Looking In
A Sister's Tough Love
1st year, April
"I'll be there by 6am. If you can do it, try to arrive by then. And bring your best violin."
Kanina-sama had parted with these cryptic words, said with her warm smile. The visage filled Arisu's thoughts and wouldn't fade. Not that Arisu wanted it to. She wanted to sear Kanina-sama's smile in her mind like a brand, something so precious she didn't want to ever lose it.
Arisu was walking briskly, trying hard to stay warm. Fujisawa-sensei had offered to drive her home when she extended the same courtesy to Kanina-sama, but the cautious part of Arisu balked at the idea of these two knowing where she lived. She had demurred; assuring them that she'd be perfectly safe riding the bus. Later she recognized the foolishness of it given all they had to do now to find her full identity was to ask Hanadera. Still, until she spoke about all this with Yasuna, she felt she owed it to her sister to maintain whatever shreds of anonymity she could. She also sensed, however naïve Yasuna would say she was for believing such feelings, that Kanina-sama and her mentor wouldn't pursue it with Hanadera even if she were to vanish completely.
Not that I intend to do that!
She shivered. She could have taken the bus, but she felt the need to clear her mind and felt the walk would do her good. The day had been relatively warm for early April, but she now realized it was deceptive. As dusk fell, she was still walking and the early spring cold took hold almost immediately. In her thin Lillian uniform dress with no jacket, she felt goosebumps growing on goosebumps. Still, the brisk pace was keeping the worst of the chill off, and there blessedly was no wind.
Arisu arrived at her door as the last of the streetlights in view were flickering on. She pulled out her key, but checked the door before opening it in case Yasuna was already home. She hoped not, because Arisu was certain she'd get a tongue lashing for coming home in the dark as a girl. Strangely, Yasuna didn't bat an eye when Kintarou came home after dark. The concept irked her, and given the threats she faced even in "boy mode" it was irrational, but at the same time it showed the extent to which Yasuna acknowledged the full femininity of Arisu- the good and the bad, the benefits and the drawbacks.
"You're home late, sis. I tried calling, but you never answered," a familiar voice chided her, as predicted, as she stepped in the door of the apartment the two sisters shared. Yasuna was almost seven years older than Arisu, and in her last year of civil engineering education at a polytechnic university not terribly far from Hanadera and Lillian. Rather than commute the ridiculous distance from their Grandfather's home to college every day, a questionable distance even with a chauffeur, Yasuna had pursued a small two-bedroom place that she could share with her Hanadera-attending younger sibling.
While having a home less than 30 minutes walking distance from school, 10 minutes by bus if timed right, was convenient, having a nosy big sister in such close proximity could be annoying. Fortunately, Arisu knew her sister had her best interests at heart. The two were amazingly close, in part due to their shared sense that it was them against their grandfather. A grandfather who kept insisting each of them being someone they were not.
In Arisu's case, the complications were obvious. For Yasuna, they were related but more subtle. For grandfather, women were accompanist, not leads. Ladies of status equal to hers might perform independently for a while, and perhaps later with the permission of their husband, but ultimately they were supposed to get married for the good of the family and raise heirs. They most certainly didn't practice engineering, a male profession with independent authority.
When Yasuna, who had always loved math and tested consistently in the top 1% in it, had announced she was going to study math and engineering after graduation from Lillian, grandfather had become unglued. Fortunately, father had still been alive at the time and had done some unknown magic persuading his father to relent. Yasuna agreed to 'eventually' marry within her strata, and grandfather placed no roadblocks to Yasuna's dreams after that. By the time father died, inertia had set in and grandfather seemed disinclined to fight that battle when he had a far more pressing target.
His grandson, key to the survival of a family line tracing unbroken to the Tenbun period not to mention expected heir to the family's entertainment holdings.
Arisu sighed, both at the memories she was replaying and Yasuna's inquisitiveness.
"I had my phone turned off, for obvious reasons. They're banned at Lillian, and any ringing would have drawn attention to me." Arisu wondered what would have happened had Kanina-sama or Fujisawa-sensei answered Yasuna's call, and she shivered again despite the warmth of the apartment.
"I know, but you should have checked your voicemail as soon as you left the grounds. Anyway, what have you been up to? If you've been at Lillian all afternoon, we'll have to have another long talk. It's too risky to be there so long."
Yasuna's concern was touching, although her micromanaging Arisu's life wasn't. Still, Arisu had already resolved to share everything with her sister. Arisu held few secrets from Yasuna, and none that weren't connected to her life at Hanadera. Yasuna's wisdom had saved Arisu's skin more than once.
"Yes, I was at Lillian all afternoon. Something happened. Something amazing."
"Something that will take a while to explain, from the sounds of it," Yasuna added. "Fair enough. You're obviously in good spirits, and you're safely home without a police escort, so I can be patient. I'm not in the mood to cook tonight, so I was about to order take-out. Pizza sound good?"
Take out pizza was a staple of the Arisugawa Annex, as they liked to call the apartment. Neither occupant was particularly fond of cooking, and definitely not washing dishes having both grown up with servants taking care of such details. Arisu was quite fond of baking on occasion, but she generally did that at her grandfather's home where the expansive kitchen and more extensive supply of utensils made it much easier…not to mention staff to help clean up the mess. Like is often the case with college students living on their own without maternal presence, take out, restaurant food, and ramen noodles made up a larger portion of their diet than it probably should.
"Pizza will be fine. It should be here by the time I slip into something less formal. I've been hard enough on this uniform today as it is."
"You beating up on my old clothes? Be respectful of what you borrow, kiddo," Yasuna said with a teasing grin.
"With that growth spurt you had in second year at Lillian, you couldn't fit in this set you gave me anyway," she said looking up at her sister as she walked past. She had a grin on her face as she said it, but the act of looking up at Yasuna still roiled her stomach given the warning it suggested for her. Mother was small, but father had been and grandfather was very tall. Arisu had no idea which genetics she'd get, and that was before the effects of testosterone. "And you gave the smaller uniforms to me, if I remember right. They weren't a loan."
"I did, didn't I? Must have been a lapse. I'm getting too nice in my old age."
This kind of banter was part and parcel of their evenings together. Yasuna had been accepting of Arisu from the start. Arisu smiled every time Yasuna described how, at the age of 10, she had told her parents they had it all wrong with her sibling. She had a little sister, not a little brother. Not once did she ever back down from her assertion.
I think in many ways it was Yasuna that helped mother and father adjust relatively easily to the idea of what I am. She and I were presenting a united front long before it could be argued we'd been influenced by anything but our hearts, regardless of what grandfather wanted to believe.
Arisu left her sister to go upstairs to her room. The apartment was in western townhouse format, with two small bedrooms and bathroom above, and a kitchen, living room, and half-bath below. She slipped into her room, closed the door, and simply plopped onto her bed for a few minutes, relaxing for the first time in an amazingly eventful day. After a luxurious stretch, however, she realized the position was soporific and she'd be asleep in minutes if she stayed there. She was also beginning to feel things she didn't want to face at the moment. She got up to walk toward her closet to remove and hang up her Lillian uniform, when her image in the dresser mirror caught her eye.
She stopped to regard the girl in the mirror. Dressed as she was in the Lillian uniform, there was no outward sign she was anything but what she appeared...a still prepubescent high-school girl. Her attention focused on the scarf dangling from her collar. She touched it gingerly, remembering who had last touched it…tied it as it was right now Her feelings about the day were still very confused, despite having walked home from Lillian so that she'd have time to ponder things before being confronted by Yasuna. It hadn't helped.
Why do I trust Kanina-sama so much? I don't know anything about her, and yet I'd follow her into Hell right now just for the hope of seeing her smile again. I want to stand by her side and play her accompaniment forever.
Arisu sighed. She steeled her courage and pulled the edge of the scarf to undo it, feeling an ache in her heart as she undid the work Kanina-sama had done. Knowing to continue watching in a mirror as she undressed would break the magic entirely; she made her way to the closet to get a hanger. As she removed the uniform she got a whiff of it passing her nose on the way up over her head. She realized it probably needed washing given the running she'd been doing in the spring sun, so rather than get the intended hanger she carefully folded the uniform up and placed it on the edge of her bed. She'd wash it by hand later that night.
She then retrieved her robe and went to take a shower. If she was going to get up god-awful early in the morning to get to St Mary's for 6am, she knew she'd better work on straightening her annoyingly curly hair tonight.
/*/
Yasuna listened intently to Arisu's story, occasionally nibbling absently on pizza but clearly finding her appetite limited as she heard the tale. Arisu appreciated that her sister simply let her talk herself out, rather than interjecting comments or asking questions as things unfolded. Yasuna's listening skills were among her strengths, and Arisu respected this by being very detailed and complete. She noted Yasuna focusing particularly as she described the moments when Kanina-sama handed Arisu her purse yet asking her to stay, and again when Kanina-sama corrected Arisu's collar scarf.
As Arisu finished, Yasuna remained quiet for a long while, seemingly focusing her energies on slowly nibbling the rest of only her second small piece of pizza to death. Arisu was increasing anxious Yasuna was truly upset at Arisu's actions. Complete disapproval was rare, but not unheard of. Arisu had never defied Yasuna when she was absolutely adamant about something, and Arisu prayed this wouldn't have to be the first time. I'm going to St Mary's tomorrow regardless, but I'd much rather have Yasuna's blessing.
Yasuna was known to think a while before she spoke, but as the minutes stretched on with Yasuna just sitting there examining Arisu with a serious expression, Arisu's anxiety rose. It only slightly reassured her that Yasuna was biting her lower lip in a manner Arisu had long learned meant she was feeling torn. Despite her fretting, though, Arisu knew better than to try and fill the silence with babble. Yasuna hated that. Arisu had told the full story; she would wait all night for Yasuna's response if need be.
"I appreciate that you brought this to me immediately and I am doing my best not to panic over all of it. Be patient with me as I try to express my concerns in a way that won't hurt your feelings too much," Yasuna smiled weakly which, along with the relatively gentle speech, was an apparent effort to reassure her sister. "First off, just to be sure I know where things stand now, am I correct in understanding you never shared your legal given or family name?"
Arisu noted immediately the shift in Yasuna's speech back to the formal, aristocratic form both sisters had been bred to. A form they generally avoided now that they lived, by choice, a much more common existence. Her heart fell as she predicted where Yasuna might be going, but she answered truthfully. "Yes, oneesan, you are correct. They know I attend Hanadera, however, and that I am familiar with President Kashiwagi. It would not be hard at all for them to track me down."
"Still, you could deny it. They have no proof of your presence now that you've gone."
Arisu clamped down on her gut, but maintained her composure. Yasuna was everything Arisu was not- direct, forcefully insightful, objective. She had no patience for "bull", as the Americans put it. She said exactly what was on her mind. Similarly, she didn't appreciate wavering or weak will at all. If someone couldn't stand by their perspective when challenged, they had no right to it in Yasuna's worldview. If Arisu belied doubts or weepy emotions right now, it would confirm Yasuna's apparent suspicions that even she harbored doubts deep inside. She had to provide a rational, not emotional, response and stick to it.
"This is true, they have no evidence, although the idea of me dressing in a Lillian uniform and wandering the campus isn't a terribly big stretch from what many know are my tendencies. Still, I could crawl back in my hole at Hanadera and never go back to Lillian. I could turn my back on an opportunity to build my music in an environment I find nurturing. While it would perhaps be less dangerous to turn away from this opportunity, I feel it would do me a disservice later."
"I can certainly perceive you believe there are benefits," Yasuna countered, her furrowed brow indicating she wasn't thrilled with the course she was taking with her little sister but felt it had to be said, "but I feel you minimize the risks in your desperate belief that this will magically solve your problem. It doesn't change what you are, Kintarou. If you need a confessor to shore up your wavering self image, someone unrelated to keep validating your right to be Arisu, there are safer avenues."
Arisu felt the wound in her heart, but knew also Yasuna was her tough-love confidant. She could proceed without Yasuna's support, but it would be harder and likely indicative that the endeavor truly was foolish. Yasuna was right to challenge her in this direction. Arisu realized it as soon as Yasuna said the words.
This is why I maintained the wall and didn't accept the ride home.
Arisu remained silent now herself for a while to think before continuing. "Hanadera knows what I am. They know how I dress outside school, except for the Lillian uniform. Now that I'm being invited to Lillian by an instructor for my instrumental skills, I see no risk to my circumstances at Hanadera. Isn't that the only downside risk to my proposed course?"
"No sis, it isn't. You also didn't answer my core question. I'm actually more worried about something just as serious as Hanadera. When you speak of this Kanina-sama, your eyes and choice of words belie your feelings. You're falling in love with her, aren't you?" Yasuna's eyebrows rose as she said this, clearly indicating she expected an honest answer and already knew what that answer would be.
Arisu measured her words carefully before answering. "I feel love for her, yes. I feel love for you, too. I can only say it feels different from what I feel for the two boys at Hanadera I've told you about. I can't explain it, but it does."
Yasuna sighed and then bit her lip again. "I'm going to be very blunt, more brutal than even I usually am." She paused so that Arisu could take a breath and steel herself. "Is it possible you're familiar with Arisu's feelings for boys, but this is the first time Kintarou is showing affection for a girl? You're starting puberty. Don't deny it, I've seen the signs. I'm wondering if the male hormones are starting to influence you."
Yasuna was right. The conversation had taken a turn which was now very painful. She felt nauseous and realized she had to get up a moment to collect her thoughts out from under Yasuna's gaze. "Please excuse me, 'neechan. I have to use the bathroom. I promise I'll be back soon." Yasuna nodded.
Arisu maintained her composure as she fled the room containing Yasuna and closed the door behind her as she entered the downstairs bath. She regarded herself in the mirror. Her eyes showed tears welling up, but so far she'd managed to keep them from coursing out down her cheeks. She grabbed some tissue to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. She then regarded herself in the mirror. She found some of her best introspection was done in the bathroom, looking at herself in the mirror like a different person.
Kintarou vs Arisu.
Yasuna's right about one thing. I had never considered Kintarou in all this. Dammit, I wish he would just go away. I can't truthfully answer Yasuna for certain that she's wrong. I do feel something for Kanina-sama. When I lay down on the bed, it wasn't just my fear of falling asleep that disturbed me. It feels different from my feelings for Kashiwagi-senpai or Yuuki-kun, but not enough that I can be sure of anything.
Although she somehow knew it could never happen, Arisu pondered for a moment if she could accept being Kintarou if somehow it were possible to have Kanina-sama as a partner…a wife. She looked herself in the eye, for once willing herself no self deceit. Yasuna was right, this was important. Her fate was balancing on these events, which explained why Yasuna was so grave about it all despite the heartsickness it was clearly causing her to be so cruel in her reasoning.
No.
No, I couldn't accept it.
I can't be him. Not ever, not even for Kanina-sama. I can be her friend. I can be her kohai. I think could be her lover as a girl. I would gladly simply be her assistant if that's all she wants and it will keep me close to her and in her life.
But no, I can't…I won't… be Kintarou. Not even for her.
That didn't mean Yasuna's other point was invalid, though. That Kintarou, this treasonous body of hers starting to fill with poisons, didn't have his own plans, his own desires. His own eye on Kanina-sama.
Seriously, Arisu. Is this testosterone talking?
She looked in the mirror, filled with the familiar resentment.
No. Yasuna is right that I could easily fantasize an intimate relationship with Kanina-sama, and yes the idea stirred me on the bed, yet all the images in my head are still with me as a girl. That part of me that is Kintarou is just in the way. As insane as it is, I can only imagine being with a girl as a girl, despite having the supposedly 'acceptable' boys body for such things.
Arisu nodded to herself in affirmation of her conclusion. Then she took more tissue to perform one more clean-up of her face and clearing of her nose before returning to the tatami where she had been sitting across from her sister.
"No, Yasuna," Arisu said, looking her sister directly in the eye. "This isn't about Kintarou. Whatever feelings I might have from testosterone, I can't live as Kintarou even if I by some miracle I could have Kanina-sama as my wife." Arisu drilled to the point she knew Yasuna was getting at. "My feelings have not changed. Puberty will be my death, oneesan."
Now it was Yasuna's turn to look away from her unusual imoto. "Part of me had hoped that perhaps this might be a chance for you to find some middle ground. That maybe finding the right girl might take the edge off it. Can you extrapolate out from this Kanina girl that perhaps some other girl might touch you, Kintarou, even more?"
"No," Arisu answered immediately and without hesitation. "I know you could argue that I'm having my first crush on a girl and that there could be some 'right-chan' out there, but I don't think so. There is no cure for me, Yasuna. None that grandfather would allow, anyway."
Yasuna's hands clenched in balls and she swung then both at her thighs simultaneously. "That pompous old fart with his Warring States period attitudes. Why did Father have to die, dammit? He'd have been able to convince him, I'm sure."
Arisu resonated with some of this sentiment, but suspected it was ultimately naïve. Even before the plane crash, Grandfather had been increasingly agitating to force Father's hand with his grandson. The Hanadera admission for middle school had been planned even before Father's death. Father never said it, but Arisu's extensive tour of Europe and America as his daughter was ultimately some kind of inoculation. An effort to build hope in Arisu before the six year winter began.
"No Yasuna. Your situation was different, and you know it. I'm the eldest son of the eldest son going back to when we spilt from the royal Arisugawa line two hundred years ago, the last non-imperial cadet branch before the whole line fell apart. That means the world to Grandfather. Under any other circumstances, Uncle Kyousuke's little boy would do, but grandfather has repeated denied both uncle's and our efforts to pass the male lineage to the next in line. When I've asked grandfather what he'd do if Kintarou dies and how that would differ from Kintarou ceasing to exist in favor of me, he's just gotten angry."
"I know you're right. I just don't like it." Yasuna said, her anger deflating. "If he kills you, I just don't know what I'll do." Arisu realized Yasuna was actually getting emotional, a true rarity for her sister. Arisu lifted up to her hands and knees and crawled over to hug her sister.
"You're strong, 'neechan. You'll be fine no matter what happens. As far as me, well I'm feeling better than I have in months. You've commented I survive jumping from one distraction to another. We'll see how long this one lasts. I hope for a very long time."
"And when puberty hits? Will these two accept you when Arisu is buried beneath a grown man's body?"
Arisu tensed against her sister, the nausea returning with a vengeance.
"I don't know, Yasuna," Arisu admitted to both herself and her sister. "Even more so, can I live with something less than what I have now? I'm scared to find out and I don't want to think about it right now."
"Arisu, I want you to know if it comes down to Grandfather or you, I'll choose you. I've spoken with Mother, and she says she agrees as well. I've been holding off telling you this in the hopes you might find some glimmer of benefit to being a man, that somehow Hanadera and your friends there might give you some reason to find being a man attractive, or perhaps even just tolerable. I see now that it isn't going to happen. The harder Hanadera pushes you, the further you slide to Lillian. I have a feeling where things might be going now with this new friend of yours, and there's no way it would be compatible with Kintarou."
Arisu felt there was more to what Yasuna was saying than she was getting, but that it was also all Yasuna was going to say on that subject. She chose to simply rest her head on Yasuna's shoulder and let silence reign for a while until Yasuna said something else.
"I know you know what your options are. Please just think long and hard about what you choose to do, and know I will always be here for you, even if it means we make it happen all on our own. I graduate next spring. There's a reason why I'm pursuing employment options separate from the family holdings. I'll be ready for whatever you need, regardless of grandfather's prejudices."
Arisu's breath caught as she realized exactly what Yasuna was saying. While maintaining her embrace, she leaned her head back to regard her sister.
"'Neechan, you have your own life. You should be out finding a husband, getting ready for a career and family, not bound to a worthless leech of brother."
"STOP IT!"
Arisu jumped back at the force of the statement, intensity she'd never felt from her sister before…or possibly anyone. She gulped hard as she looked into Yasuna's tearful eyes.
"Listen to me. You. Are. Not. My. Brother. I've known that since you were born. This isn't Mother's fault, regardless of what she keeps whipping herself with. This wasn't Father's fault, although he went to his grave convinced it was. It isn't Grandfather's fault, although he certainly is to blame for making such a pathetic mess of you. And listen to me, Arisu. This isn't your fault. What will be your fault, however, is if you give into despair and fail to grasp your own destiny with your own hands, letting fate decide once again for you. I've made my choice. I choose you, Arisu. Selfishly, for all my own reasons. I want you in my life. Don't. Leave. Me."
Arisu was amazed to feel fresh tears welling up in her own eyes, having been firmly convinced the supply for today was exhausted. Seeing strong Yasuna, the rock of her world, adrift like this was as frightening as the prospect of puberty.
"I don't know what to say, Yasuna."
"Just agree with me like you usually do and everything will be fine." Yasuna smiled through her tears, her lower lip quivering with the force of her emotions.
"Yes, 'neechan." Arisu said, simply.
"Good girl," Yasuna said, then sniffed back the tears as best she could. "Now, when again are we going to St Mary's tomorrow?"
"I'm supposed to be there with my best violin at 6am. I was planning to call Mother to ask if she'd bring Beauty for me to use. I'm hoping she'll be so thrilled at the idea of me attending Mass that she won't press too hard for my reasons why." Arisu did a double take. "We?"
"You don't think I'd let you go alone before I can get a sense of the competition, do you?"
Arisu was confused at such an odd statement said by her sister while transitioning back to more informal speech, and showed it on her face. "Competition?"
"I was right. You are clueless, aren't you?"
"About what?"
Yasuna grinned impishly, a strange effect given the remnants of tear streaks on her cheeks. "If I'm right, you'll find out soon enough."
***Author's Note***
I can't assume all my readers are familiar with the inner workings of a young transgirl; in fact I am sure this is pretty alien for most of you. Yasuna will be my mechanism for helping summarize this background within the story for the readers.
This story takes place in the same continuity as Shepherds Watching Over Us. Shepherds just takes place a little over a year later, just before the end of Chapter Two of Looking In, Friend in Need.
Thank you to CelticX for kicking me into continuing this story where it has been on hiatus for a year. It's all your fault, my friend, but you already knew that. :p
