I hung behind as the three of them sat down at the living room table. But soon Issa turned to me and pointed at the last empty spot.
“Please sit.”
“Thank you very much.”
I bowed and took a seat.
Sayu’s mother never once looked at Issa or me—she kept her piercing glare fixed on Sayu.
Not a word was spoken as Issa poured all four of us cups of water. The atmosphere was so tense, my mouth stayed glued shut.
It was Sayu’s mother who spoke first.
“So what were you hoping to accomplish?” she asked.
The scowl she was leveling at her daughter was not the kind of expression a parent directed at a child.
“You’ve made so much trouble for the family, refusing to come home for such a long time… Even before you left, you did nothing but cause problems,” Sayu’s mother spat. It was like she was venting all her pent-up frustration. “And now you’re causing trouble for strangers, too. What are you after?”
She gestured to me with her chin as she spoke.
Sayu, who’d been listening in silence up until then, started to say something. But her words seemed to stick in her throat.
“…understand.”
“What was that?”
“You won’t even try to understand.”
The clear note of anger in Sayu’s voice surprised me, and I cast a sidelong glance at her.
Her eyes, much like her voice, were quivering with rage.
Sayu’s mother’s eyebrows shot up. She appeared offended that Sayu had snapped at her instead of apologizing.
Issa sat beside his mother, a look of dread on his face. But he held his tongue and kept an eye on the both of them.
“How could I?” said their mother. “It’s not like you ever tell me.”
I got the feeling that Sayu was growing even angrier beside me. I didn’t need to see her expression—the tension in the air was palpable.
“Do you remember what you said to me the day I left, Mom?” Sayu asked, her voice shaking.
Her mother was silent for a few seconds, like she was thinking it over. But it wasn’t long before she gave up and raised her head.
“…I’m not sure. I don’t remember.”
I was aghast. Issa, seated opposite me, exhaled through his nose. He clearly wished she hadn’t said that.
We had heard the story only from Sayu, but even Issa and I remembered what her mother had said to her.
Those words had hurt Sayu so deeply that she ran away from home. And yet, the very person who said them had forgotten all about it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Sayu trembling.
I looked over at her without moving my head…and saw tears in her eyes. I couldn’t tell if they were from anger or sadness.
“See, I knew it… You don’t care about me at all, Mom. You never even try to understand.”
“You’ve only been home for five seconds, and you’re already criticizing me. I bet you ran away just to spite us and forget about your problems, didn’t you?”
“No!” Sayu shouted, leaping up from her seat.
The sudden emotional outburst made her mother jump. She looked briefly intimidated, but soon her eyebrows shot up again, and she fixed Sayu with another glare.
“I…I just wanted to get away from you, Mom!” Sayu shouted.
Her blunt words shook me to the core. The old Sayu had never spoken her mind so clearly. She was obviously furious.
Sayu’s anger didn’t come from a desire to beat down her opponent, either. She just wanted to be understood. She’d stopped trying to justify herself. She simply laid bare her weaknesses and let her feelings pour out.
“You never tried to understand how I felt! You—my own mother—thought I killed…my only friend in the whole world…”
Her initial intensity gradually faded, and her voice grew quiet. She was crying.
Her mother gasped. Maybe she’d finally remembered. But soon, a stern scowl was back on her face.
“What did you think running away was going to accomplish? You’re a child. Children can’t do anything by themselves.”
“That’s…true, but…” Sayu stumbled over her words.
Looking at her, I sensed an overwhelming hopelessness. What else could she have done besides run away? And…it was precisely her mother’s failure to understand this that had pushed Sayu into leaving.
The two of them were never going to see eye to eye.
Seeing her daughter’s hesitation as a chance to gain the upper hand, Sayu’s mother grew more heated in her accusations.
“And what were you thinking, staying with some man from who knows where? You’ve even dragged him all the way here! Are you just trying to shame me?”
“Mr. Yoshida came along for me.”
“For you? He’s just sticking his nose into other people’s business.”
“Don’t be disrespectful, Mom.”
“Shut up, Issa.”
Sayu’s mother was too enraged to listen to her son’s interruptions.
“He ‘took care of’ you, did he? Luring someone else’s little girl into your house sounds like a crime to me.”
“Mom, listen—”
“I thought I told you to shut up!”
Their mother’s fury was now aimed at me, and she wasn’t about to let Issa stop her. She turned and glared in my direction.
This, however, was something I’d prepared for. Her reaction was only natural.
I sat up straight and looked their mother in the eye.
“You’re right. I know that what I did—letting Sayu stay with me—is a crime.”
“Just because you’re aware doesn’t make it right. You’re still a criminal. Why are you in my house?”
“That’s because Sayu—”
Just as I started to explain, I was interrupted by a loud thud as Sayu slammed the table beside me. This gave me such a shock that I forgot what I was about to say. Sayu’s hands were shaking.
“Every time. Every single time…,” she began, her voice a low growl that seemed to come from the back of her throat.
“Every single time, you disrespect the people I care about!” Sayu shouted, exploding with anger. “You ignore what they say, and you vilify them!”
It was the first time I’d seen Sayu so furious, and all three of us were taken aback.
“I hate that about you!!!” Sayu cried at the top of her lungs. Her voice shook the air.
With her mother still unable to speak, Sayu continued, her quiet voice full of fury.
“Mr. Yoshida…looked after me like we were family. He’s not like you… He sees me as a human being.”
I could see the rage spreading over their mother’s face at Sayu’s words.
“What the hell are you talking about…? You have no idea how much I’ve suffered!” Sayu’s mother pounded the table as she spoke. “You don’t even have a clue how much I lost because of you…!”
Issa had told me about their mother’s situation, and I couldn’t help but sympathize with the sorrow in her words.
It seemed like Sayu and her mother’s relationship was beyond saving, and that saddened me.
Her next declaration, however, stopped my thoughts in their tracks.
“I never…should’ve had you.”
With that, the room fell deathly silent.
I could sense that all of us were shocked. And for the first time, Issa looked unmistakably angry. Beside me, Sayu inhaled sharply. And I…
I grabbed the cup of water in front of me…and dumped it over Sayu’s mother’s head.
…Or at least, that was the vision that played out in my head. The moment the urge came over me, my self-control kicked in and put a stop to it. That wasn’t the right move. If I did something like that, we’d never be able to talk things out calmly.
I stood up, took the cup I’d grabbed a moment earlier, and brought it to my lips. I started gulping the liquid, and as it ran down my throat, I could feel it slowly cooling both my body and my thoughts, helping me regain a sense of calm.
I could feel everyone’s eyes on me.
I slammed the cup down on the table with an emphatic clunk!
“…That’s quite enough.”