“…that means you fighting with Miyoko-chan today—was to make this cheesecake taste even better than usual!”
Aoi felt like her own heart was getting a hug inside her.
“Ah-ha-ha…”
At first, she’d been a little frustrated, but before she knew it, it had all turned to feelings of joy.
“—Maybe you’re right!”
Just thinking that made her heart feel lighter.
Just thinking that turned her feelings positive.
✦ ✦ ✦
It was just like magic.
✦ ✦ ✦
“So next time it happens, you’ll be fine, right?”
Youko would weave a tale to connect the dots between the events that had happened, like an improvising storyteller—
“…Yeah!”
—and Aoi loved it.
✦ ✦ ✦
The Hinami family had a room in their house that other families didn’t.
Aoi only remembered that it was carefully decorated and had a long vertical piece of paper with some words on it that seemed important.
“Ah…”
One time, Aoi saw Youko when she opened the door of that room and returned to the living room.
Twice a day, morning and night, sometimes even more—
—her mother would go into that room and shut the door behind her for twenty or thirty minutes, and Aoi hated it.
That wasn’t only because it meant she would get less time together with the mother she loved.
When her mother had invited her to do that together with her, she’d felt an indescribable unease—but surely, that wasn’t the real reason, either.
—It feels like when Mom is doing that, for just that moment, she’s not Mom anymore.
At least, that’s how it felt to Aoi.
✦ ✦ ✦
So Aoi didn’t know much about that room.
No—if she was being honest, it was more that she couldn’t remember.
Because that room couldn’t exist in the happy world she wanted to believe in.
Because the ideal mother she wanted to believe in couldn’t be so common.
So Aoi locked that room in the depths of her heart.
And she decided not to go near it.
✦ ✦ ✦
There were just two things Aoi knew.
That this was something that her classmates couldn’t find out about.
That this place was the real reason their mother could keep being strong and kind.
That was all.
✦ ✦ ✦
The cracks in their life started to appear when Aoi was in sixth grade.
Her sister, Nagisa Hinami, who was two years younger than her, made a comment at the dinner table. “Hey, Mom. There’s something I want to ask about.”
“What is it?”
Three or four homemade dishes were set out at the table.
The topic she’d chosen to bring up was:
“Everyone’s ignoring and saying nasty things about someone in my class. I really hate it.”
Youko’s brow furrowed.
“I want to help her out…but what should I do?” Nagisa asked.
A moment of silence fell at the lively dinner table.
When it came to the issue of bullying and how to resolve it—
—there was no true correct answer.
If you wanted to produce an answer that sounded nice, perhaps telling off the aggressors would be the right choice. But there was no guarantee that it would resolve the whole problem, and sometimes, that would make it worse and get you hurt as well. And if the adults weren’t doing their jobs, who knew how bad it could get?
So not only was it beyond Aoi and Haruka—but Youko struggled, too.
“I wanna try telling ’em all off. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
An honest and direct sense of justice, and the noble desire to help.
It was a righteous and strong-willed decision for a fourth grader—which was precisely what made it so dangerous.
But Youko’s daily showering of love had built up her self-esteem, and that self-esteem gave her the strength for that decision.
Eventually, Youko opened her mouth with some determination. “As your mother, I’m proud that you’d feel like you want to help. I think that’s a wonderful idea.”
“Really?!”
Youko smiled and nodded. “I’m always on your side, Nagisa.”
“Mom…!”
“But, Nagisa…” She lowered her tone chidingly. Her next words were filled with honesty, with faith in something invisible. “The world has chosen for that child to be bullied, right?”
Aoi’s eyebrow twitched.
Nagisa would have chosen to fight the world, but Youko wasn’t as strong as her.
So one by one, she wove together the words toward her fixed goal. “This incident might be a chance for them to gain something, too.” She wove her story as if she was fitting the pieces into their destined places. “It might be a trial. Remember what happened with Aoi? She made up with her friend one day, and she was able to eat some yummy sweets with someone. For her, it was the best thing in the world.”
Like a storyteller directing clarity to the desired conclusion, she made up reasons that sounded nice and decorated them with pretty words. That was the way she always spoke.
But for Aoi, the impression this story left on her was a little different from usual.
“So I think you don’t have to do anything. After all, Mom…doesn’t want you to push yourself too hard.”
Her remark at the end sounded a bit like a request, like it was just out of kindness—the parental desire to simply not have something bad happen to her child.
But at the same time, it revealed her extreme logic based on her own biased ideas and preconceived notions.
✦ ✦ ✦
Aoi would never know which it was.
Just—whatever the case, she would not forget that day.
✦ ✦ ✦
For the first time in her life, she thought something was strange about what her mother had said.
✦ ✦ ✦
A few weeks after that.
Nagisa asked Youko and Aoi for advice about what they’d most been afraid of.
She said she had defended the student in her class who was being bullied, and now she had become the new target.
“They just kicked my desk a bit…but I have a bad feeling about this.”
“I see… So that’s what you chose…,” Youko said. Her voice was shaky, as if she was desperately trying to think of something.
“Yeah. But it’s okay,” said Nagisa.
“It is…?” Youko asked.
Nagisa gave her a strong smile. “Because, I mean…”
She thrust up a finger, pointing at the heavens.
And she declared proudly:
✦ ✦ ✦
“—I’m so correct, I think I’ve been hexed! I’m hexactly right!”
✦ ✦ ✦
She spoke as if defining herself, a sunny smile on her face.
That was the signature phrase said by the piglike character in the video game that the three sisters had played many times ever since they were small.
“Oinko says that if you believe something is right, then if you fight justly to the end, that’s enough to clear the game!”
She quoted the words like they’d come her personal bible, making them her reason for fighting. To Aoi, that nobility was incredibly impressive.
✦ ✦ ✦
The bullying got worse, but there was no way to stop it, and it was wearing Nagisa down. When the rest of her family worried about her, she continued to put on a smile and said this:
“But you know, I told off the bullies again today. And I got to give some advice to the kid who was getting bullied.”
Her expression of forced cheer showed obvious signs of exhaustion and wear.
“This whole time, I get to do what feels right to me. —I’m hexactly right!”
But deep in her eyes was a flame of firm conviction.
And within that lay the strong and playful pig character the three sisters loved.
“…I see. That’s noble of you. You haven’t done anything wrong. Mom is absolutely on your side.”
“Yeah… Thanks.”
Every time, Youko said encouraging words to Nagisa.
She made sure to warmly assert that she was on her daughter’s side.
“It’s okay. I’m sure—this is a trial that’s happened to make you even stronger.”
✦ ✦ ✦
But in the end—she always affirmed the situation Nagisa had been put in.
✦ ✦ ✦
One day, as Youko was setting the dinner table, Aoi said to her, “Hey, Mom.”
Youko turned down the heat on her pot of cabbage rolls and turned around to Aoi. “What is it, Aoi?”
“Hey…”
—Is it really okay for Nagisa to be like this?
Those words had risen to mind many times before that day, and her unease just grew every time.
But—
“…”
Voicing her doubts was so scary for some reason, much more than it should be. She felt like the act would deny something important within her. Like if she said it aloud, something that had always felt fulfilled would all spill away from her.
So Aoi said no more and just shook her head. “…Nah.”
Her smile then was insincere, pretending she didn’t see the contradictions and doubts rising inside her.
“It’s nothing!” She denied her words, her doubts, pretending they had never existed, then weakly dropped her gaze to the ground.
“…Really?” In an honest voice with no affectation, Youko said, “All right, then!”
She smiled brightly and without a trace of doubt, but something about that warmth was hard.