At first, Emi worried that accepting Mio’s confession was simply taking the next best thing to Kasumi, as Mio was her former crush’s younger sister. Mio lacked Kasumi’s stunning beauty, body and her older sister’s sex appeal that left no doubt that, if she tried, she could break anyone’s heart. Mio was smaller and softer, with a rounder face and missing Kasumi’s foxlike features. She tended to be more businesslike in her attitudes toward people, with a solid grasp of the world around her, despite being two years younger than Emi.

Emi could be serious should the need arise, but Mio’s seriousness was her calling card. She viewed the world through a critical lens that enabled her to keep herself pointed ever forward. Much like Kasumi, though, she had a quick temper. Lacking Kasumi’s skill at karate, though, Emi found it to be adorable rather than potentially frightening.

Mio was earnest and honest and was, Emi realized, the yin to her yang. Mio quickly became much more than a replacement for a love that could never be. She became a partner. A confidante. An integral part of Emi’s mental and emotional health. And physical health as well, Emi mused ruefully, constantly bringing her lunches and insisting Emi eat her vegetables and skip candy. Some of which Emi did. Often against her better judgement.

When Emi was sent away the first person she called when Baa chan gave her a new phone was Mio. They talked for hours every day. They commiserated over how awful things had gotten in such a short time. Emi consoled Mio when she pushed Kasumi away before the older sister vanished. Mio comforted her when the reality of being sent to Seitosha Sakurai became inevitable. She was Emi’s rock in a surging and unpredictable sea.

She became Emi’s girlfriend.

What now, though? There was no way forward. Emi was trapped far away and already engaged to someone she’d only met twice. There would be no moving into an apartment together during college. There would be no flirting or holding hands while cuddled up on the sofa. There would be no first, hesitant sexual experience. There would be no them.

When Emi agreed to go out with Mio, she had no way of knowing what would soon happen. She knew she was never going to be able to have a happily ever after with the younger girl, but she had hope they could have a few years together before the world swept them apart. Emi supposed she should have broken up when she was sent away, but she was a selfish coward. She was trying to hide from the storm and needed the safe harbor Mio offered. She needed that lighthouse to steer by.

Now? She couldn’t imagine her life without Mio in it. She should call her up and end things. She should rip the band aid off, now, before the world tore at it bit by bit, making everything sting and ache that much more, but she couldn’t. It was too painful to consider. So, like the feckless coward she was, she clung to Mio’s presence more each day like a woman adrift in the ocean would cling to a life preserver.

She couldn’t fight against the horde of adults and their expectations. She couldn’t hold off the weight of expectations bearing down on her forever. Eventually her time would be up and her relationship with Mio would be nothing but a memory to keep her from freezing during the cold night of a marriage she did not want but could not escape. It was neither fair nor right to Mio, but she couldn’t stand to lose her. Not yet.

As for her plan…honestly, she had none. They were all expensive birds in a gilded cage waiting for their owners to come and snatch them up. Some, obviously, wanted and waited for that to happen. Some were ambivalent and some, like herself, hated the very notion. Maybe for those like herself or who saw no other way through she could help give a year or two of happiness outside their duties as a well-born, well-bred trophy to be taken out and paraded about for guests before being tucked back into the closet and neglected.

Of course, any joy would be tempered with misery once that cage door opened, and the iron glove of someone else’s decisions reached inside for them. But like with her relationship with Mio, Emi had to believe those months or weeks or even years of joy would be comfort in the end.

So, as useless and vague as the plan was, she would put it into motion. She would bring what girls like herself she could into her orbit and offer them fleeting moments of joy, camaraderie, maybe even a hint of actual love and hope it would be enough to offset the heartbreak when those moments ended.

The darkness gave her moments of clarity she did not care for. And here, in the darkness, with her heart breaking and her breath catching in her throat, the night held up a mirror and bade her look. The person staring back at her was not pleasant. Her intentions were impure, her heart ached, and her misery was on full display.

She looked at her future with frightened eyes and saw nothing but unhappiness. She looked at her present and saw a girl lonely and hurting. A girl struggling uselessly against gravity. The darkness was a cruel mistress and, in her gaze, Emi saw herself stripped bare. Nothing but a petty, terrified creature caught in a web not of her making and every struggle against the clutching strands drew the spider of the future closer to her.

“I’m scared,” Emi Seto whimpered into the uncaring darkness, her bottom lip quivered, and tears slipped down her cheek to dampen her pillow. She clenched the blanket tighter in her fingers and pulled it close to her chin. “I’m lonely and I don’t know what to do.” She closed her eyes tight. “Mio. Kasumin. Someone. Anyone. Please. Help me.” Lost in the timeless dark, Emi eventually closed her eyes and drifted into a fitful sleep.