Chapter 981 - Father and Son
"────Ah, welcome home. And Nozomi, off you go."
"Huh???"
"To the bath. We still have a few things to prepare, so go to the public bath while you can."
"Oh, right."
"Dad?"
"Yep, got it. Let's go, Nozomi."
"Ah, okay."
──────…
────…
──…
And so, that's how it happened.
"────Haaaah… Man, how many years has it been?"
"…Five or six? We only came here a lot right after we moved in."
"Well, I kept coming by for a while after that, you know."
There was no cliché clank sound echoing through the bath. It was an odd time in the evening, so the large public bath was practically empty, just the two of us in the steam.
After finishing my one-hour walk with Ashe as planned and returning home, I was ordered by my mother to execute a brilliant U-turn. A mere thirty seconds later, I had left the house again, which brings us to now────
"…If it were always this empty, I might have gotten hooked, too."
"Haha. Even I made sure to avoid peak hours."
While not particularly large or famous, this area has a hot spring district, so there are quite a few public baths and inns scattered about. But because it's not well-known, it's never flooded with tourists, and since there are so many options, the locals are spread out quite nicely.
So, just as my father said, places like the lobby, changing rooms, and baths are bustling during the crowded evening hours, but if you shift your time even a little, you get this. Apparently, it's almost always like having the place to yourself.
…But, putting that aside.
"………………"
"……………………"
"…………………………"
"………………………………"
A father and his son. It's not like my dad is particularly shy, despite his generally timid nature, and our relationship isn't so delicate that sharing a bath out of the blue would make things awkward.
But that being said, whether we'd have no trouble making conversation is another matter entirely.
────I get it. We're both struggling here.
Slide. Pitter-patter, splash.
The only sounds were from the handful of other customers, providing the background music for the two of us pretending we weren't bothered by the silence.
The bathhouse was quite large with several tubs to choose from… and given that it was so empty, modern sensibilities about personal space meant no one was about to hop into a tub that was already occupied.
In other words, if neither of us spoke up, we'd end our father-son time in total silence.
…Guess I'll go for it.
"Dad."
"…Yeah?"
"How's Mom? Has she been doing well?"
And so, the topic I started with was family.
A blatant and half-hearted attempt to get the ball rolling. Hearing the resigned tone in my voice that didn't even try to hide it, my father smiled faintly beside me and looked up at the ceiling.
"She seemed lonely at first, but she bounced back after about half a month."
"That was fast. Just like Mom."
"A month later, it became a bigger issue than just the two of us being lonely, though."
"About that, I'm truly sorry for all the worry I've caused…"
"It's still ongoing, you know?"
"I'm truly sorry for all the worry I am causing…"
He was probably talking about the whole commotion of my debut during the previous Four Pillar War.
Even looking back… or rather, even now, as I'm still caught in a parade of ridiculous developments, if my parents bring up their worrying, all I can do is bow my head.
"…Well, seeing your face in person, I'm relieved. I'm sure your mother feels the same."
"…………"
"And I'm impressed, too."
Relieved, and now impressed────Could it be? Is he about to tease me with something fatal, like, 'How the hell did you manage to hook up with so many ridiculously beautiful girls?'
Whether he knew what was going through my wary mind or not.
"Just half a year… In the time I haven't seen you, your expression has changed quite a bit, hasn't it?"
He said it calmly, still looking at the ceiling, not at me.
"Seeing you with my own eyes surprised me. You've really got the face of a man now."
"The face of a man?"
"Before you left home, you had the face of a middle schooler, at best."
"So a kid who shouldn't be allowed to live alone…"
Well, I can't deny it now, and I probably wouldn't have denied it back then either… but as I wondered what kind of face I was supposed to make, he continued, oblivious.
"Actually, your mother was dead set against it at first."
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
"You moving to Tokyo. Living alone."
"…This is the first I'm hearing of it."
"That's because it was a secret husband-and-wife meeting."
Once he starts talking, he doesn't stop. My father, who has always been a talkative person, was tossing out topics as if he were already light-headed from the hot water.
"Well, I'll keep the reason for your mother's opposition to myself, but…"
"Isn't that the only part I'd want to hear?"
"In any case, I defied her with do-or-die resolve, arguing 'that's precisely why'…"
"Since you're keeping the core of it a secret, the 'do-or-die' part isn't really coming across."
"In the end, I was victorious, and we were able to send you off safely."
"When it comes to arguments like that, how is it that Mom has been undefeated since forever?"
My conversations with my ever-calm, laid-back, and easygoing father have always been like this since I was a kid.
"So, well, as a result…────It's kind of a 'see, I told you so' feeling."
"What do you—"
"To your mother. 'See? It was the right decision to send him off.' Nozomi────"
The faint stir of him shifting his body sent small waves hitting my shoulders.
Following the movement, I turned my gaze back to him. He had shifted his eyes from the ceiling to my face, a gentle smile on his lips that was unmistakably my dad's.
"…needed to be sent somewhere beyond our watch, on his own, to maybe fall in love."
It was a side of him almost exclusively reserved for when it was just the two of us.
When he let go of all tension and hesitation, his timid nature would take a backseat, and a mischievous, boyish side would occasionally emerge. He let that inner thought drift over to his son on the steam.
As for me,
"…Why 'love' of all things?"
"You're popular, so of course it'd be love. You're a university student, after all."
"Mom said the same thing, but where are you getting that information from…?"
"…What was it she said again? Oh, right. 'You damn idiot moron son.'"
"Could you please stop sharing such intense insults between yourselves???"
My reaction was seventy percent confusion, twenty percent embarrassment. The remaining ten percent was a blank slate, my mind hazy from the heat of the bath.
"You've always been…────No, well, let's leave this kind of talk to your mother."
"Hey, what's that? Cutting it off there is a crime, Dad."
"What, you want to have a talk about romance with your old man?"
"No, I'd very much like to pass on that, but…!"
And at that very moment.
Clank────a cliché sound effect echoed from somewhere.
"Oh. The open-air bath is free. Shall we go enjoy having it all to ourselves?"
"…Yeah, yeah."
It was calming, yet somehow awkward.
For the first time in a long while, this indescribable exchange between father and son continued on, gently, for a little while longer.
On a side note, the protagonist is just a little bit taller.
Totally irrelevant, I know.