Soulmate

I get home as soon as I finish cleaning the halls at my highest speed. I take a shower and look at my watch, seeing that Asato is about to show up and leave my backpack. I take my simple black backpack from the closet and get ready.

Because everyone should have the same rights and there should be no difference between the citizens of the Region, all people should have the same simple clothes, students need simple black backpacks without any pattern and how this perfectly characterizes the world in that we live, and buildings should be painted only in white.

I hear the bell ring a few times. I avoided looking out the window so as not to look like I was waiting for Asato to come. This would have been obvious and it would have caught on that we had a discussion.

Once I hear the bell, I don't rush to the door. Moreover, I let my mother answer, so that I can be as covered as possible from all sides. The adrenaline fills my body and I feel it flow through my veins with an unimaginable speed. I hear two knocks on the door, close the pen and tell my mother to come in.

She looked at me, analyzing me for a few moments and seeing that I was writing some of the homework for school.

"A girl came to the door. She said you forgot something at home."

I nod, looking a little surprised. I get up from my desk and walk to the entrance with my mother. That was not in the plan. My mother was no more in this plan than to open the door and leave. I'm starting to panic. I grab the backpack when my mom isn't paying attention and walk behind her. She sits at the door and looks directly at the hand holding the backpack.

I see Asato greeting me politely and introducing himself, explaining to me why she came to my house. He bends down and opens the backpack that I assume is mine, then I bend down and slip the backpack in front of him, taking mine. I glance at my mother, who widens her eyes and frowns. Asato and I get up, immediately after I pack the backpack behind the door. She puts her backpack on her shoulder and leaves, greeting me just as politely as if we didn't know each other. My mother closes the door and stays with me with her back to me for a few moments as if thinking and analyzing the situation.

"Are you going to explain to me what just happened?" my mother turns nervously, breathing hard.

"It was essential..."

My mom sighs deeply and without saying another word goes to the kitchen. My mother looks exhausted. Her eyes are swollen and her dark circles are as if they have been punched in each eye. I lower my head and walk slowly toward the room.

I leave my backpack in the closet and start preparing to go to the NRI where I'm going to meet my soul mate. From the other backpack, the one I use constantly, I take out the letterbox that I managed to take from the school locker. I put the metal box in the backpack I received from Mrs. Tomiko, realizing how many illegal items I have at the moment.

I braid my hair into two ponytails that I let fall over my shoulders. I take a wide white shirt with a short sleeve made of very delicate material. I also take the cloth trousers my mother made a week before my birthday and go to the kitchen.

"Ta-da!" I say, doing a pirouette when my mother turns to me.

My mother is not in the best mood at all and I can't blame her for the things that happened recently. She's tired and she's disgusted when she looks at me. The corners of his mouth tremble slightly and arch very discreetly into a smile full of sadness and pain. My mother's eyes fill with tears. She pulls her nose and tries to calm down.

"You're doing very well," she says in a low, hoarse voice.

"Mom, I'm sorry about everything!"

mom turns off the water in the sink, leaving the dishes unwashed. He comes to me and takes me in his arms. Tears and sighs seem uncontrollable, and my mother pours out on me with all this amalgam of feelings. He stroked her back, trying to calm her down.

"I don't understand what's going on," she tells me through hiccups.

"Neither do I, believe me."

"Let's sit down for a while."

We sit on the chairs, facing each other and holding hands.

"Why did you tell me that Kaba wasn't coming home too soon, was it true that he suspected he might be a wizard?"

I agree, my mother's tears and sadness embracing me as well.

"Oh, Iwamoto. I'm sorry for the way I reacted and that I wasn't with you. I wasn't too honest with you and Kaba either."

"Mom, calm down, please." She takes a deep breath, I tell her, trying to calm her down because it's very difficult for me to understand what she wants to tell me.

"Iwamoto, I have one thing to confess to you... you and Kaba... ah!" my mother stops, starting to cry even harder and sigh. "You and Kaba are adopted," she continues, suddenly bursting out.

"Mom, I don't understand. Please calm down."

Mom pulls her nose and wipes her tears with the palm of her hand, taking several deep breaths.

"You know that every newly married family is obliged to have a child. In the year that my father and I got married, we were allowed, in fact, the obligation to have two children. As in the previous year. That's because the population had shrunk too much and had to be restored. Unfortunately, I can't have children..."

"But mom, it's illegal not to have children, you should have been locked up in a hospital for people with certain needs..."

"I know," my mother says shortly. "That's why I turned to Mrs. Tomiko, who somehow has a lot of relationships on the black market. The price was for you to take guitar lessons with her. Which was a benefit because that's how we can find out more about Kaba, given that she's a supervisor there. Well, she introduced us to this woman who looks a lot like me and who was already pregnant... as a kind of surrogate mother."

"Explain to me better because I don't think I understand anything you tell me."

"On the black market there are children given to the orphanage, but as these institutions are not allowed in our country, they are carried out only on the black market. Some families have more children than they are allowed and no matter how much it hurts, they have to give them up for adoption."

"Why don't they have an abortion?"

"Because after a few of them is a limit of abortions that a woman's body can bear. Then we turned to Mrs. Tomiko who contacted us about this woman who I told you looked a lot like me, Hayashida Akiko. The woman was only a few weeks pregnant and desperate to become a surrogate mother for us. She went to the checkpoints for me and then you were born. Mrs. Tomiko explained to us that she is a woman who can no longer have children or have abortions and that she desperately needs help. As we had, we decided that this was the best solution we could take at that time. That's how you were born, Iwamoto Akiko. Then I asked him again for Kaba's birth. We don't know her husband and I don't even know what happened to her, but for nine months she had to stay at our house and keep her away from inspections. Then, five years later, we had to do the same for Kaba's birth, and I turned to Hayashida Akiko, your real mother."

"Hey, darlings. Are you ready?" my father asks, suddenly appearing in the kitchen.

Without saying another word, my mother and I get up at the same time. I move my face in a sudden motion, putting my head down and avoiding her gaze too painful to resist. My head is upside down, feeling it very hard.

"Did you give her the present?"

"No, will you bring it, please?" says my mother, going to my father and taking him in her arms.

Dad hugs her and then disappears for a few moments.

"Iwamoto, say something, please."

I can't make a sound, and her voice echoes in my mind and throughout the room in an echo as if torn from Hell. Dad comes back with a big box and they already intuit what could be in it, due to its specific shape.

I open the box without saying anything and exactly as I suspected, the two of them bought me a guitar. I've always wondered if their gifts are made by them or write on their To-Do List what they need to buy me. I want to thank them and when I open my mouth I realize that I can't articulate a single word.

"Happy birthday, Iwamoto," they wish me at the same time.

"Let's go," says my father, going the first.

My body is paralyzed, unable to move my limbs or head. My mother approaches me and touches my shoulder, and in a split second, I turn to her, frowning, hitting her hand as I did with Imada. At that moment I panicked, even more, realizing that my hands were busy holding my new guitar. I wake up paralyzed and look at my mother who looks with the same eyes that Imada had when I hit her in the same purple way without moving my hands.

I have to say something, but again, nothing seems to come out of my mouth. I lower my head and sigh without trying to say a word, following my father. We leave the house and unlock our bikes, waiting for my mother to show up. When she comes too, after a few long moments, she appears with a beautifully wrapped metal box, realizing that this is the gift for my soul mate. Mom unlocks her bike and the three of us head for the NID. Behind us comes the car with the two agents who are forced to follow us everywhere.

My mind cannot conceive of what I have heard yet, and without realizing it, I block this information, freeing my thoughts from any new thing I have assimilated in just a few days. In just a few moments we reach the NID and without waiting an extra second, we lock our bikes and enter the institute, being greeted by the same white and monotonous walls.

We are asked to identify ourselves, then we are led to a room with sofas, chairs, and a large table. The girl must always enter the room first, waiting for her soul mate and his family. We are then asked to fill in a form to make it easier to keep track of things.

The door opens and in front of her appears a boy my age, born on the same day as me. His hair is short and disheveled in a style that seems to look so deep. Behind him are two older people holding the hand of another younger boy, about Kaba's age. This means that the children from the boarding school have finally left and returned to their families. Less Kaba is trapped in a cell.

"Hello, my name is Tsutsui Koichi," says my soulmate, holding out his hand to my father.

"Tsutsui?!" I shouted. You can't be," I continue, laughing hysterically. Are you Tsutsui as am I the school killer, Iwamoto Akemi or, well, Akiko?" I let it all out in a nervous tone full of screams, glaring at my mother. "And you're Imada's secret boyfriend, right?" I laugh out loud like a mad woman.