I work as a part-time school counselor at a middle school.

The first student assigned to me after I started at this school was a ninth-grade girl named Kaede.

It wasn't Kaede who reached out, but her mother, who asked for advice on how to get her truant child back to school. A few days later, her mother brought her in, and the three of us held a counseling session.

With her pale skin and a striking beauty mark beneath her eye, Kaede had a fragile yet adorable face.

Her mother did all the talking while Kaede sat beside her in complete silence, not uttering a single word.

According to the mother, Kaede hadn't been able to attend school since the sixth grade.

It wasn't that she was being bullied; she had simply stopped going one day out of nowhere. No matter how much her mother asked for a reason, Kaede stubbornly refused to speak, remaining shut in her room. As the days dragged on, her mother's growing anxiety over her child's future finally reached its breaking point, bringing them to my office.

Incidentally, her mother had divorced early on and was raising Kaede as a single parent.

I tried talking to Kaede several times during the session, but she kept her mouth firmly shut.

About twenty minutes into the meeting, her mother hesitantly spoke up.

"Counselor, the truth is, this child..."

"Mom! Stop!!"

Kaede's sudden outburst interrupting her mother made my heart leap into my throat.

"Oh... I'm sorry, Kaede. But she's a counselor, sweetie."

"Still... not yet..."

What on earth could have happened?

"Let's call it a day for now. Ma'am, would it be alright if I spoke with Kaede one-on-one next time? Children often get tense when their parents are around."

The mother agreed to my suggestion, and Kaede gave a small nod. I braced myself, sensing a deep-rooted issue beneath the surface.

On the day of our second session, she arrived alone, just as planned.

Her mother had dropped her off at the school.

Since it was a Saturday, there was no one on campus except for students attending club activities.

First, I expressed my gratitude to her for making the effort to come to school.

"The fact that you came today means you want to change things too, right, Kaede?"

"...Yes."

She replied in a voice as faint as a mosquito's buzz. I could tell she was extremely nervous. I wanted to learn what triggered her refusal to attend school, but to do that, I had to earn her trust first.

Clutching the hem of her skirt and offering little more than quiet 'yes' or 'no' answers, she remained guarded at first. However, during some casual small talk, we discovered we liked the same musical artist. Finding common ground gradually opened her up, and she began to speak more. I was careful not to pry too deep—it wasn't time for that yet. Impatience is fatal in this line of work.

That day ended with just casual banter, and though the session lasted less than an hour, I felt a solid sense of progress.

By the third session, she had almost entirely warmed up to me. She smiled much more often and even began affectionately calling me Aki-chan.

The outline of Kaede as a person was becoming much clearer.

Talking to her like this, she was just a normal girl, no different from anyone else her age.

She was just a little unstable right now.

What remained baffling, however, was that the school refused to disclose any background information about her to me.

I felt closer collaboration with the school would help resolve the issue, but according to her homeroom teacher and the principal, her mother had requested that no details about Kaede be shared with outsiders without permission.

As a recently hired, part-time contract counselor, I was considered an outsider.

On the fourth session, I finally brought the focus to the reason behind her truancy. Starting with harmless chat as usual, I gradually shifted the topic toward the heart of the matter, until finally—

"I confessed my feelings to a boy I liked, and he rejected me... so I thought everything was over."

Tears streaming down her face, she confessed her reason between soft sobs.

Adults might dismiss it as a trivial matter, but for a kid that age, a failed confession feels like nothing short of the end of the world.

I gently placed my hand on her head as she cried.

"You worked so hard. I'm proud of you. It's okay. I promise there will come a day when you're an adult and can look back on this as a good learning experience with a smile."

"Aki-chan, are you married?"

She asked me a question on her own, which was rare.

"Yeah, my husband is two years older than me. Actually, I have a baby in my belly right now."

Her eyes widened, and her gaze shifted to my stomach.

"You'll meet someone wonderful someday too, Kaede. I just know you'll grow up to be a kind, happy, wonderful mother."

"Me... a mother..."

She muttered softly, her eyes seeming to flicker. Her pale face turned even more ghost-like. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it immediately. Her gaze fell from my face down to her own hands on the desk, and a brief silence settled over us.

We had been talking for nearly two hours today. She was probably exhausted from the longer session. Just as I thought that—

"...I'm sorry, I have to go home now."

Saying that out of nowhere, she abruptly stood up and hurried away without even saying a proper goodbye, almost as if running away.

Right before stepping out the door, she paused, turned around, and looked at me.

Looking back now, I think her eyes had lost all their light and turned completely dead.

After holding eye contact for a few seconds, she ignored my questions and walked straight out of the room.

At seven o'clock that evening, after I returned home, I received a call from the school.

Kaede had jumped in front of a train and died instantly.

Her mother was in a state of hysterical frenzy, barely able to speak.

Upon hearing the news, I couldn't comprehend what had happened right away; it took time for the reality to sink in. Everything felt so abrupt, like a bad joke, devoid of any sense of reality.

Apparently, no suicide note was left behind.

I didn't attend the funeral. No, I couldn't. Her mother had strongly requested that the school keep me away.

Then, the school informed me that Kaede had gender dysphoria—that biologically, she was male. Her mother decided there was no longer any reason to keep it a secret.

Why hadn't I noticed anything wrong until now?

I cursed myself endlessly for my own shortsightedness.

Kaede must have wrestled with herself every single day, trying to find the courage to reveal the truth to me.

And if things had progressed normally, she surely would have gathered her courage and confided in me eventually.

Her mother must have believed that too, which was why she kept quiet until then.

"I just know you'll grow up to be a kind, happy, wonderful mother."

My careless words in that moment completely negated her, someone who could never carry a child. It was as good as declaring to her, "You will never be happy."

I felt as if my hands were soaked in blood, and my heart was nearly crushed under the weight of guilt.

A while later, an anonymous envelope was slipped into my mailbox.

Inside was a single sheet of stationery.

"Are you satisfied now that you drove Kaede to her death? I suppose you will continue ruining people's lives as a counselor giving self-satisfied lectures. I sincerely pray that you rot in hell."

I tore the letter to pieces.

I swore never to work as a counselor again.

Time passed, and I gave birth to a daughter. Amidst the dizzying routine of a full-time homemaker, my daughter turned two years old before I knew it.

Am I happy now?

That look in Kaede's eyes as she turned around at the doorway and stared at me that day is still burned into my mind as if it happened yesterday.

Though it's been years since I quit being a counselor, the memory of those few days with Kaede unexpectedly squeezes my heart from time to time.

I should forget. Regret is pointless now. I should focus on my life with my family.

Then, one day.

As I was folding laundry in the room, I felt my daughter behind me.

"Mommy's busy right now, sweetie. Let me play with you later, okay?"

I said with my back still turned to her.

"Aki-chan, I finally became a girl."

I turned around.

There stood my daughter, smiling brightly, with a single beauty mark beneath her eye that she had been born with.