Pathway to Japanese Literature

Itta walked around selling natto.
Itta took the morning train to the area around Ikenohata.
It was around the time when geishas were waking up, and Itta called out loudly,
"Natto, natto—"
As he called out and walked,
“Hey there, natto seller!”

He was called to a halt. From behind the lattice emerged a girl slightly older than Itta, wearing a red collar and white powder makeup. During these exchanges, the girl would silently hand over coins while Itta wordlessly passed her a straw-wrapped natto bundle and mustard pot. The sunlight beat down warmly on both children.

At some houses, grown women would come out.

"You parent-and-child natto sellers—you're the boy from before, aren't you?"

Such comments sometimes occurred.

"Do you make rounds every day?"

“Yeah, usually.”

“Where’s home?”

“Senju. The other side of Ohashi Bridge.”
“The other side of Ohashi Bridge.”

“That’s far,”
“Do you walk here?”

“No, I take the train.”

Occasionally,

“Why don’t you sit down for a bit? You must be worn out—you’re still so small.”

There were times when he would be told such things.
At such times, Itta’s bamboo basket held nothing but two or three natto straw bundles and a mustard jar scattered inside.
The house was filled with women—women such as Itta’s mother puffing on a long pipe by the elongated brazier, a young woman spreading out a newspaper on the tatami while combing her hair as she read—and Itta looked around curiously at the cluttered, lively room.
There was a household altar laden with various objects, and there sat a beckoning cat.

“Look, there’s a cat!” Itta exclaimed. And, in a somewhat precocious tone, he said, “Oh, that’s man-made, isn’t it?” “It’s alive, you know.”

“Liar!”

“It’s true—it’ll meow soon, so just wait.”

“Really? Will it really meow? That cat—it’s a lie!”

“Ha ha ha ha ha! You’re silly!”

In the midst of this exchange, Itta managed to have his remaining natto sold as well.
Itta boarded the train again with such vigor that he kicked up sand and dust, and returned home.

Itta walked along the road, sometimes pressing the empty bamboo basket against his side, other times shifting it onto his back to carry it.
Wherever he went, the empty natto basket bounced playfully, poking and tickling Itta’s small body.
When Itta walked slowly, the basket also quieted down.
When Itta hurried, the basket hurried too.
If Itta were to break into a run—!
The basket bounced like a football, bumping into Itta.
Strange.
Fun.
Itta went along the road, now running, now walking slowly, all by himself as the mood took him.

Itta also went out to sell eggs.

When selling eggs, mother Tsumeo accompanied him.
This was because they couldn’t risk Itta falling while carrying the eggs or making mistakes with the prices.
When they came in front of a house she had in mind, Tsumeo had Itta firmly hold the cloth bundle a little before reaching it.
One was a yellow cloth bundle, and the other was red calico.
The yellow one contained only eggs priced at eight sen each, while the red one held eggs priced at six sen each, all nestled in rice husks.
Tsumeo, whose haggard face seemed to consist solely of two eyes and a large, bluish-black mouth, crouched over her son,

“Listen.”
“Don’t make any mistakes or drop and break them, alright?”

She whispered and pushed Itta’s back into the gate. Because Mother said “Now, listen” earnestly in a hushed voice, Itta grew somewhat afraid. Then, with all his determination, he stepped through the unfamiliar gate.

After a while, when Itta came out, mother was standing by a distant utility pole, beckoning him over.
Because she lacked courage, she never sold the eggs herself, always waiting outside for young Itta to return with his earnings.
When he saw mother—especially after a successful sale—Itta would nearly start running toward her.
Flustered, from afar, mother frowned intensely, waved her hands and shook her head to stop him.
When carrying eggs, even if he forgot, Itta must not run.

“Mom!
They bought ten!”

Itta’s voice—loud and buoyant enough to carry clearly—was met by mother with a startled, hushed tone,

“Oh? That’s quite an achievement.”

she said, hurriedly stifling it.

“Come on, one more job.”

Once again walking alongside his shabby-looking mother—her obi dangling and both hands weighed down by cloth bundles—Itta set off with an air of even greater businesslike manner.
He looked around briskly from side to side and scouted for houses where a young housewife might emerge.
Itta, like Mother, wanted to sell many eggs.
Since eggs were much more profitable than natto, when they sold well, Itta would get treated to Chinese soba at the bridgehead on the way back.
When he emerged after selling a large number of eggs, it gave Itta an inexplicably pleasant feeling.
He felt as if he had grown a little taller.

They only walked on good weather days, so along the way Itta saw all sorts of things.
In the quiet afternoon residential area stood a large stone gate.
There was a doghouse in the sun, and beneath a Fatsia plant lay a spotted Western dog sleeping with all four limbs stretched out - one that would undoubtedly be larger than Itta if standing.
Itta found the Western dog - which resembled an impressive grown man - beautiful yet frightening, and stood transfixed.

“Mom, does that dog eat eggs?”

Mother merely glanced sidelong into the gate,

“Well, who knows.”

She went on thinking and thinking.
Because Itta was barefoot, he walked making the flip-flop sound of his geta slapping against his heels.

“Hey Mom, that house actually isn’t any good. That maid suddenly said they don’t want any and brusquely refused.”

Itta informed his mother in a hushed, knowing voice.
There, on the small gravel within the gate where cherry leaves were scattering, a child in a sailor suit was riding a tricycle around with an attendant maid as his companion.

Itta wanted to grow up quickly and go out to sell eggs all by himself.
When Mother was waiting, Itta couldn't play at the places he went to, nor could he loiter along the way.
The monkey in front of Manshiken couldn't even watch undisturbed.
Moreover, it felt somehow stifling—because Tsumeo had walked for so long without speaking much or laughing.
Truly, Mother never laughed...
With nothing else to do, Itta walked along kicking pebbles by the roadside and chasing after them, but whenever this somehow coincided with the eggs not selling, he began to feel a lonely sort of worry about walking in silence.

“Hey, Mom.”

“What is it? Quit pestering me already!”

When they came to this side of the railroad crossing, there were Itta’s friends and Zen-don from the rice shop among others. When Itta passed by alone, swinging his natto basket, someone—

“Hey, Itta, come here.”

—called out. Zen-don from the rice shop, his eyebrows and kimono white as a dust-covered rat, was working while—

“Heading back now?”

—he asked.

“Yeah.”

Itta came to a stop and watched Zen-san carry gunny sacks back and forth to load onto a cart while observing the motor-driven pestle in motion.

“Where you headed today?”

“Ikenohata.”

“Hmm... Heave-ho! So... puttin’ on airs, were ya? Lotsa fancy ladies ’round there?”

“Oh yeah, there were.”

“Tch! Workin’ it smooth, ain’tcha?”

“Why’s that, Zen-don? Why’re you sayin’ ‘pullin’ it off slick,’ huh?”

“’Cause you’re pullin’ it off slick, that’s why I’m sayin’ it! That’s just how the cookie crumbles!”

Itta,

“Hey there, you big weirdo Zen-don!”

he jeered and pretended to run away.

“What the heck!”
“Cheeky Natto brat!”

Itta had been waiting for that.
Darting nimbly around the cart, Itta was chased by Zen-don.
How Itta loved and delighted in playing tag with adults!
When those strong hands were about to catch him, Itta was truly startled and so scared he nearly shut his eyes.
It was scary, but that made it all the more thrilling.
When he walked with his mother, even the usually amusing Zen-don wouldn’t call out to him as he normally did.
Itta, acting endearingly,

“Zen-don”

Even when he called out,
“Yeah,”
was all he said.
Zen-don maintained an exaggeratedly solemn demeanor.
Then, muttering under his breath, he immediately went back to winnowing with the basket and sorting rice grains.

Still, this beat being stuck in the rain.

When it rained, Itta did not go out to sell natto.
Itta, who didn’t attend school, had to stay cooped up at home all day, but for Itta, who spent most days outdoors, this was truly tedious.

Itta’s house stood along the highway leading from Senju toward Kosuge, in a spot you reached by turning into an alley beside a rope-curtained eatery.
That alley narrowed so severely during downpours that you couldn’t enter holding an oil-paper umbrella upright.
At the back, five tin-roofed row houses stood aligned, with Itta’s dwelling at the farthest end of the third row.
Every house was cramped beyond measure, but Itta and his mother inhabited a space even more constricted.

“Where’s your place?”

When asked, Itta—

“It’s next to Shioda-san’s place.”

—he answered without hesitation. But it wasn’t a house—it would have been more accurate to call it just a room. In other words, Itta and his mother weren’t renting an entire row house themselves; instead, they were subletting just one room within a two-room unit that someone else had rented as the primary tenant. The six-tatami room faced the row house’s passageway. There lived Uncle Ito and Aunt Ito. The next three-tatami room was Itta’s home. When it rained, therefore, Itta had no choice but to stay quietly in that three-tatami space with his mother. The three-tatami area was sufficient for a single adult woman to sit and work, but for Itta’s limbs darting through the passageway, it proved hopelessly cramped. It wasn’t just Itta alone—his mother was doing piecework there too. Because sitting up would make him bump against the fusuma paper dividing the neighboring room and get scolded, Itta usually lay sprawled out. He turned his head toward his mother and stuck both legs out toward the bamboo lattice window. With the tin roof overhead, when wind blew the rain sideways, it clattered like someone scattering azuki beans. Otherwise—slash, slash—the rain fell with an ominous, terrible sound. Itta had only attended elementary school for one year and didn’t properly know the kana syllabary. With no magazines to read, he lay sprawled out and murmured words from the fusuma paper. The partition separating their room from the neighbor’s—as mentioned earlier—wasn’t covered with proper fusuma paper, but pasted with old newspaper supplements featuring antiquated beauty prints, random news clippings, and what looked like magazine scraps that had been lying around. Years ago, when this row house was first built, that partition too must have been prepared with brown chrysanthemum-patterned paper like on the aunts’ side. Tear and patch, tear and patch—even Itta knew that rhythm well.

When Itta first came from Aomori with his mother last year and began living in this room that was their home, he still retained the habit of moving about that he’d developed in houses with corridors and gardens.

As he turned over in his nap with a grunt, Itta kicked the fusuma and thrust his leg through.

Mother hit Itta.
Itta was so frightened that,

“Idiot!”

she shouted and made him buy paste for one sen.
And then she applied the newest patch.

Itta looked at the still-white parts of the paper and read the faded newspaper clippings.

“Brotose.”
“Alzen Brotose.”
“Iodo Brotose.”
“Kina Brotose.”
“Guayacol Brotose… What’s Brotose, Mother?”

“It’s an ad.”

“Ah! So that’s why there’s people stuck here—people right there! …Hoippo…Colds…Fevers…Morimyo.”
“Mother, what’s Hoippo?”

“Be quiet now, or Aunt will start complaining.”

When he got bored, Itta got up and grabbed the bamboo lattice.
The back faced a narrow road and a single house similar to Itta’s.
The place visible from Itta’s window was the carpenter’s house, which served as Chuko’s residence.
Chuko, being the son there who didn’t have to stay still in a three-tatami room like Itta, was playing with the earthen entryway’s shoji screen left wide open.
As Itta watched from the bamboo lattice, Chuko soon noticed Itta.
Chuko was a mischievous child who had once,

“Itta’s mom’s a man, how weird!”
“Tch!”

Chuko said.

“No, she isn’t a man!”

“Then why’s she called Tsumeo? Names ending with ‘o’ are for men!”

Itta choked up,
“But she’s a woman!”
he pressed.

“He’s a man.
‘Ko’s for girls—Katsudo’s a boy! Namiko’s a girl and Takeo’s a boy! See? Itta doesn’t know ’cause he doesn’t go to school!”

Itta grew indignant, tears welling in his eyes.
He didn't mind not going to school, but when Chuko said that to him, it felt humiliating.
Clenching his fists, Itta,

“Mother doesn’t have a pee-pee or anything, nuh-uh!”

he retorted.
Itta and Chuko, about four shaku apart on either side, played by glaring at each other and sticking both pinkies in their mouths to make faces.
When they had played enough, Chuko abruptly,

“See ya, Pee-yew!”

With that, he withdrew.

Itta stared for a long, long time at his mother's hands, then quietly,

“Buy me caramels for two sen, Mother,”
he pleaded.

“…………”

“Come on! Just once, okay?”

“No.”

“Why? Didn’t you sell so many eggs the day before yesterday?”

“You’re saying that again! If this rain keeps up for three whole days, we won’t even make ends meet with that money, will we?”

Itta fell silent.
Itta understood all too well the inconveniences that came with having no money.
If told there was no money, Itta had to make do with even just one and a half bowls of rice.—
To distract himself from the emptiness in his mouth, Itta began rolling out his tongue, pulling it back in, and peering down at its red, neatly pointed tip.
Mother continued sewing without pause,

“Really now...”

let out a deep sigh, but

“If only Father were here, we wouldn’t have ended up in such a wretched state…”
“You could’ve gone to school like everyone else… But even with the two of us mother and child working ourselves to the bone, going without food to earn our keep—in this depression, we can’t even afford a single padded coat.”

Itta, both because he was troubled and because he was used to it, didn't reply.

“The more I think about it, the more I realize there’s no one as unlucky as me.”
“With neither parents nor siblings to my name, and then to end up in this poverty I never imagined… If only you weren’t here, I might’ve found some way to get by.”
“Itta…”
“If you don’t pull yourself together, your mother won’t even know what hope keeps her alive anymore!”

The mother’s litany of complaints was punctuated by splish-splash splish-splash—the sound of cold raindrops echoing all around.
Itta disliked both the splish-splash of the raindrops and his mother’s bitter complaints.
When it rained, he would be made to listen to the sound of those raindrops—seeming to rot everything down to their roots—and to stories about better days long past that he could never quite grasp.
Ah, that’s why Itta hated the rain.
But had there really ever been a time when he had carried a mikoshi wearing a matching chirimen silk yukata like his mother described?
If we’re talking about shops with many clerks and apprentices, they must be much bigger than Beigen Rice Shop where there’s only Zen-don and an apprentice or two—but could such a place really have been his own home?

As Itta hazily tried to trace memories he couldn’t recall, his mother’s voice still reached his ears.
It grew increasingly fragmented, then suddenly swelled loud and close before fading to a whisper.
Suddenly,

“Itta.”

Itta started and looked all around.

“Come over here for a moment.”

“Hey, Itta, Auntie needs you for something.”

Itta stood up and opened the sliding paper door in the partition.
Aunt Ito, sitting before a crude long brazier,
“Here’s your treat,”
With that, she brought out black beans arranged on a small dish atop the brazier cover.
Sweetly simmered black beans!
Itta, his eyes brimming with appetite fixed on the dish of beans, pressed his knees together and sat down small before it.
Itta, as he had been strictly instructed,
“Thank you for the treat.”
Itta said his thanks.
Mother’s head appeared through a gap in the sliding paper door.

“Oh my, has he received something again… How embarrassing.”

And then, forcing a sociable smile toward Aunt Ito,
“So you see, since we’re not outsiders, it might seem passable, but really, it looks like you begged for it!”
she scolded Itta.
“Why don’t you have some tea over here too?”

“Yes, thank you.
“It’s just that I can’t shake the habits from when Father was here and we lived comfortably.
“It’s truly troubling.”

Itta began eating, spearing one black bean at a time on his toothpick’s tip while savoring both their sweetness and his own quiet joy.
Beside him, under Tsumeo’s watchful gaze as she stared at her son, tea was served to her too.

This was on days when the rain fell so hard that it overflowed the gutters with a splashing sound—but even when it wasn’t that heavy, when the weather looked quite ominous, or when occasional showers passed through as if remembering to rain, Itta and his mother led a different kind of life.
"Earnings" was probably the correct term.
After all, that work must have earned some money.

That was a visit.
Like when selling eggs, Itta alone from the water spout of an unfamiliar house—

“Hello.”

He did not go around calling out like that.

Mother would take Itta’s hand and lead him through the entrance.

“Good day. Pardon the intrusion.”

With that, they would go in as guests.
The entrances were so varied—some large, some small—that Itta couldn’t remember each one distinctly, but they all equally served as gateways to homes belonging to Tsumeo’s elementary school friends and teachers.
Tsumeo and Itta were led from that entrance to the parlor.
Itta’s mother spoke in a manner entirely different from when she was at home or speaking to Itta normally.

“This aunt has been your mother’s friend since she was about your age.”

At first, Itta would stare wide-eyed at the woman sitting there in her splendid attire.
That such a refined lady could have been both an ordinary girl Mother played with and a tiny child herself seemed utterly incomprehensible.
Itta shifted uncomfortably in his cross-legged position, forcing an awkward grin.

"How old are you?
Is my Takei around your age?"

"Itta, she's asking your age."

"Ten."

"Just a year apart then—mine's nine.
What grade are you in?
Third?
Fourth?"

“…………”

Itta, under his mother’s intense gaze, answered honestly,

“I don’t go to school.”

he said.
It was always strange how sad Itta felt.
This was because whenever people heard his answer, they all made peculiar expressions.
Feeling uneasy, Itta looked at the face of the person who had asked.
The questioner remained silent with an even more uncomfortable look.
At that moment, Itta’s mother began:

“I’m so ashamed I can hardly speak of it.
Ever since this child’s father died in the earthquake disaster, I’ve been utterly helpless.”

With that, she would slowly begin a long, endless lament about their poverty—one that seemed like it would never conclude.

When leaving, Itta and Mother received a sum of money wrapped in a parcel and a fairly new athletic shirt, among other things.

On an autumn day with a thin overcast, Itta sat on the edge of a brown-painted bench and idly swung his legs.
Beside Itta sat his mother, and on another chair across from them was yet another person.
Itta and his mother had come on one of their earning-related visits.
In the dimly lit room, there was not a single thing that interested Itta.
Itta never walked over to touch anything, but he wished there were a taxidermied bird like the one at Auntie’s place in Asakusa!
On the wall hung only a photograph of an old man with an unkempt beard.

For some time now, Itta’s mother and the master had been engaged in roughly this sort of conversation.

“When you put it that way, I truly have no rebuttal. But once I’ve fallen this low, I become entirely consumed by day-to-day worries—it becomes impossible to gather my thoughts.”
“Well, when I think about how we mother and child will manage to survive tomorrow, my mind just goes blank… We have somehow scraped by relying on everyone’s kindness—and I’m fully aware how presumptuous it is to impose like this on Sensei, with whom we have so little connection.”

“That’s not what I meant by saying that. In the end, temporary funds won’t solve anything, and with your son here, I think you must find a way to establish a stable life—if unavoidable, through maid service or caretaking—and secure a steady independent income so you can provide him with at least a basic education. Otherwise, you’ll come to regret it beyond measure.”

“I’ve been so concerned about that as well.”
“If he were to become a delinquent while we continue like this, I would feel I’ve failed his late father as well.”
“—But the sorrow of having once lived a life somewhat above the ordinary makes me unable to stomach stooping to crawling around other people’s kitchens now…”

“...If that’s how things stand, then this plan of yours to go to Korea... It would require a major decision, wouldn’t it?”

To Itta, most of the conversation was incomprehensible.
Itta vaguely wondered when they would go to Korea.

Around this time, Itta’s mother spoke about relocating to Korea at each place they visited.
She also told Itta.
The mother grabbed Itta and spoke as if consulting an adult,

“Hey, Itta-chan.
“Why don’t we just go to that uncle’s place in Korea?
“We’ve got to dig our heels in like this or we’ll never make it… right?”

she consulted.
At that moment, Itta perked up,

“Let’s go, let’s go, Mom!”

he said… but Itta tilted his head and swung his legs,

“What kind of place do you suppose Korea even is, Mom?” he asked.
The man smiled slightly.

“It was Mokpo, wasn’t it—the place we were talking about earlier.”
“Since Mokpo’s just the entry point, it probably isn’t much different from the mainland.”

Itta was gazing absentmindedly out the window when, struck by something novel, he suddenly exclaimed.

“There are bamboo groves around here, Mom—look! There’s one over there too!”
“There are so many bamboo groves around here.”

“Ah.”

Itta asked with sparkling eyes.

“Would tigers come out in bamboo groves like that?”

“Ha ha ha! If a tiger showed up here, that’d be a real problem.”

“Then are they in Korea?”

“There aren’t any where you’re going—only pigs.”

“Pigs?
“So, the tiger that Kiyomasa defeated was actually a pig?”

“Now!”
“What do you mean by ‘pig’ and such?”

“Ha ha ha ha!”
“Never mind, never mind… Kiyomasa defeated a real tiger.”
“But tigers wouldn’t go that far north even in Korea!”

“Hmm.”

For a while longer, Itta listened to their conversation, but being unaccustomed to sitting properly, every joint in his body began to ache and creak like a dog confined in a basket. Itta stretched with a loud yawn.

“What’s gotten into you, Itta! You should join me in making proper requests. You keep causing me trouble no matter how old you get…”

“Boredom’s only natural.—Go out and have a look; there might be chestnuts.”

Itta left through the entrance and circled around the large poplar tree toward the kitchen to investigate.
The neighboring house came into view immediately, its garden filled with blooming dahlias.
As Itta shuffled along in his geta, the poplar’s dead leaves scattered around him rustled crisply underfoot.
Caught up in the moment, he scurried back and forth—gathering leaves with his geta here, sweeping them together there—until he’d piled them into a single mound.
Unlike near his own home, this area lay quiet, the crackle of leaves he stirred echoing endlessly between tree trunks.
A faint unease crept over Itta.
He hoisted the bamboo three-pronged pole onto his shoulder and headed for the chestnut tree.
Sure enough, chestnuts hung from its branches.
Targeting what seemed the lowest branch, Itta rattled the pole against it with all his strength.
A burr snapped free and came tumbling down.
It rolled nearly a shaku down the slope, threatening to spill into the neighboring garden.
Itta lunged forward and pinned it with his geta.
From one side of the burr emerged two properly ripened chestnuts.
The other, greener half yielded a single nut—pale white mottled with brown.
After scrutinizing it in his palm, Itta hastily stuffed it into his pocket.
He swung the pole at the branch again.
“Yahoo! Banzai!”
This time plump ripe chestnuts rained down bare from above.
Itta craned his neck upward until it ached, utterly absorbed in shaking down every last fruit.

When Itta returned to the room again, his mother was sitting in her usual chair as before, wearing a sullen expression.
She was alone.

“Where’s Uncle?”

“Over there.”

“Look at this, Mom, there were so many!”

At that moment, the man returned.
“How’d it go? Get any?”
“Yes, there were heaps of them, bunched way up high... I couldn’t reach them.”

Itta held out the chestnuts from his pockets in both hands to show them.

“What’s this? These are so green—no good.”

“Hmm.”
“Would drying them still not work?”

“Nope. If you pick chestnuts from the tree, they die. Even if you dry them, they won’t become edible.”

The man, who had been standing and looking at the chestnuts in Itta’s hands, soon—
“Come over here. I’ll show you something interesting.”
the man said.

“You too…”

“Thank you very much, but we really must take our leave now.”
“Well, it’s not that matters couldn’t be settled if we discuss them at length.”

Itta’s mother entered the next room, her thick vertical wrinkles creasing her brow as she wore a discontented, almost angry expression.
On the small dining table sat a reddish unglazed brazier where a young girl was tending the fire.
Itta, his face showing curiosity and anticipation, sat down in the indicated spot.

“They say something will be ready very soon, but to tide you over until then, I’ve got something rare here.”

The man placed something like thin slices of white flattened mochi on the brazier’s grill and roasted them while flipping with chopsticks.
Itta, who had been intently watching the man’s hands and salivating, was startled and pulled his mother.
“Oh! Mom, it’s getting bigger, this!”
“Look, it’s getting bigger… getting bigger!”
The small white mochi-like thing swelled up vigorously, expanding into a large, flat light cracker that he could barely hold with chopsticks.

“Alright, let it cool a bit first—it’ll taste better that way. It’s fragrant.—Try baking it yourself.”

Itta roasted with one hand while eating the light cracker with the other. It was very sweet, and seemed about to melt in his mouth.

“It’s really yummy!”

“That’s right.”

Itta,
“Is it ready now? Can I give it back now?”

he said while starting to roast.

“I’ll give the next one to Mom.”

Itta’s mother, with a gloomy, dejected air, directed her gaze that way while,

“It’s fine. You should give that to Sensei.”

And,

“That gentleman is an esteemed Sensei who compiles important books.”

Tsumeo said.

“Hmm…”

Itta had been thinking, but—

"So did you compile that book too?"

he asked abruptly.

“Which book do you mean?”

“That book—Shonen Club... I’ve read it! Captain Shimamura’s really brave, isn’t he?”

“Ha ha ha ha! That’s not it—other people made that one, lots of them… Ha ha ha ha ha!”

Because Sensei was laughing while looking directly at Itta’s face with eyes that shone like pleasant sunlight, Itta felt so good he somehow wanted to burst into laughter too.
Itta,

“Oh, come on!”

When he said this, he first giggled, then finally burst into loud laughter.
Itta was only wearing a single underkimono beneath his dark blue kasuri garment, so holding the small fire like this felt warm and pleasant.
What could be coming out now…?

Itta heard his mother say in a confrontational tone,

“Even now he’s still worrying about this, tearing up and saying ‘Mom will be okay,’ you see.”

Itta hadn’t asked such things, nor had he teared up.
That was something Itta knew.
However, Itta also knew one more thing—that when they were out, his mother would often talk about things he didn’t know or hadn’t said, spinning tales about him doing this or that.

But for Itta, there was something far more interesting happening right now.
If you burned this light cracker black, it shriveled up and didn't expand at all.
Quickly flip it over—see, when it puffed up like this, flip it back again quickly...

Itta tightly closed his mouth, mentally urging himself not to drop it as he roasted the light snow-like dough over the fire with determination, intent on crafting the largest light cracker yet.