Irreversible Sadism (GL) - Chapter 23

At that time, I was in the first grade of elementary school.

My father was still around, and on holidays, he often took me out to play.

There was a time when my father, who was excitedly saying we would go to the botanical garden the next day, couldn’t come home due to work commitments. I had been looking forward to it, so when I found out we couldn’t go, I felt downcast all alone.

Then, my mother, who usually rarely spoke to me, took me in the car from the corner of my room where I was hugging my knees. We were headed to the botanical garden, just as my father had promised.

I remember feeling a strange tension since it was my first time going out with my mother alone. When I was with my father, I would immediately ask to be carried on his back when I got tired, but I couldn’t do that with my mother. She wore a bored expression beside me and tried to make conversation to lighten the mood.

“What’s that flower? It’s beautiful. It’s only found in foreign countries.”

For every one of my comments about the flowers, my mother responded with a sigh. I became so absorbed in looking at the flowers that when I lost sight of her, I broke into a cold sweat, but she was sitting far away on a bench, fiddling with her smartphone.

Perhaps feeling relieved, tears began to well up, and I ran over to her.

Even so, my mother remained bored and didn’t change her dissatisfied expression. I wondered if my mother disliked me after all.

As I was thinking such things on our way back, we came across an exhibition of moss balls, and while we were looking around together, my mother pointed to a nearby shop and asked, “Do you want to buy something?”

While my father would buy me toys or picture books, I had never had my mother buy me anything. I didn’t know what price range was acceptable, and I was afraid of being told no if I asked for something, so I struggled to decide what to buy.

As my mother’s expression grew increasingly stern while watching me hesitate, I felt a sense of urgency to make a decision quickly.

That’s when I spotted a butterfly hairpin.

Everything sold at this shop was handmade, one of a kind. The butterfly hairpin sparkled like a jewel, changing colors depending on how the light hit it.

“I want this.”

I remember feeling my heart race when I said it. I wondered if I would be able to get it. What if she told me to choose something else? I was prepared to say it was fine if she said no, but my mother silently picked up the hairpin and took it to the register.

When I opened the paper bag I received from my mother and held the hairpin in my hand, I was moved by the jewel-like brilliance that captivated me.

Even as a child, I understood that such a color of butterfly couldn’t possibly exist in this world. Yet, I was still drawn to it; the vivid blue with deep purple hues became my treasure that day.

On the way home, when I put on the hairpin and showed it to my mother, she muttered without looking at me.

“Do you like butterflies?”

I answered while looking straight ahead.

“Yeah, I do.”

My mother’s hand rested on my head.

Her hand, awkwardly stroking my hair, felt clumsy and circuitous. Yet, I sensed a definite warmth.

That gentle warmth. The heat radiated from Ruri-chan’s body as well.

It must have been because of that warmth that I unearthed this memory.

“Tateha?”

I don’t have any memories of being hugged by my mother. However, I have felt a sense of fulfillment from the ticklish warmth that came from her skin.

“…That butterfly hairpin, my mother bought it for me a long time ago.”

“The one you wore in elementary school?”

As I pulled away from Ruri-chan, I felt a winter-like chill, as if the window of a heated room had been thrown open.

I took out the hairpin I had carefully kept from the drawer of my desk.

“You really kept it.”

Ruri-chan gazed at the butterfly in her hand with nostalgia.

“It was my first time going out somewhere with my mother.”

I had almost forgotten… No, I had forgotten the memories with my mother.

A fragment of a flat, pain-free daily life. It was something that was naturally forgotten.

In this house, there are no memories. My mother is hardly ever home, and I don’t recall ever going on a trip. When I go down to the living room, the starkness sometimes makes me genuinely question if I am alive. What if I’m actually a ghost, invisible to everyone, even my mother? I often thought such things.

The only thing that gives me proof of my existence is not memories, but the pain that etches itself into my mind. Only the intense sensations that leave marks in my brain serve as the boundary between my memories and oblivion.

So why does this memory, this recollection, still linger? The butterfly hairpin my mother bought for me shouldn’t have been accompanied by any pain.

Just happiness and warmth.

“It’s something important to you, isn’t it?”

Ruri-chan smiled, floating like dandelion fluff.

“I don’t know.”

But the fact that I kept it instead of throwing it away might mean something.

“Hey, Tateha. Why don’t you try talking to your mother?”

“Talk? Why?”

“Because, don’t you feel lonely? Being all alone at home.”

Ruri-chan, who was a head taller than me, crouched down slightly to meet my gaze.

“I’m not lonely. I have the TV, and I have games and books.”

“But those are all things you do alone. I might not know your mother’s situation, so I can’t say much, but leaving food in the fridge and then just ignoring it, treating a child like a pet, that’s not right.”

“But I’m alive. I’ve never felt inconvenienced. My mother is kind. She gives me plenty of allowance.”

“I think there are things more important than food or money.”

I couldn’t understand why Ruri-chan was expressing dissatisfaction in this environment where the most essential needs for living were constantly being met.

The butterfly in my hand reflected light and glowed blue. The sparkle I saw that day lodged itself in my throat, refusing to go down. I couldn’t even vomit. An indescribable feeling of suffocation wouldn’t disappear.

“Surely that’s like that hairpin.”

Inside the insect cage, a swallowtail butterfly that had died due to incomplete metamorphosis.

In my hand, the butterfly hairpin my mother bought for me.

The blank space that exists between these two.

What was I thinking that day? What did I feel? What did I cherish as a memory?

“…I understand.”

I want to know too.

“I’ll try talking to my mother.”

It was a vague promise, far from being a resolution, but Ruri-chan nodded happily.

She opened the curtains wide, letting in the light.

In the spot where Ruri-chan had been sitting just a moment ago, a ribbon had fallen.

“Ruri-chan, you forgot something.”

I handed the ribbon to Ruri-chan, who was starting to get ready to leave.

She checked her chest and shyly accepted it.