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The day she gets her period, Satoko is ready to end it.
She hasn’t had to deal with this for over a hundred years, so her blood runs ice-cold when she sees the dark spots on her underwear. It’s because she’s caught off-guard, is all. Numbness laps out in waves from a hole in her chest.
I’ll have to go to the store for pads. Rika will have to make breakfast and lunch for us. I'll have to wash and hang up my underwear. I won’t have time for target practice before school. Satoko’s mind talks her through it as she stuffs excess toilet paper as a stopgap.
The hot water from the sink rushes over her hands. She scrubs hard with the soap, to wash herself of this dirty feeling.
There’s nothing sharp in here. They don’t start keeping razors around for a few more months. The easiest tool in short reach would still require her to go all the way to the kitchen.
If Satoko really doesn’t want to tell Rika, if Satoko really doesn’t want to rush to the store in the chilly morning air, if Satoko really doesn’t want to acknowledge the reality of this milestone of womanhood…she doesn’t have to.
Satoko turns off the faucet. Her hands are stinging from the heat, and she looks up into the mirror. She pats her face with her wet hands, bringing some feeling back to her face.
Don’t be absurd, Satoko. “Don’t be silly, Houjou,” she tells her reflection.
It’s a bother to loop. Satoko has honed the art of looping to a single, clean slice or stab. That doesn’t mean she wants to resort to that. Looping takes muscle, physical and mental, and she’s tired of the exercise. Ever since she decided she'd prefer a cleaner, quicker way to loop, the idea has persisted and grown. In this world, she’ll go out with a gunshot.
I’d need to ask Mion for a spare model gun again. I’d need to clear out and set up my makeshift range again. I wouldn’t be able to practice as often if we had club activities with Mion every day. Looping would waste the effort she'd put into this life.
Satoko crosses her arms over her chest. Soon, it’ll start aching again. Soon, Shion will invite her to Okinomiya to shop for her first real bra. A rite of passage, Shion had said a century ago, aiming a wink and giggle at Satoko. Soon, her body will attract the attention of strange men in Okinomiya.
Even Irie joked about it, about how he wants Satoko as his wife when she grows older. Satoko knows it’s another one of his off-color jokes, but is that really what he sees in her? One of the few people on her side praised her as a woman-to-be, a few years away from being beautiful in all the ways men want? She doesn’t want that. She wants to stay a kid forever, in a body that doesn’t remind her every day how impossible that is.
What a…childish wish. Satoko squeezes her legs together. She’s just delaying the inevitable. In her perfect world, even this isn’t something she can stop. You can change people’s minds, their hearts, but the reality of the flesh was insurmountable. Rena, Mion, Shion, they all lived through this. Even if Mion complained about being born as a man, it was all in good humor. Satoko isn’t any less of a club member than them. She won’t lose to her own body. What a ridiculous loss that would be! To overcome the Mountain Dogs, and then to suffer defeat to something that billions of women have contended with!
This is a marathon. Just like every runner knows from the starting line their goal is 42 kilometers away, Satoko understands the distance of her own finish line. When she can shoot off a pebble, 10 times out of 10, from 6 meters. That’ll be enough proof she's where she has to be.
Satoko doesn’t need two lives to master a gun. She’ll bear with this, counting through her monthly cycles until she’s satisfied with her own progress. There’s no room to cut corners, and render all this suffering for naught.
Satoko’s always been an early riser, but now with her daily target practice, she always gets up with the sun. Rika’s still asleep, curled up deep beneath her futon’s blanket, so Satoko can watch the mess of bedhair peeking out from underneath the cover.
I love you, Rika. You loved me the most before I became a woman. In fact, you distanced yourself from me, the more my body grew into a woman’s, didn't you? Is it because...can you also…tell how much it doesn’t suit the real me?
Satoko grabs her wallet and, after a moment’s contemplation, her practice gun as well, before she scribbles a note.
At the store – can you make breakfast and lunch? Sorry! Canned food is fine.
Satoko turns over the model pistol, her fingers long adjusted to its weight.
Don’t worry, Rika. Please endure this with me, for the time being. I will work hard, with absolute certainty, to bring back the body that
I
we
you want so badly.