Sinnesspiel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sinnesspiel) wrote2021-08-28 11:32 am
sinnesspiel) wrote2021-08-28 11:32 am
Entry tags:
Shiki Novel Translations 3.17.6
6
Monday, the 31st. On this day on which the month of October ended, so too did Maeda Shigeki die.
Motoko sat beside her son in a stupor, listening as the child's breathing grew increasingly faint, hearing even as it petered out.
---Until it was gone.
She had taken up camp at her son's bedside, the night to be one without sleep. Despite her intent to keep him safe from Iwao at all costs, worn and weary, Motoko blinked heavily again and again, lulled into a brief sleep; the instant her eyes opened again, Shigeki had vanished from within his futon, to be discovered afterwards having gone out the back door to the balcony, where he was found in the yard.
Growing further dazed, Motoko could do nothing but stare at her son who neither spoke nor stirred. Last night when Motoko had only gone to use the washroom, Shigeki had been found collapsed in the entryway. When Motoko had lifted him up in her arms, he would only say "I'm scared of Ojii-chan" in a weakened voice.
As she suspected, it was Iwao, she thought. Iwao took everything from Motoko. And while he may as well have at last taken Motoko herself, there was no doubt the reason he didn't was because Iwao loathed her. Shunning only her, Isami, Tomiko, Shiori, Shigeki, all five of them were taken to where she couldn't be, to be cozily ever after. Without a doubt, that was what was happening.
"I won't let you get away with it."
Yes, if nothing else, at least Shigeki.
"If nobody else, I won't hand over this child."
Motoko cradled Shigeki into the bathroom. She laid out a futon on the narrow tiles and laid him to rest there. There was a bar grid on the bathroom window. She gripped and pulled at them to confirm that the window was tightly shut, and furthermore taped down the weather stripping from the inside. With some difficulty she found whatever flat planks she could press to the glass and taped these in place too. The bathroom was the only room in Motoko's house that locked from the inside. If she closed them up in here like this, there shouldn't be any way for Iwao to take Shigeki away.
Because there would be times when she absolutely had to leave the bathroom, she boarded up the dressing room windows the same way, and she took the lock from the storage room to put on the door. If she did this, even if she had stepped out for a moment, nobody could lay a hand on Shigeki.
"I won't let you have him."
Motoko held her son to her breast in the bathroom. Like this, Shigeki would eventually rise up. He would not be seized away by Iwao; he would remain at Motoko's side.
no subject
no subject