Haha To Kodomobeya Oji-san No 1--- Nenkan No Nari... — Validated & Working

“Does it matter?”

Kenji looked at the bunk bed’s lower mattress. He’d been sleeping there, curled like a shrimp. The upper bunk held his boxes. Sometimes, at 3 AM, he’d climb the ladder and just sit up there, knees to his chest, staring at the ceiling’s glow-in-the-dark stars. Haha to Kodomobeya Oji-san no 1--- Nenkan no Nari...

“One year,” their mother, Haruko, interjected softly from the hallway. She was 74, her back a gentle question mark. “He needs one year. Like a fallow field.” “Does it matter

He placed the rolled wallpaper on the upper bunk. Beside it, he left a note for Mio: For your first child. Or for you, if you ever need a dark tunnel. at 3 AM