Sasaki was a good man. That was Kōshū's conclusion after a month of living with him. Even though he had approached everything as an observer looking for flaws, always souring the mood at the dinner table, he ultimately had to admit that Sasaki was a hopelessly good person.
Life at language school was incredibly boring. Unexpectedly, he found himself spending much of his idle thought on his new family. The program was supposed to be fully residential, but Sasaki insisted otherwise, and since Kōshū had already taught himself the language, the year at language school was only meant to ensure he could enroll normally. So he became a commuter student.
Another morning, Kōshū ran back beneath the dim light of dawn. It was a habit he had maintained for a long time. Five hundred meters from home, he slowed down and stretched as he headed back.
The air carried the scent of early spring. Sunlight and wind swept over him together. The breeze was soft, cooling the thin layer of sweat on his skin, while the sunlight brought a faint warmth. Intertwined, they felt like a river churning with silk. He wanted to simply collapse into the spring wind.
Just as middle-aged men often sat alone in their cars for thirty minutes after getting home, the moment one stepped through the front door, noise and complicated relationships instantly clung to the soul. His morning runs were Kōshū's time to be alone and at ease. Following the training methods he had once used, he sprinted for a hundred meters, then eased off for five hundred, draining as much of his best energy as possible.
After one lap, both his body and mind felt like a rag that had been wrung dry. But that was just right. After all, the things he faced all day were garbage anyway. If he faced the entire day at full energy, he would instead feel stifled, with nowhere to vent it.
When he got home and passed the bathroom, he could already hear someone washing up inside. It was Mr. Sasaki's son from his previous marriage, only a year younger than Kōshū. Kōshū did not stop. He went upstairs to get a change of clothes, brushing past Sasaki Rōchi, who was washing up. Rōchi was rinsing his mouth and did not even glance at him, but his voice carried through the sliding door. "You stink!"
Kōshū immediately shot back, "Shorty. And your clothes are filthy."
Rōchi promptly vented his anger on his cup. He worked up the nerve to charge into the bathroom, but in the end, that furious, brave expression seemed to have no audience. The trickling water did not stop just because he was angry, so he quietly left again, just as he had done for the past month.
Sasaki Rōchi played baseball. He was twelve, one hundred sixty centimeters tall, and played shortstop. Whenever his clothes got dirty, he had to scrub off the mud and sand with a brush before putting them in the washing machine. Though Kōshū was only a year older, he was already nearly one hundred eighty centimeters tall. Whenever he stood before the shorter Rōchi and expressionlessly made personal attacks, Rōchi would flinch in fright. Even Mr. Sasaki said, "Takano can be quite scary when he has no expression sometimes."
But then Mr. Sasaki would add, "Still, he's a gentle child at heart. He moves around the house as quietly as a cat. Even when he comes back from his morning runs, he never disturbs anyone. Unlike Rōchi."
Tch. When Kōshū first heard that, he sat stiffly on an uncomfortable chair, his face revealing nothing. But inwardly, he thought, What kind of reaction are you expecting? A child abandoned by both parents, betrayed, then forced to leave his homeland for Japan? So I should be an unruly child with no one to discipline me?
Yet in the dead of night, Kōshū would think of his grandparents again. As teachers from the older generation, they had been strict with him since childhood. Even after they were gone, even after everything he had been through, he still could not stand children who had happy families yet were spoiled, reckless, and ill-mannered. Or perhaps it was jealousy. Of course, Kōshū firmly believed he merely despised them. After all, if someone turned bad because of a harsh environment, that only meant the harsh environment had unleashed their true nature.
After showering, Kōshū came to the sink where Rōchi had just washed up, rubbing his hair dry. A face just beginning to show traces of manhood stared quietly back at him. Looking down, Kōshū fiddled with Rōchi's toothpaste, decorated with pink anime girls. In a mischievous mood, he squeezed out a huge strip onto his own toothbrush.
As Kōshū brushed his teeth, the house slowly woke up. Voices seemed to be coming from the master bedroom downstairs. Mr. Sasaki and Shen Qing ran a dental clinic together, and their days were packed full, so they got up early every morning to prepare.
The entire small clinic had only one receptionist, five nurses, and three doctors. After Shen Qing spent two years as a resident and then repeatedly hit obstacles over various credentialing issues, Mr. Sasaki took her in. Of course, according to the third doctor—their partner and Mr. Sasaki's friend, Mr. Kudo—being able to take in someone as skilled as Shen Qing was Sasaki's good fortune for being such a good man.
Kōshū did not blow-dry his hair. He merely pressed the remaining moisture from it with a dry towel and returned to his room. In the narrow upstairs hallway, two doors stood close together by the corner. Kōshū stood before the door with the "Kōshū" plaque, looking at the "Rōchi" door beside it. Something stirred in his mind. Without hesitation, his hands immediately moved, opening the room of the twelve-year-old boy downstairs who was making breakfast.
Hm? Pretty clean. Where did he put his magazines and games? Kōshū directly opened the cabinet doors and saw colorful anime girls crowded together with all sorts of manga. Poor things.
Thinking back to when he had first arrived last month, that shorty had secretly warned him not to enter his room. Then, out of nowhere at the dinner table, Kōshū mentioned, "I heard girls' voices, so I went to Rōchi's room. I knocked, but he wouldn't open the door. It was locked too, so who knows what he was doing in there." Rōchi's face reddened with anger. He blurted out, "What's it to you?" Then he looked at Shen Qing and hurriedly explained himself. "No, it's just games, games!"
While Sasaki and Shen Qing were both utterly dumbfounded, the twelve-year-old saw the surprise on Shen Qing's face and immediately broke down, crying as he ran back to his room.
And so, Kōshū ruined a long-overdue "family dinner." Beneath the still-calm atmosphere, everyone's thoughts churned beneath the table.
Mr. Sasaki said, "Let him be. Just leave him something to eat later," but inwardly, he felt unable to sit still. He had insisted on bringing Takano over, and he had also insisted on taking in the child from his ex-wife's side. He clearly had no grasp of the sensitive minds of adolescents. Managing Rōchi alone was already difficult enough.
Shen Qing replied, "It's all Takano's fault. I'll bring Rōchi something to eat later, and have Takano apologize to him while I'm at it." But inwardly, she thought, That child Rōchi has more or less begun relying on me. Being a stepmother isn't easy. Feelings need to be cultivated slowly. The most important thing is to fulfill a mother's responsibilities from the start, let a neglected child feel a mother's care, while not interfering with his personal wishes. At the right time, I can show a little hardship. The only problem is this biological child of mine. He's like a tree growing in a swamp—calm and stable, yet impossible to approach. He has no weaknesses.
After saying that, Kōshū behaved like an obedient child. He even agreed to apologize. Yet inwardly, he felt both relieved and troubled. Relieved because this nominal little brother was far too easy to handle. As someone who had often been set up himself, he had merely applied a bit of the experience he had learned, and Rōchi had been sent scrambling. It quickly became boring. He was troubled because of the look in that boy's eyes. There was something maternal about it. The key was that Rōchi and Shen Qing were not related by blood. Kōshū himself had no psychological hang-ups about it, but having someone else fall for his mother still felt somewhat wrong.
After that, Shen Qing successfully knocked on Rōchi's door. Just as Rōchi was about to voice his dissatisfaction, he saw the dark-faced stepbrother standing behind his stepmother. Then he watched his stepbrother, seemingly without the slightest mental burden and apparently sincere, offer an apology. Yet the way Kōshū's eyes swept around the room exposed his composure. In those occasionally startled looks, Rōchi felt shame. What's wrong with liking anime girls? Damn it, only my best friend knows about my interests! Ah, why is the son of the gentle and strong Dr. Shen such a person? But in order not to ruin his image before his stepmother, he forced down his discomfort.
After that, Rōchi felt that he had learned "the disguise of adulthood." In other words, he stopped locking his door and instead hid all his things in the cabinet. That included peacefully getting along with Kōshū in front of his father and stepmother.
Time returned to this morning.
Kōshū returned to his bedroom and lay on the bed with wet hair, staring blankly at the curtains as sunlight's orange glow slowly seeped through them. The scent of coffee drifted in through the wide-open door, gradually filling his lungs. A mature male voice, a woman's yawning voice, and a child's voice that had yet to change mingled with the sounds of the toaster, frying pan, and coffee maker. Downstairs was already a complete family of three, wasn't it? So why was there still someone upstairs who did not belong?
Even if the male head of this household was a good man Kōshū genuinely acknowledged from the bottom of his heart, even if that woman was cold-hearted but treated those she accepted as her own with tenderness, even if that shorty was an otaku at heart but always looked at Shen Qing with the longing affection of a child who had waited too long—what role did Kōshū actually play in this family?
For more than a month, life had seemed peaceful, yet it was full of barriers. He had mastered Japanese long ago, and as for cultural integration, Kōshū could say with confidence that he had no motivation to actively fit in. All sorts of things had created that lingering sense of helplessness and boredom, always drifting through his mind like a thin mist. What exactly am I living in this world for? Even with no one paying attention to me, I haven't become some thug or delinquent. Looks like I really am a boring person.
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