Chapter 104
Chapter 104
"......Is this all right?"
I set down the letter I was planning to show Mother and reread it slowly.
Honestly, I wasn't sure if the spelling was right. I had no memory of ever paying attention in class. At school, even if I did nothing, even if I never once opened a book on my desk, even if I left in the middle of a lesson and never came back, nobody ever stopped me. So of course I didn't know.
Oddly enough, my grades came out average. Despite never having properly taken a single exam.
The mansion I lived in was spacious, but the school buildings were much larger. At that school, at least that much was a blessing. There was a garden that felt more like a park than the one attached to the mansion, though to be honest, all I had to go on were vague childhood memories. And best of all, during class time, I could go out to that park and have no fear of running into anyone.
Well, there was one person.
Most of her regular clients were high-schoolers, so she came to this school less often. But there was someone who used a peculiar phrase when she looked at me: "top client."
"So, as I was saying, about the results of managing that asset......"
I never said a single word to her.
No, I couldn't.
How could I trust someone who appeared out of nowhere and started talking about my father's name? I couldn't trust anyone around me. There was no way I could.
The father who used to smile at me; there was nothing to be done about his leaving so suddenly. That was simply beyond my power.
I had almost no memory of my mother, who passed away when I was very young.
......And then there was the only family I had left.
'Mother' was.......
Did she truly think of me as family?
When I was little, she had filled my mother's absence completely. No, more than completely. To me, she really was 'Mother.'
There was a time when I looked up to her.
Through a child's eyes, she was a tremendously cool adult, and a kind one.
So whenever I saw her, along with the ticklish joy in my chest, I always felt a strange shyness. The self-consciousness you get when you meet someone you admire.
That was why she was 'Mother.'
I don't quite remember how little me arrived at that word. I only guess that since she was replacing my mother, and since I knew you add an honorific to the name of someone you respect, I must have called her Mother.
But after Father passed away, Mother suddenly changed.
She stopped coming to see me for a long time. As if she no longer needed to pay me any attention. As if she'd accomplished whatever goal she'd had.
Young as I was, I could still vaguely tell that I lived in a different position from other people.
The house I lived in was far higher than the houses other people lived in. It wasn't wedged into the stifling forest of apartment blocks you glimpse from the car; it was a house right next to the widest river in the country, set high up where the view opened wide.
I can still remember seeing the old houses packed together along the roadside and asking what sort of building that was, and being stunned when I was told they were houses where people just like me lived.
Now I at least knew that sort of thing must never be said in front of others. Not that I had anyone to say it to anyway.
At any rate, from what I heard, the house Mother originally lived in was that kind of place. A servant told me that once. Though the servant was gone before long.
And so I thought:
Maybe Mother didn't actually love me.
That terrified me out of my mind.
The thought that, of everyone left in the world, there might be no one who would love me anymore; that was unbearably frightening.
So when Mother visited briefly, four times a year, I welcomed her with everything I had. I wanted to stay by her side even a minute longer. I believed Mother was the only person who truly loved me, or I wanted to believe it.
Though now I wasn't so sure.
That was why I couldn't trust her, either.
I was someone who doubted even Mother. So how could I possibly trust that woman who came to me and started talking about my father's assets, out of nowhere?
I never spoke a word to her.
"Excuse me, customer. What would it take for you to trust me?"
It was only after we'd had that sort of non-conversation about three times that she finally asked me that.
Even then, I said nothing.
Because not a single person around me was someone I could still trust.
The fiancé I'd been suddenly engaged to one day was clearly after something from me, too. There had to be a reason he stayed engaged to me while directing so much strange hostility my way.
And Mother, who had arranged that engagement, must have had her own reasons.
Every time she saw me, Mother said she loved me.
I wanted to believe it.
Could I believe it......?
......
I couldn't stop doubting. I couldn't fully believe in Mother.
But whenever I was about to forget, Mother would appear and whisper that she loved me.
And those words sounded so sincere they were sweet.
Yes, in that mansion where the very air sank into a heavy silence, in that school where no one so much as looked at me; that was the only thing I had to think about.
But it seemed the interest Mother held for me was far lighter than the interest I held for her.
It wasn't fair.
Every single day, I thought of nothing but Mother.
But Mother almost never thought about me.
It felt so deeply unfair.
And that was how I arrived at one idea.
Should I hang myself?
......No, that would take too long.
Should I jump?
......No, the chance of failure is too high.
Something like being stabbed or cut—
No, there's nothing like that in my room.
So I handed a note to the one person who spoke to me.
Asking her to get me a certain bottle of pills.
"......Are you absolutely certain you're asking for this because of insomnia?"
That woman asked me with an uncharacteristically serious face. She was gripping the bottle so tightly I couldn't have pulled it free. Her fingertips were white from the pressure; she was clearly taking this very seriously.
I nodded and handed over a letter I had prepared in advance.
It was a rough plan for how to handle my father's assets.
In truth, none of it mattered.
Father was no longer beside me.
What good was money, no matter how much I had?
I knew all too well that no amount of money could bring the dead back.
No matter how much I had, if that money had even stolen Mother's gaze from me—then I'd rather throw it all away.
Still, I thought I'd written the plan fairly thoroughly.
"......."
The bank employee only let go of the bottle after reading the letter. A satisfied look settled over her face.
"Thank you, customer. I do hope we can meet often from now on. You'll be graduating soon, so it will be much easier to see you at high school."
I nodded quietly.
Honestly, it was a conversation I barely cared about. I probably wouldn't even make it to graduation.
And so,
Yes, that's how it went.
I looked down at the letter once more.
I'd put pretty much everything I wanted to say to Mother into it. Actually, if I'd written it all out in every little detail, it would have spilled far past the stationery I'd gone to the trouble of getting, so I'd trimmed the contents down to the essentials.
"......Ah."
Right. There was one thing I hadn't included.
If Mother had simply been an ordinary mother to me—
If, because of that, I could have learned to smile like other children, could have learned to talk and have conversations—
If I could have become a person who is 'with' someone.
It wasn't as if I'd never imagined it.
I don't think I was asking for much. If only one other lonely person like me had shown up and sat quietly by my side. If only someone who understood how I felt had appeared.
......Well, it's far too late for that now.
But since it was still a wish of mine, I added a postscript.
It would have been nice if I could have spent one happy week.
I can't do that anymore.
May you, too, spend the rest of your life thinking of me.
......That last line felt too cruel, so I didn't write it down.
*
Yes, that was how my plan came together.
A plan that would definitely catch the attention of my Mother, the person I loved most as family.
What expression would Mother make when she saw my body?
Would Mother be able to understand my prank?
I chose to believe so.
I chose to believe she would hold my body and cry for me.
If she happened to follow after me—
Hm, well, yes. That might not be so bad either.
If we could all meet as family up there in the sky, that would be fine too.
......Though it was a shame I probably wouldn't get to see whatever reaction she had.
Now that I'd sorted out my thoughts and set the plan into motion, I felt at peace.
Now I truly didn't have to think about anything anymore. I didn't have to worry about anything anymore.
All I had to do was fall into a long sleep.
I put the half-empty pill bottle back into the drawer. On top of the notebook I cherished most, I set the envelope I had just finished writing.
This was the end of the traces I would leave behind.
I didn't feel much regret.
Would Mother find these traces?
This was the last prank I would play.
I was deliberately hiding the words I most wanted to say in the least visible place I could find.
I truly hoped Mother would find this notebook and letter and read them for herself.
And if possible—I hoped she would cry.
When I lay on the bed, a fierce drowsiness swallowed me.
For me, this was my last sleep.
*
I thought that was the end.
Until my Mother's face appeared before my eyes again.
How on earth...?
Was this my last dream?
No, if it were a final dream, it was far too vivid. I could feel Mother's body heat against me, her breath, the touch of her hand on my cheek, all intact.
I was wearing a school uniform I had never once worn before.
"Mother......."
When I murmured that in confusion, Mother's expression hardened in an instant.
And that expression; it was the one I had so desperately feared.
My body trembled.
Even this last person who had shown me any care, even she was about to withdraw her attention.
Mother stepped back.
And then,
"......I shall come again on the appointed day."
She said it so coldly.
"Huh......?"
For a moment, those words made no sense.
What on earth was happening?
What was this situation right now?
My mind absolutely couldn't keep up.
Could it be that I had failed......?
If so, then this is......?