Komiko and Katie
Copyright© 2026 by Komiko Yakamura
Chapter 13
The house had been quiet for an hour.
Katie was asleep — Komiko had felt the exact moment it happened, the specific change in her breathing and the weight of her settling deeper into her shoulder — and Komiko had lain there in the dark thinking until the thinking required a different room.
She slipped out carefully. Pulled on her robe. Padded down the hall.
The kitchen light was on.
Yoko was at the table with a cup of tea, still in her robe, her dark hair loose. She looked up when Komiko appeared in the doorway without particular surprise, the way she looked up at things she’d been expecting.
“Sit down,” she said.
Komiko sat. Yoko got up and made her tea without being asked and set it in front of her and returned to her chair. They sat across from each other in the quiet kitchen with the January dark pressed against the windows.
“Yuki,” Komiko said.
“Yes,” Yoko said.
They were both quiet for a moment. The tea steamed between them.
“She’s latching on,” Komiko said. “Since the night she came to my room. She’s — different. More present. She came to lunch today without being asked. She said four complete sentences at the table.” She paused. “For Yuki that’s a soliloquy.”
Yoko’s mouth curved slightly. “I noticed.”
“She’s peeking out,” Komiko said. “But she’s also — fragile doesn’t cover it. She’s like something that’s been in the dark a long time and isn’t sure what to do with the light yet.”
Yoko nodded. Turned her cup in her hands. “What are you thinking?”
“I need to find her someone. A girl. Someone dominant but — not the way most dominant women are. Not power first. Tenderness first.” She paused. “I don’t know where to start.”
Yoko was quiet for a moment. Then: “The lesbian group at school.”
Komiko looked at her.
“There is one,” Yoko said simply. “There always is. They sit together at lunch. They know each other. They know who else is out there.” She paused. “You walk up to that table with Katie wearing that collar and they will read it immediately and they will open the door for you.”
Komiko considered this. “And if there’s no one there suited for her?”
“Then you ask for names. Kennedy High. Other schools.” Yoko set her cup down. “But she’s a minor, Komiko. You cannot bring her someone who is eighteen or older. That’s not a gray area. That’s the law and it exists for good reason.”
“I know that.”
“Good.” Yoko looked at her steadily. “Then start at school. Start with what’s close.”
Komiko nodded slowly. Turned her own cup in her hands. The kitchen was warm and quiet around them.
Then Yoko sat back slightly and looked at her daughter with an expression Komiko recognized. It was the expression of someone who had something to say that they were not going to soften.
“Mom.”
“What I’m about to say is going to be hard to hear.”
“Don’t coddle me,” Komiko said evenly. “I’m the dominant in this house. I respect and honor you as a person, as my mother, as the parent of all three of us. We can speak frankly. No bullshit, no beating around the bush.”
Yoko looked at her for a moment. Something moved through her face — not offense, not surprise. Something that was closer to pride, though she didn’t say so.
“Alright,” she said. “Frankly then.”
She folded her hands on the table.
“Yuki has chosen to open the door and peek out into the light. But she’s a two-sided coin right now. On one side she’s close to stepping out. On the other she’s still a mile away.” She paused. “What she did last night — coming to your room, telling you what she told you, climbing into your lap — that took everything she had. And what it tells you is this: she trusts you. You are the only person in her world right now that she trusts completely. You are her lifeline.”
Komiko was quiet.
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