I’m Nanami, and I live with my husband, Tatsuya, and our third-grade son, Riku. I’ve poured my entire life into raising him to be a successful adult. But lately, Riku has stopped going to school… Amidst all this, we agreed to let him stay at his grandparents’ house three times a week, as he requested. However, I found out Riku was actually going to my sister-in-law Haruna’s place, playing the very video games I’d always forbidden! I was furious. My in-laws had been deceiving me. To make matters worse, instead of supporting me, my husband took their side… I felt betrayed and completely exhausted. Then, my husband suggested we spend the weekend doing whatever Riku wanted. But while watching anime, Riku kept checking my face, worried about my reaction. I realized he had started prioritizing my feelings over his own. When I finally asked him if there was anything he wanted to say, he told me that going to Haruna’s was his own choice.
It was clear that Haruna had a massive impact on Riku. In the past, just hearing her name would have made my skin crawl, but those feelings had somehow faded away. In fact, I now feel like Haruna was the one who finally opened my eyes after I’d lived with such tunnel vision for so long. It was wrong of me to label someone as “not normal” based solely on my own values… but more than that, it’s not anyone’s place to judge whether someone else is “normal” or not, regardless of their values. I took Riku’s honest words to heart, and we sat down together to talk about our future.