Intended for the victor of the contest, neither was what could be called a “small token,” nor were they so easily carried with them. Nevertheless, Aoi was glad for the sake, which they had been planning to buy anyway, and they could make some money selling the rice. When she thought about how they’d be able to buy the medication and bandages, the weight of the barrels no longer seemed like a serious issue.
They split their reward between them, and Kanao started out ahead of Aoi once more. Her stride was easy and calm, while Aoi staggered along behind her. Kanao was again leading her in the opposite direction from the road home to the Butterfly Mansion.
As Aoi wondered what was going on in her head, she suddenly remembered, Oh, right. Thanks. I have to tell Kanao thank you. She had to thank Kanao for the whole incident with the Sound Hashira, and also for what she had done back there. Kanao had listened to Aoi and responded promptly, enabling them to save that sumo wrestler. It would have been difficult for Aoi to have managed all on her own.
“Uh. Um. Hey, Kanao?” she called out to the back bearing the rice ahead of her.
Kanao stopped and looked over her shoulder at Aoi.
“Um. I just.”
Kanao stared at her, waiting for her to continue. You have to say it, she told herself. When she actually tried to form the words, she felt strangely awkward. As Aoi groped for the right thing to say, she heard a thunderous, angry roar.
“You cow! If you’re gonna kill me, then kill me already!”
“Don’t think I won’t! I’ll kill you, all right! You useless good-for-nothing!”
“What?!” Aoi froze in place.
She heard a spectacular crash as something shattered, followed by a child crying.
“W-what’s that? What’s going on?” Aoi whirled her head around.
Kanao silently pointed toward a house in a back alley behind a paperer’s shop, no doubt Kanao’s way of saying that was the source of the commotion.
Aoi stepped into the narrow alley to find a row house with a frontage of just under three meters. A so-called partitioned longhouse. One of the sliding doors was half-open, and broken bowls and cups were scattered on the ground outside.
Aoi swallowed hard. “Excuse me!” she called. “Are you all right?”
A tall, skinny man came flying—almost tumbling—out. A woman rushed out after him with a baby on her back. Aoi gasped when she saw what was in the woman’s hand: she held a broad-bladed carving knife that shone dully. Aoi could hear children crying inside the gloomy house.
“Today my patience finally runs out,” the woman snarled. “I’m going to carve him into pieces! This simpleton of a husband!”
“I’d like to see you try!” the husband shouted. “You fat cow!”
“What did you say?! Go ahead and say that one more time! I dare you!”
“Oh, I’ll say it! I’ll say it until the stars fall from the sky! You enormous pig!”
Furious at her husband’s abuse, the woman yanked him up by his collar with a plump hand. The man shrieked like a stuck pig, which jolted Aoi out of her dumbfounded staring.
“Please stop this!” she cried. “He will really die, you know!”
“Don’t try and stop me! This is none of your business!” The woman glared at her with bloodshot eyes.
Aoi didn’t flinch at the ferocity of the woman’s gaze. Instead, she pulled the couple apart and asked, “Why are you so angry?”
“This lout spent all our earnings on drink and gambling! The rice box is empty! We’ve got no savings! The whole family’s going to starve to death now!” The woman went on and on, before pushing her husband away and dropping to her knees. She began to sob, and the cries that slipped out from those parched lips were almost like the howls of a wild beast.
“O-Omitsu.” The husband looked anxiously at his wife. “S-sorry. Just hang in there. I mean, you know I’m sorry.” He pressed his forehead to the ground in apology.
A boy came out of the tenement then, pulling a small girl by the hand. They were maybe seven and five. The girl was crying, and her older brother was desperately trying to hold back his own tears.
“Mom, don’t cry,” he consoled his mother earnestly. “I’ll work real hard!”
The kind face of the strong-willed boy overlapped with that of a certain Demon Slayer in her mind.
“Don’t cry! When I grow up, I’ll work a lot and become really rich, and I’ll make sure you have a great life!”
At the boy’s admirable declaration, Aoi gave Kanao a quick signal with her eyes, but Kanao didn’t notice. She was staring at the sobbing family with narrowed eyes. She looked as if she were seeing something very far away, something she could never have again.
“Kanao,” Aoi said gently. “The rice.”
Kanao finally picked up on Aoi’s intent and nodded. She let the barrel of rice slide off of her back to the ground.
“Please take this,” Aoi said, and the couple lifted their heads, surprised. “It should be enough to tide you over for a while. And you could also sell some for money.”
“Really, miss—I mean, do you mean that, young lady?” the wife cried. “But we couldn’t.”
“Please promise me, though, that you won’t use the money from selling this rice to buy sake or gamble,” Aoi said.
“I-I won’t! This is just so—” The man pledged, his hands together as if in prayer. “I’m a new man. I’m reborn. I’ll never for the life of me do anything to hurt my wife and children again!”
“All right, then.” Aoi turned on her heel. She was about to step out into the road when the wife called out to them.
“You’d do this for us when we’re total strangers?”
Aoi hesitated. She didn’t really know what to say. She’d just wanted to help the boy who was so desperate to help his parents. She’d wanted to help a mother who would choose to starve as a family rather than so much as consider selling one of her children, even in such poverty. That was all.
Aoi felt like it was a bit different from wanting to help. She felt like “I wanted to help” was an extremely arrogant way of putting it. In the end, she said nothing and left the alley.
“Miss ladies! Waaaaait!”
The boy chased after them, yanking his little sister along by the hand.
“Thank you … Thank you so much!” he said and bowed deeply. The little girl also dipped her head in imitation of her big brother. “My dad sells these, so.”
The boy dug in his kimono and held out a pinwheel. He likely was giving it to them as a thank-you, but Aoi hesitated to accept it.
Considering his family’s situation, it was hard to believe that this was just a pinwheel. They could sell it for cash.
But Kanao reached out and took the pinwheel from the boy. Without even flipping her coin. Even so, it was an extremely natural movement with no hesitation whatsoever.
“Thanks,” Kanao said in a small voice, and the boy beamed.
It was a bright smile from the bottom of his heart.
Aoi felt a sharp pang in her own heart as she watched him.
The boy pulled his sister along behind him, headed back to their family home, repeatedly thanking them as he went.
Aoi stared at Kanao, and Kanao blew on the pinwheel in her hand. The red wheel went round and round.
“Why?” Aoi asked.
Why were you able to accept that so easily?
Why didn’t you flip your coin?
For a while, Kanao stared at the spinning pinwheel, but eventually she said slowly, “This was … that boy’s—the feelings in his heart.”
“Ah!”
“He would have been hurt if we didn’t accept it.”
Aoi stared at Kanao with wide eyes, speechless. There was a huge lump in her throat; she couldn’t say anything.
At the same time, she was embarrassed by her own hopeless foolishness. She’d been thinking it was arrogant to want to “help them,” but she had nonetheless hesitated to accept the boy’s thanks. In her heart, she had sympathized with their impoverished condition. But if they hadn’t accepted the boy’s thanks, then their own actions would have been complete charity. And the boy did not want to be the sad recipient of handouts. Kanao had understood that, so she’d been able to easily accept the pinwheel.
And meanwhile, I …
She was an extraordinarily half-hearted hypocrite. Aoi hung her head in self-loathing, and Kanao turned to her as if to urge her to come along. Aoi trailed after her dejectedly.
This again wasn’t the road back to the Butterfly Man-sion, but she no longer cared. After she followed Kanao for a bit, a large red umbrella came into view. A teahouse, Aoi thought absently.
Kanao whirled her head around in front of the teahouse, as if looking for someone. She then asked an old man, who appeared to be the owner of the teahouse, something in a quiet voice.
“Kanroji?” the man replied. “Oh, you mean Mitsuri? She’s not here today.” Kanao looked crestfallen.
Mitsuri? Probably Mitsuri Kanroji, the Love Hashira. She and Shinobu were good friends. Now that Aoi was thinking about it, she’d heard that Mitsuri was a regular at a teahouse in this area. Apparently, the sanshoku dango dumplings were scrumptious.