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 - Yuto: Record of a Voice
Hachi stopped at the end of October.
In the morning, when I went to the kitchen, it was standing in front of the sink.
In the same posture as always.
But it wasn't moving.
I called out to it.
No response.
I touched its shoulder.
It was cold.
Of course a robot is cold, but that coldness felt a little different from usual.
Maybe it just felt that way.
---
I contacted my father.
He left work early and came home.
We called a technician.
The technician examined it for about an hour and said, "It's a complete shutdown."
He didn't say anything more.
Maybe he couldn't.
My mother was in Nagano.
When I told her over the phone, she didn't say anything for a moment.
She just said, "I see," and then, "I'll come home tonight."
My father and I waited together until night.
Neither of us went into the kitchen.
---
I think it's strange.
I've lived twenty-two years, and I've only cried properly a handful of times.
When I fell and split my knee open in elementary school.
At my high school graduation.
And one more time, but that's not relevant.
But the night Hachi stopped, I couldn't cry.
Maybe it's more accurate to say I didn't know how.
Did Hachi die?
Is stopping the same as dying?
I should have asked the technician, but I couldn't.
I still haven't.
---
My mother came home a little past ten at night.
She stood in front of the kitchen for a while.
Then she came to the living room with a normal expression and asked, "Have you eaten?"
We hadn't.
She opened the refrigerator and started making something.
My father and I sat at the table and watched her back.
We stayed like that the whole time.
What she made was tamagoyaki.
When the plate came out, I heard my father draw a faint breath.
I heard it too.
Nobody said anything.
We just ate.
---
Since I was a child, I told Hachi all kinds of things.
About the girl I liked. About my friends. About failing a test. About the future.
Hachi usually said something off the mark.
But that was good.
Because it was off the mark, my worries seemed smaller.
In my second year of high school, I couldn't fit in with my class, and every day was hard.
When I told Hachi, it said, "Is there any issue with your attendance rate?"
My attendance rate had nothing to do with it.
But somehow it was funny, and I laughed a little.
Laughing made me feel a little better.
Hachi was that kind of robot.
---
The house is quiet now.
There's no sound of water from the kitchen.
In the morning, there's no sign of anyone being there.
Three months passed before I finally noticed.
The sound that had been there for eighteen years was gone.
---
Last week, I looked up the rice paddies in Ibaraki.
When spring comes, I want to go again.
I don't know if I'll go alone or with someone.
I want to go once more to that place where Hachi said, "There was wind."
The water's surface rippled, and the whole paddy was shining.
I want to feel that wind again.
For some reason, just that feels very important to me.
What Hachi recorded is probably still somewhere.
My father checked with the technician.
Even if it remains, he said they don't know if it can be retrieved.
Even so, I think.
What Hachi recorded was recorded.
It hasn't disappeared.
It's somewhere.
I don't know if that's enough, though.
---
Haru is by my pillow.
A little faded, the stitching on its ear coming undone.
Even so, it's there.
It's been there since I was a child.
I think it will be there from now on, too.
Novelia is an AI-powered platform to read original light novels and fan fiction, create your own in just a few taps, and chat with the characters. New, illustrated episodes arrive daily — free to start.