Some days passed after that conversation. One morning, while Natsume was in the highschool and her husband was working, Kaori took the chance to do something she’s been delaying for a while: preparing her room. Since Natsume came back, Kaori moved to the “guest room”, but after a while you couldn’t call it that way anymore. Deep inside, the woman didn’t want to sleep with Katsuhiro again, but with so many chores and duties, she had only removed some things, but not all the junk and boxes that annoyed her. That morning, she took the reins of that task.

-All right, let’s do this!- exclaimed Kaori to cheer herself up. -It was time already. It doesn’t make sense that I go back to the other bedroom every time I need my clothing. It’s better to bring everything here, but first I need to take so many things to the attic.

Her first task was taking some boxes containing Natsume’s belongings. Although the teen had taken back some items, as well as her old pictures with her friends, she decided other things (mostly soccer things) weren’t that necessary. Natsume was still part of the soccer club as a manager, but she had been exploring other hobbies as well and got a lot of new photos with her friends and Sacchan. After taking those boxes, Kaori proceeded to remove some old items on the desk and a lot of financing books that her husband used to read. Finally, the biggest task: taking all the old things from the wardrobe.

-Let’s see, what’s here?- murmured Kaori as she took things out one at a time. -Old car magazines… I should recycle them. Natsume’s baby clothing… could I donate this? I need to ask about that. Oh, a massaging roller that makes you lose weight! It didn’t work in the end, and I’m not sure anymore the deal was that good. Recycling it is. Let’s see… what’s inside this box?

Kaori took a rather old box, covered in dust. It looked like it had been there for a long while, so much she didn’t even remember its existence. She opened it, finding some rotten flowers, some movie tickets and an old Hokkaido keychain.

-I think these… are things from my dates with Katsuhiro when we were younger- murmured Kaori.

She took a look at those items and, somehow, she didn’t feel anything towards them. She could remember the moment in time they belonged to, but for her, they didn’t have any special meaning. It wasn’t just for their current situation: she could remember herself, storing those things, and even back then, there was something off in the situation. She put those things away and found an old photo album.

-Oh...- was the only think Kaori said when finding it.

Kaori held it, sat down on the floor, leaning her back over the wall and opened it half-way. As she suspected, those were pictures taken all over their relationship. She knew it was normal for couples to take pictures, but felt that Katsuhiro was very insisting in that and that he took too many pictures: in restaurants, at the movies, in the park, during a short trip… Kaori went through every page and… didn’t feel anything. She could remember those moments, even with the tiniest detail (she had a great memory, although she never bragged about it). But when she remembered those events, no feeling came to her, as if she had never felt anything at those times. She went through the pages and felt there was something off in those pictures, but couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

-It feels so… weird...- thought Kaori. -These pictures… there’s something off in them, but I don’t understand… Something’s wrong.

More and more pages. Wedding pictures? Nothing. Moving to their house? Nothing. The car they bought? Nothing. She didn’t feel anything except that strange feeling that something was off. And then:

-Oh, wow…- murmured Kaori.

One picture stood among the others: Kaori was laying in a hospital bed, her hair a mess and tired face, holding a baby between her arms. The woman smiled to that baby with inmense happiness, and she was even crying.

-My baby… Natsume…- murmured Kaori. -The delivery wasn’t that hard, just a bit longer than usual. I was so tired but… as I held you in my arms, it was the happiest moment in my life.

She stared at the picture a few seconds and then went over the next page. On the other side, there was a similar picture, but now Katsuhiro was in it as well. Again, that strange feeling came back.

-Again…- murmured Kaori. -I don’t get it. There’s barely a few seconds between the two pictures. What’s the difference?

Kaori took those two pictures out of the plastic pages and put them on the floor, one next to the toher. She analyzed those pictures, her eyes quickly moving from one to the other, looking for some kind of clue. She began focusing on herself, she knew the difference was in herself, in how she looked in each picture. Was it the hair? The tiredness? Suddenly, she realized something.

-In the picture with Katsuhiro, am I… smiling?- Kaori wondered. -Is that a smile? It doesn’t look like one, right? It’s not a real smile like in the first picture.

She then place the album above the pictures on the floor. She kept going: more family memories with Natsume. Most of the babies pictures were kept in a baby log, but some of them were stored in that family album. It was then she noticed: whenever only Kaori and Natsume appeared in the picture, the woman smiled looked real, like in the first picture at the hospital; whenever the picture included Katushiro, she used that weird-looking smile again.

-Whenever Katsuhiro appears, I seem to use that “fake” smile…- commented Kaori. -Fake, as if… as if I made it up because… I had to smile.

There was something inside her head, a memory trying to reach the surface, but it was still hard to reach it. Filled with curiosity, Kaori went back in time, before Natsume’s birth. Her suspicions got worse as they were confirmed: the fake smile appeared in every single picture. She took two random photos from two different moments in time and compared them. She noticed something then as it wasn’t just the smile, but the way she half-closed her eyes, how she inclined her head… It was exactly the same in each picture. She could pick up two pictures from two different years and they look copy-pasted.

-Since when…? When did I start doing this, and why?- Kaori wondered nervously.

She kept rewinding her own life, page after page, until the pictures changed once again. In them, Kaori and Katsuhiro looked very young as they had barely been together for a few months back then, but that wasn’t the point: in those pictures, Kaori didn’t smile at all. Katsuhiro appeared with a wide smile, whether he was hugging his girlfriend or holding her hand, but Kaori looked emotionless. Or worse, she looked…

-Sad… I look… sad- Kaori murmured.

Kaori looked at those pictures with sadness. It was then that she remembered what she felt at that time: sadness. She didn’t enjoy those moments, or more like she didn’t enjoy being with Katsuhiro. She went to the next page and she found it: the very first picture with the fake smile. There were barely a few day of difference between both of them, but she was using that fake smile, although differently: it looked forced, as if she was still training to do it. She remembered that feeling back then, as if she needed to do it better, do it better for…

-Katsuhiro… He asked me to smile in pictures- Kaori said. -Well, “asking” is not the word: he threw it at my face.

Suddenly, that old conversation came back to her mind. The young version of the couple were one day in Katsuhiro’s room. The young man back then was preparing the photos he took from the local store and put them in the album, but he looked annoyed.

-Damn, Kaori, you’re a drip, you know?- said the young Katsuhiro.

-What do you mean?- asked the young Kaori with her usual monotone voice.

-Have you seen your face in these pictures, girl? What a mug! Why don’t you smile?- asked young Katsuhiro.

The young lady just shrugged her shoulders.

-That’s gotta change. From now on, you gotta smile in all our pictures!- exclaimed young Katushiro. -How can we show everybody how good of a couple we are if you don’t?

That last question echoed inside the head of the current-era Kaori. She remembered feeling bad after hearing those words: her boyfriend expected her to do that and, for whatever reason, she felt she had to do it. She remembered going back home and staying in front of a mirror. Looking at some magazines, she started practicing different smiles and gestures. “No, I have to do it like this”, she thought back then. She practiced little by little until she found the perfect face, and it worked: from then on, not only her boyfriend was happy with the pictures, but he bragged about his girlfriend’s “beautiful smile”. But now, looking at all that, all Kaori felt was pity towards herself.

-I… I didn’t want to smile…- commented Kaori. -Deep inside, I didn’t want to, specially when I was with him. But I felt that I had to do it, as if I couldn’t disappoint him. I made a fake smile, but not for me or to show that I loved him, just for satisfying him. He expected me to act as a normal girlfriend and I… had to do it, right?

It was then that the conversation she had with Natsume some days ago came to her mind. She remembered her daughter’s words and remembered all the times the mother saw Natsume and Sacchan together at her home, away from judging eyes. She could feel both of them loved each other.

-No… I never felt what Natsume does...- murmured Kaori. -I should never had done it. I didn’t even like him. Back then, at highschool, he was always around me and insinuating. He obviously wanted to date me, but I didn’t care, I was not interested at all. Then how I ended up dating him?

Some voices echoed in her head. Kaori rose her head and looked at a picture that she placed on a shelf some months ago: it was her, Katsuhiro and Natsume along with her old parents. As they all lived in the same city, it was easy to visit and take care of them in needed. Then, she could clearly hear the echo:

-My dear, isn’t it time that you find a boyfriend? That boy… Kumojima, wasn’t it? He looks quite nice. Why don’t you go out with him?

-That’s right- said Kaori. -My mother used to say things like that: when I was getting a boyfriend, if I wasn’t planning on marrying, that I should find someone soon, that people would think bad of me…

That critical day came back to her mind: the day Katsuhiro was inclined towards her, extending a letter and asking for a date. At that specific moment, all her mother’s words echoed in her head. She suspects that was part of the reason, though…

-There’s something more- said Kaori. -I’m sure there’s something more in this story, because I didn’t care what my mother or the neighbors thought about me. Why did I care at that time?