As kids grow older, many stop attending classes. They want to gather shells or board ships during that time. The school doesn’t stop kids who run to the sea as if gold is buried there.
But I’m different from those kids. I attended school very briefly when I was young, but I quickly quit since I’d be absent for three days after attending just one.
If I’m curious about the world outside the island, I read books. Sometimes I listen to Grandfather’s old stories.
What do you do?
Haven’t you ever felt so bored it was painful? Everywhere is a place I know well, which makes me feel distant and overwhelmed.
Would it have been better if you were here?
At least when I write letters to you, I often look more closely at places I’ve passed by mindlessly. Wondering how to explain them to a boy who’s never seen the sea.
It’s already night.
Sleep well.
January 10
From Asha]
[To the thoughtful Asha
Is it possible for children like us, who stay in one place all the time, not to yearn for the outside?
Even knowing that it’s not different enough to be distinctly divided as “outside,” I’ve always dreamed of places other than here.
From the time when snow-covered mountains no longer felt high, and everywhere I looked was a place I knew, I’ve been imagining beyond Kasoche.
I spread out the largest map I received as a birthday gift and trace winding paths out of Kasoche.
My family says I’m too young to go to foreign lands. Or they scare me by saying flashy and vain things might deceive me.
But, Asha.
Isn’t it too cruel to keep someone who grew up looking at pictures from all over the country within the village fence? My older brother went to the capital at a younger age than me!
Adults are always like that. They make excuses while doing whatever they want. They could at least make plausible excuses; they’re not even trying!
I guess they don’t want to put effort into lying.
I really love my family, but……
A snowstorm is raging, Asha.
Your letter was stuck to the window, flapping pitifully. I opened the window just a nail’s width to pull out the envelope. It was precarious.
I almost tore the letters you wrote with such care!
Even in this weather, your miracle firmly exerts its power. If it’s going to work anyway, it might as well develop the technique to open the window and come in directly.
I’m joking.
The snow piled on the envelope melts as soon as I enter the room, so I have to shake off the snow at once before the letter gets wet.
If I hesitate even a little, the “love” you wrote might become “candy” or “death.” Of course, you didn’t write such words.—Maybe you could write them once? No pressure.—
When snow storms like this, every day is the same. I eat breakfast later than usual, knit or read books brought in before the village closed, then eat lunch, and if I’m unlucky, have tea with someone I hate.
This is where the problem starts.
No, actually, the problem started from the first meal. The person I hate is as good as “family.”—At least that’s what adults think. My older brother seems to have no opinion—
Where should I begin?
First, the person I’m talking about is Grandfather’s nephew and Mom’s cousin. They’re an elder relative to me, but I don’t want to use such “familial” terms just because our blood is thinly mixed.
The name, well, let’s call them C.
C, who left Kasoche for another village in their youth, has a history of early business failure. Our kind mother invites C and C’s family to the mansion every winter when work dries up.
C complains every time they come, and mother is desperate to give them something.
The mansion is spacious, so other people can stay for months. Our family is fortunately living abundantly, so it’s natural to give to others.
So adults criticize my selfishness and arrogance whenever I show dislike.
That’s not the reason, but they silence me even if I try to explain a hundred times.
Asha, I.
I.
I hate that person.
When I was very young, that person mocked me for not resembling either Mom or Dad. They pulled at my silver hair, which was my pride, making me hate that fact.
They also said it was a big problem that I wasn’t clever like the first son or physically strong like the second son. They said if I grew up this way, I’d surely become an inadequate adult, that I was thoroughly ill-mannered.
That person laughed while saying so.
Adults told me to endure because that person said those things out of concern for me. They said the person wasn’t bad by nature, that they were actually fragile and deeply affectionate if you got to know them.
That’s why I’m afraid of that person, Asha.
That person makes me disappointed in the people I love.
Mom and Dad, Grandmother and Grandfather all love me. My brothers might look down on me a bit, but they also find me adorable.
But, Asha.
Loving and respecting are different. While claiming to cherish me most in the world, they don’t hesitate to put me in the same place with someone I say I hate.
Would an adult be able to laugh it off?
Am I being too sensitive?
I can barely swallow soup while facing that person. It’s even hard to look at children who resemble that person exactly.
If I had just quietly swallowed it, tea time would have ended harmoniously, but I couldn’t do that today. I ended up storming out in the middle.
Dad will probably call me before dinner. He’ll admonish me not to behave rudely and impulsively. Will you give me strength so that his kind advice doesn’t eat away at me?
I wish winter would end quickly.
With endless gratitude for your existence, Carol]
[To Carol
My reply is a bit late.
Normally, I would have pulled out letter paper as soon as I read your letter. Mixing answers to questions, things I wanted to say, and things I wanted to ask you in no particular order.
Sometimes missing one or two things.
But I couldn’t do that with this letter.
I said I would believe whatever you say. I promised last spring. Even if you package and edit yourself in some way, even if it’s far from the truth, I have no choice but to believe you.
Objectively speaking, there’s no way to judge the facts anyway.
This might sound a bit selfish, but I hoped the confession you shared was a lie. Because otherwise, it would be too sad.
No, I would be angry. Not sad.
Do you know that when you’re too angry, tears well up? But tears always seem like losing. In books, tears are always used as a symbol of weakness.
People who don’t cry are described as strong.
Having to be in the same space as a terrible person! It’s an unimaginable pain.
Do you know the sculptor Lazah? The genius sculptor who died a hundred years ago. That person lived fifty years with a spouse who terribly condemned and ignored them, then stabbed the spouse to death with a sculpting knife.
They spent the rest of their life in prison. Lazah’s final work remained forever incomplete.
I’m not saying to stab that person with a sculpting knife. Just that everyone should know how much it corners someone who has no choice but to breathe with someone they hate.
I’m angry that no one respects your suffering.
In fact, it’s something I can’t do anything about, technically the matter of a stranger I’ve never even seen, so I wonder why I’m expending so much mental energy.
Will it get better when we become adults?
I don’t know since I’m not an adult either, but one thing for sure is that even as adults, there will be times to cry.
My grandfather says so.
Even my grandfather, among the oldest in the village, sometimes shouts until his neck turns red—not at me—and sometimes sheds tears with trembling eyelids.—Though he tries not to show it in front of me.—
I can’t be certain, but if you smile at that person, isn’t it because you’ve given up? To both that consistently rude person and to your family who consistently blame you.
Laughing it off would improve the atmosphere.
But what’s the use of a good atmosphere when your insides are rotting?
Having ruined the mood a few times by fainting at celebrations, I know that the people who scold you in that situation had no problem while your insides were decaying.
In my case, it wasn’t my intention, and there weren’t particularly bad people involved. It’s not my fault that my body is weak, right?
So, feeling discomfort isn’t your fault either.
It must still be snowing heavily there. It has never snowed in Iota. Is it soft like cotton? Rough like sand?
I’ve seen snow “swirling so heavily that everything turns white” in various novels and travelogues, but I can’t easily imagine it.
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Regardless of whether his family was right or not, if he were my brother, I wouldn’t send him out of town either. I also left home at a young age, but as a family we decided that my brother absolutely had to stay in the family home until he finished university and found a job. This isn’t because I’m a perfect person and my brother is completely incompetent. Everyone makes mistakes, but some people’s mistakes can cost them their lives.