Chapter 56 Part III, Section 57: Cicadas on the Eighth Day (57)

"Does Xiaoai want to take a bath too?" Kaoru asked.Jiu Mei, who was named Estelle, is called Xiao Ai by everyone here. "Let me wash Lika's hair." "No, mom will wash it for me." "Yo, such a big name." Kumi put her hand under Kaoru's armpit and lifted her up high, but immediately put Kaoru down and said, "Wow, I can't hold you anymore and play fly high." There is no one in the bathroom.We soaked in the bath side by side.Kumi clasped her hands and splashed water, and Kaoru laughed happily. "You haven't contacted the child?" I asked, and Kumi shook her head silently.

"Kumi, are you going to stay here forever?" I asked quietly after confirming that no one would come in.Kumi didn't answer, her hands continued to splash like water guns. "Jumi, do you remember the first time this child crawled? Jiumi, the moment this child stood up for the first time, when he learned to speak for the first time, I couldn't even see it with my own eyes. It was all about school. The staff said. I came here because I had nowhere to go, and I didn’t think about leaving, but I felt very lonely when I thought that if I stayed here, I wouldn’t even be able to see the child’s growth.”

I muttered to myself.Kumi, who came here by car on the same day as me, always made me feel a little sympathetic.Dare to say to Kumi what you can't say in front of others.Kumi also pretended not to think deeply or assert herself, but she often confides when we are alone together.Although there is an unwritten rule not to talk to each other about our own life experience internally, the two of us, like companions we meet on a journey, tell us bit by bit where we were born, where we grew up, and what we did before.Kumi was born on a small island in the Seto Inland Sea and came to Tokyo at the age of eighteen. She likes to draw. It is said that she was studying illustration school while working.She seems to have met her ex-husband at the printing company where she worked, and they got married at the age of twenty-four.Although I didn't mention the main point, I also confided my real life experience to Kumi.I told her that I was born in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture. Like Kumi, I came to Tokyo at the age of eighteen. After graduating from a women's university, I worked like ordinary people and fell in love with my married boss.The baby-faced Kumi was only two years younger than me, and the mention of a disco or coffee bar immediately brought up names we all knew.In AngelHome, which is far away from Tokyo and isolated from the outside world, talking about Penguinsbar⑩ and Peytonplace coffee house seems to be talking about the past of traveling abroad a long time ago.

But I didn't let Kumi know the real reason why I stayed here, and I didn't know what Kumi planned for the future.Not because it's strictly forbidden to talk about it here, but because I'm a little scared to say it. "Lika, I'll wash it for you, come here." Kaoru, who originally said to let her mother wash, obediently let Kumi out of the bath and stood in front of the faucet.Kumi lathered up the shared sponge and washed Kaoru carefully.Although her hair had turned back to black, Kumi's facial features were still childish, and she suddenly looked like a loving mother.