Lingering warmth

The boy pulled aside the blanket covering him and carefully climbed out of the bunk bed in the bedroom, taking care not to wake his younger brother, who was still sound asleep.

He opened the bedroom door.

Dad was sitting on the sofa reading the newspaper. Seeing him up, he smiled and filled a basin with warm water for him to wash with.

The kitchen was already filled with steam. Mom was making breakfast, and even through the glass door, he could smell sandwiches, bacon, fried eggs, and hot milk.

He rinsed his mouth, washed his face, and dampened a comb with a little water to tidy his unruly hair.

Xia Xia opened the kitchen door.

"Xia Xia, why are you up so early today? Don't you want to sleep a little longer?"

His mother looked at him gently.

"I went to bed early last night, so I woke up early today. Yep, that's it."

The boy leaned against a cabinet.

"You shouldn't come into the kitchen right now. Hot oil is splattering out of the frying pan. It's dangerous."

"What's gotten into our little Xia Xia lately? You like sticking to Mommy like a little baby. Such a cuddly child. Keep this up, and Daddy will get jealous."

Kaori Itadori turned off the heat, turned around, and pinched her son's soft little cheeks. Then she went back to assembling the sandwiches and poured the hot milk out of the aluminum saucepan.

"Can't I?"

Xia Xia raised his head and looked at his mother.

"It's not that you can't. Mommy loves spending time with little Xia Xia too. It's just that sometimes I'm not used to my son suddenly being so clingy."

Kaori didn't give it much thought, taking it as something perfectly ordinary. After all, Xia Xia did seem to spend more time with her than with his father.

With two children at home, the couple could only work together like this, each focusing more on one child. It was unavoidable.

She would never have imagined that a cursed technique existed in this world that could automatically acquire another person's life history and all their knowledge through physical contact, with better results the closer they were.

She would never suspect that her always well-behaved son had become a jujutsu sorcerer like her through an accident, while she remained unable to sense his cursed energy.

The aura of Xia Xia's cursed energy resembled his father Jinta Itadori's, so much so that even a powerful jujutsu sorcerer like Kenjaku could detect nothing unusual-though this was also because Xia Xia was her biological son, and the properties of his cursed energy resembled hers as well.

In her eyes, Xia Xia was simply Xia Xia, the same considerate, well-behaved, lovable eldest son who cherished his family.

In truth, a mother's love had clouded her caution.

She had clearly suspected something long ago, but self-persuasion and self-deception had governed her behavior all along.

Love had blinded her perception.

"It's a day off today, so there's no school. Would little Xia Xia like to come to the market with Mommy after breakfast to buy ingredients for lunch and dinner?"

Kaori finally finished the sandwiches and handed Xia Xia a plate. She took off her oven mitts, pushed open the glass door, and left the kitchen with her son, carrying breakfast for all four of them.

"Yes."

"If we go to the market, can we buy some noodles and things?"

Xia Xia nodded.

"Xia Xia really does love those foods. So does Yuji. It's lovely that you're just like Mommy and Daddy."

As she spoke, his mother picked up a pencil and wrote it down on the sticky note attached to the refrigerator.

"All right, if I write everything down, I won't forget. What else..."

"Oh, little Xia Xia, go wake up your sleepy little brother. It's breakfast time."

The boy set the plate on the dining table and went back to the bedroom to wake his brother. Standing in a blind spot between the bedroom door and the living room, he patiently waited for the moment when a breeze lifted the hair over his mother's forehead. His gaze passed unobtrusively over the tattoo-like line of stitches.

Mom.

He called to her softly in his heart.

Kenjaku.

He spoke that name in his mind as well.

Of course he understood that, inside the body named Kaori Itadori, the brain originally housed in its skull had long since vanished, replaced by the true mother of him and his brother.

Xia Xia steadied his emotions.

He knocked on the bedroom door.

"Yuji, breakfast is ready. Time to get up. Good morning."

Before long, the bedroom door opened.

Still bleary-eyed, Yuji stumbled out. Since today was a day off, he had stayed up late reading manga last night and was still a little sleepy.

"Mmm, haa..."

After letting out an adorable mumble, the pink-haired little boy yawned and flung himself into his older brother's arms like a little animal dug out of its burrow.

"Morning, big brother~"

"Mean big brother, waking me up so early."

"All right, all right, I'm mean. You can go back to sleep after breakfast, Yuji. It's a day off today."

Xia Xia looked at him fondly and handed him a rinsing cup filled with warm water, along with a towel he had just taken off the drying rack, still holding the sun's warmth and the scent of dry cotton.

"Hehe, you're the best, big brother."

Children's feelings were always like that, changing from one moment to the next, as unpredictable as the clouds on the horizon.

Breakfast tasted the same as always. It wasn't exceptional and couldn't match a restaurant's refined, delicious food, but a meal made by his mother's own hands always suited his palate, bringing him a heartfelt sense of comfort and ease.

Unlike Yuji, who wolfed down his food, or Dad, who ate leisurely while reading the newspaper, Xia Xia chose to chew slowly and elegantly, just like Mom.

"Mom, you seem to follow some very old rules of etiquette no matter what you do."

Xia Xia had once asked her that without thinking.

"Maybe it's because you used to be a young lady from a wealthy family, or maybe your upbringing was just strict."

The boy's words had made his mother smile bashfully.

"Nothing like that. They're just eating habits girls pick up when they're little. Whatever the case, you have to mind your manners at the table, don't you?"

"When Mommy still lived at home, your grandparents taught me to take small bites and not talk while eating."

"Looking back now, those really were strict rules."

Xia Xia looked down at the sandwich in his hands and chewed in small bites, savoring the bread's sweetness, the bacon's crisp tenderness, the fried egg's soft, mild flavor, and the richness of the mayonnaise.

Delicious food like this always made him want to eat more slowly, as though that could prolong the meal and make the happiness and peace he felt during it last longer.

But delicious food always ran out.

Even though recalling it still brought happiness, more often than not, all that remained was a wistful, lingering warmth.

The faint sheen of grease left on a plate, the sauce that might cling to a knife or fork, the crumbs wiped from his lips-these trivial traces all told him that mealtime was over. He had taken in enough energy to stay alive. Now, he had to go on doing what he was supposed to do.

The plates still needed washing, and the cups needed scrubbing, until all the dishes and cookware were clean, dried, and put away in the cabinets.

After happiness came emptiness, leaving only lingering warmth.

"These rolled omelets are still warm. They must have just been made. How about it, little Xia Xia? Would you like some? Go ahead and put a box in the cart."

After breakfast, his father went to meet an old friend and fish at a nearby fishing spot. Yuji insisted on going back to sleep, while Xia Xia accompanied his mother to the market.

The market was bustling, and a cheerful weekend atmosphere filled the space along with the jazz playing on a loop. The bread and cookies on the shelves bore discount stickers, while the promotional bundles of beer, taped together for sale, came in colorful packaging.

"What are you looking at?"

Seeing her son lost in thought, his mother quietly leaned over as though nothing were amiss and rested her head on his shoulder.

"They may look pretty, but you can't have them~"

"You're still too young, Xia Xia. You can drink once you're a cool grown-up. Until then, it's illegal. Off-limits~"

He didn't quite understand why children were forbidden to drink, but after thinking about the bad habits of noble children in those stories, he suddenly felt it made a great deal of sense.

"Then let's buy some candy. It's been a while."

Xia Xia rose onto his tiptoes and took a small box of Juice Gummy (Meiji fruit gummies) from the top shelf, then looked at his mother for permission.

"Candy?"

"Too much will give you cavities and toothaches, and Daddy might lecture us if he sees it. But if you really want some, Xia Xia, you can take a box-this is our secret."

His mother ruffled his hair, took the box of candy, and put it in the cart.

"It's a deal, then. Don't tell Daddy, and share some with Mommy when you eat it."

"It's really because you like them too..."

Xia Xia narrowed his eyes and muttered under his breath.

"Most of them will end up in Yuji's stomach anyway. That's usually how it ends."

He added that afterward.

"That does seem to be true."

Kaori nodded in agreement. Looking at the little bag of fruit gummies, she began to wonder whether she would get any at all.

Then, quite by accident, she bought another bag.

At checkout, Xia Xia slyly slipped the extra bag into his shirt pocket so his body heat wouldn't melt the gummies and make them sticky.

Then he neatly packed the rolled omelets, discounted bean sprouts, a small box of grilled eel, a small box of beef, three bottles of ramune, a promotional pack of nori sheets, shrimp for making tempura, and several boxes of seasonings into the cloth bag.

"How lucky. We came so late and still managed to get discounted beef and eel. Little Xia Xia really is Mommy's lucky star. Hehehe."

As she spoke, Kaori picked up the shopping bag and took Xia Xia's hand with her free hand, heading home.

It began to rain.

Luckily, they had brought an umbrella. It had only been a little overcast when they left, but autumn rain always came quickly.

He wondered whether Dad would get soaked while fishing, though apparently the man fishing with him would bring an absurdly large sun umbrella.

Kaori's umbrella wasn't large. To keep the shopping bag and her son dry, she had to have Xia Xia draw closer, then closer still. In the end, she simply sheltered him in her arms, leaving half her own body outside the umbrella to get wet in the light rain.

"We'll have to take a bath as soon as we get home and have a nice, comfortable soak in the tub. Otherwise, we might catch a cold. Luckily, the rain isn't heavy, and we're almost home."

Mist blurred Xia Xia's vision. The sky, the city streets, the trees on either side, and the full cloth bag all blended together amid the moisture and damp scent.

His mother's lingering warmth reached him from behind, carrying a reassuring presence through the air.

Though it was close enough to touch, its very beauty made it feel terribly distant, filling him with the fear that he could lose it at any moment.