Her gentle suggestion made me feel even worse.
I should know better than anyone that there are people who worry about me when they can’t get in touch—it’s happened countless times before. And yet, that day of all days, I’d thoughtlessly left the apartment with no means of communication. I was ashamed of myself.
“Here you go. Some hot milk,” Ms. Gotou said, placing a mug in front of me.
Holding her own cup of instant coffee, she sat down on the carpet near my seat on the couch.
“Oh, please, you can take the sofa,” I said. “I’ll sit on the floor…”
“I’d never have a guest sit on the floor. It’s fine. You can stay put.”
As if in direct protest to my comment, she sat with her thighs flat against the carpet.
“…This sofa is so soft,” I remarked.
“Riiight? On my days off, you can hardly pry me away from it,” she replied with an amused giggle. “You came all this way, so make yourself comfy.”
“Thank you.”
I felt a little more at ease after her comment. Once I took a sip of the hot milk, my body began to warm up from the inside, relaxing me even further.
“Yoshida’s gonna miss you,” said Ms. Gotou.
“Huh?” I answered, my voice a little high-pitched. Ms. Gotou snorted with laughter.
“I mean, when you go back home. He’ll be living alone again.”
Her words filled me with a strange, indefinable feeling, and I turned away.
“He’ll…miss me, huh?”
“Of course he will. The kid he spent every day with is leaving!”
She made it sound obvious, but I wasn’t so sure.
“…I thought it’d make things simpler for him if I was gone,” I said cautiously.
Ms. Gotou’s face took on a mischievous expression, and she cocked her head to one side.
“…Do you really believe that?”
I could feel her gaze piercing me.
“If you really believe that after seeing how Yoshida’s been acting all this time, I’m a little surprised. On the other hand, if you’re lying to me, I might start questioning your character.”
In a way, Ms. Gotou was giving me advice, but at the same time, I could tell she was trying as hard as she could not to sound like she was criticizing me.
I knew deep down that I was no match for her.
“I…don’t really believe that. I wouldn’t be surprised if Yoshida misses me. But…”
I wasn’t entirely confident he would.
“I do feel a little…anxious.”
“About what?”
“The thought that Mr. Yoshida might completely forget about me once I’m gone…makes me a little anxious. And sad.”
Ms. Gotou blinked a few times, then burst out laughing.
“Wh-what’s so funny?”
“I’m sorry—I wasn’t laughing at you.” Ms. Gotou tried desperately to stifle her laughter and shook her head. “I just thought you were really cute.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am not!” The corners of her mouth turned up in a smirk, and she nodded a few times. “You’re only worried about baseless fears like that because you’re so young.”
“I don’t think that’s true at all.”
“It totally is. Oh, I miss being that young!”
“Please stop making fun of me!” I protested, raising my voice slightly. But this only made Ms. Gotou laugh even more.
Once she stopped, the two of us sat in silence for a few minutes.
The bitter aroma of instant coffee filled the room.
“…So did you learn anything?” Ms. Gotou asked out of the blue.
“…What do you mean?” I replied.
She smiled gently and clarified. “Did you learn anything since you ran away from home?”
“Let me think…”
I thought back over everything that had happened, one by one.
“I learned that getting a home-cooked meal every day is pretty great.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“And that having a place to sleep is a wonderful thing.”
“Heh-heh… Yeah.”
“And…that being a high school girl has this whole image attached to it.”
“…Right.”
“And…”
I noticed that my voice sounded more nasal. I could sense myself tearing up, and I fought desperately to keep my emotions in check.
“I learned the world is full of horrible grown-ups… But… But…”
Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t stop myself from crying.
“…there are…really kind ones, too,” I said through tears.
Ms. Gotou got up off the floor and came to sit next to me on the sofa.
She grabbed hold of my hand and said in a gentle voice, “You’ve learned a lot.”
“…Yes.” I sniffled, nodding.
Ms. Gotou grabbed a box of tissues from the table in front of us and passed it to me without saying a word.
“Thank you.”
“No problem,” she replied with a kind smile on her face. She silently sipped her coffee while I blew my nose.
“I’ve done it, too,” she murmured. “Run away from home, that is.”
There was a far-off look in her eyes. As I watched her from the side, I was reminded of how beautiful she was.
“I was just like you, Sayu. When I was in high school, I ran away for a long time.”
“Did you…have problems with your family?” I asked, and she quietly shook her head.
“No, things were fine. I didn’t really have a proper reason to do it. It was just typical teenage confusion… I was thinking about what it means to be myself in the world.”
For some reason, I found myself deeply empathizing with what she said. The same kind of thing had spun around in my head when I first left home, too.
“I felt like such a boring person, and I wanted to do something that would make me different. So I took a weird leap of faith and left home.”
She had a soft look on her face, like she was flicking through a photo album of her memories. She spoke leisurely, focusing on a single point in the distance. She must have been replaying the scenes of her youth in her mind’s eye.
“…It’s a pretty long story, but do you mind if I share it with you?” Ms. Gotou asked, looking up at me.
“…Of course. Go ahead.”
I’d told Ms. Gotou more than enough about myself, after all. It was time we swapped roles. Plus, I was genuinely interested in her past.
I clutched my mug of milk with both hands and got ready to listen to her story.