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hantulis · 9 months

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Andō Honoka's State of the World

cw: discussion of violence, misogyny, transphobia, abortion, accidental pregnancy, family problems

*title based on Konoha's State of the World

Youth was a strange thing.

It wasn't just a period in one's life. Unlike any embers of summer fireflies that shone outside the room, serving as the only source of sight through countless university prep books late at night. More than that, it felt like a current that surged outwards all around you. Geysers that could propel puny humans up to the air and bring them closer to the endless possibility that was the sky. Fill you with so much warmth that anyone could evaporate from one contact with it.

And then it'll stop in an instant. Geysers aren't meant to gush out forever. Inertia made way to gravity, and that meant the sky would get further away as the ground grew closer. Along with the clash between body and flat surface would be the realization that your period of youth was over.

Just like that... you were suddenly an adult.

All the opportunities and promises shouted out by your youth flew further away, disappearing behind the clouds that never parted for the sun.

Honoka was reminded of a trip to see her extended family in Hokkaido. There was an inn there, one ran by her grandparents and their forefathers since even before the Meiji Era. It wasn't just a means of temporary shelter for travelers either.

The hot springs nearby made for a nice getaway from the cold and dry winds. And there was always a driver on standby willing to indulge people's wanderlust by bringing them to the sea a few miles down below alongside a seafood restaurant that their branch family would run.

Not to mention the alternative destination her inn provided. Up high above the mountains was a trail that would bring curious hikers to the almost discordant loud bursts of water. Out of all the landmarks she was brought to, she never could get those geysers away from her mind.

That was what her grandfather touted proudly every time she visited. Each time, Honoka would nod along with the same enthusiasm someone of his stature had. The rest of her relatives would giggle over the display of a child trying to copy the stiff demeanor of their current patriarch.

As his only grandchild, he paid a great deal amount of attention to the girl. Planted in her was the seeds of ambition that he nurtured each time she visited. Fertilized through the yukata she wore as she helped her aunts greet guests checking in for the night or through the plates and bathroom she cleaned up during the day.

Her grandfather promised her the entire estate once she grew old enough.

Young and small as she was, it felt like he had promised the world to her.

Yet she didn't spend her entire childhood in that small village, bustling as it is due to its tourism. Her parents had always worked as salarymen at a city several prefectures away. It wasn't like how some rich kids in her old class would talk about Tokyo. Still, her grandfather's inn and the village it resided in seemed like an isolated pebble compared to how the network of people, buildings, streets, transportations connected to each other here.

Grade school graduation easily breezed by for middle school. Her grades seemed to matter more and more if she wanted to go to the best highschool in the area. Many summer vacations were lost to homework, sleepovers, after-school swimming lessons, extra courses to increase her grades in math especially. Her parents relented over and over into letting her stay back at the city as they made their yearly pilgrimage back to their hometown. Instead, she frequently stayed over at her aunt's place – the only person she was familiar with on her mom's side.

Five years may seem like a blink of an eye to the elderly, but it made up for a third of a growing teenage girl's life. Promises of growing up into that cool adult that passed by, that movie she saw together with her friends, tears over entering a high school separate from her friends, new role models, heart break, her life long ambition for the independent metropolitan life she yearned for, gossip... Her adolescence was everything to her. A meaning that wrote over her older memories as a young child.

She didn't necessarily forget about them. Anecdotes and old recollections were shared over the dining table, be it with her parents or some of the relatives that came over every year or so. Around them all, she'd nodded along and laughed as if she was wearing their shoes.

Alone in her room, though, everything from back then had all but turned foreign for her. The photos and images burned into her mind wasn't like something she experienced, but rather seen from a unfamiliar third point of view.

Soon after, it had all but turned into a dot in her memory.

There was an endless frontier of life that laid ahead of those days that she remembered far more fondly. An endless amount of possibilities she could explore at her pleasure. It was what she thought as she came back to those geysers back at her hometown...

...Until a conversation changed it all.

"Are you serious? Didn't we see eye-to-eye on this matter, Honoka-chan?!"

"No, I don't know what you're talking about!!"

"You said that you were going to come back to this inn after you graduated, didn't you? Weren't you going to dedicate your life to this? N-not only that, you said you were going to give me great grandkids to look forward to, and you'll make them love running the inn as well...!!"

"Like hell I am, Gramps. Know what? I'm never coming back to this run-down, hick town anymore. And you won't EVER see any great grandchild because I won't be having any to spite your pitiful, crippled inn!!"

"YOU...!! My whole will...!! I wrote it to fulfill my promise to you, and now you forsake it like it's nothing?!"

"..."

"...Ungrateful child, this is why I never liked those city dwellers. They all t-turn into bastards who can't appreciate what we do for the economy. Why I oughtta--"

A thump interrupted her grandpa's ragged and stuttering voice. She wouldn't have heard the painful croak coming from him through her own heaving if she didn't turn around. In hindsight, she should have been more cautious considering the coughs that had interrupted his speech this whole time.

What greeted her sight was her grandfather writhing on the ground.

Seeing her grandfather on the hospital bed felt like having a ticking time bomb around her chest. It constricted her movements, even after she went continued life back at the city.

Knowledge about that will's contents spreading among her relatives was the resulting explosion that she knew would happen. Resulting in the death of her freedom. It was bad enough that she couldn't even snoop around his estate to somehow change it without alerting the relatives tending to his inn currently. Now, she had to do a mad dash to not just enter a university, but to enter one at a prefecture far enough that she could avoid her relatives' intrusive interference once her grandfather kicked the bucket.

He only had a few years left to live, and she'd count her lucky stars if she had graduated high school by the time he breathed his last breath.

Maybe she could apply to a University outside the country or do an exchange program. Those would provide more permanent means to cut her family ties.

And then she'd earn the freedom she'd desired all this time.

For an underclassman two years younger than her, Nakayama Ryou was really good at math.

So good in fact, that it was easy to forget he lived his whole life in the countryside before this.

Honoka may have been rejected for a University application outside of the country, due to an understandable lack of fees even after working part time since she started high school, but indulging in Ryou's presence helped her deal with that. It also helped that their study sessions had helped raise her GPA enough that she was considered as one of the candidates for her campus' student exchange program.

Entering university a year early was already a feat on its own, but she couldn't believe the moderate dreams he held compared to her own. Something about working in journalism... Ironic, considering he needed her help to use the internet at his dorm. How would he survive in the currently changing news industry?

It's too bad that they'd have to break up once she left the country. He was a fun distraction and comforted her well enough during her period of intense study, but she knew that they weren't meant for anything long term. More than anything, Ryou reminded her of a cute puppy following her whenever she walked back from middle school. Eventually, he'd move on from her to someone else.

She couldn't have known that he was about to turn the trajectory of her life.

"Honoka-chan, I need you to eat this."

"What's that? You're not trying to get me into drugs, are you?"

"No. It's a b-birth control pill."

"...We've never needed that."

"Yeah, but I noticed when I threw away the trash that..."

His voice trailed off, but he didn't need to explain more as her eyes widened.

...It didn't work.

The pills didn't work.

And the rumors of her pregnancy spread like wildfire.

Right before the announcement of this year's exchange students too.

Who would be surprised to hear that she didn't get accepted?

Her supervisor had said she was the committee's first choice before they heard about her pregnancy in an attempt at sympathy.

Yeah, right.

Like that's what she needed now.

"Congratulations."

"Ah...? Erm, Auntie, thanks for the gifts but... I'm not sure what you're congratulating me for though."

"I heard about the baby, sweetie. Isn't it nice? Your Auntie here had to try for so many years and my Husband and I are still unlucky."

"That's... um, I'm planning on abor--"

"We can't have that. Such a gift from our Gods and you would waste the little life inside of you?"

"But Auntie, I can't...!! There's so much I still want to experience in life and a baby will--

"Honoka-chan."

"...Yeah?"

"You do know that out of the three of us, your parents were the only one who could conceive? And they were so very lucky to have you when they did. That's why we tried to spoil you when the family gets together."

Fear entered your heart. Never in your life had you seen coldness beneath your aunt's warm eyes. While the restaurant offered many entrances and exits through its open structure, you felt like a rat trapped in a corner by a cat.

"All my life, I've been taking care of this inn with my whole being...!!

My husband's complains was only bearable because I knew you would love to take care of it soon enough. I thought my time to rest could come very soon. Yet Grandfather's will ended up being forsaken. None of us can provide a heir other than your parents even now..."

"Why can't you appoint someone outside the family? Does it have to be me?!"

"Shut up, kid. Don't you dare bring up those ideas when you don't understand the pride that runs throughout our family to run this inn. Not only will I face the utter disgrace and shame from your decision. Your grandfather, and all of his deceased forefathers beforehand, already took a blow in pride when they had to choose between three women as their successor. And now you bring up this stupid idea?!"

"I... I..."

"Whatever comes out of your mouth next, you better think about it thoroughly."

"....I understand."

"Good. Wouldn't it be a shame if you had to raise your baby all alone? Ryou-kun seems like a nice man. He'd definitely give you all the support you need. And he'd be welcome if he wanted to learn on how to run the inn."

"...Yes, Auntie."

"Once you graduate... let's go back to the inn, Honoka-chan. I'm sure Grandfather would love to see you."

"You saw that episode last night?"

"Did I? Everyone over at the message boards kept posting about it! They even had to close it down for maintenance because of how the site got overloaded with people."

"Can't blame them. I mean, burning a person alive would pretty much get any sort of show on TV banned for public."

"Gotta admit, as much as it sucks that we have to search up our research materials online now, the internet's pretty awesome for being able to host content like that."

"Did you hear, by the way? Some people talked about rumors of a second season entering pre-production soon."

"Next season, huh..."

"I can't wait to see who'll be nominated next."

Blue ink pooled over the paper, created between the tip of Honoka's pen and the paper it was in contact with. Unlike the clear waters of the hot springs back at her Grandfather's place, this fake body of water couldn't reflect any expression. But she knew it was the same kind of ugly grimace she wore when she was 15. As if the scars from those words never fully healed after all these years.

She considered it.

Those names swirling in her head for the past month would work. Her parents, those fucking Aunts pressuring her parents pressuring her, her grandfather and his stupid sexist forefathers... Everyone who got in the way of her future deserved to be punished for all she cared...!!

She really did try to consider whose name she should write.

An eye for an eye. A life for someone's death. If she needed to deliver the goddamn baby because everyone related to her wanted her to... Then so be it. It wouldn't solve the problem of the strict way her family was structured, it wouldn't solve any problems in her life. But it'd be one less person nagging her about being a mother and raising a worthy successor to the AA

Ryou... He really did bring her down to earth. From the skies of her ambition lied the hole where he would bury them five foot in the ground. And that demure smile and honesty that a country boy like him deceived her. Of course it made way for such a fatal mistake, tearing open a hole to the piece of life inside her that she cursed day in and day out.

She thought about what kind of punishment anyone whose names were written here would get. From how those younger students talked about those DVDs, hushed and a morbidly low tone yet still with some form of unempathic glee, it didn't sound good.

If she wrote his name...

Was she willing to shoulder such a burden? Bringing the guillotine down to those she deemed needed to be punished? Will her future come back if she did this?

Her heart screamed out the answer to the dark clouds in her mind, thundering and roaring with anger and confusion. And from it came the rain that dripped from her eyes down to the fake pool below.

There were other ways of dealing with her problems... but this wasn't it.

That was how Nakayama Honoka was reborn to this world.

Her baby would follow suit a few months later.

A small child born to be her blessing and curse.

Ryou chose their name because she had been too tired to care. Physically dealing with blood loss and mentally dealing with her official loss of freedom.

She didn't feel the instant love most parents experienced once she saw the helpless child. Only a sense of pity and guilt. A sinless existence in concept, a burden by accident. Considering that, maybe the baby had done her wrong since it came into existence.

Who had sinned in that case?

The baby? Who weighed her down through no fault of their own?

Or was it Honoka? Who applied that weight in the first place?

Maybe it'd be better if the two could disappear somewhere far from any sort of societal obligations.

Feeling a sense of camaraderie with the crying bundle of misery, she cradled them close to her arms. Onlookers would think Honoka was crying out of love and affection towards the baby.

None of them could hear the many apologies she uttered in her head for Rui's existence.

"If that's what you need, then we can move out. Far away from anyone who can bother you about our baby. No one can bother you about the inn. We can build a new life together. I only want one thing from you."

"...And what would that be?"

"Please smile again."

Funny.

Life -- as viewed by an omnipotent, uninvolved person -- was so humorous.

Someone's entire existence can be summarized as a tragedy with a punch-line.

With that line of thought, then... her life would be a clown show.

Not even one worthy of a shakespearean comedy.

Balancing between parenthood, her decaying relationship, and her building ambition had been a joke. She should have sacrificed one from the start.

...Maybe more, when she had a hard time getting back to the dating scene soon after.

Rui may be a the sunshine she needed after her grueling work. But a child also had their needs. Even with the boundaries spoken with each other so she could chase her freedom, that mere existence of a child made it such a hard hurdle to reach.

Her child didn't complain when they had to wait for her to come home or meet her halfway in the evening in a cafe for dinner. Rui was able to prepare school on their own, make a lot of friends, and get passable grades. That kid even behaved with all sorts of partners she took home and introduced. A cup of instant cappuccino would be placed at her bedside after each break up.

Grateful as she could be, she couldn't bring herself to thank the Gods just yet.

Sometimes, they silently stared at her with a contemplative look that eerily reminded her of her ex-husband. Like a child who was several years older than the body they were inhabiting.

...Maybe Honoka needed more sleep.

Cup after cup of coffees was worth it though. A job worth her buck. With opportunities that didn't just stop at this country. One that worked with her passion with people. She did it.

And as if he waltzed in to her life, Sojiro came in. As young as she was when she graduated university. Accomplishing more than she ever could thanks to the privilege he was handed in life. Yet he had a way of making her feel like she was his equal when they talked. The way the two would end up calling through the night made her feel like she was a highschooler going through her first crush again.

He was so supportive of her dreams too. The advice she gave to him helped him tremendously with his entrepreneurial efforts. Most of all, he got along fairly well with Rui despite their 16 year age gap. Ryou had been accommodating with the new arrangement as a co-parent. While she hadn't seen him in a long time, he seemed to be busy with his own line of work. Yet she was glad that Rui looked up to both him and Sojiro for their own unique qualities.

Life was going well.

Too well, actually.

Of course, the punch line would unexpectedly hit out of nowhere with a phone call from Rui right after they entered highschool.

"Mom.... Dad passed away."

"I know what you really think of me. Don't you think I would have heard about it from Dad? Everything about the inn, about your failed student exchange application, and how you ran away. So why can't you understand this part of me? Aren't we the same?"

"What are you even talking about?! I've been fighting my entire life to get to this point, you're talking about a lifestyle you'll come to regret in a few years!!"

"Do you really believe that? Or are you just looking for any reason to get rid of a burden like me?! Ugh, even though I believed when Dad said you would understand..."

"If you know about me so much already, why don't you just get out of my face?! There's no need for me to spell it out anymore, is there? I don't want to see you anymore!! Get out of MY house!!"

"...Okay. Next time you're back home from work, I'll be gone from your life."

"..."

"That's what you want, right? I'll give it to you. No need to fight for this."

"Fine, then. Go."

Honoka slammed the door to her hard-earned house, the door to her hard-earned car, the door to her hard-earned private office shut.

While she wasn't there to see it, Sojiro saw his step-child gently close the door to their home with what they were able to bring.

And with that, Rui didn't show their face to her ever again.

Even after more than a year, she couldn't say whether she regretted her words that day or not.

Too many nightmares of their face stained with tears. Too much work to do if she wanted to get that long-awaited promotion.

Ryou's grave didn't give her answers no matter how many times she asked.

"Did I do the right thing?"

Ah, why did they have to bring up her failures?

Maybe she could have been in a clearer mind during the fight.

...She could hear him silently chide her over that line of thought.

But she needed to see through this decision.

For too long, she's fought for this kind of freedom:

A man she chose, a partner she worked well with.

No blood-related family to tie her down.

The job she's wanted to for all her years.

Most of all, the chance to get away from the land she's grown up with for all her life.

She couldn't take any of it back.

Nothing could make her regret her choices.

"Honey, why have I only found out that Rui hasn't been going to school this year?"

An alerted look flashed by Sojiro's face. She's known him long enough to understand the implication behind the jolt as he tried to school his face into something unreadable. At times like this, she's always thought he looked like a child caught stealing.

Once he met her gaze with a resigned one, the younger man let out a sigh. "I'm surprised they've managed to keep quiet about it for so long..." A wry smile formed on his face, flattened when Honoka's own gaze sharpened. "Please promise me you won't try to interfere."

She didn't nod, nor did she shake her head. A thick silence leaving her answer up to whatever he would be saying after.

And listen she did. And regret she did. And wish after wish bursted out from her chest:

To be an ignorant girl who loved the inn for her entire lifetime, to be an obedient girl who listened to her relative's worries with an open heart, to be a focused girl who didn't think of dating, to be a selfless mother who understood that her child would have a better environment growing up with their dad, to be an understanding mother to her child's own pursuit of identity.

Not for the first time, Enatsu Honoka felt the chasm between her adulthood and youth widen ever so slightly.

#oc #old writing #rr verse

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