Failure
I dug in with my fork and took a bite.
Sweet, fluffy sweetness wrapped around me. Feeling so good, a little hum slipped out on its own.
"Is it good?"
I held out a bite to Mister, who had asked me that.
He looked at the portion I offered him with a startled sort of face before bringing it to his mouth.
The strawberry cake Mister had bought really was delicious.
Five or six red strawberries sat on top like toppings, and more sliced strawberries were tucked inside the cake itself.
"How about you, Dad?"
It felt like it was my birthday.
Why had Mister bought a cake on a day that wasn't anything special?
I don't know. Probably because Mister loves me.
Mister smiled at me, all warm and content, then took milk from the fridge and poured it into a cup for me.
"Don't finish it all today. We have to split it over a few days, okay?"
"Ung!"
"Besides, nobody else is gonna steal it from you."
A sudden mischievous urge hit me.
"What if Dad eats it all?"
"..."
Mister's face went stiff all at once.
Was he seriously planning to polish off my cake?
...I thought about it a little, and decided I could probably forgive him even if he did.
I mean, he was the one who bought it for me in the first place.
"...Dad?"
"Huh? Yeah?"
I called out to Mister, who looked like he'd fallen deep into thought.
"What are we having for dinner?"
Was he going to reheat curry again?
Whenever Mom made curry, she would feed me nothing but curry for almost a whole week.
Apparently curry makes a huge amount when you cook it once. Was Mister the same way?
"Dinner..."
Sitting at the table like this, chatting about ordinary little things, I suddenly felt like we really had become a family, and it made me happy.
...No.
Mister wasn't going to leave me behind anyway.
Couldn't Mister and I truly call ourselves family?
He was more of a dad—and kinder—than the father I remembered.
"...Want to order chicken?"
The difference between Mister and Mom was how free he was with money.
I liked Mister so much, the way he was smiling a little bitterly, that I stabbed a strawberry with my fork and held it out toward his mouth.
I liked Mister.
I also liked knowing that this kind of everyday life would go on forever now.
We put the cake in the fridge.
A cake more special than anything, even though it wasn't a birthday or an anniversary.
Mister was fiddling with his smartphone.
"Do you like seasoned chicken? Or fried?"
Honestly, when I was with Mom I didn't get to eat chicken very often.
Something about delivery prices shooting way up after the monsters started stirring up the world, or so I'd heard.
That was from a documentary.
Anyway, ever since I started living with Mister, we'd been ordering all sorts of delivery food.
I liked that about him.
"Um, I..."
What should we get?
No—what did Mister like? I wanted to eat whatever he liked.
...Come to think of it, I had no idea what Mister liked.
We always just ate whatever I wanted, so I didn't know a single thing about his tastes.
So I asked him.
"What do you wanna eat, Dad?"
"Huh? Me?"
Mister looked at me with a faintly surprised face.
I felt like my cheeks were going red for no good reason.
"Dad likes seasoned."
"...Then let's get that!"
"Yeah? You sure?"
Last time I saw you demolish the fried, he added.
...He wasn't wrong. Truth was, I liked fried better than seasoned.
The seasoned one Mom had bought before was spicy, and it got sticky all over your hands.
But Mister had probably eaten food he didn't like for my sake before too.
I hesitated a second, then:
"...Yeah, I like seasoned too!"
I stuck both thumbs up as I said it.
Mister stared at me for a moment, then:
"Okay."
He nodded slowly and kept tapping at his phone.
For the record, Mister and I were sitting on the sofa together.
I had a blanket wrapped around me and was burrowed deep against his side.
Sniff sniff.
His side smelled like his shirt.
Mister stroked my hair where it was buried against him.
"Done. It'll be here in forty minutes."
A thought suddenly hit me: I was happy.
Happy that I could take the cake out and eat it whenever I wanted. Happy that Mom was coming tomorrow.
Happy that Mister, who liked me and took care of me, was always right by my side. Happy that this everyday life was going to stretch out ahead of us now.
As I grew up from now on, Mom and Mister—who both loved me—would be there beside me.
Would there come a day when I truly thought of Mister as my dad?
"..."
More than Dad, I...
"Eek—!"
Mister suddenly poked me hard in the side.
I couldn't help flinching from the sudden jolt.
Why all of a sudden?
I covered my ticklish side with my palm and looked up at him.
"What're you staring at, kid."
Mister and I just looked into each other's eyes for a second.
Then we both burst out laughing at the same time.
Mister and I were soulmates. Even if we didn't share any blood.
We were still goofing around with silly little jokes when someone started thumping on the door.
Mister headed to the entrance and came back with a bag full of chicken.
"Looks good, huh."
He held the bag up for me to see as he said it.
I scampered over to the table and plopped into a chair.
Even if the seasoned chicken was hard to eat and spicy—
I could put up with it if it was for Mister. It was just spicy; it wasn't like it tasted bad.
—Rustle.
Mister set the bag on the table, then pulled out the box and opened the packaging.
Inside were both red chicken and golden-colored chicken.
"Huh?"
Mister had definitely said he ordered seasoned.
So why was there fried in there too?
I looked at him, and he just shrugged.
"Figured you'd like the fried too, so I got half-and-half."
Pretty awesome of Dad, right?
He thumped his chest as he said it.
Half fried, half seasoned.
Had he ordered it that way for me?
I hadn't even told him I couldn't handle seasoned chicken.
"..."
I really did like Mister.
Even if I hit my rebellious phase someday, I was never, ever going to get mad at him.
It was so good.
Really, really good.
Even the seasoned chicken, because Mister pulled out the bones and only gave me the best pieces of meat.
It was delicious. Though I did need the milk.
"I'm so full..."
"You really can put it away."
I patted my belly and hummed a little tune.
Ah—I just thought of one of Mister's flaws.
He kept feeding me delicious food, trying to turn me into a chubby little dumpling.
While Mister cleared away the bones and the rest of the trash for a moment, I sat on the sofa and looked out the window.
"..."
I was happy.
Meeting Mister made me happy.
If Mom came tomorrow, would Mom and Mister get married?
Or would they just live together awkwardly?
One thing I was sure of: it was going to be ridiculously fun.
My mom liked interesting people. She also liked it when people acted a little full of themselves sometimes.
And Mister was really good with words, so—
Mom and Mister would get along great.
"...Heehee."
What if Mom had met Mister instead of my real dad?
Then she wouldn't have had to go out to work every day, squeeze out time to pick me up, and then rush back to work again.
She wouldn't have cried at home as much either. Mister was such a kind and careful person.
"Ugh, I'm wiped."
—Thump.
Finished with the cleanup, Mister dropped onto the seat next to me with a groan.
"Dad, what should we do now?"
"Uh... is there something you want to do, Yuna?"
Want to put a puzzle together? Or watch that magical girl documentary or cartoon you like?
"Mmm..."
What would be good?
Honestly, after stuffing myself with all that chicken, I was feeling a little drowsy.
A puzzle... should we do a puzzle?
I scampered into the main bedroom. That was when my eyes met the Star Luminous plush Mister had bought me.
Even so, it was a present from Mister, so I was starting to feel a little fond of it.
—Clatter.
I brought out another puzzle that had been shoved in the corner.
This time I didn't hide any of the pieces. Mister wasn't going to leave, after all.
"Let's do this one!"
I dumped the puzzle pieces all over the middle of the living room and said so.
I'm not going to sleep until we finish this whole thing today, Dad, I added.
Mister gave a faint smile, then sat down next to me and started fitting the pieces together one by one.
This puzzle was pretty hard.
Maybe because Mister was matching the pieces one at a time.
Or maybe because this one was especially dark—you couldn't even guess by the colors.
"..."
—Nod.
Mister's voice started to sound like a lullaby.
We'd only finished half the puzzle, but sleep was crashing over me.
Mister shook me awake when I couldn't keep my head up properly.
"Yuna, are you sleepy?"
"...N-no?"
I'm not sleepy.
I wanted to add that, but I was just too drowsy.
"You said you weren't going to sleep until we finished this."
"...N-no I didn't..."
Did Mister want to finish the puzzle?
I felt bad. I was the one who'd suggested it, and now I was the one nodding off first.
But...
This puzzle was just dark and boring.
The one we'd done before had been fun because you could see the magical girl appear more and more with every piece you fitted.
"..."
Nod. Nod again.
My head was tipping toward the floor faster and faster.
"Yuna?"
Every time it did, Mister shook me awake.
I'm sorry, Mister.
I'm just so sleepy...
If I fell asleep like this, I'd feel bad for him, and it would be a waste of the evening too, but—
"Yuna, we have to finish this... ah..."
I was just too sleepy—
I lifted my head without quite managing to catch Mister's face, glanced for a second at the still-unfinished puzzle, and then sank under the weight of sleep.
And when I woke up, there was no one in the house.
In the dead-quiet home, I was completely alone.