Chapter Two: “The Snow Finds the Clod of Earth” — Part Nine
Back in her uniform, Kai let her voice fall cold as rain before putting her shoes on.
“You really shouldn’t go.”
“I don’t think that’s an option at this point.”
“You’re not about to march in there demanding don’t hit little Chitaira Kai, are you?”
“…If a plea like that were enough to stop it, how easy that would be.”
I didn’t think something as deep-rooted as abuse could be solved at its foundation, not by anything I said.
“I’m going to tell them I’m taking you into protection.”
Kai’s brow creased. I explained, speaking to that crease.
“I don’t want to send you back to a house with someone in it who hurts you. But I need to say something, at least one sentence, or this becomes an abduction. I’ll say that much, that you’re under my protection, and then we leave straight away.”
Kai let out a sigh at that. “Too much common sense.”
“That’s why it’s not abuse, and not parents… whatever’s in there. You’ll understand once you’ve gone in, though it might be better if you didn’t. I don’t want you to see something unpleasant, Yuki-san.”
“Unpleasant things… I’ve already seen plenty.”
It was true that expecting a reasonable conversation from someone willing to hit a child was a mistake to begin with.
So this might end up being a one-sided declaration rather than a negotiation, but Kai was still a minor regardless.
This was necessary, to help a child. I told myself that, looking up at Kai as I put my shoes on.
“…Well, there are things I’ll need to collect if I’m leaving for good.”
Apparently giving up on talking me out of it, Kai put her shoes on too.
“Let’s go. It’ll be fine, I’m with you.”
I said it, lightly supporting Kai’s curled-up back, and a breath escaped her.
“Having you come along with me… gives me complicated feelings, honestly.”
From there until we reached the mansion, Kai said almost nothing.
While driving, I voiced my one concern to her.
“It might come down to an argument.”
“They’re not on a level where that applies.”
Kai dismissed my expectation with something close to a sigh.
We parked near the house I’d only ever seen from a distance before, and walked the rest of the way together.
Up close, the gate’s scale, which I had only vaguely registered before, was overwhelming. Old, established, grander than the front gate of the local primary school.
Before passing through it, Kai took my hand.
“Promise me something. If I pull your hand and try to run, you run with me. Wherever it is, whatever the situation, just run.”
“…What is that about?”
“Please. This one thing, I really need you to… keep it.”
Kai gripped my hand with both of hers, pressing in hard enough to leave marks. Everything this child had in her was in that grip. It pressed into my heart far harder than her resistance in the rain ever had.
“All right. I promise.”
I returned the grip once, then let go. Together, we passed through the great gate.
Inside was the kind of opulence that, lived an ordinary life, you only ever see on a screen, laid out here in unbroken continuity. The weakening rain seemed to swallow sound entirely, so that not a single noise reached us from that grand building. And the walk from the gate to the entrance was, again, long. We were made to walk for nearly five minutes.
“This is excessively inconvenient.”
I muttered it, and Kai agreed, with evident distaste. “Couldn’t agree more.”
Taking off our shoes at the entrance, I wondered if anyone was even home, and glanced toward the interior.
Far down a long, long corridor, a face emerged from around a corner, and my eyes went wide.
The moment eyes the exact same colour as Kai’s caught mine, a chill ran down my spine.
Was this what it felt like to be fixed in the gaze of a wild animal.
A man approached us at a brisk pace.
“Well, isn’t it Kai. Kai, at this hour.”
Neat hair, fine clothes, an entirely ordinary appearance, the kind of man who might commute to an office. And yet something in the way he spoke alone marked him as strange. Kai stepped back exactly as much as he stepped forward, lips pressed shut, offering nothing. I moved myself between her and the man.
“Are you… Kai’s father?”
I asked, judging from how he’d closed the distance, and from behind me came a quiet “no, he isn’t.”
“Kai’s father… that’s a rather difficult question for us.”
Already, I could feel a stark mismatch in how this conversation was unfolding.
“We’re able to answer it, but doing so would require adjusting the schedule.”
“…I’m sorry?”
The words were comprehensible. The meaning behind them wasn’t. A strange, uncomfortable feeling.
“…In that case, I’d like to speak to her parents. Could you call them, please?”
The thought that this man might himself be one of the people hitting Kai meant I had to keep my voice deliberately low to manage anything resembling a calm conversation. Left unchecked, my voice would have sharpened into something that cut on contact.
“Understood. We’ll select someone suitable from among ourselves, please wait a moment. This way to the drawing room.”
The man began guiding us without asking my name, my business, anything about who I was. Whether I should even follow, the strangeness of it all threatened to overwhelm me. But I couldn’t turn back now and show Kai my unease, so I kept my eyes forward and followed him. A strange scent drifted through the Chitaira house, something like a slightly acrid flower. The further we walked the more it seemed to cling like mist, unpleasantly.
“This way.”
“…Thank you.”
I thanked him at the door, but the man didn’t move from the spot. Neither his eyes nor his neck so much as twitched.
What was this pause. The man simply stared, expression unchanged, and it was deeply unsettling. When I held still in return, he eventually seemed to give something up and turned back the way he’d come.
“He was probably confused, with you standing between us, Yuki-san.”
“…What do you mean?”
“We do at least have a rule about self-preservation, not easily harming outsiders.”
Kai stepped away from behind me and kicked the drawing room door, more than once.
“What was that for?”
“Just making it easier to open. Take the chair nearest the entrance, would you. I’m going to grab my school bag and textbooks. I’ll be straight back, then we run.”
Stating the plan rapidly, Kai ran off down a corridor facing the garden. Against her urgency, was I being too slow to react.
As instructed, I chose the chair nearest the door and sat. The cushioning was disconcertingly soft, plush in a way that unsettled rather than comforted. Even to my untrained eye the furnishings carried an expensive sheen, and I felt entirely out of place, a foreign object in the room.
I would soon learn that being out of place was, in fact, the fortunate position to be in.
Before long, people from the Chitaira household came in. Came in. Kept coming in… what was happening.
I had asked to speak to her parents. And yet only men came through that door. In a steady stream.
About seven men lined up, and even in a drawing room this large, the effect was crowding, oppressive.
Seven to one.
A sensation unpleasant enough to nearly lift me out of my seat.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
The man who had greeted us earlier spoke, as if representing the rest.
“And you are, ah, we never did get your name.”
“…What is this?”
Before giving my name, I let the simple question, why are there seven of you, carry in my tone instead.
“My apologies. All of us here are Candidate Number One for Kai’s father.”