My name is Sawako Fujiwara(♀). I’m a university student.

  My dad, a high school graduate, and my mom, a junior college graduate, worked hard to save money and support our dreams of going to college and pursuing research.

  I can tell, just by being with her, that my mom is a strong woman who consciously chooses to live in a feminine, motherly way for the sake of Dad and us. But she never forced femininity on me. Even when I said I wanted to major in information technology—an overwhelmingly male-dominated field—she didn’t object.

  I chose my lab because I wanted to study artificial intelligence. But that turned out to be a huge mistake.

  Professor Junpei Ishikawa.

  My first impression was that he was a cool, charming older man. But from the day I was assigned to his lab, the academic harassment and sexual harassment began.

  One spring evening as the sun was setting, I found myself alone with him.

  “I know your mother very well,” he said. “You look so much like her. You’re just as cute.”

  “Were you classmates with my mom?” I asked.

  “We were more… intimate than that,” he said, reaching to touch my shoulder.

  “Please stop…”

  My voice was small, almost disappearing.

  “You may not believe it, but your mother’s body used to be mine. Ah… now I want to make her mine again. This time, as a man.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  I didn’t understand what he meant. Were they lovers or something?

  Was he projecting some ghost of my mother onto me?

  From that day on, he began to touch me inappropriately—on my chest, on my butt.

  Whenever I resisted, he threatened me with my grades and my thesis.

  “Stop it! I’ll tell my mom!” I shouted.

  “Go ahead,” he sneered. “Your mother can never defy me. She has reasons she can’t turn against me.”

  Did he have something on her? I hesitated to tell her.

  But one summer, during Obon, I went home with a tearful face—and she asked me what had happened.

  My mom is usually a bit of a crybaby, but she’s also a kind and thoughtful woman who always puts her family first.

  Before I knew it, I was telling her everything.

  “I’m sorry… it’s my fault,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  So they really were in a relationship?

  “I wasn’t strong enough. I couldn’t say no when I should have. I let that man—or that woman—believe they could live however they pleased. It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

  After saying that, she locked herself in her room for about ten minutes.

  Even from the outside, I could hear her crying.

  “My name is Fuko Fujiwara,” she muttered to herself like a short video loop. “I’m a mother of two. I have to part ways with the person I used to be.”

  She gave me a voice recorder, contacted a lawyer, and promised to fight the professor with everything she had.

  After graduation, I sued the professor.

  It became big news in magazines and online media, largely because my mom passionately and eloquently exposed his vile behavior.

  The professor tried to defend himself by claiming he wasn’t a bad person and that he had close ties to the Ishikawa family, including my mother. But for some reason, this only fueled her fury.

  She gave more interviews, spoke out on social media, and made sure the truth came to light.

  Eventually, the professor was forced to leave the university.

  I will never forget the sorrowful look on my mother’s face that day.

  I wonder if she was truly able to break free from her past.

  Maybe that’s why—shortly after—she and Dad rekindled their love and had a third child, my much younger baby brother.

  “I think… I’ve finally been reborn as the true Fuko Fujiwara,” she said.

  Perhaps that was her way of saying goodbye to her past and choosing a life true to herself.

  I am Sawako Fujiwara. I grew up watching my mother’s back.

  In a society still centered around men, there are times I feel like giving up. But I take pride in having been born and raised as a woman.