My Family
By Akutagawa Mayumi
1. Akutagawa Mayumi
That's me! I'm Mayumi, and I'm the youngest in my whole family. I'm only in elementary school, but I help out lots at home. I have a dog named Pipo who loves me very very much.
2. Akutagawa Amane
Akutagawa Amane is my mommy. She is a very good mommy and she cooks very well. She is always telling me to be a good girl. Sometimes she uses words I can't understand though, and I don't like it.
3. Akutagawa Daisuke
This is my daddy, and he has a dry-cleaning business. He works for a very long time but still comes home to play with me after. He doesn't tell me to do things as much as kaa-chan does.
4. Akutagawa Taro
Taro-nii-san is my oldest brother, and he's married now, so I don't see him very often. I always miss him when he's gone, but he always teases me when he comes home, so I sometimes don't like him as much as my other brothers.
5. Akutagawa Jirou
Jirou-nii-san is my second oldest brother if you only count the real brothers, but he's third oldest otherwise. He's always sleeping and eating candy, but he's nice enough to share it with me, unlike Taro-nii-san, who always eats candy by himself.
6. Marui Bunta
Bunta-nii-san isn't my real brother, but since he and Jirou-nii-san are married, it makes him my brother-in-law. That's what my mommy said when I asked her why Taro-nii-san's wife is my sister-in-law. I like Marui-nii-san lots, because he buys me ice cream.
7. Pipo
Pipo is my dog...
As Akutagawa Amane read over her daughter's assignment, she paused at number 7, moved her glance back to number 6, and reread. Something about it had seemed dreadfully off, and she wasn't sure what.
Perhaps it was the fact that it mentioned a third son that she was sure she didn't have. And though her memory wasn't the absolute best, Amane wouldn't have forgotten her own son. (She had, however, on occasion forgotten the name of a son, but no, never a son in his entirety.)
Or maybe the fact that it mentioned this boy she had never heard of (though the name was a bit familiar for a reason that Amane couldn't place) who was supposedly married to her son.
'Mayumi,' she said slowly, 'who is this... Marui Bunta?'
'Bunta-nii-san is my sometimes-favourite brother,' Mayumi said cheerfully, chomping her way through a fatty donut - she and her siblings were lucky that they had their mother's metabolism, or they'd all be as fat as pigs. 'He's much nicer than Taro-nii-san is, but sometimes he distracts Jirou-nii-san and then I don't like him as much. He's my second favourite brother when he does that, 'cause then Jirou-nii-san beats him. Taro-nii-san is just mean.'
Recalling vaguely her daughter's bipolar attitude towards her eldest brother, Amane persisted in her train of thought. 'So, this Marui boy. Is he very close to Jirou?'
Mayumi nodded happily. After a moment, she continued, noticing her mother's confused expression. 'They're married,' she said matter-of-factly. She then continued with eating her donut, not noticing that her mother looked more confused than before.
'Mayumi,' Amane said slowly, 'are you sure the two are married?' Marriage? Between two boys? Between this mysterious Bunta-nii-san and her darling son Jirou, who had never shown any interest in anything besides tennis and sleep and candy? What was her world coming to?
Though she did remember her son talking about a very good tennis player before...
'What do you mean, exactly, when you say Jirou and your Bunta-nii-san are married?' Amane asked, hoping for some sort of clarification.
'Okaa-san, my donut's finished.' Mayumi stared, perplexed, at her empty hands. Amane pushed the box of donuts at her and Mayumi grabbed another one, munching with great satisfaction.
'Mayumi?' Amane prompted, smiling absently at her daughter's lack of an attention span, though the smile slipped off her face once she remembered the matter at hand.
'Oh, yes, about Jirou-nii-san and Bunta-nii-san.' Mayumi had a thoughtful look on her face as she tried to sort out what exactly she wanted to say. 'Okaa-san said that Taro-nii-san and his wife got married 'cause they wanted to live together 'cause they loved each other, and they could only live together if they got married. And that's like Jirou-nii-san and Bunta-nii-san, 'cause they love each other very much and live together, right?'
Live together? Her son was living with this boy and having an illicit affair? When had this happened? Amane, her head twirling with strange and worrisome thoughts, said slowly, 'Are you sure that they... live together?' Last time she'd checked, Jirou slept in this very house, only a few rooms away from her own.
Mayumi acquiesced with a nod and a smile, which was quite hard to pull off with half a bagel in her mouth.
'Are you very sure about this?' Amane pressed. Oh, she should have paid more attention to her younger son! Amane was sure that this was some sort of attention ploy - had she accidentally neglected Jirou? She had been so busy with Taro's wedding recently, and Jirou had never really needed much attention - he was always in his room sleeping or doing one thing or another and -
'Bunta-nii-san always comes over for sleepovers, right?' Mayumi added, almost as an afterthought. 'It's almost like he lives here 'cause he's here so often!'
Amane's train of thoughts ran abruptly into a brick wall.
Marui Bunta.
And then she realised why the name was familiar.
'You mean the polite boy who's always over for dinner?' Amane asked. 'And playing tennis with Jirou?'
Mayumi nodded once again, and Amane let out a sigh in relief. Sometimes, the way Mayumi worded things was so... Amane patted Mayumi's head inattentively. 'Be a good girl, all right?'
'I will,' her daughter replied, her eyes on the empty donut box rather than her mother. 'Do we have any more?'
'You should fix up your assignment,' Amane admonished. 'If you say Jirou and Marui-kun are married, you'll create misunderstandings that the two mightn't appreciate.'
Mayumi blinked owlishly.
'Just say that the two are very good friends,' Amane clarified, 'and that they aren't actually living together.'
'Okay!' Mayumi replied dutifully, attacking her assignment immediately afterwards with an eraser in one hand and a pencil in the other.
Amane smiled at her daughter, and retreated to her room, deciding that she might as well go grocery shopping, since she had neglected to buy rice when she'd gone out earlier. She walked out the front door, humming a tune, and soon the whole mess with Marui Bunta and her son Jirou was forgotten.
Though there was still something bothering her at the back of her mind...
Her thoughts then changed to things more everyday, such as what other groceries she may have forgotten to by, the fact that Mayumi had not explained what she'd meant when she had said that Jirou and Marui loved each other very much completely disregarded.
Happy birthday, Slacky-mama! xD I hope this was at least somewhat up to standards.
This is unbeta-ed, so I'm sorry for any mistakes that there were. XD
Wouldn't a review be just lovely? awinchan