1 Chapter 01 - Virtuous Hope

All things considered, it was probably the sheer nonchalance with which I'd said it that caused the most shock.

"You what?" she breathed softly as the scattered remains of the plate lay at her feet. Honestly? I felt a rush of pleasure looking at her horrified gaze as her hands remained still in the air, seemingly paralysed.

Quite casually – I could hear rushed footsteps from above, so the girls must've heard the crash and were coming to investigate – I drank some of my coffee and sighed in satisfaction at the bitter taste before placing it back down on the table.

"I don't think you misheard me, Mitsuko," I said calmly as I once again took up my newspaper and pretended to continue reading. "I want a divorce."

"Papa?!"

Ah, right on time. I glanced coldly to the side to see my three "daughters" standing there, jaws dropped and just as horrified as their mother. Truly, none of them even remotely looked like me. Had Mitsuko really believed I wouldn't have noticed?

"Girls," I greeted them politely. I held all the cards, after all – there was no sense being unnecessarily impolite.

For a moment, it seemed like all of the sound in the kitchen/living room had been sucked out as I kept up my charade of reading the newspaper while my soon-to-be-former-family processed what I had just said.

Finally, Mitsuko broke first. "A divorce?!" she yelled as she rushed out from the kitchen and came to a stop before me, her hands wrangling over her considerable chest.

Glancing coldly over the top of the newspaper, I had to admit that, despite over ten years of marriage, she still looked remarkably beautiful. It truly was a shame that the inside of her was rotten to the core.

"That's right," I confirmed curtly before looking back down at the articles. "I've already filled out the form on the table there. Just sign it and let's be done with this."

"But…but…"

"Papa, why?!" the youngest of her daughters ran up to me, though I barely gave her my attention beyond a simple, dismissive glance. She flinched at that. Good. It truly was a shame – I had hoped that perhaps Kurumi might be different, might truly be my darling daughter, but no. She, too, was rotten.

"I believe you all know why," I answered flatly as I turned the page.

"Stop ignoring us and look at us!" her second eldest, Sayaka, yelled at me, having marched up and pushing down the newspaper to presumably force me to look at them. I could see tears flowing from all of them – Kurumi and Mitsuko were silently weeping, while Sayaka's angry scowl was also undercut by the tears forming in her eyes. Only Shouko seemed to be keeping it together, though the tenseness in her body and the way she kept averting her gaze from the proceedings told a full tale on its own.

Sighing, I closed the newspaper and folded it slowly before setting it on the table, then clasped my hands on my lap.

"Fine," I said. "What is it?"

"Explain why you suddenly want to divorce mom!" Sayaka demanded as she pointed to my crying soon-to-be-ex-wife who was being consoled with a hug from Shouko. "She's done nothing—!"

"Wrong?" I asked coldly, stopping her in her tracks and causing her to flinch. I reached into my jacket pocket and brought out a device. "I'm surprised to hear you say that, Sayaka. After all…"

"Today is the day of the Souma family's monthly custom. Not just me. You can plunge your cock in whichever hole you like! My elder sister or my younger sister or even my mom's! You can fuck as much as you want, you know?"

Sayaka's recorded voice rang out crisply in the sudden silence of the room as all four women froze in their spots.

"You…"

"Knew?" I asked rhetorically as I stopped the recording device and placed it back in my jacket. "Of course I knew," I confirmed as I straightened my jacket. "Whatever you and your mother think, I'm not an idiot. I've been well aware of your actions here for some time now."

"But then…"

"Why didn't I intervene sooner?" I guessed again. Sayaka nodded. "At first, I obviously needed time to process the vicious betrayal this was." Flinches all around. Good. "But then I realized that I needed evidence to make my case in court if your mother refused to sign the divorce papers. And I've accumulated a lot of evidence."

"But…but…I love you!" Mitsuko protested amidst tears.

I snorted. "But not as much as you love sex with other men behind my back, correct?" I asked archly.

"That's not her fault!" Shouko defended her mother, finally getting in on the conversation. "You're never around! You're always travelling! Of course she'd get lonely!"

I made a show of pondering the question before shrugging. "Perhaps, but then she could've just said so and we would have made arrangements. Or we could've gotten divorced much sooner and spared ourselves all of this drama."

Slowly, I got up and stared down the four women who I now saw as a blight on my life. "Instead, your mother chose to betray the vows she made to me, even though I never strayed. She chose to bring strangers into this home that I paid for and defiled it." I looked over to Mitsuko, who had visibly shrunk. "You are rotten, Mitsuko, and I regret ever laying eyes on you. Sign the form and let's be done with this charade."

"Dad, no!" Kurumi pleaded as she tugged at my arm. I turned my gaze on her and very deliberately pulled her hand away, causing squawks of indignation from her sisters and a look of complete betrayal from her. Too little, too late.

"Don't call me that," I said firmly. "I am no father of yours. Of any of you. Isn't that right, Mitsuko?"

A loud sob answered me, though the girls didn't seem too shocked by the revelation of their dubious paternity.

"Once you have signed the form, Mitsuko, you and your daughters are to evacuate the premises," I told her, prompting gasps all around. "As they are not my daughters, I no longer feel obliged to shelter or provide for them."

"Leave the house?!" Sayaka shrieked.

"You're kicking us out?" asked Shouko.

"Papa, please, no!" Kurumi begged.

"Honey!"

The sheer wailing honestly got on my nerves. "Enough!" I barked, causing them to stiffen. They had obviously never seen this side of me, nor had I ever wanted to show my anger to another person. Particularly towards people I had once considered my loved ones. "You have quite literally made your bed, so now sleep in it. Maybe hit up one of your lovers, since you seem to have so many," I sneered at them. "Though I doubt they will want to maintain someone who can't make a dime for very long, especially as I intend to sue all your lovers, Mitsuko."

"Dad!" Sayaka gasped.

"I am not your father!" I barked at her. "You all had a chance to come clean and tell me what was going on. All of you!" I snapped at the three girls, who flinched back at the verbal attack. I paused and took a deep breath before staring down Sayaka. "You are no daughter of mine, and effective this morning, payments to your university, and your high school," I added, looking at Kurumi, "have been cancelled! Find some other dupe to pay for your education."

That would be nigh on impossible, of course. Sayaka had been accepted into a top university whose fees were more than a little substantial. Kurumi, too, had enjoyed the privilege of attending a fancy private school. And without this house, Shouko was now effectively homeless as well, as her own husband had found out about her cheating and divorced her already. Smart man.

But perhaps the worst affected was Mitsuko. Having spent most of her adult life as a housewife, having shown absolutely zero interest in further education or a professional career, she was well and truly done for, professionally speaking. I supposed she could become a porn actress or a prostitute, but that would honestly just confirm everything I was intending to allege about her.

Almost predictably, Mitsuko fell to her knees in front of me. "Please! Please, dear, don't do this!" she begged. "I…I can change! I won't sleep with anyone else!"

I sniffed dismissively. "I doubt that," I answered flatly. "I waited for months for you to change," I told her. "Even after I found out the first time, I held out hope that maybe it was a one-off. A blip."

I lowered myself to her level and hoped my scowl showed her the depths of my hatred. "It wasn't. You are a rotten slut, Mitsuko. Incapable of even the basic decency expected of a human being," I told her scathingly. "My biggest regret in life was ever trusting you. Ever marrying you. Ever touching you."

I stood back up and straightened my clothes as Mitsuko wept before me, her daughters standing there, powerless at the events unfolding before them. "Sign the damn paper, Mitsuko. Then take your daughters get out of my house and my life."

I gave the room's occupants one last look before straightening my tie. "Now, then. I'm off to work. When I get back, I expect to see the form signed and none of you here."

Without letting them get a word in, I grabbed my suitcase and delivered on my words exactly by marching right towards the door, only pausing as I remembered something.

"Oh, and Mitsuko?" I called back at her. Turning to see her slowly lift her tear-streaked face, I smiled cruelly. "I would call your little cheating wives' club to check up on them. They're also about to have a really bad day and I imagine they'll want some support. I mean, whatever little you can offer them at this point."

With that final barb, I left the house as a wail went up behind me, filling me with satisfaction.

"So, how did it go?" I asked as I took my seat on the other side of the booth. My companions smiled bitterly but raised their glasses in response.

"Just as you said," the first one answered. "She begged me to give her a chance, but she signed eventually. I think she's going to try and shack up with her delivery boy lover."

I chuckled. "Can't wait to see how long that lasts," I remarked dryly. "I give it a day."

"Make it a week!" another of our companions chimed in.

He smiled cruelly. "You all lose. The answer's zero," he corrected. "Once he heard about the significant lawsuit I was bringing against him, he split town and got arrested. She'll find out when the police answer his phone."

I barked a laugh and clinked glasses with him. "Masterful!" I praised before turning to the man next to him. "What about you?" I asked. "How'd it go?"

"I told her I knew about the baby," he answered. "And her jogging trips. She folded like a house of cards. Insisted the baby was mine. That there was no affair. Then, when she realized I wasn't buying it, she threatened to call her lover and beat me up if I didn't give her a chance."

"And?"

He chuckled. "Told her I didn't care. I'd already had the fucker fired from his job and when he tried to confront me about it, I had him picked up by police for physical assault," he explained, pointing to a fading bruise on his cheek. "Pretty sure she's going back to her folks now, though I don't know how that reunion'll go, since I told them what she did."

As we all shared a laugh, we clinked glasses and drank to our success as one by one, each of the members of the "Anti-NTR" club, as we'd come to call ourselves, celebrated getting rid of such rotten figures in our lives. In all honesty, though, all of those drinks were mostly there to numb the pain as well. However much we were glad to be rid of our cheating wives, the fact was that most of us had truly, deeply loved our spouses for all these years. So, sure, we had planned this all together for months now. We had made our preparations jointly. We had executed the plan successfully.

But it still hurt.

Even as I finally returned home and found the house lights turned off, I couldn't help but just stand there in front of it, looking at its white façade and feeling the melancholy of wasted years. I had loved Mitsuko. I had loved Shouko, Sayaka, and Kurumi as I held them in my arms for the first time and taught them (unsuccessfully, as it happens) how to be good girls and showered them with love and presents. I had well and truly thought we were a happy family.

How wrong I had been.

"Dad?"

I didn't move from my spot, even as I recognized Kurumi's voice coming from my left.

"I'm not your father, Kurumi," I corrected her sternly. "You all made that very clear."

"Sorry," she said softly as she came up to my side and presumably stared up at me. I could practically feel her gaze.

"Did you all move out as I said?" I asked.

I heard her shift and glanced down, seeing her stare at the home we'd shared for years. "Yeah," she confirmed softly. "Mom signed the form a few hours after you left. We packed up what we could and left maybe like two hours later."

Good. My heart stung, though. "…did you find a place to stay?" I asked, trying to keep my voice as flat as I could.

"What do you care?"

The recriminating tone in her voice was expected, but still stung – even though I knew it was somewhat merited, given everything that had happened today.

"Just curious."

There was a pregnant pause before she sighed. "Yeah," she confirmed. "A classmate let me stay over."

I glanced down at her. She was still so tiny compared to me. I had to resist the urge to pat her on the head. "A male classmate?"

Kurumi snorted. "I get why you ask, but no," she replied. "I'm done with all that."

"Done?" I asked, curious.

"Mom, Sayaka, Shouko…they always pretended we were…just staying true to our nature," Kurumi said softly. "That it was in our genes."

"That's not how genes work."

"Obviously," Kurumi conceded. "We just lacked self-control. But it was a convenient excuse."

"So, what changed?"

As Kurumi didn't answer immediately, I glanced down to see her staring at me incredulously. "Today did, obviously," she told me flatly. "The others just kept making excuses. They thought you'd get over it and call them back once you cooled down." She then dug into her coat and showed me a bunch of folded papers. "These are mom's, Sayaka's, and Shouko's numbers, by the way. Well, the numbers of where they're staying for now."

"They gave them to you?" I asked. "Did they expect you to run into me?"

"Nope," Kurumi answered lightly as she put them back in her coat. "They were actually meant to be on the kitchen table with the divorce form. I swiped them when they weren't looking."

Intriguing. "Why's that?"

"'Cause we deserve this," Kurumi concluded. "We did betray you, da—Souma-san," she corrected herself as I tensed. "We could've put a stop to all of this long ago. We all chose not to. So we deserve your anger and the consequences of our actions."

"That's very mature of you, Kurumi," I observed calmly.

"Thanks," she replied dryly before we fell into companionable silence in the darkness of night, still staring at our old home. "You know, I did try."

"Try what?"

"Not to be like them," she clarified. "I really did. I knew they were wrong, but even though I was too much of a coward to tell you what was going on, I didn't want to be like them."

"How long did you last?"

She chuckled bitterly. "Not as long as I would've liked," she admitted. "With mom and the others just having sex all the time all over the place, it messed with my mind and my self-control."

"You can still change," I pointed out. "Become a more normal girl."

"I could," Kurumi agreed. "But I might not get that chance. Since I'm probably going to get kicked out of school soon, I'm probably going to end up being more fucked up."

I glanced down at her. "Is that an attempt to emotionally blackmail me to continue paying for school?"

She smirked at me. "Did it work?"

"No."

"Then, no, just the facts," she said calmly – far more calmly than should've been normal for a girl her age going through her current situation. We again descended into companionable silence for a moment before she broke it again. "Mom did love you, you know."

I sighed. "She only thought she did," I corrected her.

Kurumi shook her head. "In her own twisted way, she loved you," she insisted. "We all did. You were our dad. You raised us."

"No one who truly loves someone would do to them what you all did to me," I pointed out.

"True," Kurumi conceded. "But Mom just didn't see it that way, and she taught us to think like her. I might be wrong, but Mom saw love and sex as two different things. She thought she could love you and still indulge in her desires."

"That's not how love works."

"Obviously," Kurumi agreed. "But it's how her mind works. She never gave it a second thought that having someone else's children was a sign of not loving you because she figured a child's a child, right?" she asked with a bitter smile. "So you might not have shared our DNA, but you did raise us. As far as she was concerned, that made us as good as yours and she'd given you daughters to love. The ultimate act of love."

"That's a messed-up view, Kurumi."

"I'm not saying it isn't, just that it might be the way she sees things," she said.

"Jesus…" I sighed. What a messed-up woman I'd gotten entangled with. Then something popped up in my head. "I never asked, but why are you here? Did you forget something?"

Kurumi shook her head. "I just wanted to see the house one last time, so I snuck out of my friend's house," she corrected. "All of my best childhood memories are here."

"And the sex ones."

"Well, some of them," she conceded. "But I just wanted to relive my childhood memories, to be honest. Like I said, I'm kinda over the whole uncontrolled sex drive thing. Getting kicked out of the house kinda sobers you up."

There was a pause before she spoke up again. "Are you…crying?"

Indeed, I was. I could feel the wetness running down my cheeks. I couldn't help it. All this time, I'd practically been running on anger and hatred and bitterness. But now that I was back here, back home, and there was no one waiting inside, no life, no joy, nothing but misery and hateful memories…it was just painful beyond belief. More so when one of the girls I'd raised as my own was standing there next to me, reminding me of all I'd lost.

"I am," I admitted between sniffs as I wiped away the tears. "It's alright to cry when you're sad, you know."

Kurumi smiled at me. "I remember you telling me that when I was little," she reminisced. "So you're sad after all?"

"Of course," I told her. "You were my precious daughter, Kurumi. You, Sayaka, and Shouko. Mitsuko was supposed to be the love of my life! All I'd ever wanted was for you four to be happy. And now, that's gone."

"Yeah, I guess so," she agreed before digging into her coat and pulling out a single piece of folded paper. "Here."

"Your mom's number?"

"Mine," she corrected. "I know you don't know any of my friends' numbers, so I figured I'd make it easier for you," she explained. "I know you're not my dad anymore and that I don't deserve forgiveness for what I did, but if you ever want to talk with someone who really does respect you, or you just want to vent, I'll be there."

I stared at the piece of paper in her long, slender fingers for a moment before slowly reaching for it and grabbing it. "I'll keep that in mind."

Another pause descended upon us, but this one, I think we both knew would be the final one.

"Can I ask for one last favour?" she asked.

"You can ask."

"Can I call you dad one last time?" she requested softly.

My instincts screamed at me to say no, to just cut off the relationship here and now. But perhaps it was my human weakness, or just a desperate desire to hear it myself again – a bittersweet reminder of better days – so I nodded.

"Sure."

"Thanks," she replied with a sad smile as she bodily turned to face me. I decided to emulate her, causing us to stare each other down. After a moment, she bowed deeply.

"I'm sorry for what we did to you, dad," she said sincerely. "I'm really, really sorry."

I stared at her for what seemed like an eternity. And then my hand slowly, hesitantly, rose up and settled on the back of her bowed head. She stiffened at the touch.

"I forgive you," I said softly. "Or, I will. Eventually. Maybe."

As she straightened up, I withdrew my hand. She shot me a sad smile. "Well, that's something, I guess. Thanks for everything, Souma-san."

I smiled back at her. "Good luck, Kurumi."

With that, Kurumi gave me a little wave before turning away and walking into the darkness of the night, leaving me alone before our empty, dark house. Sighing, I decided not to stay after all and chose to head off to a hotel for the night. Fewer ghosts there.

Not all stories have a happy ending, and if you were expecting this one to end with me forgiving Mitsuko and reuniting my family, you'd be mistaken.

True to my word, Kurumi and Sayaka had to drop out of their respective schools as each one's financial departments were made aware that I would no longer be paying for their tuition. While Kurumi was able to get her friend's family to let her stay for a little while longer while she made arrangements to move in with her maternal grandparents, Sayaka apparently had a much rougher time. Her dorm was naturally rescinded from her upon being kicked out of university, and as I'd predicted, her lovers weren't keen on keeping a girl around who was little more than a living, breathing expense who just so happened to be good at sex. The way Kurumi explained it the next time I saw her, Sayaka had basically been forced to bounce around apartments until she'd landed a job at a grocery store and was now living in a dingy, tiny apartment.

Yeah, I stayed in contact with Kurumi. Even though she wasn't my kid, she'd shown a whole lot more integrity than her sisters and mother by actually apologizing to me personally. It took a while, and she'd moved back to her grandmother's by the time I'd mustered the courage to ring her up, but we agreed to keep in touch.

Shouko, Kurumi informed me, wasn't doing so hot either. She'd first managed to land a living arrangement with one of her coworkers – a regular lover of hers – but that hadn't lasted very long as the young man, irritated with her promiscuous behavior, basically spilled the beans about her situation at work, making her continued employment there untenable once management found out. For the sake of the company's image, she was let go and her coworker kicked her out of the apartment. Eventually, it seemed that Shouko had turned to Sayaka for help and the sisters were now living together and barely scraping by.

Mitsuko, on the other hand, seemed to have had quite the rollercoaster ride since our divorce. True to my word, I sued every single lover I had documented her having over the years and, once they realized the law would fall pretty certainly on my side, they refused to even entertain the idea of letting her stay with them – just as I'd predicted. Kurumi wasn't super enthused about this, naturally, and eventually asked me to stop after she found out Mitsuko had actually attempted to kill herself in despair.

I did, incidentally. I may have hated Mitsuko, but I never wanted to drive her to suicide. Knowing neither she nor her parents could afford the medical bills resulting from Mitsuko's near-miss, I anonymously paid their hospital bill as atonement for perhaps taking my revenge too far. Somehow, however, Kurumi figured it out and thanked me for helping even though I denied it. After being released from the hospital, Mitsuko was brought back to her parents' house.

I did see the four of them again – at Kurumi's graduation from highschool, to which I was invited. I'd tortured myself endlessly over whether to go or not, but eventually decided to accept the invitation at the urging of the new light of my life, Aiko. While we were not technically married, Aiko had managed to help me work through many of my issues and, together, we had had our first child – a daughter, ironically, whom we thematically named Hikari.

A daughter I was proud to present to Kurumi as she cooed at her. "She's so cute!" Kurumi squealed.

"She is," I agreed as I held my trueborn daughter in my arms as Aiko stood by, smiling serenely. Off to the side, I could see Mitsuko and her two eldest daughters watching with mixed expressions, but chose to ignore them. Unlike Kurumi, they had never expressed regret at what they'd done. I looked over at Aiko for a moment and, seemingly reading my mind, she nodded with a happy smile.

I turned to Kurumi. "Do you want to hold her?" I offered. Kurumi stared at me in shock. Just a few years ago, such an offer would've been unimaginable considering the circumstances.

"I…Is that really okay?" she asked hesitantly.

"It is," Aiko replied with a smile.

As tears formed in her eyes, Kurumi nodded and held out her arms, allowing me to transfer Hikari to her. Gingerly, Kurumi held my bundled daughter and looked down at her with a tender smile. "She has your mouth," she told me.

"Pity, that," I joked as Aiko swatted my shoulder. "Fortunately, the rest of her is all her mother."

As a look crossed Kurumi's face, I glanced at Aiko, who nodded and smiled and then softly excused herself, leaving me alone with Kurumi and Hikari.

"You probably held me like this once," she said softly as she rocked Hikari gently.

"I did," I confirmed. "It was one of the happiest days of my life."

She choked back a sob. "I'm…I'm so sorry," she choked out.

I gave her a slight smile. "For what?"

She sniffed back some snot. "For what we did to you," she said. "I…I really wish none of that had ever happened. That I didn't have to invite you here like an acquaintance…." she confessed. "I…I wish you were still my dad."

I was touched, honestly. Even after all this time, even after she had been forced to change her living and schooling circumstances…Kurumi still managed to tug at my heartstrings. And the worst (or was it best?) part was that I could tell she was being sincere. She meant those words.

And, if I had to be completely honest, some part of me – the part that remembered our conversation in front of our old family home in the dark – wanted to grant her that wish. But doing so would open old wounds. It would be a painful reminder of—

"He is."

A spike of rage rose up in me almost instinctually as I turned to face Mitsuko, her once-beautiful visage now lined with age and haggard and a reflection of the misery she had endured these past years. Good, a vicious part of me thought. Good!

"Mom!" Kurumi exclaimed. "What are you—"

"I needed to clear something up," Mitsuko interrupted her before staring at me. "I hope you'll listen."

"Why should I?" I demanded hotly. From the corner of my eye, I could see Aiko walking as fast as she could towards us without making a scene.

Mitsuko closed her eyes and sighed. "I cannot fix the past," she said. "But I can correct a mistake."

"What mistake is that? Can you somehow un-fuck all those men you brought into our home?" I demanded.

To Mitsuko's credit, she took that stoically, and then shook her head. "No. As I said, I can't fix the past," she repeated herself before looking at Kurumi. "But I can correct a mistake."

"Mom?"

She looked back at me as Aiko reached us. "Kurumi is your daughter."

I don't exactly know what happened next, only that I was suddenly in Aiko's arms as she either was struggling to keep me on my feet or restraining me. Considering how weak my legs felt, it was probably the former.

"What?" I breathed as I recovered my senses. "But…you said…"

Mitsuko sighed. "I know," she agreed. "But after…everything happened, I heard Kurumi and you talking one day over the phone and…I began having my doubts."

She reached into her purse and drew out an envelope before offering it to me. "So, just in case, I played a hunch and had you two DNA tested," she explained. "It wasn't hard. A strand of your hair ended up on Kurumi's sweater during one of your lunches. I had that and a strand of Kurumi's hair tested and those are the results."

Possessed by some kind of mania, I snatched the letter from Mitsuko's hand and tore it open, some part of me desperate to find out the truth. I scanned the contents – a lot of scientific gobbledygook – before coming across the report's conclusion. A match.

"She's…my daughter."

Mitsuko looked at Kurumi and smiled. "Happy graduation, Kurumi."

As both Kurumi and I stood there, stunned, Aiko managed to take Hikari from the quasi-catatonic Kurumi. After a moment passed, I stared up from the report to Kurumi.

"You're…my daughter."

That seemed to snap her out of her shock, as Kurumi's face morphed into a hundred different expressions before settling on unadulterated joy and she rushed to hug me. "You're my dad!" she cried out happily. "You really are my dad!"

Still shocked, I didn't immediately return the hug, but after glancing at a nodding, smiling Aiko, I slowly returned it while looking over at Mitsuko. "This…isn't a trick, is it?"

She shook her head. "I lied to you for years," she accepted. "But I've never lied to my daughters. We must've conceived her during the brief time you were back home between business trips."

Even with that assurance, I was still torn. Part of me was desperate to believe her – to believe that not all of those years had been a waste; that the girl in my arms, hugging the life out of me, really was my biological daughter as much as Hikari was. But another part of me was screaming at me to be careful – that Mitsuko could be lying to somehow insert herself back into my life and ruin everything again.

"How long have you known?" I asked her.

Mitsuko shrugged. "A few months," she answered. "Like I said, it was a hunch."

"You should've told me immediately!" I told her. "I would've…could've…!"

"And that's why I didn't say anything," Mitsuko stated simply. "If you knew that Kurumi was your biological daughter, you would've rushed back in headfirst. Pulled her out of school and brought her home."

"Of course!"

"But that would've been what you wanted, not what was best for her," Mitsuko pointed out. "Look at her now. She's graduating top of her class despite the terrible grades she used to have. She's matured as a person. She's become a wonderful young woman – much better than me or her sisters, certainly. I couldn't jeopardise that."

I looked down at my daughter as she hugged me tightly – I could feel parts of my shirt becoming wet from her tears. Surprisingly, I found myself agreeing with Mitsuko. I may have lost all those years with Kurumi, but the positive effect it had had on her was beyond question. I glanced over at Aiko, who nodded back with a smile as she held Hikari. Slowly, I turned my attention back to Kurumi and enveloped her in a tight hug.

"You're my daughter," I said softly, causing her to tighten her grip even further.

"Daddy," she whimpered into my shirt.

I can't say things were easy after that emotional reveal. Kurumi couldn't just move in with us immediately, after all, what with Aiko and Hikari living in the house with me. Moreover, Kurumi was technically a high-school graduate now and would be applying to university, though she insisted she would remain in the city to allow us to make up for lost time.

Nonetheless, in the months that followed, Kurumi and I worked to find her a place near the house so she could have her own, independent space while still being near enough to even just drop in for breakfast on her way to class. Aiko, thank the heavens for her, took in Kurumi as though she were her own daughter, and though Kurumi was wary of her for a while, Aiko's calm and welcoming demeanor ensured that my oldest daughter's insecurities and caution would melt away.

By the time Hikari had grown up enough to start saying coherent words, Kurumi was officially her "nee-chan," a role my eldest took seriously – far more seriously than her half-sisters had. I was glad for it, as this meant Kurumi was often all too happy to babysit, allowing Aiko and I a chance to keep our marriage happy and intimate.

I never did hear from Mitsuko or her daughters after Kurumi's graduation, other than whenever Kurumi let slip now and then, but over time, I decided to simply put that part of my life behind me and focus on the bright future ahead. I had a loving wife, two loving daughters, and a career that no longer forced me to abandon my family for prolonged periods of time.

For the first time in nearly a decade, I was well and truly happy.