"Then, sorry for the trouble."
The man smiled.
"Come."
"Sitting all the time isn't good."
"Standing all the time is tiring too."
"Let's go sit over there."
"I bought you some peaches."
"Wait a moment."
"I'll take them to wash."
The woman followed the man's footsteps forward.
She seemed to turn her head back casually and glance over.
The water in the basin shimmered beneath the sunlight spilling in through the window.
A bright splash of color among it was especially conspicuous.
The woman suddenly realized...
Ah.
Had she successfully stopped Ox-Nose from eating the goldfish?
It seemed so.
The woman's heart settled.
Ox-Nose...
didn't seem quite as ferocious as she had thought...
With that, the woman no longer felt as troubled by Ox-Nose.
The matter of Ox-Nose was very strange.
The man couldn't see Ox-Nose.
The woman didn't know...
Was she special enough to see Ox-Nose?
Or...
was Ox-Nose merely an illusion belonging to her alone?
If it was the former...
Even though Ox-Nose was far removed from the fantasies she had had as a little girl about sprites and fairies...
Even if he could be classified as some kind of monster...
he was still far larger than she had imagined.
The woman didn't know whether she should feel happy about being special in this way.
If it was the latter...
If she hadn't been pregnant during this period, with the man practically never leaving her side...
she really might have impulsively gone to the hospital for a checkup.
But she didn't want to worry the man.
Nor did she want to cause unnecessary complications.
She didn't want to ruin the happy life she had now.
Later, she came to terms with it.
What if it was an illusion?
That illusion