I Want to Grow Enormously!
I want to grow enormously!
It had been a full year since I first met Eve. I realized it while tidying up the calendar, following the unusually chilly breeze that had settled in. It wasn’t like I had marked the day as some special occasion. I had never even thought about it. After all, considering the state Eve had been in back then, it probably wasn’t a memory worth celebrating for her either.
Still, numbers like “one year” carry a strange emotional weight all on their own. Even the most ordinary day gains a certain magic once you slap a “first anniversary” label on it. In that spirit, I decided I would start celebrating the anniversary of the day Eve first happily ate a carrot, beginning next autumn. Eve, who had overcome her one and only picky-eating habit, was now the strongest. Carrot-carrot Eve. …Well, I did use the sneaky tactic of hiding the carrots in mac and cheese, but that’s beside the point.
Anyway, there was only one conclusion I wanted to reach: so much had changed over the past year. And if you asked me what the biggest change was, I wouldn’t hesitate to say Eve’s growth.
I knew that around this age, girls tended to grow faster than boys. But I had secretly let my guard down, thinking we were still a few steps away from the explosive growth spurt. Then one day, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
Whenever I was organizing her hair, Eve would always hop onto my lap and hum a little tune. But this time, the top of her head felt just a little higher than usual when I reached for it.
“Eve, have you gotten taller?”
“…!”
At my words, Eve tilted her head all the way back to look up at me. Her forehead, exposed in that peculiar position, looked so adorable that I gave it a gentle poke. She flashed a quick, bashful smile, then suddenly scrambled off my lap and dashed somewhere.
She stopped in front of a corner of the wall and pointed.
There were countless crooked little ink marks.
“Please… check for me.”
“Shall we? Has it been two months already?”
We had made a promise before. If she grew up to the height I had marked, I would grant her one wish. At first, she had checked every week… no, every two days. But once she realized height didn’t shoot up that quickly, her enthusiasm had visibly cooled. So… the most recent mark was probably from about two months ago?
I pressed a sturdy file against the top of her head and measured.
“You can’t press too hard… It makes me smaller.”
“Hair doesn’t count as height. We have to compress it properly~”
“But my hair is part of my height too…”
Eve fidgeted anxiously, puffing out her cheeks. But the result left nothing to be disappointed about.
“…Huh? You’ve grown more than I thought?”
“…!”
Eve’s face lit up as she spun around at my words. She checked the noticeably wider gap between the ink marks. After comparing herself to the wall several times, she suddenly bolted toward the refrigerator.
Wondering what she was up to, I peeked over and saw her pouring milk into a large cup and gulping it down in one go.
“…Is the milk that good?”
“I’m going to grow more. I can still grow bigger.”
“……Is that so?”
Lately, Eve’s milk consumption had become quite alarming. It wasn’t that drinking milk was bad. But replacing water with it from the moment she woke up until she went to bed was something I needed to think about.
……Did she really want to grow that much?
A few days later, I asked Nina about it, wondering if her close friend might know something. Nina answered as if it were no big deal.
“Eve? She says she wants to grow really tall.”
“Really?”
“Yes. At school, she only drinks milk.”
“……Is there something she wants to have?”
When I muttered to myself, Nina tilted her head in confusion.
“Something she wants?”
“We made a promise last time. If Eve grows as much as we agreed, I’ll grant her one wish.”
“……………Ah.”
Nina stared at me with a startled expression. She clearly knew something.
“Can you… really handle that wish?”
“Handle it? Is what Eve wants that expensive?”
“No… it’s not about money……”
Nina began avoiding my eyes with an uneasy gaze. In the end, she never told me. I couldn’t blame her. I couldn’t very well pressure her into revealing her friend’s secret.
All I could do was mentally prepare myself for whatever wish might come. In any case, it was undeniable that Eve’s growth had been remarkable over the past few months.
And the person who had been watching that growth most closely was none other than Caramel.
“Eve is growing…”
She rested her chin on the counter, staring blankly into space with vacant eyes.
“All I can do is helplessly watch…”
“Why are you being so dramatic? It’s something to celebrate when a child grows.”
“It’s not that simple.”
Caramel covered her face as she spoke.
“You know, sir. I’m scared. And I resent it.”
“What are you scared of?”
“I’m terrified of the growth hormones that made Eve grow this much in just one year.”
“Then what do you resent?”
“…I resent you, sir, for supplying the nutrients needed for growth on time.”
“If I didn’t give her nutrients, that would be abuse…”
“What?! Abuse?! Are you starving Eve?! I can’t let that slide!”
Suddenly Caramel let out a wail.
“I trusted you with her…! And this is how you betray me! I’m reporting you to the authorities! Oh dear, poor Eve… Big sister will fight with everything she has!”
She had finally lost it. That much was certain. I had heard she took a semester off under the pretext of independent research, but from what I could see, she was clearly resting due to illness. Mostly mental illness. There was no way a student who took a leave of absence to focus on studying would spend all day thinking about nothing but part-time work.
At that moment, a customer who had been watching us with an incredulous look cleared his throat.
“…Hey, you two.”
It was Zeke, the regular who showed up at the same time every day.
“Playing house is all fun and games, but…”
He rubbed his bloated stomach. Whether it was from the alcohol, the conversation just now, or both, I couldn’t tell.
“Oh my, Zeke. You were here. Just a moment! I’ll pack it up right away.”
“Yeah.”
He sniffed once, then let out a sigh.
The day marked one year since I met Eve. Today was no different from any other.
*
“Eve, aren’t you drinking too much milk instead of water lately?”
Nina asked carefully as Eve gulped down a whole bottle of milk, just like always. Lucia chimed in as if she had been waiting.
“If you keep drinking only milk like that, you might end up taller than my big brother one day, is what it is-wa yo.”
“Yeah. I’m going to grow really tall.”
Eve answered with white milk still clinging to the corners of her mouth.
“…Lucia, do you think it’s weird that I want to grow taller?”
“A tall, lanky Eve… is hard to imagine somehow. Don’t you think so, Nina?”
“Eve has a charm in being petite. Small and cute.”
The words of the two girls, each half a head taller than Eve, lacked any persuasive power.
“…I don’t like it… I’m going to grow tall. Until Simon can look at me properly.”
“Why is it so important to grow as tall as the pharmacy teacher?”
“I promised Simon.”
“A promise?”
But the conversation didn’t last long. The classroom door slid open with a rattle, and a familiar girl called out to Nina.
“Ah! Nina~ You were here? I finally found you!”
She was a friend Eve didn’t know very well. Her name was Flora, and her bright, smiling face gave off such a lively and cheerful impression that she had many friends, both boys and girls.
“…Flora…? Is something wrong?”
“The teacher said to come to the staff room for a moment?”
“Right now……?”
“Yeah. I didn’t hear what it’s about. The teacher called for you. You heard me, right? I delivered the message properly?”
Flora shrugged as she spoke. Nina stood up with a slightly annoyed expression at the word “staff room.” Lucia let out an elegant “Oh ho ho” laugh and gracefully lifted her teacup (the children’s size).
“My, how unfortunate. Have a safe trip, Nina~ In the meantime, Eve and I will enjoy an elegant tea time……”
“Ah, and the teacher said you should come too, Lucia.”
“Eh? M-me too?!”
“Yep. For real.”
“B-but I definitely confirmed that I avoided failing the last exam……?”
Flora burst into giggles.
“What are you talking about? You’re on duty today.”
“D-duty? Oh… now that you mention it, that’s right, is what it is-wa yo.”
“The teacher told you to take the school newsletter and hand it out. You know what that means, right?”
“It wasn’t about grades. Phew! My heart almost dropped, is what it is-wa yo.”
Lucia clutched her chest in relief as she headed toward the staff room.
“………….”
“………….”
In the blink of an eye, only Eve and Flora were left. Flora blinked and lightly scanned the surroundings. Since they usually had no overlap, the awkward silence felt uncomfortable.
It was Eve who gathered her courage and spoke first.
“Hello, Flora.”
“………”
The moment their eyes met, Flora’s gaze sank heavily. That was all. They had only ever seen each other from a distance, so it wasn’t a feeling she could clearly describe. But there was definitely a subtle shift in the atmosphere, just for an instant.
A gaze pulled taut like a thin thread that could snap at any moment.
“……….”
Flora’s eyes lingered on Eve’s bag for a very brief second. Then she abruptly turned her head as if nothing had happened. A beat later, her lips moved.
“Why only you……”
It sounded like a tiny voice had whispered those words. After saying that, Flora bit her lip hard as if suppressing her emotions and spun on her heel.
“……?”
Left standing there alone, Eve only came back to her senses after a long while.
……Had she made a verbal slip? She tilted her head and thought about it for a moment, but nothing came to mind.