Chapter Four: The Snow Melts into the Clod of Earth - Part One
To be deliberately honest about it, the year had begun while I was busy thinking about nothing but Kai.
“Right, we should probably exchange New Year’s greetings first… Which side was the place of honour again?”
“You ask me that every year, but it’s over there. Opposite the entrance to the room.”
“Where Maron’s sitting?”
“Good grief. Have you even lost to Maron in the memory department?”
I remembered Kai telling me that she liked dogs.
“Then sit here… Come on, you too. Next to Maron.”
“Haha! Please excuse me, Lady Maron.”
“In that case, I shall sit next to her as well.”
“What are you going to do, line up in a row to exchange greetings?”
“I’d feel lonely if I were the only one sitting by myself.”
Kai, too, was alone now.
Without me, she was just a… girl, all on her own.
“Then I’ll sit over there too, if that’s all right. Okay, then. Let’s exchange New Year’s greetings.”
“I’m grateful for Mother’s kindness.”
“Well then… Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year. I look forward to your continued support this year.”
Even when I put it into words, the year ahead felt vague and insubstantial.
The things I had been carrying since the previous year remained entirely unresolved, and I was a long way from welcoming the new year with a fresh spirit.
“Mm… I look forward to your continued support this year, too.”
“Mmm, mmm… Um, could we have our New Year’s money soon?”
Kai had probably never received otoshidama, New Year’s money, in her life.
Was she spending the New Year alone in that hotel room, feeling nothing at all about the occasion?
“I’m not going to tell you not to waste your money… but you shouldn’t develop the sort of financial habits that lead you to spend it all straight away.”
“Mother’s tutorial mission: try trusting your daughter.”
“Was I still only an apprentice mother?”
I think that, at that moment, I caught a faint glimpse of the possibility that I might not even be able to qualify as an apprentice any more.
Then again, it had all happened a year ago, so perhaps nobody remembered much of it.
I mean, how our exchanges were more or less the same as they had been the previous New Year.
At the very least, I was reusing conversations from the past, recreating the image of a good wife and a good mother in energy-saving mode. Put that way, it sounded as though I was neglecting my family, but I simply didn’t have the capacity to deal with several things at once. One of them inevitably ended up being left unattended, without my even realising it. And all the while, I was constantly worrying about Kai, wondering whether it was really all right to leave things as they were.
The end of the year, New Year’s, and the visits from relatives that came with the season all passed over the surface of my life. Whatever exchanges and smiles I must have shared with my family in between never took root in my heart. They were swept away by the cold of winter.
Since Christmas, I hadn’t once visited the hotel where Kai was staying. Kai hadn’t contacted me about it, either, and all communication between us had ceased completely. The middle school term had ended for the winter holidays, so I no longer had any reason to pick her up in the mornings. Nor did I stop by the hotel on my way home from work. In effect, I had returned to spending time with my family.
By ordinary standards, it was an ideal return to normality.
And there was no doubt that I was ordinary through and through, an utterly unremarkable person. I had no complaints, no objections to raise… or so it should have been. And yet, I had the persistent illusion that I was still facing that petite girl, who hadn’t even grown into her fourteen years. If I lowered my gaze, I felt as though Kai might appear anywhere.
The image of a middle school girl who said she loved me licking my feet.
The moment she pushed me down.
When I was inside my warm home, I could find no connection between any of it and my present life. It all seemed like a bad dream.
Why had I allowed myself to become so deeply involved with Kai?
Kai. Chitaira Kai. Fourteen years old, a second-year middle school student.
Cheeky, twisted, a girl without a family of her own. A beautiful face that could sweep aside the harsh words she hurled at the world. Slightly dowdy hair that hadn’t been cut particularly well. Slender wrists. Feeble resistance. An affection that refused to be honest.
And those yellow-green eyes.
Everything about her was unlike anything else. She existed in a way that belonged to Kai alone.
Kai. Chitaira Kai. If I let my guard down, I felt as though I might say her name aloud. It was obvious what would happen if I did that in front of my family, yet there seemed to be a hole in my common sense that I simply couldn’t plug.
This, too, could be called the after-effects of a nightmare.
But that dream had ended on that day. The day she told me she loved me.
“……………………………………”
That was a lie. I still hadn’t managed to escape that dream.
Whenever I fell silent for a moment, thoughts of Kai came flooding back, even when I was with my family.
The illusion that the toes of my feet, long since dried completely, were getting wet again.
The sensation of our lips pressed together was faint. I had to search desperately through my memories to draw it back to me.
And what would I do with such a thing if I brought it back into my possession?
“I’m off to schooool!”
“Never mind your voice. Straighten your back.”
The winter holidays ended, and my daughter reluctantly resumed going to school.
Which meant Kai would be returning to school, too.
The hotel was quite a distance from the school. Would Kai manage to get there regularly without me driving her? I kept my phone close, waiting for a message from Kai about it, but no response came. Eventually, I had to leave for work myself. It wasn’t as though I was expecting anything in particular.
But I couldn’t find a way to let everything fade away and forget it all without anything further happening.
“Both my wife and daughter have work to do, while I’m the only one getting a day off. I feel a bit guilty.”
My husband had come to the entrance to see us off, holding Maron in his arms and grinning sheepishly.
“School counts as work?”
“For students, it does. Weren’t we the same once?”
“My student days are so far in the past now.”
Especially with all the unpleasant memories I had associated with my hair. And there had been times when people had whispered behind my back about my father not being around, too. My mother had told me almost nothing about the father who hadn’t been at home. All she had told me was that I had inherited my natural hair colour from him, despite her own hair being jet black. Hearing that had made me resent him, just a little.
“You were busy right through the end of last year, but I hope you can take things a bit easier this year.”
“…Yes.”
Even this small act of consideration from my husband made me hate myself for an instant, when I caught myself fearing that his words were a sarcastic dig at me, that he knew everything.
I had rushed about trying to help someone who was in trouble right in front of me.
And yet, I was left with the feeling that somewhere along the way, I had made a terrible mistake.