"Could you say what you just told me in front of your mom?" I asked.
"…Sure. It might even make her happy. She'd say, 'My, Saki, you've
grown up.'"
"That's some way to raise a child."
"Isn't it the same in your family? Wasn't your dad happy when you did
the same thing?"
"No way. I know Dad's a little hopeless, but he'd still be sad if his kid
did something like that… Hey, how come you're talking like I already do
it?"
"Huh? You went to work just yesterday…to your part-time job."
"…My part-time job?"
"Yeah, your part-time job."
There was an odd silence between us.
I didn't know when we'd started misunderstanding each other, and I
wordlessly tried to trace back the dots I had connected to form the wrong
line.
Ayase also seemed to have realized we weren't on the same page and
narrowed her eyes.
"What did you think I was talking about?" she asked.
"I thought you were talking about expensive off-the-books escort
services."
"…Huh?"
Her voice was cold. One of the coldest I'd ever heard.
"Oh, I get it. Because I said I needed to sell myself, right?"
"I'm sorry! I was just confused!"
We went over the misunderstanding, and by the time we had it all
hashed out, we were both hungry and moved to the dining room.
We reheated the traditional dinner that Akiko had prepared and helped
ourselves. The meal consisted of stir-fried vegetables, miso soup, and fried
fish.
We had both taken a sip of soup when Ayase made an unhappy sound.
I'd really insulted her with the mix-up earlier. There was no room for
excuses, and I folded my hands together and bowed in apology.
She sighed deeply.
"Stop that. I know people talk about me. But unfortunately, with the
way I look, it's a common misconception. It's my own fault, too, for using
the rumors to keep away people I don't want to deal with."
"Ayase…"
It didn't sound like she was simply putting on a brave face, but the fact
she seemed so used to it only spoke to how bad it really was. I couldn't
help but imagine the level of gossip and prejudice she'd been subject to.
But there was something I found strange.
Ayase seemed to objectively understand that people's misconceptions
stemmed from her fashion choices. But if she knew that, I had to wonder
why she still chose to dress the way she did.
She must have realized what I was thinking, because she stopped
eating her vegetable stir-fry and spoke.
"I don't blame you for thinking I'm strange or for wondering why I
still dress like this even though I know it causes me problems."
"Well…I guess I am a little curious."
"It's my armor."
"Huh?"
"No one enters a battlefield unarmed, right? For me, outfits like this are
my armor for getting by in society."
She pointed a finger at one of her ears. A fancy earring sparkled at her
fingertip, snugly fit into her pierced ear. This was the kind of thing only
some young women, bad girls or not, would have the courage to try. It was
a sort of junior high rite of passage, bound to divide opinion between the
younger and older generations. She would have been a hero to her peers,
while the adults admonished her.
As a girl grew up, the attitude toward getting one's ears pierced
changed, and for some reason, it ceased to be a problem. The morality
around it was baffling.
It was only a piece of metal, no more than a few millimeters in size.
But boy, did it define girls in some complicated ways. When she showed it
to me, I spoke without thinking.
"Your armor?" I said. "Does it give you extra defense points? Or
maybe it lets you attack twice in one turn."
"Pfft… Hilarious."
She'd thought I was funny.
Those were just words I'd picked up from games and novels based on
games, stored in the shallowest part of my brain. They had slipped out because I couldn't keep up with what she was saying.
"Well, you're half-right. The point is to boost both my attack and defense."
"Isn't that a little violent? Fantasy novels are one thing, but the real
world is pretty peaceful."
"There are battles here, too. They just happen out of sight."
Ayase sounded like a storybook character trying to draw me into some
conflict in a parallel world. A plain, ordinary guy like me, Yuuta Asamura,
led into a world of bloody, supernatural battles…but of course, that wasn't
what was happening. I had decent grades in Japanese class and could
understand Ayase was just using a sophisticated rhetorical expression.
When we'd taken the plastic wrap off the vegetable stir-fry, I'd
removed the note from Akiko and placed it on a corner of the table. It read,
Saki and Yuuta, heat this and enjoy it together, and Ayase glanced
over at it.
"Did you see Mom today?"
"Yeah. She was leaving when I came home."
"She looks pretty when she goes to work, right?"
"Oh, um, well. Yeah."
I knew I sounded evasive. I had no idea how to compliment a woman
who had become my stepmother in front of her flesh and blood.
Ayase lowered her voice to a whisper and looked into my eyes. Her
tone had changed, as if she was about to tell me a ghost story…
"But you know, she never went to college."
"Oh, I see," I said, unmoved. That was nothing out of the ordinary.
Ayase looked surprised.
"Doesn't that make you think of anything?" she asked.
"…No, it doesn't."
"Never went to college, pretty, works in a bar. What do you get when
you combine those three elements together?"
"A woman who never went to college, is pretty, and works in a bar, I
guess?"
What the heck was she talking about? Sure, I had certain images in my
head related to each of those things, but just combining them didn't add
anything new to the mix.
"Hmm. You're so neutral, Asamura," she muttered before taking a bite
of her vegetables.
Was it the pitiful delusions of a virgin that made me sense a whiff of
pleasure hidden behind her relaxed expression? I wasn't familiar enough
with the way girls thought to be sure I was wrong, which was frustrating.
"I think that's a great way to be," she said
"I'm lucky you're so considerate of virgins like me."
You didn't have to be a mind reader to communicate effectively; you
just had to be honest about what you were thinking.
But Ayase's gaze clouded over in an instant. I felt a chill down my
spine. The "virgin" comment had been too much, I realized. But it didn't
seem like she intended to call me out for my off-color remark. Instead, she
spoke in an even more serious tone.
"I know what people think—people who aren't neutral. They see a
pretty girl who never went to college working in a bar and think she's a
stupid woman who uses her appearance as a weapon to make shady
money. I've seen people look down on Mom like that many times."
"That's nonsense."
True, there might be some general correlation between one's education
and intellectual abilities. But it was far from an absolute means of
measuring an individual's capability. Maybe that kind of thing was
accurate on a macro scale, but there were bound to be exceptions when one
looked at specific cases. There was a big difference between saying,
"Yeah, people are often like that," and "So she must be like that, too."
Anyone who couldn't understand something so simple must be stupid,
indeed.
…Or so a book Yomiuri once loaned me had said. It was amazing how
much impact a book could have on you. Of course, I was only a high
school kid, and I wasn't about to pretend to know all about life, but I got
carried away and reflexively parroted the values of some book I'd read.
When she heard those borrowed words, however, Ayase's face flushed
a little. She leaned forward and replied with gusto.
"Right? Total nonsense!"
"Y-yeah."
"And people like that are really underhanded, too. They use logic to
back you into a corner."
"How so?"
"A smart woman who doesn't look good is called a despicable snob.
Someone with a nice appearance and no brains got wherever she is by
sleeping around. If a beautiful woman relies on a man, she's told she has it
easy because she can sponge off some guy. But if she tries hard to make it
on her own, she's pitiful because she can't find a man to take care of her."
"Oh…I see. Yeah, people do say those things."
"I bet boys have stuff like that, too."