  “Eh? That’s weird.” Reina snorted. “At least we know you’re not pregnant.”

  Aiko closed the book, put it on the nightstand, and climbed into bed next to her spouse. It’s a joke. Although sometimes Reina liked to fantasize that she had the potential to knock-up her wife – they even role-played that scenario when Reina was having a particularly self-destructive episode a few months ago. It’s not like I can tell her... Aiko turned off her light and curled up next to Reina. “Do you wanna still make out?”

  It was like asking a kid if she wanted candy. Of course she wants to. The only times Reina didn’t want to do anything sexual were when she was ill or preoccupied with stress to the point of depression. Not even a second day of cramps could deter Reina from pulling her wife into an embrace and making love to her.

  I’m a lesbian fortunate enough to be married to another woman. Aiko sank farther beneath the sheets as Reina overtook her. If only those women at that meeting knew what she was thinking on the train ride home. Why can’t I be satisfied with what I have? She was satisfied. But her curiosity was only growing with age.

  Orange streamers fell from the ceiling as another drunken party guest knocked their head into one of the dips. It fell right onto Reina’s head as she sat at the bar at Ni-chome’s annual Halloween party.

  “It’s a good color on you,” Aiko said as she pulled the streamer off. “Especially with you wearing all black like that.”

  Reina could barely hear her over the thumping music of the illegal dance party going on behind them. Women dressed in all manner of costumes raised glasses into the air and cheered as they laughed and danced together. “You know I don’t do bright colors.” Reina finished her glass.

  “Oh, what a cute costume, Aiko-san!” Mayumi, putting her frizzy hair to good use by streaking it with silver and wearing a Bride of Frankenstein dress sidled up to them. “Is it real?”

  Aiko stood back from her spouse and showed off her costume – if it could even be called that. Wearing your high school uniform is cheating. Not that Reina complained. Her wife was something else in a short, pleated brown skirt and white sailor blouse, complete with brown bow and brown collar. She even had a pair of loose white socks to complete her throwback look. “It’s real! I didn’t know what else to wear tonight.” Her hair, pulled back into a short ponytail, bobbed about in her excitement. “But Reina-chan convinced me once she saw it...”

  Mayumi snorted in Reina’s direction. “I bet she did. And who are you supposed to be?”

  Reina lifted her eye-patch so she could see Mayumi without turning her head. “Didn’t you watch anime as a kid?”

  Her wife patted her shoulder. “I think she’s Captain Harlock or something.”

  “Lesbian Captain Harlock.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “I’m sure there’s doujinshi of it somewhere.”

  Mayumi raised her silver eyebrows. “You’re not wearing a cape.”

  “That’s because I don’t have one.” Nor did she have anything other than a dark outfit, an eye-patch, and messy hair that reminded her she needed to get it cut. She only told her wife she was going as the classic anime character because life was too short to argue. “I like your costume. Nice cleavage. Wanna come home with us tonight?”

  “Reina!”

  “Thank you,” Mayumi said, though she looked anything but flattered. “Except I have other plans tonight.” She turned to the bartender walking by. “Get this woman another glass of whatever she’s drinking, because it’s making her be nice to me for once.”

  “I’m always nice to you!”

  The bartender shook her head. “I’m off the clock now ladies. Oh, there’s my replacement.”

  Someone dressed as a lavender fairy slid in behind the bar, her translucent wings shimmering in the lights. Once she reclaimed her balance, she looked up and locked eyes with Reina – a smile flashed on her glittery face.

  “It’s always a great party when I know half the people here,” Shio said, wings flapping behind her. The other bartender snuck out while she had the chance.

  Mayumi laughed. “Fancy seeing you here. I had no idea you were working tonight.”

  “You know her?” Reina asked.

  “Of course I do.” Mayumi looked at her as if she were mad. “She volunteers at the resource center once a week.”

  Aiko poked her spouse in the shoulder. “Oh, right...” The brown bow on Aiko’s chest grazed Reina’s cheek. “This is my wife, Aiko,” she said, gesturing to the woman in question. “And this is...”

  Shio nodded her head. “I’m Shio. Your spouse comes into the bar where I work.”

  “Does she now?” Mayumi laughed. “Never let it be said that Reina Yamada doesn’t like her bars...” She took her leave at that, waving at her acquaintances as she went back to mingling in the party. Aiko took her seat.

  Shio got them another round of drinks before having to go serve someone else down at the other end of the bar. Her lavender tutu bounced with every skip in her step as she reached across the counter to put her hand on a friend’s arm. The laughter that cackled from over there nearly drowned out the music playing in the party.

  “New friend of yours?”

  Reina didn’t touch her drink. “What makes you say that?”

  “She’s too young looking to be an old friend, and I would remember her if I had been with you when you met her.”

  “Ah, well, I don’t know if I would say that we’re friends...”

  “You rarely say that about anyone. I think she likes you.”

  Reina stiffened where she sat.

  “What? Some young woman looks at you coyly like that and you
don’t jump at it?”

  Does she have the hots for me? Reina took Shio’s flirting with a grain of salt. Bartenders who liked making tips often flirted with the patrons. Although she’s in a more precarious situation... She told her wife what was on her mind.

  “Sou ka?” Aiko knocked back her drink. “Guess that means no inviting her home then.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “You know what that means.”

  Because she has a dick? So did Reina sometimes, although she didn’t think Shio’s was detachable. Mine’s bigger anyway. She slapped herself on the forehead for instantly thinking that. Gender dysphoria struck again.

  They finished their drinks and decided to make the rounds while they were tipsy enough to survive a claustrophobic party. Monsters, pop culture icons, animals, and even the occasional astronaut pressed up against them as Aiko was complimented on her high school uniform and people said hello to Reina. The cutest one was a woman dressed in a sexy kitty costume, complete with drawn on whiskers, cat ears, and a black leotard accentuating every minute curve to Kaori’s body. Sometimes it was good to no longer work together.

  “Reina-san!” she exclaimed, holding a hand with black nail polish up to her kitty cheek. “I didn’t expect to see you here for some reason. Ah, Aiko-san, you look good in your uniform!”

  “It’s a miracle it still fits,” she said, wrapping one arm around Reina’s torso. Aiko left out the part where she grunted to get the blouse over her shoulders that had thickened with age. It took both her and Reina to get it on, and it would take them both to get it off later. Horror. “You’re quite stunning in your costume as well. Is Haruka-san here?”

  “Oh, yes. She’s with her friends over there.”

  By the time they reached Haruka, Reina was already getting antsy for some more risqué fun. “Let’s find someone to take home,” she whispered into Aiko’s ear. Been a while since they had a good threesome or even foursome. With all these sexy costumes around them? Good idea.

  It just so happened that Haruka was in a matching kitty costume, although she looked a bit more disgruntled about it with sagging whiskers and claws out. Her friends were preoccupied, and the alcohol in her system made her brazen when Reina and Aiko approached. “Like a heat seeking missile she comes right at me,” Haruka said, her black tank top straining against her chest. What, like I wouldn’t notice? Reina glanced back at Kaori and debated making the obvious pussy joke. She refrained when Haruka knocked back her drink and wobbled in place.