Chapter Two: “The Snow Finds the Clod of Earth” — Part Eight
Kai kept refusing, using the wet, clinging uniform almost like a wall.
“If you saw… you’d probably look at me with pity.”
“…………………………………”
“I don’t want you treating me like that.”
Something pained in the way the words were wrung out of Kai struck me in the chest. She had spoken before about the distance between herself and other people, but having someone else’s pain actually reach you was genuinely rare, and I think a person stops being a person if they let the meaning of that slip by carelessly.
Besides, being told that practically planted the image in my mind regardless.
“I won’t look at anything, I promise. Get changed and have your bath. It’s fine.”
I put a hand on Kai’s shoulder. I wanted to give this child even a small measure of safety, however brief.
“Actually, I want a bath myself. So I’ll run the water, and since it’d be wasteful for just me, you can use it after, as an afterthought. …How’s that?”
I had no idea myself what that was supposed to settle. I didn’t have my husband’s gift for smooth talk to fall back on in moments like this. I was plenty awkward in my own right.
“If it’s an afterthought… I suppose that’s different.”
Kai didn’t look like she understood what exactly made it different either.
But it was an exchange we could both accept.
I went to the bathroom to start filling the tub, then went to fetch a change of clothes, both mine and something for Kai.
Though change of clothes was complicated. Borrowing my daughter’s things without asking felt wrong, and my own would surely be too big. But my own was all there was. I spent an absurd amount of time trying to choose something that wouldn’t feel too strange on her. Which one would suit her, which was the lesser of two options… I’d ended up dressing an imaginary Kai in my head entirely. I carried the long-sleeved option back to her, careful not to let it get wet.
Kai received it with sleepy eyes at first, then her eyes sharpened as something occurred to her.
“Is this… your clothing, Yuki-san?”
“It is, but don’t worry about the size.”
“Yuki-san’s…”
“What? I won’t accept complaints about it looking too much like something an oba-san would wear.”
Pre-empting what I assumed she’d say, Kai instead ran her palm over the fabric.
What was that gesture about, I wondered, bewildered, when Kai suddenly looked up, startling me.
“Um.”
“Yes?”
“Could I borrow underwear too?”
Something hollow and weightless struck me square in the head. Something had definitely just passed clean through.
“Mine’s soaked too.”
“Ah, ah, yes. Right, but…”
I hesitated over whether to say it, but there was no avoiding it.
“Our chest sizes are completely different.” “Just the bottom half is fine.” “Ah, right…”
I scurried off, wondering whether this was really all right, and came back with underwear chosen amid a fair amount of hesitation and embarrassment, handing it to Kai. I’d tried to pick something in a colour and style that wouldn’t feel out of place on a middle schooler. Taking that seriously enough to once again dress an imaginary Kai in my head…
I felt strangely light-headed.
“Huh, so this is what you wear…”
Kai unfolded the underwear right there to examine it, and my earlobes went hot enough to scorch.
“Give that back. Live without underwear.”
“It’s mine now.”
“It is not!”
Watching Kai dance around clutching someone else’s underwear, I found myself relieved, almost in a parental way, that she seemed to have a little more energy. Children have energy. I felt that even for a child that wasn’t mine.
I waited outside in the hallway, leaning against the wall, while Kai undressed.
“Ready?”
I asked, and got back a voice that sounded faintly ticklish.
“Reaaaady.”
I felt a contagious version of that same ticklishness creep over me too.
I gathered Kai’s discarded uniform and underwear. I made sure not to look toward the bathroom at all.
“No peeking, all right.”
“Yes, yes.”
“You’re the erotic oba-san, I’m a little worried…”
“Get in the bath and be quiet.”
I went up to the laundry room on the second floor, put the uniform and my own shirt in the washing machine, then hurried back down the stairs thinking next, what’s next. While Kai was in the bath I called the office to rearrange the rest of my day. With that settled, I had lunch in the kitchen, gnawing through some biscuits and tea. Having walked around that much already, I nearly lay down, then realised that if I did I wouldn’t get up again until evening, so I cleaned my wet shoes instead to pass the time.
Kai didn’t take long in the bath.
Steam rising softly off her, Kai looked… like someone who’d wandered far from her usual dark dwelling, almost pastoral, more childlike than usual. Adorable. Genuinely adorable. My cheeks threatened to soften completely.
The clothes were, naturally, far too large, and she looked like a child playing dress-up in her parent’s wardrobe. She had the ice pack pressed properly against the bruise on her head. I should treat the others properly once she was settled.
“That was a lovely bath, thank you.”
Kai, with the bath towel draped over her head like a hood, finally smiled.
“If you’re hungry, help yourself to anything, whatever’s easy.”
“I don’t usually eat much at lunch, I’m fine.”
Not eating lunch — what did she do about school lunches, then.
“I’m going to finish work early and come back.”
When I came back… what then. What was I supposed to do.
Was there even one thing surrounding this child that I could actually remove.
Kai smiled at me, lost for words.
“All right. I’ll be waiting for you, Yuki-san.”
When I came back, Kai would be there. Kai would be waiting for me.
Just the simple fact of being relied on by this child was enough to lift my spirits, easily, almost too easily.
Did I really need to rush back to work that fast? I cast the question aside and ran to the bathroom, diving into the bath. My skin, shrivelled from the rain, came back to life with an itching sensation at the sudden change in temperature. The relief of slipping free from everything binding me, combined with the strange thrill of bathing in the middle of the day, gave me access to language I didn’t know I had.
“Hyeehh-hyeh-heh!”
I let out a bizarre little birth-cry, brought back so suddenly to life.
They say things like my head is spinning, and today genuinely deserved the phrase, busy enough to make you dizzy. Even at the office I kept working with my hands while my mind stayed entirely on Kai, left behind at the house.
And the moment my thoughts turned to what I should actually do from here, this is hard, slipped out of me, plain and honest.
I left the office before my daughter would be home from school, offering some excuse for leaving early. A colleague jokingly asked who had a fever this time, and I told them, probably me. It was a perfectly sincere answer, but it landed as a joke regardless.
By the afternoon the rain had eased somewhat. Hoping the trouble might clear along with it, I drove home. I went through the ground floor looking for Kai and couldn’t find her in any room, and found myself thinking, strangely, that there was no room in this house meant for her.
Kai was sitting in the upstairs laundry room, without even turning on the light.
“The air felt clearest in here, I liked it.”
“If you’re happy, that’s fine by me.”
I taped over Kai’s bruises with the first aid kit I’d brought up. Kai offered no resistance this time, simply letting it happen.
“Did you get some rest?”
“Oh, yes.”
She seemed dazed, slow to respond. Her cheeks were more flushed than usual, with a kind of glow to them, and for a moment I nearly looked away. What was I doing, noticing something like that in a child who wasn’t well.
“Any fever? Cold coming on?”
“What?”
“Your face is red.”
“…Is it? Just your imagination.”
That colour was surely not imagined, but well, if she felt better, that was good.
Once the bandaging was done, I collected the dried uniform and Kai’s underwear. …Imagining Kai wearing my underwear right now left me strangely unsettled. Something about my own underwear being worn by someone else felt almost like my blood running through another person’s veins. An odd, uneasy sensation.
“Just leave my clothes anywhere nearby, that’s fine.”
“Yes…”
Handed her uniform back, why did Kai lower her face as if reluctant to take it.
“Once you’re changed, come to the door. We’re heading out shortly.”
Where? Kai’s expression seemed to ask. I answered toward her forehead.
“Your house.”