The first stop on their journey was an ordinary little village.
But Kanzaki Kumo only stood at the village entrance with Kanao and went no farther.
Seeing Kanzaki Kumo standing there in silence, Kanao was about to ask a question, but something soon occurred to her, and she held it back. She simply tightened her grip on his hand a little.
Sensing Kanao's concern, Kanzaki Kumo turned and smiled at her to show that he was all right.
"You've probably guessed it too, Kanao. That's right. This is where my life began."
"I'd just turned four then. They brought me here and said we were going to play hide-and-seek."
As he spoke, Kanzaki Kumo pointed to a tree stump a short distance away and continued, "Back then, I hid behind this tree, waiting for them to find me."
"I waited from morning until sunset, but they never appeared at the village entrance again."
"I knew then that they weren't coming."
Although Kanzaki Kumo's voice was calm, as though he were recounting something that had nothing to do with him, Kanao noticed that, from beginning to end, he only used "they" to refer to the two people who should have been the closest people in an ordinary person's life.
"So I followed this road..."
As Kanzaki Kumo spoke, he turned around with Kanao's hand in his and followed the road, retracing the path he had walked more than ten years before.
In truth, it was hard to say which of the siblings had had the better or worse past.
After all, being abandoned by one's parents at a young age was certainly pitiful, but being treated by one's parents as "merchandise" to be sold, while also serving as a "punching bag" to be beaten and berated at will before the "sale,"