"You know you have to do it."

He had snaked up behind me as I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, brushing my teeth, putting his arms around my waist from behind, leaning his chin on my shoulder. I was in soft trousers and a T-shirt, but Hashi was only in his trousers. The effect was incredibly pleasant.

I spit out some toothpaste

"I know", I said. "But it feels like I'm betraying her."

Hashirama was quiet for some time in a way I'd learned meant he was going to say something I might not like to hear.

"We need to stop living for the dead", he said. "Our life is for us. Your life is for you. You have to do what you need to do in order to move on."

I sighed.

I just shut off all parts of my brain that could even begin to comprehend what I was doing; if I didn't I knew I would bail, run back to the safety that was Hashi in my apartment on a Sunday morning. So I shut down, ploughed forwards in the late summer streets of Paris.

I had chosen a cafe near the Louvre which always made it ridiculously pricey but it was fine since it promised a buzz of people, which would make the situation softer. He's a murderer, I didn't dare to think. You could be in danger.

Izuna had been no match for our father, but I was much taller and broader. But even if I was physically stronger than he was, emotionally, I was a wreck. I couldn't comprehend how I could ever find any mental strength within me to fight anything off, ever again. Was it always going to be like this? The thought saddened me.

I walked into the cafe, which was full of golden stucco works and church paintings and red velvet chairs; beautiful, really. I was half an hour early, on Hashirama's suggestion, to make myself comfortable there for a while before my father showed up. It touched me. The fact that Hashirama was beginning to know me so well. 

I sat down at a table after having ordered coffee with cream, then sat down to wait. I didn't dare to look around me, but fiddled with my phone. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone raise from a table and walk towards me. I looked up...

And realised it was my father.

It felt as though someone had poured an ice bucket over my head. He'd been sitting there since I came in, I realised, but he was so different that I hadn't recognised him. One would think that prison would have made a man thinner, more sullen. But it hadn't. My father had always been fit, and he still was, but he had aged, and he had aged well. His crinkled eyes added a softness to him I wasn't used to, and that softness was enhanced by his hair, a bit longer now so it covered his ears, falling in a soft wave. His clothes were not his usual strict suit and tie but chinos and a checked shirt. 

But the biggest difference about him was his aura.

There was something about his aura I couldn't quite put my finger on. It was more gentle, more allowing, more understanding. His usually hard brown eyes were soft and forgiving. I frowned. What was going on?

"I know it's not nice to see me again", he said, the softness of his voice matching the softness of him. What's going on with him? "But it's very nice to see you. It's more than I deserve. Thank you for agreeing to this."

"I'm not a charity", I said coldly. He killed her. He killed my little sister.

I did not offer him to sit down at my table, which was ridiculous as that was exactly what we had met up to do; sitting at the same table again.

"Madara, please", he said. "I didn't force you to come here. I asked. You accepted. I don't expect you to be nice to me. But please. Don't act as though I forced you."

I immediately flared up. How dared he? How dared he have any demands on how I behaved?

Then, all air went out of me, as if I were a hot air balloon who'd got punctured. I lost all my ability to fight. He was right. I knew he was right. I had agreed to meet him. What was the point if I wasn't able to hold a civilised conversation?

"I'm sorry", I said.

"Oh, no", my father said. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no... No, you, young man..." I jerked; that was what he used to call me when I was younger and he was going to tell me something important. But then, why wouldn't he use the same words and phrases? It wasn't as if he was a completely other person just because he'd killed the person I had loved the most in my entire life. "You, young man, have nothing, absolutely nothing to apologise for. Do you hear me? Never!"

He leaned forwards, and there was desperation in his eyes. I was quiet. I had been so nervous, so worried that I hadn't even thought about why he wanted to meet me. I had no idea how he would behave, but he was so far from what I could have expected that he could possibly be.

Was he going to apologise?

"I'm not going to apologise, Madara", he said, and I felt something in me flare up again.

"I don't want your apology", I snapped, immediately regretting how childish I sounded.

My father looked at me.

"I know. That's why I'm not going to apologise. Not because I don't regret what I did." He spoke as though he had all the time in the world which perhaps, he had. "But because I'm not worthy." I opened my mouth to speak, but my father held up his hands. "I don't want sympathy", he said. "I killed your little sister. I killed my own daughter. There's no redemption to be had. There's nothing to say."

I just stared. I felt tears burn in my eyes. Shit. It was all so much. Izuna's death. Being unhappily in love with Tobirama. Finding out he had a child. His death. And now sitting here having coffee with father again.

"One of my boyfriends died", I said before I could think; this was not how I had planned to come out as homosexual and non-monogamous to my father. I hadn't planned to come out to him at all, to be fair, but a dam within me had burst and there was no way my heart was strong enough to stop the fountain that was pouring out of it. "He killed himself. He's dead."

There was silence.

Then, I felt a couple of soft, large, warm hands grab mine, pull them away from my face, hold them on the table. I could see my father's concerned face though the tears.

"I'm so, so sorry. That's terrible." I wasn't even surprised anymore. Nothing surprised me. I had shut of the part of my brain that could feel surprise. "Your other partner? Or partners?"

"One. Another man. We were together all three of us."

"Is he... Good for you?

I couldn't help but laugh a little; it was as if I was a teenage girl who had just revealed my first boyfriend to my father. His question was so oddly normal, so non-judgemental I didn't know what to make of it.

"Hashirama. He's the best man I've ever met." I swallowed back my tears. "Sorry. I need to change topic. Could you please tell me what you came to tell me?"

At this, my father removed his hands from mine and massaged his face. He has dreaded this moment. It didn't scare me.

"I know why I killed Izuna." 

I just stared. He looked out of the window of the cafe, wanting to prolong the moment before I went from not knowing, to the moment when I found out whatever it was he was going to say.

He began speaking again.

"Nothing scares people as much as seeing themselves from the outside. The people we bully, that we hate, are often mirror images of the parts of us we want to remain hidden." I didn't say anything, just stared at him. "It's not an excuse", he continued. "But as I found out about her transition, I panicked. I panicked because the thought of my own child changing sex... Do you see what in trying to say?" he asked, begging for me to save him from his misery.

"Not really", I confessed, not really wanting to save him but also genuinely not understanding.

"I'm a transsexual." I lost all grip of the planet Earth. "I'm a woman. I've known for a long time, but refused it."

I just gaped. The softness, the tender aura...

It was too much for my brain to handle. So I just stopped handling it and went along with it.

"So you killed Izuna because of... What, jealousy?"

He shook his head.

"No. Because I thought that if I exterminated it, it wouldn't be real."

"That's stupid", I said dumbly.

"I know!" my father said, a bit too forcefully for my liking. "I know..." he repeated, more softly this time.

He didn't say "but". I appreciated that as there was no "but".

I took a sip of my coffee. It was lukewarm. I never minded that. I never minded that because it reminded me of then I was a child, and my mother allowed me to dip my cookies in her coffee. I always waited until it was lukewarm because then, the cookie wouldn't fall apart so easily, the ingredients not melting in the comforting heat of hot coffee.

"Does that mean your marriage with mother was a lie?" I asked, my voice void of emotions.

"No. I'm also a homosexual." He smiled happily at this. "Although, I don't think your mother is."

We sat in silence for a while. I realised I could never quite understand my father's motives, but also that I didn't have to.

"I won't forgive you. Even if you had asked, I wouldn't have forgiven you." My father respected me too much to say "I know". "But thank you for telling me. Who could have known?"

"Who could have known",  my father repeated.

"Will you tell mother?" I asked.

"No. I'm not going to contact her at all. I don't want to bother her." He looked up at me. "Will you tell her?"

"No."

"Good", he said, looking down. "Good."

I felt a flash of anger at the audacity, but this one was tiny when compared to the flares I'd felt earlier in this conversation and I realised that no matter how much I hated the man, I trusted the woman.

"Will you transition?" I asked.

At this, she smiled.

"Yes. I am in touch with a psychologist weekly. I will start living as a woman. But within a year or so, I'll transition. Do you..." She suddenly looked insecure. "Do you think it's awful? That I do what I deprived your little sister of doing?"

I thought about it. I understood what she meant. He had murdered Izuna for transitioning, but now, she was transitioning herself.

"No", I said. "I want at least one good thing come out of her death. This is that one good thing."

I stood up, took my coat. If she was disappointed I was leaving so soon, she didn't let it show. I didn't want to stay in touch, and she knew that, so she didn't ask.

"I will be thinking of you, mother."

She smiled a sad smile.

As I left, I was suddenly filled up with a warm happiness. Home... Hashirama is home.  Hashirama is home, waiting for me.

Suddenly, I realised something, and stopped dead as I was walking, causing some angry cars to honk at me.

It hadn't occurred to me until now.

But my second mother had used the right pronouns for Izuna during our entire conversation.