At some point, Mahiru, Yume, and Rui had come to stand in the doorway of the living room, holding their breath. They'd been listening the whole time, it seemed, from partway down the stairs.
All three of them were staring, equally dumbstruck.
"...Hey."
Yume was the first to speak.
"Who was that, just now...?"
"Huh?"
I blinked at her.
"Well, it was me."
"That's not what I mean! Your voice was a completely different person. You just shut her down, like, snap. And the law stuff, it just came pouring out. You can talk like that, Mr. Manager?"
"...I only said ordinary things, didn't I?"
The three of them exchanged looks. The kind of look that said it had not been ordinary.
At my feet, Komugi had finally started wagging his tail. As if to let us know the chill in the house had lifted.
I set the steaming cup in front of Rei.
"Here you go. Before it gets cold."
Her face was a wreck of tears, but even so, she wrapped both hands around the cup. I could see the tension drain from her shoulders at its warmth.
She took one sip.
"...It's warm."
That was all she murmured.
Her voice no longer sounded hollow.
"It's okay to step away."
Rei said it quietly, out of nowhere, on the night three days later.
After her mother left, Rei came back to herself, little by little.
The next day, she ate her meals properly. The day after that, she went in to work. She came home, kicked her shoes off any which way in the entryway, and collapsed onto the living room couch—the usual Rei.
And then, on the third night.
I was getting a hotpot ready when Rei came into the kitchen.
"Mr. Manager."
"Yes?"
"So. I called my mom... I actually called her."
My hand stopped, the ladle still in it.
"I told her, 'I'm staying here.' I told her, 'Thank you for worrying about me, but I decide my own life.'—Thirty-one years, and it was the first time I ever managed to say it."
Rei smiled a little. But the smile was still stiff.
"My voice was shaking the whole time I was saying it. My heart was pounding like crazy. —Honestly, it wasn't like I won or anything. Not at all."
She pinched the edge of her sleeve between her fingers.
"I just got past one thing that scared me. That's all it was. She hung up on me pretty fast. But—just being able to say it, somehow that was really..."
"It was."
"That it's okay to step away. That was the first time I ever felt it. Not hating her. Just—that it's okay to step away from her, as a separate person. Properly."
I nodded.
Her voice had shaken, and still she hadn't put down the receiver. That was surely the hardest part. You don't have to hate your family. You just take back the reins of your own life, only a little, into your own hands. For some people, even that much takes decades.
"Dinner's almost ready. Tonight's a hotpot."
"Hotpot?"
"Nightly hotpot. The simple kind, just pork and spinach. You can eat it every night and never get tired of it—that's why they call it nightly hotpot."
Rei laughed softly.
"Nightly hotpot at Nightlight. ...Yume said that once, didn't she? That they match."
"You remembered that, huh."
I found myself laughing along.
That night, all four of them gathered in the living room.
Around the clay pot: Mahiru, Yume, Rui, and Rei.
The pot, filled with kombu dashi, burbled gently. Thin slices of pork swished briefly through the broth. Spinach swirled through after them. Dipped in ponzu, then crammed into mouths, everyone huffing at the heat.
"Hot... but so good...!"
Mahiru squinted happily, puffing around her mouthful.
The vitamin B1 in the pork works on a tired body. The iron in the spinach helps it along. The steam lit the four faces softly.
"Rei, something to drink?"
When I asked, Rei thought for a moment and shook her head.
"Not tonight. I want to remember this sober. All of us, poking at a hotpot together like this."
At that, Yume teased her—"Ugh, what, don't make it sound all heartwarming"—and everyone laughed.
Beside the table, Komugi was gazing longingly up at the pot.
"Not for you, Komugi. Green onions and things like that are poison for dogs. I'll make you your own dinner later, I promise."
When I said that, Komugi gave a soft whine, with a look that might or might not have meant he understood. Seeing it, everyone laughed again.
The house that had gone cold was warm all the way through again.
When the pot was about half gone.
Rui set down her spoon and suddenly looked at me. She was someone who watched people for a living. Her eyes were quieter than usual.
"Hey, Mr. Manager."
"Yes?"
"You've barely eaten any of your own, have you? This whole time."
I blinked, the ladle still in my hand.
"Haven't I?"
"You haven't. You keep filling everyone else's bowls. But the one in front of you is still empty."
At that, I looked at my bowl. Sure enough, it had hardly gone down. While I was watching everyone else eat, I'd apparently forgotten to eat myself.
"Oh, you're right. Well then, I'll have some."
I said it and took a bite of pork.
But Rui's eyes were still on me.
"...And also."
"Yes?"
"Since that day—the day Rei's mom came—you've been pushing yourself a bit, haven't you, Mr. Manager?"
The air in the living room shifted, just slightly.