Chapter 19 Section five

"What exactly is it?" Himekawa thought back. "It's strange. Twenty-three years ago, I heard my sister's voice in the midsummer evening." That was when my father first started home palliative care.In the distance, there is the sound of big drums practicing Obon dance, so the time should be the end of July or early August.Himekawa was drinking barley tea and watching TV in the kitchen on the first floor.As he was going up the stairs to go back to the nursery, he heard his sister's voice.He thought it was his sister who had friends in the children's room.Because my sister rarely invited friends to the house, Himekawa nervously walked up to the second floor and peeked into the room through the crack of the door.However, there is only one sister inside.She sat slumped on the ground, facing the setting sun sideways, staring at the lion doll on her lap without blinking.

--What do you think? He paused for a moment as if waiting for the other party's answer.Then my sister laughed silently and happily, and laughed for a long time.Himekawa stared blankly at his sister from the crack of the door.He remembered that under the orange light, his sister's face looked more childish than usual.What the hell is my sister talking about?Why are you laughing?He didn't understand, but he liked the childish side face of his sister, so he unconsciously called his sister. The elder sister who turned around had a stiff look of surprise on her face. Himekawa asked what she said to the lion just now, but the older sister just kept silent, blushing and shaking her head.It was only a few nights later that my sister told him about it.The two were facing each other in the children's room, sitting on the drawing paper spread all over the floor, drawing as they wished, when my sister suddenly mentioned that incident.It seemed to be a dream she often had.

"Suddenly pinched." "Pinched?" My sister seems to have that kind of dream often. "Yes, the same place is pinched every time..." "where?" "Here, this area." My sister stood up and pointed to the place on the inside of the plaid skirt.My sister vaguely pointed to the place where her crotch was covered by her panties. "Why is that place pinched?" "I don't know, it's a dream." My sister frowned and shook her head nervously. "It hurts so much, I want to tell the other party to stop several times."

"Then why don't you say it?" "I can't tell, my mouth seems to be tightly covered. My sister covered her mouth with her hand and showed Himekawa.——Who did it?" "rabbit." "rabbit?" "Yes, Rabbit, looks a bit like an astronaut." "Spaceman? What does it look like?" Himekawa couldn't understand what his sister was saying at all, so he pushed the drawing paper on the ground to his sister, asking her to draw it.While thinking about it, my sister picked up the brown color pen in her hand and drew on the blank space of the drawing paper.Himekawa was looking forward to the "astronaut" in his sister's mouth, so he stood up and went to his sister to wait for her to finish drawing.

What my sister drew is really a bunny face that looks like an astronaut.There are two long ears on the round face, maybe because of wearing a hat, the part above the forehead is painted brown, and the hat even covers the two ears.Under the big eyes, there are obvious dark circles, which looks very uncomfortable. "Huh?" Himekawa thought, "Sister, this rabbit..." He suddenly felt as if he had seen it.Not only have I seen this rabbit, but I am also very familiar with it. However, Himekawa at that time couldn't see through the truth of the rabbit. He just intuitively knew that it existed beside him in his mind, but he just couldn't grasp it accurately.

The sound of my mother turning on the faucet came from downstairs: "But, isn't this a dream?" The elder sister tilted her thin neck, as if she wanted to say something, but suddenly fell silent, and then stared blankly at Himekawa's nose. The topic of dreams ends here.My sister rolled up the drawing paper with the strange rabbit and stuffed it into the trash can. At that time, Himekawa was sleeping on the upper bunk of the bunk bed, and he thought about what he would do if he had the same dream as his sister sleeping below, and felt terrible for a while.It was only later that he gradually forgot about the dream.Himekawa still doesn't know the true face of that rabbit, and he can't figure it out no matter how hard he thinks about it.

No... is that really the case?Himekawa asked himself.Do you really not know?Don't you know the answer yourself?Don't you know the true face of the rabbit?Know, but just don't pretend you don't know at first, do you?