【004】Happiness

When my parents died, I couldn’t cry.

Their faces captured in a photograph.

I stared at it blankly.

A traffic accident, apparently.

A truck driven by a drowsy driver crashed into them. The final verdict was a guilty sentence with suspended execution for the truck driver. According to the ruling, the truck driver had been forced to work with almost no sleep due to the company’s black labor practices, and the root cause was determined to be the company itself.

When I was a middle school student and heard the detailed circumstances, I couldn’t understand them. I only understood one thing—my parents were gone. From now on, I’d be alone.

When Tanaka-sensei brought up my parents.

I remembered.

About my parents.

And I realized.

My parents were never good parents.

【Tamura Misaki】

My parents were what you’d call a “mask couple.”

I realized this after they died. What I felt then wasn’t shock—it was acceptance.

My father almost never came home. My mother would return late at night. She’d eat a meal and then head back to work. Actually, she’d come home several times to prepare meals for me. At least I wasn’t raised in a problematic way.

But I think I felt a normal amount of loneliness.

Now that time has passed, those memories are in the past, and my parents were, at the very least, people who kept their child alive and raised him.

They couldn’t be called good parents.

But they weren’t bad parents either.

Just a slightly unusual home environment. And that “unusual” was merely a value judgment I created, so even now I don’t know if it was truly unusual.

But I was uncomfortable around my father.

My father was apparently an elite.

Because of that, he was a perfectionist.

I heard that gifted education under my father began shortly after I was born, but my father gave up after about two years.

According to him, I didn’t have talent.

That’s why my father gave up on me early.

Being a perfectionist, he probably judged it a waste of time.

I wasn’t sad about that.

I just felt sorry.

From a capable father came an incapable child.

That was unbearably regrettable. Some people would criticize the parent here. Children can’t choose their parents. There are surely those who are furious about that fact. But I didn’t think that way then. Just as children can’t choose their parents, parents can’t decide the superiority or inferiority of the child they’ll have.

My father’s back was distant and large.

I developed a sense of discomfort toward my father.

My mother gave me a certain amount of entertainment.

Books, games, meals, money.

As if those were substitutes for parental love.

Perhaps, maybe.

My mother was raised the same way.

She didn’t know parental love. So she couldn’t give parental love. She could only see her child through another method. Thinking that, I felt affection for my mother.

Those two were apparently going out together that day, which was rare. Where they were headed is unknown.

And then they were in a traffic accident and died.

◇

I finished today’s classes and returned home. I entered my room, placed my school bag on the bed, and sat down with a thump.

I can’t bring myself to do anything.

When Tanaka-sensei mentioned my parents, I remembered them for the first time in a while.

At that moment, the only clean memory I could recall.

It clings to my mind and won’t leave.

Tap tap—a knock on the door.

Normally, the doorbell would ring. But I could sense a reserved manner, as if restraining from making a loud sound.

“It’s open.”

I call toward the door.

The door opens slowly.

Standing there is—Nanaka-san.

“Misa-kun.”

Nanaka-san looks like she’s about to cry.

She takes off her shoes at the entrance, sits in front of me, and matches my eye level.

In her beautiful eyes, my reflection appears.

“Are you okay?”

“About what?”

“Necchi… I thought you might be bothered by what Tanaka-sensei said.”

“…I’m not bothered.”

“That’s a lie. Because after that, Misa-kun, you were spacing out the whole time.”

“…I’m really not bothered. I just remembered something.”

“Remembered, something?”

I nod.

“My mother praised me once. My mother didn’t show much interest, and it was truly the first and last words of praise…”

Apparently, I have a good memory.

I can immediately memorize things I see or hear once. It’s called eidetic memory.

When I was in third grade, I was given a book. A difficult book by some scholar. The title was “The State of the Human Heart.” I couldn’t understand the content at all, but I could memorize the entire text. When I recited it in front of my mother, she looked slightly surprised.

—That’s amazing, Misaki.

Before I knew it, I was crying.

Because my mother had never praised me before. Since then, I could take pride in my memory. It’s the only thing I’m proud of about myself.

“Until Tanaka-sensei mentioned it, I forgot everything. I arbitrarily thought my parents weren’t very good parents. I’m… a terrible person who even forgot about my parents.”

“That’s not true!”

Nanaka-san hugs me.

“That’s not true at all. Misa-kun, you’re a very kind person. People are creatures who find it difficult to interact with true kindness. Because they perceive it as hypocrisy or self-satisfaction. But you’re different. You have a truly kind heart. That’s proof you’re not a terrible person.”

Nanaka-san’s words are sweet words that melt the black something that had been stuck inside me. I’m drawn in by Nanaka-san.

“It’s the same with your parents. You were able to think that way because of what Tanaka-sensei said. Normally, people can’t think that way. It’s because you’re you that you can think that.”

Nanaka-san’s voice trembles.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be by your side. So don’t carry it all alone.”

“…Yeah, yeah…”

My tears overflow.

To think there’s someone so conveniently kind. She’s the angel.

I immerse myself in her words.

They’re comfortable and filled with happiness.

I keep crying endlessly.

【???】

The next day.

Tanaka-sensei wasn’t at school.