“Shh, Yu-chan. Cry it out. Then we’ll have some tea and puzzle out what we need to do.”
When Yuki finally took off her jacket and shoes, she felt wrung out, just like an old stinky dishrag, spent. She slumped at the table where her mother set out tea.
“She?” kaasan asked.
Yuki avoided her mother’s gaze. “You knew I wasn’t interested in boys,” she tried to explain.
“Ah. Yes. So she betrayed you?”
Yuki chanced to look up and her mother watched her closely. “Yes. Well, no. She lied to me, kaasan. She asked me to live with her in her house, but that wasn’t what she did.”
Brow furrowed, Yuki’s mother asked. “She took you somewhere else?”
Yuki sipped her tea to avoid answering and think about what she should and could tell her mother. Any mention of kitsune would sound like a wild story to avoid the truth. She had to make it sound normal. “Yes, it was much too small for both of us.”
Chuckling, Yuki’s mother raised her cup. “You can fit in very small places to be with someone you love."
Note: Okaa-san is Japanese for mother. Some shorten it to 'kaasan.
