"Ah! It’s Big Brother!"
A child came sprinting toward me as I walked to school.
For a moment, I wondered who it was, but then I recognized her. It was the little girl who had been lost in the shopping district a while back—Mio-chan.
"Good morning, Big Brother!"
"Morning, Mio-chan."
Her friendly, beaming smile was adorable.
She was a young girl, still in nursery school. She scurried up to my feet and looked up at me, grinning as she raised both arms. I knew immediately that she wanted to be picked up, so I reached down and hoisted her into the air.
I ran into Mio-chan like this occasionally during my morning commute. By now, the ritual of picking her up had become a regular fixture of my mornings.
Just as I did, her mother caught up to us.
"Good morning, Takanashi-san. I’m so sorry—Mio, honestly..."
"No, don't worry about it. It’s fine."
Watching Mio-chan, I couldn't help but be reminded of how that girl used to be.
The first time I met Mio-chan was in the shopping district, on my way home from a routine shopping trip—I'd been at Donki to buy a bulk box of cup noodles.
A little girl had been wandering toward me, her eyes darting around anxiously. I tried to step out of her way, but she moved in the same direction at the same time, and we ended up colliding.
She only staggered a bit and didn't actually fall, but the shock was enough to send her into a fit of sobbing.
"Mommy! Where are you?!"
Just as I’d suspected, she was lost. Since it happened right in front of me, I couldn't exactly just walk away, so I decided to speak to her.
"Hello there. Did you lose your mommy?"
I spoke as gently as I could, but she showed no sign of stopping.
I quickly glanced into my shopping bag to see if I had anything useful. My eyes landed on a small cat mascot—a freebie attached to the cap of a bottle of tea. I slipped it onto my finger, held it up where she could see it, and decided to talk to her using a "cat" voice.
Back in the day, I’d often had to soothe that girl with stuffed animals whenever she cried, so I was fairly practiced at this sort of thing.
"Meow-meow! Are you looking for your mommy?"
"...Yeah."
It worked. I kept the conversation going, found out which store she’d been separated from her mother at, and started walking her in that direction.
As she walked along, clutching my hand, I found myself overlapping her image with that of the girl from my past.
"Hic... hic... Kazu-chan."
"Hey, come on, stop crying."
The girl walking beside me, tearfully gripping my hand, was Yuzuha Sasagawa.
She was my childhood friend. Our houses were right next door to each other, so we played together constantly when we were small. She always looked so happy whenever we were together, but she was a real crybaby. Even though we were the same age, soothing her was a daily necessity.
Even after we started elementary school, Yuzuha remained painfully introverted. She struggled to make friends with other girls and was always glued to my side. Naturally, that meant I didn't make many friends either. My childhood memories were almost entirely occupied by her.
Later, I found out she’d even been bullied in places where I wasn't around to see it.
I never felt like she was a burden. If anything, I was always worried about her because she seemed so fragile. I felt like if I didn't look out for her, she would be completely alone.
Looking back, it was a pretty arrogant way to think, but I was so concerned for her that I made a point of staying by her side.
Things changed when we entered middle school and Yuzuha finally made some female friends.
At that age, being seen with a member of the opposite sex often invited teasing. Yuzuha and I had just started keeping our distance to avoid the gossip when she found her new circle. Perhaps it was a reaction to having no same-sex friends for so long, but her social life suddenly exploded. She became visibly and aggressively involved with her new group.
Conversely, she stopped interacting with me almost entirely.
Part of me truly felt that it was for the best as long as she was happy... but another part of me couldn't help feeling a little lonely.
Then came our third year of middle school.
I had my own friends, but we ended up in different classes that year. I wasn't particularly close with my new classmates.
And Yuzuha...
She had become so desperate to fit in that she’d let her new friends influence every part of her. Her hair changed, the color changed, her way of speaking changed, and her skirt got shorter. You could call it "trendy" to put a positive spin on it, but the truth was that she’d turned into exactly the kind of girl I didn't like.
When I eventually tried to talk to her out of genuine concern for her drastic transformation, she snapped.
"Hah? Why do I have to hear that from you?"
Her reaction struck a nerve, and we nearly got into a shouting match right then and there.
Still, because I’d spent so many years worrying about her, I had no intention of severing our bond. Not until that day arrived...
"I'm going now, Big Brother!"
Mio-chan seemed satisfied. She climbed down from my arms and started heading toward her kindergarten.
"Have a good day!"
I saw her off with a smile. She turned back once to give me a big wave before taking her mother's hand.
Well, I should get going too.
I turned back toward the school and started down my usual path, completely unaware that someone had been watching me the entire time.