Chapter Two: “The Snow Finds the Clod of Earth” — Part Fourteen
Perhaps I’d let myself believe something too easy, that reaching the hotel would bring some relief.
As the car followed Chitaira Shiho’s directions, a sense of recognition kept building. Even after parking and stepping out of the car park, I clung to the hope that my memory was simply wrong.
It had been close to fifteen years, after all, mistakes were entirely possible. But the moment I stopped and breathed in the salt-laced air, I understood that faint possibility had only ever been the product of a mind wanting something convenient.
The blurred photograph in my memory matched the hotel’s night view exactly.
“Ah…”
I covered my eyes with a hand, as if grit carried on the wind had caught them.
Does causality really exist in a life.
I knew this hotel Shiho had led us to.
Memory surfaced of vows exchanged in a chapel where nothing but sea and sky showed through glass walls.
This was the hotel where I had held my wedding.
“Yuki-san?”
“…Coming.”
I shook off the illusion of my life’s path folding in on itself and walked forward, against the wind.
And then, Shiho, having arranged a long-term stay with the hotel, left promptly.
“It’s a strange thing for me to say, given how we’re connected, but… thank you.”
“Not at all. Actually, let me say this first… I’m sorry.”
What she was apologising for, I had no idea at the time.
Directed to a room on the third floor, following the number on the card key, it turned out Shiho had booked the best room available, a suite, so despite being for a single guest it came with two separate rooms. Just past the entrance was a spacious toilet on the right, and further in, a large television with a sofa for watching it. Near the window, a table and four chairs, and past that on the left, a balcony visible through the glass. Through to the right was a bedroom the same size as the first room, with twin beds wide enough to make me wonder how many people Kai’s size could lie across side by side. This room also had a sofa by the window, perfectly positioned for the view. Past the bedroom, a washroom and bathroom, the washroom itself unusually wide, easily wide enough for two people to use side by side. A note mentioned the bathtub had jet functions, and reading it, I caught the clean scent of the wood-panelled bathroom, a small gift of fresh air.
“Nice room. I could live here myself.”
“Want to live here together?”
“Very funny.”
A place with no husband, no daughter, no thank you. Once the tour was done I sank onto the bedroom sofa, and setting down my things let the fatigue I’d been postponing all day settle over me at once, thick as mud. The painting above the bed, I had no expertise to identify, but it looked like it depicted the coastline and town somewhere nearby.
Kai threw the bag and change of clothes she’d brought from home onto the right-hand bed and sat down on the left one. Only the bedside lamp was lit, casting a modest light and shadow across both our faces. But that light alone was enough. More than enough to take in the vivid colour of Kai’s eyes.
“I didn’t expect to spend the whole day with you, Yuki-san.”
“Nor did I expect to run around this much… it’s been a while.”
Whatever work I’d handled in between all of this had left no impression on my memory at all. Would tomorrow be all right.
My body and mind felt heavy, as if struck all over again by rain that should have long since dried.
“You take good care of people. I suppose that comes with being a mother.”
“…Not really. I just didn’t want to spend every day with my head full of worry if I just abandoned you here.”
“I think that’s what people call being caring, or having a sense of responsibility.”
“Oh, sure. Maybe so.”
I brushed off the compliment as if some of Kai’s own twisted deflecting had rubbed off on me.
“Shio-nee-san also arranged living expenses for the time being.”
“Well then, no problems at all, are there~”
Nothing but problems, in fact. This was only a stopgap, not remotely a stable foothold. A house of straw that would collapse the moment the world or anyone around us pushed against it.
“I can’t stay here forever though… do you have any idea what to do?”
“No. But I couldn’t send you back to that house again today, not knowing what I know now.”
Once you’ve seen the reality of something, you can’t unsee it and pretend otherwise. Sometimes you act even knowing it isn’t a real solution. Perhaps that’s most of what a life actually consists of.
“So… I’m thinking. About what to do. I’ll keep thinking… probably for a long while.”
Ah. In the end, this child, my daughter’s friend, was going to fill my head completely, wasn’t she.
Whether I stepped back or moved forward.
“I’m not really thinking about anything in particular myself.”
“It’s your own life we’re talking about.”
“That’s true,” Kai said, laughing, and lay back on the bed. Something like surrender in the gesture.
It was true enough that there wasn’t much Kai herself could actually do here. There wasn’t much I could do either.
I felt close to throwing my own hands up along with her.
“Um.”
“Yeeess, what is it?”
I propped my cheek on my hand against the sofa back, a little listless.
“When you say my name, could you call me Kai?”
I dropped my hand from my cheek at once and leaned forward. Kai’s face, lying flat against the bed, was hard to read from here.
“I actually don’t like my surname.”
Still lying down, facing the ceiling, Kai revealed something true about herself, the long way around, as always.
…Ah, I thought.
Perhaps I had finally earned this child’s trust.
“Kai.”
Receiving that sincere piece of self-disclosure, I said the name.
“Yes.”
“…Kai.”
Nothing had actually been resolved. I was simply putting the problem off for later.
And yet, saying Kai’s name in that soft light felt like gaining something, an illusion of it at least. Exhaustion mixed with something like intoxication. Both filled my body like variants of the same drowsiness.
Kai having shared one true thing from inside herself left me with a strange, quiet happiness.