My mother was a very busy woman.

The harder she worked, the more her work was valued, and she kept getting promoted.

She sought to go higher and higher. She was always shining, and she was my hero.

My mother started her career as a fashion designer at a small clothing factory in Okinomiya.

My father was a designer, too.

They met through their jobs, and soon got married.

They lived in a small apartment in Okinomiya,

but they moved to my grandma's house, our current house, in Hinamizawa when she got pregnant with me.

We lived there until right before I went to elementary school.

Now that I think about it, that was the happiest time of my life.

I felt happy every day and believed without a doubt that tomorrow would be the same.

I was so happy that I took it for granted and didn't even feel the happiness.

I really did feel happy every day.

I was small at that time and didn't really understand what was going on, but it seemed like the company my parents were working for was having financial difficulties.

So, my mother and a few other young designers started talking about leaving the company and going independent.

...After many things happened and the situation grew complicated,

they got an offer to work at a big design firm in Ibaraki and they took the offer.

At that time, I heard my mother saying many difficult words like 'limited partnership' and 'business alliance', but in short, what she wanted to do was move to Ibaraki.

My mother and her peers were hired because their talent and experience made them immediate assets at their new company.

However, my father wasn't one of them.

Unfortunately, my father wasn't as talented as my mother was.

So, moving to Ibaraki meant that my father had to give up being a fashion designer.

My mother's new company had high expectations of her talent and promised her a responsible project.

She didn't want to waste her growing talent and passion by living in a rural town like Hinamizawa.

So my mother convinced my father to quit his job and move to Ibaraki to support her and to help her build her career.

Back then, moving meant that I had to say goodbye to my close friends.

I didn't want to move, and I kept crying about it.

After we moved to Ibaraki, my mother was a big success.

Not only did she have great leadership skills, she was full of energy, and I believe she made the best use of her talents to succeed.

She came home late every night and barely had any days off.

When she had a big project, she often stayed entire nights at her office.

But when she came home, she always looked fulfilled and wore a happy smile that she had never worn when she was in Hinamizawa.

She was shining, and I remember I always wanted to shine like her when I grew up.

On the other hand, my father wasn't doing so well.

He couldn't find a job as a fashion designer, so he took a clerical job at a small company, but he kept changing positions.

He couldn't use the experience that he had cultivated, and it was very hard for him.

But, he was very understanding.

He started to take care of things around the house for my mother, who got busier and busier, having one project after another.

He cleaned the house, did the laundry, and came to my school events.

However, he couldn't cook. He did cook rice, but always bought side dishes from a grocery store.

We ate dinner without my mother more and more often.

"I guess she's busy again."

Every time I said that, he always told me, "your mother is working very hard.

So, let's support her, Reina."

That was what he always told me.

I decided to help my father with the cooking.

I thought it was a good idea to learn how to cook, since he wasn't good at it.

Whenever my mother cooked, I helped her and tried to learn how to cook from her.

She apologized for not having enough time to cook for us, but she was happy that I was learning.

I think I wrote in my school yearbook that I wanted to be a clothing designer in the future, just like my mother.

But... apparently I lacked my mother's exceptional sense of style.

She used to tell me, "taste is something that you're born with, not something that you cultivate."

...I remember I was discouraged to be a designer because of that.

That was why I decided to reach her by getting better at things she wasn't so good at, instead of trying to be like her.

I wanted to be good not only at cooking, but also at doing things around the house such as cleaning, doing the laundry, and grocery shopping.

I remember my father was really happy that I did all that for him, because he wasn't good at it at all.

He couldn't find a job and spent a lot of time at home, so he seemed to enjoy spending time doing the housework with his daughter more than anything.

I started to become better and better at filling in for my mother,

and she started to get too busy to do any of the house work at all, and she moved on to a more responsible position at her job.

She took me out to many places, as if to compensate for leaving me alone all the time.

She used to say, "let's go eat something delicious without telling your father" and took me out to a restaurant.

She took me to high-class restaurants and amusement parks.

Sometimes it was only me and my mother. Sometimes it was with her friends from work.

She took me to a beach barbecue one summer with those friends.

I was introduced as her daughter, and every one of them pampered me.

I still remember there was this one guy who particularly doted on me. He was a good-looking young man (I called him "Uncle" once and he got mad at me) who was nicely tanned with dyed brown hair.

This young man often came with us when we went out.

When my mother took me somewhere, she usually made several phone calls for her work during the day, and sometimes she took me out to a place where she could also do her work at the same time.

So, I didn't feel awkward when people from her work came with us.

But I always preferred to be alone with her, so I was happier when we could do that.

One day, she took me to a very high-end part of town.

Of course, she always spoiled me whenever we went out.

She bought me things and let me eat whatever I wanted.

But, she especially spoiled me on that day.

She took me to many expensive-looking boutiques and accessory stores.

She was about to buy me something, but I told her not to get it because it didn't look good on me. Without hesitation, she bought it anyway.

I remember there were many zeros on the price tag.

On that day, I realized my mother's design work had made her a very successful woman and she was earning a lot of money.

We took a break at a ridiculously expensive-looking restaurant that probably charged 1,000 yen for a glass of orange juice.

My mother clapped her hands and spoke to me with a smile on her face.

She asked, "Reina, would you like to make your dream come true?"

When I was in kindergarten, my teacher gave students a topic to draw a picture of. The topic was "my dream" and I drew myself eating a mountain of fruit parfait all by myself.

What my mother meant to say was that she was going to make that dream come true for me.

It was a normal day.

It wasn't my birthday or anything.

But since my mother always spoiled me when we went out together, I didn't feel awkward about it at all and I accepted her offer with a happy smile.

There were five or six of fruit parfaits in front of me.

I remember it looked exactly like the world I drew, and I felt like I was floating in that dream world.

It was too much for us to finish,

but we dug our spoons into it as if we were playing in the mud, and we really enjoyed eating it together.

It was my first time to experience getting full by eating only fruit parfaits, and I remember I was very happy.

I enjoyed tasting the happiness and chatting with my mother.

"Reina-chan,

do you remember the man who went to the movie and had dinner with us last time?"

"...Umm, are you talking about Uncle Akihito?

Hau, though I can't call him that or he's going to hit me."

"Hahahahahaha.

Reina-chan, do you like Akihito-san?"

"I hate him!!

He always teases me."

"That's because he likes you.

You got along well with him at the barbecue."

"Well...

I get along with him every now and then.

Every now and then."

My mother laughed.

I didn't know why she brought up the subject, but I didn't really pay attention to it, because I was too young.

Now that I think about it, she was breaking the news.

I just didn't notice it.

"Reina-chan,

who do you like better, your father or me?"

"You."

It wasn't that I hated my father or anything, but I thought giving her that answer was appropriate, after she spoiled me so much.

"If I said I'm going to live in another house away from your father, which of us would you like to live with?"

"...Ummm.

Huh.........?"

"I'm thinking

about divorcing your father and getting married to Akihito-san."

At that time, my mother was a very successful woman.

I didn't know this at the time, but she was drafted by a headhunter to work at a bigger company, where she was promoted to a higher and more responsible position, one where she could bring out the most of her talent.

Of course, the position wasn't the only thing she gained.

Compared to my father's low salary, my mother was earning enough money to support a family of three and still have some left over.

I'd kind of realized it from the way she spent money.

The greater a position she achieved, the more she spent time with people at her level.

All of them were bright and talented.

Compared to them, my father might've looked unattractive to her.

I liked Uncle Akihito.

But, I liked him as one of my mother's friends, not in the same way I liked my father.

I liked my father and mother equally, so it was very shocking to me that my mother wanted to divorce him. I felt as if the ground below me was beginning to crack.

That expression, I realized, actually fit my situation very well.

I had to choose which side of the cracked ground I wanted to stand on.

My mother told me to live with her, at her new house.

'Her new house' meant the house Uncle Akihito lived in.

I thought a house was a sanctuary for a family.

I believed that a house was a holy place where strangers couldn't easily enter.

...That was why I couldn't believe her. How could she let a stranger invade such a holy place so easily?

Why do you hate my father?

My mother looked down and didn't answer.

I asked her another question.

Why can't you stay with my father?

I think that was the hardest and the most heartbreaking of all questions for my mother to answer.

In short, my mother had cheated on him.

She loved another man who was more attractive than my father. It was just that and nothing more.

I knew more than anybody that it wasn't my father's fault.

First of all, he decided to move from Hinamizawa to support my mother as much as he could.

For him, nothing good had come from that.

Actually, I think he had a very tough time since we moved to Ibaraki.

But, he volunteered to be her support and tried very hard to do that.

I thought my mother appreciated his support.

So...

I took her decision as a betrayal.

I told her that I disagreed with everything, including their divorce.

I said it very loudly and made everybody in the store jump.

Sure, continue your relationship with Uncle Akihito, but don't divorce my father.

I feel bad for him.

I feel terrible for him.

He has been doing nothing but support you patiently this whole time. How could you do such a cruel thing to him?

I screamed as loud as I could.

Then my mother answered.

"...It's

too

late."

Why?!

You haven't talked with my father about this, have you? It's not too late!

"I'm...

...... pregnant."

I don't know whether my mother actually told him about the divorce in person.

A middle-aged woman who called herself a lawyer came to the house several times to talk to my father on my mother's behalf. She sometimes called him, too.

My father begged the lawyer to let him speak directly to my mother many times, but it never happened.

I could tell by the way they talked that he had no clue when my mother told him she wanted a divorce.

Well, again, I'm not even sure if she told him in person.

The lawyer told him not to meet my mother, not to call her at work, and many other things, too.

To top it all off,

she told him not to see my mother ever again.

He wanted to talk to her. He called some of their mutual friends, but he only found out the name of the guy she was having affair with and nothing more.

He asked me,

"Do you know the guy?"

I told him,

"I do."

I also told him

that he was a funny guy and had given me candy many times.

...I'll never forget how he looked when I told him that.

He hit me for the first time.

He hit me so hard that his hand print stayed on my cheek for a while.

Then, he fell on the floor and cried loudly.

And then, I started to cry, too.

...I didn't cry because he hit me.

Uncle Akihito was kind to me, so I liked him, and talked to him out of courtesy.

...No, that wasn't it. Girls had to be kind to everybody.

...That's what I thought.

But, I was wrong.

I learned in this world that there are people you should be nice to, and "enemies" you shouldn't be nice to.

The "enemies" are the ones who would destroy my life with their very existence.

Whether they mean to harm me or not doesn't matter.

They're like weeds growing in a flowerbed.

Dandelions are innocent, but they take all of the nutrition for the tulips from the soil. That's why we have to pull them out.

The dandelions did nothing wrong...

But, they're

the enemy.

Enemies are bad people.

That guy was a bad person.

I shouldn't have accepted him.

I should've rejected him with everything I had.

By doing so, I might've been able to disrupt their relationship.

By doing so, I might've been able to make my mother feel like their relationship was not going to work.

If I tried to do so... my parents wouldn't have had to break up.

My father and I cried together... but, we cried for different reasons.

He must've cried because it happened so fast and didn't make any sense to him.

I cried

because I regretted that I let it happen when I had the chance to prevent it.

My father stroked my cheek and opened his mouth to apologize

...but he couldn't speak and just cried with me.

One day, the lawyer let me see my mother.

My mother asked me to live with her at her house again.

I didn't know what to say, so I just kept looking down and listened to her apologies.

My father knew that I was going to see my mother on that day.

So, he handed me a letter and told me to give it to her.

I don't know what he wrote in that letter.

But for some reason, I was able to imagine what kind of things he wrote when I felt it through the envelope.

...After all,

the letter inside the envelope had

a rough surface.

He must've been crying while writing the letter, and his tears made the letter all wrinkled when it dried.

My mother took the letter from me, told me that she'd read it later, and was about to put it in her bag.

I stopped her and told her to read it there.

I wanted to see

how she was going to take the last words that my father had left to her.

But my mother didn't read it.

She told me she wanted to read it alone later, and she put it in her bag.

At that time,

I realized.

...No, it was more than that.

I should say

I knew

because it was so obvious.

I knew that my mother was lying.

She had no intention of reading my father's letter.

She was going to throw it away after I was gone, but she lied just because she wanted to seem like a nice person in front of me.

The slight curl in her eyebrows and lips told me that more clearly than anything else.

At that moment, I finally knew something else.

The guy she was having an affair with wasn't the only bad person.

My mother was also a bad person.

Since that moment,

the existence of my mother disappeared from my world like dry ice evaporating.

I didn't have to hesitate about whom to live with anymore.

"I don't want to go to your house.

The Ryuugu house is my home.

I don't want to see you anymore.

Please don't even call me."

"But Reina, if you live with your father, you won't have..."

At that moment, I hated my name for the first time in my life.

"Please

don't call me Reina ever again.

...I have to go now.

Goodbye."

Those were

my last words to my mother...

no, to the woman who used to be my mother.

After that, I spent many days without feeling anything. I didn't know if the days were long or short. I didn't know which season I was living in.

It was supposed to be nothing out of the ordinary, not having my mother around.

...But, every time my father saw things that reminded him of her...

like her toothbrush,

her tea cup,

or her favorite books,

he shed tears, which left me frustrated.

That's why I decided to completely remove her belongings from the house.

I roughly threw her things into a black trash bag.

I started to do so frantically.

By the time I knocked down her wardrobe,

threw her music box hard on the floor,

and broke her mirror...

.........

my mind was already not working properly.

.........When I try to remember what happened after that...

I feel disoriented.

That's because the pills the doctor gave me back then made me feel disoriented and lethargic every time I took them.

It seems that dullness hit me especially hard,

since every time I try to remember that time, it makes me feel disoriented and lethargic, just like the pills made me feel...

...I destroyed everything that smelled like my mother,

but the thing I wanted to destroy the most might've been myself.

Even after I threw all of her belongings away, I still couldn't stop feeling regret, and I decided to blame myself in the end.

Maybe I was thinking that I wanted to do damage to her reputation and successful life by destroying her daughter, destroying myself.

When I was about to reach

that very last resolution...

Oyashiro-sama came to me.

Oyashiro-sama told me

to go back to Hinamizawa.

Yes, all of this was because of his curse.

Oyashiro-sama brought a curse upon the Ryuugu family because we broke his rule and abandoned Hinamizawa.

After I figured that out,

.........

everything started to make sense to me, all the crazy things that happened after my mother was gone.

The curse of Oyashiro-sama did all of that to us.

It was Oyashiro-sama's voice that was telling us to come back to Hinamizawa.

That's right.

We should've stayed in Hinamizawa.

Everything went crazy because we moved.

We had to go back to Hinamizawa.

...I started feeling disoriented again... and a dull pain ran through my head.

It might be a scream from within me telling me not to push myself too hard to remember any further.

The house where we used to live in Hinamizawa was still there.

My grandma already passed away, and the house was the only property she left for us.

I remembered that I used to live in Hinamizawa, but all I remembered was that it was a village that I used to live in until right before I went to elementary school.

I remembered the atmosphere of the village, too, but that was all I remembered.

I forgot the streets and even the names of close friends I used to play with.

The neighbors knew that the son of the deceased woman had come back divorced,

but they didn't know us and we didn't know them.

So, it was almost like we moved to a new place.

...However, as far as I was concerned,

it still was my hometown that I had to come back to.

At first, everything was inconvenient compared to life in Ibaraki, and it was hard for both of us to adjust.

But, we renovated the old house, and it was only me and my father.

Life here seemed to make my father forget his pain from the divorce.

Mii-chan was very kind to me, and I started to get used to my new life, too.

I did everything around the house, and we gradually went back to a time when we used to live happily.

Anybody can live a happy life.

People sometimes say that some people are born to be unhappy, but I believe that's just an excuse for people who don't even want to try.

I won't give in to fate.

I'll never give up trying to recapture the happy times that I lost...

...I'm going to become happy to the point where I don't even feel the happiness anymore.

I'm not going to cry anymore.

I'll never cry again.

I used up all of my tears on that night my father hit me.

The curse of Oyashiro-sama is over because we came back to Hinamizawa.

So, I'm going to have a happy life from now on...

All of a sudden, big raindrops hit the roof of the car, and I recovered my senses.

It was still raining hard.

It had already gotten dark outside.

The shadows the table lamp created were very dark, and it looked as if there's nothing else around me.

If I turned off this light

...would everything in this world disappear?

I turned off...

the light.

Darkness swallowed me.

But, the cold air and the sound of rain didn't change a bit, and that made me realize I was still in this world.

The curse of Oyashiro-sama.

Did the curse of Oyashiro-sama do those crazy things to my family?

Or did I convince myself it did as an excuse for myself because I didn't want to feel guilty about the divorce?

...Sometimes I'm not sure.

Since that time, Oyashiro-sama hasn't come to me.

...I sometimes feel like it was a delusion I created because I was mentally ill.

But...

...he did come

at that time.

I'm sure about that.

Am I right, Oyashiro-sama?

I was unhappy after I left Hinamizawa. But, I came back and I'm happy now.

But,

where am I supposed to go now that I'm unhappy in Hinamizawa?

...Where?

"Stop it, Rena...

...Don't think that you're unhappy.

I am happy.

I will be happy.

I can definitely be happy...!"

Suddenly, I felt that if this darkness swallowed me, I'd never be able to be happy again.

I found the switch of the table lamp, and turned it back on.

When I looked at the clock, it was already past\n11 PM.

I had to go home. I wouldn't have time to prepare my lunch for tomorrow.

At least, I'd have to set the timer on the rice cooker.

It didn't look like the rain was going to stop anytime soon.

...I looked out of the window to see the rain, but could only see my reflection.

I talked to that reflection in the window.

I'm so glad that my father's happy.

...He'd been acting like he was dead for a long time.

The smile on his face is a good sign that he's regaining his former happy life.

He became miserable...

because of me.

That's why I don't mind doing things for him until he regains his smile and we become truly happy.

When I stay here alone for a while, it gives him some time to be alone with her...

plus I don't have to fake a smile.

But then...

my reflection in the window tells me.

Rena, you're such a good girl.

...You're kind to everybody and love them equally.

You can make anybody like you.

But, did you forget something...?

In this world, there are people you should be kind to...

and

enemies

that you have to reject with all you've got. I thought you learned that lesson...

No, don't listen to her.

...My reflection is always mean.

She always says mean things and makes fun of my worries.

...But, she always tells me things that I can't say myself...

Let's go home, Rena.

To your home.

Forget about the mean Rena in the mirror.

I was a bit hungry by then.

After all the desserts I ate... I still got hungry.

I almost forgot.

...Rina-san bought me a shortcake.

I've never had a shortcake from Angel Mort, but I bet it'll taste good.

I'd have to give my thanks to Rina-san the next time I see her.

...Rina-san speaks in a way that makes it very clear how she grew up, but I'm sure she's a good person.

That's because she's so good to my father.

I did everything I could to make my father smile, but I failed. On the other hand, Rina-san can put a big smile on his face so easily.

I have to thank Rina-san.

I have to thank her for cheering up my father.

But... I don't know why.

......I just don't like...

her perfume...