＊
Fuyuka felt drained from all the story telling she’d done. The pleasantly shining sun hung directly overhead, providing her with a warm reminder that her time here had come to an end. Fuyuka was understandably hesitant to bid farewell to her mother, but she knew she would come again. The fact made her feel better about it all.
“I have to go now. I’ll see you later, Mother.”
Fuyuka softly waved goodbye and made to turn back to the path she had followed to arrive.
“Yuki...na?”
The muttered name almost made Fuyuka’s heart stop. She found a tall, slender man staring at her wide-eyed.
“Father,” she timidly greeted the man who stood across from her.
The words seemed to snap him out of his trance. His face was grave.
“Ah. It’s you, Fuyuka,” he said in monotone.
She couldn’t remember the last time he’d called her by her name. That fact made her realize how long it had been since she’d talked to the man at all. She tried her best to speak to him, stuttering and attempting to string words together.
Her father ignored her struggling and simply stated, “You haven’t changed.”
With that, he coldly walked past Fuyuka without a second glance.
He was Makoto Himuro—the man Fuyuka called “Father.”
Fuyuka remained frozen in place, left stranded in a sea of loneliness. Her father’s cold gaze shattered any illusion of acknowledgement, and his dismissive words bore into her mind. How could she not have changed?
“I’m very different since we last met, Father,” Fuyuka whispered to herself, her head hung low.
A gust of frigid wind blew by, pushing a group of aimless clouds in front of the sun. The clouds soon began to weep, pelting cold rain down on her.
✦ ✦ ✦
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The only family Fuyuka had for a long time was her mother, Yukina Ayatsuji. Her biological father had been absent for as long as Fuyuka could remember. She didn’t know his name, or what he looked like.
Presented with such a cruel hand in life, Yukina, a single mother, had to go through great pains to balance her job and her duty as a parent. Still, she’d succeeded in nurturing Fuyuka into a bright and elegant young lady; a sweet child who was always full of smiles.
In spite of this, Fuyuka couldn’t deny that she yearned for a father figure of some sort. The nature of her family situation meant she would spend a lot of time alone, occasionally for days on end.
Yukina tried her best to love her enough that she’d be able to fill the void in Fuyuka’s heart. Even after she came home after a long day at work, she would fulfill her responsibilities toward her daughter without fail. She would cook dinner, pamper Fuyuka, and attend to the housework. On her days off, she would play with Fuyuka and take her out to various public attractions. And, once Fuyuka had grown tired and drifted off after a full day’s worth of having fun, she would always hum a soothing, gentle lullaby that guided Fuyuka to a world of delightful dreams.
Fuyuka harbored a single, innocent wish—for the wonderful times with her mother to continue forever.
One day, Fuyuka woke up from sleep.
“Mother?” she asked to the room.
It had been an ordinary weekday like any other, save for one striking exception—Yukina, who would normally be up preparing breakfast by then, had curiously overslept.
She wouldn’t open her eyes despite Fuyuka’s repeated cries, and even shaking her body garnered no response.
“Mommy, wake up! Mommy, Mommy!” Fuyuka pleaded, her concern quickly changing into panic.
Yukina’s skin was terrifyingly cold and so pale that Fuyuka questioned whether there was any blood running through her veins at all. It didn’t take long for Fuyuka to discern that something was seriously wrong. She decided to call an ambulance, so she hastened toward the landline. As she was about to dial the last digit of the emergency number, a yawn interrupted her.
“Huh... What time is it?” Yukina asked, raising herself out of bed and stretching.
“Mommy, are you okay?!” Fuyuka yelled, clinging onto her mother with teary eyes.
“Whoa. What’s wrong, Fuyuka? Someone sure is needy this morning.” Yukina comforted Fuyuka, caressing her head.
“I was so scared! You wouldn’t wake up...”
“Aww, you were worried about me?”
“Mhm.”
“Thanks, Fuyuka, but don’t worry. Everything will be fine. Mommy will always be here for you.”
Fuyuka had endeavored to adopt a more mature attitude now that she was going to become a middle schooler, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave her mother’s comforting embrace.
“Crap, it’s this late already?! Oh god, I’m gonna be late for work!” Yukina eyed the alarm clock and tried to stand up while Fuyuka still clung to her. “What the...”
Suddenly, she collapsed to her knees and didn’t move. Fuyuka saw beads of sweat forming on Yukina’s forehead and noted that she was shivering, despite the mild weather outside.
Fuyuka frowned worriedly. “Are you sure you’re okay, Mommy?”
Yukina just gave her a pained smile, trying to reassure Fuyuka. Ultimately, her mother had taken a sick day, and Fuyuka—despite her protests—had been sent off to school.
A few uneventful days passed. One day, Fuyuka and her mother received a visit from a stern-looking man.
“Hello, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Makoto Himuro,” he introduced himself concisely. “You’re Fuyuka, right? I hope we can get along.”
Fuyuka was immediately afraid of him. He was not only a total stranger, but a brusque and seemingly ill-tempered man to boot. He inched closer to Fuyuka, squatted down to her level, and looked her in the eye.
“Mommy...” Fuyuka, who had never been particularly shy around strangers, hid behind her mother’s back.
“Awww, did he scare you?” Yukina consoled her.
“That’s odd. I read that you’re supposed to talk to children at eye level,” Makoto said.
“You’ve got to work on that grim expression of yours. Smile more. Oh, and you should fix your tone too—it’d intimidate any child. Maybe aim to sound at least a bit friendly.”
“Kids are complicated,” he grumbled.
Yukina giggled, which, in spite of Makoto’s solemn features, did somewhat reassure Fuyuka. Even she could tell that their relationship had more to it than they were letting on.
“Let me introduce him to you, Fuyuka. This old man here is a friend from when I was in university.”
“Hey, what do you mean, ‘old man’? We’re the same age.”
“Let’s not sweat the small stuff.”
According to Yukina, she and Makoto had coincidentally ran into each other again through work and stayed in contact.
As it had happened, Makoto had become quite successful. He’d started his own business and managed a number of enterprises as the CEO. The level of conversation proved too difficult for Fuyuka to fully understand, but, on a basic level, even she could comprehend that he was some sort of a big deal.
Yukina went on to speak at length about the past. Makoto listened in unbroken silence. Although Fuyuka wasn’t an active participant of the conversation, she, strangely enough, didn’t feel left out at all. She was still wary of the man she’d just met, but she was nevertheless happy to watch her mother smile as she talked. It was a different kind of smile than any Fuyuka had seen.
After chatting with Yukina for a rather long time, Makoto—who had only appeared to check on her—went back home.
“I don’t get him,” Fuyuka remarked.
“Haha, I know what you mean,” Yukina said, appearing somewhat pleased.
From then on, Makoto would stop by their house from time to time, bringing presents for Fuyuka from his second visit onwards.
At first, she was taken aback by this. The fact that they were mostly toys she didn’t want didn’t exactly help the situation, either. Still, by the time around half a year had passed, she’d grown used to it.
The three of them once decided to go to an amusement park and took a souvenir photo together, where they had been mistaken for a family. The flustered expression on Yukina’s face, and—more surprisingly—Makoto’s, stuck in Fuyuka’s mind.
There was also another, more prominent memory: Yukina and Makoto dressed to the nines in a fancy restaurant, and Makoto on one knee with a ring.
Fuyuka, who had been preoccupied with the exquisite tourin soup, hadn’t completely understood what was happening. Still, she didn’t feel pressed to object to this development, or the fact that her mother had been crying at that time.
She’d naturally accepted Makoto as her new father. She’d also sincerely and naively believed that their happiness, while in a new form, would continue on forever.