Ayaka
‘I don’t want, I don’t want, I don’t want! I won’t— I won’t eat anything without Daddy! Let’s wait for Daddy!’ Ayaka was as restless as ever.
‘Ayaka, you know it very well: there is a certain way things are done. We always have lunch at 12:30. Don’t you remember what Uncle Manabu was saying?’ Hiromi tried to distract her daughter from the so much detested lunch.
‘No, Mummy, I don’t! What was Uncle Manabu saying?’
‘He said, honey, that the girls that follow their daily routine the right way, that follow what their parents say and do as they say, will always have good health. And as you know, Ayaka healthy girls can spend a lot of time playing with their friends. Surely you want to play with Sano and Ryuu in the afternoon, don’t you?’
‘I do!’ Ayaka frowned, picked the edge of her dress, decorated with pink bear cubs, and lifted it, drawing it onto her head.
‘Ayaka, what are you doing?!’ The mother came up and pulled the dress back. ‘So many times have I already told you, Ayaka—good girls don’t do this! Please, don’t do this again.’
‘Sorry, Mummy. I won’t— And I won’t lunch now either!’ Ayaka exploded with loud objections, only barely not crying. ‘But where is Daddy?!’
‘Good heavens, Ayaka…’
Hiromi approached the kitchen area, separated from the living room by a high bar, and tried to call her husband on her communicator.
‘Hi Keirou! are you coming home? yet long to go?’ she made sure that Ayaka was busy with something and quietly continued recording a voicemail for her husband, ‘Ayaka is refusing to lunch without you. I need you at home. Please call me back, Keirou.’
Ayaka was making her way into her new constructor kit on a sitting-mat in the middle of the living room. The Martian base kit summary read, ‘The Quantum constructor will help your child not only with assembling multi-component engineering systems of a Martian base: development of data analysis skills, systematization and information structuring, creative skills development, and yet more—these are the ways for Quantum to fully uncover your child’s potential. The kit was developed with help of experienced children psychologists and Japan Space Agency specialists. Let your child make a confident step into the new world!’ Ayaka’s straight black hair—reaching her shoulders and tied into a ponytail so that they wouldn’t disturb her playing—for some reason were curling. She was mumbling something to herself while running through the kit details. ‘I wonder whom she’s like with this. Only Grandma had her ends curl too, I guess’, Hiromi was thinking while watching Ayaka play.
‘Aren’t you cold, Aya-chan?’ Hiromi made out some air conditioning sounds in the room noise.
‘No, Mummy, thanks! I feel great in these tighties!’
Hiromi impatiently took the communicator and went out to the balcony to see if she could spot her husband’s car.
‘Good afternoon, Ms Arai!’ a low male voice startled her.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Sano!’ she greeted her neighbour, a very old man smoking on his balcony, through a barrier.
‘Isn’t the weather just wonderful today, Ms Arai? only maybe a little too hot. What do you think?’