What Could I Give in Return?

When Yuanli was alive, I had always taken care of her food, clothing, housing, and transportation. What style of clothes she should wear, what brand of car she should drive, what sort of home she should live in-whether a detached house or an entire floor to herself-I had found the best answers to all of these through years of observation.

I looked forward to her delight when she received these "gifts," and silently hoped that one day, I might receive a "gift in return."

But I had never imagined that one day, it would all simply come to an end.

(1)

I walked along the West District's shopping street with Toji and Megumi. We had a clear destination and headed straight for the Department Store.

Once we entered the Department Store, where warm air blasted from the heaters, I let go of my two "warmongers'" hands. The first thing I did was warn them, "No fighting inside the Department Store."

Megumi's hostility toward Toji was painfully obvious. Several times, I had only stepped away to use the restroom, then come back to find them "fighting."

Father and son, fighting.

Toji was tall and muscular. He could easily lift Megumi with just two fingers and shake him out like a wet handkerchief.

And every time I saw Megumi fight back, I could only sigh. The two-year-old was like a soft little doll. The only hard part of him was his teeth, which had yet to finish coming in.

It was easy to imagine how he fought back.

After every fight, one was dizzy but refused to admit it, while the other complained that his hand hurt. Always determined to be fair, I wished I could split myself in two and soothe them both at once.

Holding my forehead, I decided to start by warning the unreliable parent.

"Dad, don't pick Megumi up by the back of his collar in the mall. Even little children have their pride. Can you respect him?"

"Tch. What a pain." Though Toji said that, I knew he had listened.

I crouched down and whispered into Megumi's ear, "Megumi, Toji won't hurt us now. I don't know what's affecting you, but at least when we're out, could we let him keep a little of his dignity as an adult and acknowledge him a bit? Please?"

Megumi was the sweetest boy. He nodded and agreed to my request.

With our family conflict temporarily resolved, I began assigning the day's tasks.

There was a lot to do today, because we needed to buy furniture.

I didn't know Toji's and Megumi's preferences, so I couldn't buy furniture for them in advance the way I had when taking care of Yuanli. Besides, furniture had to suit a person's habits and style.

Color, texture, size-none of them could be overlooked. If even one fell far short, you would spend a long time adapting yourself to the furniture instead of having the furniture serve you.

I wrote their budgets on two slips of paper and handed them over. "These are your furniture budgets. Toji, you're in charge of the couch, the dining table and chairs, and the bed and other things for your room. Megumi, you're in charge of the armchair, the rug, your dining chair, and the things for your own room."

Toji glanced at his slip and asked me, "What about you?"

"Don't worry, I have one just like you. Let's split up, then. Megumi, could you stay with Dad for now?"

Megumi didn't refuse. He simply folded his arms and kept his distance from Toji like a little grown-up, though he would stop and wait for him whenever he got far enough ahead.

Toji followed leisurely behind him with one hand in his pocket, but his gaze drifted toward the nearby appliance section. I followed his eyes. They seemed to sell small pinball machines there.

Thinking it over, my own pitifully small budget compared with theirs was just enough to buy a pinball machine and a new-model phone.

So I decided to give them a surprise.

(2)

After signing the home delivery form, I sat on a bench in the appliance section and watched the shoppers passing by in pairs and groups. Suddenly, an indescribable sense of loss came over me.

Not far away, outside a high-end clothing store, I saw a mother and daughter standing arm in arm, their heads bent together in intimate conversation. The daughter pointed at a dress in the window that was clearly meant for someone young, turning excitedly to say something to her mother.

They went inside holding hands. A little while later, they came out wearing dresses in the same style but different colors.

They exchanged a smile, one I knew all too well. There was admiration in it, and teasing, but more than anything, the joy of knowing they were each other's companions.

The black hole of memory sucked me in. When I looked at them again, all I could see were gravestones engraved with Yuanli's name.

Yuanli didn't like wearing dresses, but she loved buying them for me. Whenever we went shopping in each lifetime, she would head straight for a menswear shop and choose an outfit to wear as the day's template. Every dress of mine that followed would exist to complement that outfit.

Red went with black, and white could go with black too. As for gold, wearing it made me look like a walking hardware store. I was just about to change out of it when I saw Yuanli outside, amid the surging crowd, looking only at me and smiling only for me.

For some inexplicable reason, that day I actually thought gold could go with black too.

Standing in front of the window where that mother and daughter had just stopped, I found the gold dress on the mannequin unbearably tacky, yet I couldn't tear myself away.

"Sweetie, do you want to try this dress too?" A sales assistant crouched beside me and looked up at the dress with me. "You're still too little for it, though. Where's your mommy?"

Where was Mommy...

Yuanli...

Beneath the window's spotlights, this mass-produced item became a monster with a gaping, golden mouth. It wouldn't eat me, but it kept repeating the sentence that killed me, in full surround sound.

"She..." I clenched my teeth, unable to get the words out.

"You could ask your mommy to buy it..."

"How much?"

"Huh?"

The sales assistant turned in surprise to look at the tall, unexpected visitor.

In the reflection of the display window, I saw Toji standing behind me.

He pointed at the dress and asked the sales assistant, "How much is that dress? I'll take it."

The monster disappeared, and the black hole of memory spat me out. Just when I thought I would land in an undignified sprawl, my imposing warrior in his white training pants came to save me.

(3)

Sitting on Toji's right arm, I watched my view bob up and down with his steps. Suddenly, I remembered that father and son on that rainy day.

Had the child sitting on his father's arm, gazing up at his firm jaw and listening to his powerful heartbeat, felt the same way I did-that a father was a towering mountain, yet one you could climb?

"Toji, just now, I actually..."

"I know."

My vision blurred a little, but not from sadness. It was from feeling safe.

He had bought the dress and carried me away from that place. He had even remembered not to grab Megumi by the back of his collar, hoisting him onto his shoulder instead.

Toji was thoughtful and gentle.

Holding me and carrying Megumi on his shoulder, he walked for half an hour to bring us home without flushing or getting out of breath. As soon as we reached the entrance, we saw the truck loaded with furniture that had already been waiting for us.

By dusk, the furniture was piled in the living room, mysteriously concealed in cardboard boxes. I paid and saw the Department Store's delivery workers off.

Standing at the entrance, looking at the towering cherry blossom tree, I felt that inexplicable heaviness suddenly escape through some pore in my skin.

If I returned to that display window, even if the mannequin wore the exact same clothes as Yuanli, the black hole of memory would no longer swallow me.

Because on the opposite side of that black hole stood an enormous magnet named Toji Zenin, fighting hard to pull me away from it.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the door. "Dad, have you set up the couch-"

"Dad, Megumi, may I ask where the couch is...?"

(4)

The space where the couch should have stood was empty. Meanwhile, the wall that should have been bare now held an enormous wall-mounted projection screen. It was as though this place wasn't a living room but a private cinema.

Toji stood in front of the screen, the scarred corner of his mouth lifting slightly. He eagerly showed me how to turn on the projector and the image of the ocean it cast onto that enormous screen.

I watched the projector's beam strike the screen and turn into a rolling sea. Waves washed over Toji's face and body, making him look as though he had sunk beneath the ocean, yet also as though he floated on its surface.

The projector's sharp, detailed picture far surpassed that of any television of this era.

"Dad, why did you buy this?" I asked without thinking.

Toji pulled a disc from a cardboard box and put it into the projector. The image on the screen changed to a face.

It was Ayako's face from Moscow. The scene Toji was playing was the one where Ayako had spoken to me that night.

So he had known all along.

"Did you spend all your money on this?" I asked him.

Toji nodded proudly.

Touched and torn between tears and laughter, I turned to Megumi with hope, only to find him standing in front of a large cardboard box, looking a little guilty.

Seeing me watching him, he opened the box with a faint blush.

It was a dishwasher.

"Now Yuanli won't have to wash dishes anymore." After giving this earnest explanation, he took an exquisite box out of a slightly smaller cardboard carton and offered it to me with both hands.

I accepted it solemnly and opened it. Inside was an exquisitely beautiful tea set.

There was no need to ask. This tea set and the dishwasher had probably used up his entire budget too.

I set the tea set aside, bent down to hug Megumi, then went to hug Toji.

I was on the verge of tears. I had never imagined that the "gift in return" I had waited for would travel through so many spaces and times, finally appearing before me in this form.

What could I possibly give in return for such magnificent gifts?

(5)

A gentle autumn breeze blew cherry blossoms through the window into the living room. Having exchanged our gifts, we sat on a couch built from stacked cardboard boxes and watched all of Moscow with complete attention.

At the end of the film, I heard Toji mutter, "What a lousy movie."

For some reason, I felt an immense relief. Toji had never been Ayako, and now he no longer resembled her either.

And what about me?

I thought the autumn breeze that had swept away that heaviness must have known best.