“Right. . .” Takako shifted her cup from hand to hand. “Still can’t imagine there’s a big drive formugichain Texas.”
“Well, yeah, fair. . . but plenty of people emigrate from East Japan.” Jo looked down at the tray, selecting the cup closest to her. She wished she hadn’t brought up the discussion of home, but it was far better for her to distract Takako with her own home than let the Japanese woman think of hers. So, Jo rambled away. “My friend, Yuusuke. You remember him I’m sure with the whole first wish debacle?” Jo cringed slightly. “His father immigrated to the Lone Star Republic for work from the California prefecture. That’s how we met in high school.”
“East Japan. . . ” Takako said slowly, as if hearing it for the first time.
“Well, yeah. . .” Jo thought back, she didn’t have to go very far. World War III hadn’t ended all that long ago. And it wasn’t like the details were very important. “I mean, technically, I think it’s all ‘Japan,’ but everyone calls the annexation of what was California, Washington, Oregon, and Nevada ‘East Japan.’” Jo took a long sip of tea. It was nostalgia in a cup. She and Yuusuke had let go of it long ago in favor of things with enough caffeine to kill a small animal. But it was the same rich, earthy taste she remembered from when they’d first become friends.
Despite herself, she wondered how he was doing now,whathe was doing now. She shouldn’t still care, but she hoped he was safe. And perhaps it was that hope against hope that had Jo sitting where she was now, understanding all too well what Takako was feeling—worry for people she should’ve let go long ago.
Takako was silent, a frown passing over her face.
Jo shifted to face the woman. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought up Japan.” How stupid could she really be?
“It’s not that.” Takako shook her head.
“Then. . .” Jo let the word trail off into an open-ended question. She wasn’t sure if it was safe to ask anything. There were memories they all had of their past lives that were better left forgotten.
The other woman took a deep, slow breath—in through the nose and out through the mouth, as if bracing. “My wish.”
“Your wish? What does your wish have to do with anything?” Jo brought up a hand to her mouth, having startled herself. Here she was, having just scolded herself for prodding Takako, and now she’d asked the one probing question the Society considered taboo. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s fine.” Takako shook her head. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, to seek your forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness for what?” Jo had come to consoleher, and now Takako was trying to turn the tide. But Jo wasn’t going to allow it. Or at least, she thought she wasn’t, but her mind went a bit blank the moment Takako opened her mouth again.
“I destroyed your country.”
Chapter 6
Takako’s Wish
“YOU. . . WHAT?”
FOR a long moment, Takako didn’t elaborate. She simply reached for her own cup of tea and stared deep into the depths of it, face lined with too many conflicted emotions for Jo to count. Then, as if finally finding her resolve, she set it back down with a heavythud.
“I admit, when you joined the Society and I realized you were American—or, from what had been America at least, I felt. . . a bit guilty,” Takako explained, not that it made her previous confession any less nonsensical. “I guess you could say I took your country away from you. I destroyed what could have been, so to speak.”
“What are you talking about?” Jo tried to smile, but it felt a bit disjointed, her confusion overwhelming her features. Took away her country? How? She’d lived in it for nineteen years.
Whether in attempts to explain, or simply to get the words out, Takako ignored her question for a moment, shaking her head. “I must have seemed standoffish at first, and for that I apologize, but I simply didn’t know what to say, not knowing what I know. But I still wanted you to feel welcome. And, I suppose, I wanted to make it up to you somehow. Everyone else was so much better at it than I. . . But I guess they’ve had more practice.”
The gifts, the kindness. That had been Takako’s attempt at assuaging guilt?
Jo frowned, looking from Takako’s face to her own cup. Despite the comfortably warm feel of the ceramic beneath her fingers, the tea still steamed, as if the cup should be much hotter to her touch. Jo wondered if it should be burning her, if it actually was, and the day had merely numbed all senses.
“I don’t. . .” Jo shook her head, confused. She wanted to understand what Takako was saying, but she didn’t know how to ask for clarification. She didn’t doubt the genuineness of Takako’s kindness, regardless of the underlying intention, but her reasoning still felt beyond Jo’s reach. Her country had been just fine, hadn’t it? The Lone Star Republic continued on throught Jo’s short lifetime as it had always done. Not that she paid much attention to politics beyond her connections with the nation’s dark underbelly. What wish could Takako possibly have made?
Jo’s frustration must have become obvious, because eventually, Takako sighed, raking her hands through her hair and tugging on it.
“In 2010, our countries were at war,” she began, and when Jo met her gaze, there was a despondency there that she was unfamiliar with when it came to the kind, but stoic, woman.
Jo remembered reading about World War III. History wasn’t exactly her favorite subject, but the war had only ended in 2015, just forty-two years before Jo joined the Society (a narrow enough piece of time that the veterans never let anyone forget), so it was hardnotto know about the war. A rising tide of nationalism had pulled the former United States in on itself, retreating from its allies and making stronger enemies of old nemeses that ultimately formed the “Commonwealth Powers.”
“The war started in 2007, right?” Jo asked, more for her own confirmation, whilst trying to remember exactly when Takako said she’d been born.
Takako nodded. “It did. Japan was emboldened when the U.S. lent its support toward militarization—the de facto ‘Warden of the East.’ It was a potent blend with the determined drive forward on building the nation as a military power.”
“And then there was the China-Japan war.”
