My physical condition was the worst from morning. Forget the recently started street hustler (Kyūtarō) work, I couldn't even stand properly.
Perhaps the bug I ate last night was wrong. It was good I fed the snake to Ume. If it had been the opposite, Ume would be suffering now, and unlike me, Ume is so weak she might have just dropped dead.
Anyway, my vision was spinning so I couldn't help it. Even my little sister's, Ume's, sobbing voice worrying about me began spinning in my head.
The echoing crying sounds of waaahh uhoooo were noisy, but thinking she was crying for me, I strangely didn't feel bad.
But you, if you cry like that, your voice will get hoarse. Your pretty voice will get ruined. Crying makes you hungry too. Ah, I have to go to work. I have to earn money and buy food for Ume.
I don't want to feed Ume dirty, weird things like bugs or rats if possible. I want to feed her more proper, clean food. If she eats something strange and gets sick, that's pitiful. Because Ume cries easily when things are hard or painful.
Trying to get up with trembling arms supporting my body, but as expected, no strength goes in and my body collapses to the ground again. Seeing that, Ume bursts into louder crying. She sobs for me not to die.
In this Rashomon riverside where no one has room to spare, there's no adult generous enough to accept a child's crying.
Someone yells, and I hear something whooshing through the air. I know a stone was thrown because something hard hits my back.
Just die quickly! With such mocking laughter, a second stone flies. This time it hits my head. Ume bursts into even sharper crying. Covering my head, she sobs with tears and snot mixed, making incomprehensible sounds.
Ah, she's probably saying brother. It's so muffled it only sounds like 'oba'.
"No one cares if you lot die!"
Someone mocks.
They ridicule dying me and Ume screaming not to die.
The third stone flies off course and bounces off the ground right beside us. Ume tightly hugs my head. Trying to protect me with her small, slender body.
Damn, what am I doing being protected by my little sister. I should, I should be protecting her. With arms that can barely lift, I gently push Ume's body away.
As if to reassure the sobbing little sister, I fumble and stroke her head. Unlike mine, her soft hair must be the same as that thing called silk, though I've never touched it.
"…if it hits Ume… what'll you do, hey, heeey…!"
I'll pay you back. I'll definitely pay you back as much as I suffered.
No, that's not enough. I'll take everything from you.
Using hatred and anger as motivation, gripping the sickle in my hand, I was trying to force myself up.
"Stop doing that to children!"
Such a voice came from behind. A man's voice. Muffled as if separated by a sheet of paper. Following that was the sound of hurried footsteps kicking the dirt ground. I sense a presence. Someone kneels beside me.
"You'll be okay now. I'll save you, I'll save you."
Some fool from who knows where says another foolish thing.
What's okay, what's saving. What benefit do you get from doing this crap. The only ones in this Rashomon riverside who'd fall for such words are crazy women with syphilis reaching their brains.
It's probably Ume they're after. All the guys who approached pretending to be kind until now were like that. This guy and that guy would line up sweet talk trying to take Ume from me. Trying to steal her. Every time, I swung my sickle.
We're siblings. Two as one. We promised to be together forever. I can't forgive trying to separate that, can't forgive that crap. I won't give Ume, absolutely, no matter what.
The moment you try to take Ume is your end.
Before you take her, I'll take from you. I'll steal that life.
As I tightly gripped the sickle like that.
"Hup, whoa you're super light!!"
What the man picked up wasn't Ume. Picking up dirty me, who smelled terrible from not washing properly and was full of dandruff and fleas, without showing dislike, the man's face was completely hidden by a hood so I couldn't see it properly. But,
"Rest assured, I may look like this but I'm a doctor."
The muffled voice hidden by the hood carried a color I'd never heard before.
A gentleness that didn't belong in the Rashomon riverside covered in curses, shouts, screams, and sobs.
What was this voice called, with my head beginning to spin, I couldn't immediately recall. Because I wasn't accustomed to hearing such words. It might as well have been the first time.
──It was midsummer. A hot day boiling like the furnace of hell.
The sun was blazing maliciously, and everything seemed to burn in the heat haze.
"You endured well until now, good job, well done."
Is this also a hallucination shown by the heat haze?
Some unknown someone stroking my head, quite a decadent fantasy.
With my head melting like the heat haze, I can't think anymore. Without strength to resist, I entrust my body to the illusion. Consciousness melts into darkness.
As if falling into a happy dream.
＊
"How about both of you become my children?"
At that one line from the hooded man, Kyūtarō almost dropped the rice ball on the futon.
Kyūtarō was the only one who heard the man's words. Beyond bewilderment into expressionlessness, beside Kyūtarō, his little sister Ume was deeply absorbed in hurriedly eating her rice ball. The man's words entered her right ear and flowed out her left ear. No, they were being bounced off her eardrums before even entering.
Can't be helped. Ume is a child who, when focused on one thing, can't pay attention to anything else.
But Kyūtarō could understand his sister eating frantically too. What each of them held in their hands now wasn't barley rice balls but white rice balls. A feast hard to even see, let alone taste, at the Rashomon riverside, so he understands eating hastily.
He understands, but calm down a bit. You're eating so frantically it's unclear whether you're eating the rice ball or rubbing it on your face. The eating speed can't keep up with your hands.
But even with rice grains all over her face, Ume was still a beauty.
Seeing that beauty, unshaken at any time, Kyūtarō also regained his usual self.
"You, what kinda nonsense are you spoutin'?"
Tilting his head and glaring from below, Kyūtarō threatened the man. He meant it. What kind of nonsense is this hooded man saying. He even wondered if this guy was treating him as a fool.
It wasn't some hallucination shown by the heat haze. When he opened his eyes, Kyūtarō was lying on a futon in an unknown house, and the poison eating away at his body had completely disappeared.
The man not only brought Kyūtarō home, but also gave him expensive medicine, let him sleep until morning, even lightly washed his body and lent him clothes.
Moreover, even after Kyūtarō woke, he didn't immediately kick him out but went so far as to feed Ume rice balls like this. Finally even said he wanted to take them in. He's really not in his right mind.
There's no way kids in dirty clothes could pay money, so what is this man's goal? Ume? But if Ume alone were the goal, there's no reason to help Kyūtarō. What's the point of painstakingly treating an obstacle and even feeding it?
Unperturbed by Kyūtarō's threat, the hooded man scratched his cheek over the cloth.
"Well, you see, I'm single."
"Hah?"
"No wife, and no good person either."
"Hah??"
"I'm in a situation where I'm persistently worried by the villagers about what to do about a successor."
"Hah???"
"I need a disciple. A disciple to continue the line. If I just had a disciple, I wouldn't have to feel bitter being worried by the villagers about when I'll get married! For that reason, please become my disciple, I beg you!"
"Are you crazy…"
To the man bowing and begging, Kyūtarō spat honest abuse. Even if wanting a disciple was his true intention, why choose Kyūtarō of all people?
A skinny body of only bones and skin, with bad teeth, eyes, impression, manners, and upbringing, no learning, and can't properly read. Because of an illness inherited from his parents, his skin is covered in bloodstain-like marks.
Wanting to make such a horrifying, avoided child his disciple, is this guy maybe.
"Are your eyes messed up?"
"Huh? They see fine."
"Then you're crazy. Thinkin' that way after seein' me."
"But you're an 'older brother,' right."
Reacting to the word 'older brother,' Ume, who was licking rice grains off her palm, raised her head.
"You, you usually eat bugs mainly. Because of that, you built up too much resistance to poison so medicine didn't work well and it was tough. But your sister wasn't like that. I prescribed medicine for fever, and it worked well for her. You were picking only decent things to feed her, right.
To care that much even when making a living is hard in that place, that means your sister is that precious, right? Good older brother."
Glaring at the blabbering man, Kyūtarō suspiciously furrowed his brows.
"A place to sleep sheltered from rain and wind, meals enough not to starve, clean futons. And some pocket money and occasional snacks."
One, two, three, the man counted on his fingers as he spoke.
"That's the minimum environment I can promise if you become my disciple."
And he extended a hand with only index and middle fingers raised before Kyūtarō.
"Of course, for both you and your sister."
The man tilts his head. Asks Kyūtarō how about it.
"As an older brother, won't you become my disciple for your sister's sake?"
"...Got it."
Though using Ume as leverage was unpleasant, thinking that if he could escape the Rashomon riverside and give his sister a proper life, Kyūtarō nodded.
He has no learning but can calculate profit and loss. There's no loss in the man's proposal. At least hearing it, there's only gain.
He was half-resigned that with just two kids with no parents, money, or place to rely on, they could never escape that Rashomon riverside in their lifetime, that they couldn't survive outside that place. A drowning person clutches at straws.
Though he can't blindly believe the hooded man's words, judging it better than drowning in the Rashomon riverside, Kyūtarō decided to take the man's hand.
If he's deceiving them, the moment they learn that fact, they can leave with retaliation.
"Brother..."
The conversation between her brother and the man was difficult and she couldn't understand, but she seemed to guess she was involved. Ume clutched Kyūtarō's hem with an uneasy face.
As if to calm the fidgeting Ume, Kyūtarō softened his expression and tenderly stroked his sister's head. The man watched that scene with gentle eyes, but because of the hood, no one noticed.
"Good, negotiation complete. Ah, come to think of it, I haven't heard your names yet."
"…Kyūtarō. This is my little sister Ume."
"Kyūtarō and Ume, huh. Nice to meet you~"
"Hey, hood guy, you should give your name first."
Again, his expression couldn't be known because of the hood, but to the man speaking in an inexplicably emotional atmosphere, Kyūtarō spoke threateningly without hiding his irritation. Without showing any sign of being offended by that, the man lightly apologized "Ah sorry" and straightened his posture.
"I'm Shabana Tsukuru. Shabana (謝花) with the characters for 'apology' and 'flower.' Tsukuru (月流) with 'moon' and 'flow.'"
Being a doctor, the man naturally had a surname. Even if taught the characters, not only young Ume but even unlearned Kyūtarō wouldn't know the character shapes.
But, 'apology' and 'flower,' 'flow' and 'moon.' He could understand that soft, beautiful things were lined up.
Kyūtarō didn't receive a name from his parents, so he uses the name he was called while working as is. Ume has a name, but its origin is her mother's disease name. It's absolutely not something compared to a flower's beauty.
So Kyūtarō was irritated at the hooded man. He hated this guy who naturally possessed things they didn't have. Just hearing a name born with privilege made him jealous.
"Tsukuru from flowing on the moon, a disgustingly beautiful name. When you were born, your parents must've been thrilled naming you."
Scratching his face roughly, as Kyūtarō spat that out, Tsukuru laughed lightly inside his hood.
"It's not all that good. Because my name comes from a terribly bad-tasting medicine."
＊
Thus began the strange cohabitation of two orphan siblings and one young doctor.
Kyūtarō had some rebellious spirit toward the suspicious hooded doctor, but since it was a matter involving his and his sister's lives, he quietly engaged in training. He didn't neglect his studies behind Tsukuru's back either.
Though his manners were rough because of his upbringing, since he had enough sense not to mindlessly turn to crime at the Rashomon riverside and get a proper job, his basic nature was fairly earnest.
Though unlearned, Kyūtarō's mind wasn't bad. Rather, it was very good. He smoothly learned to read and write characters and easily mastered distinguishing medicinal herbs from weeds. Not only was his mental capacity impressive, but he also had the knack for handling multiple tasks simultaneously.
Studying wasn't hard. Learning unknown things and acquiring them as knowledge, being able to obtain something, was simply enjoyable and happy. It felt like gaining weapons.
Medicine types, preparation processes, medicine efficacy—every time Kyūtarō learned something, Tsukuru would stroke Kyūtarō's head a lot. Honestly, it was just annoying so he shook off the hand many times, but even then, Tsukuru didn't give up and would stroke again next time, so Kyūtarō gave up with dead eyes. Saying 'stop' is useless. This guy doesn't listen.
When taking Kyūtarō as a disciple, he thought this guy had eyes like knot holes, but he probably definitely has wind holes in his ears too. Kyūtarō was convinced.
Tsukuru always wears his hood morning and night so his face shape is unknown, but there's definitely something wrong with his eyes and ears. The hair that became free of fleas after coming to this house was always messed up because of Tsukuru.
For Ume, who lived with just her brother until now, Tsukuru was an existence she didn't know how to handle. To Ume, adults were existences that tormented her and her brother.
She lost her mind and pounced on the offered rice balls, but originally adults were scary existences that immediately shout and throw stones. So at first, she hid behind her brother and cautiously observed the situation.
But this adult doesn't shout or throw stones or show signs of tormenting. Rather, he feeds them, lets them live in his house, and even puts them to bed on futons.
He's not a bad adult. He's the first person besides her brother to treat her kindly. Maybe he's different from the adults living at the Rashomon riverside, and Ume was slightly hopeful. But her brother was making an unsatisfied expression, so she couldn't trust that hope.
Kyūtarō also guessed that Tsukuru wasn't a heinous person trying to deceive and kidnap Ume. But he didn't fully trust him. He couldn't. The past life of being tormented, abused, and hearing curses made Kyūtarō that way.
Originally, Kyūtarō's world was complete with just himself and Ume, and nothing else existed.
Then Tsukuru was also an existence outside that world. Even if living under the same roof.
He's not a bad guy. But even if he's a good guy, if that comes from a life born with everything, only jealousy is felt.
Who would appreciate kindness from someone born in a bright place, walking only upright paths, learning only clean things from parents? That's not much different from giving food scraps to an animal and feeling superior. It feels like being pitied and looked down on.
Kyūtarō didn't hate Tsukuru but didn't like him either. Rather, he slightly disliked him. He never felt grateful. He thought that feeling wouldn't change going forward either.
A strange tension surrounding the two siblings and one doctor.
That微妙 distance collapsed half a year after the siblings were taken in by Tsukuru.