"I thought..."
"They were peaches nobody wanted."
The child murmured.
His face felt a little hot.
He gripped the umbrella in his hand tightly.
That was actually the first time... and the only time... he'd taken something ownerless—something he thought was ownerless—to eat.
He hadn't expected...
The owner of the peaches to come looking for him now.
And for him to suffer so much because of it.
"...I-I'm sorry."
The child struggled to force the words out of his throat.
He hadn't done it on purpose...
He'd thought the peaches were unwanted.
Thinking back, though, he'd also been a little hopeful that he could get away with it.
Those two peaches had looked so tempting.
He'd really wanted to eat them.
He'd looked around and seen no one—
Ah.
The child remembered something...
"I called out at the time!"
His face lit up.
"I was worried the peaches belonged to someone, so I called out lots of times."
The child's voice grew quieter. "No one answered me..."
So he'd thought those two peaches had been left behind.
That nobody wanted them.
If he didn't eat them and they went bad, they'd be wasted.
"I had to leave to take care of something."
The old man's face was expressionless.
This was the first time he'd ever encountered...
Someone eating his offering.
What a thing to live long enough to see.
"Then how did you know it was me?!"
The child blurted out.
Then he looked embarrassed.
It sounded like he was trying to deny responsibility...
But he really wanted to know...
The old man had left.
So how had he been sure the child was the one who ate the peaches?
"I saw you."
The old man shook his head slightly.
"I happened to see you