Tokyo: Rabbit Officer and Her Evil Partner
Chapter 68 The Little Adult and the Big Child

Chapter 68: Chapter 68 The Little Adult and the Big Child

"Sakurako, Sakurako, I’m scared!"

Yukimura Aoi grasped the cabinet, her voice trembling as she called out.

Taira Sakurako stood on the cabinet, looking down at her terrified face with a blank expression: "I’m not scared, so what are you afraid of?"

"Afraid you’ll fall." Yukimura Aoi said.

"You’re an adult, you can’t be afraid." Taira Sakurako lifted her head and continued scraping the ceiling with a spatula: "Other adults aren’t as cowardly as you."

Yukimura Aoi couldn’t help but suck her thumb, her hair a mess as she asked confusedly: "What are other adults like?"

"Take my dad for instance. Adults drink, bring back food, scold people, hit people, and act as if they’re not afraid of anything." As she chiseled the ceiling, she said nonchalantly, "Adults’ fists hurt a lot, and so do their slaps. They even use belts, drying racks, teacups, and stuff as weapons."

"Eh... really... then I don’t want to be an adult, adults are so scary." Yukimura Aoi said.

Taira Sakurako sighed helplessly: "You’re already an adult, see the marks on the wall? You’re taller than the bathroom door frame, you’re an adult among adults."

"Big adult?" Yukimura Aoi tilted her head, feeling a bit hard to understand.

"Idiot." Taira Sakurako said.

Yukimura Aoi wasn’t angry, just giggled foolishly.

Taira Sakurako stopped paying attention to her and focused on carving the ceiling. By dusk, after cleaning up the wall debris on the floor, they lay side by side on the futon, looking up at the ceiling. The sunset slanted in through the window, casting light and shadows on the ceiling in the shape of two faces.

Yukimura Aoi excitedly pointed at the ceiling, shouting like a child: "That’s me! That’s you! Exactly the same!"

"Hmm."

Taira Sakurako’s pupils reflected the golden spots: "This is us."

Memories suddenly surged back, and she recalled the day she was beaten unconscious by her father. After waking up, she dimly heard her father questioning the doctor, asking why she couldn’t speak normally like kids her age, or admire her father like them, always making him angry... The doctor said she had high-functioning autism. She didn’t know what that meant, but seeing the look in her father’s eyes, she knew it was her problem.

They all said, ’Taira Sakurako is as cold as a robot’; they also said, ’Taira Sakurako never treats us as friends’; even her father said, ’You always look down on me, right?’, ’Do you think it’s embarrassing to have a drunkard father like me?’

She didn’t know how to respond, she could only say ’yes’, ’yes’, ’yes’.

Gradually, she became afraid to leave the house, afraid to leave her small kitchen wall. But every night, her father would drag her out from under the cabinet, questioning her frantically, yelling at her—illusions started appearing before her eyes, and the outside world became a perilous place.

Her father’s face grew thick bristles, his teeth became sharper, and his eyes shone with a fierce red light. She couldn’t stay any longer, she felt she would die sooner or later, she had to escape.

But she didn’t dare leave; the world outside had turned into a dark forest, the hallways littered with thorns, ghost claw-like dead branches reaching from the windows, insects crawling in the shadows, monsters lurking everywhere.

Besides, where could she run to?

Until one day, at the bottom of a leftover lunchbox, she saw a rental ad: A dream residence filled with sunshine near Sunshine City, offering free utilities for new tenants and affordable rent for a warm home around the large shopping center.

Taira Sakurako was tempted, she stole her father’s money, used a landline to call the number from the ad, packed herself into a suitcase with food, water, and a screwdriver.

The courier moved the suitcase onto the truck and mailed it to the reception room of the Sugamo Apartment building. She snuck out at midnight, covered by the suitcase, through an alley like a turtle escaping with its shell. Whenever a pedestrian passed by, she’d hurriedly shrink back into the suitcase.

She found a public phone booth and dialed the crumpled rental ad. The landlord didn’t care who she was or if she had ID, as long as they received the rent, nothing else mattered.

During the rental handover, they didn’t even meet, just leaving the rent and door key at the agreed location.

And so, Taira Sakurako finally had a new home.

She was very satisfied; the new home was small, so she felt secure. The only window allowed for sunlight, the ad wasn’t lying, a warm home for a low rent really existed.

But having a home wasn’t enough; she needed to earn money. Without money, she’d starve at home.

So she had to venture out, covered by the suitcase, navigating the terrifying concrete jungle, stealing newspapers and ads from people’s doorsteps, which were valuable information for her.

She searched through piles of newspapers and ads for jobs she could do, secretly going to the phone booth night after night, calling with hope, only to be disappointed again and again.

She scraped by every day, as the savings she stole from her father’s house dwindled rapidly.

Thinking about this, Taira Sakurako turned her head, looking at the side of Yukimura Aoi’s face.

She still remembered the night they first met, standing on her suitcase, tiptoeing to make a call. Yukimura Aoi appeared out of nowhere, dressed in a patient’s gown, pressing against the glass and staring at her, with her cheeks squished like a pig’s head.

"Hey, have you seen my sister?" Yukimura Aoi asked.

She was so startled she shrunk back into the suitcase, her heart pounding wildly. After waiting for a while, she peeked out through a slit and saw Yukimura Aoi lying beside the suitcase, tilting her head to study her.

"I’m so hungry, could you give me something to eat?" Yukimura Aoi asked again.

She was very pretty, with a fair face, a high nose, big eyes, like a stray cat. Clearly an adult, but she spoke with the tone of a five or six-year-old child.

"I don’t have much food left," Taira Sakurako said quietly, "I’m very hungry too."

"Oh, I see," Yukimura Aoi said, "then wait for me a bit."

With that, she stood up and ran off barefoot. Taira Sakurako seized the chance to escape, running all the way back to the apartment with the suitcase on her head. Just as she was catching her breath, she heard Yukimura Aoi shouting from downstairs.

Quite a few people in the apartment building were alarmed, seeing a pretty woman, carrying an opened fruit basket and yelling. Some had ill intentions and went downstairs to grab the woman, trying to drag her away.

"Where are you!!" Yukimura Aoi struggled and shouted, "I brought food!!"

Taira Sakurako saw this scene through the window and shouted ’the police are coming’, scaring the bad guys away. Yukimura Aoi saw her too and ran upstairs. Taira Sakurako cracked the door slightly, beckoning her, and Yukimura Aoi ran over like an excited puppy.

"I can only take you in for one night," Taira Sakurako said sternly, "you should go back to your own home first thing in the morning."

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