Chapter Two: “The Snow Finds the Clod of Earth” — Part Seven
“This probably isn’t the time, but.”
“Hm? What, did you say something?”
The downpour and the engine noise made Kai’s voice hard to catch.
“Soaking wet with your clothes sticking like this, you’re sexy, Yuki-san.”
“…………………………………”
I decided I hadn’t heard that.
After a long string of detours we arrived at my workplace. Reflecting that the last detour in particular had been quite something, I pulled into the church car park and spoke to Kai.
“I can’t take the day off work. Bear with it until that’s over.”
I couldn’t throw away the life I had now. And I couldn’t abandon Kai either.
Wanting too much, carrying too much. I might sink along with everything I’d taken on.
“If it’s a bother, you can just leave me, you know.”
“Why can you only ever phrase things that way…”
Helplessness, frustration, an anger at the unfairness of it all rising like a flame. There was no point being angry at this child, and yet her stubbornness nearly made me grind my teeth. The frustration built without anywhere to land, and if I let my guard down I felt close to tears. The rain running down from my forehead, splitting at the bridge of my nose, gave me something unpleasant enough to focus on instead, and that settled me.
“…I’m sorry.”
Had my expression been severe enough to make even Kai turn meek.
I slowly steadied my breathing, working my way back to something composed in face and feeling both.
“I’ll come back during my lunch break. It’ll probably be boring, but stay put.”
“I’ll be fine, I’m good at doing nothing.”
Saying so, Kai let herself fall flat against the seat.
“Are you tired?”
“Trying to make sure no one sees me if they look in the car.”
“Ah. That’s… thoughtful of you.”
True enough, the odds were close to nothing, but if anyone from my family or my office happened to see this child in my car… that would be a problem. Nearly impossible, almost unthinkable, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had already stepped onto the road marked almost unthinkable today. Who would have predicted, when the day began, that it would come to this. The downpour seemed to be reaching into my whole life now.
When the rain passed, would there really be blue sky waiting overhead.
Leaving Kai behind, I arrived at work to immediate concern over having shown up drenched. Only then did I realise. Perhaps I should have changed before coming in, even at the cost of being later still.
“Did you not drive in? Car trouble?”
“Ah, um… I slipped on the stairs over there trying to get out of the rain and tumbled down, rolled around on the ground a bit.”
A throwaway lie that came out sounding like a disaster, but my appearance apparently matched it well enough that everyone believed it. They worried about injuries too, but I’m fine! Fine! Totally fine! I pushed through with an embarrassingly age-inappropriate run of cheerful reassurance.
“I’ll go change at lunch, so I’ll work like this until then. No clients booked this morning, so, no problem at all!”
I forced it through mostly on momentum, sat down, and told myself to get on with it. Whether my head was in any state to actually work was deeply questionable. But not showing my face at all would invite suspicion if my family was contacted, so I had to be here. The thought crossed my mind, and I nearly laughed bitterly at myself, building an alibi.
As if I had anything to feel guilty about.
…Did I, really?
Returning at lunch, the rain still unrelenting, I found Kai lying down with her eyes closed, breathing steadily in sleep.
The sight overlaid itself with the black cat that used to sleep on the wall, and my eyes threatened to grow hot. I realised, since finding Kai, I had become prone to tears, and perhaps that cat was the reason.
That cat probably never wanted my help either.
But I still regret that time. So this time, at the very least, I wanted to feel I had done enough to live with it.
Leaving Kai sleeping, I started toward the house to drop by briefly.
“…You’ll be all right, won’t you.”
I glanced back at her sleeping face before turning away.
And found myself, absurdly, worrying whether carrying her into the house like this counted as some kind of abduction.
Kai was still asleep when we reached the garage at home, so I gently shook her shoulder.
“…Hey, wake up?”
I added my voice so she’d know who was waking her, hoping to avoid the kind of startled leap from before. Whether it worked, I couldn’t say for certain, but Kai didn’t spring upright this time, only flinched once before opening her eyes.
“…I thought I was tired, and before I knew it I’d fallen asleep.”
“Healthy of you. Come inside, anyway.”
Seeing the mark Kai’s wet, dirty clothes had left on the seat where she’d been lying, I added cleaning the back seat to my list for later. I brought her in. Being before noon, naturally neither my daughter nor my husband were home yet. I unlocked the door and kicked off my shoes carelessly. Once I’d done what I needed to do, I’d have to be back at work straight away.
“For the bruises… cold compress first, I think it was?”
I had a vague memory from long ago of being taught that once a bruise yellowed, warmth was better. Turning it over in my mind, I went to the kitchen and found a plastic bag of a workable size.
“Um, bruises this size usually heal fine on their own if you leave them.”
“Never mind that. You…”
I hesitated, then added, since there’s nothing wrong with it.
“You have… such a beautiful face, and yet.”
What crime or shame was there in calling something beautiful beautiful. Thoroughly embarrassed, I still tried to carry it off with my chin up, putting on a brave front. The regret of having struck a face this delicate threatened to surge back up in me.
“…Was that a confession just now?”
“Oh, sure, sure it was. Moved by my own literary sentiment.”
I made a makeshift ice pack with the plastic bag and handed it to Kai.
“Hold it against the bruise.”
“…Which bruise should I pick, I wonder.”
The self-deprecating joke struck me. Right, it wasn’t only her head, there was the one on her neck too. And if there were two visible like this, what might be hidden under her uniform, countless more… the helplessness of trying to help with what amounted to a drop of water on a heated stone nearly made me stamp my foot in frustration.
Still, doing something had to be better than doing nothing, and I handed her a towel.
“You can have a bath. Change once you’re out, I’ll dry your uniform.”
At the word change, Kai reacted, showing resistance.
“I’m fine.”
I caught her wrist as she tried to slip away while drying her hair with the towel.
I kept my eyes from dropping to register how thin it was.
“I really don’t need to change, it’s fine.”
Kai’s weak resistance continued. She was genuinely trying to pull free, and nothing moved.
As if it were a perfect demonstration of her circumstances as they actually stood.
“Your uniform is soaked through, it can’t feel good to keep wearing it.”
“It’s fine even like this.”
“Don’t be stubborn about this.”
“It’s not… that kind of thing.”