#and I came up with this absolute bombshell of a headcanon/AU: Shigeo's mom does the exact same thing he does. she represses her knowledge

[brown-little-robin]

Mrs. Kageyama Reaches ???%

People have different sides to them. Mrs. Kageyama is fine with that. She knew getting into motherhood that her kids would bring some things to their parents, and other things, they’d want to deal with on their own. That’s fine. That’s what people do!

She, for instance, worries over her kids out loud, in front of them, but only about the little things. Bumps and scrapes. Bent spoons, dropped dishes. Not the big things. She locks the big things away like an adult, only letting them out a little bit at a time so she doesn’t explode. She whispers to her husband in the dark when the kids won’t overhear them: are there any psychics in your family? Do you think your parents would know anything about how to help Shige?

As far as either Kageyama parent can tell, there aren’t any psychics in their extended families at all. Shigeo Kageyama was the first person out of the ordinary in both entire bloodlines, all the way back to the farmers (on Mrs. Kageyama’s side) and fishermen (on Mr. Kageyama’s side) who started keeping records of their family lines. And oh, it worries Mrs. Kageyama that she doesn’t know how to connect with that side of him.

There’s nothing she can do. Shigeo floats in the air as a baby, and Mr. Kageyama pulls him down like a balloon, but he floats right back up again, and there’s nothing Mrs. Kageyama can do but wait until her baby gets hungry and comes down to her again.

As a toddler, Shigeo talks to things Mrs. Kageyama couldn’t see. He repeats swear words she couldn’t hear the spirits teaching him. Actually, in that case, there is something she could do; one conversation later, Shigeo understands some social niceties he didn’t know about before.

But she can’t help with the root problem of the spirits who teach him words that he shouldn’t know. She wishes she was a psychic, too, not because it seems like fun—it certainly doesn’t, not to her—but because at least she would know what her son was dealing with.

But it isn’t that big of a deal, probably. Shige manages fine. He floats potato chips around to make Ritsu laugh and levitates all the small objects around him when he cries. It’s just another side of him. Shigeo is clearly bothered when other kids think he’s weird, but the Kageyamas let him deal with that by himself. All they can do, really, is keep loving him, feeding him, and making sure he gets to bed on time. The rest will sort itself out. Some things just wouldn’t be helped by parents getting involved.

Shigeo gets quieter as he got older. He still smiles and plays, but he doesn’t laugh out loud as much. He got self-conscious, Mrs. Kageyama thinks, because of those other little kids. Part of Mrs. Kageyama wishes she could talk to him about it, but that’s not how these things are done. Even if she tried to coax Shigeo’s hidden hurt feelings out into the open, all the parenting advice says that that would just stop him from developing the strength to deal with it on his own. And besides, real adults don’t make their children deal with their parents’ emotions.

So she hides that side of herself away. She whispers to her dear husband late at night, what if Shigeo is actually being bullied? What’s the point where we should step in?

He doesn’t know. He says, I think the boy is doing fine for now. Let’s let him socialize by himself for a while. She agrees. They let him socialize by himself. Sometimes he comes home from the park muted and weary, but he usually perks up once he’s eaten dinner, and Ritsu never fails to get a smile out of Shige.

Ritsu can connect with that side of Shigeo that Mrs. Kageyama can’t. His delight in his brother’s powers makes Shigeo smile where Mrs. Kageyama’s loving concern would just be smothering. So that’s all right. Different people can help with different needs.

Shige and Ritsu are good kids. They’re good kids, and they love each other, and they love their parents. But there are things they don’t come to their parents for. And that’s natural.

One New Year’s Day, Mrs. Kageyama got a call from a concerned neighbor and rushed to her sons. She found Shigeo standing stunned, blank-eyed, a few feet away from Ritsu, who was bleeding heavily from a head wound. Head wounds bleed a lot, she was informed by the doctors who stitched Ritsu’s precious little head up. That’s normal.

There was more blood on the ground than what could be explained by Ritsu’s head. Since she didn’t have to do anything about it, Mrs. Kageyama allowed herself to forget that fact. And then she forgot it again whenever she thought of it. Forcefully.

Ritsu didn’t explain what happened. He just went along with his mother and the doctors in a stunned, disbelieving kind of silence. He was a model patient, the doctors said.

Alarmingly, Shigeo didn’t explain what happened, either.

Mrs. Kageyama scrubbed the blood off his face in the hospital bathroom, and he didn’t resist at all. His hair didn’t rise up off his forehead in discomfort, and nothing floated, not even the water from the sink.

She squinted at him. Something was strange about him. Looking into his cast-down eyes, she could almost see something behind Shigeo’s blank expression. Something…

Something…

“Shige…?”

Shigeo made dull eye contact, and for a moment she saw with perfect clarity a boy behind his eyes, a boy with white eyes, screaming.

And then she un-saw it. Forcefully.

After all, there was nothing she could do; everyone has different sides to them, and that’s normal. Not everyone can deal with all the sides of everyone else.

After that, something is different in the Kageyama household. It feels almost like the boys had hit puberty early. Mrs. Kageyama heard from other mothers and parenting books about teenagers, how difficult they were, almost like they became different people overnight. It’s like that with Shigeo and Ritsu, only they’re still baby-faced little boys, not teenagers at all.

The tendency Shigeo always had to turn into a muted shadow of himself after a particularly hard day becomes the norm. He’s quiet. Too quiet. He’s calm. Too calm. He doesn’t laugh at all anymore. It becomes hard to remember that Shigeo was ever genuinely, visibly happy. His smiles at dinner are muted, his eyes always tired, even when he’s thanking Ritsu for unbending his spoons.

He doesn’t use his powers anymore. Not on purpose, anyway.

It hurts the side of Mrs. Kageyama that she has hidden away, the side that wants to stare deep into Shigeo’s eyes and talk to him honestly, to show him her overpowering concern for the part of himself that Shigeo doesn’t come to her for help with.

It’s not like he’s a teenage delinquent or anything, though. He’s perfectly polite. In some ways, he’s exactly the same as before. He still returns from school tired and distant but cheers up at the dinner table, even though his expressions are subtler, nowadays.

But unlike before, Ritsu can’t cheer Shigeo up.

It’s similar with Ritsu: it’s impossible to explain to other mothers how he’s changed. He’s still a model child. He’s still cheerful and helpful and nice. He just…

Sometimes Mrs. Kageyama hears him crying at night. Sometimes she catches sight of him staring at objects with such a fierce expression that she knows instantly what he’s trying to do.

The parenting advice doesn’t cover what you do when one of your children hurt the other one but both of them refuse to acknowledge that anything is wrong. The parenting advice says that if your children are angry at each other, you should give them some advice but mostly let them work it out on their own. But what if they don’t work it out? What if they never even try? There’s nothing to say.

Their family name, Kageyama, begins to seem like a cruel joke. Kage, shadow, figure, dark omen; yama, mountain, something huge and powerful. Mr. Kageyama is the one who points that out, late at night, whispering to his wife. He asks, do you think we’re cursed? Our family?

She lies, No, I think we’re fine. This is pretty normal, I think. People have different sides to them.

He thinks that over. I think you’re right. This is just… like puberty.

Now that the boys are middle schoolers, “puberty” becomes an excellent excuse to explain why the boys don’t share their other sides with their parents or each other. Everyone in the household embraces the excuse with relief.

Ritsu gets good grades. Excellent grades. He’s diligent. Too diligent. He’s a perfect son and brother. Too perfect. Everyone accepts it.

It’s been years since the New Years incident, and Ritsu and Mob—Shigeo goes by Mob at school, Mrs. Kageyama learns from his homeroom teacher—still treat each other with polite respect and no genuineness.

And—Mob? Mob? It’s a name of no identity. Mrs. Kageyama finds that nickname more and more saddening as her son’s other side drifts further and further out of reach. She calls him Shige at the dinner table and he smiles. There’s a shadow self behind his eyes, just as there’s a shadow self behind Mrs. Kageyama’s eyes.

But, after all, people have different sides to them, and that’s only natural. It used to be Ritsu who could make Shigeo happy about his powers, who could touch that side of him that Mrs. Kageyama cannot. Now, there’s someone else in her son’s life who does that: one Reigen Arataka. Her son’s after-school part-time employer and master in the psychic arts.

Shigeo doesn’t show his psychic powers to his parents, not on purpose, anyway, but she’s so, so glad he has somewhere to go to use that part of him. He’s hard to read, but Mrs. Kageyama thinks he gets something really good out of those after-school consultation hours. He often comes home thoughtful, or happier, his shoulders a little lighter, the shadow self behind his eyes not so noticeably unhappy.

She’s happy Reigen Arataka is in her son’s life.

It’s a tremendous relief when Shigeo begins to blossom in middle school. He joins a club. A club! It’s amazing!

Of all things, he chose the Body Improvement Club, which baffles Mrs. Kageyama. Shige has never been… athletic. But she’s not complaining. She’s happy for him. She nearly gasps out loud, one night, when Shigeo tentatively refers to some girl associated with (but not part of?) the Body Improvement Club, Tome Kurata, as his friend.

She nearly gasps out loud, but not quite. She hides her true excitement in that other side of herself. Her shadow self and Shigeo’s shadow self are similar, she thinks—they’re too much for the dinner table. The dinner table is a place of relaxation. Never, never does any Kageyama disturb the sacred peace of the relaxed atmosphere of the dinner table.

Which is why it’s so strange when Ritsu starts acting up and declines to eat dinner with the family.

Something is going on with Ritsu. There’s another side to him, too, but it’s locked away where Mrs. Kageyama can barely even see it. Sometimes, she forgets it’s even there. She’s ashamed of that, but there it is: Shigeo’s troubles are so much more obvious and clear-cut than Ritsu’s that… well… anyway, it becomes obvious that something is going on with Ritsu.

His grins are sharp, his eyes deadly, mannerisms completely changed. It’s as if he doesn’t realize that Mr. and Mrs. Kageyama know him. It’s as if Ritsu doesn’t realize that his parents watch both their sons closely, knowing they’re going through things that they can’t help with because they’re just normal parents and you have to let your children work things out on their own.

Mrs. Kageyama begins to wonder if Ritsu is going to confront Shigeo, finally, with the way Ritsu looks at his brother, eyes venomous. She hopes nothing bad happens. So does her husband.

But then something good happens. Something involving Reigen Arataka and psychic powers, if Mrs. Kageyama had to bet. Shigeo and Ritsu miss dinner. They come home late at night, and in the darkness, straining her ears, tense all over so that she doesn’t make a sound and scare her sons off, she hears Ritsu and Shige stopping in the hall. She hears Ritsu say goodnight, Nii-san, and Shigeo answer, mm. goodnight, Ritsu. And then—amazingly—there’s a cloth-muffled thump that might have been someone clapping someone else on the shoulder, and a quiet, happy huff that can’t have been anyone but Ritsu.

Shige doesn’t touch Ritsu. He never touches Ritsu anymore.

And yet—!

Maybe kids do work things out on their own.

After the boys’ doors close, Mr. Kageyama shifts and hugs Mrs. Kageyama tight in sheer relief. She hugs him back, fiercely, silently, choked up. She’s close to tears.

The next day, Ritsu…. Ritsu has powers. He doesn’t show them off in front of his parents, but Shigeo accidentally bends a spoon at dinner, and while Mrs. Kageyama is scolding him and arguing with Mr. Kageyama in their well-worn, comfortable ritual, Ritsu takes the spoon and just looks at it, and it unbends with a happy little flourish.

Mrs. Kageyama is so happy she could cry, and probably will cry, later, actually, when the boys aren’t around to catch her. At the dinner table, she just lets those feelings slide into her other self and grumbles, “What’s with these kids?” to make them smile.

“Here, Nii-san,” Ritsu says.

“Thanks, Ritsu,” Shigeo says, accepting the spoon. And he smiles.

Shigeo continues to change. He comes out of his shell, little by little. Ritsu gets happier, seeming younger every day. Shigeo’s friends become a bigger part of his life. He starts leaving the house not only for Reigen Arataka but for his friends, not just for the club activities, either, but for karaoke, to go out for ramen, and just to hang out.

More psychic incidents happen. The Kageyama parents can’t help with that, but they can make dinner. They can tease Shige and Ritsu about their powers. They can watch, knowing something is wrong but not pressing Shigeo on it, when he comes home from a job one day with something deep and thoughtful in his eyes. Shigeo starts drinking water instead of milk for a few days. He flinches at the sound of crows and shies away when people move too fast. Mrs. Kageyama is torn in half with the desire to ask him about it, but she doesn’t. Shigeo deals with it on his own.

Shigeo temporarily quits working with Reigen Arataka, and the Kageyamas provide a no-questions-asked, relaxed atmosphere for Shigeo to come home to. It seems to help. They see Shigeo playing video games with Ritsu and they know that Shigeo and Ritsu are going to be fine. They’re taking care of each other, better than their parents can, in some ways. Kids are resilient. Their kids are resilient. They’re so proud of them. They don’t tell them how much they know.

They cheer for Shigeo at the school marathon with all their hearts, even though the sight of him with a skinned knee gives Mrs. Kageyama a jolt of pure terror. Well, he seems to have it under control now. He doesn’t even see them as he keeps running. He’s so big.

When Ritsu opens the door to a red-headed and clearly psychic “friend of his” they’ve never heard of before and looks at them with terror in his eyes, they pretend to believe him when he asks them to leave for a spur-of-the-moment onsen trip.

Maybe it’s selfish. Mrs. Kageyama asks her husband that as they eat dinner that night, pleasantly boiled-feeling from the hot water. “Do you think it’s selfish, leaving them to deal with their psychic problems on their own?”

“Oh, they’ll be okay,” Mr. Kageyama says. “We couldn’t do anything to help them anyway. I mean, look at that!”

He points at the television, where the news is going over the psychic terrorist attack in Seasoning City yet again, with not much more information than last time. There’s live footage of police cars floating in the air.

“After all—”

The TV frizzles and fills with static. Mr. Kageyama laughs a short, helpless little laugh.

“I get it,” Mrs. Kageyama sighs. “I just worry about those boys.”

The honest side of herself writhes in pain at the understatement, but she keeps it down.

“It’s all right as long as they’re together. Shigeo will have it handled,” Mr. Kageyama says. “He’d never let Ritsu get hurt.”

There’s a moment of uncomfortable silence. In each other’s eyes, Mr. and Mrs. Kageyama see Ritsu bleeding and Shigeo with blood spattered on his face.

“That’s true,” Mrs. Kageyama says, hoping it’s true. “They’re very capable kids now.”

When Mr. and Mrs. Kageyama return home, their house has been replaced with an almost identical house. They burst into muffled laughter together in their room, covering their mouths. The pattern of the floorboards in the hall is different. How—how?

They don’t tell Shigeo and Ritsu how much they know.

Everyone has different sides to them. The Kageyama parents are at peace with this. They are at peace with the fact that they are background characters in their sons’ lives. The four Kageyamas show each other a gentle, relaxed side of themselves. It’s a sorely needed safe haven for all of them.

They could keep this up forever. Mrs. and Mr. Kageyama giggle with each other sometimes at night about how Ritsu probably won’t know they knew he was having delusions of grandeur until they’re old and gray, and maybe not even then.

Everything is alright. Still, Mrs. Kageyama sometimes misses Shigeo as a carefree little boy. Still, her shadow self yearns to connect with his.

There’s a specific kind of loneliness she thinks she shares with her older son, something not quite shared by Ritsu or her husband, although they have their own versions. She sees Ritsu use his powers to open drawers and float his school bag over, and she sees Shigeo walk across the room to get his bag, and she thinks: Shige is still stuck in his head. But she doesn’t say anything.

It’s not because of the parenting advice anymore, and it’s not because she’s worried about stunting his personal development. Shigeo is a strong person. He’s been a strong person for a long time. It’s because it’s a habit, and every time Mrs. Kageyama thinks of cornering Shigeo and just… asking him, Shige, can we talk about your powers?, she remembers that she doesn’t have powers, and how can she dare to try to connect with that side of him now, when she hasn’t really tried to do that for Shigeo’s entire life?

It’s guilt. It’s shame. It’s a habit. It’s more comfortable to stagnate.

Kids work things out on their own, right?

Besides, Shigeo isn’t repressing his emotions so much anymore, just his powers. For instance, she heard him calling Mrs. Takane, the mother of one of Mob’s childhood friends. He’s going to talk to his childhood friend again! Mrs. Kageyama is curious what he might talk to Tsubomi-chan about. Is it possible that he might finally be processing the minor bullying that used to bother him so much? But that’s probably just overthinking on her part. Shigeo doesn’t talk about it around his parents, but she’s pretty sure he used to have a crush on Tsubomi-chan, and he might still have a crush on her. Adorable. He’s growing up so fast.

When the earthquakes hit, they hit her right in the guilty conscience.

It’s Shigeo. She knows it’s him. She never really had motherly instincts, but this isn’t a motherly instinct. This is her shadow self recognizing his shadow self, which is so much like hers. The boy with white eyes, screaming. She understands what he’s doing. He’s letting out all of the destructive guilt and shame and fear and rage at himself and everything else that Mrs. Kageyama has been seeing behind his eyes for years and years.

It’s Shigeo’s shadow self, and maybe if Mrs. Kageyama had managed to be brave for once in her life and talk to him about powers, secrets, and emotions, this wouldn’t be happening.

She stares at her phone, where a grainy photo of her oldest son blurs in her vision, and she feels the sob rise in her throat and the tear drip onto the phone, obscuring the bouquet in his hand, as if someone else was doing it.

She doesn’t go out to look for him. She doesn’t have powers. She’d get killed.

It’s Reigen Arataka who brings her son home—Reigen Arataka, who she’s only met once or twice before. He’s uncharacteristically disheveled and red-eyed with crying, and his head is bleeding. Shige did that to him—it’s obvious. Shige has clearly also been crying. He looks up at his mother and father, sniffs bravely, and starts crying again.

Mrs. Kageyama kneels and hugs Shige tight. Mr. Kageyama’s arms close around her and Shigeo, encircling them, and she starts crying again.

The government gets involved, in the form of a bored-looking bald man with a strange cigarette who shows up in a helicopter. He jumps down to ground level, interrupting the crying Kageyama family and the awkwardly standing by Reigen Arataka, and says to Shigeo, “Long time no see.”

Mrs. Kageyama does not like the implication that Shigeo has met this man before.

Shigeo pushes his parents’ arms away, gently but firmly, and steps up to meet the man. He says, “I’m sorry. I’d like to help.”

“Sure, sure,” the government man says dismissively. “Might take a while to rebuild the city, but I can pretty much guarantee no one’s going to mess with you. No one died, so…” he gestures lazily with his cigarette. “This kind of thing happens every once in a while with kid espers. Just thought you might like to know.”

The government man doesn’t spare even a glance for Shigeo’s parents. They don’t ask him anything. It’s like introducing themselves might shatter the illusion of good news and make the man shout, “Gotcha! Your son is going to esper jail right now!”

The government man returns to the helicopter and lifts off. And then it’s just Shigeo, standing awkwardly on the street and not quite making eye contact with his parents, and the voice of Reigen Arataka on the phone summoning other psychics, and a man with an umbrella, “Mob”’s coworker, apparently, arriving and nervously spiriting Shigeo away to meet up with some other psychics, including the one who apparently recreated the Kageyama’s house that one time.

So they don’t address the incident immediately. Shigeo comes home that night so exhausted that he falls asleep at the table. Ritsu looks more awake, but also so dreamily happy that his parents just… don’t ask him any questions. They don’t want to disturb that happiness.

The next day, they don’t address it again. Shigeo is a heavy sleeper. He wakes up slowly, brushes his teeth, and sets off for school, which didn’t get destroyed during his shadow self’s meltdown, probably for the same reason that their house went practically untouched, though shaken, among the earthquakes. Shige doesn’t come home until very late again, and when Mrs. Kageyama gives him a bento box to eat before bed, he just says thank you. To her tentative question—were you helping with the city today, Shige?—he gives an exhausted, affirming “mm.”

He’s tired. She lets him wobble off to bed.

It doesn’t actually take very long for the city to be healed. Shige stops being tired all the time right away after his bedtime gets back to normal. He’s livelier than Mrs. Kageyama has seen him in years—smiling, joking with Ritsu, arguing with him sometimes, sulking when he feels like it. He laughs again.

He’s so different. But he’s still Shigeo. And he still has something behind his eyes. At dinner, when their eyes meet, Mrs. Kageyama’s shadow self reaches out to her son’s shadow self, still.

Which is a strange sensation, because Shigeo isn’t repressing his emotions anymore, or his powers, either. But there’s still something there, something or someone existing in reserve behind his eyes. She second-guesses herself about it at first, particularly when Mob laughs or scowls or displays his powers and emotions like he’s never thought twice about it. He seems so… whole. It’s not a child made of shadows anymore. But in other moments—when he’s watching Ritsu or when he doesn’t have much to say, when he hesitates, when he has a forgetful spell—Mrs. Kageyama is sure she sees it. Another presence within her son.

Call it motherly instincts or call it Mrs. Kageyama’s shadow self resonating with her son’s shadow self—either way, she knows. Shigeo Kageyama is still hiding another side within himself, even though that other side is happier now.

So one day, a few months after the incident, once she’s sure Shigeo is really stable like this… Mrs. Kageyama catches Shigeo before school and asks him to come home and have a talk with her after school.

He looks surprised, then nervous, then pleased.

“Yes, mom,” he says. And that’s that.

Talking to a teenager is easier than they said! That’s Mrs. Kageyama’s first, indignant thought. And then right on the heels of that thought comes what am I getting myself into?!

After school, Shigeo comes right home. Mr. Kageyama will stay at work for a while, and Ritsu has student council today; it’s the perfect time. Mrs. Kageyama sits down with her son and finds herself at a loss, not knowing exactly what to say.

Shigeo waits, watching her seriously.

“Shige,” she says, and feels her shadow self rise up in her, telling her to just break down and cry. Her voice wobbles as she tries again. “Shige, I want to tell you something. I think you’re old enough…”

Mortified alarm flashes across Shigeo’s face. Oh no! She waves her hands, trying to erase what he’s thinking.

“About your psychic powers,” she says hastily.

He looks relieved for a split second, and then his eyes widen. His hair rises up off his forehead, and she hears a slosh as something happens to the water in the sink. He’s scared? Of all things, she had not expected Shigeo to be frightened of talking about his powers. She expected him to be irritated and dismissive, like the parenting advice says that teenagers always are. The parenting advice was wrong. Again.

Suddenly reaching her limit, Mrs. Kageyama throws out all the parenting advice she’s ever heard and just… tells the truth.

“Or, ah, not about psychic powers exactly. About… Shige, I think something runs in our family, and it’s not powers, but I think you and I share it.”

Shige’s eyes grow impossibly wider. He waits like his mother is about to reveal the secrets of the universe, and in a way, she supposes, she is.

“Tell me if I’m wrong,” she says carefully. “But you have more than one “self”, don’t you?”

He opens his mouth, and nothing comes out.

Nothing at all.

Mrs. Kageyama says, “You split yourself in half, back then… I saw it happen. I’m sorry, but I didn’t know how to help, because I… I didn’t know what to do about my shadow self, either.”

“Your shadow self, mom?”

His voice is quiet, so quiet. Mrs. Kageyama nods, feeling her shadow self sob and writhe in her head. It’s an unsightly thing. It’s so possessive, so emotional. She can’t let it do whatever it wants. That would hurt her children, and she loves her children, so, so much. She would never hurt them.

“I kept it quiet because I thought…” she takes a sharp breath. “It’s too much, and I wanted to keep you and Ritsu… comfortable. Parents can’t ask their children to carry their worries.”

“What do you mean?” Shigeo asks. He sounds so young, and so hurt.

“I never asked you what it was like to have powers,” she blurts out, and the wave of guilt that follows is tremendous, but so is the relief. “I’m so sorry. I let you deal with everything on your own. I didn’t realize…”

Shigeo’s lips are trembling. He says, “Mom, you have a shadow self too?”

“You’re just like me,” she says, and how, how did she never know that honesty could feel so right? “I knew you were just like me, and I didn’t tell you. I thought you could deal with it on your own. I’m so sorry, Shige.”

“Mom,” he says, and starts crying.

To hell with parenting advice. To hell with keeping her shadow self from shattering the relaxed facade of the Kageyama household. Shigeo deserves better.

Mrs. Kageyama stumbles out of her kneeling posture and grabs her son and holds him close.

“Shige,” she says into his hair. “Shige. Shige.”

“I thought it was just me,” Shigeo gasps. “I thought it was just me in the dark.”

And, with a start, she realizes why his shadow self is different now. They switched places, didn’t they? The Shigeo she’s talking to right now is the one her shadow self used to stare at longingly across the dinner table.

“So you’re that one,” she says, with all the shaky, weepy tenderness she's been repressing for years. “Hello. I’m so pleased to finally meet you again.”

Shige sobs. Everything in the room is floating. She could cry. She does.

Then Shigeo pushes himself out of the hug and looks at his mother, trembling but clearly happy and calm in a way she’s rarely ever seen him, even when he was young.

“You're wrong,” he says. “I am myself. I accepted both parts.”

“So you’re—” Mrs. Kageyama stops, thinking that over. Does it not matter anymore, to Shigeo? Which “self” is which?

Could it not matter to her, either, someday?

Tentatively, she lets more of herself out.

“I’m so sorry, Shige. I listened to the wrong advice. I should be the one helping you figure this out, not the other way around.”

Shigeo looks her in the eye. He says, “Adults can change too. It’s not too late.”

She looks back, and in his eyes she sees both of him, and she knows that now he sees both of her too. And she is not afraid to show him.

Not anymore.