V2 – Episode 38 – Photo Frame – Impatient MTL Reader

Chapter 4 – Persuading Mother Enami

Volume 2

As I entered Enami-san’s apartment, I noticed that there were more things in there than before. I thought it wasn’t because she had a cold, but because she had brought some things with her from the living room.

For example, a music box. I remember seeing it once when I was cleaning the house. It was an old model. The switch was a little peeling, there was a slot for CD and cassette tapes, and the LCD was distorted around the edges.

Perhaps it was something she had found in the living room when she was cleaning and had moved it here. If it was this big, Mother Enami would not notice it.

“Koho, koho…”

Enami-san is quieter than usual. She pulled a cream-colored cardigan over her shoulders and climbed into the futon. She seemed to have a chill, and her body was shivering a little.

“Risa-chan. You look even worse than I thought…”

“That’ s why I told you to go home.”

According to Enami-san, it’s not the flu. She said she went to the hospital once to get a diagnosis.

“… Are the symptoms just cold and scratchy throat?　Your nose doesn’t seem to be itching too much.”

I asked, to which Enami-san replied in a rather tedious manner.

“My whole body is feeling sluggish. I feel so tired that I can barely even talk.”

” How’s your fever?”

“About 38.5 degrees. It will probably go away after a day or two of sleep.”

There were some empty bags left on the side of the futon. She must have bought some rice balls or calorie mates at the convenience store.

Thanks to the air conditioner, the temperature was better than in the living room. It was enough to make me sweat if I stayed under the covers here. Enami-san’s face was already drenched with sweat.

“Do you have an appetite?”

Nishikawa peered at Enami-san’s face while she was lying down.

“I bought a lot of things. Do you think you can eat any of them?”

“… Nishikawa. I’ve already eaten, so I don’t need it. I can’t bother to raise my body to put something in my mouth, and brush my teeth afterward. Please understand.”

“Well, then, I guess it can’t be helped.”

In the end, most of what we bought at the convenience store was useless. I was prepared for that, so there was nothing to worry about.

“Thank you for taking the trouble to visit me… But it’s not good if you catch my cold.”

“Enami-san, It seems that you’re feeling rather frail.”

“What do you mean?”

She glared at me for a moment. Of course, I meant that she wouldn’t have said such an unusual remark under normal circumstances.

“Pu~ pu~. You shouldn’t make fun of a sick person no matter how much you want to.”

“… cheeky…”

Enami-san pulls up the covers. I apologized to her in my mind.

“You’re not very honest either, Naochi~”

“It’s not like that.”

Nishikawa is grinning at me for some reason. Damn, I shouldn’t have said anything unnecessary.

There’s not much we can do, so we decide to simply clean up Enami-san’s room. We threw the scattered trash into the trash can and pulled the equipment we bought at Home Depot up against the wall. We also replaced the heat-cooling sheets that had lost most of their effectiveness.

Perhaps unable to sleep, Enami-san was breathing hard.

Nishikawa wiped the sweat off her face with a handkerchief. Then she spoke softly to her.

“Aren’t you pushing yourself too hard?”

Enami just glanced at her and didn’t reply. She really seemed to be too tired to talk.

Nishikawa continued.

“Risa-chan is not very good at being pampered by others…”

It was quiet. There was hardly any noise except for our voices.

What are they talking about from earlier? Not good at being pampered?　Forcing herself?　I didn’t think she was referring only to Mother Enami.

“If you don’t let me spoil you a little more, I might feel lonely, you know~.”

Still, Enami-san didn’t answer. It was as if she was rejecting the conversation, or accepting Nishikawa’s words completely.

It was a world of only Nishikawa and Enami-san. It wasn’t a fluke that she had been on good terms with the cold Enami-san for so long. There is a history here that I don’t know about, a relationship that I don’t know about.

“… I’ll sleep.”

That’s all she said, and she closed her eyelids.

I thought it would be bad to look at her sleeping face too much, so I got up. Thanks to the cleanup, the room had returned to the same bleakness I had seen before. It was a girl’s room, but the space was so inorganic that it didn’t make me feel that way at all.

Suddenly, I noticed something.

It was on top of a waist-high cabinet. There was a fallen photo frame. I hadn’t seen this before, so it must have come from the living room.

I lifted up the photo frame.

There was a picture of the family, looking like they were getting along well.

It was probably a picture of the Enami family from the past. There was also a picture of Enami-san as a junior high school student. I tried to put it back, thinking I shouldn’t look at it too much, but strangely my gaze never left the picture.

There were four people in the family.

Mother Enami, Enami-san, and then there was a little boy and a tall man with glasses who smiled serenely.

If this were a family photo, I’m sure it would be her younger brother and father.

The photo was filled with an aura of happiness that was unthinkable from the current situation.

The place was somewhere in Europe. In a street made of stone, they were smiling at the camera lens as they huddled together. Enami-san was no exception to this. Her smile was so innocent that it was hard to imagine it from the current Enami-san.

–What had happened?

Right now, there is no younger brother or father in this house. There is only the mentally ill mother and Enami-san with a cold expression on her face.

(I don’t really know what ‘important’ means. It changes from time to time. Things that were once important to us become less so when the circumstances change.)

Circumstances change. It becomes less important.

What were those words really referring to?

“… Naochi?”

“Ah, no…”

When Nishikawa called out to me, I hurriedly put the photo frame on the cabinet. If Enami-san saw me doing this, she would be furious and tell me not to look at it without permission.

“It’s nothing. Did Enami-san fall asleep already?”

“Probably…”

There, I saw Enami-san’s sleeping face with her breathing calmed down. She wasn’t paying attention to our voices, her eyelids were closed and her chest was rising and falling.

TN: And we inches forward...