Kenji encouraged her to keep working and to continue developing her own interests.
“I did not marry you so that you could become an unpaid assistant to an old professor,” he told her.
“You say that as if your laboratory isn’t currently the kitchen.”
“My laboratory produces pancakes.”
“Your laboratory produces smoke.”
“Every great discovery involves risk.”
Yuki rolled her eyes, but she smiled.
Their relationship was not free of difficulties. The age difference remained real. Their energy levels differed, and their ideas about the future sometimes clashed. There were moments when Yuki wondered whether she would one day have to make sacrifices she could not yet imagine.
Kenji did not dismiss those concerns.
He understood that loving someone did
not require pretending the future was predictable.
They agreed to keep talking about what each of them wanted, even when the answers were uncomfortable.
Eventually, Yuki asked whether she could help with the community center.
Kenji looked surprised.
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t want to replace Aiko or Hana,” she said. “And I don’t want you to think I’m trying to make their project into something about me. But if this matters to you, I’d like to understand it.”
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he took her hand.
“I think they would have liked you.”
Yuki smiled gently.
“You can’t know that.”
“No,” he admitted. “But Hana would certainly have argued with you about something. She argued with everyone.”
“Then I would have liked her.”
Together, they began reviewing the old plans.
The project was more complicated than Kenji had remembered. The original building was no longer available,
funding was uncertain, and several local requirements would have to be addressed before the center could open.
For a few days, the practical difficulties seemed overwhelming.
Then Yuki suggested they begin on a smaller scale.
They could partner with an existing community organization, help fund counseling sessions, and organize occasional gatherings for young people who had experienced loss.
The center did not need to open all at once for the original purpose to survive.
Kenji studied her proposal.
“This is a good idea,” he said.
“I know.”
“You have become very confident.”
“I’m married to a man who argues with pancakes. Someone has to make sensible decisions.”
He laughed.
For the first time, the project felt less like a memorial to the people Kenji had lost and more like a living commitment to the people who still needed help.
It would not bring Aiko and Hana back.
Nothing could.
But
perhaps the love that had inspired their dream could still become something useful.
Chapter Ten: When the World Had an Opinion
As Yuki and Kenji settled into married life, the story of their relationship began spreading online.
A photograph from their small wedding appeared on social media. Someone shared it with a mocking caption. Another person reposted it, claiming that Yuki must be interested in Kenji’s money.
Within days, strangers who knew nothing about them were debating their marriage as though it were a public competition.
Some people called Yuki a gold digger.
Others praised Kenji as a legend.
A few offered genuine support, saying that relationships did not always follow conventional patterns. Others insisted that the age difference was automatically proof of manipulation.
Yuki read more of the comments than she should have.
One person wrote that no twenty-six-year-old could possibly love a seventy-year-old man without some hidden motive.
Another suggested that Kenji must be wealthy, despite the fact that neither his lifestyle nor his modest home suggested anything extraordinary.
A third person claimed that Yuki would inevitably regret her decision.
At first, she felt compelled to answer.
She drafted long responses explaining how they had met, what she admired about Kenji, and why she believed their relationship deserved to be judged on its actual behavior rather than assumptions.
But each time she finished a response, she realized that the people she wanted to convince were unlikely to change their minds.
She deleted the drafts.
When she told Kenji about the comments, he shrugged.
“People are entitled to their opinions,” he said.
“They’re talking about us as if they know us.”
“They don’t.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Of course it does. I simply refuse to give every stranger a permanent room in my head. The rent would be impossible.”
Yuki laughed.
Then he grew serious.
“Some people may have legitimate concerns about our age difference. We should not dismiss every question simply because it makes us uncomfortable. But strangers insulting you is not the same as someone who loves you asking whether you’re safe.”
