Adachi to Shimamura - Volume SS1 - Chapter 29

Dream of the Day

THE FIRST TIME I set eyes on my wife, she was walking amid bamboo trees, covered in so many leaves that I half-wondered whether she’d stuck them all to herself on purpose. As she later explained, she’d been exploring the forest surrounding an extravagant mansion belonging to a wealthy local family—to whom she had no relation whatsoever. 

I still remembered the way she looked back then, dressed in her school uniform, grinning from ear to ear. She had the kind of charm that could lift your heart, and to this day, her smile remained every bit as bright.

Many years had passed since then, but we still lived together, joined by two daughters…and an alien. Life works in strange ways, I thought wistfully. One of those daughters would soon leave the nest for good. 

“Hmm…”

“Huh? What’s got you down, my man?” Catching sight of me, my wife walked into the living room. Water dripped from her chin, suggesting that she’d just finished washing her face after me. “Need me to liven things up around here?”

“That’d be a great help,” I replied, although in most cases, she was the only person who really found her shenanigans entertaining.

She sat down beside me, resting her arm on my shoulder with a smirk. “Come on. Lay it on me. At this point, nothing would surprise me. Well, unless it’s worse than quitting your job to go be a woodcutter.”

“As far as I recall, I’ve never once managed to surprise you. I was just…reminiscing about when I proposed to you.”

“Oh.” She furrowed her brow. “A bittersweet memory, eh?” 

Nodding absently, she looked away from me, her eyes darting all over the room. 

Oh, you. As fearless as she might’ve seemed to anyone else, my wife was woefully out of her comfort zone when it came to serious heart-to-heart conversations. In that sense, our eldest was the spitting image of her mother. My wife didn’t seem to realize that, though; ­instead, she insisted that Hougetsu took after me. Really, if anyone in this family was as laid-back as I was, it was our youngest. 

“I know you’re allergic to this sort of thing, so for your sake, I’ll keep it brief.”

“All righty.”

“Back then, your response to ‘Will you marry me?’ was ‘Sure, that works,’ and… Well, to this day, I sometimes wonder what other options you were considering at the time.”

Had her heart been drawn in more than one direction? Were there other paths in front of her? It was obviously far too late to turn back, but I still found myself reflecting on that.

She cocked her head nearly ninety degrees, like a cartoon character. “What nonsense are you babbling about now?”

“‘Nonsense’? Sheesh!”

“Hold on a minute. I’ll try to remember. Uhh…we were…at a fancy restaurant with a great view of the city lights, right? Did we order carpaccio?” 

Her recollection of the moment was so utterly off base, it was actually appalling. “You know what? Forget it.”

“Just give me a minute! Other options, other options… No, that was back in high school, so that probably wasn’t it…” 

Muttering to herself, my wife squinted at the far wall. Yeah, there’s no way she actually remembers. She had enough trouble as it was just getting people’s names. As aggressively friendly as she could be, she might not actually care too much. 

After a full minute spent wrestling with the past, she grinned—and gave up. “Whatever dream I had back then belongs to the girl I used to be, not the woman I am now.”

“That’s a very theatrical way of saying ‘Sorry, honey, I don’t remember.’”

“Okay, okay. I’m sooorry!”

“It’s fine. Really.” All that mattered was that, in the end, she’d chosen to marry me. “I was also thinking about Hougetsu.” 

“Hougetsu! Do tell!” She was all too eager to change the subject.

“Well…” 

Our eldest was moving out…to go live with her girlfriend. The thought was dizzying: Our daughter was not only in a romantic relationship, but with another woman, no less. It had come as a shock to me at first. But when I saw how happy she looked, and how much more energy she had, I knew she must’ve found someone truly special. 

Now, I knew a few things about this girlfriend of hers, but I’d never really spoken with her myself. And, as Hougetsu’s father, I felt I’d better not sit idly by. 

“Shouldn’t we get to know this young lady? Or her parents? Am I overreacting?”

“Aha. So you’re dying for the deets on our future in-laws!” I’d never said that, but maybe my wife felt that the primary function of such milestone events was purely sating one’s curiosity. “I’m on it.” 

The flash of her pearly whites suggested that she’d struck upon an amusing idea. She always wore that smile when she thought up a new dream for the day and decided to make it come true. Every time I saw it, I fell in love all over again. 

In a blink, the conversation had progressed from our daughter moving out to our daughter getting married, and now we were arranging to meet her girlfriend’s family too.

“What type of carpaccio did we have that night, anyway?”

There was no carpaccio, dear!