As soon as the twins entered fifth grade, Kaoru began something new.
He started by sorting through the various [skills] he knew and teaching them only the ones that could be useful in everyday life or that would be appropriate to use in a life-or-death emergency.
On top of that, whenever he had time, he taught them proper first aid, how to shake off a tail, memory techniques for memorizing large amounts of information in a short time, how to pick a lock without tools, and how to use calm, logical speech to neutralize an opponent when quick thinking was needed.
Even while learning all these skills, the twins had no way of knowing how their father knew and taught such things.
Whenever they asked about it in passing-
【I learned it on the internet.】
-he would usually brush them off with that excuse, but Aqua and Ruby had already used some of the skills their father taught them in real life a few times, so they accepted the lessons without much resistance.
Above all, his explanations were clear and easy to understand, and Kaoru never rushed them; instead, he taught them in a way that made it feel like they were playing together, so they could stay interested.
Step by step, the twins absorbed the techniques like sponges, growing sharper and sharper. By the time they reached sixth grade, even-
"......"
"Papa. You were this serious about it!?"
"Waaah~"
Kaoru had spread thick shock-absorbing mats he had personally bought across the floor of the spacious living room and equipped the babies with head and upper-body protection gear in case they got hurt.
Seeing that, the twins broke into a cold sweat and were stunned by their father’s [sincerity].
Meanwhile, Ame had come out after reading in her room and was happily playing on the mats, rolling forward over and over.
"I was going to teach you when you entered middle school, but I decided it would be better to start sooner. You two are smart, just like your mother."
Kaoru fixed his long bangs with a headband and looked at the twins with a very serious expression.
Aqua and Ruby had no choice but to be flustered.
'This is... dangerous. Who on earth flipped Papa’s switch!?'
'Did Father have a black belt or something? What exactly is he planning to teach us...?'
They had once secretly witnessed the miracle of 2.6 seconds with their own eyes, but now that their father was stepping forward to teach them himself, they were worried and confused beyond measure.
Aqua and Ruby exchanged glances, each trying to read the other’s expression.
Then Aqua quietly raised a hand and spoke to Kaoru.
"Um... Father. May I ask what exactly you’re planning to teach us? If it’s self-defense... there are other academies too..."
"What they teach at academies is only the basic textbook version. Real emergencies never come in textbook form. Aqua, Ruby. If you end up in a situation like that, people lose their reason and panic so badly they can’t make normal judgments."
While explaining, Kaoru suddenly strode over, grabbed Aqua’s shoulder hard, and shook him back and forth.
Startled by Kaoru’s sudden move, Aqua thrashed and shouted.
"Agh!!! Wait a second—! That hurts!?"
Instinctively, Aqua struggled to break free and screamed, but he couldn’t possibly match the strength of a grown man.
Even after Aqua yelled for him to let go, Kaoru kept it up for another two seconds before releasing him and pulling the shocked boy into a tight hug, patting his back to calm him down.
"Haa... haa... D-Dad?"
"It’s okay, Aqua. It’s only natural to be startled. Ruby, if a sturdy man like Dad approached and threatened your brother like this while Mom and Dad weren’t around, how do you think you’d feel?"
"Eh? W-Well..."
At Kaoru’s words, Ruby flinched, bit her lip, and trembled.
Just imagining it was terrifying enough to freeze her body so completely that she wouldn’t be able to do anything.
Kaoru gently stroked his daughter’s hair with a kind, tender hand and said,
"Exactly. You’d be scared, panicked, and your mind would go completely blank. That’s only natural."
"Papa..."
"The reason I decided to teach this to you when you’re only eleven and twelve is... not just because you’re much smarter and more mature than other kids your age, but also because of your special circumstances.
"You’re the children of celebrities, and your faces are known to ordinary people too, so the chances of becoming targets of crime are far higher than for other kids.
"Normal children wouldn’t be able to accept that fact at all, but Aqua and Ruby—you’re wise and smart like your mother, so I judged that you’d be ready to accept it.
"I discussed it a lot with your mother and thought about it plenty myself, but... I decided now was the best time.
"Self-defense is important, of course, but more important than that is teaching you how to keep your calm and composure in dangerous situations, how to control your stress... that kind of [mindset].
"That takes much longer and requires far more care than simply learning self-defense."
At Kaoru’s clear explanation, Aqua and Ruby looked at each other and swallowed dryly at the same time.
In truth, it wasn’t as if they had never thought about it.
Aqua had died in his past life after being attacked by a suspicious man, and Ruby, too, had unconsciously felt fear while seeing children and adults become victims of violent crimes on TV news and social media.
And wasn’t their father, Kaoru, once nearly murdered by a stalker with a weapon?
Still, they didn’t know how intense the training would be, and above all, they were worried about what kind of curriculum Kaoru would teach them, so they couldn’t readily agree.
"......"
"......"
When the twins wore serious, troubled expressions, Kaoru smiled to ease the mood, sat down on the mat, took both of their hands, and pulled them into his arms.
"But the most important thing is your opinion. I can promise there won’t be anything dangerous, but in the process of learning, you might end up getting hurt or bursting into tears anyway.
"I want you to grow up safely, of course, but I never want you to force yourselves to do something you hate just for my sake and suffer through it.
"Even if you decide not to do it today, you can always ask me anything you’re curious about. I want Aqua and Ruby to learn this not for me, but for yourselves."
At Kaoru’s gentle voice, the twins could only feel relief and warmth in their father’s strong embrace.
In that warmth and relief, Aqua thought of the memories of his past life, the countless dangers he might face in this one, and the happy people beside him, then finished thinking and lifted his head.
"I’ll learn."
"...R-Ruby will too—if big brother is doing it—Ruby will do it too. I-I might not be very good at it, but... I trust Papa, so Ruby can do it too!"
"Hahaha!"
Grateful and proud, Kaoru burst into hearty laughter at the twins’ brave answers.
The star-bright eyes they had inherited from their mother were just too precious.
"Papa! Ruby has a question."
Ruby raised her hand, her star-bright eyes sparkling, and Kaoru and Aqua both turned their attention to her.
The sight made her look like a little bird, so Kaoru smiled and stroked her head.
"Yes, my daughter?"
"Does Mama do this too?"
At Ruby’s question, Aqua looked at his father.
He was curious about that too.
Given Ai’s personality, surely she would...
"Yes. She’s learning from Papa too. Hmm... maybe it would be nice if we all learned together later."
"......"
"......"
As expected! Fast!
The twins looked at each other and nodded.
Their favorite was always the [invincible idol] who stayed one step ahead of them!
"Ame wants to learn too!!!"
Ame, who had gone into the room and somehow come running back out again, shouted with sparkling eyes.
Kaoru and the twins burst out laughing at the adorable Ame.
Of course, it would be the twins’ job to comfort Ame when she pouted at being told she was too young and would have to wait until later.
-
< Actress Himekawa Airi and husband Uehara Seijuro die in joint suicide leap >
After meeting Taiki at Matsumoto Child Center, Kaoru gathered information about him separately without asking President Toshiro.
The long-ago reported joint suicide leap of a celebrity couple.
It was confirmed that the deceased Himekawa Airi had a wound on her neck caused by a weapon, but when her husband Uehara Seijuro was also found dead at the scene, the case was naturally closed.
The weapon used to stab her neck was never found, and no suicide note was discovered, so it was concluded to be the tragic suicide of a celebrity couple.
People had speculated that the couple had quarreled over Seijuro Uehara’s notorious womanizing and that things had ended that way, but the case seemed to have faded from memory quickly.
Taiki, whom Kaoru had met at Matsumoto Child Center, bore the surname Uehara. He had taken his father’s surname, but perhaps because of his tragic family situation, Taiki seemed to have hidden it.
Kaoru let out a sigh and brushed back his bangs.
"......"
More than anything else, he had known Himekawa Airi before.
At Hikaru’s funeral, shortly after his death, she had come late in the evening to pay her respects and had cried so hard it was as if she had lost a blood relative, perhaps because she had once been connected to Hikaru through the [Rararai Theater Troupe].
Crying until your stomach hurts is hard enough, but sobbing like that also puts a considerable strain on the body.
As she cried for nearly five minutes without being able to catch her breath, Kaoru’s father’s staff supported her, helped her sit down, and Kaoru himself had approached, exchanged a few words with her, and handed her some water.
After that, Kaoru had left the funeral home under the pretense that he was unwell, but-
-Are you asking about Himekawa Airi? Yes. I remember her, sir. Hmm—if I recall correctly... she stayed until young master Hikaru’s cremation ceremony.
When Kaoru called the retired chief secretary to ask after her, the man clearly remembered her, even though it had been a long time ago.
Himekawa Airi had stayed by Hikaru’s side until the funeral was over and his body was cremated and buried.
And yet President Toshiro, despite clearly knowing Himekawa Airi, had not come to the funeral home with her.
-President Toshiro? President Toshiro... I don’t think he came after the final day. I think he may have shown his face briefly at the cremation ceremony, but it was such a hectic time that... I can’t say for sure.
Himekawa Airi, President Toshiro, and Hikaru.
Kaoru lifted his blue eyes and quietly looked out the window.
He had never heard a single word from President Toshiro about the actress Himekawa Airi, and the fact that she had attended the cremation ceremony meant their relationship must have been fairly close.
-Himekawa Airi? Why are you asking about her all of a sudden?
-Airi? Ah...
When he asked the older troupe members who had been around back then, they said she had been a promising actress in the old [Rararai Theater Troupe]. She had become close to President Toshiro through theater work, had directly taught Hikaru how to act, and had done a great deal in the past, but-
-I don’t know. There were rumors she left because she and the president disagreed. She used to keep in touch with us too, but that fell apart and we stopped contacting each other. The last time I saw her was when I went to the funeral home after hearing what happened to her husband.
-We don’t know the details either, but anything about Himekawa is President’s Achilles’ heel, so don’t ask. It seems he didn’t bother talking about it before you came.
-Haa... well, we weren’t especially close. I only saw her at the end. But... sigh I did hear, once, a huge argument between her and the president in his office.
Back then, the troupe had been in a bit of a stir over whether or not they would do a kabuki performance. In the end they decided not to, but it seems there had been some disagreement.
-For a while, President Toshiro had a hard time because of that. Sigh... Hikaru really looked up to Himekawa too. And then not long after Hikaru became like that, Himekawa ended up the same way. It’s tragic.
It seemed his ties with the senior troupe members from that time were not as deep as he had expected.
But one thing was certain: Hikaru and Himekawa had definitely been close.
After Himekawa and her husband died, Uehara Taiki was taken into Matsumoto Child Center.
Without a guardian...
Knock, knock.
"Kaoru."
The child who opened the door came in smiling, carrying a plate with pears on it, and Kaoru, who had been lost in thought, smiled and accepted the plate.
"Ah. Yeah. Oh, pears? Thanks."
"Hehe. Takachan gave them to me and told me to eat them. I met her because she said she was going on a trip to Korea with her husband the day after tomorrow, and she shared some with me."
Crunch
"Mm. Sweet."
Kaoru smiled at his wife, whose skill at peeling fruit had now reached a professional level.
Sharing the pear and tasting its sweetness made the complicated thoughts in his head feel as if they were clearing a little.
"A trip to Korea? Where to?"
"Mm-hm~ Seoul and Busan. They’re going for four nights and five days."
"They travel a lot, don’t they? Didn’t they go to Guam last time?"
"Hehe—traveling a lot does sound like Takachan, doesn’t it? She was the one who worked out the hardest out of all our members too."
Last year, among the original [B Komachi] members, Takamine and Nino each got married in April and May, and Takamine had moved into the same mansion where the Kaoru-Ai couple lived, taking the apartment directly above theirs.
Takamine’s husband was also a famous lawyer at a major firm and a third-year senior from the same University of Tokyo law faculty, so they had become close enough to talk comfortably whenever they met.
"...Nom nom. But Kaoru, were you studying? Why the notebook?"
"Huh? No. Nothing. Haha."
"......"
The child’s brilliant star-bright eyes shot a sharp glare at Kaoru.
She narrowed her eyes cutely, but there was an unmistakable fierceness to it, like an angry rabbit, and it was impossible to ignore.
Kaoru, chewing on the pear still left in his mouth, finally gave in and laughed awkwardly.
"It’s nothing major... There was a kid I met at the child center when the troupe people came for volunteer work last time. I guess I was just... curious?"
"Hmm~ If Kaoru’s curious, then there must be a reason for it... How old is he? Younger than Aqua and Ruby?"
"No. I couldn’t ask his exact age, but I think he said he was in middle school. Maybe two or three years younger than Aqua?"
"I see? He’s still young, so he must miss his parents a lot... Poor thing."
The child, who had grown up in a facility herself, often felt sorry for the children at the child center.
Kaoru closed the notebook and took her hand firmly in his.
He didn’t want to tell her the full story. The tangled circumstances were complicated, and it wasn’t something he should go around speaking of lightly.
So there was another secret now- Kaoru smiled faintly and rubbed his wife’s small, soft hand, tasting bitterness in his mouth.
They had promised to live without lying to each other and to lay all their secrets bare, and yet there were already so many...
He couldn’t tell her, as an outsider, that although he and Himekawa Airi had fallen out, President Toshiro had still secretly supported her son out of his own pity and sense of debt.
Then was that inexplicable familiarity he had felt from Taiki perhaps because of that too?
There were still unanswered questions, but Kaoru decided to leave it there for now.
Now that he had roughly figured out why President Toshiro had tried to hide it, digging any deeper would be rude, and besides, Hikaru and she were both already gone from this world, so he no longer wanted to stir up the past.
After thinking it through, Kaoru picked up his fork again, stabbed another piece of pear, and crunched into it.
"The pear’s good."
"Hehe—You’re eating well, Kaoru. Want me to peel you some more?"
"I’d appreciate that."
"Got it~ Then wait a bit~★"
Watching his wife leave through the doorway, Kaoru smiled.
The sweet pear juice had left his mouth feeling refreshed, but-
"......"
In Kaoru’s blue eyes, still fixed on the notebook, one small question continued to flicker.
And so time passed again, the new year arrived, and spring came.
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