Chapter 80: The Price of Motherhood

The show was indeed a success.

Firstly, Akashiya Sanma and Tamori’s comedy show was already very popular.

Secondly, with the added star power of Okada Yukiko, the audience was guaranteed to be large.

However, to say that Aiko’s popularity truly exploded, one would have to wait until September.

In September, the summer vacation ended, and schools reopened. Mother finally aired its eleventh and final episode.

As a tear-jerking masterpiece whose ultimate goal was to “induce tears,” the plot of Mother naturally reached its tear-jerking peak in the final episode.

Rena sneaks out of the orphanage and is reunited with Nao, who has been released from prison. However, after a brief, happy reunion, Nao, who has been ordered by the court not to have contact with Rena, has to send her back to the orphanage. And Nao’s mother, with whom she reconciled in the previous episode, passes away in this one.

This bittersweet plot was enough to make most viewers use up more than half a pack of tissues. The final part, where the adult Rena is reunited with the now gray-haired Nao, made the viewers use up the last of their tissues.

As a loyal viewer of Mother and one of Aiko’s first fans, Kisaragi Kiyo, unsurprisingly, cried from beginning to end.

Seeing the final reunion of Rena and Nao, Kisaragi Kiyo once again felt a pang in her heart and thought of her own mother…

After a long hesitation, Kisaragi Kiyo finally picked up the phone and dialed the landline number of her mother’s residence. She hadn’t dialed this number in a long time. Because her mother lived in a rented apartment, Kisaragi Kiyo wasn’t sure if this number could still reach her.

However, fortunately, after a few rings, the call was connected.

– Hello, who is this?

A female voice came from the other end of the line.

‘It’s her…’

Kisaragi Kiyo subconsciously made this judgment, but the voice no longer had the crisp and melodious quality she remembered. Instead, it sounded a bit hoarse and rough.

‘That’s right, I’m already thirty. My mother must be over fifty by now. She’s no longer that vibrant young woman who loved to dress herself up beautifully and could party with her friends all day with boundless energy.’

Kisaragi Kiyo was lost in memories and didn’t speak for a long time.

As time passed in silence, the person on the other end of the phone seemed to realize something and, surprisingly, didn’t hang up. Instead, after waiting for a considerable amount of time, she asked again:

– This is the Kisaragi residence. May I ask… who is this?

She sounded a bit nervous.

Kisaragi Kiyo took a deep breath, and when she opened her mouth, she found that her own voice was also a bit hoarse. “It’s me…”

– Kiyo-chan…

The voice on the other end of the line trembled, followed by a crashing sound.

Kisaragi Kiyo was startled and quickly asked, “What happened?”

– It’s nothing,

after the crashing sound stopped, the voice on the other end explained,

– The table leg is a bit uneven, I accidentally knocked something off the table.

Kisaragi Kiyo relaxed a little and casually complained, “Didn’t you always say that old apartment was too run-down? Why haven’t you moved yet?”

– I…

The voice on the other end hesitated for a moment before saying,

– I don’t have your contact information. I was afraid that if I moved, I wouldn’t be able to reach you anymore…

Kisaragi Kiyo suddenly felt her throat go dry, and for a moment, she didn’t know what to say.

The phone line fell silent again.

After a long time, the person on the other end finally broke the silence. “Kiyo-chan, this weekend… are you coming home? I, I’ll make you red bean soup…”

Red bean soup was Kisaragi Kiyo’s favorite food as a child.

This “favorite” wasn’t because it particularly suited her tastes, but because it was the only dish her mother, who was not a good cook, could make reasonably well.

So, as a child, whenever her mother had a sudden whim to cook at home, Kisaragi Kiyo would always request red bean soup.

Kisaragi Kiyo thought for a moment. “I don’t have time this weekend.”

– Oh…

The voice on the other end sounded a bit disappointed.

For some reason, hearing this disappointed voice, Kisaragi Kiyo actually felt a pang in her heart, even though there was a time when just hearing her mother’s voice filled her with nothing but annoyance and disgust.

“I really don’t have time this weekend,” Kisaragi Kiyo explained for the first time. “I’m working as a manager now, and I need to arrange performances for the artists on weekends.”

– Then Monday!

The voice on the other end almost immediately brightened up.

– I’ll wait for you at home on Monday.

“Mmm…”

The person on the other end of the line seemed to be waiting for Kisaragi Kiyo to speak, but Kisaragi Kiyo didn’t know what to say.

After another brief silence, Kisaragi Kiyo said, “It’s getting late, I want to go to sleep.”

Without waiting for a reply, Kisaragi Kiyo hung up the phone.

In the darkness, Kisaragi Kiyo lay in her small rented apartment. She didn’t know why she had made that call, nor did she understand why she had agreed to go back on Monday.

The next day, when she got up and went to work, Kisaragi Kiyo began to regret her decision.

A mother-daughter relationship that had been broken for over a decade was not so easily repaired. The pain her mother had caused her was not so easily forgotten…

Sitting on the train, Kisaragi Kiyo considered whether to call her mother again and tell her that she was also busy on Monday and wouldn’t be coming back, or simply to lose contact with her again.

When the train arrived at the station, Kisaragi Kiyo followed the crowd out of the station. Suddenly, she heard a familiar voice and came back to her senses.

“Mama, kidnap me one more time…”

Just from that short sentence, Kisaragi Kiyo recognized Rena’s voice. She immediately looked in the direction of the sound and found a newly opened video rental store called “Oshin-ya.”

On the large screen at the entrance of the store, clips from Mother were being played. At the entrance, a male clerk was actually dressed in the costume of Nao, the second female lead of Mother, and was shouting loudly, “The complete collection of Mother videotapes is available for rent in the store! Rent a videotape now and get a random poster for free!”

Although she had already watched every episode of Mother, seeing the poster on the wall of Rena with tears on her face, wearing a red scarf, so heartbreakingly adorable, Kisaragi Kiyo couldn’t resist walking into the store.

Passing by the clerk, Kisaragi Kiyo couldn’t help but retort to the cross-dressing clerk, “You look absolutely hideous in women’s clothing. Why don’t you put on the clothes that mothers love and let the aunties see you?”

“Or put on Michiki Hitomi’s clothes and let everyone curse at you for a bit to vent their anger.”

Michiki Hitomi was Rena’s biological mother in the drama, and also one of Rena’s abusers.

Other customers passing by also nodded in agreement.

Kisaragi Kiyo was just making a comment, but she didn’t expect the cross-dressing clerk’s eyes to light up. He bowed deeply and said, “That’s a great idea! Thank you very much for your suggestion!”

Entering the store, Kisaragi Kiyo discovered that the popularity of Mother was beyond her imagination. The store was packed with people, almost all of whom were crowding around the counter with the Mother poster.

A middle-aged professional woman in an office lady uniform, holding a pile of posters, squeezed out of the crowd. The first thing she did was to unwrap a poster on the spot. She seemed to show a look of disappointment, then gritted her teeth and squeezed back to the counter. “I want to buy ten more! No, twenty!”

“Haven’t you already bought so many? Why do you need to buy more?” Kisaragi Kiyo asked the woman curiously.

“The posters are random,” the middle-aged woman pointed to the most adorable red scarf Rena poster hanging at the very top. “That hidden version has the lowest chance of being drawn. I’ve bought dozens of them and still haven’t gotten it! No, my little baby Rena, Mama must kidnap you back!”

With that, the middle-aged woman plunged back into the crowd of frantic buyers.

‘Is it really that exaggerated…’ Kisaragi Kiyo thought to herself.

An unknown amount of time later, Kisaragi Kiyo walked out of Oshin-ya carrying more than a dozen shopping bags of various sizes.

In the bags were over a hundred posters, as well as various merchandise like Rena’s hats, gloves, scarves, and hamster dolls…

Kisaragi Kiyo felt a pang of heartache thinking about her now-empty wallet. But then she thought of the Rena in the hidden version poster, who made you want to hold her, kiss her, and cuddle her, and Kisaragi Kiyo suddenly felt a sense of relief… There was no helping it, this was the price of being a mother.

“Mama, are you unhappy to see me?”

The large screen outside Oshin-ya was still playing clips from Mother.

Kisaragi Kiyo glanced at it and immediately knew that this was the scene of Rena’s long-awaited reunion with Nao. Her heart suddenly softened…

‘Forget it, it’s been almost ten years…’

‘I’ll go see her on Monday.’