A glimpse into the past, part 7: this part of this fanfiction details events that had happened before the time series covered by the anime. Basically, this is a prequel, happening before the anime and before the non-"A glimpse into the past" chapters of this fanfiction as well.
~Satomi residence~
Koharu: "I give up! I can't live anymore without you, Yamato-kun! I've spent too many weeks away from you to realize that this isn't how I want to live my life! I'm sure you feel the same way….." came the young female voice of the actress in the movie.
Enju's eyes were glued to the TV screen, her being so detached from the world around her that her guardian felt a surprising sense of uneasiness at the sudden wave of tranquility that their house was suddenly engulfed in. For her to be so focused on something was surprising.
Rentarō: "It's incredible how much control TV has over children these days" he monologued nonchalantly while staring at the disconnected girl on the floor. He would say that this was unhealthy for her but, in actuality, he was a bit happy, considering that these rare moments of quiet were the only times throughout the day when he could actually lay back and relax without having the child living with him now interrupt his peace and quiet.
Koharu: "I want us to be together again! It's not normal for us to continue like this!" she yelled at the man in the distance, begging him to turn back around and look at her again.
He was unsure of what he should do. His face betrayed uncertainty, signaling the woman that she was having at least a small amount of influence over him. He was indecisive, which meant that she was in the process of convincing him.
Yamato: "But…..your parents will never accept us! Your father told me he'll never acknowledge me as part of his family!" the man retorted, barely winning against his better judgment and trying to show restraint and reason. Koharu would have none of that though and ran up to him.
Koharu: "Then let him be! We don't need his family! We can start our own one….together!" she wrapped her arms around him and pulled his head into hers, their lips connecting in full view of the camera as the sunset radiated light from the background into the lens. A picturesque image to behold.
Enju: "Ewww…." came the unwelcome interjection that was inevitable. That was the cue that Rentarō dreaded the most. This meant that the girl was now ready to start a conversation with him again. Apparently his relaxation period was over now.
Enju: "What are they doing? Their mouths are touching….." despite her childish protests at the scene happening right in front of her, she still couldn't avert her gaze or bother to change the channel, despite the fact that Rentarō had given her the remote control.
Rentarō: "They're kissing…." came the less than enthusiastic explanation from her now disgruntled Promoter, still lying on the sofa with a book in his hand trying not to lose focus from the paragraph that he was in the middle of reading. "It's what couples do when they're together!".
Enju: "But why? Isn't it gross?" as someone who had been isolated from society for most of her life, she lacked the understanding of how social interactions worked which, sadly for him as her guardian, meant that he was now responsible with educating her into these sorts of matters. This was something which he greatly disliked.
Rentarō: "Not if you're in love with the one you're kissing! Kissing is something you do only to the one you really love! It's the purest form of affection and it's what makes love grow between lovers, allowing their relationship to blossom" he kind of doubted this child would be able to grasp what he had just said but, then again, it wasn't like any of this stuff was that important to her, at least not yet. She was still so young that he considered it would have been acceptable if all of this just ended up flying over her head and her not registering any of it. At the end of the day, it made no difference to him.
Enju: "I don't get it…." she seemed to suddenly have lost interest in this topic when he explained it in such an abstract way.
Rentarō: "You'll get it when you'll grow older!" as dismissive as that sounded, Enju tried not to let her spirits go down and kept the conversation going for a bit.
Enju: "Did you ever kiss anyone, Rentarō?" that was a rather intrusive and unexpected question coming from her.
Of course, she was so underdeveloped in the social department due to her deficient upbringing that she didn't even realize how much of a privacy invading question that was. He would have to, at some point, also teach her about boundaries in the near future.
Rentarō: "No, I did not. I'm saving my first kiss for someone special!" he decided to entertain her a bit and gauge a reaction out of her with that statement. It wasn't really a lie since he was actually saving it for Kisara, at some point, although he did not go into that much detail with her, for obvious reasons.
Enju: "Oh….so the first kiss is something special?" she took the bait quite easily and immediately made the connection that he wanted her to make. "And who are you saving it for?" although this next question was too blunt for his tastes.
Rentarō: "That's none of your business…." seeing as how she was going a bit too far with her queries, he decided to put an end to this, much to her chagrin.
Enju: "Eeeh!" she made an annoyingly exaggerated gesture when being shot down like that. She didn't expect him to just refuse to answer her so directly. He seldom did that.
Yamato: "Koharu, I know I've been a fool all this time. Every day I've been dreaming of this moment but I just could never find it" the man suddenly brought out a small box from behind while displaying it in full view to his partner. "Koharu….will you marry me?" slowly he parted the encasement open only to reveal a shining diamond ring to the gasping woman.
Koharu: "YES! I WILL" she suddenly embraced the man yet again, making the box drop to the floor.
Enju: "Wow…..that's so shiny!" hilariously enough, that's the first thing that this girl reacted to at that proposal scene.
Rentarō chuckled at that. To some extent, it was fun seeing Enju react to these types of scenes on TV. Having one as pure and unaccustomed as her see these social behaviors for the first time is an interesting experiment in seeing how children digest this type of content.
Enju: "So whenever a man wants to marry a woman, he gives her a ring?" that conclusion was a bit unexpected for the boy though.
Rentarō: "Yes, that's how engagement works. But do you even know what marriage is?" since she hadn't asked that question explicitly, it felt like she already knew the answer to it.
Enju: "Yes, back at the training facility, we had audio books that we could listen to if we were bored. Some of them had fairy tale stories. They had glimpses of a couple who was married. They were husband and wife. Although I never heard of this engagement thing…." so she wasn't 100% clueless about social customs. He was impressed, even by something so little.
Rentarō: "Engagement is when two people decide that they'll marry. It's like a declaration to each other that they are ready to go to the next level in their relationship, that is, marriage. The ring symbolizes their love coming to fruition and it's also a sign for the rest of the world that they are now promised to each other. It's during the following period of time when they prepare for the actual marriage" if nothing else, him explaining these things to her now would mean he won't have to explain them when she'll be older when she'll actually need them. It was better this way since now it wasn't as awkward to discuss these topics as it would have been had she been a teenager like him. It's one thing to discuss about love and romance with a child that can barely understand these concepts and it's an entirely different thing to discuss it with an awkward and insecure teenager.
Enju: "That's….kinda cool" was all she responded to all of that with. "And so romantic! I want a wedding too!" she declared sheepishly, in such an absurd way that he genuinely found it heartwarming. "Oh….wait, they're undressing each other now! Is this part of the engagement thing too-…" but before she could say anything further, he jumped off the sofa, snatched the remote from her hand and closed the television before the scene became too inappropriate. "Hey, what's the big deal?! I was watching that!" she yelled with an annoyed tone of voice.
Rentarō: "That's enough TV for now! You're too young for stuff like that!" he placed the remote control back on the table.
Enju: "But you told me that today you'll let me watch as much TV as I wanted! You lied to me!" her protests were falling on deaf ears as there was no way Rentarō was going to turn the set back on after barely dodging what would have been a really long and even more awkward conversation about the birds and the bees with her.
Rentarō: "I think it's time we have that meeting with Sumire-sensei. You know, the meeting that you've been putting off for days now…." he looked annoyed at the girl.
Enju: " (looking away awkwardly) Well, it's not my fault. You told me that the dentist gives you candy and yet when she checked me out she didn't give me anything. Not only that but she cut my mouth the last time I went there!" obviously she wasn't that eager to return to that office.
Rentarō: "Well, that's because Sumire-sensei isn't an actual dentist. She's…..uh…...a general doctor, let's say. But she was the only one who was willing to allow an appointment with you to treat that tooth problem of yours. No dentist in this country wants to get involved with Cursed Children so you're lucky she at least decided to give you the time of day. You should be grateful!" he said that but, he had to admit, even he disliked the idea of visiting Sumire. That woman would always either creep him out or leave him with a bad taste in his mouth for the rest of the day. Neither of which he enjoyed.
Enju: "Yes yes, I know…." she gave up with a huge sigh.
Rentarō: "And besides, I promised her that we will be arriving at her office today. I'm not about to break that promise so that's final! We're going there whether you want to or not!" yep, she was not getting out of this.
Enju: "Haaaai" came her disheartened annoyed reply.
~Later that day, Sumire's office~
Sumire: "Hmmm" hummed the doctor as she stared at the now deflated lump of flesh under the intense ray from the flashlight that she was holding. "It looks like the inflammation fully receded. The antibiotics I gave you were enough to clear the infection!" she finally pulled away from the nine year old sitting in the patient chair. "Congratulations, Enju! You now have a 100% healthy mouth!" the woman congratulated the small girl who was suddenly extremely relieved when hearing that.
Enju: "Ah…..does that mean you won't cut my mouth anymore?" she answered almost rhetorically, overjoyed.
Sumire: "No, of course not. I only did that last time to let the pus and bacteria filled fluids out of your abscess. I don't usually go around cutting childrens' mouths all day long, you know! Unless, of course, they're naughty kids!" she suddenly turned around while making a scary face, frightening the girl. "You're not a naughty kid though, are you, Enju?" the girl's face turned almost as white as Sumire's when hearing that.
Enju: "N-no! Of course not! I'm a good girl!" she comically gulped immediately after saying that, fear clearly being displayed on her face.
Sumire: "Good. Cause in that case, you deserve this!" and, without any prior warning, Sumire produced a colored lollipop out of nowhere and handed it over to Enju. "All good children deserve a treat every once in a while!" at the sight of candy, Enju's previous fear suddenly turned into ecstatic joy and all of her bad feelings towards this woman were inverted into respect and trust, predictably enough.
Rentarō: "She's so easy to manipulate. What if it was a complete stranger handing you that piece of candy instead? You would have been kidnapped ten times over by now…." he mentally scolded the child, very disappointed at how gullible his supposedly superpowered partner was. "You know, as a doctor, you shouldn't encourage unhealthy behavior! Eating sugar was bad for you last time I heard!" he interrupted the two women's conversation.
Enju: "Hey, whose side are you on?!" came a very disapproving remark from Enju who, amusingly enough, had the lollipop sticking out of her mouth, greatly diminishing the threatening face that she was trying to make towards him.
Rentarō: "On the side of justice, obviously!" that came a bit out of nowhere.
Sumire: "I'll tell you on which side you're on: the side of the living! And that's why you're so boring!" the doctor adopted a peculiarly serious face when intervening into this conversation.
Rentarō: "YOU STAY OUT OF THIS!" the overwhelmed boy tried, in vain, to control the scenario playing out in front of him. "I'm just trying to look out after you, Enju! You should be thankful! And, also, you should remember to say 'Thank you' to Sumire-sensei for giving you that candy! Show proper manners, like I told you!" the boy tried to impose authority although to no avail now.
Sumire: "He's such an annoying killjoy. How can you stand living with him, Enju?" the doctor nonchalantly asked the girl sitting right next to her who was, yet again, nodding in approval with her, almost like a henchman parroting everything he was hearing from his boss.
Enju: "It's not easy keeping him around the house. But at least he makes good food!" that broke a nerve with the boy.
Rentarō: "YOU'RE THE ONE LIVING IN MY HOUSE, ENJU! And also, what happened to you disliking Sumire-sensei before we arrived here?! Since when did you two become so chummy with each other? If I knew candy was this effective in manipulating you, I would have just bought a month's supply of candy from the very beginning!" this was a lost battle and he knew it. He would have liked to pretend that he stood a chance but he knew he could command no authority over the girl as long as the doctor would be feeding mutiny-raising thoughts in her head at each possible occasion.
Rentarō: "Since the checkup is over now, I think it's about time we leave! Thank you for your assistance, Sumire-sensei!" he tried to show the proper gratitude that she deserved by bowing in front of her.
Sumire: "Yeah well, I don't really like this kind of work. Dentist work is usually very straightforward but monotone so don't expect me to do this to you anytime soon, Rentarō! However, I will make an exception for Enju here!" she patted the girl's head which seemed to not bother Enju at all, surprisingly enough. "Come back whenever you feel like it, Enju! There will always be more candy for you over here!" this was a really strange side of sensei that Rentarō never expected to see in his entire life. She had never been this kind and chummy before, sending shivers down his spine.
Rentarō: "Something is really wrong with her…." he couldn't explain this strange behavior at all. Had he finally discovered sensei's maternal and feminine side, after all these long years of knowing her? Or was she this friendly with Enju just because it allowed her more opportunities to annoy him when she would turn his own Initiator against him? He already knew the answer to that but the other possibility was still so deeply disturbing that he couldn't help but consider it.
Enju: "Haaaai!" the girl beamed a radiant smile back towards the woman before walking up to Rentarō so that they could start walking outside the office. "Oh, actually, before I forget…." the girl remembered what she had seen on TV earlier that day. "Sumire-sensei, what happens when a man and a woman start undressing each other? What happens afterwards?" when hearing that question, Rentarō's face turned white. He didn't expect Enju to bring that up now with the worst person he could imagine.
The teenage boy turned his head towards the doctor, glaring at her to intimidate her into keeping her mouth shut. However, that did not work and Sumire responded to that with a chilling smile.
Rentarō: "Crap"
Sumire: "Well, that's called sex, Enju. It starts with a bit of prelude before it-…"
Rentarō: "STOP! Sensei, have you no shame?! She's just nine years old! She's not supposed to hear any of this!" he began yelling back at the doctor who was enjoying herself way more than she probably should have.
Sumire: "Well, Rentarō, I'm a medical professional. I'm not as squeamish about this subject as you are. In fact, I'm worried that if I won't do my job properly in teaching Enju about this stuff, you'll never get around to doing it with her either!" that was a groundless and unfair accusation, the boy felt.
Rentarō: "Thank you for your worries! But I can assure you that I've got everything under control!" he tried to deflect any more senseless accusations from her.
Sumire: "If you say so. Still, I really hope she'll get around to finding your secret treasure trove inside your room and learning about it that way. But, now that I think about it, you're so boring you probably don't even have those magazines around, do you?" apparently his efforts were in vain. The boy's face was so red, both from embarrassment as well as from anger that he felt he was about to lose himself at that point.
Enju: "Treasure?! Rentarō, do you have a secret treasure in your room?! And you never told me?!" this was becoming quite troublesome, even he had to admit that.
Rentarō: "NO! I don't! And you, stop planting weird ideas in her head!" fed up with this situation, the boy tried to save whichever shred of dignity he still had in him.
Sumire: "Fine. I guess that's enough teasing for one day…." the doctor relented finally, deciding that she enjoyed enough of the teen boy's torment.
Rentarō was finally ready to continue onward before a thought passed through his mind.
Rentarō: "Uh…..Enju" he suddenly called out his Initiator to gain her attention. "I'm gonna stay behind and talk with sensei in private. Mind waiting for me outside?" he asked the girl, receiving a disapproving look in return.
Enju: "Why? Is it gonna be more 'adult' stuff that you don't want me to hear?" she threw back at him, taking him by surprise.
Rentarō: "No. Trust me, that's almost never what I would want to talk about with her…..for many various reasons" the thought of him and Sumire talking about sex was not welcome. Their relationship was already as awkward as one could be. They didn't need any help by bringing up odd topics of discussion like that one.
Enju wanted to complain a bit more but decided to refrain and did as she had been asked. She exited the room quietly leaving the two of them alone.
Sumire: "Well, Rentarō? What is it that you wanted to discuss with me in private?" she began the conversation, prompting the boy to summon the courage to discuss with her a topic that he was not really happy to bring up.
Rentarō: "What…...do ten year old girls like?" he blurted in such a random and truly senseless manner that what followed wasn't a comprehensive response from the doctor. She just stood there, in complete silence, dumbfounded completely.
Sumire: "What?" she couldn't believe it. Her, one of the greatest geniuses in this world, was being asked to answer such a menial and genuinely simple question by an awkward teenager. "Where did I go wrong in life?" she couldn't help but ask herself.
Rentarō: "Enju's birthday is tomorrow. And I couldn't think of anything to buy her for a gift! At this point I'm running out of ideas!" was the excuse he provided to the frustrated look that he was receiving from the mad genius in the room.
Sumire: " (sigh) How is it that you always impress me with the amount of dullness that you generate? Almost every single day you just talk about boring and pointless stuff for no reason whatsoever, Rentarō" was all she could say back to him to relieve some of the anger she had because of his previous query to her.
Rentarō: "(glaring) Well, excuse me for being boring! I guess that's just the way I am!" needless to say he wasn't happy about that response from her.
Sumire: "Yes, but I implanted Varanium limbs into your broken body! I replaced your missing eye with a state of the art aiming module that was experimentally used by the army! I turned you into a masterpiece of a next generation soldier with incredible fighting prowess and agility, not rivaling anyone but only a select few other specimens on this entire planet and yet you use this incredible technology for doing domestic chores and learning how to cook soup…." she remarked quite disparagingly, infuriating him even more. "How…..is that even possible? You are an anomaly of gargantuan proportions that needs to be studied so that humanity learns how to teach future generations how not to become!" the over the top play that she was putting up was no different than the ones she usually uses to irritate him although he still couldn't help but give in and get angry.
Rentarō: "I get it already! Now how about you just answer the question?" exasperated, he tried to still push forward with his plan.
Sumire: "I don't have an answer for your question, though" came her honest and yet not especially helpful reply to him.
Rentarō: "What do you mean you don't have an answer? Weren't you ten at one point in your life too?" he asked incredulously, missing her point entirely. She rolled her eyes at that.
Sumire: "Yes but I was never especially normal throughout my life. I thought that was obvious to you by now. If you want to I can tell you what I personally would have wanted to receive as a birthday present when I was ten but I don't think that'll necessarily fit with what Enju would want…." that had way more logic behind it than what he had expected to hear.
Rentarō: "Well, when I asked Kisara-san this morning, she replied with 'a katana'. So, I guess, whatever it is you're going to say, regardless of how ridiculous, it cannot be any worse!" he tried to reason. "So, what was it you would have wanted?"
Sumire: "A corpse…." that hit a bit too hard. The boy just stared at her for a good amount of time, trying to imagine what a ten year old girl would even do with a corpse at her birthday party. He tried and yet his brain could not reach a definitive conclusion.
Rentarō: "…..I give up…." he didn't even bother into reprimanding the doctor for not trying hard enough. "I guess I should have seen that coming from a mile away"
Sumire: "Yes, you should have" she smiled knowingly at him. "Also, not to bring out the obvious but not all women think alike. That also goes for young girls too. Expecting any woman to give you an accurate answer for what other women want is pretty misogynistic, even for you!".
Rentarō: "Geez, thanks for nothing, sensei!" it was pretty evident now that he was wasting his time expecting her to give him any meaningful insight. He would have had just about the same amount of luck figuring out an answer if he had asked a random pangolin at the park for help.
He let out a sigh.
Rentarō: "OK, I get it. I'll just figure it out on my own!" he accepted his defeat. Now it was finally time to move on. The woman next to him gave him a thumbs up.
Sumire: "Just buy her something that she likes! If anything, you should be the person who is most qualified in answering your own question! After all, you live with her in the same house, for crying out loud! If you can't figure that much out after spending this much time with her then maybe you just fail at dealing with women" blunt, unforgiving and yet brutally honest. This woman had a way with words. "I already know the answer to that but I'm trying to be polite and pretend that I don't".
Rentarō: "Then why did you say out loud that last sentence?….I'll try to think of something on my own" that was easier said than done but it made the most sense at least.
As he began to ponder on what he should buy her for her birthday, Sumire interrupted him with a different conversation though.
Sumire: "For starters, and this is just baseless advice of mine, you can tell her that you love her! That's probably something that she never heard before from anyone" he didn't know how to take that advice. Was she making fun of him again or was she serious this time? He could never tell with her.
Rentarō: "That's not really my responsibility though! She doesn't need people telling her that to feel important!" he seemed to have missed her point once again, as he usually does.
Sumire: "Children need love, Rentarō! She was neglected most of her life and probably abused as well. She probably doesn't even know what affection is! It's your responsibility to treat her properly, now that she is paired with you! Or at least undo the damage that was already done!" easy for her to say.
Rentarō: "Wouldn't she take that the wrong way though? And I don't like talking about stuff like this! I'm just not good at it!" sometimes his honesty gets the better of him and he blurts out stuff that he shouldn't.
Sumire: "Yes, I know. And that's why you're still a virgin!" he immediately noticed that he had made a huge mistake but it was already too late to stop this trainwreck of a conversation.
Rentarō: "Don't just assume that! You don't know anything about my love life!" he should have known better than to continue this topic but, sadly enough for him, he got a bit enraged and decided to lie, even though he already knew that it would be pointless.
Sumire: "You always stammer when you talk about sex with a woman! You start blushing when that enters the conversation with me and if I were to ask you right now, 'What color are Kisara's panties?', you probably will just start yelling in anger that I'm making fun of you without giving me any concrete answers!" she smirked at him smugly. "Tell me, Rentarō, which parts of what I just said are false?" he looked away in shame, with a blush popping up on his face.
Rentarō: "If I did answer your question by lying to you, right now, how would you even know?" he directed his eyes at the wall next to them for no reason in particular.
Sumire: "I wouldn't know. I'd just tell that you were lying to me because you averted your gaze! Like you're doing right now!" he gave up. He knew he wasn't going to win, regardless of what he'd say to her back. "You're like a first year high school girl that's talking about sex with her more experienced friends for the first time. The only thing missing is you bringing out a lunchbox with pictures of your favorite boy band on it at lunchtime and then the image will be complete!" that was oddly specific and he wanted to scold her for that comment but he knew that he would just be feeding the fire then…..a fire that was already scorching the city.
Rentarō: "You win…...can we just move on now, please?" he was losing it. He didn't know what else to say.
Sumire: "Just say it to Enju like you're confessing to Kisara! Just replace the ten year old in front of you, mentally, with your crush and blurt it out! She's just ten, after all! It's not like it'll matter that much if she misunderstand you or not!" seeing how the color of his face would now match perfectly with Enju's hair, the woman finally decided to drop this apparently embarrassing topic entirely and switched the flow entirely. "Speaking of Enju, how is she adapting to her new home?" that was a huge detour from the main road that they were following up until that point. He boy was a bit surprised by this shift in discussion but decided to play along.
Rentarō: "She's fine, for now. She's doing better than how she did when I first brought her home".
Sumire: "Oh, is that so? I guess that explains how you managed to climb your way back up the IP ranks from the last place in Japan to your current score now" she recalled that information.
Rentarō: "Yes, yesterday's training session went a bit more smoothly. Our IP rank was readjusted to 123452 after that. It's still pretty bad but way better than what we got at our first session! Now I can at least look Kisara-san in the eye again and not feel shame!" that made the doctor chuckle.
Sumire: "You say that now but don't get too cocky, Rentarō! After all, you didn't even fight a real Gastrea yet, have you?" that was a fair point.
Rentarō: "No, but I already know what to expect. I've been preparing all of my life for this. The next time a Gastrea alert sounds throughout this city, I can finally join the fight! And I will win!" apparently he didn't take to heart her advice since he was already declaring his victory.
Sumire: "Well, suit yourself! I'm not complaining. After all, if you will end up dead then guess which coroner will be taking your body apart!" and for the second time that day she smiled full heartedly. But this wasn't the kind of smile you usually see from others. It was the sinister smile one would see on a loan shark who stumbled upon a gullible student looking for someone to borrow cash from to buy a sports car.
Rentarō: "…." there was nothing he could say in response to that to ease the atmosphere to how it was. That comment was so genuinely creepy for him that he felt the blood freeze in his veins there for a second. "Note to self: if you're going to die, don't leave any pieces of your body behind. She might put them in a jar and sleep with them at night!" he thought to himself before clearing his throat. "Anyways….I also managed to enroll Enju to an elementary school, forty minutes away from our home. I'll be taking her to school every morning" he proudly declared to the uninterested audience that was subjected to the said less than impressive declaration.
Sumire: "That's great news, I guess. But will she be able to handle it?" came what was the most natural follow up question to that revelation. A question that even Rentarō had less of an answer to than he would have liked.
Rentarō: "Well, I did teach her how to read properly. And, although she's still refining her style, she is capable of writing some hiragana and even kanji characters consistently. And as for math, she got down how positional notation works as well as basic arithmetic. She also memorized the multiplication table up to 10 so-….".
Sumire: "I'm not asking about that, Rentarō" she interrupted him before he could finish that thought. "What I meant is can she interact with children her age without giving away the fact that she's a Cursed Child?" that was a bit difficult to answer.
He tried to think about a proper response to that but he could formulate none.
Rentarō: "I don't know…." he admitted, a bit ashamed of himself. "I tried seeing her interact with children on the playground. But she's always too shy to get to talk with them and so she's always left playing by herself. I'm kind of worried about her…." he revealed.
Sumire: "Just as I imagined…." she thought to herself, although still disappointed in Rentarō. "You know, Rentarō, if anything goes wrong because you're forcing her to go to school, not just against her will but also against the law itself, you will be the one who's going to be held accountable, right? In the end, I still have to wonder why you made this decision…." the boy inhaled deeply at that comment.
Rentarō: "I'm just doing what is the right thing to do. All children deserve to have the right to be educated, equally. This is something that everyone takes for granted when they get the chance to go to school but ignore when there are others less fortunate than them. Ultimately, I'm not doing this because I take pleasure in breaking the law. I'm doing this because it's the only right thing for me to do. From my point of view, I don't even have a choice in the matter…." came his pragmatic response.
Surprisingly, Sumire didn't reprimand him for being emotional or nonsensical, as he was expecting her to do. Instead, she just nodded in agreement.
Sumire: "Well, I can sympathize with you on that. Also, you are the idealist type so I guess that's fitting with your character" she chuckled a bit.
Rentarō: "What I don't understand, though, is why this is illegal in the first place! What's with the double standards? We want to force these girls to fight for us on the battlefield, risking their lives in the process, and yet we also treat them like second class citizens! Why can't they get an education?" he finally brought up the elephant in the room. Truthfully this was one of those taboo questions that almost no Promoter brought up, mainly because it was such a sad reality that nobody wanted to acknowledge it at all.
And yet, now, Rentarō did bring it up, which is a testament to his direct and honest nature, especially when he was discussing with someone he highly respected, like Sumire.
Sumire: "Well, first there's the obvious answer: the fact that it makes no logistic sense to enroll Cursed Children into schools if they will have to be used in battles throughout the city, every so often to defend it. If they will barely have the time to have a decent life, forcing them to also have a school life will only burden them with more work to do. Then, there's also the issue that many parents are scared that the Cursed Children may infect their own offspring with the virus" the boy wanted to reply with why that made no sense but she cut him off before he could do that.
Sumire: "Yes, Rentarō, I know what you want to say! I know that Cursed Children aren't infectious by themselves. They're only infectious when they're on the brink of turning into a Gastrea when their erosion rate exceeds the threshold. But you try reasoning about that with paranoid parents! And hell, it's not just parents! Many people are advocating for either sectioning off all the Cursed Children in their own area of the city, isolating them from the rest of the population or, even worse, some who say that they are just viral reservoirs that developed immunity to the Monoliths and, once we turn our backs to them, they will all turn into monsters at night and wreck havoc on us all!" those viewpoints were truly disturbing for him, almost incomprehensible in fact.
Rentarō: "But….how? How can anyone believe such gibberish?! Can't they see that these are just normal girls who were unfortunate enough to be born like this because of circumstances outside of their control?! Hell, I think those girls are the ones who hate this situation even more than anyone else!" he proclaimed what seemed to him like a reasonable point.
Sumire: "You say that now, Rentarō, but you're young! You barely caught a glimpse of the Great Gastrea War. By the time you became old enough to know how to count your own money to know how to pay for a loaf of bread, the war was already over and humanity had lost. To you, it doesn't make much of a difference since you were already born in a lost world. But for the older generations that lived many years before us, seeing our planet be conquered by these creatures, billions of humans being slaughtered and most of the land on this planet become desolate, all because of the Gastrea, was enough to make everyone extremely angry. Everybody hates Gastrea. Everybody wants to see Gastrea exterminated off the face of this planet. That's just a simple fact. But now we also have these weird girls that harbor the virus in their bodies, who display the same powers as the creatures that defeated us, and who are now living among us, for better or for worse. I know it's hard for a humanitarian idealist such as yourself to understand this but, when all's said and done, people don't like trusting uncertainty. And these children are a wild card filled with mysteries. No scientist was ever able to claim that allowing the Cursed Children to live in our cities was a good idea since no one could say for certain that they wouldn't all morph at once one night on a full moon and kill the few remnants of humanity that are still around. While these fears are unfounded, they are understandable. And only the government and the military have been advocating for their integration into society but only because they make good weapons against the real more immediate Gastrea on the loose, not because they are seen as human. Given these circumstances, I'm sure you can now see how treating them equally and giving them seats in a classroom isn't exactly on the government's top priority list right now" unsurprisingly, she was 100% objective and sincere with him. Even though she was playing the devil's advocate now, her explanations always made sense, even on the most basic levels, even though the boy fervently disagreed with all of her mentioned points.
Rentarō: "Yes, that makes sense. But….even so…..just isolating them from the rest of us won't help anyone! Nor will lynching them like we did with witches in the medieval ages do anything good!" this conversation was becoming way more heated than they planned for, admittedly.
Sumire: "No, I agree with you on that! Sadly, not everyone thinks like you, Rentarō. You see them for what they are, which are children in need of love and support. The government and military sees them as weapons of mass destruction that they can control. And the laymen at home see them as possible threats. The Cursed Children phenomenon is a new one, unlike anything humanity has ever seen and not even the science behind it all is conclusive over who is right and who isn't. Should we use them as weapons? We don't know! On the short term it seems to work out pretty well but we don't know if this is a viable long term solution! Is it even morally admissible to use children like them to defend ourselves? Debatable. Do they pose an even greater threat to humanity than the regular Gastrea and should we exterminate them in response? I'd love to say no but, at this point in time, we don't have an answer for that either. We don't have any answers for any of these questions! And it's because of that that our opinions are all over the place, with no consistent view of what we should do. Humanity is dying to know the truth, especially since it is on the brink of extinction, but all we know for sure is that we know nothing" that sounded impressive but, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that she just said that they were screwed, either way. That would have been an accurate summary of everything that she had just said.
Rentarō: "You say that but…..what are your thoughts on this? If you say that we don't even know if they will turn or not into a threat for humanity, does that mean you're scared of them too, sensei?" he asked concerned a bit.
Sumire: "I don't know. What do you think, Rentarō-kun? Does me sticking my fingers inside Enju's mouth to help her with her tooth infection not give you a big enough of a clue yet? Maybe you want me to adopt her and become a surrogate mother for her as well to prove my point?" she replied sarcastically to him.
Rentarō: "Well…...I guess that question doesn't make sense now that I think a bit about it, huh?" he admitted.
Sumire: "No, Rentarō! The answer is that I don't think that they are a threat! At least, not right now when they're still in their human form. Like I said though, I don't have an answer to any of those questions. Nobody does yet. But it is my personal belief that these answers aren't that important, either way" she tried clarifying. "Whether we should trust them or not is irrelevant. They could very well be monsters in disguise, waiting for the perfect moment to strike at us. At the end of the day, if our only means of preventing that is by abandoning all semblance of morality and throwing a bunch of unfortunate children into the woods to be eaten alive all by themselves just to save our own lives, then we already lost the war. Even if we do that, we would have just become the monsters that we were trying to defeat: a species of cold, heartless, amoral creatures that has no other virtue other than a will to persevere, regardless of costs. If such is the fate of humanity then we are not worth saving…." she realized that she had been babbling now for a good couple of minutes by herself.
Sumire: "Sorry, I got carried away a bit. What were we talking about?" she excused herself realizing how odd the situation was.
Rentarō: "N-no…..I don't mind. I just didn't expect something so….uh…..heart warming coming from you. I thought you were way colder about such things" he tried not to offend her but also be truthful about his opinions of her.
Sumire: "I'm a scientist, Rentarō! It's my job to be as objective as possible. But that doesn't mean I don't have my set of principles that I live my life by. Hell, it's because I have those ideals that I can still do science in the first place. If it were not for that, I would not have the willpower to wake up in the morning to do any productive work!" she made her point clear. This conversation took a bit longer than he had originally anticipated.
Rentarō: "That makes sense. Thank you for your thoughts, Sumire-sensei! But I better be going now! I can't have Enju wait for me for an entire hour." remembering that he still had an Initiator to please, he began to rush back outside. Whatever it was that he had to buy her as a gift, he was not going to find it out with Sumire, that was for sure.
Sumire: "Rentarō!" she suddenly called out for him one last time to give him a final piece of her thoughts. "Remember: whatever happens, it's your responsibility to make sure that Enju lives a happy life! If the other kids at her future school were to find out what she is, she will be bullied. She will cry and feel the pressure of society's double standards on her way more than she does now. I hope you know that it's your responsibility to be there for her when that time will come, especially since you're the one who insists that she go through this in the first place!" what a pointless thing to leave on.
Rentarō: "Yes…..I know that. There's no need to spell out the obvious, sensei!"
~Satomi residence, next day~
Rentarō: "Finally, I got what I wanted!" the boy proudly declared in his own mind as he finished wrapping the gift in a small gift box for his partner. It was ready. Her gift was finally ready.
To be honest, he wasn't exactly sure if she would like what he had bought for her but it was the best guess he could make over what should be useful for her but also be somewhat appealing.
Rentarō: "Now that I finished with this, I just need to set the plan into action!" he liked to think that what he was doing was ingenious but, at the end of the day, it really wasn't that impressive. Still, for someone who really sucked at organizing birthday parties, this idea of his was the best he could come up with.
Rentarō: "Well, it's not like she has any standards for parties at the moment. Also, she doesn't have any friends to come on over so I guess it'll just the two of us. There's really no need for me to go out of my way to make this work" but as soon as he finished that thought, he immediately recognized the error of that way of thinking and tried to rectify himself. "No…..it's exactly because she has no standards set yet that I need to make this special for her! After all, this is probably the very first birthday she'll actually get to celebrate proper-…." but his monologue was rudely interrupted by the loud yelling of the girl from the kitchen.
Enju: "Rentarō!" came her displeased chirp, calling for his urgent attention.
Rentarō: "Sigh, what now?" he wondered as he hid the gift inside his suit and proceeded to walk towards the kitchen.
Once he arrived, he noticed the girl's annoyed face as she held her glass of morning milk in her hand, her staring distastefully at it, almost like there was something foul in it.
Enju: "This milk tastes stale! How long was it in the fridge?" she inquired out of nowhere. The boy groaned, trying to recall when he had bought that carton but he couldn't really remember.
Rentarō: "I don't know. Maybe a week ago? I'm pretty sure it should still be fine!" he tried to defend himself although the girl was not easily persuaded.
Enju: "I don't like this! It tastes very gross! Can you buy a new carton, please?" well, that wasn't really on top of his priority list but he would have to get on that soon anyway since grocery shopping was already a bit needed, and not just for the milk.
Rentarō: "Fine, I'll buy a new carton of milk later when I'll go shopping! In the meantime, though, finish your breakfast! It's not nice to be wasteful!" despite him being clear about that, she was still quite resistant to that idea.
Enju: "I don't like the taste, though. I don't think I can finish drinking that…." she was just as clear as him, informing him that she had no intentions of finishing her meal.
Rentarō simply sighed at that, placing his hand over his forehead in a gesture indicating his annoyance with her.
Rentarō: "You're such a handful!" he chastised before extending his arm to reach for her glass. "Fine, go and brush your teeth!" he ordered her bringing the almost unfinished glass of milk to his mouth.
Enju: "W-wait!" she suddenly yelled out at him, her face beginning to blush a bit. She had a horrified look on her face, almost like he had done something unspeakable in front of her. He immediately froze in place.
Rentarō: "What?" he questioned, very unnerved at her sudden interruption.
Enju: "What do you think you're doing?! I put my lips on that!" she pointed her index finger at the glass currently in his hand. The boy raised an eyebrow at that, still trying to parse what she was trying to imply was obvious.
Rentarō: "….so?" not being able to reach any satisfying deduction of what she was trying to imply, he decided to just straight out ask her what she wanted to say.
Enju: "So, don't drink from that! You'll take away my first kiss!" she made an adorable pout while looking into his eyes with a dead serious look.
Rentarō, finally realizing what she meant by that, rolled his eyes, amazed at how childish she could turn in less than a split second.
Rentarō: "Grow up!" he replied exasperated, before moving on to finishing what he had started despite her previous warning. He brought the glass to his mouth and began gulping down the contents of the milk inside so as to finish it and not have to throw it away needlessly.
The girl just stared at him, her eyes widening and her face turning even more crimson than before.
Enju: "No!" she yelled, still feeling the anger in her rage uncontrollably. "My first kiss! That's not fair! I wanted it to be with someone special! Give it back to me!" her ramblings fell on deaf ears, though, as he eventually finished the entire glass before moving towards the sink to wash it.
Rentarō: "Calm down, already! Indirect kisses don't count as first kisses! I didn't take anything away from you!" he didn't even know why he was arguing over such a stupid and menial thing. He hated how she would bring up this childish stuff out of nowhere every so often.
Enju: "How do you know?! It's not like you know anything about kissing! Why are you trying to look like an expert?" ouch, that hurt.
She touched a sensitive cord.
Rentarō: "I'll pretend I didn't hear that" he let out, trying to suppress the vitriol he felt. He bit his tongue.
The girl was still dissatisfied with that turn of events but, seeing how he wasn't really seeming to be ready to apologize for what he had done, she just gave up on her attempts of pestering him.
Rentarō: "Anyways, now that you're done with your breakfast, mind helping me out with the chores? I need someone to carry the bags from the grocery store back home!" he tried to change the subject before she could annoy him any more with her childish antics.
The girl thought about his proposal a bit, thinking to herself what that would entail, realizing how bad of a deal that was for her.
Enju: "What do I get out of it?" surprisingly, she already had picked up on the bargaining side of social interactions, beginning to use that skill whenever Rentarō would propose something that she clearly was not interested in.
Naturally, he didn't enjoy that development, especially since that was one of the very first skills she seemed to have picked up now that she was out of that facility; a skill that he personally found to be less appealing though.
Rentarō: "It's not like you get to choose, though! I was just asking you to be courteous! It's not like you can wiggle your way out of this" fed up, a bit, he proceeded to dash her hopes mercilessly.
Enju: "Whaaat? That's not fair! If I never became your Initiator and you still lived alone in this house all by yourself then you would have still went to the store to buy food for yourself, wouldn't you?! This is you just exploiting me! Initiators aren't here for doing stuff like that!" indignant at the mere idea of her having to go grocery shopping with him, she tried to formulate as much of a convincing argument as a ten year old could muster.
Rentarō: "Yes but, if I lived by myself right now, I wouldn't be carrying 3 bags of cereal, two milk cartons, banana and strawberries and smoothie mixes back home with me. If it were just for me, I would have just brought home a bunch cans of tuna, some instant ramen and water and that would have been it!" he said that proudly but he failed to notice the disgusted child staring at him in contempt.
Enju: "What kind of life did you live before you adopted me….?" this was one of the less than glamorous moments in their relationship in which she was seriously questioning the lifestyle choices of her partner.
Rentarō: "That's not the point! And you're coming with me whether you want to or not! And that's final!" he capped off this conversation once and for all.
The girl puffed loudly in response but did not proceed to argue any further. Once Rentarō would make up his mind, there was very little she could do to reverse course on that. He was a stubborn young man that was not easily dissuaded.
Knowing that her defeat was now certain, she began making her way back into the living room, preparing mentally for the boring hours that were to come.
Rentarō: "Oh and Enju…." he called out for her one last time to get her attention.
Enju: "What is it now?" still a bit mad at him for what he had done, she responded a bit unhappy.
Rentarō: "How about we go for a stroll tonight around Tokyo? I have this special place I want to show you!" that came out of nowhere and the girl, after the previous conversation, was now naturally a bit skeptical of his intentions.
Enju: "Why? You want to have another round of grocery shopping this evening as well?" she replied in a derogatory way.
Rentarō: "No…..rather, I have something I want to say to you. And something I want to give you!" she had no idea what intentions he had. She tried to understand what he was saying but he was trying to be deliberately ambiguous with her. "It won't take more than an hour. And I think you'll like what you'll see!" being as cryptic as he was, she just didn't know what to think of this.
Enju: "…..fine, I guess. As long as you won't ask me to carry anything for you then I won't mind too much….probably" she gave up at that point, just letting him decide what will happen. "But what do you want to tell me?" she curiously asked.
Rentarō: "I can't say. Not right now, anyway. You'll have to wait and see!" that setup sounded way more creepy than it should have but that was obviously not his intention. Either way, though, the girl still agreed to it.