I'm Not Looking For Cinderella - 1 - Chapter 24 JIN thinks (Part 2)

Chapter 24 JIN thinks (Part 2)

It was Sunday, but my father was at work.

He had taken a leave of absence for a while to be with his mother during her illness. He explained to me that he had to work hard.

But there was a limit to his physical strength. He had always had a weak windpipe.

In addition, fatigue and the changing of the seasons combined.

His cough became worse day by day, and he went to the emergency hospital, where he was admitted based on his cough, fever, and blood samples.

Pneumonia. He was expected to be discharged in about 10 days.

I explained the situation to Teru’s sister and the landlord, asked them to take care of Mai, and brought a hospitalization kit. The preparations that I had been accustomed to when I was a mother felt as if it were my first time doing them.

Mai hated hospitals. She didn’t remember much about her mother, but she seemed to know that there was something sinister about hospitals.

We must hide it – we must not make Mai feel uneasy.

I must not create an environment that would make her cry at night.

That day, I rewrote the spell I had cast on myself.

I had to get my father out of the hospital without Mai noticing – from what I’d heard, it didn’t sound like he would be in the hospital for that long.

She could manage that…but children are strange things.

Mai developed a high fever the day after her father’s hospitalization.

It was as if she knew everything.

As if she knew everything… as if she could relate to her father what happens to people in the hospital.

I was dismayed. My right to grieve would never come.

I could no longer run away. Forward is the only thing I’m allowed to do.

That’s why I started fighting, but just the next day – Monday – it was already a losing battle.

What am I going to do? Mai won’t get better.

What should I do? Mai won’t heal.

What should I do?

In a false battle, and then she came.

She had the color of her mother, the one I had been looking for.

Rei Shindou… she was a stranger, but soon she became something special.

 

A family member.

A stranger.

Rei Madou.

Values that began to change. She saved me. I could fight because of her.

But I don’t think she realizes that.

Just like I don’t know whose grief I’m saving, when or where, whether it’s picking up trash, wiping a desk, or helping the janitor.

She will never know the colorless grief she is healing.

Because my turn to grieve is long over.

I am now in the position of fighting alone in secret.

Family is family.

People are people.

Is Rei Shindou still a stranger?

That’s a little sad.

That’s why I’m unconsciously thinking…

Then at least I decided to sit around the table with her as if we were family.

That’s enough.

I’ll be fine on my own.

Look, Arakijin I’ll be fine.

I can hide this sadness, get over it, and fight on my own again.

Right?

…… Really?