You are sixteen, and she is twenty-one, when Kasumi mentions how she never seems to have to adjust your girls' clothes. She is letting down the hems of your trousers for the third time that year, putting new cuffs on your shirts to lengthen the sleeves. She asks you to change and blinks at you thoughtfully, needle still held poised, forgotten. Later, you think the moment as she opened her mouth to speak was like the moment you fell towards the spring, your future rushing up at you. You don't remember either.You are sixteen, and she is twenty-three, when you watch Shampoo join the line at the gate to board her plane. She had stayed for the wedding; you think of the set of dishes she gave you, a joke from when you were both in university and she brought you ramen before all your exams and you never gave the bowls back and they'd pile up in the corner like culinary pagodas. It's raining, and you wonder if it's raining in China, and you realize you're going to miss her.
You are sixteen, and she is thirty, the first time Akane is mistaken for your mother. She's mellowed, over the years, and so though her face darkens and her eyes snap dangerously she only says "If I was fourteen" and takes your arm and sweeps you away, leaving the unctuous sales clerk blinking in confusion.
You are sixteen, and your daughter is four, when she figures out that pouring water on daddy makes him turn into her favorite playmate. She is twelve when she screams that she hates you, that the boys were all staring at you and that she wishes you had just drowned so she never would have been born to a freak like you. Later, she finds you in the dojo smashing your way through a pile of cinder blocks. She must have been watching for a while as you kept on doggedly, trying to vent your grief and frustration through your heavy man's body, because she holds the bucket of water out to you apologetically. "I talked to Mom," she says tearfully, "You don't have to... I know you can train me better if you're, you know, her," and offers you the bucket. It's true, your man self is slowing down, you can't leap and bend like you used to, like you need to show her, but then you think of a fish sausage and push the bucket aside gently. You pull her against you and tuck her head under your chin like you did when she was six and scared of Auntie Ucchan's big spatula. "It's okay," you tell her, "I think I'll stay like this for awhile," and of course that's the world's cue to send little Soun junior catapulting into both of you, drenching you with the bucket after all. She just laughs and threatens to use you for makeover practice.
You are sixteen, and he is fifty-eight, when Kuno has a stroke one day, dropping his bokken mid-swing from a suddenly nerveless hand. You visit him in hospital; he's confused, and isn't sure who Akane is, but when you sit down beside him his eyes light up. "The pig-tailed girl," he rasps, and reaches out a trembling hand to stroke your cheek. He asks if you're here to go on a date, and Akane nods at you across the bed, and so you sit and hold his hand and talk about kendo defenses until the nurses tell you it's time to go. "Such a good granddaughter," one clucks, and you don't even mention that you have a granddaughter of your own now.
You are sixteen, and she is eighty, as the rain showers down over you. "So much for a nice walk on a sunny morning", Akane says, rolling her eyes as the thunder rattles. "Should have left me at home," you say, and she rolls her eyes and winds up her arm like she's going to hit you. The rain plasters her shirt to her breasts, swaying loosely as she kicks her foot in a puddle to splash you further. You laugh and put your arms around her, your own breasts bobbing up against hers, wrinkled cheek against smooth, and she kisses you, and you're sixteen forever.
::End::
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