The Strike Ends
"Hmm..."
After Haru left the room, I rolled around under the blankets.
This was the best. I didn't even have to move, and food still came to me. I dug out the snacks I'd hidden under the bed, munched on them, and turned the thought over.
Maybe loafing around unemployed isn't so bad after all...?
My anger had already cooled a fair amount. That was the state I was in: the anger itself had passed, but admitting out loud that it had passed felt a little too much like surrender, so I couldn't quite say it.
I really did feel like a little kid. Wasn't this exactly how children acted when they locked into a battle of wills with the grown-ups? Not that I had any intention of behaving like a child. If I went to them first, the whole mess would resolve itself cleanly, wouldn't it? I was a real man, the sort who could bring himself to take the first step.
Still, one day of rest couldn't hurt. Spending just today like this didn't seem like a bad choice. I liked how Haru and Bora had grown even gentler once they realized I was angry. They were kind on ordinary days too, but being treated with this extra tenderness felt wonderful. It made me feel like someone special.
Having steadied my wavering heart, I decided I would roll around for just one more day.
There was no reason to stay angry for days over some pointless contest of pride. Truth be told, my body was stiff and achy, and I was dying to get up and play with Haru and Bora. I stretched out on the bed with a happy heart. This cloud-soft mattress and I were one body now.
"Haru? Bora...?"
I woke on a hard floor. The boiler hadn't even been lit, and a vicious cold gnawed at my back. Hadn't I fallen asleep in a soft, plush bed...?
I looked around and found myself in an impossibly cramped room. Could you even call it a studio? How could a home be so much smaller than the room I used to stay in?
Bewildered, I got to my feet. The place was so narrow it was hard to move. The clothes I had on were worn thin, with patches of cloth sewn over the holes. My usual dinosaur pajamas were gone. Something felt wrong. Where had the room I'd been in disappeared to? My head was muddled, as if a new piece of common sense were being poured into me: This is where you live. This has always been where you live.
I flung the door open in a hurry. The whole place was nothing but one living room and a single bedroom. Haru and Bora were sitting in the living room, both of them bundled in padded jackets even indoors, as if the cold had followed them inside. Shutting the windows tight still couldn't keep out the winter wind.
"Haru... Bora... why are we in a place like this?"
It struck me all at once that I wasn't supposed to be living here. It felt like I was dreaming.
Haru and Bora answered as if they were long used to me saying things like that out of nowhere.
"Hana... it's been over a year since we moved. You really ought to be used to it by now."
Haru spoke with both hands shoved into her armpits against the cold.
"Hana, I think we'll have to eat ramen today... Let's save the pork cutlet you love for next time, okay?"
I couldn't understand at all why we had suddenly ended up here, so I had no choice but to stamp and shout. A sudden change of surroundings has a way of changing a person.
"Why are we here?"
"Hana..."
Haru and Bora looked at me the way you look at something pitiful. Their eyes were the eyes of people watching a child deny reality.
The reason I was here was this. The institute had been expanding its business in every direction on the strength of my hair, and then one day, without warning, the hair's effects had vanished.
It was obviously temporary, so the institute didn't mount any particular response and simply let the time pass at its leisure. But the effects showed no sign of returning. They scrambled to clean up the mess, only to find they had already set far too many things in motion. Astronomical penalty fees had to be paid, and Haru and Bora had no choice but to leave the institute to look after me. They said they had grown too fond of me to leave me alone on the street.
Without a single ability to my name, I was a utterly worthless existence. There wasn't enough money for school, and I had become nothing more than a mouth that ate up the household's food. The money we'd already earned was gone. The company had covered most of the penalties, but I had paid a share of them too.
"Th-that's impossible!"
Hearing Haru say it, I had no choice but to deny reality. Even the house we were in now, she said, had been bought with money from selling game items. The institute had already dissolved into nothing, and everyone who used to work there was unemployed.
"Hana... your big sisters are heading off to work, so you stay home and be good, all right?"
With that, Bora and Haru left. All I could do was stand there and watch the two of them go.
"This is a dream..."
Where had my comfortable home gone, that I should be living in a miserable place like this?
And yet it stayed vividly real until Haru and Bora got off work. I had no choice but to eat ramen through my tears. The house was cold, there was nothing good to eat, and tears were the only possible response.
"I want to go to school... I want to live in a warm room..."
Everything I had enjoyed until now had vanished in an instant, and the shock of the fall was overwhelming. Was this how a politician felt, shoved into a goshiwon where there wasn't even room to stretch his legs?
"Haru... Bora..."
I had no choice but to call their names through a sob. To think they had stayed to the end and kept looking after me...
I hated the self who had been sulking all this time. They must have said it all for my sake, and I had gotten angry for nothing. I wanted to turn time back to when the institute had still been standing.
Cold wind poured in through the gaps in the window, stuffed with newspaper. Shivering, I had no choice but to crawl under the blanket. It wasn't very warm in there either. Eyes shut, I wanted nothing more than to escape this hell.
"Hah!"
I bolted upright in bed, cold sweat streaming down my face. The sudden change had left my head feeling paralyzed. I stared blankly for a moment, then came to my senses and looked around.
Outside, the sun was just beginning to rise. I checked the clothes I was wearing. I wasn't in the ragged things from the dream. It was the same dinosaur pajamas as always, the ones that wrapped me in warmth. The floor wasn't that hard surface with cold air crawling over it, either.
If anything, I was in a bed so plush that half my body sank into it. A gentle warmth circulated through the room. The boiler was running. After the house in the dream, where the wind had knifed straight through, I couldn't quite adjust to being back in a room like this.
I climbed carefully down from the bed and gave my cheek a long pinch, praying this wasn't the dream. Thankfully, it hurt. This was reality, not a dream. It had been so vivid that my heart was still hammering.
I slipped on my slippers and headed out. Walking toward the office felt unfamiliar. Something about it was strange. I made my way slowly down the empty corridor and arrived to find only Bora there. It was six in the morning, after all, so only the one person on night duty remained.
Bora was facedown on the desk, a book lying open in front of her. I didn't know what she was reading, and it didn't matter.
Right now, I wanted to be held in her arms. I felt like only some gentle pats would let me forget the bad dream. I set a hand on her thigh and shook it.
After a few shakes, Bora sat up. She took in the sight of me and spoke as if startled.
"Hana! Are you forgiving us now?"
I nodded. A magnanimous soul like me had to be the one to let it go. I was the one keeping this institute fed, so a decision like this was mine to make. I looked at Bora and flung my arms wide. It meant hold me.
"Hehe."
Bora laughed, understood exactly what I was doing, rose from her chair, and gathered me into her arms. Bora's embrace really was the best. It was warm enough to wipe away the bad dream all on its own. I leaned against her chest.
"Hana, did you have a nightmare? You're covered in sweat."
Bora said it as she looked at my damp forehead. The cold sweat didn't seem to have dried yet.
"Bora, I had a scary dream..."
"Yeah? What kind of dream?"
"The institute went under, and you and Haru and I were living in a single room."
"R-really? That must have been hard."
"Yeah. I never want to go through that again."
Bora wore a look of surprise. Maybe it was because I, who had never lived in a single cramped room, had said it like that.
"Bora, let's go eat!"
At my words, Bora glanced at the clock.
"If we go now, we'll be first in line."
The Starlight Research Institute covered all three meals — breakfast, lunch, and dinner — so the cafeteria opened early in the morning. Delighted at the thought of good food, I swung my arms this way and that.
I'm going to eat until my belly's stuffed!