No one laughed.
Instead—
"...There's nothing pathetic about it."
The first to speak was Mahiru. The new hire who cried in the office bathroom every day, the biggest crybaby of them all. Tears were streaming down her face as she said it.
"I want to run away every day too. I don't want to go to work. But with me, it's just being weak. You kept working and working, for so long, until you hit your limit. That's... that's not running away."
"Mahiru."
"You made people happy, and you ended up empty. And still, here you are, making dinner for us."
Mahiru hiccupped through a sob.
"Of course you got tired. Of course you did..."
I couldn't say anything.
Rei gently rubbed Mahiru's back. Then she spoke in a low voice.
"...The reason we can run home to this house every night,"
Rei's eyes were wet too.
"is because you're someone who really, truly got tired, once, Mr. Manager. Because you understand how tired people feel. That's why we can breathe here."
That night, after the four of them had gone upstairs.
Alone, I opened the closet in the manager's room.
In the back, there was one more thing. A small box I'd never been able to open. An old candy tin that had been at the very bottom of the box of Tomi's belongings.
That first night, after I'd read her letter and cried and gotten back on my feet—the truth was, this tin was the one thing I hadn't been able to open.
What lay beyond the letter. What Tomi had truly left me, at the very end. I'd been afraid to look, all this time.
But tonight. Tonight, when I'd finally said it out loud—that I'd gotten tired of making people happy for a living.
With trembling fingers, I pried open the rusted lid.
Inside the tin was a single old notebook. Tomi's diary. Pages were torn here and there, and stains had bled through.
I opened to the last page. Shaky handwriting, apparently written not long before she died.
To Amane,
I still remember the day I took you in so clearly.
In the rain, with a face like a child waiting to be scolded, you sipped my plain rice porridge and cried.
Oh, I thought. This person has done nothing but give to others, all this time.
Giving and giving, until there's nothing left. And still unable to allow himself to receive anything from anyone.
I stopped turning the pages. My chest hurt.
How could she have seen everything so clearly?
That's why I left Komugi in your care.
I wanted you to make food for that little one, who has no words.
Without asking for anything back. Just for the life in front of you.
I hoped that, that way, you might find the joy of cooking again.
But, Amane,
even that isn't enough.
You will go on giving to others from here on, I'm sure.
Lighting up the nights of girls who've been hurt.
That is a very precious thing.
But I worry.
You know how to give,
but you don't know how to receive.
My fingers stopped on the page.
Someday, on a day when you're truly worn out,
please lean on someone.
Please say, "Help me."
May a day come when you receive something from someone,
and can cry and say, "Thank you."
The last line was written in slightly larger letters. As if it were the thing she'd most wanted to tell me.
May a day come when you can lean on someone.
I read that line over and over.
At my feet, Komugi rested his chin on my knee, looking worried. I stroked his golden head.
"...Tomi."
A hoarse voice slipped out of me.
"I still can't do that."
Leaning on someone. Saying "Help me." Not once in my life had I done anything like that.
Because I'm a person who gives. That's all I know how to be.
Outside the window, snow was quietly piling up.
Holding the notebook gently against my chest, I sat a long time that night, unable to turn out the light.
Morning didn't come.
To be precise, morning came. Outside the window, the snowlight made everything whiter than usual. But my body wouldn't get up.
It was when I opened my eyes under the covers that I thought, that's strange.
Usually, I wake before dawn. To make breakfast for the residents. A habit that had sunk into my body without my noticing.
But this morning. My body was heavy as lead, and even moving a finger was too much. When I put a hand to my forehead, it was clammy and hot.
"...Huh."
My voice came out hoarse. The back of my throat stung. A fever. And not a small one.
I tried to stand and the room spun. My vision tilted sharply.
This is bad. I have to make breakfast.
I thought it, but my body wouldn't listen.
Probably everything lately had piled up. The toll of putting on "that face from back then" for the first time in a long while, the night I'd seen Rei's mother out at the front door. The news about the proprietress. Reliving the past by saying it out loud for the first time. And the weight of the words Tomi had left me.
It had all come crashing down on me at once.
It felt the same as that night when something had gone pop. Only this time, there was nothing to throw into the sea, and nowhere to run.
Under the covers, I just closed my eyes. Just for a bit. Once I'd rested just a bit. That was what I'd meant to do.
"—Mr. Manager!"
Someone was shaking my shoulder. When I opened my eyes, Mahiru's face, on the verge of tears, was right there.
"Oh, thank goodness, you're awake...! You didn't come out even when it was time for breakfast... and you didn't answer when I knocked... I-I'm sorry, for coming in without asking."
The door to the manager's room was open. My territory. The room set apart, where residents almost never set foot. All four of them were standing there.
"N-no. I'm sorry."
I tried to sit up.
"Breakfast, right away—"
"Stay in bed!!"
Rei's sharp voice cut through the air. The voice she used to scold her subordinates at work. Before I knew it, I'd been pushed back down onto the futon.
"...You've got a fever."
Yume pressed the back of her hand to my forehead and went pale.
"A really high one. This is like, thirty-nine degrees."
"I-I'm fine. If I just rest a little—"
"You are not fine!!"
All four of them said it at once.