Lemon Incest c2

This question remained in Misao’s mind for a long time.

Mio didn’t show any particular ill will towards the young man who was her biological younger brother– on the contrary, she acted quite nonchalant towards him. It was the same for Shougo. For someone who had been suddenly presented with a complicated past, he didn’t seem particularly distressed about it, and it appeared he was genuinely happy to be able to reunite with his sister.

It was unclear if the two would see each other again at a later date. They exchanged contact information, and they said “see you” to each other; however, it was a mystery even to her whether they’d actually want to get together again sometime in the future.

But there was something that weighed on her mind. No matter how hard she thought about it, she couldn’t figure out exactly what that was.

Mio said: “It was just as you said. He was a pretty nice kid.”

“Misao-chan”… every time she was called that by Mio, she felt a deep bond with her. Mio was neither a niece nor a younger friend nor a daughter she doted on. There was always the shadow of the man who was her father that surrounded Mio, and every time she was called “Misao-chan” by her, she was reminded of him. At the same time though, it also made her feel a deep love for the daughter that the man felt such affection towards.

Misao asked what she meant by that.

Mio pulled up the collar of her dark blue trench coat, and as if attempting to end the conversation, she shifted her gaze outside the window. Seeing the cold, beautiful side profile, Misao swallowed back her next question.

Remembering back to how Shougo had said he didn’t like celery and pickled plums, Misao gave a carefree smile and commented how there was no doubt the two were siblings. “It surprised me though. Does that kind of thing ever happen? I guess it’s the blood tie that you have. When you share the same blood, perhaps things like this do happen. Even if you have lived apart for many years, perhaps you still end up liking and disliking the same things.”

After dropping her off near the Hiroo subway station, Misao returned to her law office in Ginza. She returned the calls of the clients who had called while she was away, and she quickly skimmed through the documents that had begun to pile up. She met with the client who had booked an appointment in the meeting room, and she read through the documents for the lawsuit, and during her break, she made advance arrangements over the phone.

Just then, she received a phone call from Kusuda. It was a call saying that the client that he was supposed to meet tonight had cancelled at the last minute, and that if possible, he wanted to see her, if only for a short time.

As they met each other for dinner and went out drinking together, they quickly became very close. He was a man though who had a wife and child. He also had other jobs in addition to his work as a professor. They both led busy lives, and although it was no easy task to find a time that worked for the both of them, they still saw each other about once a month. She had even introduced him to Mio, and they had all gone out to dinner together.

“This is pretty last minute, so I guess you’re busy?” Kusuda asked.

She had one appointment with a client to meet for dinner that night. Even if that were to end early, she wouldn’t be back home until after 9:30. If he were to come to her place then, they would be able to spend about an hour together, but that still felt like a little too much of a hassle.

He replied, “In that case, I’ll try calling you on your cell phone. If it doesn’t work out tonight, that’s fine. How does that sound?”

Although it was true that she had no deep, passionate feelings for him, it was also true that she didn’t find him off-putting by any means. On the contrary, there were times she missed the feel of his skin, and the words of affection that he whispered in her ear. There had been times in the past when she was the one to initiate contact, telling him that she wanted to see him and pleading for him to come to her that very moment.

“It’d be great if we can see each other,” he said. “We haven’t seen each other in a while, isn’t that right?”

The moment she said this, she suddenly felt an undeniable urge to see him. She wanted to be embraced by him and exchange fevered kisses with him.

She thought back to his embrace, the feel of his lips, and his skin. Because of the additional work she’d had to take on regarding Shougo, she hadn’t seen Kusuda in almost two months. She hadn’t even wanted to see him really. When she dragged herself back to her apartment exhausted, there were many times when she didn’t have the energy to call him back even when she noticed that a message from him had been left on her answering machine.

The phone began ringing in the secretary’s office next door. The call was redirected to her, and she was startled back to the present.

That was how she was able to juggle her daily routine as usual, and at the same time, she was wondering of if bringing Mio and Shougo back together was truly a good idea.

It was while in the middle of a divorce lawsuit that she had been placed in charge of that she became acquainted with the young man named Iwasaki Shougo.

It was through the introduction by an acquaintance that the wife of that case came to be a client of Misao’s. She was seeking parental rights of her eight year old son and a divorce settlement. She told her that if he was willing to give her both, then she would quietly agree to the divorce at that very moment; however, the amount she was seeking for the divorce settlement was too high. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it was an excessive amount. Meanwhile, the husband showed a readiness to battle it out with her to the very end.

For someone who dressed in a flashy way and who enjoyed going out with her friends to karaoke until the early hours of the morning, once Misao met her and talked to her, the wife turned out to be a naïve, country-raised downright honest woman. She didn’t particularly look like someone who went out and partied with men. She was someone who just enjoyed going out and having a fun time with her friends. She seemed to be someone who took proper care of the house as a wife and as a mother. It seemed it was because of her earnestness that the wife couldn’t stand being suspected of things she had never done by her husband. Misao instinctively felt early on that there was truth in her words.

The moment she took one look at him, Misao was momentarily left speechless. He was the exact image of Mio’s father, Shimada Keiichi when he was younger.

The wife began to explain that he was someone who had taken her to the hospital when she had the miscarriage in which she lost the child she had been carrying between her and her husband.

The woman continued “It happened on a Thursday. My husband had left for work in his car, and he drank alcohol after work so he had left his car behind and got a ride home in a taxi. Since my husband had to go on a business trip in a neighbouring district the very next day, he said he would ask someone to bring the car back home, and he ended up asking Iwasaki-kun. It seems to be the case that he’d had been getting Iwasaki-kun to do similar odd jobs for him in the past, and Iwasaki-kun readily agreed, and so it was decided that I would hand over the car keys that were at home to Iwasaki-kun while my husband was off on his business trip. But shortly after he had left for work, I suddenly began experiencing stomach pains. It was a pain unlike anything I had experienced before, and I started feeling sick… just when I was panicking wondering what I should do, Iwasaki-kun dropped by and he quickly called a taxi and accompanied me to the hospital.”

If the miscarriage had been of a baby that had been made between her and another man as her husband had so claimed then it would’ve been highly unlikely that she would have shown so much grief in front of a complete stranger…some young man who worked at her husband’s workplace.

Although he was a man of few words, it didn’t seem as if he was lying. And it was also true in the first place that there was no reason for him to show loyalty towards this woman. He simply worked a side job at an amusement park while attending university, and he had only been given odd jobs to do by his manager. He said this incident had been the first time he had met his manager’s wife.

If she hadn’t taken on this divorce case, there would never have been a chance for her to run into Shougo. No…it wasn’t only that. If it weren’t for the wife who brought him with her as a way of proclaiming her innocence… and even if that was a meaningless thing to do in the eyes of the civil law… there would never have been an opportunity for her to come into contact with him.

Because the husband did not file an appeal, the trial drew to a close in a length of time that was rarely seen in a court case.

When he had called her saying that he wanted to seek her advice regarding a serious matter, she assumed it was to seek legal advice— she thought it was probably along the lines of him having been in some kind of bike accident. Perhaps both sides were demanding compensation for damages. Since he had just happened to become acquainted with a lawyer, he probably wanted to seek some words of advice regarding it; that’s what she thought.

Because of this, there were many times when there would have been no end to it if she had taken each person’s problem seriously. There were times when due to the sobbing person who unloaded their circumstances onto her, her later appointments were greatly affected.

She was reminded of the fact that this young man named Iwasaki-kun so greatly reminded her of Mio’s father, Shimada Keiichi. There was also a part of her that wanted to see him again.

It was something that was supposed to have ended. The memories of the passionate love she shared with Keiichi was something that she had already chosen to lock away deep inside her, and she was long supposed to have left those memories behind her in the darkness.

Because the office’s cooler was too effective, she had left the window slightly ajar. The muffled sounds of the liveliness of Ginza trickled into the room, and it reminded her of the sound of languid waves off in the distance.

Shougo began by saying this as he sat down on the sofa in the reception room. “This was something that happened a few days before my mother’s death, but she tearfully confessed something to me while she was in the hospital. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t the one who gave birth to you. Someone else gave birth to you, and your name isn’t really Iwasaki Shougo.’ It felt like I was in the middle of some cheap, boring soap opera. At that time, I brushed it off by telling myself that it must have been hallucinations caused by the medication my mother was taking, but I couldn’t help but be affected by her words… and it made me think that perhaps what she said really is true… and so…”

Although it may be hard to believe, there are quite a few people out there in this world who confused lawyers for personal detectives. When she thought that this young man, who seemed quite bright, was one of those people, she couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

“I’m well aware of that,” Shougo replied to her words in a respectful manner. “I’m well aware that you’ve taken time out of your busy day to listen to my problems. I didn’t come here with the thought to ask a lawyer to help me find someone. It’s just…I’m not sure how to put it, but when I came here the other day because of the divorce lawsuit and I met you, I had this feeling that if it was you, you would at least be willing to lend a ear to what I have to say; that’s why I came.”

The young man continued: “I’m not trying to search for my biological mother. After all, it does sound a bit ridiculous to try to find her now when I’m of this age. The only mother I have is the one who died, and that’s fine. That’s what I think. But… there’s still this feeling I have that something hasn’t been resolved. There’s a part of me that wants to find out what that is. …I’m sorry. I know I’m only causing you trouble by telling you this. I know that this isn’t something I should tell you, a lawyer, but…”

“I don’t know. To be honest, I really don’t even know myself what it is that I want to do. But… if what my mother confessed to me is the truth, I have a feeling that I have a slight idea of what it’s about…”

Shougo gulped down the barley tea that was on the table in one gulp, and rested the cup slowly back onto the coaster before continuing: “It’s nothing that has to do with something concrete like the law, but rather something more abstract. No matter how I think about it, my mother who passed away was always unusually kind towards me.”

“Yes. I have neither a sister nor brother.”

“If that were the case though, I think that she wouldn’t have just been kind— there would’ve also been a strict side to her that I would have disliked. It could’ve been possessiveness, or complaints over small matters or trying to control her son as she pleased… that’s normal, isn’t it? But as for my mother, she didn’t have a side to her like that at all. She really was unusually kind, and she gave me an unusual amount of freedom. In some ways… I don’t know if this is the right way to put it, but it was like she was my domestic helper than a mother.”

“What is your father doing now?”

“And the place of birth?”

“So your mother was the one who supported you financially when you attended university in Tokyo?”

“What about your relatives? Did they ever give off some kind of feeling that you weren’t your mother’s child?”

“I’m sure that you probably had plenty of chances to look at the family register transcript since you need it for school entrance applications and what not, but was there anything that you found suspicious on it?”

Misao let out a small sigh and shrugged her shoulder lightly. “It sounds to me like it’s nothing I can help you with then. Even if by some small chance your parents really did adopt you because your mother couldn’t give birth, there would surely be a record of it on the family register.”

Just then, a call was routed to the phone in the reception room. When Misao returned to her seat after finishing with the call, Shougo had his head down with his back straight as if he had come to a decision. “I’m very sorry.”

“I knew that telling you something like this would only cause you trouble. Even as I was telling you all this, I couldn’t help but be disgusted with myself wondering what it was that I was trying to do. Please feel free to tell me that it’s not my place to act like a spoilt child, because those couldn’t be any truer words.”

“No, that’s all right. I don’t want to be any more of a nuisance to you. Thank you very much for listening to what I had to say. Well then, I think I’ll get going…”

He froze halfway, and gazing at Misao, he sat back down onto the sofa.

“No.”

Her voice trailed off. His son?

“How old are you?”

It would take her time to remember how old Masao would be if he were still alive; however, she remembered clearly when Keiichi had died as if it had happened just yesterday. She calculated backwards to the year Masao was kidnapped… in other words, it was quicker for her to remember when Masao had been born.

“Can I ask you one question?” She started forward. “Is ‘Iwasaki’ your father’s last name?”

“What is the maiden name of your mother who passed away?”

“No reason really. It’s just a pointless question.”

Kanaya… As she silently mouthed the word over and over, she felt her heart stop momentarily.

When Masao had been kidnapped, Kimi had been off seeing this man named Kanaya at the local park near the Shimada family’s home. He worked at a glass factory, and she had heard that he was married at the time to someone else when Kimi had been seeing him.

Because of the nature of her profession, she was used to putting up an emotionless front no matter what was thrown at her. Misao continued her questioning: “Does your mother have siblings? Say an older brother…a younger brother…”

“And where does he live now?”

“Did he work as an employee at a glass factory in Tokyo?”

“Oh, nothing in particular,” Misao replied but she couldn’t stop the rapid beat of her heart, and she pretended to look down at her watch.

“Why do you say that?”

“And is that man…my uncle?”

“Is that right?” He commented politely, but he didn’t seem to show any interest.

“I want to see you again— no, it might just be that we might be placed in a circumstance that’ll force us to meet again.” She swallowed back these words and pretended to be nonchalant as she asked for his contact information when she stood to see him off.

Misao thought: so is Mio. Excitement, doubt, and hope built up inside of her, and although she could feel heat rising to her face, she continued to play it cool.

In that moment, she could feel herself shaking slightly on the inside.

Chapter end