"Shio is so adorable…"
Daiki had always been the kind of father who was completely wrapped around his daughter's finger. But compared to his own mischievous, noisy, troublemaking little girl, he suddenly realized that a two-dimensional daughter could be far more healing.
During the exchange between Shio and her father, Takasaki, Daiki did not think too deeply about the unfinished sentence: "If you want to cry, you can only do it in the bathroom, and…" He did not immediately try to imagine what came after it.
If you want to cry, then cry. It is better to cry as much as you can now, because once you grow up, there will be many times when you want to cry but cannot.
Takasaki had said those words in a heavy voice.
Daiki let out a sigh.
He could understand where Takasaki's pessimistic view of the world came from after losing his wife. Even so… at the very least, he did not need to be so brutally realistic with a child.
Maybe Takasaki was not wrong. Maybe life really was like that. But Shio was still only a child. She had just been frightened into tears because her own father had shouted at her on the train. As a father, he should not have used that moment to act like a weary adult teaching a bitter lesson. He should have apologized to his daughter. He should have admitted that he was wrong.
Later, the train stopped at a rest station, and near it were a few small shops. Takasaki took his daughter into a toy store that she clearly seemed interested in.
Under Shio's expectant gaze, he chose a plastic robot toy on his own and gave it to her.
Daiki understood immediately. Takasaki had not chosen that toy out of affection, nor because he knew what his daughter liked. He had simply grown impatient because Shio was taking too long to decide, so he grabbed something at random to get it over with.
But then…
When he saw his daughter genuinely happy, playing with that robot as if she had received a treasure, Takasaki asked in confusion:
"Why do you like that toy so much? You could have picked something more… suited for a girl."
"No. This one."
Shio looked down at the robot in her hands, and her eyes lit up.
"I like this one."
Daiki's nose stung at once.
Only someone with a daughter could understand the real weight behind those words.
She did not like the toy.
She liked the gesture.
She liked it because her father had chosen it for her.
Idiot…
"Isn't Sora just a single guy in his twenties? How can he portray this kind of relationship so vividly?"
The anime continued.
That night, father and daughter stayed at an inn along the way.
For the first time in his life, Takasaki accompanied his daughter on a summer night, watching a sky full of stars and fireflies drifting through the air.
It was also the first time Shio asked her father:
"Tell me about Mom."
But Takasaki said nothing.
The next day, the two finally reached their destination.
It was a countryside village, almost like a place forgotten by time. There were flowers, birds, butterflies, trees, rice fields, green grass, and a quietness that seemed separated from the rest of the world.
Father and daughter walked along a narrow path while Shio ran happily through the trees.
That scene…
It truly looked like the image of a happy family.
And yet…
"This is the first time Shio has ever been taken out to play like this by her father. She's five years old. Five."
The more Daiki watched, the more his chest ached.
Soon after, the story took a turn.
After spending the entire afternoon playing among the flowers, Shio returned to her father with a downcast expression. The toy Takasaki had given her had fallen somewhere in that vast field of flowers, and she could not find it.
The two searched for a long, long time.
But they found nothing.
"Shio, that's enough. I'll buy you another one exactly like it on the way back."
Takasaki said it as if it were simple.
Daiki frowned immediately.
Would buying another one even mean anything?
"I want that one…"
Shio's voice was already trembling with held-back tears, but she lowered her head again and kept searching among the flowers.
"You really are stubborn…"
Takasaki shook his head helplessly, left the field, and walked into the shade of a tree to escape the sun.
He watched his daughter continue searching without giving up. His face was calm, almost empty.
Then an image flashed through his mind.
It was a childhood memory. He, too, was standing in a field of flowers, and Takasaki's father stood behind him, smiling as he watched him play.
In an instant, Takasaki seemed to wake up. He looked around, as if finally seeing the place where he stood.
Childhood memories surged back.
When he was little, he had also played in these mountains with the father he hated so deeply. He had run, laughed, and spent happy days here. All those memories, buried for far too long, returned at once.
This place…
This was where his grandmother's house was.
Takasaki seemed to remember something. He asked Shio to keep looking for her toy there, then walked alone in the direction his memories pointed him.
He arrived beside an old house.
And there, waiting for him, was an elderly woman.
The anime soon revealed the truth: she was his grandmother.
Daiki sat up straighter on the sofa and began analyzing the scene more carefully.
First of all, this trip had been arranged by Takasaki's in-laws.
The tickets, the destination, even the idea of taking the child out for a few days - everything had been prepared by Sanae.
And this place just so happened to be where Takasaki's grandmother lived, somewhere he had nearly erased from memory.
It was obvious.
All of this was part of Sanae's plan.
And the reason Takasaki's grandmother was there soon became clear.
Exactly as Daiki had guessed.
Under the setting sun, grandmother and grandson met for the first time since he had become an adult.
"When you were very small, you stayed here."
His grandmother spoke in a gentle voice.
"Back then, your mother had just passed away."
The background music turned sorrowful all at once.
What was the meaning of this scene?
Daiki blinked.
The second season was already in its latter half. Why suddenly introduce a grandmother now?
Was Takasaki's grandmother secretly a billionaire preparing to leave her entire fortune to her precious grandson?
That would not fit the story at all.
"Is your father… still trying to atone for his sins?"
The grandmother shifted the conversation and asked her grandson.
"Atone?"
Daiki's eyes sharpened with realization.
She was talking about the incident that sent his father to prison.
Thinking about it, he should already have been released by now.
"He wasn't always such a fool. It was back when he was in high school. Everyone around them opposed their marriage, but the two of them ignored it all and lived together in a small apartment."
The moment his grandmother said that, Daiki felt as if a missing piece had fallen into place.
Takasaki's father's past…
Was the same as Takasaki's.
Both had dropped out of high school. Both had gone on to live with the person they loved after graduation. Both had struggled and worked hard for the future.
And then their wives died.
And after that, both of them collapsed.
"When your mother died, that alone was not enough to destroy him completely. Because you were still there. On that day, right here, your father said he would raise you with his own two hands."
The choices a person makes can one day return like a bullet straight through the forehead.
In Takasaki's memories, his father had always been a fallen man. He drank, he slept, he never spoke to him. The two lived under the same roof as if they were strangers.
But who is born that way?
A single father had to work and take care of his son at the same time. In the end, he barely managed to support the household and raise the boy until high school. And yet, in his son's eyes, he became nothing more than an unmotivated man. A useless father. Someone to be hated.
"To ease the troubles he faced at work, he began drinking," his grandmother said, her voice painfully calm. "And when he drank, he lost control."
A shock ran through Daiki's mind.
So that was why.
That was why, during Takasaki's high school years, after drinking, his father accidentally injured his arm. And Takasaki, who had once been a promising basketball player, had to say goodbye to the sport forever.
"By the time you grew up, he had already lost everything."
His grandmother continued:
"I heard that what you are going through now is very similar to what your father went through back then. That is exactly why I wanted to tell you these things. I wanted you to know what kind of man your father once was."
"He used to buy me snacks. He held my hand. He took me out for walks. He took me out to play… Why did I forget all of that?"
Takasaki faced the childhood memories that kept surfacing in his mind, one after another. His expression was complicated beyond words.
His hatred for his father had made him selectively erase the gentle man who had once existed.
And at that moment, Daiki understood the true purpose of this scene.
From anyone's point of view, Takasaki's father had seemed terrible.
He drank, slept too much, had no ambition, and there was no light in his eyes. On top of that, he had committed a crime and been sentenced to five years in prison.
But even someone like him, from the time Takasaki was a child until his final year of high school, had never once abandoned his son.
Maybe he was not capable. Maybe he was limited, weak, full of flaws. But to raise Takasaki, he had given everything he had.
And now Takasaki was being even worse than the father he had hated so much.
His daughter was five years old, and only now was he taking her out to play for the first time. Only now was he giving her a present for the first time.
And even then, he had done it all with impatience and indifference.
When we look at others, their flaws seem to cover their entire body.
But only after standing in the same place do we realize that we might be even more pathetic.
"Do you think your father was a terrible person?" his grandmother asked.
"No…"
Takasaki's voice trembled.
"I'm the one who's even worse than he was. I'm standing in the same place he once stood, and yet I'm this weak. This useless."
"Even so, he is my pride," his grandmother said softly. "As a person, he had many flaws. But as a father, he was remarkable."
Daiki did not even notice when his eyes filled with tears.
This anime had such a simple story.
So why was it that this simple story could strike so deeply?
Until five minutes earlier, he had thought of Takasaki's father as nothing more than a useless man with no future. But now, all he could see was someone pitiful, exhausted, and trapped.
In this world, not everyone who works hard succeeds.
If the world offers ten thousand seats for winners, there will certainly be a million people fighting for them.
Takasaki's father had simply failed.
And did failing make someone completely worthless?
Had he not continued struggling to raise his child? Had he not carried his responsibility, even while staggering?
He had made mistakes. Yes. But were those mistakes enough to deserve being abandoned by everyone, to the point that even his own son did not want to call him after he was released from prison?
Sanae…
Daiki once again found himself amazed by the mother-in-law in this anime.
The trip she had arranged seemed, on the surface, like nothing more than a way to make Takasaki take his daughter out to play.
But in truth, she wanted his grandmother to save the heart of a man who was already on the verge of breaking apart.
If things continued like this, Takasaki would eventually become a second version of his father.
Under the setting sun, the grandmother and Takasaki returned to the field of flowers.
Shio was still searching for the robot, refusing to give up.
"Shio… maybe we won't be able to find that robot anymore. There may be nothing we can do about it."
Takasaki approached his daughter with guilt written across his face.
This time, his voice was not indifferent or impatient. He spoke seriously, as if he were truly trying to talk with his daughter.
"So… I'll buy you a new one, all right?"
"That one is the only one."
Shio's voice trembled.
Daiki felt his chest shudder.
"You chose it for me. You bought it for me."
"It was the first time Daddy…"
After she said those words, countless viewers sitting before their televisions across Japan fell silent.
After the conversation between Takasaki and his grandmother, everyone's emotions were still trapped in the relationship between father and son. And now, the daughter's words made them sink even deeper.
A five-year-old girl had spent the entire afternoon under the blazing sun, searching through a field of flowers without giving up.
Five years.
It was the first time Takasaki had taken her out to play.
It was the first present he had ever bought for her.
The more she loved that toy…
The more she loved her father.
And yet, for five whole years, Takasaki had never realized something so simple.
At that moment, no one knew how many anime viewers felt their noses sting as tears began to fall.
And the next exchange between father and daughter was the final blow.
"You've been lonely, haven't you?"
Takasaki crouched in front of his daughter. Tears shone at the corners of his eyes.
"Yes."
"Was traveling with me… fun?"
"Yes."
"I see…"
He took a difficult breath.
"Shio… can I stay by your side? Even though I've been a terrible father until now… can I stay by your side from now on?"
"Yes. I want you to stay with me forever."
The girl looked at her father, her voice already thick with tears.
"But today, I lost something very important. It hurts so much. Daddy… I… can I stop holding it in?"
She gazed at him, struggling to keep the tears back.
"Sanae said the only places where I'm allowed to cry are the bathroom… and Daddy's arms."