But I was worried about your future, since you're such a mama's boy.

#nana56b


Synopsis

As I walk with my hands tucked into my coat pockets, I suddenly get the illusion that my right pocket feels lighter. Until just a few months ago, a warm, tiny “body heat” would naturally nestle there.

Kait is in third grade.

Since I’m often away from home for work, whenever I have a rare day off, he sticks to me like glue and won’t let go.

Even when I go out to run errands nearby, he always tags along.

That day was no exception.

As Kait walked beside me, he would invariably yank my hand out of my pocket and wrap his tiny fingers around mine, clutching them tightly. Then he’d smile with a look of utter contentment.

I’d shrug and say, “Oh, come on—you’re in third grade now,” but deep down, I was actually happy.

Still, I worried about the future of my little boy who loved to be spoiled.

I wanted you, as a boy, to grow up strong and resilient.

That’s why, that day, I pulled you away so forcefully.



But I wish I’d held on to you—even if I’d had to be forceful—and kept pulling Kait’s hand.

If only I’d been just a few dozen centimeters closer to him…

Then he wouldn’t have been swept away by that cold, lifeless thud.

Kait was knocked into the air by a car driven by an elderly man—it all happened in an instant.

In the hospital’s intensive care unit, I clutched Kait’s hand—which lay sprawled on the white sheet—as if in prayer.
But that hand, which had once been so warm in my pocket, was now as cold as ice frozen to the core.

“Kait, look, it’s Daddy’s hand.”

I called out to him over and over, stroking his hand again and again. I squeezed it tightly, as if to share my body heat, as if to wrap him in warmth.
Maybe, just maybe, his fingertips would twitch even a little.
Maybe he’d say, “Stop, that hurts,” and squeeze my hand back, even if only weakly.
Unable to let go of that baseless hope, I couldn’t bring myself to let go of that hand, which was growing colder by the second.




Suddenly, a conversation we’d had long ago flashed through my mind.

On the way home from a parent-teacher conference, Kaitō had been holding my hand so persistently that

I’d tried to be a little mean and pull my hand away.

“Come on, you’re not a little kid anymore. If your friends see us, they’ll laugh at us.”

At that, Kaitō’s face turned bright red, and with the desperation of someone protecting something fragile, he gripped my hand tightly.

“I’ll stop someday.”

Kaitō paused there for a moment, then looked up at me with mischievous eyes.

“But not yet. I’m not letting go just yet,” he said, and laughed.

The word “someday” that Kaitō had spoken.
I never imagined it would come so cruelly, so suddenly.

On the sidewalk, with the winter wind blowing through, I slipped my hand back into my empty pocket.
No matter how I curled my fingertips, that soft warmth was no longer there.

“Kait…” No matter how many times I whispered it…

All that happened was the …