Arcane Sequence: 1987 (WLW)

November 20th, 1987: Just Another Day

This novella contains mature language.

Yua sat down on her desk with a huff, her mind in complete disarray and her office none the better. There was a giant mess after her last appointment, Ryan, acted out. His behaviour was beginning to grow more and more erratic and Yua was starting to feel lamentingly inadequate in her occupation. Her profession was something she never second guessed until meeting this man.

Although she really couldn't blame him for being in such a resentful mood as of late, that did not mean she deserved his attitude, nor did his children. His wife had come out as gay and left him and his kids behind with no forwarding address. While Yua was very supportive of gay and lesbian rights, she wasn't about tearing families apart, or neglecting one's children. It was a standpoint brought on by her less than harmonious upbringing, however, she also wasn't a fan of people living a lie. Yua felt torn between concern for Ryan and his children who were now growing up without a mother and the woman who left to finally live as her true self. It took a lot of strength for a person such as his wife to come out during such a controversial time, but what about her kids? What would happen to them?

While she knew she should be more concerned with her patient rather than his children, she didn't necessarily have much sorrow in her heart for him. He was aggressive and carried a massive ego, not to mention how bigoted he was toward the gay community now. Yua didn't like that one bit. It also didn't help that there was no possibility of checking out his story in full. Therefore, there was no way of knowing for sure if his wife had really left without the children, or if she'd been forced to leave. Yua feared the latter as his attitude had grown more severe each session and his true nature came further and further out to play. It only made her worry for his children all the more.

Yua's best friend was bisexual, her roommate was most definitely gay even though she tried hard to hide it from the public eye, and Yua herself even thought she may be gay for a short time.

When she was doing research for her latest clinical psychology literature, she'd connected with the idea of spending her life with a woman as she had never imagined being able to do something like that with a man. Women were just different and held a candle that was quite inviting to her on a more emotional level. Adding even more to that fact was that she had never been able to picture herself as heterosexual even when she was a small child, despite the fact she said otherwise.

Still, the physical side to relationships, even same sex relationships, still remained something of a deterrent to Yua when it came to any gender. She just couldn't see herself in any type of relationship with the physical expectations she knew they all held. It just seemed so odd and foreign of an idea. Then again, most things in her life did and that hadn't made things very easy for her in the long run.

Although she was partially raised in a traditional Japanese home in Osaka, until she came to America ten years ago she began to think about how wrong all her parents' shared ideology felt. It wasn't that she didn't respect her ancestors. Quite the contrary actually, but she didn't connect with the marriage or feminine traditions as her mother had.

Her father was a Caucasian American and she always believed he was truly Japanese at heart by the way he and her mother raised her. Also with the fact he took her name, the sentiment was driven home. Still, Yua loved the American way of life. It made sense the longer she lived in Portland. She connected more with her father's side of the family and loved the traditions she hadn't been able to really experience growing up in Japan. That wasn't to say there weren't customs she thoroughly enjoyed when living in Japan, but the way her family treated her was the ultimate deterrent. Luckily, she found that her grandparents alleviated a huge bulk of that year's long pain.