My life since returning to my body had obviously been different. Empty. So much time to fill. My first week working in Japan was the same, just with different scenery—until Sunday.

It was funny waking up excited, spending ages choosing what to wear. Like I was going on a date. Really, it kind of was. A babysitting date with my crush. I giggled to myself over that thought before sobering up, settling into more realistic expectations.

Still, I picked a cute outfit, something I would’ve worn back in university. Who needed pride?

The sun greeted my legs and arms, hot weather keeping me company while I waited for Riku. After everything I’d said, she was still willing to pick me up, so I counted that as a win. To make sure I saw her as soon as possible, I even went outside much too early.

Sure enough, I had to wait a while for her to arrive, not that she was late.

It was a silent journey. I sneaked a few glances, but didn’t want to distract her or make her feel uncomfortable. Hard to resist, though, like she was magnetic, my gaze constantly drifting over if I didn’t keep it away.

I still couldn’t say why her. Love was weird. She was pretty, but definitely not the most beautiful. No one else stared at her, nothing in Mi’s memories telling me any boys (or girls) ever had a crush on her. Just a normal woman.

My dating experience before, they’d all asked me out and I had always thought that, eventually, I’d see them differently. Well, I never did. Always thought people were sort of making it up. That looking at your partner just reminded you of all the good times together, so of course you’d feel happy looking at them.

But looking at her made my heart happy. The world hadn’t lied to me, I’d just lied to myself all these years.

My idle thoughts kept me entertained all the way to Mi’s house. I followed her to the front door, followed her inside—no hug from Mi this time and Himawari still hid behind her sister.

Once we were suitably settled in, pleasantries exchanged, I asked Mi, “Do you want some advice on your work?”

“Ah, yes! That’d be great,” Mi said, her smile practically glowing.

I smiled back, then glanced at Riku and noticed her expression. “We’ll keep the door open,” I quietly said to her.

She stilled for a second before giving another of those slight nods.

While not entirely private, being in Mi’s bedroom did give us some space and, obviously, there were things we wanted to talk about that couldn’t be put into emails. However, she also had to get her work done. Like how I now knew Japanese, she was now better at programming, but still not as good as me. Borrowed experience took practice to set in, it seemed. My Japanese had certainly grown more natural over the week.

“You’ll want to use a decorator pattern, otherwise you’re going to overload the core class with unnecessary functionality,” I said, picking at what she’d worked on over the week.

In reply, she gave a very teenage-appropriate groan. “It’s already finished, so it’s not like I’ll be adding anything else,” she mumbled.

“Until they come back with another change, or you have to come back later to debug something going wrong,” I said, speaking from experience—both my own and from others in my teams over the years.

She huffed, sinking in her seat, but eventually sat up to start untangling her code. It really was a good thing I wasn’t a teacher, only her able to get away with acting like that.

Leaving her to code, I stepped back and, glancing over, saw Riku hovering beyond the doorway. Our eyes meeting, I smiled and walked over. No need to disturb Mi.

“Is there something?” I whispered.

She shook her head, then gave me a wry smile and said, “Honestly, I was just interested to see Mi-chan working. I don’t understand it very well, but it’s amazing to me that she can do something so special at her age.”

“Not to disagree, but programming is not really special…” I said, struggling to find the words in either language. “What’s special is that she has the focus. It’s no wonder to me she struggles in school. The work she does is very demanding on her brain.”

My own struggle seemed to amuse her, her smile widening for a moment before becoming tinged with bittersweet. “I’m glad she has someone who understands. I try my best, but it’s hard for me to know and she doesn’t always know how to explain it.”

“There are ways you help her too that I can’t—like letting her skip lessons to sleep,” I said, a touch of humour.

She turned away, awkward, or maybe shy. “She’s very capable at teaching herself maths and, if she needs help, she can always ask me outside of class,” she quietly said.

I smiled again; she was such a kind person. Feeling like that topic was done, I asked, “What’s Hime-chan doing?”

“Homework,” she said, then shook her head.

“What is it?”

After hesitating, she said, “I just realised you call her Hime-chan like Mi-chan does.”

“Mi-chan’s a good girl, she didn’t tell me personal details,” I said, a good enough explanation for me going along with my borrowed habit. At least I hadn’t accidentally called her Kiko-sensei yet.

She nodded and, turning around, said, “I’m going back.”

I followed a little after her, joining her and Himawari in the kitchen. It was hardly subtle how Himawari’s warm smile at Riku cooled upon seeing me, but I smiled back anyway, something kind of cute about it anyway. “Do you mind if I make some tea?” I asked Himawari.

She froze up for a moment, then shrank, looking down at her homework. “Go ahead,” she mumbled.

Smile brighter at her adorable shyness, I wandered over to the cupboards, wondering how to not look awkward when pretending not to know where everything was. Little by little, I “stumbled” through it and made some green tea.

That wasn’t just for me, though, placing a cup in front of Himawari and Riku too. “Please try it,” I said.

Himawari endearingly polite, she did have a sip and then mumbled, “It’s good.”

Although an empty platitude, it made me happy all the same. “I’m glad.”

The moment soon passed and she went back to her homework, Riku focused on her except for occasionally glancing my way. No real place for me here, I ended up floating around, checking on Mi now and then and otherwise just being near the other two.

That was enough.

It was something I never could have understood before, or again. I still didn’t want children. Even if I glossed over the whole childbirth part, the idea of having a child of my own didn’t resonate with me at all. But Mi and Himawari, I wanted to be their mother.

Well, even that wasn’t quite right, “mother” a big and complicated word, every person having their own definition. I wanted to be their pillar in this world. Someone they could selfishly rely on. Asking Riku and Sakura’s family for help wasn’t easy, easy to feel helpless doing it.

I didn’t want to ask for more than that. Of course, I wanted more, but I knew how hurt they were, how hard it would be for them to open up to someone else after everything. Even Mi. The first thing I had talked to her about was covering her expenses, but she didn’t want my money. She wanted to stand up tall all by herself.

So childish, but I loved that about her too.

In the end, Himawari didn’t have that much homework at her age, finishing up mid-morning. I didn’t know her exact routine since I’d been stuck in “my” room back then, so I was curious what they’d do next.

To my silent joy, she went to her room and retrieved the plasticine, bringing it back to the table. It looked like it had been opened, some of the coloured strips smushed up and put back.

“Can I join you?” I asked.

She didn’t look up, focused on measuring out a red piece, but nodded.

I sat opposite her and took some brown, thinking she probably wouldn’t use it. A very old memory, I rolled my piece out into a snake, then rolled most of it up into a spiral. Using the corner of my nail, I added a mouth and eyes to the little snail.

“What do you think? Is he cute?” I asked, making the snail slide over.

She paused what she was doing and gave it a brief look. “Snails have their eyes on stalks,” she quietly said. Not a mumble, not a whisper, just a quiet voice.

I turned the snail around and sternly asked, “Are you a shell-stealing snake?” For good measure, I narrowed my eyes and shook a finger at it, then made it slide back like it was scared.

She giggled.

In fact, both of them giggled.

Such a beautiful sound.

My heart throbbed, urged me to try and make Riku laugh again, but the sudden pressure to perform left my head empty. Hesitating for a very long second, I gave up and instead tried to make little eye stalks for the snail. “Tried” was the key word, the plasticine flimsy when so thin….

“Here, let me,” Riku softly said, slightly squatting next to me as she took some of the spare plasticine and fashioned a more robust eye stalk.

“You’re good with your hands,” I said.

“Well, you’re good with your fingers,” she said. I sort of ground to a halt at that, and she seemed to realise a moment later she needed to clarify, adding, “Typing, I mean.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, cheeks prickling. “Right.”

It was probably only my mind in the gutter, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at her expression. Like a child captivated by the fire and now burned. With deep, careful breaths, I managed to calm down, making another snail. She helped me with the eye stalks for that one too. Countless silly thoughts crossed my mind, like making the snails kiss, but out of wisdom (and lack of courage) I managed to not embarrass myself.

Eventually, I excused myself and checked on Mi, unable to take the surely one-sided tension.

But, rather than a programmer, I found a girl staring at her phone with a goofy grin.

“Busy, huh?” I said in English.

She froze for a second before fumbling her phone, only to then melt back into a soft smile, clutching her phone like it was something precious and fragile. “I, um, Sakura,” she mumbled.

Well, I knew.

“How are things with her?” I asked, something we’d avoided talking about in emails. After all, I was supposedly just helping her with programming.

Her face fluttered through gentle expressions. “I understand why you told her what you did, and I thought a lot about what I wanted to do,” she said, full of the weight she surely felt. “We’re… a little more than friends, but she knows I have to put Hime-chan first, so it’s… complicated.”

There she went, sounding like a single mother. Not room on her chair for me to sit as well, I had to bend down to hug her, squeezing her so tight I was surprised she didn’t squeak. “It’s not complicated at all, sweetie. You like her, she likes you, and you’ve got the rest of your lives to figure out the rest.”

She squeezed me back, her tension melting away as she let out a long breath. “I like her so much,” she whispered.

I chuckled and left a kiss on top of her head. “Everything’s going to be okay, I’m here for you,” I said.

She softly nodded.

Really, this was enough.