"Fuyumi Ono - Juuni Kokki Novel - Sea Of The Wind, Shore Of The Maze" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ono Fuyumi)

The Twelve Kingdoms
Sea of the Wind, Shore of the Maze
by Ono Fuyumi
translated by Cheng Jianrong and Mina
and then translated again by Retrooo
┬йONO FUYUMI, KODANSHA LTD.


PROLOGUE

Snow drifted from the sky.
The large and heavy snowflakes fell as if they would never stop. To look up at the sky was to see a canvas of white
with countless dull, gray shadows painted upon it.
His line of sight followed the snow sweeping across his entire field of vision into the sky, and before he knew it, all
he saw was the white of the sky.
He watched as a snowflake lightly drift onto his shoulder. It was a big and thick snowflake that looked like a crystal
that was made of cotton. Snowflakes continuously fell onto his shoulders, arms and his bright red palms. They
immediately melted into the transparent color of water.
His white breath really showed how piercingly frigid it was. He turned his small child's slender neck and the white of
his breath followed his movements and hung in the air, making him feel even colder.
He had already stood there for an hour. His little hands and exposed knees were all red like a completely ripened fruit,
and he had lost all feeling in them. No matter how he rubbed or covered them, he only felt the cold seep into his bones.
So he was like this, feeling nothing as he stared uncertainly into the air.
This was the yard on the northern side. A storehouse that was no longer in use stood in the corner of the narrow
yard. A crack in the earthen wall made the air even colder. The three sides of the courtyard were the main building, the
storehouse, and where the wall contained the yard. However, at this frigid and windless time, there was nothing he
could use in this place to shelter him from the cold. There wasn't even anything in the yard you could call a tree. For a
time in the summer, the irises would bloom, but right now, the ground was only scattered with the white snow.
"What a stubborn child." His grandmother had moved from the Kansai region when she had gotten married, but
when she spoke, she still carried a thick accent.
"He could at least cry a little. Even a little bit would let people know that he feels bad."
"Mother, you don't actually have to be so harsh."
"It's because you dote on him so much that he's become so stubborn."
"But..."
"Today's young parents only know how to please their children. It's better if the children receive some strict
discipline."
"But mother, what if he gets a cold..."
"He won't get a cold from a little bit of snow. --You listen to me. Unless he sincerely apologizes, he's not allowed
back inside."
He just stood there.
In fact, all this had originally happened because of a small matter; someone had dripped water onto the floorboards
under the sink and hadn't wiped it up. His younger brother blamed him and he denied that he'd done it. By his thinking,
it was because he didn't remember doing such a thing that he felt secure enough to say that he didn't do it. His
grandmother often warned him that telling lies was the worst thing he could do, so he didn't want to lie and say that he
had done such a thing.
"Just be honest and apologize, and the matter would be over."
Grandmother had said it very severely, so he could only explain again that he hadn't done it.
"Why are you so stubborn?"
His grandmother always said this about him, so his young mind decided that he was indeed stubborn. Even though
he wasn't too clear on what exactly "stubborn" meant, he had his own way of explaining it: because I'm a "stubborn"