The woman's eyes widened.
She reached out and rubbed them hard.
After doing that several times, she finally confirmed...
The person standing before her...
really was Ox-Nose!?
"You..."
The woman's voice grew a little hoarse.
She touched her neck.
"You..."
She was so surprised, so shocked, so excited...
"I thought you weren't going to show up again..."
After that day, she'd returned from the hospital and never seen Ox-Nose again.
She couldn't make heads or tails of it.
Just as he'd appeared out of nowhere in the first place, Ox-Nose had suddenly disappeared.
He hadn't left a single word behind.
Well.
He'd left behind three broken fishing nets.
Could it be...
A sudden thought struck the woman.
Ox-Nose regretted the promise he'd made to her...
But was too embarrassed to go back on it...
So he'd simply stopped coming?
Was that it?
That reason...
The woman found it hard to believe.
It was so...
Should she call him willful?
Or say he was treating it like a game?
Before long, the woman stopped fretting over Ox-Nose's disappearance.
Her child had just come into the world.
It was a time when he needed her attention and care more than ever.
She didn't have the time or energy to think about some... strange person.
She just hadn't expected...
Ox-Nose to show up again!?
The familiar figure crouched beside the basin left the woman feeling dazed.
Nothing had changed...
It was as if time had turned back to those days.
Ox-Nose was still staring at the goldfish like this.
Was he looking at them appreciatively?
Or was he eyeing them like food?
"Mom."
Her child called from the doorway.
"I'm going out to play."
"Mom?"
Her child raised his voice.
The woman came back to her