Ms. Makabe was quiet for a while.
Then she put down her spoon and looked at me as though I were something curious.
"...You don't tell me to hang in there, do you."
I thought about it a little.
"Would you like me to?"
"...No."
She shook her head. She sniffled and scooped up some more rice porridge.
"I don't want to hear it. I'm already working hard enough."
"Exactly."
"Yeah."
"Then I won't say it."
Just then, the corners of her mouth softened, ever so slightly. Her face still a mess of tears, she smiled anyway.
"...That's a sneaky answer."
"Was it sneaky?"
"It's sneaky. If you'd told me to hang in there, I'd probably have cried even harder. It's hard because I can't keep going. Everyone thinks they're encouraging me, but they just corner me."
"I'm not very good at encouraging people."
"You're not bad at it."
She set down her spoon and gazed at the steaming pot.
"This is so encouraging. And you haven't said a single word."
Having polished off the rice porridge, Ms. Makabe looked down at the empty clay pot and murmured.
"...There was ginger in this, wasn't there."
"There was. It warms you up."
"I knew it."
She set down her spoon.
"Mr. Manager, who are you, really?"
I didn't have an answer to that question. So, as always, I just smiled and let it slide.
"Just a house manager who lives with a dog."
At my feet, Komugi gave a yawn as if in agreement.
Seeing that, Ms. Makabe laughed a little again.
Just as she was about to go back to her room, she turned around partway up the stairs.
"Um, Mr. Manager."
"Yes."
"Tomorrow... no, I guess it's today already. There's some material I want to look into. I'm going to make full use of the Wi-Fi you let me borrow."
"Go right ahead. It's blazing-fast."
"Yeah. I know."
With that, she disappeared upstairs.
At the time, I hadn't realized. That the "material" she was about to look into was posts from an account she'd never heard of, accusing her.
Or that the next day, those posts would come walking right up to Nightlight's front door.
"Merely being similar doesn't make it plagiarism."
The voice wasn't loud. If anything, it was lower than usual. But with that one sentence, the air at the front door froze over.
"She has a dated record of her work. Shall we talk about evidence?"
Let me go back a little.
Around noon that day, Ms. Makabe came rushing into the kitchen, pale. The hand holding her phone was shaking.
"Mr. Manager. I'm... they're saying I'm a plagiarist."
"Calm down. Have a seat."
I pulled out a chair and gave her some barley tea. She sat, but couldn't take her eyes off the screen.
"Another artist in the same genre... says I plagiarized their work. They've been posting about it on social media nonstop. They have a lot of followers, and it's already spreading."
Her voice was pitched high.
"They say the setup is similar. And, yes, there are parts that are a little similar. But I came up with it myself... but it's true that they're similar, so I just don't know how to push back anymore."
She held out her phone so I could see the screen. Short posts lined up one after another.
It's plagiarism. I have proof. Can't believe a famous artist would do this. Please share. In quote posts, panels from her work and panels from the man's work were pasted side by side. The replies were filled with the words of total strangers.
"It's been shared, like, twenty thousand times already."
Her voice was trembling.
"Hundreds of people I don't know are calling me a thief. I can't answer each one of them, and I know if I answer back it'll just blow up more. So all I can do is watch."
Her thin fingers were clutching the glass of barley tea. A faint trace of ink was still under her nails.
"They're telling me to take down what I drew. I know that if I take it down, it'll be the same as admitting it. But if this gets any bigger, there'll be no point in being anonymous. People will find out who's drawing it. And then I'll..."
Her words broke off there.
She was someone for whom one bit of malice stayed in her head more than nine kindnesses. And now that was raining down on her, multiplied hundreds of times.
"Ms. Makabe."
I looked her in the eyes.
"You didn't steal anything, did you."
"...I didn't steal anything."
"Then that's all there is to it."
Just as I said that, the doorbell rang.
When I opened the door, a man I didn't know was standing there. In his thirties, maybe. Neatly dressed, but with a hard, fixed look in his eyes. Behind him, two companions holding up their phones.
"Rui Makabe lives here, right? I need to talk to her."
Showing up unannounced while filming. A common tactic.
I kept Ms. Makabe behind me and took one step forward. I wasn't letting him upstairs. I wasn't letting her past the front hall. Where I stood alone drew the line.
"What business do you have with one of our residents?"
"The plagiarism. She ripped off my work. I came to demand an apology and for her to take her work down. It's a legitimate protest."
The man rattled on.
"The setup is exactly the same. The protagonist's situation, the world. It can't be a coincidence. She stole my ideas. That's unforgivable."
Behind my back, Ms. Makabe caught her breath.
"Hey, Ms. Makabe. Could you come out? I want to talk to you face to face."
The man craned his neck, trying to peer inside.
"Are you running away? You can't come out because you've got something to hide, right? Have you seen social media? Everyone's furious. Your fans are already leaving you. You'd better apologize while you still can. It's for your own good."
"For your own good."
When those words came out, something inside me went quiet, all at once.