episode_0004

The sound of birds chirping cuts through the still night air. Looking up at the sky, there is a bluish satellite that is similar in size to the moon I used to see in the night sky where I used to live. Thinking back to the constellations I learned about in my astronomy club a long time ago, the stars I can see in the night sky here are completely different from those I saw in my previous life.

As the conviction that this place was a completely different place from Earth grew stronger, a strange cosmic excitement came over him. Leaning on his mother’s shoulder, Ray thought that it was a great fortune to be able to see the night sky, something that he would never be able to see in the crowded city night sky with its flashing neon signs.

For him, who had been wandering aimlessly, his current life was a dreamlike rest itself. There was no annoying boss ordering him around, and there was no place where he had to send money on a set date. He decided to assume that it was inevitable that he would have to break out of the frame of a child and jump into economic activity after two or three years.

And the reason I rubbed my sleepy eyes and followed my mother up to the roof was because I felt an indescribable, sad sense of kinship with my mother, who, while smiling brightly at her husband and son, would once again be leaving for a faraway place the next day, away from her family.

“… Mom, have you ever thought about running away?”

” Knock, knock! What… that… Knock, what do you mean?”

The mother gulps down the fruit wine in her leather pouch at her son’s unexpected question and looks at her son, wiping away the tears that have welled up with her hand.

“How could that be? Ray was worried that Mom would run away and leave you and Dad behind because she worked away from the city?”

He strokes his son’s head with his broad hand as he looks up at him with his big eyes. Ray nods.

“That would never happen. Why would Mom run away?”

“Umm… When Mom was having a hard time, we weren’t there for her. Maybe she didn’t want this kind of married life, or… Well, everyone has selfish thoughts at least once in a while.”

“Ahahahaha, anyway, you’re good at talking. My son has grown up so fast without me even noticing.”

The mother laughs while holding her stomach. She pats her son’s back while sweeping her light brown hair back. Ray hesitates. Suddenly, she hugs her son, and Ray is quite flustered when his face is buried in her chest and the soft feeling is transmitted to both cheeks. Then, the mother stands up on the roof while still hugging him. She stands there for a while.

“Well, Mom can’t be with me every day like other moms, but you and Dad are the reason why I work hard in this busy, dusty, dirty city. Just knowing that there are people waiting for me to return home gives Mom a lot of strength, so she doesn’t have to worry about that.”

Ray’s mother’s words flowed into one ear and then out the other. Or maybe it was because both ears were blocked by his chest, or maybe he couldn’t hear them because he was focusing all his attention on his cheek.

“On the other hand, Mom is afraid that the day will come when our son will leave me… .”

“Where am I going?”

Ray said, moving his neck to create some breathing room.

“What, the kids are already acting like a married couple?”

“Latia is just a friend…”

“You’re desperate to look trustworthy, like when I first came to this town and saw your grandmother. She’s a responsible and good girl.”

Latia, who no matter how much she grows up, still feels like a daughter to her? A girl who only thinks of playing pranks on her?

Although it was inevitable that other people would see them that way, Ray first thought that if he continued to live in this town, he might naturally get married and start a family again. He may have been putting off accepting the fact that his previous life had already passed away and that he had to start a new life for several years.

“Ray is smart, so he’ll be a good father.”

A lie, Ray could tell right away. He himself had always wished that Yesol would never get married. As a father with a daughter, he knew very well which answer was the right one.

“I wish I could live with my mom and dad forever… .”

‘Mom’, ‘Dad’, the order is very, very important. With both arms wide open, hugging tightly, quietly, is there any parent who can endure this? Mom responds by laughing and showering kisses telling him to leave the neighborhood. The smell of alcohol from the roughly mixed fruit wine wafts into Ray’s nose.

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The next day, Ray wakes up, rubs his eyes, and looks around the house. His father tells him that his mother left for the city early in the morning. The only traces of his mother left in the house were the city things she had brought as gifts on the table. He feels regretful that he couldn’t tell her to have a safe trip, or to cheer up, or perhaps the words he wanted to hear, as he leaves for the long journey, and so he stares blankly at the horizon far outside the village.

Then, seeing that the sun had already risen quite high, he washed his face and mouth with the water that his mother had brought him yesterday. He put on a tunic and long pants made of white cloth, and put on a thin leather tunic with a slit on the side. Ray, who had grown quite a bit and was used to the clothes here, could now easily tighten the leather straps by himself.

And, not forgetting, she folds the wide cloth in half and ties it with a belt, letting it hang down her legs. It was more like a proper garment worn over pants, not exactly a skirt, but it seemed like something that men, unless they were very young, had to wear. When she was a little younger than now, she had awkwardly tied the cloth around her waist for the first time and gone outside, and when she had cut the belt and run away, she had seen Latia eventually get caught by the adults and get scolded, so Ray thought that this must be a pretty important rule of this world.

Ray, who was about to take out his wooden shoes, fumbled with a cloth bag filled with fallen leaves hanging outside the house, and instead took out his boots and put them on. On days when it might rain, the bag would always be damp, so he could tell in advance.

When you step inside the barracks, which were originally supposed to be used as a command post by soldiers, you quickly remove the cloth at the entrance and see that most of the village children, including Latia, are already gathered there. In the midst of the crowd, Latia gestures to Ray to quickly come to the empty seat next to her, which she has painstakingly made by pushing and elbowing other children.

“Who is that old lady?”

Ray covered his mouth with his hand and asked Latia in a voice so quiet that the people standing in front couldn’t hear.

“You came from the city. I guess today is geography*Danashu*study. Have you seen the map? The big picture on the board over there. ”

Latia, who pronounces the word meaning geography in a messy way.

“Danakhshi Ya”

“Yeah, that’s Danash.”

“Danakhshi !”

“Anyway, you heard me.”

“That’s not a difficult thing to say.”

“This is my first time hearing about it.”

“Follow me, huh.”

As he exhaled air through his lips, scraping his tongue against the roof of his mouth, Ray felt very smug and thought to himself that his pronunciation was perfect.

“Teacher, this kid keeps talking to me.”

When Latia raised her hand and came out deadly, Ray decided to pretend not to see her.

Ray learns that the village they live in that day is actually so small that it can be represented as a single dot on a map. It was a village like the countryside within the countryside, with the sea right next to it, but blocked by high mountains. If you go around the mountain road and go out to the sea, you will find the small port city of Julep, and if you go further across the plains and cross a river or two, you will find the fairly large city of Fraua.

Fraua, Ray, I heard that was where my mother worked. I mean, what are the people of Fraua like? Then I tried to estimate the size of the town and calculate the distance by applying it to my previous life’s sense of map, but failed. Then I thought, “Does my mother go back and forth that far?”

It wasn’t a continent across the ocean, but in this world without airplanes or cars, it was a far distance that would not be inferior to Canada. The old woman teacher, who came from the city, was wearing clothes that looked a bit fancy at first glance, but were sharp and sharp like military uniforms, and she spent the rest of the class spitting out words about how Fraua had been built through a sacred process, and how great and well-developed it was.

The day’s classes were over soon after the sun began to set. Ray started walking home with Latia as usual, and he was thinking about the teacher’s accent, which was a little different from the villagers’. He thought that since he was from the city, it must be closer to standard language, and that what he was using was probably a dialect.

“I want to go too. Fraua.” Latia muttered.

“They say people are flocking to find jobs. You can go later, like my mom.”

“When you grow up, will you follow your mom to Frauen?”

“Um… I don’t know.”

“Then I won’t go either.”

Ray recalls the conversation he had with his mother last night as he hears Latia’s decisive answer.

“You want to live with me in our village forever?”

“… Yeah.”

Latia’s steps quickened. Ray’s suspicions were turning into confirmation.

“Then will you marry me?”

“… … .”

Ray couldn’t help but laugh as he watched Latia return home without saying anything other than waving her hand once in front of Ray’s house.

This is a world where men and women are a little different from where I originally lived.

I never would have thought that Latia, who is so childish, would have thought that of me.

As I became more confident, I felt as if Latia’s series of actions were fitting together like puzzle pieces. I didn’t feel even a millimeter of excitement or anything like that. That was because in his eyes, she was just like his child.