Fate

Trigger warning-

Includes war in Ukraine

Story of people fleeing a country

“Tonight marks the night when we are finally free.” Sana raised their glass looking at the few who had stuck with them. “May we be safe here, in this new home.” 

… 

“Why do you let them say that to you?” Toinette asked Sana, “You deserve so much better than what this little town offers you.” 

Toinette was unsure what to tell Sana, she wanted them to leave with her, since it wasn’t safe where they lived, in Romania anymore.

Sana tapped their finger on their desk, slouching, “Yea I know, but I can’t just leave, it’s my home.” 

“Well it might not be soon, look at this.” Toinette turned on the computer, “I’ve been hearing about it for a while, but never thought it’d come this far.” 

Toinette pulled up the news showing the headlines to Sana, “They’re going to kick us out..?” Sana was dumbfounded. 

“Yea, there’s too many problems, we’ve already lost the fight.” Toinette scrolled down to a section, and began reading, “Anyone found to be gay will be relocated to camps in Russia, if you are found lying, or part of it, you will be marked with a pink triangle, to keep others safe.”

“WHAT?” Sana yelled standing up, I thought we were past all of that! I thought it was over in 1946! What happened?!” 

Toinette stood up to comfort them, still speaking the truth, “With all of the things happening in Ukraine, Russia’s now trying to completely control everything, this has become much bigger, and they’re going back to old ways, to be fair, they never left them.” 

Sana started pacing, Toinette answered, “We need to leave. Now.”

“But this is my home! What if they never make it here? I don’t think they will, right? What about all of our friends? They should come with us if we do, I can’t leave them here!” 

Toinette took Sana’s hands in hers, looking into their eyes, “Then, let’s go find them, I’m not leaving you here, it’s not safe, we’re on the border, we’re next.” 

Sana looked down, pulling their hands away, “Alright..” 

…

Toinette knocked on Kinoshita’s door, it was time for their weekly gatherings, and it was urgent this time, when nobody answered she opened the door and walked in herself. “We’re here!” She yelled out. Leading Sana through the house even though they knew where they were going anyway. 

“SHHH!” Someone answered them from an unknown location. Sana and Toinette silenced immediately, looking around the house, trying to figure out where the voice came from. “Where are they?” Sana whispered to Toinette. “I don’t know..” Toinette answered looking around. 

Suddenly Toinette felt Sana’s grip tighten as she screamed, “AHHH!” holding on for dear life, they had been grabbed around their ankle, and scared out of their mind. Toinette held on to them, pulling them away from whatever had grabbed them, as Sana was shaking in her arms Toinette looked to where the hand had been, and spotted a vent where it might’ve come from. Inside the vent Toinette spotted a familiar face, “My God-Tocito! don’t do that! You scared Sana half to death!” 

Tocito’s eyes filled with guilt, he used sign language, “Sorry, Come on, get down here.” 

        … 

Promptly the two were out the door and at the back of the house kneeling down into the crawl space, there was a room underneath the house just big enough for their meetings, safe but never used, Toinette wasn’t surprised when they had to go there. The crawl space was left unattended for so long that the two struggled to get through but made it eventually. 

When they got into the room there was a lantern in the middle on the concrete floor, around 9 sleeping bags surrounding them, but only four of them were there, Brothers Tocito and Massimo, the eldest of the group Kinoshita Ken'ichi, as well as the youngest, Lupe. 

Kinoshita greeted them with an polite bow, “Welcome, apologies for the scare Sana, Tocito was trying to get your attention, but since he’s mute he didn’t know what else to do,” She eyed him, “Although I wish he would’ve let one of us know first, he did that anyway.” 

Sana sighed, “It’s alright, just unexpected..that’s it, I thought you were something else..” 

Kinoshita hugged Sana, “We thought you were something else as well when you first knocked, choosing to just walk in. Tocito was keeping an eye out for us since he’s the quietest one. And wouldn’t have gotten caught.” 

“Alright,” Sana responded. Toinette placed her hand on Sana’s shoulder, making Kinoshita back off awkwardly, “Apologies,” doing another small bow. 

Sana looked around at the people she could see, Massimo was in a corner asleep, “so much for being the greatest.” She thought. Lupe was reading a book, Sana squinted to see the title, but couldn’t make it out in the low light. “Lupe, what gender are you today?” they asked. 

Lupe looked up, and turned red, closing their book, “Sorry! I didn’t realize you were here, I got so caught up in my book!” 

“That’s alright,” Sana replied, “What are you today?” 

  “Ah, yes, I am a ‘she’ today, thank you for asking.” Lupe responded, her femine features suddenly more noticeable to Sana now that she looked closer. 

“Okay, and of course, any time.” Sana replied. 

After a moment Lupe stood up, “we should probably start talking about what’s going on right now, shouldn’t we?”

Massimo silently woke up, knowing what was happening, but blissfully ignoring it, looking at Lupe, Kinoshita, Sana, and Toinette standing in a group and Tocito on the side, “Come here brother.” 

Tocito went and joined him, Lupe watched rather obviously, “They’re so cute, the best brothers, aren’t they?” 

“Yea. They are.” Toinette replied. Before remembering the first thing asked, “Oh, yea, we should probably start soon, but where are the other three?” 

Kinoshita looked at her watch, “Tumura told me that they were getting the other two, unsure where they are now though.” 

“Here! Sorry we took so long!” Echoed from the tunnel, it was Tumura’s voice. Shortly they were in the room standing up, waiting for the other two to make it through the space, “Sorry, they were fighting again.” They said, looking back at the tunnel. 

Soon the two entered to find Kinoshita standing there, eying them like an angry mother. Tumura beside her, going along with her. 

“Nirupama Grover! Myeong Mi-Kyoung! Why can’t you just get along?” Kinoshita was ready to lecture them. 

“Because Myeong likes to fight over everything! Her violence has never changed since she left North Korea!”  Nirupama yelled. 

Myeong gasped, “You little brat! You’re just jealous because you’re a poor Hindu and will never be like me!” 

“Not true!” Nirupama shot back. “I’m better than you’ll ever be, what’s there to be jealous of?!” 

Kinoshita got in between them before they tore each other to shreds, “Guys, stop fighting! Apologize. Now.” 

There was a tense silence, as the two glared at each other. Lupe broke it, “Nirupama first, you started the fight.” 

Nirupama hissed under his breath, “Stupid Mexican.” 

Lupe’s eyes flared red, “What was that?” Knowing full well what she heard. 

“Nothing!” Nirupama yelled uncomfortably. 

“That’s what I thought. Now, Apologize.” Lupe commanded. 

Nirupama looked at Myeong, and softened, he truly was sorry for what he had said, all of it. “I’m sorry Myeong,” then glanced at Lupe, “And I’m sorry to you as well Lupe.” 

Lupe nodded at Myeong, who responded, “And I’m sorry as well.” Kinoshita looked at the three, “Now hug. You too Lupe.” 

There was a split second with no motion before Myeong pulled all three of them into a hug. 

“Now let’s start, we wasted too much time with that.” Kinoshita commanded. 

  … 

Soon they were sitting in an oval, Kinoshita at one head and Massimo at the other, “Where are we going to go? We all know none of us can stay here.” Kinoshita asked the group. 

There was a lot of commotion, but Tocito came up with an idea which he communicated with his brother, Massimo quickly shared the idea, “What if we went to Italy? It’s Tocito and I’s home, we could find our grandparents, talk some sense in them maybe- and get jobs there, hopefully one day after so long we could make it to America.” 

“That’s a good idea, but it might be somewhat hard with all the migration to western Europe anyway, plus we have quite the large group to fit into one small Italian house.” Kinoshita paused, “Maybe something similar, but we go to Japan, to Tumura and I’s home, I know we have a bigger house there, and if I get in contact with my older relatives we might have even more of a chance than if we went to Italy.” 

Massimo was offended that they didn’t want to go to Italy, “We should go to Italy though it’s so much better than Japan.” 

Sana smiled, mockingly, “I beg to differ, I’d much rather go to Japan, maybe not America though.” 

Toinette finished their thought, “Sana’s the only American here, I’m French, but don’t remember much from my home, the most I know is that they have pretty decent laws regarding people like us.” 

Lupe responded, “While that’s a good idea, I think you forget I’m also from the America’s, the correct phrasing for that is, Sana’s the only one from the USA-” 

“Oh, sorry-” Toinette said surprised.  

“-but, I do not like the idea of staying on this continent at all, I think we should get as far away as possible, but America still doesn’t sound too appealing, what if we went to Canada? If we make it to Japan it’s easy sailing from there to Canada.” 

There were a few moments of silence, but they were all in agreement on the last idea. 

“That’s a wonderful idea Lupe.” Responded Kinoshita, turning her attention she said, “Tumura, go contact Koizumi, Now.” 

“Yes Ma’am.” Tumura politely bowed, excusing herself from the circle to grab her phone to make the call.

The meeting continued with Toinette, “I think it would be best if for now everyone stayed down here at this house, it’s the safest place with everything happening, and if people make their way here I don’t know what we’d do if we were out in the open or at Sana’s apartment.” 

“But what about my stuff? I need some of it, I can’t live without some of it, and food, what will we do about food down here?” Asked Sana, unsure about making any decisions. 

Toinette smirked, “Well, I’m way ahead of you Sana.” moving herself to grab the drawstring bag off of her back, which Sana hadn’t noticed before. Opening the bag she picked out something, “I knew you were attached to a few things, and I knew you’d never be able to leave them behind, so here..,” She handed Sana her favorite sweatshirt.

Sana lit up, looking at Toinette surprised, “Thank you!” She practically jumped on Toinette with a hug, and Toinette hugged her back, smiling miles wide, turning pink, “Of course,” She said, enjoying the moment while it lasted. 

Massimo cut in, “As ‘adorable’ as that was, we need to get back to the second question,” He looked at Kinoshita, “What are we going to do about food?” 

“Well, we have enough food in this house to last us a few weeks if anything happens, we would have to be careful about rations though if we chose that idea, but the sooner we get out the better, for obvious reasons-”

“Kinoshita!” Tumura tapped their sister, muted on the phone, “Koizumi said that we could be over there in a week if we’re careful about getting to an airport.”

Kinoshita smiled, “Wonderful, so for now we just need to be careful,” Picking on Massimo she said, “Massimo, no showing off right now, there’s not enough room.” 

Massimo scoffed, “How dare you limit my awesomeness,” Now smiling,  “but I will make the sacrifice for you, and only you.” 

“Suck up.” Replied Nirupama. 

“Oh be quiet Niru!” yelled Massimo. 

“Both of you, shut up!” Tumura yelled annoyedly before going back to the call they were in. The two shut up immediately and looked at Kinoshita, amused by her sibling’s boldness. 

“Well, that’s Tumura for you.” Laughed Kinoshita, “Anyway, we’ll stay here for a week, maybe leave the day before, is that alright?” 

Everyone nodded, they were completely fine with that plan, and soon were getting their sleeping bags ready for the night to go to bed, they had a long week ahead of them down there. 

Before long Kinoshita said goodnight, and turned off the lamp. Massimo had been assigned look out for the first night, so he stayed by the vent with Tocito who quickly fell asleep. 

… 

6 days later, 6am

“We’ve been living down here forever it seems, how much longer do we have to stay?” Nirupama asked Kinoshita early in the morning, they were the only two awake since Nirupama had taken the night shift that night and Kinoshita met him halfway to watch for the daytime. 

“Today is the final day, we’re going to leave around 7 tonight, so that everyone can get enough sleep before we depart. It also helps so that when we get to the airport it’ll be almost time to leave.” 

Nirupama sighed, “Alright, then I should probably get to bed, but, what about you? You will be exhausted by then.” 

“I’ll be alright, now lay down child. You must prepare yourself.” Kinoshita replied as they switched places getting ready for the night ahead of them. 

… 

4 hours later, 10am

Sana woke up, finding themself wrapped in a bundle with Toinette, carefully they sat up looking around, everyone was still asleep, but it seemed like it was too late for that, they looked around, spotting Kinoshita by the vent, they whispered, “What time is it?” 

Kinoshita turned around surprised, “Oh honey, go back to bed, we have a long night ahead of us, everyone needs to get as much sleep as possible.” 

Sana was confused, “But what about you? You can’t stay up all day if we’re going to have a long night, don’t be a hypocrite.” 

Kinoshita took a sharp breath, “As much as I’d love not to, we can’t just leave ourselves  unguarded, if somebody gets into the house we need to know immediately.” 

Sana layed back down, quieting themself further, “Alright, that’s fair enough, just don’t push yourself.” 

“I won’t.” They smiled, and finished, “Go back to sleep.” Though it didn't matter they said it, because Sana was already back asleep. 

… 

8 hours later, 6pm 

“Wake up!” Kinoshita whisper-yelled, “Wake up!” She was frantically running in between them pulling off blankets, kicking and shaking, paused at Tocito, and gave him mercy, waking his brother first to get Tocito himself. There were groans of unappreciation, but Kinoshita silenced them immediately pointing at the vent. There were people there.

People were walking through the house, searching stuff and yelling for each other to get stuff, ripping books, checking cracks and nooks for any sign people, the thin layer of dust over everything frustrated them, leaving them to think nobody was there. Even so they continued the search. 

The group sat in silence, out of the way of the vent, so that nobody could be seen through it, “We need to get out.” said Kinoshita, as if it weren’t already obvious. 

Nirupama looked at the crawl space, “I’ll go first, I’ll see if it’s safe before coming back to let you through.” 

“Niru, don’t do this..” Kinoshita was worried, but it was too late. 

“I’ll be right back.” Before he left. 

Kinoshita looked around, “Everyone use the buddy system, Massimo with Tocito, Sana and Toinette, Lupe and Myeoung, and Tumura, you come with me. We’ll follow behind.” 

Myeong and Lupe started silently gathering things they would need for their journey. It was starting an hour earlier than they’d liked, but it was now or never. 

Soon Nirupama was back, “Come, we have to be quick.” Before he started leading the first two groups out. 

The crawl space seemed smaller than it was on the way in to Sana, they were petrified, but not giving up now. They were going to make it out, all of them. 

“This way!” Nirupama led the groups quickly through the bushes which surrounded the crawl space, and they hid in the forest. Watching people come and go from the house. 

There was a moment of silence, relief from the group of getting out, before Nirupama cursed under his breath, “I have to go back.” 

Anxiety spiked in all of them, “What!? NO!” Yelled Kinoshita, but he was already making his way back, “Don’t do this!” They pleaded. But it was already too late they had been spotted. 

~~ End Part one ~~