Misaki was never a big drinker. Her mother knew this, her father suspected it, and her friends weren't either, so they knew as well. But when Misaki took a sip of Erika's white wine, so cold and crisp and clean on that sticky summer day, something inside of her seemed to clamor for more. Before she knew it she was on her third glass, and everything seemed to be shimmering through a smudged lens. Her mother, giggling, and just as drunk herself, took the glass away from her and proceeded to tell her a long story about Misaki's grandfather and her own father. Before they were done, they were both crying.

Misaki couldn't help but notice the continually broken paternal chain in her family. She wondered if her grandfather had suffered at the hands of his own personal patriarch, or had experienced the lack thereof. She felt some place deep inside of her heart hardening, and a resolution formed at the forefront of her brain: She would mend the chain. Her husband would be chosen carefully, so that her child would never experience that gaping wound that a missing parent left behind. She herself had never been aware of that wound until the appearance of her own real father. Being around him had scratched at the thinly-healed skin, revealing the wound to be fresh, bleeding, and unbearably deep. She was determined to prevent that pain in any child of her own.

Since then she's had a penchant for white wine. She allows herself to drink it whenever she is with her mother, and she relishes every c