Forty years went by, in long days and short decades.
Work never changed, except that they were able to leave the coffeehouse jobs for full time art and programming. They moved around, but never to any place much fancier than a small efficiency. They made friends and acquaintances, but nobody got close enough to see their real relationship, and nobody stayed in touch more than a few years. Yu died, and they replaced him with various pets who also passed away, in their time.
Through it all, they had each other; every night Kanade went to sleep with Yukino nearby, and every morning she woke up to see her sleeping face. Looking back, she remembered thousands of long walks along parks and rivers, tens of thousands of meals shared, and almost countless times they held hands, or kissed, or made each other moan, or sigh, or cry out, together, in the dark.
It was a life with only one flavor, in only one shade, but it was perfect.
When they hit their early fifties, they started planning for retirement by taking trips around Japan, thinking about where they wanted to retire. They gravitated towards small communities on the coast, looking closely at beach houses. Kanade suggested going back to Hokkaido, but Yukino shook her head, saying nothing. Kanade never brought it up again.
Finally they settled on a small town in northeast Honshu, and a small brick house on a bluff, near the town and the beach but not close enough to either to attract much attention from passersby.
They'd been there more than ten years when the woman knocked at their door.
She was tall, pretty, and stylishly dressed, in her late 20s; those were the first things Kanade thought when she opened the door.
The second thing she noticed was how tired and sad the woman looked.
"Hello, my name is Hanae Mitsuda," she said, bowing slightly. "Forgive my directness, but are you Kanade or Yukino Sakurai?"
Yukino came up behind Kanade and answered. "I'm Yukino, and this is Kanade. How can we help you?"
The woman dug in her bag and presented a photo, which Kanade instinctively took. It took her a moment to recognize the woman in the photo - she'd grown older, her face was fuller, her hair was cut short, and she was surrounded by three children - but then it clicked.
"Shizuku. Oh, God, Yuki, it's Shizuku..."
Yukino took the photo and put her hand to her mouth, eyes starting to water. The woman bowed again, and said, "Shizuku Sakurai married Tenma Mitsuda; I am their middle child. I... again, forgive my directness, but may I come in? There are things we should talk about, and questions I would like to ask."
"Of course, of course," said Kanade, motioning her in. Yukino kept looking at the photo until Hanae had taken off her shoes and was walking past her, at which point she grabbed the younger woman in a bear hug. "I just realized you're our niece. Oh..." she said, and stood back, and bowed. "I apologize, I just..."
Hanae bowed back, but said nothing and continued to the living room.
She sat and waved off tea, but did accept a tall glass of water, which she drank thirstily. She put the empty glass down on the table, looked down, sighed, and then looked at the both of them, sitting on the couch across from her.
"I... am sorry to inform you that my mother, your sister, died of cancer four months ago, in Kobe."
"Shi-chan!" Yukino cried out once, and doubled over, sobbing. Numb, Kanade reached out to put her hand on her back. "I... I am so sorry for your loss. Thank... thank you for coming and telling us."
Hanae nodded; now that she had more context Kanade could clearly see the woman was still in mourning. "I... thank you. If... if it helps, you should know that the disease was very rapid. She lived a very full and happy life almost until the very end, and she was surrounded by her husband, children, and four grandchildren when she died."
Yukino sobbed silently; Kanade kept stroking her back and nodded. "Thank you, that does help. We... I'm sorry, I'm not sure how to approach this situation, how to talk to you..."
Hanae sighed. "I understand the feeling. Let me continue to be direct: I would like to understand who you are, and why my mother never spoke of you. I had no idea that my mother had any siblings until after she died and I had to look at family birth certificates for legal reasons; it took me even longer to find out that you were still alive and living here."
"Shi-chan... she never spoke of us? Ever?" Yukino asked softly.
"She did not. There were no photos, no papers, nothing. Admittedly, some of that might have been because her parents' house burned down when she was in college..."
Yukino gasped again. "Our... your grandparents, were they...?"
"They were not harmed in the fire, but they did pass away soon after. I never met them, I'm afraid."
Kanade took a deep breath. "When you were looking for us online, did you find anything that answered your question? As to why Shizuku and our parents cut us out of their lives?"
Their niece shook her head. "No, I didn't. You two have a surprisingly small footprint online. There was metadata which suggested you were more active forty years ago, but I'm not skillful enough to do a proper search from that long ago. Once I found where you were, I thought perhaps I should just ask you in person."
"We... Shizuku was upset that... you see, the two of us..."
Yukino straightened and took Kanade's hand. "Kana, it hardly matters now, does it?" She turned to Hanae and addressed her directly. "My sister and I... we were lovers. Are lovers. Forty years ago we were exposed, publicly, on social media, and ostracized. Our parents... your grandparents, found out, and cut ties when we refused to separate. Shizuku was upset, she felt that we had chosen each other over her and the rest of the family, and stopped talking to us."
She started to cry again. "I... I feel terrible that I haven't thought of her in so many years. It was... just so painful, for them to cut ties like that, and we were having such trouble ourselves, earning money, finding a place to live... I just..."
Kanade squeezed her hand and spoke. "It was... very difficult. We just retreated from everything else. Perhaps Shizuku did the same. Perhaps if we'd tried to reach out, things would have been different, but..."
Hanae sat perfectly still on the couch, unmoving, without an expression. "I... I see. I was... not sure what I would find, but I'm still not sure how to process this."
She said nothing more, and for a few moments, silence reigned in the house. Then Yukino started sobbing quietly again, and turned to hug Kanade. Kanade hugged her back and stroked her hair, with one hand, holding the photo of Shizuku in the other.
"What... what were you hoping to find, by coming here? Once you found out who your mother's sisters were, what were you planning to do?"
"I hadn't really thought it through, rationally." Hanae sighed, and kept looking down at the floor, then out the window at the ocean, not making eye contact. "I suppose... part of me was hoping to find long lost family, and make up for the loss of my mother that way. But now..."
"We... it's a shock, meeting you, finding out about Shi-chan, but we're not opposed to-"
"No." Hanae shook her head and stood. "I'm sorry. I'm not here to judge you, or bring any more pain, but I don't think it makes sense to try and build any kind of relationship here. Why my mother cut ties all those years ago... it's been so long, and I can't imagine how we would explain where you've been, and why she never spoke of you. For you it would open so many old wounds, and for myself, and my sister and brother, dealing with this in the middle of mourning for her... this was a mistake, and I need to leave."
She bowed again, more deeply. "I'm sorry, for disturbing you and for bringing you this grief. Please forgive me."
Kanade was still numb, and somewhat stunned from what her niece had just said, so she did nothing but continue to hold Yukino, still crying, as Hanae walked out the door. However, just as Hanae finished putting on her shoes and was opening the door, she looked down at the photo again.
"Wait, Hanae-chan," she called out. "This photo, I have to ask... this is you? In the picture? And the girl you're next to, is she... is she your sister? Did Shizuku have twins?"
Hanae stood perfectly still for several seconds, the door partially open, her hand still on the knob. Then she closed the door and turned back to them; Yukino had stopped crying, and was looking on intently.
"Yes. Yes, that is myself, my twin, Ritsuko, and our younger brother, Gen. Twins... run in the family, it seems."
"Then..." Yukino spoke softly, but loudly and more urgently as she continued. "Then are you like us? You and your sister, are you... did the two of you...?"
"No." Hanae's voice was loud, angry, firm... and perhaps just a little too insistent. "My sister and I... no, we are not like you. We never..."
"You never what?" Kanade rose, moving towards Hanae, the grief and numbness becoming pushed aside by something like anger. "You never were physically close to your sister? Never wondered why you should have to be apart from her? Never raged against the idea that you had to leave her to spend time with other people who would never know you as well as she did, would never love you like she did?"
Hanae's face hardened, and she stood straighter, arms held close to her sides. "Ritsuko and I were close, of course. There was a time when she meant more to me than anyone. But we outgrew that. Grew up, moved on with our lives, found new people, new worlds. We didn't stop living because we couldn't bear to be apart. Not like..."
"Not like us?" Kanade had moved close now, standing directly in front of Hanae, eye to eye. "So you found someone else to love? Do you have a husband? Or a wife? Children? Or are you still mourning what you used to have, and seeing us reminds you what you wanted to..."
"No!" Hanae was enraged now, and she took a step forward, so there was almost no space between her and Kanade. "No, I'm not married, but Ritsuko is, to a man she loves. And she has children, nieces and nephews she loves, I love. She's built a family, and I've built a career, and we're happy, and we're happy for each other! What... whatever schoolgirl crush we, I, might have had, it's nothing compared to what we've done with the rest of our lives. And I'm sorry that you never outgrew that crush, and sacrificed your family and the whole rest of your lives for it, but you're not going to drag me down to your level..."
"OUR level? You know nothing about what we-"
"Kana, stop." Yukino's voice was soft, as was the hand she laid on Kanade's shoulder, but it silenced her instantly. She pulled Kanade back, and stepped in between the two women.
"Mitsuda-san, I am sorry that things have become heated. I thank you for visiting and bringing us this news, however tragic it might be. And I agree that it would be best for you to go, and not contact us any further. If you and yours are happy with your lives, then we are happy for you. And it is your right to think what you will about us. But we are who we are, we have made our choices and we would not change anything, not for anyone. That being the case, I think there is nothing more to say."
She bowed deeply. "Goodbye."
Hanae's face was still twisted with anger, but she bowed at precisely the same angle as Yukino. "Yes. I agree. Goodbye, Sakurai-san."
Kanade joined the bow, and did not raise her eyes from the floor, or stand up, until she heard the door slam. As she stood, Yukino was immediately in her arms, crying again.
After a moment, Kanade felt something shift inside of her, and she began to cry as well, wrenching sobs surfacing from deep within, letting loose years of sorrow and loss she hadn't even been aware she was carrying.
They stayed together, holding each other close and crying as the sun set behind their home, leaving the ocean outside their windows a dimming purple haze, lit only by faint stars on the horizon and the lights of fishing boats heading out to sea, growing smaller and more distant by the moment.