A lot happier

It had taken Mitsu about eight months to get Aki to not ask permission for every single little thing. Then another six before he finally would talk to her like another person and not some sort of higher being…

But something had snapped inside the boy in recent months and he’d reverted to his old self.

The first time Mitsu learned men in other parts of the world we’re like that was when she was seven.

Japan has always been a resource poor country, so hydroelectric power was great solution to the nations energy needs. Her hometown was in the shadow of one of these dams. A group of American women came through one day, and stayed several days. She had heard of people like them, from her grandmother… who’d fought in the war. She saw the power they welded, the great clouds they made.

It wasn’t until Mitsu got to Tokyo that she learned what her grandmother meant… fallout clouds from nuclear weapons.

Mitsu followed the strange women out of her innate curiosity. They left behind a few papers, most notable a newspaper and a few magazines.

She kept them hidden inside a tree trunk, looking at the strange pictures. Women and men of different skin colors living in huge cities with walls made like the dam.

One day her mother caught her looking at it and was about to scold her when she realized Mitsu had actually taught herself English. She told her she was proud at how smart she was, but destroyed the papers anyway.

Mitsu knew that there was a world outside her little village and wanted to join it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the door to her office opening up and Aki entering with tea.

“Onne-sama… I brought you something to drink while you work.”

“Thank you..” she said, taking the cup. “Sit down…”

“Onne-sama?”

“Aki…” she began.

The boy knelt to the floor.

“Aki… I’m worried about you.” She said. “What changed. You were a lot happier a few weeks ago. Now… I feel like I’m talking to a Roomba half the time.”

“Nothing has changed. I am honoring our…”

“Aki, lying to me does not honor mother… or me… or you for that matter.”

Aki bit his lip.

“I… when I went to the grocery store a few weeks ago… I the sidewalk was being replaced, so I had to go around. I passed the wedding chapel on the next block… I… I saw a wedding exit the building… I saw the groom’s face… he… he looked so happy. His bride was so handsome… I… I felt like…”

Aki started to cry.

“I felt like by being like the city boys, no one would want me… I’d be alone forever… that no one would love me.

“I want to get married. I want to wear a beautiful wedding gown. I want to be a husband. I want to serve my wife hand and foot like every boy should. I want to be a father…”

“Aki… I will always love you little brother.”

“Onne-sama,” he said shaking his head crying his eyes out “you could never me love me like I need to be loved. The way I must be loved if my life is to have meaning.”

He got up and ran out of the room.

“Well… at least he didn’t ask permission for that…” Mitsu said to herself as she sighed, sat back and sipped her tea.

“I’ll give him 20 minutes to get it out of his system…” she said.