CH 5

After shopping at the supermarket, I called a cab again and headed back to my apartment.

One thing I miscalculated was that it would have been quite a challenge to carry back the luggage that I could have easily carried when I was a man, but now that I was a woman, it was difficult.

The cab driver was thoughtful enough to take it to the trunk, but I’d like to think it was my imagination when he was looking at my chest when he did.

“Did I buy too much? Well, we can freeze the meat and fish we don’t use. I’m glad I live on the first floor. I don’t want to have to carry all this heavy stuff upstairs.”

The apartment had four rooms, one above and one below, and we lived in the first right corner.

“I’m home.”

“I’m home.”

The girl and I took off our shoes at the door and went up to the room.

“Wash your hands and rinse your mouth.”

“Okay.”

I wondered if she had become much more talkative in half a day. But then I thought about it and realized that the only time she had ever spoken to me was in the morning when she asked for her lunch.

I couldn’t deny she was still wary of this woman.

I also washed my hands and rinsed, then put the food I had bought into the refrigerator.

When I returned to the room after the whole process, I saw the girl had opened a box of toys and was happily fumbling with the pink pact.

I’m glad I bought her these when I saw her happy face, but why is she in the corner of the room?

“Come here.”

Oh, she froze.

She didn’t have any scars on her body, so it wasn’t like she had been attacked, so why was she scared of this woman so much?

She was a mother, wasn’t she?

“Eh?”

My phone turned on, so I looked at it and saw some kind of messaging app that said, “You told you you’d be there in the morning today, but why aren’t you?! You’re the one who asked me to come, Mika! How are you, Saki-chan?”

Oh no. It had already been read.

I didn’t even know what kind of friendship they had, so I didn’t know what to say in response.

From the message, maybe I was Mika, and the girl in the corner of the room was Saki-chan?

After thinking for a while, I replied, “I’m fine,” and she immediately replied, “I see. I wondered what would happen when Saki’s mother and father passed away and Mika decided to take her in, but I’m glad she’s fine.

I’m glad you’re doing well. Mika, you were so shocked that you couldn’t even speak. I mean, listen. Satoshi’s with another woman! Isn’t that awful?!”

Yeah, there was too much information to keep up with, and who was Satoshi?

What did that mean? Saki’s parents were dead and the woman (now me) had taken her in? What kind of relationship is that?

I mean, in cases like that, don’t you have to be extra nice and careful for them not to find out that you’re not their real parents?

Maybe I didn’t understand it now, but one day I would be confronted with the truth.

If they knew that they had been given a lot of love and affection at such a time, they would not easily turn to delinquency, right?

I sat down and opened my arms to the small body still frozen in the corner of the room.

“Saki-chan, come here.”

In response to my voice, the girl in the corner of the room walked over with small, tottering steps.

(Maybe she thought I’d be mad at her because I didn’t smile when I called her earlier.)

When I gently held the small body that came close to me, Saki-chan started to cry as if the tension that had been holding her back had been broken.

“Mama… Papa… uwaahh!”

(Oh, she knew her parents were gone.)

To reassure Saki, I gently pat her back again and again.

I could feel her body’s warmth radiating from her when I pat her, and I found myself naturally shedding tears with her.