“AHH! The food was out of this world! And the liquor’s amazing too, keep it coming!”
“Kana, you’re drinking too much. You’ve already emptied two bottles of hot sake. Are you all right?”
Kana grinned as if to show she was just peachy. She had three cans of beer on the train, and two bottles of hot sake over the course of the evening meal. A pink flush settled firmly over her face. Mia, who had never had a drink in her life, was beginning to worry about her.
When they went for a soak in the hot springs, Kana only dipped up to her hips, so that the air would hit the upper half of her body, cooling it. To Mia, this was her first time at a hot spring.
Ah, so this is the pleasure that is an open-air bath, the realization seeped deep into Mia’s bones with the hot water surrounding her. Kana kicked up one of her legs, making a small splash, and exhaled in relaxation. And then, she abruptly mused aloud in a small voice, “I wonder if he’s worried about me…”
“Your husband?”
“Y-Yeah. Well, my phone was ringing nonstop. I put it on silent, though, ahaha.”
“Of course he’s worried—calling you so much proves it.”
Having said that, Mia was hit by a sudden realization; she remembered that she was the one who abducted the woman in the first place. Mia awkwardly stared at her feet. She was an evil sorceress, so doing bad things was a must. Why was it then that her chest felt so tight?
“I wonder if he’s calling because he’s worried about me. Maybe Sakura is crying and he just doesn’t know what to do.” She let out a mirthless chuckle.
‘Sakura’ must’ve been the name of her daughter.
“I do not claim to understand your situation, but your husband is not thinking of you solely as your daughter’s caretaker, is he?”
“I wanna think he’s not, but I just don’t know! Ever since we had our baby…I’m not sure of anything anymore. ‘Cause ever since Sakura was born, all you ever hear from him is Sakura this, Sakura that. I care for Sakura too, y’know? She’s so cute, and I love her to death. But…I wanna be loved, too.”
“Hmm… Kana, I was thinking…have you told your husband any of this? Like, ‘don’t call me mommy’ or ‘love me, please’?” Mia, sensing that she had just asked something very embarrassing, blushed scarlet.
Kana silently shook her head with a somewhat resigned smile. “No, never. How can I say that I want him to love me now, after all this time? He’ll go, ‘what are you saying?’ and laugh me off, no doubt. As for the pet name, after he started calling me ‘mommy’, I started calling him ‘daddy’ in return too. It’s too late to change it now…” Kana trailed off, sighing deeply.
Mia couldn’t possibly understand Kana’s feelings. Not only did Mia have zero experience with married life, she didn’t even have a boyfriend. It was next to impossible for her to empathize with all the subtleties of her emotions. Despite that, Mia didn’t hold back and candidly shared her thoughts with the woman. “The way I see it, you’re putting up a brave front, but it puts a strain on you. Do you not have anyone you can vent to?”
“Nope. I got friends who are also young mothers, but I don’t think they’ll like it if I complain too much.”
“But doesn’t that mean your husband is actually the one you could share your frustrations with the most? Also, don’t you think he feels shut out because you won’t spill a word of your problems to him?”
“Huh?” Kana inadvertently raised her face at those words.
Mia sunk in the water up to her shoulders and looked straight at Kana, who was sitting on a stone step. “I mean, you are a couple, right? It shouldn’t matter whether you have a daughter or not. You are treading on eggshells around everyone, including your husband. Just let it all out. Whine, grumble, moan, just don’t keep it pent up to the point where everything may fall apart.”
“B-But… What if he hates me for it, or tells me I’m annoying… I don’t think I can take that…”
“Is he the kind of husband that would say that just because you vented to him?”
Kana suddenly fell silent, as if lost for words. Mia didn’t beat around the bush, and with her straightforward attitude she breached the walls around Kana’s heart. It wasn’t a bad feeling.
Was the husband Kana loved so dearly the kind of man who would turn away from her if she dared to voice her grievances? Didn’t she, somewhere along the way, start thinking that she was the one who had it tough, who struggled, and fell into the trap of victimizing herself?
“Saying something won’t change a thing” and “no one would understand me anyway”—she was just shutting herself off with those thoughts and steeping in her feelings of discontent, letting them grow. Was it because she could finally whine all she wanted and thus expel the heavy weight from her chest, that she realized with a start that she never tried approaching her husband with any of this?
“Do you think it’s really okay to tell him?”
“Sure. Why would it not be? You are a couple, after all.”
Hearing Mia’s confident answer cracked Kana up, and she burst out laughing beside herself. Mia was right. They were a couple, a married one at that. How could she forget something so simple? Nothing would ever change that, not even the birth of their daughter. Why did she even think something had changed in the first place? It suddenly seemed so funny she couldn’t stop giggling.
Mia cautiously watched Kana giggle hysterically to herself. She was getting worried that Kana was far drunker than she would admit.
“H-Hey, umm… About Sakura, your daughter… Uh, do you love her? Do you…treasure her?”
“Huh? Of course I do! How could I not adore her? She drives me up the wall a lot, and she can most certainly make me go insane. There are times when I think that I can’t take it anymore, but…that doesn’t really matter.”
Kana segued into boasting about her baby girl, which she did with so much gusto one could wonder what all of her previous complaints were for. Sakura could count all the way to ten; she could make scissors with her hand; she would compliment Kana on her cooking when she ate and snugly cuddled up against her when she slept; the way she acted so cute and dependent on her mommy was utterly adorable… Somehow, it seemed that there was a lot more to brag about than to grumble over. Mia giggled softly at that, and looked up into the night sky.
There was no moon, but the stars were beautiful. Today had been a blur, and she had no idea how she ended up where she was now, but Kana was gushing about her daughter happily beside her, and so Mia found herself not minding everything that had led up to this at all.
Mia’s mother had breathed her last when she was just two years old. Naturally, she had no clear memories of her; she could only remember her face from a photograph. That was why her father had been the only parent to her and her everything. Father used to tell her that her mother had adored her, but when she heard Kana complaining about her family life, it made her uneasy.
What if her mother had just hidden her troubles from her father, and there were actually days when she had thought of Mia as a bother? But then she noticed how radiant Kana looked when she was speaking about her daughter, and her heart felt light as a feather again. If her mother had felt tired and at her wits’ end at times, but still loved her on a deeper level…Mia would be happy with that. She hoped that it was true, as she let her thoughts wander to her deceased mother.