𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘴𝘪𝘯.
The first sin was disobeying Papa and sneaking out to eavesdrop on his conversation with his friend. At first, I didn't quite understand what they were saying. Antianxiety meds? Panic attacks?
They were difficult words, but one thing was certain: Papa is sick.
I knew he tried not to show his struggles in front of me. But I had no idea how serious it truly was. Uncle Hitokawa's reaction told me everything I needed to know. His voice—a mixture of confusion, tension, worry, and anger—was the response of someone who truly understood Papa's condition. It far exceeded the scope of what I could normally comprehend.
—For a guy who hates being bothered, you're throwing away your youth to raise a kid...
I heard Uncle Hitokawa's muttered words clearly. I knew he meant no malice; it was a sigh of frustration born from concern. But I could not simply let it pass. To borrow a phrase from the novels I read, that voice became a dagger that pierced my heart with perfect precision.
Ah, it's because of me.
Because he's raising me.
Because of me, Papa has become sick like that.
That was my second sin. I was breaking Papa. Slowly, gradually—so subtly that I might never have noticed if someone else hadn't said it aloud. It was my fault. It was all my fault.
Even though I knew Papa was coming back upstairs after seeing his friend off, I found it hard to control my expression. No, if I look like this, he'll find out. I'll only make things harder for him. I hurried to the mirror and practiced my usual face and tone. It worked better than expected, and I managed to let him pass without suspicion.
My third sin was lying to Papa to make him go to work. I couldn't just sit here. I had to do something. I didn't need the "absolution" of being a child who shouldn't have to feel responsibility. If I made Papa suffer, then I must be the one to lighten his load.
So, I resolved to commit my fourth sin.
I knew that if Papa ever found out, a simple spanking wouldn't be the end of it... but I went ahead with it anyway. I searched Papa's room. It didn't take long to find the map he always carried when he secretly left the house at dawn. Spreading it out, I saw red 'X' marks scattered in various places.
This was it.
The places Papa visited for my sake—the places from which he returned with his spirit in tatters.
The places where 'Death' resided... the very thing eating Papa alive.
I put on the backpack Papa had bought me for picnics. And for the first time, I stepped out into the world alone, without him.
Time was a luxury she did not have. At the very least, she had to return home before Papa finished work. While Koma traveled by bicycle, Eto had no such means. Her current assets totaled 4,670 yen. It was a large sum for a five-year-old, but Eto, who did not yet fully grasp the value of money, simply brought everything she found after scouring the house.
The moment she stepped outside, confusion seized her. It was her first time going further than the playground without Papa, and a wave of anxiety washed over her. There was so much Eto didn't know about the world; her common sense was a patchwork of incomplete information gleaned from books. She lacked vital, practical experience.
For Eto, who couldn't read a bus timetable or a train map, finding a suicide hotspot alone seemed virtually impossible. However, there was one fact that could not be overlooked.
Eto was cunning.
"How do I get to this place?" she asked, boarding a bus at the stop and speaking to the driver.
She didn't understand schedules or routes, but a professional in the field certainly would. The bus driver, who had been about to pull away, looked flustered when a child suddenly thrust a map at him, but he soon offered a kind explanation.
"I don't know why you'd want to go to a deserted mountain path, but... there's a bus stop right near there. Wait here and take bus number 22. And then..."
Memorizing the driver's instructions, she boarded the number 22 bus that arrived ten minutes later. When the new driver asked, "Where are your parents?" Eto, at a loss for an answer, simply bolted deeper into the bus.
She lingered around the stop like a predator waiting for prey. Soon, she saw a woman with two children boarding the number 22 bus and slipped in behind them. The woman paid for her children, and Eto, sticking close, paid her fare immediately after. The woman didn't seem to notice, and the bus driver, seeing Eto pay her own way, didn't pay much mind. He likely assumed she was the woman's precocious daughter who wanted to pay for herself.
Disembarking at her desired stop, Eto consulted the map and began walking up the road leading into the mountains. According to the map, the suicide spot was at the end of this road, atop a sheer cliff.
Will there be someone there? There has to be...
With her heart fluttering between worry and tension, Eto arrived at the cliff after a long trek.
And... there was.
A worn-out car stood nearby. A guardrail, rusted in places from the wind and rain. Beyond it lay a dizzying precipice with no end in sight. Sitting nonchalantly on that guardrail, staring down into the abyss as if she didn't fear it—or perhaps as if she were merely enjoying the thrill—was a woman.
"𝘍𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘩𝘩𝘩𝘩𝘩𝘩..."
A long sigh, heavy with nothing but exhaustion, escaped the woman's lips, followed by a plume of white smoke. From Eto's angle, she couldn't see it, but the woman held a nearly finished cigarette in one hand. Eto, whose sense of smell was acutely sensitive, loathed the scent of tobacco, but she endured it and walked toward the woman.
"Hm?"
Sensing a presence, the woman turned around. She appeared to be in her mid-to-late twenties. She wore heavy makeup and had a piercing in one ear. Her eyes were as sharp as a razor, but perhaps because of the languid air surrounding her, she didn't seem particularly frightening. Her hair, dyed a vibrant vermillion, cascaded down to her hips, brushing against the guardrail where she sat. She wore tight jeans and a tank top that left her navel exposed.
Puzzled by Eto's presence—so entirely out of place in such a location—the woman tilted her head.
"Kid, are you lost?"
Her voice, likely husky from years of smoking, reached Eto's ears.
"No. I'm not lost."
I've arrived exactly where I wanted to be, she thought, swallowing the second half of the sentence.
The woman stared at Eto for a moment before seemingly losing interest. She pulled out a fresh cigarette and lit it. Taking a deep drag, she exhaled a sigh even longer than the last.
"...Hurry home. This isn't a place for a child like you."
"Is it a place for you, Auntie?"
"Auntie? Watch your mouth, brat. I'm only twenty-six."
"That's older than my Papa."
"...Is it? Fine, call me whatever you want."
Seeming to have run out of arguments, the woman stopped correcting the title. Eto walked up beside her and rested her hands on the guardrail, peering over the edge. It was a dizzying height that almost made her groan.
"Kid. It's dangerous to lean on that."
"Why are you trying to die, Auntie?"
The woman's eyes widened, startled by the question as Eto kept her gaze fixed on the abyss. Perhaps it was the shock of hearing such words from a child who looked like an innocent, sheltered toddler.
"Who's dying? I'm... just in the middle of deciding whether to or not."
"Why?"
Eto turned away from the cliff and looked at the woman. The woman seemed to debate whether she should answer the child seriously. She chewed on her cigarette in silence for a moment before spinning around to face Eto on the guardrail.
"My life isn't exactly a bed of roses. Sometimes I think it'd just be better to end it. That's why I came looking for a place where I could be sure of the result. ...But turns out, dying requires more courage than I thought."
"If you die, Auntie, won't there be anyone who is sad?"
"Who knows? Maybe a few would be sad...? But even so, a human dying is just something that happens. There's no helping it."
𝘍𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘩𝘩𝘩𝘩𝘩𝘩...
The white smoke trailed out for a long moment before vanishing into nothingness. The woman stared at it blankly, as if it were a metaphor for a human life. Then, returning to reality, she scratched her head and grumbled to herself.
"I don't know why I'm telling a brat like you all this.... Anyway, what are you doing here? Did you come here to die, too?"
"No. I came to watch you die, Auntie."
"...What?"
The woman blinked, cleaning her ear as if she hadn't understood what she'd just heard. Eto took a few steps back from the guardrail and faced her.
Should she say it? She had to.
She couldn't hesitate now, not after coming this far. If she felt herself wavering, she would burn her bridges. Eto took a deep breath.
To push herself to the edge, to force herself into action, she gave voice to the word Papa had strictly warned her never to say.
"𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘢 𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭."