2
THE YOUNG BOY AND THE PRETTY LADY — PART TWO
YUNOHARA AOBA WAS apparently thirty-eight. She looked considerably younger than that, but some wrinkles had appeared on her face in recent years. She still remained as pretty as ever to Takamori Keito, though.
“Wow, I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve talked with you like this, Keito-kun.”
“Ha ha. It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Aoba-san?”
One morning during summer vacation, Keito woke up earlier than usual for some light exercise. He walked to the small shrine, where he was greeted by Aoba’s usual smile. He used to run to the shrine every day to meet her back when he was in elementary school. The memories of his first crush were embarrassing to him now, but the fact that her smile still made his heart race proved he probably hadn’t grown much since then.
“Aw, since when did you learn to be so formal?”
“I couldn’t stay a brat forever, ma’am.”
“Little Keito-kun’s all grown up. I guess that means I’m an old lady now.” She looked to the side. Even her face in profile captivated him. His first love had come to an end a long time ago, and not a trace of lingering regret remained in him, but a part of him did wish he had been born into the world just a bit earlier.
“You still come here every morning, huh?” he said.
“Every day,” she replied, looking toward the shrine. She’d once told him a demon-sealing sword called Yatonomori Kaneomi was enshrined there. This had fascinated him as a child, but now that he was older he was mature enough to understand it was just an empty legend. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that her face in profile seemed to look sadder now. The expression she made probably hadn’t changed. The one who had changed was him. He had grown able to see the things he couldn’t when he was younger.
For instance, he realized how small the father he used to be scared of really was, how kind his middle-aged neighbor was to make time to banter with a bratty child, how many of the people he’d thought were upstanding adults hid secrets behind their smiles, and so on. Growing up was giving him much more to think about.
“You said something a while back,” he began. “What was it… Something about how you think about thoughts that lead nowhere?”
“Wow. You’ve got a good memory.”
“Only when it comes to you. Er, so, do you still find yourself thinking like that?”
She thought for a moment. “Yeah…I guess I do.”
He’d been too young to understand back then, but he felt he could lend her an ear as he was now. That was why he brought up what was likely a sore subject for her.
She smiled warmly at him, understanding what he was trying to do. She thanked him, then stared at the shrine and offhandedly asked, “Keito-kun, would you be angry if I hit you out of nowhere?”
The strange question bewildered him, but he saw the sincerity in her eyes and focused up. This was no joke, and she wasn’t trying to change the topic, but continue it. This had something to do with the thoughts of hers that led nowhere.
“Well, no, I figure I wouldn’t be. Angry, that is,” he said.
“Why? Even if I had no good reason to hit you?”
“I mean, if it was really out of nowhere, then I guess I’d wonder why you hit me first.”
“All right, then what if Nanao got hurt because of you, so I got angry and hit you?”
“I’d let you hit me, then grovel on the ground and beg for forgiveness. I’d have no right to get angry back at you there.”
“What if it wasn’t me, but some stranger you’ve never seen before who picked a fight and hit you?”
“Oh, well, I’d probably get angry then.”
He couldn’t understand what she was trying to say. Meanwhile, she seemed to deeply think over each and every one of his answers, letting them digest in her mind.
“Okay, then imagine someone didn’t put up any resistance at all after a stranger picked a fight with them. What kind of things do you think they might’ve been thinking?” she weakly asked. Her voice was full of resignation.
“Is that…something that really happened?” he asked.
“A long time ago, yeah. I one-sidedly lashed out at somebody.”
Without needing to ask, he understood this other person was probably a man. A man other than her husband. Perhaps this was an old flame, or maybe somebody else she was close to. The exact details were unclear, but it was painfully obvious that they were at least somebody dear to her.
“What I did was awful,” she continued. “But they didn’t resist in the slightest or even offer a single excuse for what I unfairly claimed they did.”
“That’s, well… Maybe they felt guilty for whatever happened?”
“Maybe, but they should have been able to talk me down at least. I just don’t understand why they chose the most foolish possible option. It doesn’t make sense, no matter how much I think about it. More than a decade has flown by since.” She suddenly looked at Keito with warm eyes and smiled, as though to say that was the end of this topic. “I guess knowing wouldn’t do me any good at this point. I’m living a happy life with my family even with this unanswered question.”
He could tell she meant it. She had a kind husband and a darling daughter, and she had inherited Kogetsudou from her grandfather. The life she led with her family was a happy one.
“Still, I can’t help but wonder…”
But one could lead a happy life and still feel uneasy from time to time. Now that he was of high school age himself, Keito knew that to be true.