Pathway to Japanese Literature

In Hokkaido's Yūbari Coal Mine stood a lodging house for coal miners called Yayoi Lodge.
One day, Junki—a lodger working as an underground laborer—was hospitalized at the coal mine hospital for hemorrhoid surgery.
Junki had long suffered from hemorrhoids, but they had worsened during his underground work.
As his attendant went Osugi—a widow employed as the lodge's cleaning woman.

Osugi’s husband had been in charge of operating the human-powered mine carts underground, but on his way back from work, he was struck by a speeding material transport vehicle and died instantly.
It had happened a year prior.
The death could not be recognized as occurring in the line of duty, and they received only a meager condolence payment from the company.
Moreover, her husband Yoshizo had never been in good standing with the company.
Yoshizo was originally a tunneling miner who did his job well, though he was a hot-tempered man.
At the site, he had gotten into a fight with a crew member and injured them.
He was prosecuted and received a suspended sentence.
The company did not outright fire him but transferred him to operating aboveground human-powered mine carts—work unrelated to direct coal extraction.
For a man like Yoshizo, it was mind-numbing labor, but he carried it out without incident.
The couple had a daughter named Toshi.
At the time of that unexpected death, Yoshizo was thirty-two.
Osugi was twenty-eight, and Toshi was two years old.
Shortly after Yoshizo’s death, Osugi took Toshi and moved into Yayoi Lodge as a cleaning woman, finding a way to manage for the time being.
It was the lodge manager, who had been relatively close to Yoshizo during his lifetime, who proposed this arrangement.

It was the beginning of February.
Osugi left the lodge with Toshi on her back and a furoshiki bundle containing her personal belongings slung over her shoulder.
The patient Junki had already been hospitalized two or three days earlier.
When the lodge manager mentioned serving as an attendant, Osugi agreed without hesitation.
She couldn't leave Toshi at the lodge, but then again, Toshi—now three years old—wasn't such a difficult child to handle.
There were several young girls handling meals at the lodge, but having Osugi go seemed more appropriate.

The place called Fukuzumi Third District, where Yayoi Lodge was located, was situated halfway up the mountain.
Yūbari was a highland region.

Osugi was about to descend the mountain on foot when she suddenly reconsidered.
The rubber boots she wore had their soles worn too thin, making her feel it would be dangerous to descend the snowy slope.
Though it would mean taking a slight detour, using the human-powered mine cart would be safer.
At the gathering spot, three or four people were waiting for the human-powered mine cart to descend.
Osugi also stood there.

The spot was behind a certain lodge, and crows were dancing contentedly in the space above the garbage dump, carried by the whims of the wind.

“Mama, crows.”

On her back, Toshi spoke.
When she looked back and nodded, Toshi smiled happily.

Yūbari was a place with many crows.
Across the snowy landscape, one could often spot figures like shards of charcoal—never meeting anyone’s gaze, their eyes darting restlessly about.
When it came to crows, there was a memory involving Yoshizo.
Yoshizo, who had gone to the Chinese mainland during the recent war, would tell stories about catching crows alive and eating them—whether in jest or earnest was unclear—but there had been times when he’d set traps with earthworms as bait beneath the windows of the tenement where they lived then, lying in wait for crows to approach.
Of course, the crows never got caught in Yoshizo’s net.
Yoshizo had that kind of amusing side to him.

Soon, with the clatter of its wheels echoing, the human-powered mine cart descended. Since it wasn’t a busy time, there weren’t many people riding. The elderly attendant had been a colleague of Yoshizo’s from that time. When he noticed Osugi, he called out to her.

“Heading into town?”

“I’m going to the hospital.”

“Is Toshi-chan unwell?”

“No.”
“Because someone from the lodge was hospitalized, I’m going to help out.”

“I see.”
“Taking care of a patient, huh?”

The elderly man nodded with an expression that said this must be quite the ordeal, then used his gnarled fingertips to stroke the cheek of his former colleague’s bereaved child with evident pity.
Toshi was not a shy child and immediately gave a friendly smile.

The coal mine hospital was located at the town’s entrance.
It was a two-story building comprising three wards, and Junki’s hospital room was Room 5 on the first floor of the Second Ward.
Junki lay on his back on the edge bed in his shirt and trousers, but upon seeing Osugi enter, he sat up.

“I’m sorry for the trouble.”
“The lodge just called and let me know you’d be coming to help.”

“Hasn’t the surgery happened yet?”

“It’s tonight.”

Osugi lowered Toshi from her back.
In the large room, about twenty beds were lined up along both walls—all occupied.
Each had an attendant, though most seemed to be people from the tenements.
The surgery department admitted patients nearly every day.
After all, there wasn’t a single day without injured workers emerging from the mine.
Junki pointed to one of the beds lined up by the opposite window and,

“Since that patient will be discharged soon, let’s move over there afterward.”

When she looked, the patient already appeared to have completed his discharge preparations and was sitting on the bed. He was a young, healthy-looking man. A preparatory miner who had apparently had his face scalded by steam, he had completely healed and now bore clean features. Beside him, a woman who seemed to be his wife was tying up a cloth bundle. On the neighboring bed lay a gaunt, unshaven old man around fifty, with a young man who appeared to be his son tending to him. Osugi vaguely noticed the young man leaving the room carrying a urinal. Since all other attendants were women, this young man’s presence carried an air of solemnity.

“I must apologize for the inconvenience this time.”
“This is quite the imposition on you.”

Junki said formally.

“Not at all. Please don’t hold back—feel free to tell me anything you need.”

“Thank you.”
Junki said with a sympathetic laugh, “Even so, you’re doing well, Osugi-san.”

“Yes.”
“Thanks to you, both this child and I are doing well.”

Toshi was looking around the hospital room curiously, but when she raised her eyes to Junki's face, she beamed—

“Mister, Mister!” she called out.

“Oh,
“This child calls everyone ‘Mister’ no matter who she sees.”
“It’s ‘Uncle.’”
“Try saying ‘Uncle.’”

Junki gathered Toshi into his arms,

“Toshi-chan’s quite the charmer.”
“How old are you?”
“That’s right—three.”
“Starting today, you’ll be sleeping here at the hospital with Uncle.”
“You’re a good girl, so no crying now.”

As he said this, Junki brought his face close to Toshi’s cheek.
He wasn’t making polite gestures.
Toshi’s childlike innocence had stirred something in him unbidden.
Osugi regarded Junki’s face with an uncharacteristic look.

Junki was known as a quiet man at the lodge.

Most of the lodge residents were people who had come from mainland Japan.
There were also a few from Tokyo.
Junki was one of them.
He was thirty-five but looked slightly older.
It was his second year in Yūbari, though during his first winter the cold and grueling labor had wrecked his body, forcing him to make hospital visits for nearly two months.
Sometimes when Osugi cleaned the lodge, Junki would return from work.
When she called out “Good work today,” he’d always stiffly reply “I’m back” with an air of intense shyness.
Though rumors about lodgers sometimes circulated among the women during chores, Junki’s name never surfaced.
If anything, he’d gained a reputation as an unsociable, rigid man.

Since the person by the window had been discharged, Junki and the others moved to that spot afterward.
The man and his wife went around greeting each patient in the ward together, offering Junki and the others words of “Take care.”
The wife, apparently mistaking Junki and the others for a married couple, did things like offering Toshi candy drops.
Osugi observed the woman, who still retained childlike qualities showing no signs of household weariness, and thought she seemed a lively and approachable person; in their brief exchange, she suddenly felt a sense of camaraderie between women.
It had been a year since Yoshizo’s passing, but lately, whenever Osugi saw couples in town who appeared to be married, she had come to notice herself being drawn to them.
Precisely because Yoshizo’s death had been so unexpected, something unresigned lingered within her—a part of her heart that refused to be consoled or distracted.
It was during such moments that Osugi became acutely aware of her status as a widow.

Two nurse trainees entered together and stood by Junki’s bed.
When she looked, one of them held a razor and tissue paper in her hand.
She ordered Junki into an acrobatic pose and, with practiced ease, skillfully wielded the razor to shave off the hairs.
When they finished the task, they left the room together again.
They carried themselves with professional composure.
Osugi had averted her gaze but found herself wordlessly impressed.
In these trainees—who appeared to be around fourteen or fifteen, not yet fully matured, with limbs as slender as mosquito legs—she sensed an almost unnerving degree of professionalism.

“Making me do such an awful pose.”

Junki gave an embarrassed wry smile.

Osugi once again carried Toshi on her back, went out to town, and bought urgently needed items—a washbasin, bedpan, broom, dustpan, and such.
As he put the change Osugi had handed him into his wallet, Junki suddenly seemed to remember something and took out a small paper package from it, unfolding it.
The item inside was a Kannon amulet, split cleanly in two.
A year ago, on the day Junki left Tokyo for Hokkaido, he first went to the designated meeting place, but having time before the train’s departure, he paid a visit to Asakusa Kannon.
That was when he bought this amulet.
He had taken it out the other day on a whim and found it split in two.
Such a phenomenon was said in common lore to signify that Kannon-sama’s protective hand had worked upon its owner.

“Look.”
“The Kannon-sama amulet has split.”

Osugi took it in silence, gazed at it pensively for a moment, then returned it to Junki.

Shortly after night fell and the lamps were lit, Junki’s surgery took place.
While Junki was taken to the operating room, Osugi tidied and cleaned around the bed in his absence.

This hospital room had steam heating installed by the window, making it so warm that one could break into a sweat. Through the windowpane, a flock of crows clustered on the midslope of a distant mountain stood out jet-black against the twilight. Outside the window was the hospital’s courtyard, where an operating room encircled by a brick outer wall stood. In the operating room, the lights were glaringly lit. Inside, Junki's surgery was underway. In the dimness, the operating room window shone glaringly bright. While letting Toshi suckle, Osugi recalled the time earlier when Junki had shown her the Kannon-sama amulet. At that moment, Osugi had felt a sensation as if her chest had been seized. She found herself unable to regard the circumstances of this man who had journeyed from a distant land as something transient. Now, as she quietly ruminated on those feelings from that time, she began to feel as though her and Toshi’s own circumstances were being reflected upon anew.

Junki’s surgery went smoothly.
It seemed painful, but Junki did not complain much about the pain.

“Does it hurt?” she asked. With a softened expression he replied, “Yes, a little.”

For four or five days afterward he sipped nothing but thin rice gruel until his stomach grew hollow.
Each time meals arrived from the kitchen staff’s quarters, Junki made dissatisfied faces.
Osugi pitied him but couldn’t prepare proper food without medical approval.
Junki sucked on candy drops bought by Osugi in town—small distractions from his hunger.

“Just a little more patience.”
“Once you’re up and about, I’ll make whatever you like.”

When she said this, Junki made an embarrassed expression.
Junki often turned his dark-complexioned face red.
Even when the senior miner from the worksite came visiting and said, “Yūbari isn’t so bad—why not settle down here and start a family,”
And when the Lodge Manager brought miso and told him to rest properly so he could work again,
During his first winter in Yūbari, when he had fallen ill and taken leave from work, there was a time he felt utterly lost after being told by the Lodge Manager during a bath together to return to the mainland.
If falling ill meant he could return home, he wouldn’t have come all the way to this remote part of Hokkaido in the first place.
Back then, he had felt so alone.
When told something like “Hang in there,” for someone in Junki’s circumstances, even empty encouragement felt gratifying.
On his face, which usually tended toward gloominess, a bright, unclouded expression surfaced.
Osugi, staying by his side, thought Junki was someone whose emotions were easily perceived.

“Hokkaido’s cold and unpleasant for you, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”
“The first year was cold.”
“But this year, maybe I’ve gotten used to it—it doesn’t feel so cold now.”

The world wasn't all unpleasantness.
After hardships came happy times.
The heart that resigns itself is simultaneously the heart that hopes.
Junki had learned this through experience.
Ever since being orphaned at ten and cast alone into the world, with each passing year and every shift in circumstances, he had come to feel it physically—this duality of resignation and expectation.

It had been just mother and child.
Junki had no memory of father.
By the time he became aware of his surroundings, there was only mother and himself.
From mother he had been told that father died when Junki was an infant.
However, though taken by mother to visit graves at times, he had never once paid respects at father's grave.
Junki’s surname was mother’s surname.
Junki came to understand the circumstances of his birth and origins long after mother’s death.
When eighteen years old working at a laundry shop apprenticeship, a senior who acted as mentor heard Junki’s story during bedtime talk and said, “What? So you’re a fatherless kid.”
Junki suddenly felt slapped across the face.
Though not fully grasping it, the sense that this meant something more shameful than mere paternal absence seeped deeply into his mind then.
People might call him too naive for his age and situation, but Junki had been that sort of child from birth.
The senior spat out “How pitiful,” then stared at Junki’s face asking “Ever think about your old man?”
Junki shook his head.
He had never once thought about father.
When time passed and facts clarified themselves in his mind, Junki found himself pitying only mother.
Mother died during the earthquake disaster.
Their house stood in Suidōjiri on Yoshiwara’s red-light district outskirts where mother worked as junior courtesan at a brothel—left behind when that establishment collapsed during the disaster.
With mother’s death Junki lost his home.
After that he came to eat others’ rice.
Twenty-odd years passed.

He relied on the kindness of many people and tried his hand at various occupations, but none ever came to anything.
It was as if in a game of snakes and ladders, he always found himself fumbling near the starting square.
At his age still being unable to support himself—this state of affairs he ultimately put down to his own lack of perseverance.
He'd never known good fortune, yet Junki wasn't a stubborn man.
Precisely because his circumstances were so precarious, others' kindness struck him all the more keenly.
After the war, Junki assisted with a fifty-year-old woman's porter service, but under that greed-hardened woman who seemed bent on working him to death without reward, he felt his lifespan shrinking day by day.
Junki would sometimes walk along roads rubbing his groin area over his trousers.
Somehow it felt like his flesh was being whittled away bit by bit.

One day, on a sudden impulse, Junki went to the employment agency and applied to become a coal miner.
He had never once dreamed that he would ever come to Hokkaido in his lifetime, yet there he was in such circumstances.

When he first came to Yūbari, for a while he thought it was a bleak, merely cold place.
Now, he thought any place could become home if you lived there.

"You’ll go back to Tokyo eventually, won’t you, Jun-san?"

Osugi said.
After putting Toshi down for a nap, she set about mending Junki’s laundered shirt.
Junki lay prone on the bed, spreading out a magazine left by a lodger who had come to visit, but—

“Yes.”
“When I came here, that was the plan, but...”
“I thought I’d work about two years, save up a bit, and go back, but...”

“So were you able to save anything?”

“No, nothing at all.”
“At this rate, I don’t know when I’ll be able to go back.”

“Even so, isn’t there someone waiting for you in Tokyo—someone waiting for Jun-san to work hard, save up properly, and come back?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You’re quite the smooth talker yourself, Osugi-san.”
“If there were such a person, I wouldn’t have come all the way to Hokkaido.”

“There’s no use hiding it.”
“So have you been alone all this time, Jun-san?”
“Have you never had a home of your own?”

“Yes. At my age, I’ve been scrounging around other people’s kitchens.”

After being bereaved of mother, Junki would occasionally imagine what a home of his own might be like, but this vision—unchanged from when he was a young child cast alone into the world—always conjured only a life of living together with mother.
A house where his dead mother was; a house where Junki could stretch out and relax.
The trip to Hokkaido was Junki’s first distant journey beyond Tokyo’s outskirts, but even when—shivering in the cold—he gazed at the gradually multiplying lights in the falling snow as the train entered Aomori’s suburbs, and again after crossing into Hokkaido, during long hours by its lonely coastline, thoughts of a life lived with mother in such desolation came to mind.
It wasn’t that thoughts of his mother were constantly on Junki’s mind.
They lay folded away in the depths of his heart.

“Osugi-san, have you never been to the mainland?”

“Yes.”
“Not even once.”
“I’ve only been to Sapporo and Hakodate a handful of times myself, you know.”

“Have you always been in Yūbari, Osugi-san?”

“No, I’m from Iwamizawa.”

Osugi too had lived a life with few ties to blood relatives.
The father had been an aging police officer in Iwamizawa but died of a cerebral hemorrhage when Osugi was twenty-three.
The mother had died two years before that.
Osugi had temporarily taken refuge with an uncle and worked as a shopgirl at the concession stand he ran in a town movie theater.
It was around that time that she met Yoshizo.
Yoshizo had just returned from the war and was working as a three-wheeled truck driver at a local transport company.
The catalyst came when Yoshizo—who had always been coming to watch movies—spoke to Osugi one day.
Before long Osugi was persuaded by Yoshizo and left her uncle’s house.
One reason was that her relationship with a cousin of the same age had soured making her uncle’s house increasingly difficult to stay in.
Led by Yoshizo she moved from town to town—Sunagawa Oiwake and other nearby places—before finally coming to Yūbari.
In Iwamizawa there was Yoshizo’s father but now that Yoshizo had died she couldn’t bring herself to go there seeking support.

“But how on earth did you ever manage to make up your mind to come to a coal mine like this, Jun-san?”

“But there was nothing I could do.”
“I’ve left obligations unmet all over.”

Junki spat out.
There were times when he felt both guilt and resentment toward his own past.
At such times, Junki would convince himself he was someone fundamentally different from others.
Perhaps there’s something missing within me.
Something like the ligaments that bind people’s hearts.
I sometimes think it’s because I’ve been without parents since childhood.

“That’s right. No one wants to default on obligations willingly, you know. There are things that can’t be helped.”

Osugi nodded as if questioning her own heart. Though she felt she had her own side of the story, whenever she recalled leaving the uncle’s household that had taken her in, she couldn’t help feeling a pang of guilt. Yoshizo would always make grand promises, laying out visions of a glorious future. Osugi had not believed that exactly as Yoshizo had claimed. Yoshizo had not deceived Osugi, nor had Osugi been deceived.

Junki looked at Toshi sleeping soundly on the bedding he had shifted next to the steam heater.

“Toshi-chan’s at her cutest now.”
“She takes after you.”
“Her fair complexion and the shape of her forehead—things like that.”

“Yes.”
“Everyone says that.”

“Don’t you have a bit of a high forehead yourself, Osugi-san?”
“I’m not saying this to belittle you.”

“It’s not like you’re praising me either.”
“My mother always said I had such a high forehead and low nose—just like an Okame mask.”
“When I went to school, my friends used to call me ‘Forehead’ all the time.”

Junki laughed as if suddenly remembering something,

“Osugi-san.
“Try touching here.”

With that, he stretched his closely cropped head from the bed and guided Osugi’s finger to touch it,

“It’s remarkably bumpy, isn’t it?
They say this is what’s called a Hōnen head.
When I was a child, I heard it from my mother—remembering it now makes me laugh.”

“But you can’t tell from the outside.”

Osugi said sympathetically without understanding.

“No. According to my mother, it’s supposed to be auspicious though.”

“Well, isn’t that something to be thankful for?”

After saying that, Osugi found herself oddly amused.
Junki laughed along,

“It’s not really something to be thankful for.”

he said, though there was a cheerful glint in his eyes.

Junki had a distant memory of his mother letting him rest his head on her lap and cleaning his ears.
His mother stroked Junki’s small, bumpy head and said, “You’ve got a Hōnen head. They say people with heads shaped like this make something of themselves.”
“Junki might become someone great one day, you know,” she would say.
Rather than telling Junki this to inform him, it seemed his mother simply took great pleasure in saying it out loud.
Junki felt a bashful warmth.
Was this what they meant by a mother’s touch?
The fact that his mother had managed to establish herself as a widow was precisely because there had been someone called Junki.
When he looked back with a heart that had tasted some of life’s hardships, Junki felt he could understand his mother’s difficult position.

“Osugi-san, you really have it tough too.”

Junki belatedly contemplated the circumstances of Osugi and her child.

Junki knew Osugi’s husband Yoshizo.
Around the time Junki first came to Yūbari, Yoshizo had been working as the operator of the human-powered mine carts.
This was about two months before he met with sudden calamity.
On his way back from work, Junki would avoid climbing the mountain on foot by relying each time on the human-powered mine carts, so he occasionally caught sight of Yoshizo.
Yoshizo seemed to command respect among the miners.
A large-boned, burly man, his broad forehead and the like gave him the air of someone with a quarrelsome disposition.
His manner of speaking was also extremely rough.

When Junki was informed—some time after Osugi had come to the lodge—that she was the wife of the deceased Yoshizo, he felt surprised. For he had imagined someone more servile and timid as the wife of a man like Yoshizo, who at first glance seemed rough. When Junki heard the lodge manager say, “Yoshizo was smitten with his wife,” it occurred to him that this might indeed be true.

There were times when Junki returned from work to find Osugi—with Toshi strapped to her back—wiping the lodge office’s windowpanes or sweeping the earthen floor. When Junki passed by, she would greet him with “You’ve had a long day,” or sometimes ask things like “Are you on the first shift now, Jun-san?”

A person’s character is a curious thing—even the most ordinary greetings can sound deeply heartfelt depending on who utters them. Osugi had such qualities; she often sang folk songs while she worked, though this was something commonly seen among diligent workers. Even among the kitchen girls, Osugi was regarded as a kind woman.

“Jun-san, you’re in a good position, aren’t you.”

The lodge residents and site colleagues who came to visit glanced back at Junki and Osugi and remarked in turn.
To outside eyes, patients with nothing left but to await recovery must have seemed carefree.
They say there are no demons in this passing world of ours, but Junki now felt himself an extraordinarily fortunate man.
Where people dwell, kindness dwells alongside them.
Such thoughts crystallized into a single phrase within Junki’s heart.

“You’re so kind… Osugi-san.”

Junki, while talking with Osugi, began to notice himself occasionally staring at her face.

The old man in the bed next to Junki's was not from the row houses but rather someone from another lodge.
The young man who was mistaken for his son was also from the same lodge, and it seemed they had asked him to serve as caretaker due to a shortage of hands.
He had undergone an appendectomy, but his recovery did not seem to be progressing favorably.
Emaciated and sporting a scruffy beard, he looked much older than he actually was.
He too was from Tokyo and had reportedly left a wife and children behind in Fukagawa.
It seemed he had also been in Kiba at some point and worked as a pit prop worker underground.
This man would sometimes fly into terrible fits of rage.
When the young man wasn't in the ward—almost as if timing it deliberately—

“I can’t tell if he’s here to take care of me or just messing around!”

He would bellow loudly and pointedly, then heave his stiff body up from the bed to crouch before the bedpan.
At times, he would confront the young man directly,

“If you hate it so much, go back to the lodge and have someone else come take your place!”

There were also times when he would speak bluntly like that.
No matter how inadequate his care might be, it seemed harsh to speak so cruelly to someone tending to him—yet even when addressed this way, the young man neither grew angry nor retorted.
This young man had brought a portable phonograph into the hospital and appeared to carry it around various wards to play.
Osugi had also spotted him playing the phonograph in the drying room with his room’s caretaker girl, just the two of them.
There was some justification for the old man’s anger, while from the young man’s perspective, his current circumstances seemed almost agreeable.
Perhaps this wasn’t such a bad alternative compared to descending into the pit and returning coal-black.
Junki found the old man’s vulgar language difficult to endure and pitied the young man, yet none in the ward paid particular attention to either of them.
Osugi too, through neighborly goodwill, looked after the old man in various ways while treating the young man kindly.
Watching Osugi’s carefree manner untroubled by constraints drew Junki into a softened state of mind.
Trivial things comfort us.
Because trivial things become seeds of sorrow.
Junki felt as though he had never before experienced such settled calmness of spirit.

The neighboring old man was typically a humble person, but when speaking to Junki and the others, he became uncharacteristically polite.
Since they were both Tokyo-born, once they began reminiscing about old Tokyo, the conversation between Junki and him never ran dry.
When the old man received a sickness benefit from health insurance during his hospitalization, he became terribly apologetic.
He asked Osugi to promptly send the money to his wife and children in Tokyo.

“I really don’t want to get old.”
“My spirit’s willing, but this body won’t obey.”
“I’ve been thinking it’s about time I return to Tokyo.”

said the old man.

One evening, a rare regional touring kabuki play was staged at the theater next to the hospital.
Junki suggested that Osugi go out for a change of scenery.

“I’m just a country girl. And it’d be a waste anyway.”

“I’m just a country girl,” Osugi replied. “And it’d be a waste anyway.”
She had invited the young man, but he said he was going to see a movie instead.
Osugi took Toshi and went out.
They were performing Shigenoi no Kowakare.
She found herself impressed by the girl actor’s portrayal of Sankichi the Horse Driver.
After finishing her role, the child changed into a kappa-style hairstyle and sat politely beside the hanamichi—the elevated runway through the audience—to watch the rest of the play.
While suspecting the child must belong to one of the troupe members, Osugi often found her attention drifting from the stage to this quiet observer.

When she returned, the young man still hadn’t come back.

“That play really tugs at your heartstrings, doesn’t it?”

said the old man.
Osugi peeled the apples she had bought and offered them.
Junki was holding Toshi,

“It’s good you got to see the play，Toshi-chan.”
“Were you good and watched quietly?”

“Yes, she was such a good girl.”
“There was a beautiful princess，wasn’t there?”

Osugi saw Junki’s gaze fixed on Toshi’s face and thought he must like children.
The eyes are said to be windows to the soul—there are moments when you feel you might glimpse the depths of someone’s heart laid bare.
The late Yoshizo too had loved children.
After returning from work, Yoshizo would often go out to the mahjong parlors in town.
He would bet money there.
When Osugi passed by the mahjong parlor on her way back from the bathhouse with Toshi and happened to peek inside,

“What’s this? Did you come to fetch me?”
“It’ll end soon—wait.”

He shouted this and soon emerged.
After he started walking,

“How did it go?”

When she asked,

“Lost.”

He said this and laughed heartily.
Peering into Toshi’s face as she clung to Osugi’s back, he lightly flicked her cheek with his finger.
He would suddenly crouch by the roadside—just as one wondered what he was doing—and pluck a nameless flower blooming there to press into Toshi’s palm.
The consequences of Yoshizo’s losses directly impacted their livelihood.
Though Osugi found it troubling, whenever she looked at Yoshizo’s face, an odd sense of reassurance came over her.
He may have appeared thoroughly rough-edged, but Osugi had never once doubted the genuine kindness beneath that exterior.
Their household finances were strained, yet for Osugi, it had been a happy life.
Looking at Junki now, he seemed entirely different in character yet somehow reminiscent of Yoshizo.
Come to think of it, just as Yoshizo had been forthright, Junki too showed no tendency to embellish his past.
Among those who came from the mainland, some would gild their personal histories when speaking—but Junki possessed not a shred of such affectation.
Junki, who had spent his life crawling through the dregs of society’s grinding bowl, had never risen an inch—yet precisely because of this, he’d lived unencumbered by vanity.
The same held true for Osugi.
After living together awhile, Junki proved not to be such a stiff sort after all.

Osugi suddenly recalled that first day at the hospital when Junki had shown her the Kannon amulet.

“I hear Mr. Yamamura is being discharged tomorrow.”

“Ah, the clay worker from Room 6.”

“Yes.”
“He’s such an odd man.”
“He says I look like that man’s late wife.”

Eventually, the young man returned.
After a while, they all prepared for bed.