"Mama! The land's gone!"
"It is, isn't it—after all, we're already close to the sea now."
"Mama! Out there's a kind of ugly, dumb bird!"
"Hmm? Let me see—oh, those are seagulls. Seagulls are being called ugly now? The seagulls will cry if they hear that, you know."
"Yeah, yeah... Mama! What are those big sisters doing on the sand with no clothes on, all squeezed together and wriggling around?"
"Huh? Let me take a look... Little Chiose, don't look over there! That's... er, ah, they're filming a TV program—it'd be rude to keep watching."
Nagasaki Soyo blushed, realizing that she wasn't just getting old—she had completely fallen out of step with the times.
Those young people on the beach were wild enough, hmm... wait, could it be that the older generation back then felt this exact same way when they looked at her generation in their youth?
Soyo suddenly found herself resonating fiercely with all those seniors she'd once thought were so washed-up.
"Oooh——"
Chiose pressed her face against the car window and breathed onto the glass, and when the fog had spread across nearly half the window she started drawing again.
This was all to make Soyo think she was cute! Damn it!
It wasn't that she actually wanted to play like this... she was only putting on a disguise, that's all, she really wasn't! Forget it! It's nothing!
"Pfft, sit nicely now. I've booked a private beach—for the next couple of days, let's sunbathe on the beach together."
Soyo pushed up her sunglasses, waiting for her little cub to praise her greatness.
"Wow, Mama, you're amazing!"
Yes! That's exactly the kind of praise!
It didn't really mean anything, but when it was missing, things just felt different!
When the car drove up to the next gas station, Soyo got out, and while waiting for the car to be filled up she took Chiose over to the souvenir shop beside it.
This was one of those experiences you simply had to have when going out to play. Watching Chiose glance this way and that, as if everything seemed so new to her—her mother probably had never taken Chiose out before.
Then let her give Chiose a complete experience!
Shelves, countless shelves. The outermost ones held all sorts of supplies you'd use on a seaside vacation; further in were some swimsuits and canned foods; and if you went deeper still...
"Deeper in, it's just some daily necessities and souvenirs, Little Chiose? Hmm? Why have you gone quiet?"
Nagasaki Soyo explained away to herself, but when she turned around she discovered that the little one had vanished without a trace.
"Little Chiose? Where did you go?"
She scanned the shelves row by row, and all kinds of bizarre thoughts cropped up in her mind.
This child... she'd better not have been kidnapped!
She'd heard that lately there were more and more strange adults abducting cute little daughters...
Making her way all the way in to the very last shelf, a slightly out-of-breath Soyo finally found Chiose.
"Don't go running off, all right? Otherwise Mama will be terribly distressed when she can't find you."
Instead of choosing to lose her temper, she hugged the child the moment she found her and stroked her head. Soyo was working hard at being a good parent... mm, but that feeling of her daughter slipping out of her grasp, disappearing, going missing, really hadn't felt good just now.
"Mama! That one!"
"Hmm? Which one?"
Following the direction Chiose was pointing, there seemed to be something atop a very high shelf... was it a toy?
Nagasaki Soyo hesitated for a moment, then chose to lift Chiose up, letting her ride on her shoulders.
This was a move Soyo had wanted to do when she was little but had never succeeded at... a six-year-old child actually had some weight to her by now, but it felt all right.
Chiose stretched out her hand and hooked the toy box all by herself.
"Mama! Chiose wants this one!"
"Let me see... what is this? Astartes? Space Marine? What a strange name."
Is this right? This isn't right, surely... is this something a little girl ought to be playing with?
A little figure in dark-green armor with a beaked helm, a single-eye insignia on its arm, and what looked like a fan-shaped thing stuck on its head? Such a... dignified toy didn't suit Little Chiose at all.
"If you like it, then buy it."
Soyo didn't mind at all—whatever a child liked, just buy it. She wasn't short of money... it wouldn't even be hard for her to buy out the whole shop.
Then again, wasn't choosing a toy like this as the "first gift" she gave Chiose a bit too perfunctory? When she had the chance later, she'd definitely have to give her more toys that little girls liked.
"Long live Mama!"
A child's joy was so pure—could it really make her this happy just because of a single toy?
Paying, checking out, the car already filled with gas—their short trip was still going on.
In the back seat, silly Chiose held up her silly little toy all by herself, playing her silly little game, while Soyo watched the whole of her playing through the rearview mirror, crystal clear.
"Pfft."
"Mm? Does Mama want to play together too?"
"No thanks, I'm driving. We're almost there."
Soyo's heart sank a little. Just now, when the car had passed by some small harbor that had been abandoned for years, she had suddenly, for no reason, felt a wave of sorrow.
It was a strange sort of sorrow, as though somewhere some person might have lived out some tragic, stirring story.
How strange—why would this happen?
She even found herself recalling her hospitalized mother again...
No good, no good, she had to think about something nice—mm... she slowed the car down, and at a moment when there was no danger she glanced back at Chiose.
An innocent smile, radiant eyes, a toy held up high—that little cutie noticed she was looking at her, and what would she do? Ah, she was grinning, replying to her with the most radiant of smiles.
"Mama, love you! Mwah."
A blown kiss came through the air, and Soyo's sudden sorrow was soothed. Honestly—sure enough, a home really does need a cute little child in it.
If only her mother hadn't fought tooth and nail back then to snatch away little Chiose's childhood custody! Chiose should have been the one she raised and cared for all along.
A trace of an emotion called regret surfaced, but Nagasaki Soyo paid it no mind.
She felt she could make up for all these years of falling short.
She! Absolutely could!
She was Nagasaki Soyo, after all!
When they were still one kilometer from their destination, the Nagasaki mother and daughter could see the bright shimmer of the waves on the sea outside the window; as the car continued onward, orange began to spread across the sky; and by the time Chiose was telling Soyo the story of the toy figure she'd just made up, the night had even begun to prepare to envelop everything around them.
Last of all was the seaside villa.
She had originally wanted to experience a seaside hotel, but after thinking it over and over, Soyo went back to a villa Ms. Nagasaki had purchased some time ago.
She'd had someone clean it before they came. Nagasaki Soyo believed... that this stretch of vacation could make the relationship between her and her daughter even better.
Chiose followed along at her side, every now and then lifting her head to blink at Soyo.
Soyo would blink back at her in the same way.
And that's just how it was.
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