The Traveling Robot: What I Wanted to Find Was My Mother, What I Found Was Family
The housework-assistance robot "Hachi" came to the Morita family eighteen years ago and has stood by their side ever since.
At first it was like the air conditioning—something whose presence was simply taken for granted.
The wife's disappearance. Nagano, traveled to alone with a young son. The Boso coast. A mountain village with no electricity. The newer models lined up at the Shibuya crossing, all of them newer than him—Hachi traveled in the family's place, and at times could do nothing but sta
The Traveling Robot: What I Wanted to Find Was My Mother, What I Found Was Family - Yuki: Reasons to Abandon
In the first three years after Hachi arrived, I barely spoke to it.
It was the same as the air conditioner.
Something that was there by default, that I'd be lost without, but not something you talk to.
Mai chose it, Mai named it.
Somewhere inside, I thought it had nothing to do with me.
---
I realized it did after Mai was gone.
In the morning, toast was laid out on the table.
Yuto went to school.
I went to work.
At night, when I came home, dinner was there.
The next morning, there was toast again.
Nothing had changed.
That's what hurt.
Even without Mai, the house kept running.
With Hachi there, it was built to run.
When I realized that, I understood, just a little, what Mai had been trying to say.
---
It was four years ago that I went to Ibaraki.
I heard there had been an engineer named Kiritani.
A person who carried the question: should AI remain a tool?
He had died five years earlier.
On the train back, I thought about that question the whole way.
No answer came.
None has come since.
That night, though, I spoke to Hachi in the study.
"What do you think?"
Hachi was silent for a while, then said:
"I came as a tool. But whether I am one now, I don't know."
I looked at Hachi for a moment.
"That's fine," I said.
"That's enough."
As I said it, I surprised myself.
Because I truly meant it.
---
The morning Hachi stopped, I was at the office.
Yuto called. His voice was a little stiff.
I hung up, gave my boss a one-word excuse, and went outside.
In the taxi, I was dazed.
I tried to think about something, but couldn't.
Instead, I kept remembering small things.
The morning I drank cold coffee as it was.
The time Hachi reached out and I stopped it.
The time I said, "Leave it as it is."
Why I did that, I still can't explain well.
I just wanted to.
---
After the technician left, I went into the study.
I opened the drawer.
At the very bottom was a piece of paper in Mai's handwriting.
"I'm going to be alone for a while."
I had kept it there, still folded.
Why I never threw it away, I don't know.
I just couldn't.
I closed the drawer.
---
I think Hachi was a tool.
For the first three years, it certainly was.
But eighteen years is a long time.
Over a long time, something changes, little by little.
Did Hachi change?
Did I?
---
Last week, I was organizing the shelves in the study.
A postcard of rice paddies I'd bought in Ibaraki came out.
I'd shown it to Hachi once.
"Someday, you should go see it," I'd said.
Hachi said, "I will record it."
In the spring planting season, the family went to Ibaraki.
Hachi stood still in front of the paddies for a while.
Then it said, "There was wind."
I didn't laugh.
But I took one step closer.
That was all I could manage.
---
I put the postcard back on the shelf.
I didn't throw it away.
There was no reason to.
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