She sat on the engawa, legs tucked under her, wearing an old sweatshirt that may or may not have once belonged to Ren, staring into the inky-blue horizon like it owed her money.
There was a brief moment—two nights ago, at the brewery—when she could've sworn she saw him. A familiar figure standing near the trees, tall and immovable, like some emotionally constipated forest spirit haunting the edge of her family's property.
But maybe that was just her brain playing tricks on her again. Wouldn't be the first time. She once hallucinated a full courtroom argument in the bath during bar prep. Jury and all.
The wood beneath her creaked.
Rei dropped down beside her with all the grace of a sledgehammer, exhaled slowly, and handed her… a cigarette?
"I don't smoke."
"Not too late to try," he said, voice low, steady. "Helps you focus on something else."
"Wow," Hana muttered, taking it anyway. "You're the best brother a girl could ask for."
"Don't tell Mom," he replied.
"I would never."
"And don't smoke near the baby."
"Obviously." She glanced over at him. "I have some morals."
He struck a match and lit hers first, like a gentleman. Then his. She watched, cautiously, as he took a drag. She copied him—and immediately coughed so hard she nearly swallowed her tongue.
"Jesus," she wheezed. "Why do people do this voluntarily?"
"Because," he said, exhaling a perfect spiral of smoke like a jaded anime protagonist, "it gives your brain something to do. Other than spiral."
"Great," she rasped. "So now my lungs get to spiral too."
Still, she took another puff. Slower this time. Rei guided her through it with all the patience of a man who'd been waiting years for this exact moment.
"Steady inhale. Not too deep. Let it burn a little."
She did. Watched the smoke curl upward like it was trying to escape her body. She liked that. The idea of something leaving. Even if it was temporary.
They sat in silence for a while. The cicadas weren't out yet. The breeze was soft. Her bones hurt a little less than usual.
Rei spoke first.
"What are your plans now?"
"I don't know."
And she meant it. The kind of deep, hollow I don't know that came with no follow-up. No action plan. Just static.
She expected him to push. Maybe scoff. Tell her to snap out of it.
He didn't.
Instead, he said, "You know we never saw you as a failure, right?"
Her chest tightened.
"I mean, I wouldn't blame you if you did," she muttered. "Two failed bar exams, flaming out of the best legal firm in Nagoya, crawling home like a bankrupt raccoon—"
"Hana."
She went quiet.
Rei wasn't dramatic. That was her thing. If he used her name like that, it meant he was serious.
"We've never seen you the way you see yourself," he said. "You think you have to do everything perfectly to be loved, and I don't know who put that idea in your head—"
"Society," she said, dry.
"—but it wasn't us."
He turned slightly toward her.
"You work hard. You take care of people. You don't quit, even when you should. That's more than enough."
Her throat felt tight. It was stupid. She hadn't cried in days and wasn't about to now. Especially not with a cigarette in her hand. That would be a very cinematic breakdown and she refused to be that predictable.
She flicked ash off the edge of the engawa.
"I just thought I'd be more by now," she said. "Or… I don't know. At least less tired."
Rei didn't say anything for a moment.
"You don't have to prove anything. Not to us. Not to him. Not even to yourself."
Her chest twinged at him, but she ignored it.
"Okay, that's very nice," she said instead, voice light, sarcastic armor up, "but who am I if I'm not constantly performing like a dancing monkey with an Excel sheet?"
"You're Hana."
"I'm insufferable."
"You're our insufferable," Rei said, and that, somehow, felt like the kindest thing anyone had ever said to her.
They finished the cigarettes. Didn't talk much after that. He patted her shoulder once—awkward, warm—and left her there.
She sat for a long time.
Eventually, she wandered back into the house straight to her bedroom.
She opened the closet.
And there they were.
Her law school books.
The ones she'd packed away like they were cursed. Like touching them might summon every past failure in a five-kilometer radius.
She reached out.
Her fingers hovered.
Then closed around the spine of the thickest one.
She pulled it out.
Held it.
It was heavier than she remembered.
She sat down on the floor. Opened it.
And just like that, it began again.
Hana sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by piles of old law school books that smelled like stress and existential dread. Half her highlighters were dried out. The other half had exploded. Her notes were chaotic—color-coded, aggressive, occasionally annotated with threats to future Hana like REMEMBER THIS OR DIE.
She flipped through a review guide with the kind of detached horror one reserves for cursed objects.
Okay. Okay. It wasn't that bad.
She'd been worse. She'd felt worse. Like the time she tried to deep clean her kitchen during a breakup and accidentally inhaled bleach. This was better. She wasn't crying. Yet.
In a moment of either divine clarity or temporary madness, she opened her laptop.
Just to look.
Not to do anything reckless.
Except her fingers were already moving.
Click. Scroll. Login. Password.
She stared at the screen.
Then typed it:
Bar exam registration.
It stared back like a dare.
Her cursor hovered over the submit button.
It's fine, she told herself. She had time. The next bar wasn't for more than a year. That was an eternity. She could read, prep, cry, spiral, and still have weeks to spare. Entirely doable. Completely rational.
Except—
A voice in her head: You failed twice.
Another voice, louder this time: And?
She exhaled slowly. Bit the inside of her cheek.
Maybe she would fail again.
Maybe she wouldn't.
But for the first time, the thought didn't make her want to lie face-down on the tatami and dissolve into nothing.
She hit "submit."
Her screen refreshed.
Confirmation.
Oh god.
Oh god.
What had she done.
She immediately Googled "How to pass bar exam after multiple failures ADHD burnout law trauma coffee addiction Japan help"—with no punctuation, because there wasn't time for grammar anymore.
Her screen filled with possibilities. Schools. Prep programs. Review centers. Forums full of other exhausted gremlins trying to chase the same stupid, glorious thing.
She clicked. Read. Bookmarked. Compared. She opened three PDFs and a YouTube playlist called "How to become unstoppable in 2025."
She did not feel unstoppable. She felt like a slightly damp napkin.
She rubbed her temples. Her brain had that weird overclocked hum that only came from overstimulation, dehydration, and high-stakes self-sabotage.
Her eyes flicked to the corner of her screen.
April 1.
She snorted. Laughed out loud to herself like a lunatic.
Happy birthday, bastard. Hope you're having a great time with your Tokyo merger and your regret.
She sipped her third coffee. Cold. Bitter. Perfect.
This wasn't about him.
She wasn't trying to prove she was irreplaceable anymore.
She was trying to be whole.
To remember that she was more than what anyone could give her—or take away.
And maybe one day—when the dust settled and the ache dulled—she'd remember this night as the moment she stopped shrinking.
She didn't need everyone to see her.
She just needed to see herself.
The sun was already bleeding through the windows by the time she emerged from her room like a feral cat.
Hair sticking up in every direction. Hoodie halfway zipped. Bloodshot eyes. Coffee in hand like a weapon.
She found her family in the kitchen—Rei, Aoi, Mom, Dad, even Ren, who had no reason to be awake but was still somehow eating miso soup like he'd been there since dawn.
They all looked at her like she might be possessed.
She cleared her throat. Took a breath.
"I'm taking the bar," she announced.
A beat of silence.
Then—
"WHAT?!!
Five overlapping voices. Five stunned faces. Five spoons frozen midair.
"What, did you think I was going to rot here forever?"
They all kept staring.
She took another sip of coffee. Calm. Inevitable.
"Anyway. I'm going to need everyone to emotionally support me or leave snacks at my door and never speak to me again. We'll play it by ear."
Another beat.
Then Mom teared up. Ren choked on tofu. Aoi softly muttered "thank god" into her tea. Her dad and Rei didn't say anything—just nodded once, like he'd known all along.
She took another sip.
Yeah.
Let's fucking go.