It had been sixty years since he abandoned his son in the flooded fields of the southern war. The boy had been five. A gaki. A pest. A burden. "Stay here," Kurogane had said, tying a rice ball to the child's belt. "I'll come back."
Kurogane wept. Then he smiled.
Now, the ghost of that boy—still five, still waiting, still patient—had found him. Every evening, the puddle would ripple, and a small voice would say, "Otōsan. Modotte." Father. Come back. gaki modotte
The old man known as Kurogane sat alone in the rain, his spine curled like a broken branch. He had not moved in three days. The village children dared each other to throw pebbles near his feet. "Gaki modotte," they'd whisper. Return, brat. A cruel nickname for a cruel man.
He never did.
But the children did not know the truth. They did not know that every night, when the rain stopped, a small, muddy hand would reach out from the puddle beside his wooden leg. Not to harm him. To hold his finger.
And for the first time in sixty years, the old man finally returned—not to the village, not to honor, but to the boy who had never stopped calling him home. It had been sixty years since he abandoned
But Kurogane could not move. Not because of his missing leg, but because the only way to return was to go where the boy was. Beneath the water. Into the flooded field. Into the moment he had chosen survival over love.
