Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [76]
That’s ridiculous.
It was almost an insult to imagine that leaving home had somehow put a spring in his father’s step. An insult to whom? To me. And Mom.
“No need to stare, Wataru. It’s me, I promise,” Akira Mitani said with a chuckle. Wataru blinked, but he still couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to say, so he said the first thing that came to his mind. “Mom gave me ¥500 for lunch.”
“Oh? Well that can be your secret allowance, then. I’m buying today. What’ll it be?”
Wataru couldn’t think of a single thing he wanted to eat right then. Anything’s good. We can just walk around and go anywhere. As long as I’m with you, Dad, I’m fine.
“There’s a nice breeze today, how about we go for a walk in the park? I came through there on the way here. There’s a hot dog stand.”
Wataru followed his father out of the library and toward a nearby park. They walked along a lazily meandering path until they reached a central square with a fountain. There were people sitting here and there, but luckily one bench was unoccupied.
“This’ll do,” Akira said.
The hot dog stand was in a converted van parked by the edge of the square. The proprietors were a fat, smiling couple, reminding Wataru of a pair of snowmen. He asked for two orders of hot dogs and cola, and the man recommended a side of fresh fries. Stepping closer to the van, Wataru noticed a girl—probably about preschool age—sitting in the driver’s seat of the vehicle and licking a vanilla ice cream cone. She must be their daughter.
Akira and Wataru sat next to each other on the bench and ate lunch. Wataru couldn’t care less how it tasted, but biting in, he couldn’t help but notice that it really was a delicious hot dog. Akira seemed impressed too. He said he wished there was a vending truck like this near his office. “It’s hard to find a good place for lunch.”
Wataru remembered there was a time, many years ago, when his father used to bring a lunch to work from home. Later, his division had changed, and he started having more meetings with clients, so he stopped taking a bag lunch.
His father asked him questions in an easy tone. How was school going? How’s Katchan doing? Were you happy with your grades from the first semester?
Wataru found himself slipping into a peaceful, familiar rhythm. For a brief moment, nothing was wrong at home. They were just here on a pleasant walk. Back home, Mom was doing the laundry, hanging out the sheets, polishing Dad’s shoes, ironing Dad’s T-shirts…
The conversation died, and they sat side by side in silence. The fountain splashed noisily in the middle of the square.
“Where did you get those glasses, Dad?” Wataru asked. He knew there was a conversation he should be having right now, questions he needed to ask, but they were all locked up tight in a dark room, and he couldn’t find the way inside.
Akira pushed the glasses higher up his nose. “They look funny?”
“No, they look good.” A question brushed by the corner of Wataru’s mind. Did she pick them out for you, Dad? Wataru let it slide, and it drifted off into space, unspoken. “They look good, but you kind of look like a different person. When I first saw you, at least.”
“Hmm. Yes, I suppose I do,” Akira said, pushing up his glasses again. “I’m not, of course. I’m the same as always.”
“Dad?”
“Mmm?”
“Are you never coming home?”
An impossible question to ask. Is that why it had come so easily?
Akira looked at Wataru through the tiny lenses and then slowly lowered his gaze. Drops of ketchup from his hotdog splattered on the ground, just barely missing his shoes.
“Mom said that if we waited, you’d come home. That there was nothing to worry about.”
The park around the hot dog stand was lively with customers. The benches were packed. Children much younger than Wataru were playing in the fountain, splashing water on each other and laughing. The droplets