Was that too awful?
The old lady's behavior now told him:
It wasn't.
Because most people would think that way.
"He's got some sense, at least—"
"He disappeared."
The man's words brought the old lady's muttering to an abrupt halt.
The old lady's mouth fell open in surprise. "...N-no, he disappeared?"
"What do you mean?"
"What do you mean, he disappeared?!"
"Mm."
The man blinked slightly. "I mean exactly what I said."
"After I finished talking to my mother and turned around..."
"I realized the old man was gone."
"I looked around nearby."
"But I couldn't find him."
"Huh?"
The two old people looked at each other.
The old lady sounded a little moved. "Young man."
"Your story..."
"Sure has a lot of twists and turns."
Every time they thought it was over...
Something new happened.
And it was always quite unexpected.
The man grimaced.
The full story was even more fantastical.
People always said lucky people were heaven's chosen.
So back then, he'd been so unlucky that he was... heaven's abandoned child, right?
Tsk.
That sounded awful.
"Why would he just..."
The old lady murmured, "disappear?"
"I don't know either."
That was something the man had always wondered about and could never figure out.
It wasn't the sort of question that would naturally be resolved just by getting older.
But if he considered the old man nothing more than a figment of his imagination...
Then none of it was strange.
"I had no idea when he left."
"It was like he'd suddenly vanished."
The man shook his head.
"My mother told me not to dwell on it."
"But I was stubborn back then."
The man smiled. "I'd promised to pay the old man back for the peaches."
"So I had to keep