What to do, Kyūtarō has no energy.
When I woke him in the morning, he was normal. When I had him help with medicine preparation during the day, he was also normal. But when I went to call him for dinner while he was holed up in his room self-studying, he had become terribly sullen. Why?
I thought maybe he ate something bad, but I and Ume, who ate the same food, were fine.
Rather, Ume is overflowing with health. Today too, she ran around the bamboo grove with bamboo stilts and fell over screaming, strode around the yard with bamboo clogs and also fell over shouting,
and when I gave her a bamboo dragonfly to play with since it was getting dangerous, she flew it too high and put it on the roof, so she was energetically crying "Brotherrrrr!!! My bamboo dragonfly!!! My bamboo dragonfly!!!"
For reference, all the toys are my handmade items. The number of bamboo dragonflies Ume has placed on the roof has now reached the monumental 100th.
Now, how long will the 101st remain active? The 102nd is already finished. The life of a bamboo dragonfly is fleeting.
Kyūtarō was eating dinner glumly as if his mind was elsewhere. Maybe because he was spaced out, he was naturally saying "Let's eat" and "Thank you for the meal." Normally he says them reluctantly.
When I first took them in, neither of them said pre- or post-meal greetings. I taught them that gratitude for meals is important so they should do it properly, but Kyūtarō's rebellious spirit toward me was at its climax from the start, so he basically doesn't follow what I say. Though he does learn the medical work obediently.
If Kyūtarō doesn't say it, Ume doesn't either. This won't do. But even if I say it, Kyūtarō won't listen, so I decided to tackle Ume first.
I lured her with a reward: if you promise to say it properly, I'll give you yōkan candy as a reward~. Ume's eyes sparkled.
When I said if Kyūtarō says it too, today's snack is dorayaki~, Ume sent a sparkling gaze to Kyūtarō. His surrender was quick. If the little sister goes over, the brother goes over too. The two are Choro Cure Max Heart.
Seeing the two put their hands together and say 'Let's eat' and 'Thank you for the meal' made me so proud I sniffled inside my hood. Is this how parents feel watching their children grow?
Kyūtarō, who said it forcibly, looked incredibly displeased and resentful though. He glared at me enough that if looks could kill, I'd be dead a hundred times, but it's okay, I understand.
Kyūtarō didn't yield to me, he yielded to Ume's smiling face. A little sister's smile is priceless. This smile I want to protect. Kyūtarō is really a good older brother.
Oh dear, the story went off track.
Anyway, Kyūtarō's condition was strange, and thinking maybe he was tired from studying a lot, after dinner I told him to sleep early today and put him right to bed. Ume too.
Ume, who had played to her heart's content and cried to her heart's content during the day, fell asleep instantly, but Kyūtarō was still spaced out, continuing to stare at the ceiling. No, at least close your eyes. Try to sleep. Don't rebel even at times like this.
I had no choice but to sing a lullaby. Patting Kyūtarō gently over the futon, I sang 'Pon pon small mountain's baby rabbit.'
Who did I hear this from again, oh right, it was Mom. When I was little, she held me and soothed me with this lullaby. Stroking my back gently, she sang in a tender voice until I fell asleep. Thanks to her repeating it many times, I remember it well. Perfectly up to verse 2.
But even after singing up to verse 2, Kyūtarō didn't sleep. Thinking maybe he didn't like this song, I sang another lullaby.
"Sleep well, sleep well, our baby..."
Huh, this isn't Mom's song. Who was it again? Tracing the voice in my memory, it played back as the Leader. Come to think of it, that person also often sang lullabies.
They sang while patting my belly on the same futon, but the pattern was always the Leader falling asleep first. At the part 'Where has the baby's protector gone~' the teeth I always saw would depart for the dream world, so I don't know the lyrics after that. As a last resort, I infinitely repeat the part I remember.
"Baby is a good child, sleep well... Ume is a good child, sleep well... Kyūtarō is also a good child, sleep well..."
A forced lullaby. Even while singing it, it's incredibly embarrassing. But fortunately, Kyūtarō finally closed his eyes.
Thank goodness, if he had kept his eyes open like that, I was about to develop a grand adventure story: 'Where has the baby's protector gone... To solve that mystery, we headed for the remote bamboo grove! The baby's protector who disappeared in the bamboo grove, the true identity of the six-eyed monster witnessed beyond the bamboo grove!'
After continuing to sing for a while, thinking maybe I should sleep too, I quietly leave the room. But while arranging my bedding in my room, the outer corridor creaked with someone's footsteps.
"...Hey."
A cautious voice outside the door. It's Kyūtarō. I thought he was asleep, but he wasn't sleeping? I put my hood back on and opened the door.
Kyūtarō, standing alone in the corridor, was holding a book.
"What's up?"
Looking closely, that book was one I used to write in long ago. I wrote down the knowledge I learned from sensei there. Thinking it might be a reference for Kyūtarō's studies, I had lent it to him—perhaps there was a difficult part to understand? As I thought that, Kyūtarō held out the book to me.
"This, I've finished reading it."
He says with his head deeply bowed, in a voice that seems about to disappear. It was a weak voice unimaginable from his usual attitude. I don't know what Kyūtarō wants to tell me. I don't know, but first I spoke my thoughts out loud.
"I see. You've already progressed this far. Kyūtarō is smart. It took me about a year."
No really, Kyūtarō is amazing. He couldn't even read or write, yet he can already do this much. Maybe he's a genius. Did I pick up a tremendous talent? Could this be the strongest-level intelligence in Shabana history?
Kyūtarō's information processing speed is no joke. He definitely has an Intel chip inside. Shabana's future is nothing but bright. To this, both I and my predecessor smile.
While praising him like that, I stroked his head enough to mess up his hair. Normally he'd make a disgusted face, but the current Kyūtarō didn't break his subdued expression.
"Tsukuru."
Kyūtarō called my name.
In his high voice before his voice change.
"You said the origin of your name was medicine, right."
"Yeah, that's right."
When I nodded, Kyūtarō's shoulders trembled slightly. His bowed face rises. Kyūtarō looks up at me. Not glaring, but looking straight at me.
"That's Tsukinagashi, right."
What his forcibly squeezed voice recites is the true reading of my name.
"Yeah, that's right."
When I nod again, Kyūtarō's pupils shake.
Outside the sliding door, a chilly drizzle was scattering. The eyes reflected in the moonlight were faintly bright, clearly revealing the coldness of the world. The breath Kyūtarō exhaled trembled white.
"It's an abortion drug."
A voice like a groan melts into the snow outside the window.
Ah, tonight seems like it will be cold.
＊
Until reading that, Kyūtarō thought Tsukuru (月流) was an extremely beautiful medicine.
That's why he couldn't take his eyes off the efficacy written beside the medicine name for a while.
Tsukinagashi. Abortion drug.
If you drink this, the child in the womb flows away without waiting ten months. Dies without being born. Poison that kills babies. Medicine that washes away what's unnecessary.
Not a name normal parents would give.
Not a medicine normal parents would use.
His stomach grows cold. Chilliness rises to his chest. Wondering if he made an outrageous misconception, he cursed his past self who envied Tsukuru's name that day.
But, but, this man clearly had everything from the beginning. Thinking he could show pity to Kyūtarō and Ume because he had no experience of having anything taken away.
But.
"My mother was a courtesan at the Rashomon riverside."
Tsukuru, who called Kyūtarō into his room, quietly said that. In a light tone as if talking about the world.
"She said she drank Tsukinagashi because she had no intention of having a child. But it must have been fake. Since I wasn't miscarried and was born."
The charcoal in the hearth is burning red. Contrary to that warmth, Kyūtarō's chest gradually grows colder.
"My mother called me Tsukinagashi. She often screamed that because of me, her luck flowed away. And since I have a somewhat unusual appearance, she found that displeasing too."
Perhaps thinking Kyūtarō was trembling from the cold, Tsukuru pushed the hearth toward Kyūtarō. Even so, the trembling didn't stop.
"I think it's a miracle I didn't die as an infant even though she didn't properly care for me. She didn't feed me, so I ate grass instead. Or snakes. Those are surprisingly tasty, you know. Rainy days made me happy. Because I could drink clean water. When it rained too much, I almost died from the cold though."
It was the same. Tsukuru was the same as them. A human with nothing born with, nothing given.
But then why can he live without taking? While having nothing given, why can he give to someone?
"You know that place where you collapsed? I collapsed on that street too. So that's probably why. Seeing Kyūtarō at that time as myself from sometime ago, I thought I wanted to help."
If he himself was unhappy, taking happiness from someone was Kyūtarō's way of life. Inflicting equal damage on the other to balance the accounts. Making them taste misfortune to vent his resentment.
He couldn't live without doing that. Without trampling on someone's happiness, he couldn't bear the weight of their misfortune.
"I wanted to do the same thing. When I was taken in by my predecessor, I was happy enough to die."
But this man proceeds in the exact opposite direction of Kyūtarō.
He lives by sharing his own happiness with people.
"...Sorry for using Ume as leverage. I did a cheap trick because I really wanted to bring you here. You must have been angry since Kyūtarō cherishes his sister."
I'm sorry.
Apologizing in that sorry voice, he stroked Kyūtarō's head. He hadn't done a single thing worthy of praise, so the meaning of the stroking was unclear.
If he had stroked enough to mess up his hair like usual, that would have been fine. But Tsukuru's hand now gently swept through the hair, tender as if trying to unravel Kyūtarō's tangled thoughts. That point made his head ache even more.
"It's late now, so let's sleep. Your body has cooled, so I'll bring a hot water bottle. Go back to your room and wait."
Tsukuru's hand that fell from his head had been much colder than Kyūtarō's all along. Tsukuru said that and left the room, but Kyūtarō couldn't move from in front of the hearth.
──Why are they so different? The question swirls in his head.
Born from a situation not so different from his own, raised in a similar environment. Why does this man see a different world than him? Why can't he see that world?
Thinking, and thinking, and thinking.
He realized the reason was because he was Kyūtarō.
──The reason Kyūtarō calls himself 'Kyūtarō' isn't because he has no name. It was a resolution. A vow of resentment that he would definitely take from happy others.
They say a name represents the body, so to represent his body he called himself that. Since he could only live envying and being jealous, he would continue living like this. Attaching the name Kyūtarō to his own life, he cast upon himself a curse that would never be undone.
Kyūtarō cannot give. Because taking is his work. From the moment he called himself by that name, his future was decided like that.
Only now did Kyūtarō realize he had been erasing his own possibilities.
"Kyūtarō. I told you to go back to your room. You'll catch a cold."
In Tsukuru's arms when he returned to the room were two hot water bottles. One was for Kyūtarō, and the other was probably for Ume.
This house originally had just Tsukuru and his predecessor living there. So most things only come in pairs. Those mere two items, this man gives unreservedly to the siblings.
This man has been like that from the start.
He was the kind of man who eats only the burnt parts of fish or the ends of pickles and gives the clean parts to the two. The kind of man who gives most of the solid ingredients in soup to the two and just slurps the broth himself.
That Tsukuru, Kyūtarō watched with skeptical eyes as a show-off.
But from tomorrow. No.
"Hey, Tsukuru."
"What?"
"...I'm sorry."
"Huh? What? For what?"
"...It's nothing."
From now on, let's accept it properly.
Without distorting it with envy. Without dirtying it with jealousy. Without clouding it with hatred. Let's enjoy Tsukuru's kindness as it is.
Tsukuru sang another lullaby to Kyūtarō who had gotten into the futon. Hearing the tender-voiced lullaby made his chest tickle. His eyes grew hot but he didn't cry. Since it was obvious he'd worry, he closed his eyes as if to deceive him.
The one who fell asleep first wasn't Kyūtarō listening to the lullaby but Tsukuru who was singing. The moment he recited 'Where has the baby's protector gone,' he fell asleep making soft breathing sounds.
Kyūtarō covered the sleeping Tsukuru on the tatami with his own futon. Gave him the hot water bottle too, and burrowed into Ume's futon himself.
Tsukuru's circumstances and his own were very similar.
That's why Kyūtarō saw one possibility in his future.
"Someday, could I become one too..."
Not as Kyūtarō who only takes, but as a human who gives like Tsukuru.
He wanted to see the same scenery as this person.