“You’re causing other people all this hassle, and you can’t explain?”
“Hassle?” I snap back at her. I want to say I didn’t ask either of them to come with me, but I resist. “You wouldn’t understand even if I told you.”
I can sense her recoil. With a bang, she slams open the door, gets out, and grabs my arm from outside the car.
“We’re going home. There’s a bus over there.”
“What?”
“You say you can’t explain, you’re pale as a sheet, and you’re deliberately not eating!”
“Let me go!” I say, shaking off her hand. “Go home yourself! I didn’t ask you to come with me!”
“You don’t get it! I was worried to death about you!”
Her voice is shaking with fury. I snap back reflexively.
“Your worry is getting in the way!”
Tamaki’s eyes widen. She bites her lip, then slowly looks down. Her shoulders heave. She’s breathing deeply, like the air around her has suddenly become thin.
“I’m so sick and tired of this…,” she says in a hoarse, slow voice.
I glare at her. She’s standing straight and tall in the half-light of the covered parking area.
“I took you in and spent a decade of my life raising you… What an idiot I’ve been.”
This catches me off guard. Raindrops blow in on the wind and spatter my cheeks.
“It’s only natural to worry about a child who’s lost her mother,” she says with an abrupt, cynical smile. The sea far behind her continues to suck in the rain. “I was only twenty-eight when you came to live with me. I was so young. I’d never felt so free in my life. But after you showed up, life got so busy. I didn’t have time for myself anymore. I couldn’t invite anyone over, and finding someone to marry isn’t exactly easy when you’ve got a kid. The money I inherited from your mother could never make up for what I went through.”
Her figure blurs and wavers. I realize belatedly that tears are pooled in my eyes.
“That was how you felt…?” I choke out.
I look down and notice Daijin sitting on the edge of the door. The cat is staring at Tamaki with round yellow eyes.
“You know, I—” I start to say.
I don’t want to say it.
“I didn’t want to live with you, either.”
I don’t want to say it, but I start to shout anyway.
“I never asked you to take me to Kyushu! You’re the one who said, ‘You’re my daughter’!”
“You’re my daughter, okay?” I still remember the warmth of her embrace on the snowy night when she said those words.
“I never said that!” she snaps back. Then she crosses her arms and shouts, “I want you out of my house!”
Her mouth is turned up in a smile.
“Give me my life back!”
Despite all this, I can see tears in her eyes. That’s when it occurs to me: Something’s wrong. This isn’t Tamaki. Daijin meows menacingly at my side. Tamaki—Tamaki’s body is sobbing while her mouth continues to smile.
“Who are you?” I blurt out.
“Sadaijin,” a child’s voice replies.
Behind Tamaki looms a large black form. It’s a cat—a black cat bigger than a car. Its large, slanted eyes glitter green in the half-light.
“Sadaijin…? Like ‘minister of the left’?” I mumble.
Daijin growls and jumps out of the car. Without hesitation, the kitten hurls itself at the giant black cat’s face. The two animals screech back and forth with high-pitched voices, like a woman’s scream. The black cat falls heavily to the ground, and they begin to roll around, wrestling each other.
“What on earth—?!” I say, watching them in dazed confusion. All of a sudden, Tamaki starts swaying, like the string holding her up has been cut. She crumples to the ground.
“W-w-wait, Tamaki…?!”
She’s face down on the ground, not moving. I jump out of the car and crouch next to her.
“Tamaki, what’s wrong? Are you okay?!”
I slip my hand under her neck and roll her onto her back. Her chest is moving up and down. She’s breathing. I realize the cats have stopped screaming and look up.
“—Huh?”
I can’t believe my eyes. The black cat that was as big as a horse a minute ago has shrunk to about half its size. It has Daijin in its mouth, dangling by the scruff of the neck. They’re just like a mother cat and her kitten. The black cat starts walking toward me, and with each step, its body shrinks. I feel like the laws of perspective have gone haywire. It grows smaller and smaller, and by the time it passes me and jumps into the car, it’s no bigger than a large dog.
“What the…?”
I don’t understand what’s happening. Was its huge body an illusion? Maybe it was the size of a regular large cat from the very beginning. I watch the two animals get into the car, my mouth hanging open. The black cat drops Daijin from its mouth, and the two of them sit primly in the back seat, blinking up at me.
So I have a big cat with black fur and green eyes, and a scrawny kitten with white fur and yellow eyes. Their gaze as they stare at me, however, is the same.
“Daijin and Sadaijin…?” I mumble. It suddenly occurs to me they must have come from the same place. Their eyes are looking at me but also looking past me—at the other world.
“Suzume…?” Tamaki says hoarsely from my arms.
“Tamaki!”
“What happened to me…?”
“Are you okay?”
Suddenly, the life returns to her face.
“I—I…,” she says, standing up. “Sorry, I have to go!”
She trots away, toward the rest stop. I watch her receding form, lacking the strength to get up from my knees. Once she vanishes through the automatic doors, I turn slowly toward the car. The black and white cats are curled up on the seat, their bodies pressed together. They’re purring as they fall asleep, as if satisfied with a job well done.
The rain has softened to a drizzle.
“Serizawa!”
When Tamaki calls his name, Serizawa is checking out the prizes in a crane game, a soft serve in one hand. He wants to bring home a souvenir since he’s come all this way—but then he hears her urgent voice calling him.
“Yeah?” he says and turns around. She’s standing there with her makeup all smeared from crying. Give me a break, he thinks on instinct.
“I’ve been acting strange…”
“Huh?”
“I don’t know why I would say something like that…,” she says, burying her face in her hands.
Come on, he thinks. She starts to sob loudly.
“Hey, now…!” he says, hurrying over to her. She’s wailing like a little girl. The employees at the cafeteria and souvenir shop are looking over to see what the fuss is about. Give me a break, he thinks again.
“Wh-what’s wrong?” he whispers.
She doesn’t answer. She’s hiccupping.
“Are you okay? You shouldn’t cry in public like this— Shit!”
As he leans toward her, the ice cream falls off the cone in his hand and splats on the floor. Give me a break, he thinks for a third time. He’s only taken two licks. What’s this got to do with me? He looks down at her small head and short hair and delicate, quivering shoulders. What am I doing at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere with a woman who’s probably twice my age crying on my shoulder?
She continues to wail and hiccup. Out of desperation, he puts his hand on her shoulder and pats it gently. She cries harder. People are giving them a wide berth, like they’re avoiding a hole in the ground.
Serizawa swallows an exasperated sigh, looks at the ceiling, and mutters to himself, “Yup… Seriously big issues.”
He makes sure to say it too quietly for her to hear, in case she starts crying even harder.