The Only Thing She Could Do

After finishing her work for the day, Rem returned home.

She pushed open the front door, but no one answered. The empty house greeted her in silence.

In the village, farm work and its rewards were allocated according to ability. Ram could take on the village's most important commissions, and their parents could handle the heaviest fieldwork. Rem, the weakest in the family, naturally received the lightest work and came home earliest.

She closed the door. Her hurt still weighed on her chest, as did her disappointment, but more than either, she hated herself. She hated herself for saying such awful things to Subaru, and for being unable to control her jealousy even though she knew he had done nothing wrong.

Why can't I just accept reality? He was stronger than me from the very beginning. His abilities were just overlooked for a while.

Taking care of him was presumptuous of me, from beginning to end.

And so, as if grasping at a lifeline, Rem set to work again.

She hurried into the kitchen, dug out the few white sweet potatoes left in the house, and got busy.

It was the only thing she was good at, and the only way she could calm herself down.

She took out her fire striker, then stopped. Her fingers had brushed against the little cold metal box in her pocket.

Rem was silent for a moment. She took out the lighter, pulled open a drawer, and put it inside. Then she gripped the fire striker again with both small hands and began striking it hard, over and over.

Sparks scattered onto the dry leaves and twigs. It was no easy task. Rem's wrist was aching by the time the leaves finally caught, and a trembling flame peeked out from the stove.

Rem placed the white sweet potatoes beside the fire and began to roast them slowly. It was a trick she had figured out herself long ago: if she roasted the potatoes before steaming them, letting the moisture slowly evaporate, the flesh would release a syrup and taste sweeter.

It was a lot of trouble, but Rem relied on that troublesome process. As long as her hands stayed busy, her mind had no time to dwell on the things that made her chest tighten.

The village chief had called Ram away that day. At the other end of the village, the exit had been completely blocked by a massive boulder that had rolled down the mountain. The strongest person in the village had to clear it away and deal with any Witchbeasts that might have been disturbed.

As Rem turned the white sweet potatoes beside the fire, she pictured Ram before she had left. Her sister had deliberately put on a pitiful expression and said, half-jokingly, "When I'm at my most tired, all I have to do is eat Rem's steamed white sweet potatoes, and all my fatigue will fly away."

Rem knew her sister was trying to cheer her up.

But even if her sister didn't absolutely need them, perhaps Rem could still offer her a little comfort if she made them as well as she could.

The white sweet potatoes slowly changed color as the flames licked them, and their skins gave off a faint roasted fragrance. Rem stared at the flickering fire, her hands continuing to turn the potatoes mechanically.

After carefully roasting the moisture out of the white sweet potatoes, Rem moved on to the next step. She scrubbed each one under clean water, gently scraping her fingernails over every indentation in the skin to make sure not a speck of dirt remained.

She put the cleaned white sweet potatoes in fresh water to soak. Roasting had already brought out their syrup, but if she steamed them straightaway, their texture would turn dry and coarse.

It was a trick that could only be mastered by doing it countless times, and Rem had long since learned it by heart.

For the sake of those few white sweet potatoes, to make them taste as perfect as possible, Rem worked from dusk until night.

She changed the water, dried the potatoes, and laid pieces of dried fruit peel one by one across the bottom of the steamer to add a delicate fragrance. Then she brought over a small stool and sat in front of the stove, watching the flickering flames.

First, she let the potatoes cook slowly over a low flame, counting the time in her head. Once they were cooked through, she immediately turned up the heat. Her little palms had been rubbed red and ached faintly from striking the fire striker over and over. But she didn't stop.

By the time a sweat-drenched Rem took the extremely labor-intensive steamed white sweet potatoes out of the steamer, it was completely dark outside.

"...Hasn't Sister come home yet?"

The house was still silent. Neither her parents nor Ram had returned.

Rem carried the steamed white sweet potatoes to the small table in the living room, then sat down on the tatami to wait. As she waited, she had only one thought: What if the potatoes get cold? They won't taste good cold. When Sister comes home, I have to heat them up again right away.

An hour passed.

Two hours passed.

Three hours passed.

Little Rem sat on the tatami, her eyelids growing heavier and heavier, her head nodding down like a chick pecking at grain.

Rem didn't know what to do. If her sister came home and saw that she had stayed up waiting for her, she would surely feel sad and guilty. Her sister was already so tired, and if she had to worry about Rem too, wouldn't Rem just be causing her more trouble?

No matter how much she wanted to keep going, sleepiness gradually wore down her willpower.

If this went on, she would fall asleep at the table and catch a cold, and her sister would worry even more.

So Rem went back to the room she shared with Ram, deliberately leaving the door open. That way, as soon as someone came home, she would hear them and wake up, then heat the white sweet potatoes for her sister right away.

With that thought, she closed her eyes.

Several more hours passed, and it was close to midnight when the door to the house finally opened again.

The person who walked in wasn't Ram, but a dark-blue-haired middle-aged man with a tired face.

Quark, Rem and Ram's father.

He was just about to return to his room when he caught a glimpse of a dim oil lamp still burning in the living room. He walked over and found the plate of steamed white sweet potatoes on the table, long since cold.

"...Did Rem make these? She accidentally made too many again."

Quark sighed. "That child doesn't know that, in this weather, if she leaves food out like this and eats it the next day, she'll get sick."

Rem, who had been sleeping lightly, opened her eyes. In her daze, she finally heard the sounds coming from the living room.

She's home. Rem immediately scrambled out of bed and ran barefoot toward the living room, her voice full of excitement even though she was still half asleep.

"Sister-!"

Then she stopped.

In the dim light of the oil lamp, she saw her father standing beside the table, holding an overturned bowl in one hand.

Plop. Plop. Plop.

The white sweet potatoes were falling from the plate into the trash, one after another.

Quark heard her and turned around. He paused briefly when he saw his daughter standing in the doorway, then gave her a tired, casual smile.

"Rem? Did I wake you?... Ah, if you accidentally make too much food, remember to throw the leftovers away next time. Otherwise, they'll spoil by the next day."