Repair Work (2)
If there was one constant running from childhood to now, it was this: every day, only a single serving of food sat on the table before me.
Whose food it was—that part changed.
In the house I grew up in, that food was never mine.
At school, at least, it was.
And the tables there were wide, which I think I liked.
No one sat with me, and even if someone did, they left soon enough.
When I came home? The food wasn't mine again.
You should be grateful you're fed and given a place to sleep.
The world I lived in wasn't an apocalypse, and still I heard those words every single day.
Step outside and you'd see people lighting up as they fed a child. Mothers so happy just dressing their kids.
My mother, who filled her stomach every time with fried egg, rice, and soy sauce before vanishing, never once smiled.
Still, I knew that wasn't normal.
The problem was, I didn't think I'd ever lived a normal life at all.
On the TV I turned on when Mom was gone, families inside and outside the screen laughed when they met, talked about their days.
School friends inside and outside the screen played together, chattered, laughed at the dumbest things.
Even some stranger on the street would take an interest in the protagonist.
I just occupied space like a transparent person.
At school I filled a seat. When my name was called from the attendance sheet, I raised my hand, then lowered it.
When people from the same school talked, I quietly listened from behind.
If I bumped into someone on the street… I just watched them walk away without a word.
If even the person called my mother didn't care about me, of course outsiders wouldn't either.
I knew that wasn't normal. And still.
"…Keep going."
After high school, I was kicked out of the house.
So I did whatever I could.
Convenience store shifts, day labor, warehouse work, office assistant jobs after earning a computer certificate… and so on.
When I searched at a PC bang how people spent their first paycheck, the answer was that it was normal to give it to the parents who'd raised you.
Even so, I set aside enough to survive another month and brought the thick envelope home.
…Well. He is the kid I gave birth to, I guess.
That was the first time I saw it.
A "normal" smile.
I think I understood something then.
Like the games I'd learned at the PC bang just to kill leftover time.
If you handed over an item or an object, favorability went up.
Maybe the reason I'd always seemed transparent to people was simply that I'd never given them anything.
What's… this for?
If you're giving it, I'll take it gratefully.
Bosses. Team leaders.
At first they were startled to receive a gift, but from then on people started talking to me, little by little.
Mom was the same.
When I came home with a split paycheck, she rubbed her sleepy eyes and still welcomed me.
Took the envelope. Smiled.
Feels like raising you was worth it.
Then she shut the door with that one line.
That one line.
Maybe I'd lived my whole life wanting to hear it.
"…."
As the saying goes—you reap what you sow. Once I started sowing something, things began to come back.
I worked hard, earned money, bought gifts, handed them to people around me.
For Mom, I brought money as payment for raising me, and praise came back.
Even the community I learned about when a game I liked launched.
There, the moderators would occasionally hand out free chicken burger coupons.
Every time, comments flooded in with thanks from all kinds of people.
So whenever I had a free moment, I played and sometimes threw burgers at complete strangers.
After that, familiar nicknames started turning up on the posts I made—old playthrough videos, screenshots.
The world was honest.
If you gave something, something came back.
Games worked the same way.
Until you did something for someone, until you granted a request first, people didn't care much about you.
They interacted because it was their business.
They used you because they needed you.
And when the need was over, they left you alone.
But if I gave a gift, if I approached first and helped, they returned interest in kind.
So sometimes people were too hard for me.
Because even when I brought things hoping to get closer, some people didn't receive them happily at all.
Ask if I'd done something weird and they'd say no.
And then, in the end:
I'll take it. Happy now?
Even after giving, favorability dropped instead.
Maybe that was what this situation was.
"…Well, something's definitely twisted here."
So I wanted to learn.
From the man in front of me called "Father."
The one I resembled—
"No, no, no. That can't be. So… damn it. Where the hell do you even start with something like this?"
After he finished assembling the mounted machine gun, James was quiet for a long time.
In the meantime I turned the laser sight over in my hands, fiddling with it.
"Start with the gift."
"With the gift."
"…Wouldn't it have been better to just tell Sarah all of this yourself?"
"Sarah… is pretty upset right now."
Upset enough to tell me to get lost, so yes—that sounded right.
For someone who'd never properly used a romance system, this was all way out of my depth.
And this time, she was the one who'd said she liked me first.
"Upset or not, this is… this kind of thing. No wonder she said you were acting strange."
"Is it that strange?"
"Extremely."
A game no different from reality.
A reality no different from a game.
Give something and they like you.
Praise them and they're grateful.
Stop by often to ask how they are and they're happy.
How much favorability rose differed person to person.
But what if it wasn't like that?
"Uh… so. Mm. It's less 'I give gifts because I want to get close,' and more 'I give gifts because I want to make the friendship thicker.'"
"Yes."
"And that gift is something you risked your life to bring back—something no one can accept happily."
"…In an apocalypse, that just means it's that precious—"
"What the hell is more precious than a life?"
"That's true, but… you still need food to keep a life going…."
James scrubbed roughly at his bearded face.
I considered telling him about the man who'd wiped out a settlement over a single potato.
Leaving out the words Concrete Under, the way I had before.
"I haven't asked you this. Have you ever liked someone? I mean in the sense of love."
"Work was always too busy… I never really had a chance to dress myself up the way normal people do. So no one really approached me, and my face probably isn't that handsome either."
"Sarah's not the type with low standards."
"Maybe it's because it's the apocalypse."
"Have you ever dressed up?"
"Work was busy. And… haircuts and clothes cost a lot of money."
"A man worrying about haircuts and clothes—ah, mm… maybe it's different because you're Asian."
James scratched his head, then finally sighed.
"Honestly, I'm not that ideal either. You picked the wrong person to start with. Of course my situation's better than yours. God, I never hit my kid, but… without a dad, ah—Sarah grew up without a mother, too…."
Leaving James tangled in his own confusion, I tightened the tripod on the heavy machine gun one more time.
Then I racked the bolt once and let it go.
"Then maybe I can talk to Sarah when there's a chance later."
"I'll do it."
"…I'm still pretty sensitive. About people hearing my story."
"Listen carefully."
James gripped both of my arms firmly.
"An unhappy childhood wasn't your fault. It was the dad who abandoned you and the mother who didn't care. And the things you did… in the end, it was because you wanted us to be happy, right?"
"…Yeah."
"Recklessness isn't good. You don't risk your life over a gift. No—don't talk about staking your life lightly over anything."
"I know that. I even protested to Angela about it back then—"
"And the person who knew that well enough to warn Angela went and threw his body at a murder of crows."
…I had nothing to say.
Looking back, it was something I wouldn't even have done in a game.
Maybe the thought that I could make the Rangers my allies for the first time had just been too big.
"For people who sacrifice without hesitation even when it puts their lives in danger dozens of times for their allies, they give a Purple Heart. That's if they're wounded, of course. If they're not, the highest is the Medal of Honor. After that, the Silver Star or the Bronze Star. So yes—risking your life is a noble thing. But at the same time."
James's hands locked hard on my shoulders.
"A life you stake too easily is a life that disappears too easily."
The weight of his hands made me nod on my own.
And then James pulled me into a firm hug.
"That must've been hard to talk about. Thank you for telling me."
"…Ah."
"My daughter won't even open up about what's inside. Somehow I heard your story first."
Pat, pat.
The hand stroking my back was unusually warm.
I was just lifting my own hands a little when—
—Click.
"The Rangers are back from the first recon… What the hell are you two doing?"
Curtis's voice came from behind us.
"Father."
James quietly let me go and looked at Curtis.
I could see the faint sheen of tears in his eyes.
Curtis, on the other hand….
"I asked what you're doing. Two grown men clinging to each other?"
His eyes were not kind at all.
Something felt like it was going very wrong.
Right?