The nure-onna, after all, always gets a certain kind of happy ending—really, the only kind I can see for myself. Solitary yet satisfied. Fighty abilities top-notch. No prince in sight.
You’d think Belle would be open to all that after her umpteenth overly dramatic relationship imploded. (Belle dates, in her words, “hot people of all genders,” but still hasn’t found anyone who can successfully execute an Instagram-worthy promposal.)
“Why are you guys yelling?” Rory, our twelve-year-old sister, stomps into Belle’s room. I’ve never seen someone stomp quite like Rory, who walks everywhere like she’s trying to shake the ground. She insists this is her natural gait—all the more impressive when you consider her minuscule frame. “I can hear you all the way down the hall,” she continues, cannonballing herself onto my bed. She lands with a whump.
“Ugh, you can hear everything in this apartment,” Belle says, rolling her eyes dramatically. “Why bother having walls at all?”
“Rika, what are you wearing?” Rory sits up in bed, her cute little eyebrows drawing together.
“See!” Belle whirls around, her bright pink fingernails whipping toward Rory. “Rory thinks you should dress up more, too.”
“Rory didn’t actually offer an opinion, just a question,” I say.
“Rory thinks the outfit is bad,” Rory says. “Opinion given, no questions.”
“Thanks for nothing, Aurora,” I say, calling her by the full name that only gets dragged out when she’s in trouble or when people feel like being overly proper. Sometimes I can count on her to form an alliance with me against Belle. As a math genius who hasn’t felt challenged by the curriculum since kindergarten, Rory tends to be more practical-minded.
“You should look like a princess, too,” Rory says. “To match us.”
Oh, right. Even with the genius-based practicality, Rory still buys into that princess shit—she’s a junior princess in Belle’s court. Whenever she and Belle form their own alliance (#TeamPrincess), I get a little twinge that reminds me they’re technically not my sisters—they’re my cousins. Peas in a pod who were named after actual Disney princesses. I’m always supposed to match them, not the other way around.
Even though they’re built differently—Belle is all generous curves to Rory’s spindly limbs—they both have the same perfectly straight manes of black hair and flashing dark eyes, the same flawless creamy skin, the same cute little round noses. When they stand next to each other, the effect is almost comical: as if Belle has somehow manifested a smaller, more serious-faced version of herself.
I, meanwhile, have always looked like the outcast cousin—so much so that Belle’s and my teacher on the first day of second grade asked Auntie Suzy if she was “sure” we were both hers, giving me the suspicious side-eye, like I was trying to con my way into going home with people I didn’t belong to.
“She’s half!” Belle had declared, stomping her foot at the teacher as if that settled it. “And we claim her as a whole Asian!”
I have wavy, tangled hair a few shades lighter than the rest of my family—sometimes picking up brassy glints of red in the sun. And smatterings of freckles in various places, including across my wider bump of a nose. I do look Japanese (especially to all those Beckys who want to hear my accent, I guess), but it’s in that way where, as I accidentally overheard the confused second-grade teacher say later, “You can tell there’s . . . something else going on.” When we were younger and less aware of stuff, Belle dubbed me “Asian Lite.” We both thought this was funny until Auntie Suzy wearily informed us that it was not.
Auntie Suzy is Belle and Rory’s actual mom, and she took me in after my mother—her sister—died in childbirth and my “white devil” father took off for who knows where. Belle was still a baby when all this happened, only six months older than me. To this day, the murmurs still run through Little Tokyo. How Auntie Suzy did her Good Asian Duty by taking care of family. How my mother was such a tragedy, she’d had such potential before she got pregnant at fifteen—so beautiful and charismatic, able to charm the pants off of anyone she met with a smile. How it must be tough on the remaining Rakuyamas since I look so . . . different. There’s always that weird pause before “different,” as if the greater community of gossiping Little Tokyo Aunties and Uncles are carefully assessing my appearance, clocking all the ways I look . . . well, Asian Lite.
Some of them simply refer to me as “a mistake.” I’m not sure which is worse.
I refuse to buy into their Tragic Hafu narrative. But that’s another reason I don’t want to be a princess—because I’d definitely be the worst princess ever, and I don’t need to stand out even more than I already do by being that bad at something. I know some of those gossip-mongers would have no trouble gossiping extra loud from the sidelines, vocalizing the thing that’s always dancing around the back of my head:
What’s she doing here?
I’m good—no, excellent—at judo. Sparring is one of the only times I don’t feel like some kind of weirdo, bad-tempered Asian Lite mistake, trying to go home with families I don’t belong to. It clears my mind and settles my restless body, and I can connect to the pure magic of Little Tokyo that I love so much.
In other words, the only time I feel truly at home is when I’m fighting something.
And if I push myself to be outstanding today . . . I mean, my judo teacher, Sensei Mary, told me there will be a UCLA scout in attendance, assessing our performances for scholarships.
I dream of ascending the college ranks, kicking ass on the competitive circuit, maybe even helping Sensei Mary run the dojo one day. Basically, this is
