Chapter 6 Section VI

I looked down at my mother's painting, unable to make a sound. The man and woman standing in the blooming mountain white bamboo. This man—who is it? We returned to Tokyo the day after the mountain white bamboos were in full bloom.So this must have been the scene that day. I imagine.When I returned to the villa that day, my mother was outside.Are you lying when you tell me you went to the hardware store?Of course, the hardware store did go - because she had the bag with that clumsy tool in it.But my mother didn't come home directly from the hardware store, but from Mizunarabayashi.My imagination spreads silently from the soles of my feet like cold air.Mother saw it—she saw it.

what did you see? Who did you see and what did you do? "……mom." Mother put the colored pencils on the table, rubbed the drawing paper with both hands, and began to hum with her nose, with an innocent smile on her face.While singing, she suddenly raised her head and turned her gaze to the calendar on the wall. I also looked at the calendar and felt relieved. "Today is……" I finally understood my misunderstanding. Looking down at the knees, the colored paper that my mother cut several times was scattered on the tatami. "Isn't this the flower of the mountain white bamboo?"

I picked up the drawing paper from my mother's desk. Mother narrowed her eyes, tilted her head slightly, and replied in a low voice, "Rain." "Did you forget it?" Like a six or seven-year-old child, the mother smiled. Simultaneously start singing: I completely forgot that today is Qixi Festival. When I was young, my mother always made plain noodles for dinner on Qixi Festival.My mother told me that the plain noodles of Qixi Festival are likened to the Milky Way in the sky and the threads woven by the Weaver Girl. "You always decorated bamboo leaves when you were a child..."

Yes, my mother always picked bamboo leaves from the park and decorated the windows of this house.Then, she deftly cut the colored paper to make decorations, lanterns, streamers, etc., and hung them on the bamboo leaves. "It rained once..." Mother's eyes returned to the drawing paper.Lots of bamboo leaves.The light green dots are not flowers, but rain.The men and women who are together are Cowherd and Weaver Girl. I remember now. One Qixi Festival when I was in elementary school, it started to rain lightly.In order to hang the bamboo leaves decorated with hanging ornaments outside the window, my mother and I went out under the umbrella.At that time, my mother told me the name of the rain that fell on Qixi Festival.

I didn't know how to write the three Chinese characters "Saleiyu" until I grew up. ——That was parting tears.The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl wept sadly because they were separated—— At that time, the boy who nodded with relish and looked at the water droplets falling on the pale green bamboo leaves, after a long time, now holds his head with white hair intertwined, and lives in the memory of sin that cannot be erased.The touch at that time—the touch of grabbing her head and smashing it against the trunk of the Mizuna tree countless times on the path after her father left.The beating sound of the heart reaches deep in the ears.Her blood-stained face slid over my body as it collapsed.Her black eyes twitched. She looked at me and said something, but she couldn't make a sound. The blood from her forehead and nose pooled in her mouth, making a splashing sound when she rinsed her mouth.Snow-white thighs were exposed under the half-rolled skirt.

The father who died in front of the work machine.A suicide note placed next to the cushion.A suicide note that I tore up and threw away.There was no specific thing written on it, and my father just took all the responsibility on himself for some reason.I can understand the literal meaning at a glance.Father knew I was coming after he was gone.Knowing that his son had a relationship with his lover, and killed the other party in a manic and childish state of mind. "mom--" I yelled ambiguously towards my mother's back, my voice was hoarse, as if I had returned to the ignorant and ignorant era that had just ushered in the voice change period.But the real me is nothing more than a murderer who has ruined her life and my own life, and is already showing signs of aging.

"I'm going to pick bamboo leaves." Outside the window, a white butterfly flew by, as if enjoying the summer sun, as if looking for a playmate.Behind the green belt of the children's park, the boy in the yellow T-shirt is still hiding patiently, spying on the movements of the "ghost" while moving uneasily. Thirty years after that, there will no longer be any "ghosts" who come to look for me.