Wolf Children: Ame & Yuki Read online

  Copyright

  WOLF CHILDREN

  AME & YUKI

  MAMORU HOSODA

  Translation by Winifred Bird

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Okami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki

  ©2012 “WOLF CHILDREN” FILM PARTNERS

  ©Mamoru HOSODA 2012

  First published in Japan in 2012 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through TUTTLE-MORI AGENCY, INC., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2019 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Yen On

  1290 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10104

  Visit us at yenpress.com

  facebook.com/yenpress

  twitter.com/yenpress

  yenpress.tumblr.com

  instagram.com/yenpress

  First Yen On Edition: May 2019

  Yen On is an imprint of Yen Press, LLC.

  The Yen On name and logo are trademarks of Yen Press, LLC.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Hosoda, Mamoru, 1967– author. | Bird, Winifred, translator.

  Title: Wolf children : Ame & Yuki / Mamoru Hosoda ; translation by Winifred Bird.

  Other titles: Okami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki. English

  Description: First Yen On edition. | New York, NY : Yen On, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019005329 | ISBN 9781975356866 (hardcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: Feral children—Fiction. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PL871.O88 O3813 2019 | DDC 895.63/6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019005329

  ISBNs: 978-1-9753-5686-6 (hardcover)

  978-1-9753-5687-3 (ebook)

  E3-20190416-JV-NF-ORI

  “The man she fell in love with…was a wolf.”

  1

  Hana was in love nearly the moment she met him.

  She was nineteen, and aside from a few crushes that were more admiration than affection, he was her first love. Only when she fell for him did she understand what a mysterious thing love was—how it brought with it a readiness to accept whatever the future might hold.

  Before their paths first crossed, she had a dream.

  She was lying among masses of wildflowers in a meadow bathed in soft light. As she woke from a pleasant doze, she opened her eyes and took a deep breath, smelling the lovely grassy scent and feeling the comforting warmth of the sun. A gentle breeze ruffled her bangs.

  “—?”

  Just then, she sensed something approaching. She slowly sat up and looked in its direction. From beyond a distant hill, a figure was walking toward her on all fours through the grass. The silhouette’s ears were pointed.

  A wolf.

  Hana knew right away what it was. She didn’t know how she was so sure, but there was not a doubt in her mind that this was a wolf.

  The creature walked toward her, buffeted by the wind. Neither its gaze nor its steps wavered as it paced forward with a beautifully rhythmic gait.

  Hana was not afraid.

  She was certain the wolf had come from some faraway place. In all likelihood, it had made its long journey for some purpose of its own. So she waited for it, perfectly still.

  And then, as it walked, the wolf transformed.

  Transform was the only word for it—the air around the beast shimmered, and the next instant, it was a tall man.

  Hana was startled.

  A werewolf, she thought.

  The tall man strode straight toward her.

  Transfixed, she held her breath and continued waiting. Her heart raced.

  The dream ended there.

  Hana chased after the next moments behind closed eyelids, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t even catch a glimpse. What did the wolf want to tell me? All that remained was a blurry image of the man’s tall figure in her heart.

  Hana was a sophomore at a national university on the outskirts of Tokyo.

  Nearby was a train station with a red triangular roof like something from a fairy tale and, outside the station, a wide boulevard lined with hundreds of cherry blossom and ginkgo trees. A stroll along this lane, maybe five minutes or so, would bring you to the cozy little campus. It was an old-fashioned university, full of trees, with lecture halls and classroom buildings clustered around a library with a clock tower.

  One early summer day, a professor’s calm voice echoed through a cavernous classroom as he lectured on the history of ancient thought. As he read out the text and explained each line, Hana jotted down his words in her neat handwriting.

  Each of the students at this university had passed its rigorous entrance exam, and all of them were both diligent and well-dressed. These young people came from wealthy families, and a promising future awaited them after they completed their excellent education. Some would become public servants, while others planned to pursue law or business. A few were already studying for the bar or various other professional licenses.

  When it came to her industrious nature, Hana was similar to her classmates. Her vision of her future, however, was still hazy. She knew she wanted to help others, but she was keenly aware that a knack for studying alone was of no use whatsoever to society. She had no idea who she was or what kind of life she should choose for herself.

  The afternoon sunlight poured in through the windows of the large classroom and created beautiful reflections on the long tables. Hana paused for a moment in her note-taking and looked up toward the window—and that was when her eyes landed on the back of a certain man.

  “—”

  He looked nothing like the rich students who attended the university. His hair was disheveled and his skin deeply tanned. The collar of his T-shirt was stretched out, and the fabric was pockmarked with little holes. His arm was well-toned, and his hand gripped a ballpoint pen, fervently scribbling notes as if he had no intention of missing a single word the professor said. Apparently, he didn’t have the textbook called for in the syllabus.

  Hana’s gaze was riveted to his back as the sunlight streaming through the windows seemed to glitter on his skin. For some reason, she felt she had seen this pleasant light before.

  The lecture ended, and the students filed out of the classroom, turning in their attendance slips as they went. Hana placed a slip with her name on it on the professor’s desk and looked back at the classroom, searching for the stranger. She saw a tall form leaving alone, notebook grasped in one hand.

  He probably didn’t turn in his slip, she thought. She followed him out of the classroom and glimpsed a figure in a T-shirt and faded jeans turning the hallway corner with long strides. She would have to jog to catch up with him.

  When she finally reached him, he was descending the staircase. She called out without thinking.

  “Wait!”

  The figure—the man—paused on the landing. Then he slowly turned one thin cheek in her direction
and fixed his gaze on her.

  “—”

  Hana’s heart thumped.

  His eyes were startlingly beautiful.

  Yet, she also sensed in them a distance that kept the world at bay. They reminded her of a nervous wild animal. If she didn’t say something, he would stride off and leave her there alone. So she blurted:

  “…Here.” She held out an extra attendance slip. “If you don’t write your name down and turn it in, you’ll be marked absent. So…”

  Before she could finish, he shot her down. “Maybe you’ve already guessed,” he muttered, his voice quietly menacing, “but I’m not a student here.”

  “What?”

  “If you don’t want to see me around here, I won’t come anymore.”

  His clear eyes turned away as he continued down the stairs, his footsteps echoing after him.

  Left behind, Hana stood frozen and dumbfounded for a moment. Her attempted kindness had backfired completely, as if she’d carelessly tried petting a rare wild animal and gotten bared fangs for her trouble.

  She was about to turn around, but the lack of closure kept her in place. If she didn’t do something, she thought, that feeling would stay with her forever.

  She walked down the stairs to the first floor and peered furtively outside from the shade of a column. Through the arch, she saw him leave the building.

  It was afternoon, and the campus garden was filled with the lively shouts of children at play. Many elderly people and families used the garden as a welcome open space, in place of a neighborhood park. The children were running around at a slight distance from where their mothers congregated.

  Suddenly, one of the children fell down and cried out in a weak, muffled voice, but the mothers, caught up in their conversation, didn’t seem to hear. He did, however; he stopped, then returned to lift the boy in his arms and set him on his feet. He didn’t promise that everything would be all right or offer a warning to be more careful next time. Instead, he placed his hand very softly on the top of the boy’s head. When he did, the child stopped crying so quickly that Hana was mystified. The boy’s pain and sadness seemed to have melted away instantly. The man stood then and strode off, as if nothing at all unusual had happened. The child watched him, mouth agape, as he went.

  For some reason, witnessing this trivial scene from the shade of the column, Hana was filled with immense happiness. She felt as if she was the child who had fallen down and the one whom he’d picked up and set on her feet. And so, as he passed through the front gates of the university…

  “Hey, wait! Again.”

  …she summoned the nerve to call out to him…

  “I don’t know if you’re a student here or not. But”—she dug hurriedly through her bag—“I think that class will be a little hard without this.”

  She held out the textbook to him with both hands.

  “If you want…we could share.”

  The suggestion took every ounce of courage she had.

  After Hana finished her university classes, she worked until late at night at a dry cleaner near the station. After that, she stopped at a twenty-four-hour supermarket to buy a few things before returning to her apartment in an old building next to an elevated rail line. She changed the water in the cup set beside a photograph of her father, cooked a simple dinner in the cramped kitchen, and ate it alone, still wearing her apron, at her little dining table. Afterward, she took a bath, put on her pajamas, and then read the books she’d borrowed from the library until she fell asleep.

  This was Hana’s fixed daily routine—until today.

  She had made a date with him in front of the university gate. They were to meet during the next class.

  She found herself thinking of him at the dry cleaner while searching for customers’ clothes with their tickets in one hand. At the supermarket, as she picked through the half-off items, his image would rise in her mind’s eye. He was there, too, when she turned her key in the door to her apartment, when she folded her apron and laid it over the back of a chair, and even when she turned the pages of her books.

  Already, Hana had fallen in love.

  That day, Hana spent longer than usual choosing her clothes and eventually decided on a blue dress she had never worn before.

  He had said he would come to class in the afternoon, after he finished work. Nevertheless, that morning, she stood at the front gate searching the crowd of arriving students for him. Between her morning classes, she was beside herself with nerves. In the lunchtime bustle of the student dining hall, she sat alone, thinking of him.

  Finally, it was time for her afternoon class, but still, he did not appear. The professor arrived, briefly greeted the students, and opened the text to continue his comments from last time. Hana tried to pay attention, but she couldn’t concentrate. She kept looking out the window in spite of herself.

  When the lecture was nearing its midpoint, she spotted him running toward the building. He was wearing the same T-shirt with the stretched-out collar that he’d worn the day they met.

  Her heart jumped.

  He entered the class holding his breath and silently took a seat beside Hana. Afraid he would hear her pounding heart, she left her textbook where it was and moved to the far end of the long desk. He put his hand on the book and gave her a confused look. Don’t you need it? he seemed to be asking.

  From her distant seat, she signaled a response with her eyes: Go ahead, I’m fine.

  After the lecture ended, she invited him to the university library. Only faculty and students were allowed inside, generally, but she very much wanted to show it to him. She touched her ID to the sensor, and when the gate opened with a beep, she grabbed his hand and pulled him through. The librarian gave them a suspicious glance, but before she could say anything, they had rushed past.

  His eyes sparkled with interest at the rows and rows of books lining the modern movable stacks. Just watching him made Hana happy, too.

  The university boasted one of the largest collections in the city, and it was especially unusual in that over 60 percent was kept in open stacks. Students could hold even rare books in their hands.

  He began searching for a certain book with great interest, and when he found it, he started thumbing through it right away, rapt, as if time had stopped. Not wanting to bother him, Hana wandered among the nearby bookshelves. After a little while, she came back, but he hadn’t moved an inch, absorbed as he was in his book. For some reason, this struck her as very funny. She pulled a random book from the shelf and stood next to him reading it.

  Afterward, they left the university and walked along the riverbank together under the broad, dusky sky.

  Hana asked him one question after the next.

  “What do you do for fun?

  “What kind of food do you like?

  “What type of people have you dated?”

  He smiled, and instead of answering her questions, he asked one of his own.

  “…Why are you named after flowers?”

  “My name?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The day I was born, cosmos were blooming in the garden. Wild ones. My father said that when he saw them, the name came to him all of a sudden. He said he wanted me to grow up with a smile always blooming on my face, like a flower.”

  She looked into the distance as she reminisced.

  “He told me I should always smile, even when life was painful or hard—even when I didn’t want to. If I could do that, I could get through just about anything.”

  “—”

  “Because of that, I smiled all through his funeral. One of my relatives got really mad at me and called me disrespectful…”

  “—”

  “Maybe I was.”

  He gazed intently at Hana, then smiled. “Not at all,” he said, looking up at the sky.

  Hana smiled back at him, relieved, then joined him in watching the sky. “I’m glad,” she said softly.

  It was the first time she had ever told anyone about he
r father.

  Her father had been diagnosed with his illness in her final year of high school, when she was due to take her university entrance exams.

  She was his only child. As she prepared for her exams, she sat by his bedside, believing that if she studied hard and passed, he would get better. He’d cheered her on from his sickbed.

  He’d taken his last breath before she had a chance to tell him she’d been accepted.

  It had been just the two of them in their house, and now she was alone.

  Her relatives had been very sympathetic and offered to help. One aunt and uncle said they had a spare room and asked if she would like to come live with them. Another aunt and uncle offered to pay her school fees. But she’d politely declined them all.

  Once the hospital bills were paid, she had only enough savings left to cover the university entrance fee and the tuition for her first semester. Fortunately, she had been preapproved for a student loan, and she figured she could get by as long as she had a part-time job.

  She’d gotten rid of what she couldn’t take with her and packed up what she could, leaving the rented house where they’d lived and moving into the little apartment next to the elevated rail line. With her, she’d brought a chest of drawers made from paulownia wood and a full-length mirror. On top of the bookshelf her father had used, she’d placed a photograph of the two of them in their garden when she was a child.

  She attended her university entrance ceremony in the mourning clothes she had worn to his funeral.

  Her first year was over before she knew it—and then she met him.

  He treated her with the same care he would have given a little flower blooming in a meadow.

  He always took her home after their dates. They would meet up in an old café near the train station. He would usually arrive before her when he came after work, so he read books while he waited.

  They wandered through the city streets at night, side by side, talking about anything and everything.

  He worked for a moving company, driving a large truck, and he spoke very tenderly of the houses he visited for work, as well as his impressions of the people who lived in them.