Chapter 5
When Ryuuji thought he heard the faint creak of the guest room door one over from his, he crawled out from under the blankets he was half-buried in. He opened the door slightly, trying not to make a sound as he did. He got on his knees and poked his head out into the hall, where the cold felt so dense that a layer of it seemed to have sunk to the ground.
Taiga was looking at him in the same pose. She must have been waiting for his door to open.
“It’s cold, huh? I couldn’t sleep,” she whispered.
“Are you using the heater? I’ve got a stove in here.”
“I turned it on…but I’m dealing with this. I just kept feeling colder and colder.” Taiga shrugged her shoulders slightly and showed him her long, combed-out hair. Just looking at it, Ryuuji could tell it was still damp. It seemed she hadn’t dried it properly after getting out of the bath.
“I borrowed their dryer, but my hair takes so long to dry, and I didn’t want to just keep the bathroom occupied, so I just stopped partway through.”
“You had three helpings at dinner, and now you’re worried about the small things…”
“I am. I’m a good person, deep down…”
He ignored Taiga as she grabbed her damp hair in her crossed hands and half-closed her hollow eyes, posing like a certain saint. Ryuuji turned his ear to the situation on the first floor. It seemed Yasuko was still with Sonoko and Seiji in the living room. He occasionally heard fragments of their soft voices. They sounded like pinballs bouncing in the dead of night, and he couldn’t make out the contents of their conversation.
“I wonder what they’re talking about.”
Taiga went into a brief silence as she also surveyed the bottom of the stairs. “I’m sure they have tons to talk about. I mean, it has been eighteen years.”
“You saw Yasuko’s face when we told her we’d go to bed early—”
“Nah ha.” Unable to bear it, Taiga’s nose flared as she laughed. The corners of Ryuuji’s mouth also twitched uncontrollably.
Whaaat, you’re going to bed… Maybe I’ll go upstairs with you… I feel like they’re going to yell at me again… Ahhh, Dad’s going way overboard with whatever he’s got prepared for me… Yasuko’s face had tensed as she saw Seiji holding a five-iron. I’m going to pass judgment on my idiot daughter with the power of my own hands and property liability law!
This was, of course, not what Seiji was doing—he was merely cleaning up the living room where he’d left out the golf club.
“You know, I noticed a while ago that you and Ya-chan kind of look alike, but you’re kind of like your grandfather, too. Maybe that’s how you’ll look in the future? Good for you. By that, I mean his head.” Looked pretty thick, Taiga indicated at the top of her head with her finger.
“I’d like that… You think so? Also, Yasuko and I don’t look anything like each other.”
“I’m saying you’re unexpectedly similar. Well, except you’ve got that as a foundation for your face—”
Taiga suddenly stopped talking. Her soft smile went taut, and she peered into Ryuuji’s face like she was asking whether what she just said was allowed. It’s fine, Ryuuji said with the flicker of his eyes. When he did that, the tone of Taiga’s voice started to go up as she went on, “But you still don’t know much about your dad, in the end.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Are you okay with that? Like, do you want to know about him?”
“I’m curious.”
Ryuuji squatted down in the doorway in his borrowed pajamas and hugged his knees, entrusting his back to the door joint. He was careful to lower his voice to keep it from reaching downstairs.
“I do wonder why the two people in that picture split up after they left this house. But…I feel like my dad not being here happened because of Yasuko’s choice… It’d be different if she still wanted to see him and were searching for him. But she isn’t.”
Maybe in a few years he would be able to ask Yasuko why that person hadn’t stayed by her side this whole time. He looked over at Taiga’s toes as she sat down in the same way as him in the hallway. Ryuuji supported his chilly chin with the backs of his crossed hands.
A toddler like himself wasn’t ready to understand his father’s choice or his mother’s choice. For now, all he could do was accept the present truth in its entirety.
But in the world he imagined, Ryuuji’s father was at Ryuuji’s table. He looked the same as he did eighteen years ago, just the same as when Ryuuji lost him, but he still at least existed. Ryuuji couldn’t pretend he hadn’t ever existed, so instead, he simply acknowledged the truth that he was still alive.
Basically, acknowledging that means acknowledging myself, Ryuuji thought. He raised his eyes and looked into Taiga’s pale face. Taiga’s long hair drooped all the way to the floor, and she curled up with her cheek pressed into her knees. An intense light shone from the large eyes she turned towards Ryuuji.
“Can you really keep yourself from holding a grudge…against Ya-chan…or your dad?” Her voice was quiet, but it was clear as it reached Ryuuji’s ears. It grazed his ears softly; then the words disappeared, like they had dissolved.
Their sighs layered over each other in the chill of the evening.
“I’ve been thinking it over a lot.”
Ryuuji had been keeping count of the unavoidable scars he collected on his being. He thought about the ones from dealing with money and going to college. The ones from thinking of the future. The ones from the people who’d been cruel to him as a child. The ones from when the eyes of the adults looking at him turned cautious when they found out the circumstances of Ryuuji’s birth or what Yasuko’s job was, and the ones from when he realized what those adults thought of him. He thought of the absolutely unforgivable rumors—he thought back on every scar, taking stock of them.