Mama Smells So Good
"Mo, mo... mo what?"
The little girl who'd been nestled in Eve's arms was already glued to my leg again, rubbing her cheek against it over and over. My pants had a velvet-soft nap, and she seemed to like the feel of it, nuzzling away without a pause.
"Mama smells so good~!"
Let me say this one more time: I was never a woman to begin with. I used to be a man. I only became a woman when I became Mother. So why was this kid calling me Mama?
"H-hey, kiddo. Unni here isn't a man. Dad? Wait—hey, M-Mother! What the hell is going on?!"
How should I know? Not that I could blame Eve for panicking. Her face went white, then—ah, right, it was already white. Then it flushed red, then blue, cycling through colors like a traffic light.
"Hey, Keru! Explain this!"
The child kept rubbing her cheek against my pants, chanting Mama, Mama, Mama, I love Mama so much~, pouring out affection with absolutely no restraint. And given how much I liked kids, I couldn't bring myself to push her away.
Left with no choice, I scooped her up into my arms and called out to Keru in a rush.
"An explanation, you say... is this not a life you yourself created, Mother?"
"Hey, 'a life you created' sounds kinda weird!"
It wasn't exactly wrong, but it made it sound like I'd given birth to her myself. I wanted to say as much—only I couldn't, not with the child nuzzling my cheek and calling me Mama right there in front of me.
"What on earth is this?"
"You tell me..."
Keru looked genuinely at a loss.
"This has never happened before?"
"Never. Not once. Until now, the Mains that spawned were almost always of a similar type—either adult human forms, or beast-types. If anything, this strikes me as a case we ought to report to the Administrative Bureau..."
"Mother."
I was in the middle of a thoroughly flustered conversation with Keru when Eve jabbed me in the side.
"What?"
"C-can I hold her? Just once."
The panic had worn off, and now the kid just looked cute to her. The child nestled snugly in my arms shook her head the moment Eve held out her hands.
"Nuh-uh. Kabe wanna stay with Mama."
I keep telling you I'm not Mama... but Eve didn't seem to care about that part. When the child shook her head and buried her face in my chest, Eve looked genuinely wounded.
"The world... oh, the world... she rejected me..."
"Mama's better..."
The light drained from Eve's eyes. The arms she'd held out slowly lowered. The bright smile she'd been wearing faded, and then her whole expression went dead.
"H-hey, w-wanna go to D-Dad...?"
"Not 'hey'! Kabe has a name!"
"W-what's your name...?"
I was pretty sure she'd said Kabe.
"Kabe is Kabe! Kaveria!"
Still nestled in my arms, the child puffed up with a smug little hmph. That uniquely self-satisfied look kids get—the kind adults can't help but find adorable.
Kabe because she was Kaveria? Or was Kaveria the name? No surname or anything...?
That face, so uncannily like my own, turned its gaze on Eve.
"Otay. Kabe will share this time."
The child wriggled in my arms and stretched a hand toward Eve. Those tiny, bud-like fingers wiggled at her.
"Aww, come here."
Eve scooped her right up. The lifeless look from a moment ago vanished as if it had never existed.
"Daaad."
"I'm not your dad, but..."
"Kaveria."
That was Keru. He seemed to ponder something for a moment, then walked slowly toward Kabe in Eve's arms. A beast plodding over on measured paws ought to have looked strange, and yet that was precisely the impression he gave.
"Kabe."
Keru called her name in a solemn voice. I didn't usually notice it when we talked, but in moments like this he actually looked rather imposing...
"MAMAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"
Kabe's ear-splitting wail shattered Keru's dignity into a thousand pieces.
"M-Mother!"
The moment Kabe started shrieking like she was about to throw a full-blown fit, a panicked Eve shoved her back into my arms. The instant she was against my chest, Kabe buried her face in my neck and howled even louder.
"There, there, Kabe, it's Mama, it's Mama, don't cry~ You're a good girl, right? Shh, shh."
The words I'm not your mama rose all the way to the tip of my tongue, but what was I supposed to do with a kid crying like this? I had to soothe her somehow. I held her close, patting her back and murmuring comfort, and little by little Kabe's sobs began to quiet.
"Kaveria."
"WAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"
"Would you just stay quiet for a second?!"
It took a long stretch of persuasion—Keru is not a bad animal, Keru is Mama's pet, Keru is just a really big meow-meow—before Kaveria finally settled down.
"Kabe was sleeping at home. But then Kabe heard Mama calling, so Kabe came."
"Home? Where's home?"
Kabe sat on my lap, slurping down a yogurt that Dusick had dashed out to the store to buy. She still seemed scared of Keru, glaring at him from a safe distance to keep him from coming any closer.
When Keru asked where she'd come from, Kabe said she'd been sleeping at home and heard Mama's voice—my voice—so she'd come. The problem was figuring out where that home even was.
"Dunno. Home is just home."
"Right, but where is that home?"
"Home is at home."
A kid was a kid. There was no other way to put it.
"Okay, then—when you heard Mama's voice, where did you come out from?"
Kabe paused mid-yogurt and looked up at me. I tilted my head down a little, and our eyes met. She grinned—ehehe—and she really did look exactly like me. Those red eyes. That sharp face. The way her resting expression looked faintly angry, like she was quietly pissed off...
"Mama called, so Kabe just came. 'Cause Mama is Mama."
And with that, she went right back to rubbing the back of her head against my chest. It tickled, and yet it felt good.
Mama. So I was Mama, huh. Dad would've been nicer. But this body was a woman's now, so that was a lost cause.
"Ah—wait a second, Kabe."
"Yeah?"
"Then why is this person Dad?"
I pointed at Eve. Fine—I looked like a woman, so maybe "Mama" made sense. But Eve was a woman too. Why call Eve Dad?
Eve wore an equally uncertain expression. And no wonder. Being called Dad when you looked like a gorgeous unni was bound to be a shock...
Or so I'd thought.
A child's words, all the more lethal for how innocent they were.
Eve sat frozen solid, staring blankly at Kaveria.
"W-well, I should get going. It's gotten pretty late."
"Yeah. Get home safe."
"Bye, Dad!"
"Right... Kabe, you listen to Mama, okay?"
"Okay, Dad!"
Eve seemed to have given up. She didn't even flinch anymore when Kabe called her Dad. I was the one getting goosebumps—being called Mama made my whole body itch.
"Alright. I'm off. I'll call you."
Eve climbed into the car, and the large sedan glided away without a sound. From my arms, Kabe waved at the receding taillights.
"Bye, Dad!"
Ah. I never got the front-door repair money out of her!
"Did you get them?"
"Unni, will these work?"
"Let me see."
Kids' toothpaste. A toothbrush. Gentle soap. Cotton towels.
"Yeah, this should do. We can get by on these for a day or two."
Kabe stared at me with wide, round eyes as I took the plastic bag. A yogurt was still clamped in her mouth. She must have really liked the taste—she'd finished one earlier, started another, and now that Eve was gone she was already tearing into a third.
Which meant it was time to brush her teeth. Cavities would be a problem.
"Kabe, come here."
She slurped up the last of the yogurt with a loud slorp and took my hand. The warm little weight of it, nestled so perfectly in my palm—how to put it. Something about it stirred in my chest.
I'd gone a long time without knowing another person's warmth. The particular softness of a child's hand, the slightly elevated heat of it, felt that much warmer for the absence.
"Mama, where we going?"
I'd never given birth to her. She'd appeared out of nowhere and started calling me Mama. But even if I hadn't carried her in my belly, she was a child born of my own hands. That made her my responsibility.
"Let's go do brushy-brush."
"What's brushy-brush?"
"Kabe ate something sweet, right? So now all the germs in your mouth are going ooh, I want sweets too~ and attacking Kabe's teeth."
"Eww."
Kabe scrunched up her face and stuck out her tongue. It was so cute I reached out without thinking and stroked her hair.
"So to tell those germs to get lost, we use toothpaste and a toothbrush and do brushy-brush. You've never done it before?"
"Nuh-uh."
"Alright then. Wanna do brushy-brush with Mama?"
The words with Mama came out so naturally that I had to marvel at myself, just a little.
"Okay, say aaah~"
"Bllehblehbleh..."
A child who'd never brushed her teeth in her life wasn't about to manage it on her own. The toothbrush kept jabbing every which way inside her already-tiny mouth, and Kaveria whined that it hurt and she didn't wanna. In the end I had no choice but to hold the little toothbrush in one hand, steady her back with the other, and brush her teeth myself.
There I was, sleep pants hiked up around my calves, crouched on the floor, brushing Kabe's teeth...
"Unni, you really look like a mom."
"Dusick, not you too."
"But you are Mama."
"Kabe..."
It was a responsibility I'd never asked for—a duty that wasn't in my stars, with no pleasure attached to it. And yet I didn't mind.
Kabe was just that cute. And the feeling of having her nestle into me, calling me Mama, was a very good feeling indeed.
But I did not yet know the world's oldest law: that trouble always arrives in the heart of peace.
The tragedy that came with that colossal explosion was, for someone who'd been the boss of Mogumogu-dan for barely a handful of days, far too vast and far too wretched. Seen from afar, it might have been comedy. Seen up close, it was tragedy. And for me—the one living through it—it was a tragedy so cruel it felt almost unfair.