Iku and Tezuka scanned the area in front of the Musashino First Library for what felt like the hundredth time that day, finding nothing of interest yet again. A few patrons wandered around the grounds, in general either entering or exiting the library. The library hadn't seen conflict or major turmoil in quite some time, although they were still fighting the Media Improvement Act on a political level. For the individuals in the task force, the most action they had gotten in months was in their regular training. Iku supposed they should take it as a blessing, but it did make things around the library rather uneventful.
Looking to each other to confirm the lack of activity, Iku and Tezuka turned to go back inside and complete their guard rotation. They had almost reached the front doors, when-
"Iku-chaaaaaaaaaaaan! Is that you?" Iku started at the sound of someone yelling her first name (loudly, in public) and swung around to identify the yeller. A middle-aged woman stood down the sidewalk in front of the library, waving at her excitedly. Iku stared at her for a few bewildered moments, trying hard to place the woman. Tezuka stopped, too, shooting a confused look at Iku and seeming eager to move on from the situation. Iku shook her head a little, thinking hard.
"I… I don't- OH!" She finally recognized the woman as a member of her mother's inner circle of rural housewives, Mrs. Yamamoto. She had been a good friend of the matron Kasahara for as long as Iku could remember, constantly coming over to their house to swap the neighborhood gossip, talk about their children, complain about their husbands, and otherwise exchange pleasantries. Iku barely held back a grimace, suddenly sure of exactly what Mrs. Yamamoto was going to say and dreading it.
"Hi, Mrs. Yamamoto! How have you been?" Out of the corner of her eye as she moved forward, she could see Tezuka make a face at her forced cheerfulness. Iku put a hand behind her back and flipped him off. Mrs. Yamamoto ambled up the steps towards them, laughing pleasantly.
"Oh I've been fine, dear. How have you been?" Mrs. Yamamoto gave Iku a meaningful look. "I heard what happened, you know… Your mother was so upset. I think she still is…" Iku's smile fell, unable to keep up the façade in the face of what she knew was coming. She hadn't spoken more than twice to her mother since they fought the last time Iku was in Ibaraki for the art exhibit mission- in part, for good reason; a lot had happened since then. Most of the calls she had taken from her parents were brief, and primarily with her father. It seemed like the more danger she was in, the less her mother approved of her circumstances. After their conversation in Ibaraki, their relationship looked like it was on the mend, but both Iku and Toshiko Kasahara knew that it was going to take more than a few nice words for them to fix what they had damaged together.
Iku took a deep breath to calm the irritation she could feel surging forth. "Right, well, we don't always agree on this sort of thing," Iku replied, struggling to keep her tone genial. "We're working through it." She tried to tacitly imply that Mrs. Yamamoto should drop the subject and butt out, but Mrs. Yamamoto wasn't a woman of subtlety.
"You know, I can't say I disagree with her…It's not right for women to be in such a dangerous occupation, is it?" Mrs. Yamamoto turned to Tezuka, who was still awkwardly half-turned towards the library doors during the conversation. "Don't you think so too, young man?"
Are you seriously going to bring an outsider into this?! Iku felt her brow tic in irritation. Tezuka floundered for a moment, caught off-guard at suddenly being involved. Iku cut him off, her temper rising as fast as it used to during her training days. "Mrs. Yamamoto, excuse me, but my choice of occupation doesn't concern you, him, or my mother. If you've come here to lecture me in my mother's stead…"
"Certainly not!" Mrs. Yamamoto looked taken aback by Iku's surly tone. "I'm in Tokyo to visit my grandchildren! Toshiko would do well to have a chat with you about your attitude." Iku fumed silently, having reached the limits of her good manners. "Well, I'm only here to pick up a book, so if you'll excuse me," Mrs. Yamamoto continued, reverting back to her good-natured attitude as though she hadn't just deeply offended Iku. "I'm glad you're doing well, Iku-chan!"
Iku focused her attention on her stiffly clenched fists so she wouldn't scream in frustration as Mrs. Yamamoto casually meandered past her and Tezuka into the library. Tezuka, after stepping aside to let Mrs. Yamamoto by, waited patiently behind Iku as she calmed down. After a few tense moments, her shoulders finally slumped. She turned around at last, a weary expression on her face.
"Okay, sorry… let's just go." Tezuka watched her for a careful moment, considering consoling phrases like hang in there or don't worry about her, but stayed silent, concluding that it was none of his business. The two went inside after Mrs. Yamamoto, ending their guard rotation.
"Can you believe that? And then, she turned to Tezuka right away and tried to get him to agree with her! As if I wasn't standing right there!" Across the table from her, Komaki and Dojo looked sympathetic. She jabbed her fork angrily into a cutlet on her plate, mutilating her lunch in her rage. "She's infected with toxic ideas about how women should and shouldn't act, just like my mother- they're all the same!" Beside her, unfazed, Tezuka swallowed a bite of his lunch and spoke up.
"But don't you get this sort of thing a lot? There's no shortage of old-fashioned people who think the woman's sphere of influence is limited to housework and raising children," Tezuka reasoned, not reading the atmosphere. Iku's eyes flashed as she rounded on him, her temperature rising.
"Don't you get it?" She snapped acerbically. "People like Mrs. Yamamoto have children, and grandchildren. While we let old dames like her go unchecked, she's teaching a younger generation of people that women can't fight back, or be anything but a pretty face!" Iku's voice pitched higher with every word. "They're perpetuating ideas that a woman can't find love or happiness unless she's beautiful and demure- it's self-righteous bullshit, just like the assholes in the Media Improvement Committee, just like censorship!" She slammed a fist on the table, making the three men jump. She was making wild generalizations, but nobody could come up with the right words to interrupt her, so she barreled her way to a raging conclusion. "And the worst part is, they lived in a society where censorship didn't exist, where we didn't have to shoot guns to defend basic human rights- they just DON'T CARE!"
In the silence that rang in the mess hall following her declaration, Iku realized with sudden self-consciousness that she had shouted the last words. Her teammates got the impression that the tirade they had just witnessed stemmed from years of suppressed indignance, on her own behalf and for other girls like her who were censured for their tomboyishness. She stood from the table with a clatter, shoving her chair back violently and grabbing up her almost empty tray, quitting the table with her coworkers still stunned as the noise in the cafeteria nervously started up again. Komaki was the first to unfreeze, casting a look at his remaining tablemates.
"Well that was…" he looked at Dojo beside him expectantly, waiting for what he would do next. Dojo looked torn, frustrated with his own indecision. He wanted to go after her like usual, but didn't know if she needed some time alone in this case. It wasn't something any of them were in a position to sympathize with, as men who never faced the disapproval of an entire generation of older women based solely on their choice of occupation. It wasn't like Dojo could go after his girlfriend with shallow words like 'I know just how you feel' or 'don't let it get to you!' After a few moments of waffling, he eventually stood up, taking his tray with him.
"We'll be back on time," he called to Komaki over his shoulder as he walked away, indicating that Komaki didn't need to adjust the team's schedule to give Dojo and Iku extra break time after lunch. Komaki stifled a laugh, noticing that his friend didn't throw out any unnecessary "I'm going as her superior officer!" excuses like he used to. Even seeing Iku storm out of a room like that was a sight her coworkers hadn't seen in a long time, and certainly not since she and Dojo had started dating. Some things change, but some things stay the same, Komaki mused, turning his attention to the shell-shocked Tezuka across the table from him.
Iku had gone all the way back to the library, and had climbed the stairs to the roof that overlooked the portion of Tokyo one could see from the Musashino First Library. Dojo finally found her there, having inadvertently given her plenty of time to herself to calm down after her explosion at the lunch table. He walked up and leaned on the railing beside her, giving her a moment to adjust to his presence before speaking. She didn't look like she'd been crying this time; she just looked… tired. Dojo studied her face for a quiet moment longer. She raised her eyebrows slightly in acknowledgement, but didn't turn her gaze from the cityscape.
"I don't need to tell you the amount of inaccurate information you spouted in that rant back there," he started, speaking in a low, consoling tone. They had both learned firsthand from Kurato Touma that Japan's society before the Media Improvement Act wasn't a far cry from current conditions. When she claimed that people like her mother were just like censors, or hadn't appreciated their freedoms when they had them, she knew it was a somewhat incorrect oversimplification, but couldn't stop herself from saying it anyway. "So why don't you tell me what's really going on?" He saw right through her, like usual. She dropped her eyes from the scenery at last, looking down shamefully at her clasped hands resting on the railing. Iku had grown a lot since she enlisted, including clamping down on her impulse control- which meant that a righteous tirade like the one she had performed at lunch was a rare occurrence. Reasonably, Dojo had deduced that there was more to the story than simply a difficult conversation with Mrs. Yamamoto. Iku took a deep breath.
"My mother's birthday was last week. As you know, I usually don't call or visit home, so I decided to give her a call. To be the bigger person, take the steps towards reconciliation; all that." Dojo's heart sank, seeing where this was going. "It started out fine! But of course, she couldn't resist taking a jab at me, and I couldn't NOT respond… basically it turned into another big argument, and I ended up hanging up on her." He dropped his gaze to her hands sympathetically. Her fists tightened in frustration. "I wish I could ignore it when she just carelessly says shit, but I just can't… My own mother! Shouldn't we both be making an effort here?" Dojo reached over and placed a hand over hers. He carefully formulated a response in silence for a moment.
"You can't force her to understand. Just like you can't force anyone to like you." Iku looked up at last, meeting his gaze with sad eyes. "But in the case of your mother, the only thing you can give her is time. She'll come to terms with your job eventually, I'm sure of it. You're her only daughter- she loves you. She has no choice," he stated matter-of-factly. It reminded her of what he had said once, on the bus to the Ibaraki Art Exhibition- "You are loved". Her cheeks heated as she remembered it; how she had been startled and embarrassed at hearing him say the word "loved", directed at her, even though he was ostensibly referring to her mother. "Just be patient with her, and try to understand. It's hard to suddenly have to adjust your values after abiding by them for so many years, especially if you're part of an older generation like she is."
"...Thanks," she said shyly, awkwardly breaking eye contact. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him smile softly at her. He leaned forward briefly while she wasn't looking at him and planted a kiss on her cheek, pulling away quickly and dropping his hand from hers.
"Well then, let's go get back to work. I told Komaki we wouldn't be long, so we can't be late." He had immediately reverted back to work-Dojo and was already headed inside while Iku was still dealing with his sudden bout of affection. She spun around to face him, instinctively putting a hand to the cheek he just kissed.
"H-Hey!" She stammered, frustrated as he walked away. He paused at the doorway back inside, turning to look over his shoulder. His lips were pressed together to hold back a smile, which vexed Iku. The look on Dojo's face told her that he knew exactly how she was affected, and found it amusing- Iku stamped her foot in irritation, knowing her face was bright red.
"What? Is something wrong?" Dojo's attempts to hold back a grin were failing him now, his faux-innocence completely transparent.
"You-!" Iku stormed after him as he fled inside, somehow still managing to look casual as he briskly headed down the stairs towards the task force office. For Dojo, the impulse to tease the easily-flustered Iku had been too compelling to resist- but he took heart in also having successfully distracted her from her previously sour mood. Even if it meant having her grumbling at him in annoyance, it was worth anything to get Iku back to her usual lively self.