Ikigai Read online

  Reina would know. She had to readjust herself as she sat down at the restaurant table. Covertly, as she had taught herself over the years of dealing with her gender dysphoria by “packing,” as cross-dressers and transgender men called it. Reina didn’t care what it was called. All she knew was that it made her more comfortable in her skin some days... probably because it let her have control over more space. That’s a masculine thing, right?

  Her wife was not much for conversation that evening. She hadn’t been the past couple of days. Work wore her out – in a good way, she insisted – and the recent drama at the Furusawa household had added more stress and concern to her life. Aiko was too maternal to handle something like her good friend and lover falling out with her husband over something like sex. She’ll wear herself down. And Reina would wear herself down thinking too much of Takeshi and how he sniffed around Aiko like she was a piece of available meat.

  Aiko would say it was all in her spouse’s head. But Reina knew. He had fallen in love with and tried to woo Aiko once already... what would stop him from another attempt? Dignity? Reina could laugh into her glass of water as the server brought them their dinners.

  After their meal, they headed toward the train station, still in the neighborhood of Aiko’s work, which meant they couldn’t hold hands. I didn’t realize how much I liked that until recently. They were more brazen in their own neighborhood now, especially since everyone knew they were gay, anyway. Another thing Aiko tended to be blind to.

  Reina reached out to take her wife’s hand when they reached their station, but Aiko took a step back, her face pale as she stared into a corner of the small wooden shelter.

  “Nani?” Reina asked. She was ready for anything: a dead animal, a drunk, some kids exposing themselves, maybe even some auntie waiting in the dark to pounce on them and chastise their depravity. Like my mother-in-law.

  She wasn’t prepared for Hiroyuki Furusawa, slumped over on a wooden bench with half his body sprawled out in discomfort.

  They should have kept going. Ignore the ignoramus and pretend they never saw him. But Aiko made eye contact and reacted, giving the man an excuse to sit up and glare back at them.

  Reina jumped in front of her wife before that man could come after her.

  “Don’t even think about it!” Reina grabbed him by the shoulders while Aiko let out a frightful yelp behind them.

  “Don’t touch me!” Hiroyuki flailed his arms in an effort to escape Reina’s grasp, and succeeded. He took two stumbling steps backward before collapsing again on the bench, hands holding his head as he sobbed.

  “Go on ahead,” Reina murmured to her wife. Aiko gave her a pleading look before finally succumbing to her spouse’s wishes. “I’ll be fine.”

  She wasn’t sure about that.

  Once Aiko was safely out in the street, Reina approached her neighbor with nothing but pity. What a sad excuse for a man. Threatened by a little femme lesbian. To the point he was going to harm her. That part made Reina angry again, and she slapped her briefcase to her side and demanded, “What is your problem?” even though she knew.

  Hiroyuki did not respond immediately. Instead he stared at the cement floor of the tiny suburban train station, sniffing here and there as a reminder that he was in pain. Reina’s sympathy levels were about as low as they could get.

  “How can you women live a life like that?”

  Grumbles, sneers, more man-pain. Reina didn’t know whether to roll her eyes or kick him in the shins. What a piece of... This was why she didn’t like the neighbors knowing her personal business.

  The next train sounded in the nearby distance. Reina glanced down the tracks and decided she didn’t want this being made public to the next throng of returnees. “Get up,” she said, scuffing her neighbor’s shoe. “Let’s talk this out like real men.”

  Hiroyuki probably thought that meant a fist fight. In truth, that was almost preferable to what Reina had in mind.

  There was a bar nearby, catering to locals late in the evenings. Old uncles sat up front playing Mahjong and talking about how good life was thirty years ago. A couple of women wearing the pencil skirts and jackets of secretaries had skinny glasses of beer and said not a thing to each other. Some tired salarymen sat at the bar grumbling about children and hot women on TV. The bartender, a thin, middle-aged man with a goatee, looked askance at Reina as she pulled Hiroyuki to the far end of the bar and ordered two beers. Against her better judgment, she paid.

  “Why are you doing this?” Hiroyuki asked her, as a bottle of beer was placed before him. Reina opened hers and took a large drink to get her ready for this bullshit – the bartender looked at them both again before moving away. He’s seen us both around. But never together.

  Reina’s bottle clinked against the counter. “You’ve upset my wife by upsetting yours.”

  “Your wife?” Hiroyuki laughed. “So you’re actually that way? What does that make you?”

  Fuck your twenty straight guy questions. “I don’t see the point hiding anything from you. And it doesn’t matter what I am in my relationship. That doesn’t concern you.”

  A forced snort shot out of Hiroyuki’s nose. “Your ‘wife’ is fooling around with mine, and you don’t think it concerns me?”

  “Here’s the thing, jerk.” Reina picked up her beer bottle by the neck, but did not drink from it. Instinct, she supposed. She wanted to be ready in case this guy tried something funny, even in public. Alcohol plus a sense of being wronged did wonders to create disaster if she wasn’t careful. “From what I hear, you’ve got a girlfriend on the side, right? You gonna deny it?”

  “Shit, you know?” Another laugh, this one at his own expense, as if one bad thing after another was happening in his life. Sure. “What does it matter anymore? I got a girl in the city. Man has to do something when he’s not getting any attention at home. At least now I know why.”

  Sympathy levels found a new low in Reina’s cold heart. “You’ve been fooling around on your wife for over a year now, maybe more... and you don’t see the hypocrisy in your actions?”

  “That’s different!” Hiroyuki slammed his beer down, garnering the attention of the bartender, the secretaries, and the old men playing their game. Only the other salarymen didn’t respond, probably because they had enough drama of their own. Once they politely looked away again, Hiroyuki continued, “It’s healthy for a man to want to date many women. What she’s done is shameful!”

  “So what you’re saying is...” Wait for it.

  “At least I’m not queer.”

  “Uh huh.” Reina couldn’t work up the anger to respond to this knob. She was too old for that shit by now. “I hate to break it to you, but it doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman she’s knocking heels with. It’s the action, not the person.”

  “You admit it’s wrong?”

  Reina shrugged. Her sense of “wrong” when it came to sex was heavily skewed. “Sounds to me you’re more upset by the possibility of your wife not wanting you at all, not because of something you did or didn’t do, but because of who you are.”

  The man opened his mouth to speak, but then quickly closed it again as his eyes glazed over in thought. “I can’t believe I’m talking to a dyke about this,” he mumbled.

  Reina ignored that. “You can’t have it both ways,” she said, squeezing the neck of her bottle. “You can’t have a quiet wife and expect her to serve you while you’re out playing in hostess clubs. You can’t get angry at her for finding happiness outside of her marriage if you’re doing the same. I bet you haven’t tried talking to her about it. You got angry and fucked off.”

  Hiroyuki slumped against the counter. “I haven’t been home since it happened.”

  Meanwhile, my wife banged yours again yesterday. Aiko told her about it last night, when they were trying to go to sleep. “You’re acting like the world has wronged you. Have you ever considered how she feels on her end? You’ve not only invalidated her se
xuality, but you’ve also been a huge fucking hypocrite.”

  “Her sexuality?” That got another laugh. “I’m talking about this with a woman.”

  Who said I was? Reina almost forgot that while she sat there in her pantsuit and with her dick between her legs. Let alone having “guy talk” in a dark bar like any other bros would. “Look, I’m not gonna pretend I know your wife very well. She’s friends with mine, and that’s how I know her. But I never got the impression that she loved you any less. Sexuality is a complicated thing. You men don’t get it, but lots of women like your wife marry the first man they’re comfortable with because they know life will be easier that way. But it’s not easier. Then they’ve gotta repress their feelings for other women and hope they don’t choke on it. Just because she likes other women doesn’t mean she doesn’t still like you.”

  “You sure?” Hiroyuki took a drink. “We haven’t done it in months. Literally, months.”

  Do not need to know that.

  “Besides, ain’t your woman involved too? Why aren’t you pissed? Don’t you dykes have problems with that too?”

  Ignoring that word was getting more difficult. “My wife and I have an arrangement. We’re not exactly normal, in any sense of the word.”

  “So you knew about this the whole time?” Hiroyuki looked as if Reina should have honored some neighborly bro-code. Nope.

  “What my wife does in her private time is her business. I only care that she’s safe.”

  Things were quiet for a minute. Hiroyuki stared at the counter with a grimace, twisting everything around as he tried to figure out what was going on in his life. Lesbians coming at you from every direction, and the only one who wants your dick is the one you’re married to. What a terrible existence. She felt sorry for him.

  “Wait.” A grumble. “Have you slept with my wife?”

  Reina said nothing.

  “Why I oughta...”

  “Do what? Hit me? Yell at me? Pretend you really care?”

  “To think I’ve been in your house! I brought my daughter to your house!”

  “And what about your daughter? You haven’t thought about her at all in this whole charade, have you? Typical. You only think of her as a chess piece in your relationship.”

  “How dare you!”

  “Your daughter will be fine,” Reina said, trying to not roll her eyes out of her head. “She’ll only not be fine if you and your wife completely fall apart. She’s not going to catch your wife’s gay cooties. But she will catch your hatred.”

  Reina wouldn’t pretend she knew the first thing about parenting. She could only think of it from her point of view as a little girl, and from watching other little girls grow up in broken households where Daddy hit Mommy and Mommy ran off with someone else. Reina was fortunate that her family was peaceful until her father’s death. But countless friends growing up taught her what a family in the midst of crisis could do to an impressionable mind.

  “Whatever,” she mumbled. “I don’t have time to sit here and explain this shit to you. You need to talk to your wife. Rationally. I’m sure she’s as upset as you are. But yelling at her and threatening her isn’t going to get you anywhere, except divorced.”

  She left him there in the bar to stew in his own confusion and misery. It wasn’t Reina’s problem, aside from how it trickled down to her bedroom. But she didn’t like seeing other women pushed around by men, and that included their husbands. Hiroyuki needed to grow up and realize the consequences of his own actions – not just his wife’s.

  When she crossed the threshold of her house, Aiko came out of the living area with panic on her face. She looked Reina over for cuts or bruises, and wouldn’t calm down until her spouse assured her that nothing bad happened. “I talked to him, that’s all.” For some reason Aiko was convinced that Reina and Hiroyuki had a brawl in the street. As if Reina would get involved in such a thing.

  “Would it be too much to make this a discussion point?” Takeshi asked in the corner of a café that Saturday afternoon. “The last time I brought up American race relations, I had students asking me if slavery was still going on.”

  Aiko considered the list of questions before her. When Takeshi asked her out to lunch that day, she wasn’t sure what to expect. Perhaps some book discussion, even though she had yet to complete her latest borrow, since what happened to Yuri weighed too heavily on her mind. But Takeshi had something else up his sleeve when he brought one of his lesson plans and asked for Aiko’s advice as if she knew anything about that.

  “In that case,” Aiko said, “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Hmm.” Takeshi picked up his paper and studied it in the light coming through the window. The bright café illuminated the white of the paper already, but Takeshi confessed he was still getting used to a new pair of reading glasses. I didn’t even know he wore glasses. They were the same style as Reina’s, rectangular and thick around the edges. Except Takeshi didn’t look as serious as Reina did when she wore her glasses at the kitchen table to read the paper or do the budget. “Thanks for trying anyway.”

  Their lunches of salads and sandwiches arrived, with the elderly server commenting on what a cute couple they were. Takeshi remained unfazed as Aiko shuffled in her seat. When the server left, she picked up her fork and pretended to be enthralled with her salad.

  They talked of nothing in particular, the sort of conversation Aiko regarded as “friend talk” of the most casual kind. Strange, since they only rekindled their friendship over a week ago. Perhaps they were the kind of people who were content to let bygones be bygones. Yes, Aiko would console herself with that, even when Takeshi would keep himself at a respectable distance from her in such a way that it came off as him trying to not fall into temptation.

  Then again, Aiko may have been overanalyzing everything. When it came to men, she no longer had any idea what their body language or even some of their direct words meant. Been living with Reina for too long.

  “Daijyoubu ka?” Takeshi asked. Aiko snapped out of her daydream and regarded him with a pasted-on smile. “You seem distant today. Is there something wrong?”

  Aiko gaped at him, unintentionally, since she apparently could not check any of her reactions without getting a rise out of him. “I’m fine,” she insisted, although her trembling hands said otherwise. Aiko realized that she had yet to touch most of her lunch.

  “I don’t mean to pry,” Takeshi continued. “It’s just you’re usually more cheerful than this. Work problems?”

  It was the safest thing for him to ask about, since it was the only thing they shared in common. “No, work is fine. Tiring, but fine.”

  “Ah.” Takeshi said nothing else and instead focused his attention on his food. I know what he wants to ask. Trouble in paradise? That wasn’t it either, or at least in the way Takeshi would be thinking. He only knew about Reina, the butch spouse of the woman he once claimed to have fallen in love with. The other lovers and their lifestyle in general never came up, and for good reason. Aiko didn’t like to talk about her private life to Takeshi. Not yet, anyway. She noticed he didn’t talk about his either. Is he dating someone? A part of her wanted to know, and yet she didn’t want to know at all.

  But there was something bothering her, that much was true. Aiko was still hung up on what had happened between Yuri and Hiroyuki, and her fears were not nullified by what Reina told her the other night. I thought she was going to punch him. Instead she took him to a bar and chewed his ear off? As if that would make any difference. Daft Reina didn’t know a damned thing about how couples worked in the real world, especially those involving men. As if I know any better. She looked at Takeshi and wondered if he could be anything like Hiroyuki.

  The desire to unload on him was there. It would be nice to have a friend impartial to lesbian drama. Aiko had no one else to turn to. Certainly not Reina, and Yuri was a part of the current problem. Aiko’s family had no desire to know anything about what went on in le
sbian beds, with the exception of perhaps her niece Eri, but that girl still had enough pain of her own to work through. Everyone’s marriages are crumbling. Perhaps that was the true curse of a lesbian marrying a man. At some point, whether in the first year or in twenty, everything fell apart.

  She decided not to tell Takeshi. Instead she ate her lunch quietly, with the exception of offering her opinions on Maya Angelou, Takeshi’s latest obsession.

  The server came and took their empty dishes, leaving them with a pot of hot tea that was quickly becoming depleted. Aiko sat with her elbows on the table, cup of tea steaming between her hands as she stared into the abyss of the busy café . Takeshi cleaned up his work things and sighed into his own cup.

  “And what about you?” Aiko asked, gathering the courage to get personal with him. “Anything interesting happening in your life... outside of work?”

  Takeshi looked twice at her, the first time with question marks in his eyes, and the second time with a slightly furrowed brow of understanding. “You mean am I seeing someone?”

  Shivers of embarrassment shook Aiko’s skin. “That’s one meaning of it.”

  A grunt. “No. Too busy.”

  “I see.”

  “And you?” The knapsack Takeshi carried his books in flipped shut on an adjacent chair.

  “What about me?”

  He looked at her again, this time with a frown. “I am asking about your... personal life.”

  Aiko stalled by sipping her tea. It burned her lip and tongue, but she did not let the pain show. “It’s fine. There is not much to say about it. She works, I work... she has her life, I have mine... it’s like any other marriage.”