Chapter 10

• Amaya
• The presentation was a complete nightmare for me.
• There was no way to lie about it, especially not after the disaster that unfolded.
• My father had not only revealed the fact that he had fathered me outside of his marriage, which in itself was an expression of wanting to marginalize me in front of everyone, but he had also made a public declaration that they would protect me no matter what, which meant I had to adhere to certain principles that I knew nothing about.
• I felt completely out of sorts, out of my own skin.
• It was a complete disaster, much bigger than I had expected, and I was nervous, especially after he announced that a member of the Camorra, the most violent Italian mafia of all, would marry one of his daughters. This, after the announcement of my paternity, included me and meant an even greater disaster.
• I didn't want to get involved in this world, I wanted nothing to do with either side, I just wanted to live my life in peace, far away from everything and everyone. So when my father approached us to introduce the fiancé, I took Dai and Ima's silence as a declaration of non-acceptance, and then this man with a strange mask that covered part of his ear and face, leaving his left eye exposed, approached me and let me know, in his language, that he was very aware of my situation.
• I didn't know whether to run away or to think that this excluded me from his choice.
• The truth was this: I had no hope.
• I couldn't be naive about it; the guy was problematic in more than one way, one that would turn out to be more than a curse. So, I decided to bite my tongue before exploding at my father for bringing me to a place in these conditions of total ignorance. He was a world-class idiot just for daring to do that.
• He could stick his protection where the sun doesn't shine.
• "Well, I hope you two lovebirds will become very close," Dai said with a malicious smile before leaving.
• My father sighed intermittently, and I saw him with anger.
• "Why didn't you tell me anything about this?"
• "Here is not the best time for one of your reproaches, suki," my father replied wearily.
• "Neither here nor anywhere else," a female voice expressed with anger. When I turned to see who it was, I came face to face with my father's wife, a beautiful, elegant, and regal woman who undoubtedly felt threatened. "The bastards have to behave much better than the rest... If the parents didn't claim them, it meant they had no value, and you can't expect them to have the best suitors of all."
• She had attacked directly, with malice.
• "Well... I never asked to be here, let alone be born, so thank your husband for that, and for accepting me now, I guess I have some value by now," I replied sarcastically, and she smiled with annoyance.
• "You're just another pawn on his chessboard, one he will use to his advantage," she stated, and my father looked at her with narrowed eyes.
• "Respect, don't continue with this nasty game, or you'll end up very badly. Amaya is mine, and if you don't feel like accepting it, that's fine, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a reality that won't change, and the council has already accepted it, so live with it," he said in Japanese.
• "Don't talk to me about respect when you forced everyone to accept a bastard that you raised in secret from the world, and who, apparently, you treat with a fondness that you don't show to your daughters."
• "That bastard was made with love, not as an agreement..."
• Hearing my father say that was like a reality check I hadn't seen before.
• "And that was your downfall, because I have no doubt that she will end up being just another woman who will interfere in people's marriages... Maybe even her sisters' marriages, she has a deplorable example to follow."
• I looked at them bewildered, and the hateful glare she gave me was one I wanted to get away from immediately. It was a major disaster.
• "Stop it, suki, she didn't mean any of that..."
• "Do you forget that I can understand perfectly?" I questioned and shook my head, fed up with the whole damn situation. "I didn't ask for this, and I can't even say I don't understand her when you still visit my mother behind her back."
• I walked away and went straight to the garden.
• I tried to catch my breath, really, I did, but it was hard, so I let out the tears that had been building up due to the confrontation with reality. It was such a bad reality that I wondered why the hell my mother had helped with all of this; it was as if she, as a woman in love, was the worst.
• I loved my mother, but I had a lot of questions about the woman in love who gave herself away for breadcrumbs. That was the one I was constantly disappointed with, so I couldn't hold back, and I wiped away the tears. Then a woman walked up to where I was standing. I didn't know her; she was someone who was undoubtedly curious, but unlike the others, she had a good demeanor about her and didn't look at me as if I deserved immediate extinction for being a bastard.
• "Is it a bit tough?"
• The question was kind, so I responded with an honest answer.
• "It is when you have no idea what's going through your father's head..."
• "I know, I've lived through it," she said sadly, "but with my brother, who is your father."
• The mention made me open my eyes in great surprise.
• "You're the aunt... Katsumi."
• "Wow, at least I see that he did talk to you about us," she said with pity.
• That made me feel worse because it confirmed my worst suspicions: he didn't talk to anyone about me.
• "Sometimes when I was little and asked him about his family, he told me they lived in Japan, that they were fine, and that one day he would introduce me to them," I replied without humor, and she knew how to guess the whole set of lies. "He told me about the grandmother, he told me about his younger sister, about the brother he lost in the earthquake, about how difficult it is to grow up within such a structured culture... He told me so much, but at the same time, he didn't tell me anything."
• Emphasizing it felt horrible.
• She came closer to me and took me by the chin.
• "Your father loves you very much, Amaya, in his own way... His way of showing it was to keep you hidden from this world as long as he could, to let you grow up outside of these customs, to taste the freedom of it," she explained, and my heart began to beat strongly. "I know you have a lot to reproach him for, I know... I share a lot of that, but in all my years of life, I have learned that Hiroshi's decisions are based on the well-being of the majority, that he often sacrifices more than the rest, and that he does things because he has no choice."
• I didn't quite buy it, not entirely at least.
• "But he... He took away my life, brought me into a world I don't want to know..."
• "If he did, it's because he has compelling reasons, Amaya. If he kept you hidden, it was his way of protecting you, so bringing you into the light for the Yakuza to protect you means that, for him, you must be running some kind of risk that he doesn't want to take on," she said seriously. "I'm not asking you to adhere to what others say, let alone to listen to what my sister-in-law says out of hatred, stick with what your father says, with what he offers you in the midst of a situation he can't solve."
• "But I didn't ask for this..."
• "But you have it," she replied with a sad smile. "Adapt before it consumes you. Don't let yourself be carried away by anger, by rage, you will gain nothing but failures and disappointments."
• She left me alone for a few more minutes, and I recovered. When I walked in, everyone looked at me, and then the masked man asked for a toast. My father joined him, and, to my complete consternation, the man said the words that sealed my fate. Words that shook my entire world.
• "It is my pleasure to announce that I have chosen a bride... Amaya, please come forward," the masked man, whose voice I had fantasized about the night before, requested. I was going crazy and static; that's why Hiro gave me a little push, and I looked at my father in fear before standing next to the man who didn't take his eyes off me. "Hiroshi, would you give me your blessing to marry your youngest daughter?"
• The crowd started to murmur, and I was in shock.
• My father was a bit caught off guard, but he managed to contain it in front of the others. I didn't know what was going through his head, but whatever it was, it didn't seem very good.