Stranded in the Future

Chapter Twenty-Nine: New Friends

Dear Mom and Yūtarō,

It's times like these that I'm glad you aren't around to see what Dad has become. He must have made a pact with a demon or something because I don't know how else he can still be alive and create portals like some dark sorcerer.

Then again, you might lose your minds if you met me too. I would never have been happy as a proper and respectable lady, so suffice to say, I've gone the other way and made myself into the baddest delinquent possible. I think I've gotten the hang of it because people always creep out of the way when I walk down the street.

Your perpetually tormented family member Yukari

P.S. Give my regards to grandma as well. Even if she's a humorless old bat.

******

Yukari couldn't help but be reminded of the past as she blew on Ichiro's tea and took a careful sip to avoid burning her tongue. Her late mother had been a refined woman who could dance, embroider, and perform tea ceremonies like no other, so there had been pressure for Yukari to follow in those footsteps even after the devastating trauma that was the Kantō earthquake of 1923.

Therefore, witnessing Ichiro at work had provided her with a sense of solace. If tea ceremony could also be performed by men, then surely, she wasn't less of a woman for failing at the activity. Which brought her attention towards the elephant in the room - the seemingly ladylike Kumiko who harbored a formidable beast within.

"So, you're a kitsune," Yukari affirmed, finding the word strange coming out of her mouth. "How does that work? Is what I see real?"

Kumiko shook her pretty head. "I took on this form a long time ago to walk among humans and seduce men." She glanced at a frowning Ichiro. "Of course, that second part ended when I met him."

Ichiro's shoulders relaxed and he continued to sip his tea while warming his knees beneath the kotatsu. Yukari wondered how he could be comfortable sitting in such a manner before she probed Kumiko further. "So, how did that happen?"

"I saved him from bandits and healed his wounds. Then, we fell for each other, faced down a tengu, and lived happily together for two years."

Yukari found this confusing because they still seemed very much like a couple. "And after that?"

Kumiko's hands trembled. Ichiro placed his tea bowl down, then wiped his mouth with a crudeness that was at odds with his earlier poise and suggested a lower-class upbringing. Clearly, everybody here was striving to become something they weren't. Him included.

"Do you have to tell the rest? It's too absurd to believe..."

"I think she can figure it out for herself," Kumiko replied, giving Yukari a knowing look. "It's really obvious."

The answer dawned on Yukari and a few drops of tea splashed from her bowl. She set it on the table while swallowing. "No way. She brought you back just two weeks ago? Is that why you were so confused?"

Ichiro resigned himself to admitting the truth. "Yes. What about you?"

"It happened way back in 1935, the tenth year of Shōwa." Yukari forced herself to confront memories that she would rather have kept suppressed. "I had just met my boyfriend's older sister, and she must have slipped something into my tea because I didn't wake up until-" Fear came over Yukari as she noticed the ripples forming in her drink. "Wait. You aren't trying to poison me too, are you?"

"No, why would I do that?"

Yukari supposed that she was being paranoid. If she could survive a bullet through the head, then surely a little poison would also be ineffective. She retrieved her bowl and took another sip, finding it odd that she wanted to live again. Kumiko and Ichiro's focus remained on her.