Chapter 4:
My Prayer and My Determination
I WOKE UP to an unfamiliar scene.
“This isn’t my room… Oh, right.”
I’d slept in the living room last night. I stood up and peered into the next room to find Carol still asleep, clinging tightly to Destiny. It must’ve come back downstairs at some point during the night. It was awake but still lying patiently in Carol’s arms. Destiny noticed me and gave me a small wave of its tail. What a thoughtful creature. Way more thoughtful than me.
“I guess I don’t need to worry about it staying in its tank anymore.”
Destiny wasn’t just a regular lizard; I didn’t need to baby it so much. I would still have to treat it like a pet in front of my family, though.
I opened the living room curtains, letting sunlight pour into the room.
“This is great weather, especially after the rain we had last night.”
I opened the window to let some fresh air in, then regretted it immediately at the rush of cold wind. I hastily closed it again and dove under the kotatsu. I almost forgot it was New Year’s Day. Of course it was cold.
At least that woke me up. I’ll grab some breakfast.
Breakfast used to be toast or something similar, but lately Mom had been teaching me how to cook some simple dishes. I made a meal with ingredients I found in the fridge.
“Good morning. Ooh, that smells good!” Carol’s sleepy eyes flew wide open, and she raced up to the kotatsu to admire the food on top of it.
She was still holding Destiny like a stuffed animal. I inclined my head to it in apology, but it held up its right claw as if to say it didn’t mind. This lizard was so smooth.
“Morning. Why don’t you wash your face before eating? I’ll teach you to use the sink.”
I’d stopped trying to be overly formal with her. It just made her nervous.
I took her to the washbasin and showed her how to turn the faucet on and off.
Carol’s face lit up. “Wow! I bet Mommy would love something like this!”
She was so impressed by a simple faucet. Adorable.
We washed our faces together and then returned to the kotatsu to have breakfast. I’d watched the villagers eat; they weren’t fussy about food. Today I was serving bread, fried meat, fruit, and soup, making the meal primarily out of the ingredients sent by the village. That might have been why Carol ate it all up happily. When we were done, we took our dishes over to the sink.
“I thought we might go to a little festival today. It’s something we do in this world at the start of every year. Whaddya think?”
“A festival in the World of Gods? I wanna go! Everyone’s gonna be so jealous!” Carol jumped up and down excitedly. Just seeing her so delighted was enough to cheer me up.
If we were going to the shrine, we had some preparations to do. I checked Carol over and nodded to myself.
“You should have a bath and get changed first.”
“You have a bath?!”
Right. The villagers love taking baths.
I’d gleaned that their original village had a big bathing culture, but the cave they’d moved to had no traditional bath. They had to make do with dousing cloths in warm water and wiping themselves down, only ever getting clean on the very surface level. I remembered how happy they’d been—especially the women—when Kan and Lan had built them a bathtub that they could use every couple of days.
I took Carol to the bathroom and tried to explain the shower, but it seemed to frighten her. I just filled the bath up for her. As she washed, I went to the spare room and rummaged through the closet. I was pretty sure Mom kept our old clothes there.
I found a bunch of old stuff that I hadn’t seen in years, tucked away in a case at the back of the closet.
“Thank God she never threw these out.”
I wouldn’t mind letting Carol wear some of my old stuff, but Sayuki was always better dressed than me, so I pulled out a bunch of her clothes instead. They were folded and vacuum-packed; Carol could wear them right away. I’d let her pick her own clothes, since my fashion sense wasn’t one of my strong points. I pulled out a few items that looked like they’d fit and laid them out.
I came back to the living room to find Carol wearing a towel, the steam still evaporating from her skin.
“Your hair’s wet. Come here. I’ll dry it for you.”
I dried her hair carefully, using a hairdryer and towel.
“You’re really good at this, Yoshio! It feels nice and warm!”
“Well, I’ve done it a lot.” Sayuki always had long hair, and I used to dry it exactly like this.
When I was finished, I took Carol to pick out some clothes. She grew incredibly excited (more than she’d been since she first got here) and launched into a fashion show. She was having trouble picking out what to wear, and she kept diving back into the room to try on something else.
“How’s this, Yoshio?” Carol leapt out of the room in a light-colored dress and did a twirl.
“It’s cute, and a nice color. It might be a little cold for this kinda weather, though.”
“Oh, yeah. Okay, I’m gonna try on something else!”
That was three outfits already.
How long is she going to do this?
I was tempted to just lie and say everything looked great, but I had enough experience with Sayuki to know that was a terrible idea. No being vague, either.
I stayed positive and honest about what I liked, and at last Carol cheerfully decided on a sweater, knitted by Mom, and a long, sturdy skirt. On top of that she layered a warm, fluffy coat. She liked the look of a backpack shaped like a bear’s face, so I let her take that, too.
I wasn’t exaggerating when I said she looked like a child model. Absolutely adorable. If Seika or Sayuki were here, they’d be squealing for sure. Chem better watch out.
“How do I look, Yoshio?”
“Cuter than anything I’ve ever seen.”
“Yay! But I think that’s too much praise!”
Despite her words, she grinned bashfully as I snapped a couple photos of her with my phone.
When we were both ready, I took her hand and led her out of the house. The rain had poured down last night, but the ground was completely dry.
On closer inspection, I realized that it was only the area around my house that showed no traces of last night’s weather. Maybe we just happened to sit in the gap between two rain clouds.
The weather was perfectly clear now, the sky showing no threats to our outing. The shrine was about a ten-minute walk from the house and quite large. We walked up the familiar stone steps and stepped under the large archway. White gravel crunched beneath our feet. Normally, we’d be able to see the shrine by now, but today it was blocked by a huge crowd.
“I’ve never seen so many people, Yoshio!” Carol gasped, her gaze darting back and forth.
Crowds this thick were nonexistent in her world. Carol pointed at the stalls and the shrine maidens, pelting me with questions.
“That’s a stall. You can buy food there. Let’s have a look after we’ve been up to the shrine. That girl is a shrine maiden. She works for the gods.”
“So she’s just like you?”
“Yeah.” I looked nothing like a shrine maiden, but I supposed we had similar duties. That didn’t mean I could relate to them, though.