Children starved of love are so easy to win over.
Little Soyo is exactly that kind of child — love-starved and oh so easy to handle.
But if you want to truly capture a love-starved child's heart, simple kindness alone won't be enough.
You need to build shared memories with her — special ones, ones that belong only to the two of you. That part is non-negotiable.
And at some point, you'll also need to apply a little pressure.
But that can wait for now.
For the moment, let the little love-starved darling in her arms collect a few more beautiful memories. She really was pitiable to the core.
So then — how exactly does one look after little Soyo right now? Step one...
"Chiose-nee, is this actually edible?"
Ichinose Soyo prodded the charred black sausage on the plate with her fork, looking deeply unenthusiastic. She was weighing her options: call for an ambulance before eating it, or after.
"Ahem — it should be fine. Probably."
Not being able to cook was all part of the plan! It absolutely was not because she had been distracted mid-cooking, thinking about something else entirely.
"Oh, forget it — shall I take you out to eat instead? Little Soyo-Soyo?"
Children deserved good food. A proper big sister, when a child was going hungry, had a duty to treat that child to the very best she could manage. That was the rule.
The plate of carbonized sausages was cleared away. Little Soyo was hauled upright by the considerably larger Chiose.
[Honestly, this is my first time looking after a child.]
Even the worst woman in the world couldn't possibly be expected to handle childcare with effortless grace right out of the gate.
Chiose could only try again — scooping Ichinose Soyo up into her arms.
The truth was, she had absolutely no idea how to take care of a child.
Picking her up was nothing more than an enactment of a fantasy — her own imagining of what a mother ought to do. And so she simply followed that imagining, and acted accordingly.
She had no mother of her own either. In that, she and Nagasaki Soyo were alike — both of them knowing what it meant to grow up without a mother's love.
In a certain sense, they truly had walked the same road.
A fifth-grader was no easy thing to lift, but Chiose managed it all the same, hoisting her up with as much effort as it took.
Little Soyo, not yet grown into herself, felt in her arms like an oversized ragdoll.
But she did not wish to be only a ragdoll:
"Chiose-nee... put me down. I don't need an adult to carry me around."
Even if Yoshiiro Chiose smelled nice — and she, Ichinose Soyo, very much liked that smell — Soyo still could not accept being carried around indefinitely.
She was practically a little adult already. She was a big kid, one who could spend the night home alone all by herself.
Being hauled around like a piece of luggage was simply too much!
"Is that so? Alright then."
Chiose walked behind her, watching little Soyo stride ahead on her own after being set down.
[So little Soyo isn't quite like my little Tomori after all. There's a stubbornness baked into Soyo's bones... I wonder — how does a kid like this, following the original story, end up growing into such a poised and graceful young lady?]
Or perhaps — beneath the surface of the Nagasaki Soyo from that original world, there was another face entirely, kept well hidden.
"Little one — how much longer before you're all grown up?"
Hurry up and grow, Ichinose Soyo. Hurry up and become Nagasaki Soyo.
Chiose smiled as she helped Soyo into the car.
For the time being, everything was still going smoothly.
She just didn't know when this particular business trip would finally let her go home.
Years later, standing before an empty room that held no one, Nagasaki Soyo would find herself thinking back to that distant afternoon — the one where Yoshiiro Chiose had taken her out to eat samgyetang.
"That woman who just walked past looked a bit strange."
"She did, didn't she. I think there's something wrong with her eyes."
"Her eyes?"
"That's right — you know how it is. When your body is exhausted, your eyesight gets worse. My eyes tire easily, so I know it well. All you need is a good bowl of samgyetang."
Chiose glanced down at the time. Five minutes to noon — perfect.
She had set herself a rule: with every new simulation, she would cultivate one new habit. This time, she wanted to maintain a sharpened sensitivity to time.
"Samgyetang?"
"That's right. Does little Soyo know what samgyetang is?"
"I... I've seen it on TV."
"I once went to eat it with a colleague of mine — a terrible drunk. Ginseng is supposed to be good for the eyes, apparently."
That colleague's name was Takamatsu Tomori. And Tomori had been the one to pay for that meal — in fact, Takamatsu Tomori had footed the bill for just about every meal they'd ever shared.
Tomori was, as always, a hopeless pushover. Others might see her differently, but to Chiose, that was exactly what she was — a hopeless, soft-hearted pushover.
Terrible with alcohol, spineless, life going nowhere fast. Well... ah.
Chiose led Soyo to a Korean restaurant for lunch. The food was Korean, but the interior design was unexpectedly very Japanese in feel.
In the middle of light conversation and laughter, the samgyetang they had been discussing arrived at the table.
"Enjoy it, little Soyo."
"Okay..." Ichinose Soyo twisted a strand of her hair between her fingers, a little uneasy. This was the first time she had ever eaten samgyetang.
Samgyetang is a Korean dish — a type of congee, in its own way. Glutinous rice and ginseng are stuffed inside a whole chicken, then simmered in broth for hours.
Koreans believe the dish can cure a cold.
The seasoning was light.
That was Ichinose Soyo's first impression of it.
But the chicken had been braised until it was fall-apart tender — the gentlest nudge of chopsticks was enough to coax the meat free from the bone.
Beyond the clean fragrance of the ginseng, as she ate, Ichinose Soyo felt as though she was consuming not merely food, but something closer to life itself.
"You cleared that quickly. Well? Was it good?"
"I don't actually like meat very much," Soyo said, pausing for a moment. "But it was delicious. Thank you, Chiose-nee."
"So what does Soyo-Soyo like to eat, then?"
Yoshiiro Chiose paid close attention to small details like this. She had always believed that to truly weave yourself into another person's life, you had to understand the texture of their everyday — thoroughly, without gaps.
"I... I'm not really sure."
Soyo hadn't eaten a great variety of things — that was tied to her family's circumstances at the moment.
"That's alright. I can take you out more often going forward... My work schedule is lighter than your mother's, so I'll have more time to spend with you."
"Really?!"
The surprise of it, the sheer unexpectedness, made Ichinose Soyo's voice leap up several notches before she could stop it. A beat later, embarrassment crept in, and she tried to cover it over with an awkward smile.
"Really. A cute little thing like Soyo-Soyo clearly needs the company."
Yoshiiro Chiose dabbed the corner of Ichinose Soyo's mouth clean with a paper napkin.
She wasn't sure quite why.
But she had actually, genuinely seen a reflection of herself in this child — and this time, she had not been lying.
Every small movement this little mess of a kid made as she drank her chicken broth kept pulling up something buried deep in Yoshiiro Chiose's memory.
Soyo existed in her own little corner of the world — pitiful and fragile, and yet possessed of her own stubborn, unbending core.
Raise Ichinose Soyo properly, and her life would not turn out badly. Of that, Chiose was certain.
Out of habit, Yoshiiro Chiose reached out and ruffled Soyo's small head.
She hoped that by staying close to Soyo, she would eventually come to understand the whole truth of Crychic — and of Nagasaki Soyo.
When that day came, little Soyo's life would be like the chicken in the samgyetang — one touch, and it would all fall apart.
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