Looking at Father’s desk, it was a mess. Sheets of paper covered it, scribbled with writing. The characters were too messy and complex for me to read. Something about… I don’t know. I saw the characters for “Japan.” And something about the west. They were written many times, though most of the sentences were crossed out and rewritten a little differently.
The pen laid flat on the table. I reached out a hand and rolled it under my fingers. It was oddly satisfying to listen to it roll on the wooden desk. Eventually, I pushed it a little too hard and it popped out from beneath my fingertips. It glided across the desk, away from me. I looked up and saw the candle, melted onto the tin tray it sat on. It reminded me of last night.
“Ai?” Father looked up. “That’s for work, so please don’t touch anything on it.”
I dropped my hands and let them dangle again, still staring at the desk. I wanted to ask him what he was working on, but I was afraid it would reveal the truth of last night.
Now that they were still again, I realized how irritated my palm was. I curled up my fingers to scratch my palm, only to irritate it more. Sighing, I lifted my hand and palmed the table, rubbing across its smooth ledge. It was annoying how they haven’t recovered yet. I started to wonder if they ever would. Father noticed I was touching his desk again. But he did not scold me.
“Are they still irritated?” he asked.
I stopped rubbing the desk. I did not look back, but eventually murmured some sort of reply. “Mm.”
Father continued his work in silence, stretching a roll of mesh on the floor. He measured it a few times, then cut. “I know you’re still angry from last night.” He paced his voice. “But please try to understand. Your sister is still very little, so her hands are fragile. She wouldn’t be able to cope with it as well as you do.”
It didn’t feel like I was coping very well. Still, I didn’t really want to talk about it. I was still upset. I got up from the chair and looked for something else to do. Going over to the shelves, I crouched down and stared at its articles. There were many folders of loosely-bound paper. Father’s writings, I assumed. However, at the bottom, there were a few books. Some, very thin. Others, very thick.
I couldn’t remember which ones Father read to me before. Pulling out one of the thin ones, it was a book with very thin pages and columns of characters. There were no pictures, and I could hardly read anything.