Chapter 3 – My Miracle (3)
Honami poured coffee grounds into the filter. She was using badger powder coffee, which was brought by her friend from Indonesia. He said that the coffee beans were processed from the animal dung of badgers, beans that weren’t completely digested. Honami never dreamed that a day would come when she would enjoy something that came out of a ferret’s ass. However, the coffee was very delicious.
Honami stopped drinking coffee ever since she underwent treatment. Even after giving birth for two years, she reduced her caffeine so she could breastfeed her child. However, she was now able to break free of these regulations and could openly drink coffee whenever she wanted. Without coffee, Honami couldn’t start the day. Caffeine was what keeps her fully awake and increased her concentration. Hence, coffee was essential for Honami’s work, which required her to focus.
Honami poured the boiling water inside. As she listened to the sound of the water, she toasted the bread. Because the kitchen table was narrow, she didn’t have a toaster. Therefore, she used the microwave to toast her bread instead. After she placed the bread on a black, square plate, she put it in the microwave and pressed the start button. Honami then took out the butter and jam from the refrigerator. Before the time set in the microwave was finished, she pushed the red button to stop the process. If she didn’t do this, the microwave would make a loud noise and wake Kaoru up.
With the playgroup off every Sunday, she needed to accompany Kaoru all day long. Therefore, the time before she woke up was valuable for Honami to concentrate on her work.
After applying the butter and jam to her toasted breat, Honami quickly ate.
After finishing her short meal, she threw the breadcrumbs from her hand into the sink, took the cup, and then went to the living room. The fragrance of the freshly made coffee accompanied Honami as she moved about.
She opened her laptop, but because she rarely turned her laptop off, she only set it to hibernate whenever it was closed, this was so she could use it as soon as possible. Therefore, after opening and entering her password, she was immediately able to start on working a file that she worked on yesterday. If the laptop was turned off, she would have to wait a while before being able to open the folder, even then, she would have to wait for a few seconds for the data to finally load up. Honami made this series of small efforts to be able to work efficiently with her limited time, it was in consideration that she had a small child to take care of.
Gosh, what was I doing yesterday?
Honami read a few lines that she did yesterday. She now routinely worked as a translator. The pharmaceutical company where she worked at after graduating from university would often ask her to translate from Japanese into English, and vice versa, whether it was in the form of emails from abroad, meeting notes, or employee manuals. Even when customers came from abroad, they would also sometimes ask Honami to translate for them. Besides the pharmaceutical company’s requests, Honami also had a website on the Internet to increase her opportunities. However, even though her services didn’t cost a lot of money, there were only very few people who bought her translation services. This was also because, nowadays, there were a lot of qualified translators like Honami. Therefore, Honami’s job from the pharmaceutical company was her most valuable source of income.
As she was sipping coffee, Honami moved her finger on the trackpad, sliding it up and down.
Yesterday, she stopped and couldn’t continue because she didn’t know how to use a specific term in medicine. She could’ve contacted the company yesterday, however, at the time, she had to prepare for the parent and child festival in the playgroup. When she finally finished and arrived home, she had to make Kaoru’s dinner and tell her to take a shower. When Kaoru finally managed to sleep a bit, it was already nine o’clock at night. At the time, she was determined to stay up, but eventually, her focus wasn’t all that good, she couldn’t concentrate properly.
Honami could only contact the company tomorrow. If she skipped this one part, then the connection for the following sentences might be destroyed. It sucked that she couldn’t solve this problem yesterday. But even so, Honami still continued with her work. With this in mind, she opened the document from her client. Because translating was a job that required patience, for the sake of translating one line of the sentence, Honami would often spend one to two days researching . There would be some that she could find on the Internet, but there were also those that required her to go to the library. If calculated as an hourly wage, maybe the salary of high school kids who worked part-time at McDonald’s were higher. However, since Honami’s priority was to look after a three-year-old child. Work that could be done from home was very limited.
“Hmm, MTM is ‘Medication Therapy Management’, right?”
Honami opened her browser and typed in the word. After she confirmed it, she was about to close the window.
This is when her eyes caught the news on the page that was initially open. Her fingers stopped moving.
The corpse of a Playgroup Student was found in Tokyo, Aiide City. Abnormal Murder Case?
Her heart squeezed when she read the suffocating title.
It’s such a terrible thing.
Even though Honami didn’t want to read it, she still wanted to know what happened. With a trembling hand, she clicked on the title.
[A boy was found lying on the banks of Aiide River on the 15th at 05:30 AM by a housewife who was walking her dog.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department formed a special investigation team at the Aiide Police Station.
The victim’s parents identified the body. It was reported that the victim is a four-year-old boy.]
That’s so sad. What a pitiful child.
As she looked at the news, Honami’s body began trembling. Her chest felt heavy and breathing was barely possible. This was because the banks of that very river was only a thirty minute walk away from Honami’s home. Since the river was dirty, there were barely any people around there. There weren’t any eyewitness around if anything happened.
I don’t like this…
Will the criminal be caught?
She didn’t want to think about losing her child.
Even though Honami didn’t recognize the name of the boy listed in the article. But if the incident occurred in Aiide, then it was reasonable to think that the children in the city were the next targets.
She hurried into the living room and turned on the television. A loud voice immediately boomed out, because of this, Honami hurriedly turned down the volume. It seemed that this case was covered extensively on the news networks. The reporter and cameraman were at a very familiar place.
[The boy’s body was dumped here, under the bridge on the river’s edge.] The reporter pointed his index finger at the grass nearby the river’s edge.
On another news channel, the commentator was making horrifying assumptions, [The suspect must have known this area. Maybe he’s hiding in the house next to you.]
He said that the culprit already knows this area? That he might be a neighbor?
Honami hugged herself with both hands, trying hard to hold herself from crying.
She suddenly felt pressured just by looking at the location of the murder on the news program. She needed to protect her daughter with her own hands.
Honami then exhales and turned off the television. She returned to her study. Despite sitting at the desk, she couldn’t continue her work.
“Mom?” A small voice that seemed like it was going to cry echoed in the room. When Honami turned her head, she found Kaoru standing at the door. Her hair was disheveled, and her pajama buttons were loose, her shoulders were also visible. Even though Kaoru was already three years old, she would still worry a lot and cry if she didn’t see her mother when she woke up. She’s still surely half-asleep. Honami glanced at her laptop before immediately standing up to calm Kaoru down.
“Mom’s working.” Honami gently hugged Kaoru and then kissed her cheek.
She needed to protect this child, her daughter. And for that, she was willing to do anything. A mother who wants to protect her child will use all of her strength to do so. I won’t let this ruin my family. She’ll watch her daughter closely and assure her safety.
Because her daughter was her miracle.