Coming off the plane, I felt the prickling anxiety at the back of my head stop. Almost like I was home after a long trip. “Home” wasn’t quite right, but close enough.

Thankfully, airports weren’t too different across the world, easy enough to find my way out to the person picking me up.

“Toyama-san, is it?” I asked in Japanese; since returning to my old self, it was more of a conscious decision what language I talked in.

She looked surprised for a moment, then fell into a polite smile. “Miss Jones, yes?” she said in English, sounding like she’d barely spoken it since she was in school.

“I’m fine with Japanese, and please call me Millie,” I said offering her my hand.

She wasn’t reluctant to shake it, but I caught another glimpse of the awkward adult that Mi hadn’t seen, taking her a moment to realise and another to actually reach over. Although I’d found it so strange when my first mentor out of university coached me on handshakes, it really was part of your first impression.

Well, it wasn’t exactly my first time meeting Riku, but she left a cute impression nonetheless.

After that fumble, she picked herself back up to be the consummate professional. We had some idle talk on the way to the car she’d rented, packed my luggage in, and set off. As to where….

“You’re not tired? I can take you to your hotel first,” she said.

There was an awkwardness, or rather a wariness, about her. I knew why. Smiling to myself, I looked out the window at the passing scenery. Nothing pretty, just going through Tokyo, kind of like I was watching a movie. Never been to somewhere so foreign, only Europe and a business trip to America once.

“She’s told you about me, yes? I know a lot about her situation. I know how much you’ve done for her and how much she trusts you, so I’ll be frank: I want to adopt her and Hime-chan. I don’t know how possible that is, but that is my goal in moving to Japan,” I said, watching the world go by.

Silence was her reply, not exactly an easy thing to reply to. Eventually, though, she found some words.

“Mi-chan is coping just fine,” Riku said.

I saw a glimmer of her own past in that reply—of mine. That everyone had burdens they needed to carry. But, because of my past, I knew. I knew. “I don’t want her to cope. I don’t know the term in Japanese, but in English we call it parentification when a child is forced to be a parent for a sibling, and it is abuse. Mi-chan isn’t a parent, she isn’t an adult, she’s a child, and I want her to be a child. I want her to hang out with her friends and not have to worry about leaving Hime-chan alone at home. I want her to stay up late watching anime, not working for rent money.”

Catching myself there, I stopped rambling and sighed, hard to hold myself back when I could remember Mi’s pain like it was my own.

“I understand you can’t trust someone you just met. Honestly, I would be disappointed if you weren’t wary of me. For now, I ask that you trust Mi-chan’s judgement, and I promise not to visit them without you or, ah, Sakura-chan’s mother?”

After a second, Riku mumbled, “Takahashi-san.”

“Yes, without you or Takahashi-san.”

Once again, silence fell, the rumble of the dinky car keeping my thoughts company, as did the steady thump of my heartbeat. A couple months wasn’t enough time for me to forget that crush. Maybe if I was younger, it would’ve been a problem, wanting to make a good first impression, but, right now, Mi and Himawari were my priority.

When she finally did speak, all she said was, “I see.”

I hoped she would.

There was, understandably, no more talking for the rest of the journey, then the surroundings grew familiar. My heart started racing for an entirely different reason, a kind of euphoria flooding me. It wasn’t a dream. I wasn’t crazy. Even though I’d emailed Mi-chan a lot since then, it hadn’t felt entirely real—until now.

“We’ve arrived,” she said, her voice not exactly cold, but tinged with the kind of politeness that puts a barrier between you and the person you’re talking to. It hurt a little. I understood why, but it still hurt.

That pain didn’t linger. Getting out the car, I was overcome with a rush of nostalgia, memories, the short time I spent here so precious to me, so entwined with Mi’s memories that stayed with me.

And it wasn’t just me who’d been excited, the front door already open. Before I could even take a step, a person I’d never met before, a person I’d been before, my soulmate, barrelled into me, nearly knocking me over.

Laughing, I hugged her back. “Tadaima,” I whispered, quiet enough for only her to hear.

“Okaeri,” she whispered back.

Our hug didn’t linger, both very conscious that no one else knew about our bond. In particular, I looked over to the doorway and saw Himawari, naturally smiling as the warm feelings I had for her surged up. Obviously, she didn’t look quite as pleased to see me. It was strange, so used to seeing her look at me like I was Mi, but I hoped she could come to look at me with just a smidgen of that same affection one day.

To help with that, I retreated back to my luggage and opened the suitcase to take out the prepared present.

Mi returned to the doorway, Himawari hiding behind her, and I approached them with the little bag. Lowering myself a little, I offered it to Himawari. “Pleased to meet you, I’m Millie Jones. Mi-onee-chan told me you liked Wallace and Gromit, so I brought some plasticine—maybe you could make your own little movie or just express yourself. Oh and she told me she only had the old movies, so I have the new ones.”

It all felt a bit awkward, Japanese now firmly my second language, but I felt like it left a good impression, her eyes widening at my gifts.

For good measure, I whispered, “There’s also some movies I think Mi-onee-chan will like.”

She giggled at that, the hesitation she had about accepting the bag gone. Still hiding behind Mi, she quietly said, “Thank you.”

Oh I wanted to reach out and pat her head, such a sweet girl. All in due time.

A few other little things said, then I was back in the car, Riku taking me to my temporary hotel while the company helped me find a flat. It would have been done already, but I was stubborn about getting a place at least kind of close to Mi and Himawari.

I expected it to be a silent trip. However, Riku had an unexpected thing to say.

“I’m surprised she hugged you.”

Even after thinking for a second, I didn’t really know what she meant by that. If she was wary, if she was confused, if she was maybe even jealous. I remembered that joke she’d made when I (as Mi) told her a person online had helped me; maybe it wasn’t much of a joke.

Nothing else for it, I could only be as honest as the bizarre circumstances could allow. “Well, it’s like I said: she’s a child and children want parents. Good parents, I should say.”

Buildings drifted past, engine hummed, a pause before she spoke again. “It’s hard to believe someone would do all this for a stranger.”

“I agree, but, the more I learned about her situation, the more I wanted to help her. Not only that, but the more I learned about her, the more I liked her. She reminds me of myself when I was younger.”

Pausing there, I let out a long sigh, my voice coming out strained when I continued.

“Besides, you and I know her father and step-mother should go to prison, but then what? Mi-chan and Hime-chan go to an orphanage where they will probably get separated. You know Hime-chan better, so I’m sure you know what that would be like for her, but I do know Mi-chan would be absolutely devastated.

“And the scariest thing is that it would probably work out for the best. Hime-chan seems like a good girl and she’s young enough she might get adopted by a kind family, and Mi-chan would get to focus on university. She’s very bright, so I’m sure she would be able to do well for herself.”

The pain in my voice was very much real. I hated that, despite all of Mi’s struggling, the best result threw away all her effort. That was what being a child meant. Everything you achieved was meaningless, ground down and fed into society’s pipeline to be nicely packaged for your future employers. No one would care how much she sacrificed, only scold her for not meeting the arbitrary requirements set by people who’d never done the job themselves.

“I don’t want that,” I whispered. “I want her to know her struggle had meaning, and that she doesn’t have to struggle any more, that’s all.”

Our abuse didn’t leave us stronger, it didn’t make us kinder or more understanding and, even if it did, that didn’t justify subjecting anyone to it. It left us scared, confused, and alone. Mi, Himawari—even Sakura felt the effects of it. A poison, slowly seeping out.

To my rambling, all Riku had to say was: “I see.”

An understandable reply after being buried beneath half-baked philosophy translated by an amateur, told by a stranger no less. Smiling to myself, I kept looking out the window.

However, I was in for one more surprise.

“I still do not know what to think of you, but I do not disagree with that sentiment,” she said, her tone and polite phrasing pricklingly distant. Still, it was enough to make my smile no longer ironic.

Taking this as an opportunity, I said, “She told me you are her teacher and you help her with babysitting?”

Our earlier idle chatter had been all about my trip and what I knew of Japan—and her praise for how good my Japanese was. This was the first time I touched on something more personal, ready for her to avoid the question.

She didn’t, though. “Yes. It is maybe a bit beyond my responsibility as a teacher, but I do want to support her.”

“I see. Is there really nothing else?” I unfairly asked.

Even more unfair, I could watch her face for reactions while she had to focus on the road, so I saw that twinge of guilt.

“I actually met her when she was a baby,” she said, her tone softer. “Her mother was my teacher and brought her in on a few occasions.”

The honesty surprised me, but it wasn’t exactly something that needed to be kept secret, especially compared to what I already knew. “So you feel an obligation, or….”

“I just want to be the kind of person her mother inspired me to be. That I am doing this for her instead of another student is a coincidence,” she said.

Whether or not that was true, I obviously couldn’t say, but…. “How nice,” I whispered in English.

We sat in silence for the rest of the trip. Once we arrived at the hotel, I said, “You babysit on Sundays, right? I would like to come over then as well.”

She kept staring out front, hands on the steering wheel as if she was still driving, before finally giving the smallest nod. That was her entire reply, seconds passing with nothing said.

“I’ll see you then. Thank you for driving me around,” I said, climbing out the dinky car.

“Thank you for helping Mi-chan,” she softly said.

I paused halfway out, smiling to myself, then carried on. I didn’t know how things would turn out, but I was hopeful.