I took a deep breath as I stepped back off the road and onto the high pass toward home. The reality had set in at school. I could no longer put off the inevitable. I could probably lie my way through another day or two but the carefully crafted illusion I was a perfectly normal, nominally well-adjusted 16-year-old girl was unravelling faster than a ball of yarn thrown off the side of a cliff. The wolves were closing in and if I was going to face the inevitable, at least I still had the option to do so on my own terms.

I shoved my hands into my pockets as I walked back along the path. The sun was welcome but deceptive. The warmth it imparted seemed hollow, the air was cold and brisk and made my ears ache. This rocky path which wound along the foot of the mountains was familiar and yet alien. The stones and trees and spiky scrub brush all looked the same as they always had but seemed out of place somehow. Or maybe I was out of place. My phone began to vibrate, and I fished it from my jacket pocket and looked at the number. Unknown. Weird.

“Hello?” I said as I pressed the button.

“Kasumiiin!” Emi’s voice came to me from the other side of the line.

“Emi?” I stopped walking, aghast.

“Who else would it be?” Emi giggled. “Bachan! No! You can’t… It’s not going to work if you just keep pressing the same button! I know it’s worked so far but you’re up against a boss and you have to move around! Move to your right! No! Your…Your other right, bachan!”

“What the hell is going on?” I asked with a grin.

“Oh, my grandma is making me help her with Nier: Automata and she’s really bad at it,” Emi sighed. “He’s going to hit you with th- I told you. Anyway! How are you?”

“Forget how I am! How are you?” I shook my head. “I tried to call you like 10 times!”

“Ah, yeah,” Emi chuckled under her breath. “It’s been a weird couple of days. Jun came over and spilled the beans about everything to my mom which, of course, sent her into a froth. One minute I was talking to Mio and the next I was hustled out the door and out to the train station. My mom took my phone and most of my stuff. I barely had time to grab my book. I was absconded with. Very traumatic.”

“Jun, huh?” I scowled. “Wait! How are you talking to me, now?”

“Oh, bachan bought me a new phone. My mom thinks she’s the top dog but bachan’s been in the game a long time and has my back! Right bachan?” There was a muttering cry in the background which I could only assume was Emi’s grandmother. “I didn’t say to go back! I…well, too late now, I guess. You fell off the cliff.”

“So does that mean you aren’t going to the all-girl’s school?” I asked.

“Ah, well,” Emi muttered. “Bachan doesn’t have that much clout, unfortunately, so I’m still going to Our Lady of the Useless Miracle, I’m afraid.”

“Sounds made up,” I cocked an eyebrow suspiciously.

“That’s because it is. I’m going to Seitosha Sakurai School for Girls,” Emi replied easily.

“That doesn’t sound much better.”

“It’ll probably suck. It’s ok. I’ll find the biggest girl in school and beat her up to assert my dominance,” Emi assured me.

“It’s not prison, you know. Besides, I thought you were an Emi of passivism,” I pointed out.

“I am an Emi of pragmatism when the need arises,” she answered. “These high-class girls only understand pain, fear, and humiliation. I shall be an Emi of deliverance and free them of their shackles of doubt.”

“I…feel sorry for all of them, now,” I admitted.

“Don’t. Everyone needs a witch in their lives. Sometimes the witch brings nice treats, and sometimes she brings a can of whup ass. Whatever she needs to get the job done.”

“Reasonable. Oh…ah…” I fidgeted sheepishly. “I kinda screwed up with Mio. Like, a lot. I’m sorry.”

“No worries,” Emi brushed away my apology breezily. “I’d already kind of mentioned it to her before. She only remembers the bits she wants half the time. I talked to her this morning and we kind of came up with a clever plan on how to work things through.”

“A clever plan?”

“Did you know it’s actually pretty cheap to hire an assassin?”

“What?”

“Oh, I was just thinking out loud. Anyway, how are you doing?”

“I’ve told you before you frighten me sometimes, right?”

“I am an Emi of joy! No need to be afraid.”

“That was not reassuring, you know. Anyway, I’m…doing. It seems Jun and Daishi have teamed up.”

“How so?”

“Daishi splashed Aria and I’s text messages and a picture I’d sent her all over the school message boards last night.”

“Were you naked?”

“Almost,” I admitted.

“And you didn’t send this picture to me why?”

“Really?” I scowled.

“It’s for my collection!” She sighed irritably. “Ugh, that pisses me off, though. The bottom feeding sons of bitches!” Emi growled over the phone. “Both of them. No! Not you, bachan! If I was there I would Emi punch them into next week.”

“Well, I’ve been asked not to come back to school for a few days,” I sighed, running my fingers through my hair.

“That should shock and appall me,” Emi sighed. “Yet it doesn’t. Why are things like this so predictable?”

“Illuminati?” I shrugged.

“As good a reason as any, I guess.”

“So what are you going to do, now?” I turned my face toward the sun and breathed in the cool air.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Emi said. “It’s too late in the semester to start now so it looks like I’ll be taking my final exams remotely and then going into school when it starts up again in April. How about you?”

“I wish I knew. It feels like I’m in the middle of the ocean right now. I imagine I’ll simply have to play it by ear and go where the current takes me.”

“Hey, Kasumin?” Emi’s voice lost its customary devilish tone, becoming softer and more introspective.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll always be here for you,” Emi said. “I know things suck, but don’t do anything you might not live to regret. Ok?”

“No trip to the Sea of Trees for me. I promise.” A voice called from the background on Emi’s end.

“I didn’t think you would. I just have to keep you safe. I am an Emi of protection, after all. I know! I know!” Emi directed this last to her grandmother. “I have to go. Bachan wants me to go shopping with her and I stand to net a boatload of candy if I do. But call me later, ok?”

“Will do! Don’t overdose on candy!” I grinned at the phone like a lunatic.

“No promises!” Emi shot back. “Love you, Kasumin! Be safe and I’ll talk to you later!”

“Love you, too, Emi. Bye!”

I glanced back over my shoulder to where the shimmering blue waters of the Sea of Japan stretched out to the north, the waves lapping gently with frothy white tongues at the land and sighed. Adrift at sea, huh? Ever since meeting Aria I’d felt adrift, carried back and forth on her currents. Dragged along wherever her whims lead me.

I’d fought against it naively, inelegantly, haphazardly, but it had been little use. Now, tossed onto the shoals and wrecked I was left to sink or swim on my own. I had already decided to swim. But there was still one thing weighing me down. Wrapped around my ankle like an anchor. I needed to free myself or I’d surely sink to the bottom and drown. Thus thinking, I turned away from the sea and trudged toward home.

I stepped through the door, not bothering to remove my shoes or take off my backpack. I heard my parents talking at the dining room table and stepped into the living room. My heart was pounding achingly in my chest as they stopped and stared at me. My legs shook fearfully, the guilt and shame of all I was supposed to be but couldn’t causing adrenaline to course through me. I gripped onto the strap of my bag like it was a life vest which could save me.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at school?” My father scowled at me in disappointment. I breathed what tiny sigh of relief I could muster in the knowledge I still controlled my own fate. At least here and now.

“Don’t tell me you’re sick,” My mother fixed me with a withering gaze. “I swear! For a girl that does as much physical exercise as you, you’re very sickly sometimes.”

“It’s a lack of vitamins,” my father opined sagely. “I tell my own students all the time just doing exercise and watching what you eat isn’t enough. You have to supplement everything with vitamins.”

“Oh! Jun! You’re back already? How’d the job search go?” My mom enthused, my existence wiped away and forgotten as soon as he entered the room.

“What a surprise to see you here, Kasumi,” Jun’s voice dripped with sarcasm as he spoke. I kept my eyes forward, my face carefully neutral. “I thought you were supposed to be at school.”

“She needs more vitamins,” my dad reiterated, his lecture grating on me even more. “Are you taking your vitamins, Jun?”

“Of course, dad,” Jun assured him. “They’re the building blocks of a healthy mind and body, after all.”

“He gets it,” my father turned to my mother with a satisfied grin, looking as if he’d just discovered the secret to immortality. “My boy gets it. One multi-vit-”

“I have something I need to tell you both,” I spoke up, interrupting them.

“Kasumi!” My mother turned to me with a scowl. “Your father was speaking!”

“No,” my father waved her away, plainly irritated at my insolence. “Obviously what she needs to say is far more important than anything I might have said.” He folded his arms across his chest impatiently and stared at me. “So…what is so important?”

Here it was at last, I thought. The moment I’d been dreading. My deepest fear when I’d first realized now stared at me, a mix of impatience and contempt already spreading across their faces. They had brought me into this world, crying and afraid and naked. They had kept me afraid whenever they could as I’d grown. They’d filled my head with everything I was expected to do and who I was supposed to be and acted the entire time as if I was nothing more than their property.

I was a marionet and nothing more with them pulling my strings. A doll they could dress and manipulate toward fulfilling the dreams they’d decided I should have. When I fought back, I was tossed aside and left to dangle. A toy was useless once it no longer fulfilled its purpose after all. I was tolerated.

Or maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I was, after all was said and done, still their daughter. Maybe I was still the little girl they’d fed and bathed and taught to speak and walk. Maybe I was their precious Kasumi. The girl they’d named after the mist swirling outside the hospital room when my mom had given birth to me. Maybe I was more to them than who I was born to love. Maybe I was still important.

I took a deep breath, my eyes traveled to the window for a moment, past the purple floral curtains to the expanse of water beyond the shore. Aria’s tempest had left me run aground but there was still a brisk breeze, and my sails were filling. Now I had only to see where the new tides and winds would take me.

“Well?” My mom cocked an eyebrow in disapproval at me.

“Mom. Dad. I’m gay.”