Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Two girls lay in each other’s arms in the tickley, warm grass, amazed by the first kiss either had ever experienced. Searching interesting shapes in the clouds, the more outgoing one, who had instigated the affection, dreamily asked the other what visions the summer sky conjured up. Roused from an uncommon tranquility, she faced her familiar with a smile.

Managing, “I s-s-see your f-f-face!”, she blushed, followed by modestly covering her eyes, and the cutest giggle her companion had ever heard!

The shy girl's compassionate lover protectively embraced her, aware of the need for gentle treatment. “That’s so wonderful of you! You’re such a romantic, aren’t you? Know what? You deserve a reward!” she added impishly.

“A… r-r-r-reward?”  she went up on one elbow, hearing that.

“Yes! I… I want to kiss you again! A real, open, deep kiss, like in the movies! I mean… Did you like our kiss? I did! ”

“How can you explain Heaven to someone who’s never been there?”  her admirer thought, not replying to the teasing question, but trembling at the exciting stroking of her warm, soft cheek, the other hand sliding to her slim shoulders. The bold courter's face was within tantalizing inches now, inviting…

“It’s because I want you so much! It felt so nice doing that together!” the plump, rosy lips whispered seductively, as she rubbed her own reddening face against the girl below her. “And because… I think I’m falling in love with you!”

Convinced, the awkward girl beneath gratefully opened her lips, offering a full, yearning mouth to the forward girl this time, tasting everything of the kiss, it’s unfolding… Soft sweetness of the damp skin, its warmth, and cloying moistness. Her inexperienced tongue bashfully discovered its mate, luxuriating in the electrifying moment, evolving into an exploration of coming of age, glorying in the moment of becoming. The normally chary girl dared to trace timid, if questing hands along the other’s body, growing bolder as the gesture found acceptance—discovering her own body becoming the object of tender investigation, too! Shoulders, arms, breasts so youthfully firm, yet silky soft—Places, perhaps, to kiss one day! Words she couldn’t speak tumbled like jewels through her blazing mind. Sounds of awakening pleasure drifted unconsciously from both in the stillness of the passionate moment.

That first kiss had been a revelation, but this?

… Was a divine blossom, the first of Spring captured by delighted eyes, patiently watching it unfurl…

… The soft, honeyed melt of sweet, juicy ripe fruit… It was rich, like chocolate, sticky, wet, so luscious…

… A pounding, a thrum, an elemental, sacred, and carnal response within her throbbing breast, threatening to make the fevered virgin faint…

The ethereal kiss finally broke… Like dawn, like a spell, like Truth… leaving behind its perfect essence, the taste of first love… She'd felt as though her heart would explode with exhilaration!

What other wonderful things would they dare together?…

One day, perhaps to make love?…

Kowareta Dorima roused achingly from the daydream when the two young ladies, vividly a couple, entered the train. Her eyes furtively described a tiny slit, as always, like the corner of a shade in a lonely room…

She guessed they were “That way” as her intolerant mother would say—because they were all over each other in a subtle way recognizable from her own small experience, and a thousand fantasies. One, a breathtakingly beautiful, green-eyed blonde hafu, perchance a fashion model; the other, a violet-eyed goddess, possibly an Idol. She, judging both as being in their early twenties, took a trembling breath. Both young women flowed effortlessly into their seats, intoxicating, understated sexuality and femininity wafting from them with the perfumes the shy girl longed to wear. Because they smelled delectable; absolutely delicious…

“I’ve got a shoot tomorrow. I swear I'll be home by evening…” the blonde promised, her voice tantalizing.

“Please do! I’d like to enjoy the rest of the weekend with you, without having to share that with every stranger in Tokyo!” the other snarked…

“Let them dream!” came back with a shrug, all nonchalance…

“Angel: I want the dream, the reality, everything!” her intimate jested…

Or was it a jest?

Because there was a look about them, an attitude of each mutually possessing the other; a willing, loving, sensual, and emotional bond that must be nectarous. The lonely traveler was captivated immediately, by their beauty, and the interesting, sophisticated conversation—which implicitly indicated equally fascinating lives.

“God! Those complexions! Those figures, and faces!” A blush started up; her head hung down in disquietude, as though she feared it would  telegraph that cherished secret, that must be kept hidden. The sudden, fire in the belly, filling Dorima's romantic soul with delight, joy, and troubled, fevered, erotic scenes. The good secret…

Not the bad secret!…

“Damn! They’re so magnificent!”

The two represented the type of fantasy women who's physical existence was imaginable only in those confusing waking dreams, which occupied much of the solitaire’s time these days.

There were but the three of them now in the great hollow of the otherwise empty train car. Dorima continued pretending to be asleep, hoping it might allow surreptitiously belonging to the periphery of the magnificent couple’s personal world, if only for the trip’s duration.

The fair-haired one noticed her first, nudging her companion, whispering softly.

Those pink lips touched her lover's pale skin as they spoke.softly

How scrumptiously intimate!

“Oh, I wish I were so fair-complexioned! Those lips! They’re so exquisitely rounded, so succulent and inviting, as if awaiting a kiss! Just the whole way their bodies ripple, perfect as a wave in the ocean…” The hopeless romantic rhapsodized…

A marveling glance fell on their fashionable shoes, open in the toes… “Such elegant legs! Even their feet are beautiful! I want to have pretty feet, too!”

“I trust you’ve been dedicating adequate time to your studies, Yuzu?” the dark-haired girl was admonishing now.

“I’m dedicated to you, lover!” The green-eyed girl said passionately, causing the other to blush proudly. Squeezing both hands lovingly, she continued. “ Um—Correction! I’m dedicated to us!”

Their fellow passenger thought, “They’re so precious! I want to be their friend! I want to have such people in my life! If I was only worthy! If I wasn’t so…”

Yuzu nodded in the faux slumberer's direction.

“Mei, I think she’s asleep, poor girl! Must have had a rough school day, or something!”

A knowing smile. “Just like the old days, eh? Not that university is a picnic!”

“Not that long ago!’ came the soft giggle, as she squeezed Mei closer, fairly glowing from the reflected warmth!…

So those were the names that graced these two heavenly beings, Mei and Yuzu! And their voices, though delicately whispering, seemed to match them so perfectly—Well, what were goddesses supposed to sound like? She was suddenly in love with the moment, the two young women, and the obvious affection they bore for each other as they boldly cuddled.

“Mmm! You’re always so warm!”

“I can be coaxed into getting a lot warmer when we get home!” the blonde vamped…

The other blushed a light pink, which was so alluring!

“That’s good to know! I’ll have to put it to the test later!”

“I’ll hold you to that!”

“I’ll hold you now!” Mei whispered, feeling playful. She pulled Yuzu closer, sneaking an unanticipated, if discreet, kiss…

Dorima wanted to be the same as people like that! To show affection openly, toward a girl that she adored, who return that love…

The pair held each other’s hands like keys to their hearts, the couple acted lovesick, so into each other were both…

“I think Hoshino Sensei is beginning to suspect my extracurricular activities!” Yuzu said.

“Hmm! Maybe psychology teachers are more exciting than we thought! Perhaps he’s been reading fashion articles online…” Mei opined.

“Why? Do you think he’s a transvestite?” Another endearing giggle.

The violet eyes rolled in mock-dread. “God, I hope not! Now, how am I going to get that image out of my mind? He looks like a bulldog”!

“Maybe he sees himself as a very lovely lady bulldog! came the mock-serious reply.

Mei held a graceful hand to her lips, trying to muffle a dulcet, tinkling laugh. “Angel… You’re twisted! I mean, just completely bent out of shape!…”

“Seriously, though—Maybe he’s found out that I’m secretly a model and he really goes for that!”

“I think the makeup you use conceals your identity pretty well! At any rate, he definitely knows we’re engaged, we make no secret of that at school or anywhere else, so what good does it do him?” Mei questioned, playfully.

Her inamorata smiled felicitously. “It’s his fantasy, Baby! In his imagination, he can have us both!”

“In real life, he’s well aware he has no chance of getting either one of us, that’s why he’s so frustrated around we two! I can see it in his bleary sheep eyes! Sheer, animal lust!” Mei smirked.

“Those two are playing, bantering back and forth as lovers do! Oh, they’re an engaged couple! They’re so beautiful, their ways are absolutely captivating, their sphere is so sublime. And I’m going to cry! Please, keep it together, girl! You’ll have a fugue! You know what that doctor told you!” Dorima chastised herself…

The girl was drifting, not into a delirious private world of erotic fantasy, but into that troubled world, dominated by her mother’s overwhelming force.

Unbidden, a recent unpleasant scene played out in her memory…

They were on a train platform, and Dorima had made the mistake of smiling at two gay girls she noticed there, valiantly embracing each other in public…

“… People like that!’ her mother was sneering, the ever-present stink of alcohol on her breath. ’Like those two disgusting pot-lickers over there kissing each other in front of everyone at the train station! That blue-eyed hafu with the goddamned pink hair and all like some stupid clown, and the other with the huge boobs just slurping all over her! It’s unnatural, I tell you!  I don’t give a fuck what your liberal Aunt Garyo says about love being love! That’s your father’s family alright—always for letting people do as they damned please! That’s why he never made shit out of himself! He died and left me to work my ass off just so we can survive!”

Dorima was shoe-gazing again, trying to bite bitter tears back, thinking, “I love you, pink-haired girl, and your sweetheart! How I wish I was your friend!” She could only whisper, “Yes, Oka-s-san.” eyes shut in misery, teeth chattering, wanting to shrivel up and die, along with her broken heart and self-esteem…

“So help me, brat, if you ever got to be like that friend of yours… You did stop talking to her like I told you to, didn’t you?…”

“Yes Oka-s-s-s-san!” she mumbled.

“Well good, because she’s one of those types and they’re a rotten influence! The twisted little pervert! So help me, I would turn my back on you forever, I’d wish you in Hell, you little chijin… if you ever…”

“Yes, Oka-s-s-s-san! ” she stammered hysterically, turning from the two young ladies until the older woman violently shook her to shock her back… Unaware, the other people at the station continued to gawk at the two affectionate girls…

Those two lovely ladies on the train? They appeared so open, and loving; there was a flow of radiant emotion that was like…

Another so beautiful one…

“You’re like me!’ her admirer whispered in sudden recognition directly after their venturing lips had parted. ’Listen! You’re not a guchi or any of those bad things those bullies call you, You’re just different! You have a speech impediment, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of. When you write to me… It’s like poetry, your thoughts are so beautiful! You’re sweet and romantic. I love you so much!” The reticent Dorima had been in paradise, weeping joyfully, lost in a magic place where miracles happen, where love was a reality, not a distant memory…

Her mother caught the two holding hands a few weeks after that…

She started becoming aware in slow degrees, fuzzily hearing the one called Mei, who seemed wise for her years, in mid-discussion…

“… It’s just there, it’s probably always going to be there… You can’t stop people from being what they are… That’s us, people who are tolerant or even supportive, and those who can’t bear the thought of us existing. Oh—Also the vast, gray middle area of ” Please don’t spill my tea “ people who don’t care or simply don’t want to be involved. That’s how authoritarian ideas come to prominence. People allow it”!

“You’ve been sitting there absorbing the whole sociology class!” Yuzu opined…

“It factors into what I’m studying. Education, which is more than numbers, or facts and figures. My theory is, in the end, it’s about how people operate, first the mechanics of their minds, and then… I mean, too, what they are influenced by outside the classroom as well. For instance, say a student is raised with the idea that the earth is flat…”

Sensation fought to return to Dorima’s tense muscles, her skin… She was suffering another episode. Her face was cool, and damp. She struggled to gather her mind back into a semblance of normalcy.

She gazed down at the shabby long sweater she habitually affected. It had been her beloved father’s… and hid her secret…

The Bad Secret…

Looking back up, the two across from her hazily came into view…

“… So Yuzu, it seems to me, psychologists, physiologists, neurologists… a whole team of specialists could help me evolve a novel, holistic teaching environment! It sounds crazy to many, but Grandfather is already applying my ideas! It will take years…”

“I think I know what your desertion is gonna be about shortly…”

“Yuzu,’ Mei said modestly, ’It’s formed the basis for a book I’ve written! I just need my name appended with ” PhD. “…”

Dorima heard the doctor’s voice in her memory…

“Some form of Autism, I believe, is present, but for these episodes, I’m thinking a neurologist might possibly be in order. There could be epilepsy, Complex PTSD, possibly Intermittent Explosive Disorder, too… She has trouble communicating for more than short periods of time. I’d like to do further testing,’ the specialist had told her mother, outside the office, as she listened at the door. ’Is the child exposed to any kind of bullying or abuse… perhaps at school? Ijime is a bad problem, these days. I have some literature it would be beneficial for you both to read. She really should have more visits besides the school-ordered ones”.

“The brat?’ her mother answered, ’ She's just aho, if you ask me! You know she’s in special classes, right?…”

“… Then, Yuzu, it’s just a matter of expanding on the groundwork I helped lay out for the Aihara family of schools, and our partners, just before we left for university…”

“It was brilliant!”

Mei blushed again. ”It was totally necessary, was what it was! We must develop outreach beyond the school environment; an all-inclusive program considerate of the healthiness of the student’s private life, physically, socially, interactively, and emotionally. Hopefully,  get potential stumbling blocks diagnosed…"

The blonde became enthused. “So that other people. for instance, might be spared having to go through the kind of awful shit we did?”

“In a nutshell,’ Mei smiled, ’Yes!…”

Dorima drifted, attempting a retrace back to ordinary reality. She’d gotten stranded in that painful memory; finding the lovely pair were suddenly looking at her, their expressions concerned. The quiet whispering had ceased, for some reason. Had they guessed how bad she was, like Oka-san always said, or?… Reaching a trembling hand to her puzzled face, she awkwardly realized she had been crying again, tears rolling down in silent suffering, not even noticing. she became paralyzed with fear. The gentle-voiced blonde sitting across from the confused girl was speaking to her, but her thoughts were foggy, lost halfway between worlds…

The mist of goodbye…

“Why, Dorima? Why can’t you see me anymore?” her baffled lover sobbed, as the tortured girl wished in her heart for the mercy of death. And had there not been the fear of what might be waiting there…

“Oka-s-s-s-san won’t let m-m-me!” she had choked out through blinding tears of shame and hurt.

“Honey, listen to me! Talk to me!” the sweet girl pleaded, enveloping her in a protective hug she wouldn’t release…

The sweater, her constant present totem, was being pulled off as Dorima struggled frantically to escape. “No!” she cried out. But the other wouldn’t let go. It slipped.

Then twisted away in her hands.

The shoulders of the oversized, unkempt garment pulled down, then, came off, altogether.

Exposing the cruel bruises, raw prints of fingers, and savage marks of blows all over the girl’s upper arms.

Their eyes met in painful realization.

The bad secret was out.

Feeling the abject humiliation of the one she loved discovering the mistreatment, burning with the stinging shame of disclosure, Dorima began to tremble, feeling faint. The self-hatred she carried for allowing the subjugation of her soul.

The pain of the constant abuse, no matter where she turned.

The despair of every waking moment, the brokenness of her lonely heart. She could see the pity, empathy, and anger on that compassionate face she adored, and hung her head. The pain was more than could be borne.

It was unbearable.

Her beloved knew now.

She knew her Mama beat her!

Her Mama beat her!

Hitting her where it wouldn’t show. The pain grew in her right side, throbbing with every deep breath, where a rib was cracked the day before when Oka-san “insisted” she stop all contact with her girlfriend…

Her world beat her! 

The ugly, cruel laughter of the school bullies who took her sweater, and threw it in the dirt, forcing her, screaming, backward over a bicycle rack until she feared her spine would snap. They saw the bruises, mocked the shabby clothing, delighted in her abject pain and shame. “Who else has been kicking your retarded ass, Dor-r-r-rima?” the little sadists asked…

“W-w-why?” the confused girl asked while they laughed like devils, twisting her thin arms. “W-w-why d-d-do you want to hurt m-m-m-me?”

Her disability beat her!

Unable to articulate the pain, the despair, the wretched hopelessness, able only to force a few stuttering words while her dying heart screamed in a dark cage of misery.

Her life beat her! 

Over and over and over…

Only one didn’t beat her, and loved her as she was.

Now?

She was breaking that one person’s beautiful heart.

The ugliness was worse than any beating she had ever taken—of all the many! To do that to the one she worshiped.

The broken girl pushed her healer away, throwing shaking hands to her pounding ears. “I’m going to scream!’ She thought, ’I’m going to scream, she’ll be horrified of me, frightened to death! She’ll hate me, too!”

She whirled in horror fleeing her heartbroken lover, trying to swallow the shrieks of mad terror, praying to find a railway to lay her head down on and…

Die.

Just die.

“Dorima! What has that drunken bitch done to you? Don’t let her keep doing this! I’ll help you!  Dorima, come back! I love you!…” Her lover’s voice died in echoes of yesterday. She ran like a pursued animal, the thousand devils of her existence chasing behind…

How could she escape?

Darkness filled her ruined heart.

“G-G-God!’ she howled madly, ’P-P-Please kill m-m-m-me!…”

In her mind, she was still running.

Would always be running from…

Life.

“Mei! Look… The poor baby! Something’s wrong with her!” The blonde half rose from the seat… at the moment the broken girl came to, looking full-on at the young woman’s angelic face. Her tortured heart died a thousand times over in that moment…Yuzu had noticed the girl was in obvious distress; glassy-eyed, and twitching. “Are you alright, dear?” Yuzu was asking her, kindness and concern clear in her every action.

“Don’t touch me!’ Dorima thought, ’Or there’s no coming back! Oh beautiful goddess, please don’t touch me with your merciful hands! Don’t show me hope I can’t keep! Don’t give me kindness that will be shattered to bloody pieces in my face or compassion that will be murdered by… by…”

The one named Yuzu was sweet and kind, her green eyes gentle, loving, and empathic, just like…

And Dorima wanted to die, again! Wanted to tell the young women how gorgeous they were, how miraculous it was they had found each other, how she wished with every ounce of her being to be their peer. Sitting  alongside them with an arm around her lover, a twinkle in everyone’s eyes that said “Isn’t life wonderful? Isn’t young love so grand?”

Free!

Free at last!

Free of her world’s vicious abuse…

Free… as people like that…

Free to tell the world who and what she was…

Free to confess her feelings to everyone, but especially, the girl she adored…

“No!…”

Uncoiling, deep in her psychic guts…

The Fear was on her again…

She was going to scream. Exactly as had happened last year, when she had started shrieking in class upon catching sight of the bullies from a window, gathering outside…

Waiting.

For her.

Again.

When school let out.

When she infrequently wandered from home.

It never stopped.

“K-K-Kill me, G-G-God!…”

The train swiftly began grinding to a halt, the girl’s breath catching in her throat as the young couple tried to rise to attend to her obvious distress…

“No!…”

Her eyes darted like a trapped, wounded animal…

“Oka-s-s-san won’t let m-m-m-me!” she cried out in agony, her head thrown down as though struck by an invisible fist.

The couple stared at each other in bewilderment. hesitating that one moment before Yuzu’s compassionate touch could reach Dorima.

Her eyes stood out in terror. Howling like an animal in pain, she leaped toward the car doors as they opened, bursting past the two young ladies. Screaming, sobbing, the tormented girl ran like something wild, careening down the platform. People scattered out of her way. She wasn’t in that body anymore. Her mind was in the dark place…

The hurting place.

The puzzled couple on board the train car saw her vanish into the crowd, feeling a mixture of shock, sorrow, and pity, as the tormented shrieks died in the distance…

“What made her do that? Her mom won’t let her do what?’ Yuzu asked after a breathless, long minute. ’ It looked like she had a seizure or something! That poor, troubled little baby! Look! Here’s a book bag with a name and school on it! She panicked and left it!”

Mei shook her head, pondering for a moment. “We don’t know her story! She might be on the Autism Spectrum, like me, but more reactive. Or a phobic disorder, or perhaps some mental illness. And too, maybe, it was us, Yuzu. You never know how some people might take seeing a same-sex couple, however polite, however much in love, just expressing their feelings. Unpredictable! It could be an extreme trigger for her! We’ve seen that before, right? Maybe she didn’t understand, you know? And one wonders… with the terrible state of mental health services in our country, is she being cared for and looked after? Perhaps not. This is precisely what I’ve been trying to get addressed!”

Yuzu hugged her lover. “Maybe so. I’m so sorry for her, whatever the situation. What a precious, innocent face, like a little child! I wish we could have helped.”

“Me too, Angel. ” Mei gave Yuzu a soft kiss on her cheek, making the young woman smile again.

Sadly shaking her head, the somber Mei might have been thinking of her own life, as much as anything.

“Whatever was going on in her world, ’ she whispered, “the poor girl is undeniably troubled. In the end, you can never tell what is wrong…’

“… With people like that…”

Chapter Text

Yuzu looked at the label on the poor girl's bag, after she and Mei had stepped off the train and settled their nerves—Kowareta Dorima 11/3/25. Motto: 小さな光 (A small light). I.D. number: 876. Mei had bent and retrieved the worn navy backpack from beneath a bench. The taped corner, ragged seam, and a school sticker— Special Education Division—gave them more than a name. Yuzu opened the front pocket and drew out a composition notebook, pages filled with tight, slanted writing and one small photograph tucked inside: a woman’s face, warm and sad, labeled “Aunt Garyo." It was surrounded by hearts.

Yuzu’s fingers paused. “Mei… look at this. She goes to Asahi Kibō School. Isn't that the special needs school that you told me Aihara brought in recently?”

Mei read over her shoulder, eyes narrowing in concern. “It is, Yuzu. Last month... Listen, I was just thinking. Did you see those ugly bruises on her arms when she got up?”

The blondes jaw set, hard. "I did. Are you thinking..."

"Oh Hell yes! She's afraid of her mother. You heard what she said.”

Yuzu nodded, pointing to the notebook. “And these poems. Her handwriting—she’s brilliant, but that last line…” She tapped a section: a stanza about doors slamming, about a sweater that smelled like someone else’s anger. “Those bruises… Do you think we can—”

It is a school in our perview...”

“We can’t just leave her,” Yuzu said, voice very small. “We have to try.”

Mei’s expression tightened. “Of course not! I’ll call Tanaka-san—the lawyer who handled our system's umbrella paperwork. He’s good. And I’ll message Naoko Kobayoshi at the school; she’s the child-welfare liaison at Aihara. If anyone can move fast, it’s them.”

Yuzu folded the notebook back into the bag like a promise. “I’ll wait here. If she comes back—if she needs anything—”

“This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about! She needs help now,” Mei said. “Come with me.”

The lawyer’s office smelled like paper and coffee. Tanaka saw the photograph first, then flipped through the composition notebook like he was reading evidence and a life at once. He asked questions with the precise calm of someone who had seen cruelty before and grown allergic to excuses.

“Do you have proof of the bruises?” he asked. “Were there witnesses?”

Mei placed a trembling hand between them and told him, "Our eyes." she described the whole scene, and its aftermath.—pale arms, dark crescents, a ripped cuff, a girl running and screaming in fear of her mother.

Tanaka’s face hardened. “This is enough to file for a visit, and if the girl is willing, to file for emergency protective measures. If the police and social services concur, we petition the family court for temporary custody and an immediate protection order. You two found her bag—did you see where she ran?”

“Toward the east exit,” Yuzu answered. “She screamed like she thought a devil was after her.”

Tanaka nodded. “We’ll need to expedite. I’ll contact social services and file the petition this afternoon. We've got the name and most everything else we need; we can get her address from the school. There's going to be ten kilometers of paperwork, and it's going to get ugly when they visit the girl's home. But also, you two must be willing to testify—about the bag, the notebook, what you saw.”

“We will,” Mei said. Yuzu’s hand found Mei’s and squeezed.

Outside the office, the city felt both larger and kinder—like a hand was finally on a shoulder Dorima had believed would never be touched. Mountains were being moved unbeknownst to the frightened girl. Mei and Yuzu sat on a bench, the navy bag between them, whispering plans. “Aihara Progressive Education will help,” Mei said. “We have our own programs for children and teens with special needs. We can get her into the system.”

Yuzu traced her finger along the school sticker. “She deserves… a place that understands her.”

Social services moved with astonishing rapidity. A home visit turned into a police welfare check, which led to the astonished girl gratefully coming along to the Aihara offices, to assist in filing the full complaint. Aunt Garyo—contact information written in the notebook—came to the station as soon as the caseworker rang her. The woman arrived in a windbreaker, hair in a messy bun, and when she heard of the bruises she did not weep as Mei had feared; she steadied herself and said, flatly, “We’ll get her out. Show me where.”

Aihara’s liaison, did not waste words either. “We’ll run an immediate assessment,” she told Dorima in a quiet room set aside at the offices for people who needed space. “No tests you don’t want. We’ll find the right people.” The wounded girl’s mouth trembled around silence; she looked small, like a paper figure bent by the wind. At the welfare interview, she managed fragments: a mother who drank, who shouted, who forbade certain friendships; nights that crashed and hissed; a sweater taken, mud on knees, a rib that had ached for three days after a fall “that wasn’t an accident.” The social worker paused, her eyes soft with empathy. "Then... Someone hurt you intentionally?” she asked.

Dorima’s voice was a cracked bell. “Y-y-yes.”

The word made the case real. After that, the words poured forth like a torrent of pain, shame... and relief.

Court work is not glamorous. It is a series of forms that act like keys, and sometimes keys fit the locks. Tanaka filed under emergency protective orders; the judge, seeing bruises and a family record, ordered Dorima placed under temporary guardianship with her Aunt Garyo pending a hearing. The mother would possibly be allowed supervised contact later on, only if she entered a mandated treatment program, and contingent on her daughter's approval. The court’s language—clinical, decisive—sounded to Mei like an incantation that could keep someone safe.

Her Aunt  moved into the picture fully then: in the courtroom she wore a coat that had seen many winters and a voice that did not tremble. “I’ll care for her,” she told the judge. “I'll care of my brother's child. I won’t let her go back to that house.”

The judge nodded. “Temporary guardianship approved. We will set follow-up hearings, and the child will be placed in protective custody with Ms. Kowareta until the final decision.”

Outside, the girl clung to her Aunt Garyo’s sleeve like a script she could read by touch. Mei and Yuzu watched, the two of them, feeling simultaneously triumphant and hollow—the knowledge that a legal order could not stitch every wound.

“She needs stability,” Mei said, her lips stretched thin.

Yuzu nodded thoughtfully. “And we’ll all make sure she gets it.”

The first nights at the new  house were not calm. Dorima woke breathless, hands clutching at sheets, images of crowds in stations and shouting mothers crashing over her like waves.

Mei and Yuzu had dropped by after classes. Mei was deeply interested in the outcome of this case. Her heart was in it, and as well, it was a perfect example of what her new educational system might accomplish.

“She’s steadying,” Yuzu said, wiping a tear. “She’s so brave.”

“She’s going to need a team,” Mei answered. “Speech therapy, occupational therapy, psychiatry. We should coordinate with the doctors. Get an educational assessment. She’s got handwriting like stained glass. Her written words tell me her cognition is sharp; she just needs scaffolding.”

She took out her phone and began setting appointments.

Aunt Garyo was everything the court records had promised: patient, consistent, and fierce when anyone doubted Dorima’s needs. She enrolled her in counseling with a clinician who specialized in trauma and developmental differences. The therapist built a calming toolkit—weighted throw blanket, breath exercises, a visual timetable she could consult when transitions felt like cliffs, among many other helpful ideas. The first few nights at Aunt Garyo’s house were restless. But the presence of a warm kitchen, steady meals, and a laundry basket of newly chosen shirts—simple, pretty, and not the worn sweater of shame—began to unknot the fear.

The neurodevelopmental assessments were thorough and, to Dorima’s relief, conducted by people who never asked her to speak longer than she wanted. The psychologist smiled and folded his hands, the occupational therapist brought a quiet ball to roll between the toes of her shoes, and the speech therapist sat with picture cards that Dorima could point to. When the report came down, it was both a landing and a map: she presented with patent autistic traits—sensory sensitivity, language-processing differences, and a capacity for intense, creative thought. Her IQ testing aligned with gifted performance in verbal and abstract reasoning. The diagnosis came with an emphasis: severe anxiety and trauma responses, particularly in crowded or unexpected social contexts.

“Your system can be a support for her,” Kobayoshi-san told Mei and Yuzu the next day, her voice bright with a diplomat’s relief. “We have a gifted-track integration program. With the right accommodations—extended time, a mentor, sensory breaks—she can thrive here. We’ll also provide in-school therapy hours. Would she accept a scholarship? We can cover tuition and the extra supports.”

Mei’s throat tightened. “She’ll need to feel safe coming to school.”

“We’ve made the school safe,” she said. “And we’ve trained staff on trauma-informed care. She'll be staying with her Aunt now, and out of that ghastly neighborhood where she was living.”

Tanaka arranged the legal paperwork to attach an educational placement to the  case plan. When the court read the school’s evaluation and pledge, it inclined like a tree toward sunlight. The judge approved the scholarship and the school-based services as part of the appointed care. It was still only a set of promises on paper...

But promises are stronger with people behind them.

Reuniting with the girl Dorima had tearfully spoken of was slower than any of them had hoped. The girlfriend—Mina—lived a few wards away and had been kept distant by the hostile mother. After court approved contact and supervised meetings, Mina came into the arms of the girl she loved with a kind of stunned tenderness. That reunion—measured at first, then breaking into a laugh and a sob, was witnessed by Mei and Yuzu, who let the two be. The first meeting in a small visiting room was loud in the quiet way of two people who have been kept apart.

Mina’s voice was gentle. “Hi.” she said. She slid a small paper crane across the table. “I made this. I’ve been waiting.”

Dorima’s breath stuck. She looked at Mina as if remembering how to read a familiar face. Then she burst into a laugh that broke into a sob. Mina folded forward and their hands met on the table—fingers tentatively, then firmly entwined.
“Thank you,” she whispered, not for the crane but for every step that had led here. “Thank you for being brave enough to c-c-come back.”

Mina, now calm and steady, thanked Mei and Yuzu with quiet sincerity. She knelt and placed both hands on Dorima’s knees, promising, “I’ll be with you. We’ll go slowly. Whatever you need. I love you. Nothing can change that.”

The early weeks at the new school were slow in the best sense. There were meetings. More meetings than the  sometimes bewildered girl thought were humanly possible. Each one melded into the next to form a safety net. A mentor student, Takumi, who seldom spoke, had his own sensory sensitivities and wore headphones to class, took her under his wing. He showed her where the quiet room was, how to log in for sensory breaks, and how to use the school’s app to message when a transition felt too sudden.

On the first morning Mei and Yuzu walked with her onto campus. The leaves were turning a mild gold. The old backpack—repaired, its corner now reinforced with a neat seam—bobbled at her back. Mei had tucked a copy of the girls poems into an inner pocket under a note: “For when you need to hear your own voice.”

“You don’t have to be perfect here,” Mei whispered, when the girl’s shoulders rose like someone bracing for a blow. “You just have to be you.”

Dorima’s mouth twitched as she blushed. “You always s-s-s-sound like a book!” 

 “And you always sound like the sky,” Mei shot back with a sweet smile.

Dorima threw her hands to her face and giggled, a now familiar gesture to the two young women.

In class, teachers met her with small rituals. Checking in quietly, offering options for seating where the hallway noise was less. Tests came with extended time; group projects were negotiated with clear roles and a calm facilitator. The new student found sudden pleasures in things she had loved in secret: the hallway plant’s silver leaves, the sound of a pen making a confident line on paper, the way afternoon light pooled over the courtyard benches. Her poems, when read in a select school group, were like small constellations. A seminar leader clapped softly. “You have a voice,” she said. “You can claim it.”

That sentence lodged in the girl like a seed.

Medical care moved forward with the same gentle decisiveness. The neurologist’s scan showed no ongoing seizure focus, which did not erase the terror of dissociative episodes, but it simplified the treatment plan. The psychiatrist recommended a low-dose sedative for anxiety, taken cautiously, paired with trauma-focused therapy. The care team broke down every appointment into calendar cards. Mei accompanied her to the first psychiatric visit and, afterward, drank tea in the clinic’s hallway while the young patient sat on a bench absorbing the strange fact of being believed.

“Does it hurt to be believed?” she asked suddenly, eyes searching.

Mei blinked. “Only when no one else does it.”

Dorima laughed, a tiny sound that loosened her chest.

Occupational therapy introduced a toolkit—weighted lap pad for train journeys, sound canceling headphones, chewable jewelry for when her mouth felt like a storm, a small folding fan to carry when crowds startled her. The speech therapist taught pacing techniques—how to let words stretch like ribbons to avoid snapping under pressure.

Her Aunt made morning porridge and hummed while she cooked; and learned to leave a small bag of Dorima’s favorite flavors of rice crackers in her backpack. Stability seeped into the day like light into the gaps of a wall.

The reunions with Mina moved from observation rooms to tea shops when the circumstances allowed more contact. The first time Mina arrived at Aunt Garyo’s kitchen door unscheduled a few weeks later, Dorima nearly snapped, the impulse to flee firing old pathways. But Mina’s voice—a navigation of soft, steady notes—called her back.

“I came anyway,” Mina said, cheeks pink. “I wanted to prove I could wait.”

Dorima opened the door and smelled jasmine and starch and the safe, ordinary smells of a home that was not a battleground. Mina took her hand and did not let go for a long time. They planned slow things: study dates in quiet libraries, ramen at off-peak hours, trips to the small seaside park where people came to watch boats and not touch anyone. 

When Mina said, “Tell me if I’m too much,” the answer was a whisper at first.

“Sometimes I n-n-need to be alone,” Dorima said. “But I l-l-l-love you.”

The grin she received was a small sun. “I’ll bring a book,” she said. “And I’ll sit and read until you come back.”

Time, arranged into months rather than panicked minutes, did what support does: it accreted. The bruises faded into pale maps; court hearings sealed her Aunt's guardianship; the mother was required to enter rehabilitation and counseling and was given supervised visitation contingent on compliance, and only if her daughter agreed. Dorima attended regular therapy, and the school’s accommodations became habit. People who had once been strangers—teachers, Takumi, Mei, Yuzu, Tanaka—became friends who took turns bearing witness to her small recoveries

One afternoon, at a small café near campus, she asked to meet Mei and Yuzu. She arrived with Mina at her side, wearing a pale-blue sweater without tags, her beloved repaired navy backpack sitting at her feet. Dorima’s face was clean, and framed with a nervous brightness.

She set an envelope on the table between them. The handwriting was hers—uneven, but steadier than before. The others peered at it.

“Do you want me to read it?” Mei asked softly.

She nodded. Her voice came out thin, and unnatural at first, then warmed. “Thank you for not looking away,” she read. “For taking my bag. For reading my poems aloud and for not letting me be alone when I was small inside. I am here because you were kind.”

Yuzu reached across with both hands and gently took the other's fingers. “You gave us a gift too,” she said. “You let us help you.”

Mina watched and then, when the tea cups had cooled, kissed the back of Dorima’s hand. “She can say thank you,” Mina murmured. “And I can say it again—thank you for being brave.”

Mei’s voice, always like soft bells, added, “You should write an autobiographical book. Or—even better, maybe put together a collection of your poems. The school would publish it.”

She flushed, startled by the idea. “I never thought… maybe.”

They talked for a long time. About small things: a poem Dorima had started about the sound of trains, a class she wanted to take in child literature, a plan to volunteer at Aihara’s afterschool reading program. Dorima read a short piece aloud, about clouds as hands, and about a sweater that turned into a map. The sentences trembled and then held.

At the end, she took something small from her backpack and pressed it into Yuzu’s palm: a chipped bead from the bracelet her Aunt had made. “Keep it,” she said. “So you’ll have a piece of the girl who was saved because you cared.”

Yuzu’s eyes filled with tears. She nodded and tucked the bead into her pocket like a secret.

The months that followed were not a story of miraculous cure. Old alarms sometimes still rang. She had nights where her sleep unraveled and mornings when the platform was a cliff again. But she also had a list of people who knew how to soften those edges. She learned to plan train exits, to set a small ritual before leaving home, to text Mina or her Aunt before a ride. Her poems grew in length and confidence. One of them, an essay about fear and rescue, was accepted by the student magazine and printed with the simple editor’s note: “Brave and luminous.”

Her Aunt’s guardianship was formalized in court with predictable legal language. The mother attended mandated therapy sessions and, over the following year, made halting steps toward sobriety under court supervision. Reconciliation was not promised; safety was.

One afternoon on a platform three stops from where Dorima had fled months before, she paused with Mina and Garyo and looked at the rails. The clack and rush of trains used to sound like an approaching storm. This time, she felt the tremor in her chest and then a small, steadying breath. Mei and Yuzu, who had been invited for a visit, stood a few paces back, linked hand-in-hand, a quiet presence. She traced the metal edge of a bench, fingers finding the familiar dent where she had once put her bag. She smiled, small and private. “I used to be terrified of trains,” she told Mina.

Mina squeezed her hand. “And now?”

“Now,” Dorima said, “I have rules.” She listed them like a map: an exit plan, a bead in her pocket, someone to call. She looked at Mei and Yuzu, then up at the sky where clouds moved slowly. “And I have people.”

Yuzu lifted a hand to the drifting clouds and sighed. “Looks like a fish,” she said lightly.

Mei added, “Or a boat.”

Dorima laughed, and the sound fit the air like folded paper finally closing. She put her hand over Mina’s and then over Aunt Garyo’s and then, without ceremony, reached back and brushed Mei’s sleeve. Mei’s eyes crinkled, and for a second none of them spoke; the platform hummed and trains came and went.

Later, when Dorima’s name appeared on an awards list for a short creative essay about belonging, Mei pinned the notice into the composition notebook next to a poem. Takumi taped a small sticker over the back of her backpack: “Brave.” It was a silly sticker, but she wore it for weeks.

At night, when old noises rose up, Aunt Garyo would sit with her and read aloud. Mina would fall asleep with her head on her beloved's lap, and Dorima would feel, for the first time in a long time, that she did not have to run.The city never promised them peace. It promised only the continuation of life—crowds, trains, sudden noise. But for her, the difference was the company she kept across the hours. Mei and Yuzu had taken a small, steady risk when they picked up a forgotten bag. They had stayed. They still stayed.

The winter after the scholarship began, a mild hush settled over the small household. School days folded into each other: seminars with bright lamps, short therapy sessions in the school clinic, careful lunches that avoided the sometimes noisy cafeteria. Mina brought thrifted scarves and a slow patience that learned exactly which places and times left her lover fragile. Her Aunt kept the kettle on and understood the exact way the autistic girl liked her porridge—less salt, more sweet bean paste if it was to be a good morning.

One evening in late January, snow pressed against the windowpanes and Dorima sat at the kitchen table, pen poised over a fresh sheet. The notebook on her lap had a new title page in careful script: “Clouds & Maps.”  Garyo sang under her breath in the next room; Mina curled up on the couch with a battered novel; Mei and Yuzu were due to come by to help with a small school presentation Dorima was nervous about. She touched the bead bracelet at her wrist—Aunt Garyo’s handiwork—and saw the faint line of a scar along the inside of her forearm where a bruise had once gone deep. She brushed her thumb over it as if calming something that lived beneath the skin. The knock on the front door was soft and familiar. Mina rose to answer and came back with Mei and Yuzu, cheeks red from the cold, scarves flung haphazardly. Mei carried a box of pastries; Yuzu had steaming paper mugs of what smelled like spiced tea.

“You look like you’ve been writing a very serious poem,” Mei said as she set the box down and sank into an empty chair.

“I’m nervous,” she admitted. “They want me to read at the seminar tomorrow. Some teachers said it would be okay if I read in the quiet room. But what if I freeze? What if my voice does the stuttering thing and everyone—”

“Then we clap,” Yuzu said simply. “Or we hum. Or we do whatever you want.”

She smiled at the small list of possibilities. Mina sat close and draped an arm over her shoulders. “We’ll be there,” Mina promised.

That night Dorima folded the poem into her bag. She slept with Mina’s hand over her hip as if something could be pinned into place by touch.

The seminar room the next afternoon was smaller than she had pictured. A handful of students clustered on cushions; the professor who ran the gifted integration program sat with a quiet, watchful smile. Takumi was there, headphones off and a bright, ready look in his eyes; Mei and Yuzu slipped into a back corner, Mei’s fingers laced with Yuzu’s. Mina sat up front, shoulders square. When Dorima’s turn came she rose carefully, sweater sleeves pulled down to her palms in an old habit. Her throat felt thick; her voice wanted to curl up into the pages of her poem and hide. The professor patted the seat beside him. “Read when you’re ready,” he said.

Dorima’s hands trembled as she opened the sheet. Her first line hit with a small, astonishing clarity: “The world did not strike me today.” The room was quiet in the gentle way of people afraid to break something fragile. She read about clouds that carried hands and a sweater that became a map. She read about a girl who learned a rule for traveling: always have an exit, always have a person to call, always carry a bead.
Halfway through she faltered; the stuttered syllable tried to scatter her. Mei leaned forward in her seat and tapped the rhythm on her knee—soft, and reassuring. Yuzu’s smile was an anchor. Mina squeezed Dorima’s foot under the cushion. The room seemed to inhale and hold them.

When the last line fell like snow at the poem’s end, the professor’s clap was the first sound. Then Takumi’s, then a ripple around the circle. A girl two seats over—someone Dorima had never met—reached over and placed her hand on her wrist, where the bead bracelet lay because she had forgotten to take it off. “Thank you,” she said simply. “That was brave.” Dorima’s eyes were damp, but the small warmth in her chest was not pain. It was something like a lamp lighting.

After the seminar, the professor asked if she would consider submitting the piece to the student magazine. She said yes before she had weighed the truth of what she was promising. Mei and Yuzu walked home with her, talking about lists of editors and revision notes in the conspiratorial way of people who wanted to build futures for others.

On a rainy evening the following month, Dorima and Mina visited the clinic for a routine follow-up. The psychiatrist, a woman with soft gray hair and a notebook full of small stars, asked how things felt.

Dorima thought about the platform where she had once run, the bruise that had ached like an accusation, the sweater that had been exposed. She thought about Mei reading her poems on a train, about Aunt Garyo’s steady hands, about Mina’s patient arrivals. She thought about the bead she carried.

“It’s easier,” she said at last, surprised at the bluntness of it. “Not fixed. But easier.”

“Easier is real progress,” the psychiatrist said, smiling. “And you have people who show up. That matters.”

Dorima blinked. “It matters a lot. They're my world.”

Spring moved slowly into town. The budding author's poems multiplied: short pieces taped in corners of her notebook, stanzas tucked into the margins of her textbooks. Several teachers encouraged her to take a creative writing elective; she agreed, tentative but bright. Mina and Dorima started a Saturday routine of visiting secondhand bookstores—quiet, dim places with soft hearted owners who let them sit in corners and read. Once, she found a volume of children’s poems and read a line to Mina aloud: “The cloud will teach you to be patient.” Mina laughed like a small bell and kissed her on the forehead.

The Aihara administrative team arranged a small showcase for scholarship students at the end of the year. Dorima, to her own shock, was invited to read one of her poems publicly in the school auditorium. She accepted with the same small, trembling courage she had practiced at the seminar.

That night, as she prepared backstage, Aunt Garyo pressed a damp handkerchief to a bead of sweat at the hesitant girl's brow. “You’re not giving a speech,” she said. “You’re giving people a gift you already have. Tell them what you want to say. We’ll be in the front row.”

The auditorium lights went up like a sunrise; dozens of faces watched. Mei and Yuzu sat together near the center, Mei’s hand curled around Yuzu’s. Mina threaded her fingers with Dorima’s. The nervous girl waited, feeling the hot pulse of a thousand possible collapses just at the edges of hearing, then breathed and walked to the microphone.

Her dreamy, tender voice held better than she expected. She read of brokenness and healing; of pain and hope—and the room responded with a silence that was not emptiness but full attention.

Over the next year she blossomed under Aunt Garyo’s guardianship. The mother’s occasional visits were supervised and strictly conditioned on her continuing treatment; the court insisted on periodic updates. The legal closure did not erase scars, but it placed Dorima on a different map.

Her school record developed in steady, grounded lines: work submitted on time most weeks, a small circle of friends that included Takumi and Emi, the girl who had placed her hand on Dorima’s wrist the day of the seminar. She volunteered in the after school reading program for younger students once a month and discovered a peculiar joy in reading aloud, her stammer gone, to kids who tilted their heads the way she had always done.

Late one spring afternoon Mei, Yuzu, Mina, Aunt Garyo, Emi, and Takumi gathered at the little park by the station—the place where Dorima had once fled. The sun laid itself low and warm. She wore a light sweater with no tags and the navy backpack, patched neatly, on her back. Ever silent, but helpful, Takumi had brewed a giant thermos jug of tea for everyone.

Yuzu nudged Mei playfully, whispering, “We made a difference.”

Mei grinned. “A very stubborn, very poetic difference. And if this worked for her... How many others will benefit in the future?”

Aunt Garyo put her arm around Dorima and drew her close. “You have a home,” she said simply. “You have people who will come. People who stay.” She leaned into her aunt’s warmth, and Mina’s hand slid into hers.

They sat like that for a long time, watching trains pass—the sound no longer a storm but a rhythm. An Aunt and a niece with a complicated past, a girlfriend with patient hands, two women who had been strangers that became anchors, and a group of friends stitched into the edges of a once lonely girl's days.

Later, walking back to the station, Dorima paused at the bench where she had once left her bag. She set the repaired navy pack down and sat. Mei and Yuzu stood a short distance away, linked hands, their faces open and soft. Dorima reached back and, with a small, steady motion, took from the inside pocket the composition notebook where all her drafts lived. She flipped to a fresh page and, in careful script, wrote one line: “I will not run unless it helps me get to somewhere better.”, then folded the page and tucked it beneath the notebook’s cover like a secret talisman. Then she stood, put the bag on, and walked with Mina and Aunt Garyo toward the train. Mei and Yuzu followed a few paces behind, in no hurry to leave.

“Do you remember this spot?” Mei asked.

Dorima’s face was a map of quiet. “I do,” she said. “I remember the way my feet left the platform.” She smiled then, not a big smile, but a steady one. “Now my feet come back on purpose.”

As the train came, Dorima did not grip the railing with a practiced panic. She set her foot on the step, took Mina’s hand, and moved forward, carrying with her a map of scars and a ledger of kindness. She could not promise the fear would never rise again. But she had rules, people, and a school that had become part of her scaffold. That was a kind of shelter.

When the doors slid shut, Mina pressed her forehead to Dorima’s temple and whispered, “I’m proud of you.” Dorima smiled into the warmth of the kiss that followed, and, for a moment, allowed herself to imagine a future that had room for poems, for quiet mornings, for a life arranged around people she loved, small, chosen rituals. And day to day life, like anyone might have. Outside, the city ran as it always had—loud, indifferent—but inside the carriage, with a bead in her pocket and friends nearby, Dorima felt something like safe arrival.

Mei and Yuzu watched the train pull away, hands still linked, their breaths leaving small clouds in the cold air. Mei turned to Yuzu and said, quietly, “We did a good thing.”

Yuzu nodded. “We did.” She touched the bead that had hung from the old backpack strap—a bead she had kept ever after since it had been gifted—and slipped it into her palm as if holding a story in place.
They walked back into the city together, their conversation low and woven with new plans: coordinating a campus workshop on trauma-informed education, helping set up  peer-mentor groups at the Aihara schools, and, in a quieter corner, deciding to visit Dorima a few weeks hence, to hear new poems and bring warm bread.

The platform hummed. The trains moved. Dorima, seated with Mina and her Aunt, read quietly from her notebook until the pages blurred into sleep. Outside, clouds drifted in ways that sometimes looked like boats and sometimes like hands. She closed her eyes, breathed in the city air, and opened them to see two girls drifting through clouds: someone’s passing dream, perhaps—but now a dream she could write into being. Inside, the people who had chosen to stay kept choosing to stay—and for her, that became the story that mattered.