“I mean, Subaru, you really don’t like mayonnaise that much, do you?”
“…”
“You were just licking it with Dad and Mom because we like it so much, weren’t you?”
Placing the mayonnaise marked for Subaru on the table, Nahoko murmured thusly in roundabout fashion. Hearing this, Subaru gasped in surprise. He breathed in, virtually wringing out his voice before gingerly posing a question.
“Wh-what basis do you have for…?”
“Well, Subaru. If it was the world or mayonnaise, which would you choose?”
“Er, probably the world…”
“You see?”
“That’s a really bad example! Don’t go ‘You see?’ with that smug look! Anyone picking mayonnaise there isn’t picking out of love for mayo, but hatred for the world!!”
As he raised his voice at Nahoko’s rather off-the-mark view, Subaru’s shoulders heaved with heavy breaths as he glared at the mayonnaise on the table—on the inside, he wasn’t calm in the slightest.
Whether he was a card-carrying member or not, Subaru had pride as a mayo lover, enough that if someone asked him to pick between it and a deserted tropical island, he’d pick mayonnaise in a heartbeat.
But if asked the reason he was so hung up on mayonnaise in the first place, he’d have to say—
“I guess I hard-core have a complex for a happy family…”
“You’d slap super on it?”
“That’d make it a Super Family Complex aka Sufami, and that just sounds wrong.”
Having engaged in such absurd conversation, Subaru let out a long breath with a pained smile.
Then he slowly picked up the mayonnaise atop the table.
“Ah…,” Nahoko began.
“Mmm, delicious! Genuine mayonnaise really is way different! Can’t enjoy this taste anywhere but my homeland! Over there isn’t bad, either, but it’s a pale shadow compared to the real deal!”
Wringing off the lid from the nearly full mayonnaise jar, he guzzled it down in one go. The tasty acidic flavor atop his tongue raced through him, with heat shooting down his throat that seemed to burn his chest.
This was the supreme, a-mayo-zing taste that mayo addicts could not help but love.
“Maybe I don’t love mayonnaise as much as you two do, but I’m still a genuine mayo lover. I swear on the mayo lids of all the mayo I’ve licked to this day.”
Incidentally, Subaru had kept the lids from his old mayonnaise jars, stuffing them into a corner of his room. They actually numbered 776—
“And this makes triple sevens. I’ll have to stick it in my collection later.”
“Ohh, congratulations on your third seven. Your father was really happy when he got his fourth a little while back.”
“My love’s literally incomparable to his!”
Nahoko accepted the empty mayonnaise bottle with an amused look. His mother’s comment made his sense of accomplishment feel somewhat tarnished, but Subaru immediately smoothed over his feelings.
“Well…guess I’d better head off, then.”
“Ah, if you’re going to the store, I want some cream puffs, so make sure to buy some.”
“You see me like this, put your guessing gears in motion, and you say that?!”
As he spread both arms out to show off his school uniform, Nahoko went “I’m kidding, I’m kidding” and smiled at her son as she said, “Ah, you’re going to school now? Mom’s happy for you, but…won’t you stand out in a bad way? If you can put it off till tomorrow, why not put it off?”
“Hey, stop putting a damper on your son’s enthusiasm like that. Even if others are strict with me, I’m soft on myself and a slacker to the core, you know.”
“If you were really like that, your mother wouldn’t have such a hard time, Subaru.”
When Subaru quipped at his own expense, Nahoko pretended not to get it as she shook her head. Her reply made Subaru narrow his eyes, but Nahoko went “All right then” and straightened her back as she said, “Well then, hold on a second. Mom’s going to get her coat.”
“What do you mean, wait… Hold on, you’re coming with me?! Having a parent go with you to school when you quit being a hermit is, like, a level worse than a humiliation game!”
“I’m not going all the way to school. I’m just going out to the store to buy mayonnaise and cream puffs. What, I can’t indulge you that much?”
“Huh?! That makes it sound like I was asking you to come with me?!”
The incomprehensible flow of events made Subaru’s eyes bulge. “Yes, yes,” said his mother in a perfunctory reply as she headed to her own room. It felt like a prelude to having a parent chaperone him to school for sure.
“No, no… Man, gimme a break here.”
As he spoke those words, Subaru’s cheeks faintly relaxed from relief.
At that point, even Subaru was aware the reason for his relief was that the time when he’d have to say goodbye to his mother had been pushed a little farther down the road.
8
“It’s been a long time since I’ve walked side by side with you, Subaru.”
“I suppose so. We were together when you went shopping at night quite a bit.”
“Sigh. You know, given the flow of the current conversation, I’m speaking about daytime, not nighttime. You really must pick up on the context and the literary intent.”
“Where that subject’s concerned, you’re the only one I can’t accept hearing that from, Mom!”
Nahoko Natsuki was truly bedeviled by one of the world’s dullest senses, possessing world-class bad guesswork. This was well understood by both men in the Natsuki family; indeed, it was virtually 100 percent certain that hypothetical or humorous conversations wouldn’t work on Nahoko. That said, she herself was unaware of how complete her obtuseness was, which exponentially increased the stress arising from speaking with her.
Even understanding all that, though, Subaru happened to like speaking with his mother.
“I’m glad that it’s warm today. What did you talk to your Dad about?”
“Ohhh, there it is, Mom’s beginner-level ‘first half disconnected from the second half’ conversation topic! I know you don’t mean anything special by it, but ummm…”
As they walked side by side on the way to school, Subaru tried to wrap his head around the question his mother had posed.
The details of his conversation with Kenichi involved Subaru’s confessing his embarrassing internal complexes and bawling his eyes out, but that didn’t amount to a proper explanation. Also, he didn’t want to say it in those words.
It had been a necessary conversation, but he’d cut himself off from the emotions he imagined were unique to that place. No way in hell was he going to start crying again on a public street.
“Ahh, it wasn’t really anything major. Actually, we talked a bit about old times with Mr. Ikeda.”
“Ahh, Ikeda, yes. He moved after winning at the horse races, and his young wife there swindled the shirt off his back, so he had to do manual labor until the sun scorched his skin pitch dark, didn’t he?”
“The tragic development in the second half of that is news to me!”
“Ill-gotten money really is no good for you. His heart may be in sorry shape at the moment, but his mind is still holding up, so he sends letters.”
“So you experienced being stripped bare in an unfamiliar land, Mr. Ikeda… I can relate!!”
Though Subaru had been in a different world rather than a different country, he’d experienced things not so different from what Mr. Ikeda had been through. Though Mr. Ikeda was little more than an acquaintance whose face Subaru had known when he was little, for some reason, he harbored a strong feeling of fellowship with the man.
Subaru inwardly prayed for his good health. Beside him, Nahoko made a mmm sound, then said, “So, talking about old times made you want to go to school?”
“Ahh, well…that’s the simple version, yeah. There were a whole bunch of triggers making me l
ook back, and that led to it.”
“So you stopped trying to do anything and everything just like your Dad, then.”
“…”
When Subaru tried to keep things vague, Nahoko spoke with a gentle tone that did not permit him any escape.
A wry smile came over her, making it look as if she was about to break into a hum. The look in her eyes was the only sharp thing about her, but you could never tell what his mother was thinking by looking at her. However, Subaru had the distinct feeling she’d cut him off at the pass.
“You’re a hardworking type, Subaru, and you do all kinds of things in haste. Thanks to your father blindly taking interest in so many things, you’ve had plenty of opportunities… It wore you out, didn’t you?”
“M-Mom…how much did you realize I was…”
“Now, now, Subaru.”
The true feelings Subaru had continued to conceal, even to himself, had been plain to Nahoko all along.
Subaru was still at a loss for words when Nahoko, pulling slightly in front, turned back to face him.
“It’s often said the child looks at the parent far more than the parent thinks.”
“…”
“But the reverse is also true. The parent is also always watching the child, much more than the child thinks. Subaru, even your mother has been watching over you the whole time, you see?”
Truly, he could do nothing but gape dumbfounded.
He’d been so convinced he’d kept his inner feelings hidden, but in truth, it had all been in vain. This in spite of the fact that he’d thought himself lonely and miserable with not a single person the wiser.
“I had to put suppositories in you when you were little, so I’ve seen everything, including the hole in your butt. Mom’s even seen your body’s intestines, something you’ve never seen, Subaru.”
“Umm, I’m sorry, the conversation was flowing in a good direction, so I really didn’t need that information.”
Where one’s intestines were concerned, that wasn’t something one had many chances to see, let alone those of parents or siblings. Though Subaru had been graced with the occasional opportunity to see his own intestines…
But in any case—
“About the mayonnaise, and the reason for not going to school…”
“If your mother could have done something about that, you can be sure she would have. Mom felt that no matter what she tried, it probably wouldn’t work. But…”
Nahoko tossed in a little smile as she stared straight at her son’s face.
“It seems like you managed somehow with the help of someone besides your mom or your dad. I think that’s a very good thing. I really must thank that person.”
“…Yeah, I suppose so. That person saved me from my incorrigible ways. She’s the one who told the incorrigible me I wasn’t incorrigible. That’s why I can walk forward like this now.”
When Subaru awakened to his own foolishness, she’d accepted him even so, so Subaru was able to stand there and face his past—and his father and mother with it.
“She’s an amaaaazin’ girl. Almost to the point she really is wasted on me.”
“But you’re not giving her to anyone, are you?”
“Damn straight. It ain’t an issue of being the other’s equal. If anyone’s gonna do it, equal or not, it’s gonna be me. I’ll just raise my own worth from here on out.”
“Yes, yes—you really are that man’s son.”
To Subaru, just how much meaning did those words carry?
This was the mother who knew the things inside Subaru of which he’d never spoken a word to anyone. Probably Nahoko had seen right through him. If she knew, and she was speaking those words with that knowledge, then…
“I wonder, if I can really do it right…if I can really have kids with her and do things right…”
“It’ll be fine. I mean, your mother may be half of you, but if you act half as cool as your father, you’ll do all right, yes?”
“You’re acknowledging your own genetic inferiority in my body’s makeup?!”
“I said you can act half as cool as your father…the other half, why don’t you just be yourself, Subaru?”
Unmoved by what Subaru blurted out, Nahoko indicated that the path forward was very simple.
Upon hearing her words, Subaru was dumbfounded, thoroughly beside himself.
“So, Subaru, your mother thinks you will hang in there in your own Subaru-ish way.”
“…”
“Incidentally, what happened to your father after the stroll together? Did you ditch him?”
“You ask that now?! Uh-oh, we’re up to Mom’s intermediate-level ‘question that resurrects the past midconversation’!”
If Subaru cordially indulged her and ended up explaining the circumstances under which he’d parted with Kenichi, all his prior work would be undone. In the end, before being forced to speak about his bawling his eyes out, Subaru ignored the context surrounding the words and echoed his mother’s words.
“In my own way, huh?”
“Yes. Over the course of thinking, I wanna be just like Dad, you’ll end up just like Subaru.”
Even though he’d ignored the question, Nahoko acted quite satisfied with the conclusion Subaru arrived at. Then his mother headed forward, but her feet suddenly came to a halt.
Having arrived at a fork in the road, Nahoko indicated the path to the right.
“Well, the convenience store is this way, so this is as far as Mom’s going with you… Will you be all right?”
“I haven’t been…maybe I have been wounded deeply enough for you to worry, yeah.”
He couldn’t laugh it off as Nahoko’s overprotectiveness. Even if Subaru wasn’t pathetic enough to completely lose heart, the concern with which his mother gazed at him did not cease. Therefore, to put his mother at ease, Subaru said, “I’m all right. There’s some things I need to do and some things I want to do, but I’ll chew on ’em all. I don’t have even one reason to shut myself in anymore.”
“That so? I’m glad to hear that. Good luck, then.”
Apparently pleased with Subaru’s reply, Nahoko nodded, then headed down the right path with a visible skip in her step. Subaru went down the left path, parting from his mother.
They were going their separate ways. Probably for far, far longer than his mother thought, at that—
“Mom!”
Unable to bear silently gazing at her back and watching her go, Subaru brought his mother to a stop with a loud voice.
His mother’s feet, skipping as she sought more mayonnaise, came to a stop; she twisted her hips and looked back. Subaru seared the ever-normal, never-changing image of his mother into his eyelids.
“Ah…”
Goodbye. He needed to say goodbye. But Subaru hesitated to speak the words.
Even if he said goodbye and parted ways there, his mother still had no idea just how long she and Subaru would be apart. With his mother not knowing they would never meet again, Subaru would be spared seeing her cry. He didn’t want his final memory of his mother to be her crying face, so was it not best that he leave his mouth shut?
Pulling the wool over her eyes out of consideration for her, and himself—
“There’s something I have to do. So it’ll be a long goodbye.”
—was something the heart of Subaru Natsuki would not permit.
“…”
Nahoko greeted the spoken words with silence.
There, before she could react in some way, Subaru continued his words.
“It’s kind of far away, so I won’t be able to stay in touch. I think you’ll probably worry about a bunch of things. I…can’t firmly say I won’t do anything dangerous. If push came to shove, I’d say it’s all pretty dangerous, because the girl I’ve gotta save gets herself in all kinds of dangerous messes.”
His mouth moved rapidly. The information he wanted to enumerate, the words he wished to speak, poured out of him.
“I think Dad and Mom
are both gonna worry about me a lot. You’ve worried enough about me where you can see me, and now I’ll be somewhere you can’t. But I’ll be thinking of you no matter where I am, and I’ll never forget about either of you…”
“Subaru.”
“I’ll never think I don’t wanna be Mom and Dad’s child ever again, and I’ll never hate myself again. I know those words don’t really let you send me off with peace of mind, but…”
“Subaru.”
Even Subaru no longer understood what he was saying when Nahoko called out to him from very close.
When he looked up, his mother was standing right before his eyes. And then—
“Subaru—it’s all right.”
“…Wh-whaddaya mean, all right?”
“I know exactly what you’re trying to say, Subaru. So you don’t need to try so hard to find the words.”
“You…know…? But how…!”
“Because…I’m your mother, Subaru.”
There was not a single shred of logic behind the statement. So why did it feel irrefutable?
The backs of his eyes grew hot. He’d sensed the same thing only a few hours before.
Just how many times would Subaru need to bawl like a little child? How many tears had to flow before he could regain an unshakable heart of steel?
“I-I’m like…a little kid here… So lame…”
“If it’s lame to cry when you need it, then that makes every single baby born in the world lame as well.”
“That’s not…what I mean…”
“Yes, yes, I told you, I get it. From Mom and Dad’s point of view, you’ll be our child no matter what your age, Subaru… When you want to cry, go ahead and cry.”
The world began to blur. Tears came running out. Subaru hid his face behind the sleeve he used to rub it so his mother wouldn’t see it. Out of respect for Subaru’s stubbornness, Nahoko didn’t peer any closer.
All she did was slowly stroke the short hair on Subaru’s head.
As she stroked him, Subaru straightened his back.
“…Sorry, Mom. In the end, I can’t do a damn thing for either of you.”
“You know, I didn’t give birth to you because I wanted something from you. I gave birth to you because I wanted to give. Subaru, your mother gave birth to you because she wanted to give you love.”
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 10 Page 21