Chapter 59 |
On a full moon night three days after the extermination of the Oni.
My father and I were moonbathing on the porch.
“Is your body, okay?”
“Yeah, I got it healed.”
After that day, my father spent most of his days in bed.
It seems that the doctor who treated him, whom I had heard was the Goken family’s resident doctor, had told him that even though he looked healthy and could go to the bathroom and eat by himself, he needed to stay in bed to regain his strength.
If you look at my dad as he is sitting on a cushion on the porch, he looks as healthy as he has claimed to be.
Only the cast on his left arm indicates that Dad is an injured man.
So, it was the first time since that day that my father and I talked alone.
My dad put his right hand on his left arm and gave me an indescribably pained look.
It wasn’t a mid-life crisis. He must have been feeling itchy in his cast.
“I’ll go get that.”
Not waiting for my dad’s reply, I grabbed a thin stick that was in his bedroom.
Dad thanked me with a few words, “Thank you,” and inserted the stick into the gap between the cast and began scratching his arm.
I’d never worn a cast before, so I don’t know, but it looks inconvenient even to the casual observer.
It seems to itch, it takes a lot of time to get ready to take a shower, and he can’t turn over, so he is having quite a difficult time.
I glance at my father’s profile.
He is looking at the moon with the usual sullen expression on his face, as if he has gotten over the itch on his arm.
Although this is his time to relax with his son, he doesn’t bring up any topics of conversation to me.
Rather, he looks as if he is wondering what to talk about.
The residential area has already gone to sleep, and the moonlight in the lonely garden of our house creates a particularly somber scene.
The silence is created by the silence of our conversation, and the occasional night breeze takes away the heat from my body.
My breath turns slightly gray, reminding me of the approach of winter.
A thin cloud momentarily covered the moon, and I was submerged in my thoughts alone.
All I can think about is the man sitting next to me.
This impossibly awkward guy who put his body on the line for me.
He’s trying to be a cool father and not let the Kyobe family name drag me down.
It’s a bit of a shame that people have such high expectations of me.
I’m just making the most of my reincarnation advantage to get a head start, and I’m scared that in the future the kids of my age might catch up to me.
Well, …… yeah …… yeah, that’s right.
He’s a man with a lot of no-no’s, such as pushing for an ordeal that almost killed me right after my reincarnation, suddenly squandering our savings, not reporting back, not being very affectionate, etc., but I’ll withdraw the title of a shitty father.
To be honest, until recently I had a hard time accepting this man as my father.
As a man, it is …… something that makes me feel reluctant to acknowledge a man who is much younger than I was in a previous life as my …… father. This may be more of an instinct than a logical response.
It was even more so because I have in my heart the greatness of my father in my previous life.
But, but.
Despite his awkwardness, this man showed his love for me.
He showed his coolness to me so that I would not be ashamed of him as my father.
He taught me and guided me in order to teach the next generation.
His back, which is physically bigger than mine, now looks bigger than it really is.
I guess he’s been through a lot of struggles that I, who’ve never raised a child, don’t understand.
So, well, yeah, it’s time to admit it.
“Dad.”
“What …….”
I’ve told him this rather infrequently, so it’s a little embarrassing to say it like this.
But, well, a father should be rewarded for his hard work.
“Thanks for everything.”
“…… ah.”
Silence falls once again.
The thin clouds have somehow been swept away, and the full moon that has risen high in the sky dispels the night darkness and illuminates our garden, which is far from elegant.
Perhaps it is because I have finished saying something that is awkward to say, but the scenery looks different than before.
The shadows created by the moonlight created an artistic scenery, which fascinated me very much.
Just gazing at it in a daze seems to activate the right side of my brain.
If I was alone, that would have been fine.
“By the way, what’s a scourge? That Oni seemed like it was glowing.”
“It’s a type of metal called magnesium. That formation has the effect of pseudo-imparting its properties to the ground–”
After all, Onmyojutsu is the most appropriate topic for us father and son to talk about.
Maybe this kind of relationship is also good.
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