Listening to the harsh, ear-splitting laughter, Subaru shook his head to clear away the drowsiness. He prided himself on being able to wake up instantly if he woke up naturally, but it was a different story when he was forcibly woken up by an external factor.
Feeling a slight pain, as if the blood flowing to his head was reduced, he rubbed his eyelids and casually turned his head - and the familiar sight of his own room came into view.
The room is littered with jeans and tracksuits, with a bookshelf stuffed to the brim with manga and light novels. The desk, which has long since been used for its proper purpose, is piled with half-read books, and the old TV/VCR that has been used only for games evokes melancholy.
Cracking his neck on his futon, which he rarely hangs out and has become a permanent bed, Subaru felt uneasy for some reason in this ordinary scene. --Why was his chest fluttering?
"Hey hey, if you ignore me like that, I'll cry even though I'm old. The morning weather is so refreshing, so jump up and enjoy the morning."
"You want me to wake up refreshed in the morning after being woken up by a diving press? Don't be ridiculous. Actually, I feel like my bones are creaking, so I'm going to go back to sleep."
Subaru responded with a sulky look to the voice that had been waiting for him to wake up, and then once again lay down on the futon. With no room for negotiation, Subaru turned his back to the person standing right next to the futon, who exclaimed in dissatisfaction, "What the..."
"He's going through a rebellious phase! He's going through a rebellious phase! I knew he'd come eventually, but I didn't expect it to come this morning. Even I wasn't prepared! I should have been more prepared to have a proper conversation with my son instead of preparing breakfast. Dammit, I hate how powerless I am..."
"But what are you doing holding someone's leg while saying that...? Hey, wait, this is bad! This is bad!"
「All right, I've decided to have a long talk with you today. First off, physical language! The figure four, the figure four! Come on, joint locks on a sleepy guy work!」
Subaru was forced to lie down with his legs crossed in a figure four position, and Kenichi, lying on the opposite side to Subaru, struck his knees and shins, causing damage. Subaru cried out in agony from the pain he could not resist, and Kenichi once again laughed out loud in a voice that sounded like he had enjoyed life to the fullest,
"Sora, what's wrong? You've gotten so big, and despite all that training every day, don't you think it's embarrassing to have to fight a middle-aged man like that? Hahaha... Ah, wait a second, it's an attack! It's an attack, it's an attack!"
"What an idiot! Choosing the figure four, which is easy to counter, as a surprise attack, Dad has really gotten old! Just by flipping my body over, the damage is repelled, training me to do the figure four has come back to haunt me... Ah, wait, don't try to flip me over... No! No!"
The two grown men, their limbs already stretched out, rolled around, switching roles between offense and defense, with their legs clasped together. Each time, the victim and assailant alternated, screaming instead. Their violent movements caused books to fall from the desk, and a game console that had been placed upright to tip over.
The two of them continued to play around like a parent-child quarrel early in the morning――,
"Hey you two. Mom's getting hungry, so I'd like to have breakfast."
A leisurely voice and an off-key knock came into the room, and the two of them, who had been frantically attacking each other's joints, stopped moving.
Half crying from the pain, his vision was blurred when he saw a person standing at the entrance to the room - a woman with a mean look and a vague air about her. At first glance, her sharp gaze suggested she was in a rather bad mood, but in reality, after knowing her for 17 years, Subaru knew that deep down she was a person who didn't really think anything of it.
The evil look in her eyes makes it immediately obvious that they are mother and daughter; it's Subaru's mother, Natsuki Nahoko.
When his mother appeared, Kenichi jumped up, sticking out his tongue and shouting, "Here we go!"
"Sorry, sorry, I got carried away with skinship with Subaru. I should have just eaten first."
"--? It's morning and the whole family can eat together, so why do you eat first? It's better if we all eat together face to face."
Kenichi had said it with consideration, but Naoko tilted her head with a question mark in her mind. It wasn't sarcastic or anything, it was as if she had said it purely because she felt that way.
Looking down at his wife, Kenichi nodded vigorously several times,
"That's right, isn't it? As expected of my wife, she knows it well. Breakfast tastes better when we all eat it together!"
"I don't think it will taste the same whether it's breakfast, lunch, or dinner. If we all eat together, we can get the washing up done all at once."
"Oh, you're talking about the washing up? Oh, sorry. I got a little carried away."
His face looked like he'd said something good, but was crushed by his innocent remark. Naoko looked at Kenichi with a puzzled expression, but then she looked down at Subaru, who was still sprawled out,
"Come on, Subaru, let's have some breakfast too. I worked hard on breakfast today for you."
" " and smiled faintly in such a good mood that only close friends could tell.
※※ ※※ ※※ ※※ ※※ ※※ ※※ ※
--Rubbing his sleepy eyes and reluctantly coming downstairs to the dining table on the first floor, Subaru felt his hazy consciousness being brought to awakening by the sheer shock.
"Mom, you said you tried your best for me..."
"Yes. Mom did her best for Subaru. It was hard preparing from the morning."
Nahoko snorted and acted somewhat proud. Subaru didn't even have to look at her to notice that she had absolutely no guilt in her attitude, and he sighed.
Kenichi, who had come through the toilet and found the destination of Subaru's sigh on the dining table, exclaimed with a sort of exclamation, "Oh."
"Wow, Subaru. Your dish is a special menu item. It's a green forest."
"Thank you for that. Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. ...What's going on? Why is my plate the only one with a pile of peas on it?"
Nodding at Kenichi's point, Subaru points to his usual spot - the breakfast laid out in front of his seat - and one dish that gives off a strange vibe. The green peas are piled on top of it as if they were a vendetta against their parents, and the only thing you can see is the green peas, as if the other ingredients are buried under them or are not even there at the edge. By the way, Subaru hates green peas,
"You know, one time you said you didn't like green peas, right? Mom thought it was bad to have likes and dislikes like that. So, I thought I'd take this opportunity to have you eat lots of them and get over that."
"So you tried to change my likes and dislikes by relying on a memory that I can't even remember when it happened. And on this occasion… it wasn't even a special day, was it?"
"Fufu, you're so young, Subaru. Listen, no matter when or where, this moment of today can only be experienced here. You may think that a similar day will come again, but in fact, you're missing out on countless 'just this once' moments…"
"That's fine now."
Subaru pushed aside Kenichi, who had interrupted the conversation while dancing lightly, and returned to his seat with a deep sigh. Then, he pushed the plate of peas away from in front of him,
"Anyway, I'll be grateful for the thought of preparing it for me, but I'll pass on the green peas. I don't want to fill my stomach with something I hate in the morning."
"You say that again. Well, what if there was nothing left to eat in the world but peas? Then you'd eat them, wouldn't you?"
"If the world were to become like that, I'd soon die of malnutrition, so just eating a few green peas wouldn't do much. So I'll never eat them."
Subaru responded to Nahoko's quibbling with a quibble of his own, crossing his arms and puffing out his chest,
"Even if Armageddon comes, I will never eat green peas"
"You know what? You're missing out on life if you don't like it. Oh, Mom, I don't like the tomatoes in my salad, so can you eat them instead?"
"As expected of my father... he completely contradicts himself with the first and second halves of one statement."
The father pushed the tomato away from his own salad towards his mother, and instead snatched the boiled egg from hers. It was a routine exchange between the couple, and there was a tacit understanding between them that no one complained about. Subaru, glancing at this from the sidelines, clasped his hands together in front of his breakfast that didn't include peas - steaming miso soup and honey toast made with an abundance of honey.
"I've always wondered, why is it such a mix of Japanese and Western styles?"
"Mom, I like to put wakame seaweed in my miso soup and honey on my bread."
That's not an answer. But it's already too much hassle to point that out. Even if I did say it, I knew Naoko would just make a puzzled face and tilt her head in response.
As Subaru quietly said, "Itadakimasu" and took a sip of his miso soup, Kenichi and Nahoko also sat down in their own seats - next to Subaru, facing him.
The two of them put their hands together and said "Itadakimasu" (thank you for the meal), then they all started sipping their miso soup in unison. No one noticed, but the three of them were following the same pattern.
"Hmm, this miso soup... I see, Mom, you've raised your skill before I even looked."
"You know what? I actually recorded the lunchtime Three Minute Cooking show yesterday."
That's why.
Naoko's off-kilter response and Kenichi's random topic-bringing make my cheeks twitch. Moreover, Naoko's words are quite accurate to the facts, so since she said she "recorded it," she probably just recorded it and didn't watch it. She probably won't watch it as it is.
"Dad's been here since morning, so he must have made the miso soup and toast."
"Oh my, what a keen insight, my son. To have noticed that… Are you planning to shake up the contradictions in my statement and present evidence to me?"
"You're into some really old games at the moment! I mean, they're classics!"
I think he probably took the whole game console off the Subaru desk. It would be perfect for killing time on the commute, but just imagining a middle-aged man leaning forward with a game console on the train and getting so absorbed in it makes my back itch.
As he talked, Subaru munched on some sweet toast and then said, "Now that I think of it,"
"I know it's a little late to say this, but why are you wearing so little, Dad? It's getting hot, and wearing just shorts for running is way too casual."
"You're also wearing shorts, right? Besides, Dad's the one who got up a little early and got all excited and started doing dry skin rubs in the garden."
"As for dry cloth friction, isn't it only effective if you do it during the colder months?"
"This is a matter of motivation. If you worry about such trivial things before you even set off, will you ever reach your destination? Mom, why don't you say something?"
"That's right, Subaru. And even though the temperature wasn't cold, Mom still gave Dad the cold stare while he was giving him a dry massage."
"What?! My wife isn't following up?!"
"What... I followed up. I told you it was cold."
"That's not a follow-up, it's a follow-up, right!?"
Kenichi shakes his chair and shows his dissatisfaction, while Naoko reacts in a misguided way, saying, "I think there's a lot of dust going around, so I'll have to clean it up later."
Watching his parents like that, Subaru lowered his eyes and continued to mutter to himself about his breakfast. The plate of green peas that had been removed from in front of Subaru went to Kenichi, who reluctantly pushed it towards Nahoko, who then sent it back to Subaru, continuing the circular movement.
"I mean, this is definitely a situation where no one is going to eat it. What are we going to do with all these peas? Mom, please take responsibility and eat them."
"But my mom doesn't like green peas..."
"You're trying to help people overcome their likes and dislikes, and this is what you get for doing that?!"
"Oh, but don't get me wrong. It's not just peas that I hate, it's all small, round things. It's disgusting when they go in my mouth."
"I haven't misunderstood anything, and it's only made me more suspicious!"
Now that I think about it, I've never seen my mother eat beans before. Then, thinking about it, she pushed the plate towards Kenichi.
"Well, the husband is responsible for his wife's actions, so you can eat it, Dad."
"Don't make such sad noises, Subaru. We're a close-knit family, which is rare these days, right? In other words, if you and your mother don't like something, I don't like it either."
"You're being considerate and not making anyone happy, this green plate!"
The green peas were left uneaten by anyone. In the end, Kenichi made the decision to dispose of them, saying with a mischievous look on his face, "I guess I'll just put them in the pilaf. I'll keep attacking the pilaf until it's all gone, hehehe."
Subaru accepted it, thinking that if it was in something else it would be fine, but Naoko stubbornly shook her head, saying that she didn't like it no matter what it was in. In the end, the two men had to clean it up.
"Thank you for the meal."
"Yay, poor boy. All right, let's quickly wash up and race to school to work up an appetite, Subaru!"
"I'm tired of hearing about the same pattern of encouraging me to just go to school. In the first place, I don't remember growing up to be a mischievous brat who would run off immediately after eating."
Seeing Kenichi turn around and flash his teeth after tossing the dishes in the sink, Subaru shrugged and stood up from the table. Then, he whispered, "I'm going to sleep until noon," and headed upstairs to his room, scratching his head - but then he suddenly stopped.
"What...?"
A tingling sensation ran through his temples, and Subaru gently pressed his head and closed his eyes. A light flickered behind his eyelids, and he felt something hot sizzling in the back of his throat.
Something is strange. Something is strange.
Subaru turned around and saw his parents looking his way.
Kenichi, whose invitation had been turned down, pursed his lips in dissatisfaction, while Nahoko looked at Subaru with a somewhat sad look in her eyes as she wiped the dining table with a dishcloth.
The gazes his father and mother were giving him - Subaru was aware of the emotions contained within them and felt a heat in his heart that he could not ignore. Feeling his face heat up, Subaru turned his back in a panic so that they would not see his expression and fled - no, he fled to his room.
"What? Why, why did I have this weird feeling?"
Placing a hand on his chest, Subaru sighed, surprised at how fast his heart was beating. He collapsed onto the futon and looked around the room with restless eyes.
My room hadn't changed since I woke up. It hadn't changed at all from the way I saw it last night before I fell asleep. The room had remained stagnant for a long, long time, without any changes.
As if to indicate the stagnation of his master, Subaru.
A quick glance at the clock showed that it was almost eight in the morning. School started at 8:30, about a twenty-minute bike ride from my house. It was not too late.
But Subaru made no move to get changed, instead hugging his knees and staring at the hands moving on the futon. The seconds hand and minute hand moved steadily, silently moving ten times - passing the deadline.
--Well, now I won't be able to make it to school on time again today.
"So, there's nothing I can do about it. That's right, there's no other way."
If he had had just a little more time to make up his mind, he might have been able to go to school. However, the reality was cruel to Subaru, and he was faced with a time limit.
So today I don't have to make a choice.
"... Normally this would have calmed things down. What's wrong?"
My heart is pounding and my breathing is showing no signs of slowing down.
Confused by the abnormalities in his own body, Subaru even felt frightened by the sound of his teeth chattering.
--For Subaru, this time of the morning was the most terrifying time of the day.
"Calm down, calm down... the time has passed. It's time to calm down now. It's okay."
Holding down his trembling body, Subaru repeatedly appealed to himself.
It's time to end this daily ritual of fear. Even though I know that I will be faced with the exact same fear at the same time tomorrow morning, I still made it through today.
No one is rushing Subaru, no one is pushing him into a corner. So the only one who is making Subaru impatient and cornering him is none other than Subaru.
Going to school - that was the only painful decision Subaru was forced to make.
It's a time when he continues to face his own weakness, unable to accept it even though it has been a long time since he refused to go to school and became a truant.
I spent my days in a state of inertia, tormented by self-loathing and complexes, just waiting for time to pass, and only feeling freed from it when I saw that it was past time to go to school.
It is precisely because of the pain they endure every day that they know better than anyone the peace they feel when they are finally set free. They also know the weakness of clinging to it, and the ugliness of continuing to make excuses saying they have no choice but to do so.
Even though he was accepting all of that and spending this time with her――
"Why today of all days..."
The guilt, the self-loathing, the nagging discomfort never go away.
Unable to understand the source of the frustration that made him want to claw at his chest, Subaru broke out into an awful sweat and writhed in agony on his futon, unable to even breathe properly.
The image of my parents' faces as I left the dinner table has remained burned into my mind ever since.
The usual behaviour, the usual conversations, the usual interactions, the usual betrayals, the usual laziness -- that's how it should have been.
And yet today, all of those same old actions were making my heart ache.
Thinking back, something felt strange from the moment I woke up this morning.
His father, Kenichi, always came up with all sorts of schemes to harass Subaru when he woke up. His father never changed the way he treated Subaru, who had stopped going to school and become a burden in both name and reality. In other words, this morning's exchange had been going on for 17 years, and yet for some reason, his heart ached this morning for a reason other than the diving press.
Even though his mother Naoko's misguided and misplaced consideration is overwhelmingly useless most of the time, she still always puts Subaru first. Subaru, who stays at home all the time, and Naoko, a full-time housewife, inevitably spend a lot of time together. Even so, she continues to watch over Subaru with calm eyes, as if letting time take its course. --At mealtimes, for some reason, he often found himself extremely conscious of that gaze.
And the most puzzling thing about him was the current state of his body, where he felt unsettled and anxious even though it was already past time for school.
"Something's strange. Why? Did something happen? Yesterday, I'm sure..."
Thinking back on what I did yesterday, I tried to rack my brains trying to think of what had happened up until this morning――but a numbing sensation interrupted me.
The sensation of sparks flying deep in his eyes emanated heat, as if to resist Subaru's attempts to touch his memories. Even as he rolled his eyes, Subaru tried to once again challenge the sea of memories - but then he stopped. Even if he had challenged it, the answer would have been the same.
Yesterday, the day before, and the day before that, Subaru spent his days doing nothing.
Even the pain in my chest this morning wasn't caused by anything special.
It just so happens that today is the day I feel that kind of guilt, that kind of pain. I'm sure that not being able to look my parents in the eye is also a part of that.
"--Can I just say something, Subaru?"
Just as Subaru was getting fed up with the fact that his heartbeat still hadn't subsided even after he'd come to that conclusion, a voice came towards him from behind the door.
When I turned my eyes to the door, Kenichi peeked half his body through it and glided smoothly into the room. His skillful footwork was reminiscent of the King of Pop, but--
"If you enter before someone has answered whether it's OK to enter, isn't there no point in knocking?"
"Hey, hey, between us, who are bound by the strong bond of parent and child, there is a reason for us to argue over something as trivial as a knock… well, there is, isn't there? I mean, if you're an adolescent boy, there are things you want to do when you're holed up in your room. Got it. I'll come back in about ten minutes."
"Don't jump to conclusions and try to be realistic! It's fine!"
Subaru raised his voice at the unnecessary concern, but was secretly relieved that he was able to cover up his rough breathing with that. Kenichi, upon hearing Subaru's reply, gave a skeptical look and asked, "Really?", but then moonwalked backwards and re-entered the room.
Facing my son who was looking up at me with wide eyes, I posed with my finger pointed to the sky.
"Now, Subaru. As you can see, I'm actually off work today."
"Yeah, well I did notice. I figured if I was doing housework at this time on a Monday morning, I'd notice too. So, what about now?"
"Well, don't be so hasty in coming to a decision. There were a few things I wanted to talk about, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to summarise them all."
"What do you mean? You're saying I should wash my own dishes after eating?"
"That's true. Dad hates doing the dishes. He likes cooking, so the preparation and cooking itself is fun, but once that time passes he's not motivated anymore."
Kenichi collapses, swaying back and forth. Subaru frowns at his father's over-the-top behavior and somehow senses that his father is harboring doubts.
He was slow to get to the point, and used a teasing attitude to buy both himself and the other person time to make up their minds - although he wasn't very good at it, Subaru was of a similar nature.
That, too, is a natural similarity.
"--Ouch."
The moment he had that thought, a sharp pain once again hit Subaru's head.
A needle-like pain pierced the inside of his temple. Feeling a creaking sound in his skull as if bones were being scraped, Subaru lowered his face so that the pained expression would not be seen.
"So, what on earth are you planning to talk about with me now that you've lost all motivation?"
"Yeah, that's true. Subaru, is there a girl you like?"
"--A middle school student?!"
The conversation was meant to distract from the pain, but the silly topics made me overreact and forget the pain.
Looking at Subaru who looked up and had his cheeks twisted in anger, Kenichi waved his hands and said, "Oh, oh."
"If you overreact like that, it's like you're confessing that you have a crush on someone."
"What are you saying with that smug look on your face? I'm so shocked, heartbroken, and sighing I can't even say a word."
In fact, that's a completely off-base point.
Subaru currently has no interest in girls he likes or anything like that. He can't have one, and he doesn't think he should have one. Though maybe he's just imagining it.
"What's that, that's boring. Didn't dad give you advice when you were little? He said that girls have weaknesses when it comes to promises that last for years and situations like that, so if you just make promises to meet up with every girl you see eye to for ten years in the future and set up flags, you can take over their strategy route when you become a teenager."
"Being an innocent person, I took it seriously and forced girls all over the place to make the finger-cutting decree, and now a finger-cutting ban has been issued in this area. The reason being, there have been a lot of cases of boys with scary faces trying to force girls to swallow a thousand needles!"
"...I wish I'd inherited my father's sweet looks. Your short legs, your mother's gaze, your father's high spirits and your mother's nonchalance... you made a huge mistake in allocating your stats when you emerged from the womb."
"Tell that to me when I still had the umbilical cord attached..."
Thinking back on those bittersweet memories, both parent and child somehow lost their enthusiasm and sighed. Then, Subaru returned to the main topic, asking, "So?"
"So what did you want to talk about? I have an important mission to go back to sleep and then go back to sleep, so after the beep, you can just sneak out and chat with Mom."
"Don't just let it flow naturally. Besides, even if you tell your mother, there's no way she'll understand. Your mother is my wife, and she's the most perceptive woman in the world. That's what makes her so cute."
Subaru looks disheartened as he makes such naturally lovey-dovey remarks.
Kenichi groaned in front of Subaru and looked up for a while, then touched his nose with a mischievous look on his face, and then,
"Well, what do you mean? It's nice weather, so let's have a little chat and have some fun outside."