Mom's Bento 🔥2

My first workplace.

It was a place occupied mostly by men.
There were only three full-time female employees.
Me, a woman in administration.
And Mochino-san, a veteran woman in general affairs.

For some reason, there was an unspoken rule from the time I joined that the three women had to eat lunch together.
We rarely went out and spent an hour in a fixed spot.

I was living alone.
I wanted to save as much as possible, so I made a bento almost every day.

That said, it wasn't anything fancy.
Bean sprouts, frozen rice, rolled omelet, stir-fried meat, broccoli.

I would put meat stir-fried with strong seasoning into microwaved frozen udon. I would bring powdered dashi and tempura scraps.
If I poured hot water over it, I had sweet and savory meat udon.

I thought as long as it tasted good to me, that was fine.
And my reasons were, "Money is too precious to waste" and "This is enough for me."

During lunch break, Mochino-san did almost all the talking.
I would nod along while silently eating my bento.

Mochino-san would peer into my bento at every opportunity and say,

"I can't believe it. That's such a pathetic bento."
"You're the first person I've ever seen put Chinese cabbage in a bento."
"If it were me, I'd be too embarrassed to bring a bento like this. How pitiful."

She said things like that almost every time.
When I heard that, my thoughts were,

"Oh. Is that so?" That was about it.

I was certainly annoyed. I thought she was noisy.
But in reality, I didn't have money, and I wasn't putting any special effort into it.

The feeling that had existed within me since I was a child,
"I am inferior as a human being,"
had not disappeared either.
Well, I suppose that's what people would say. That was the feeling.


In my second year, the administrative staff changed, and a junior colleague joined.
Both of them were bright and cool.
After work, the three of us would get excited talking about Mochino-san.
That was a bit of a relief.

One day, Mochino-san brought a bento, which was rare.
It was a two-tiered, packed-full, visibly luxurious bento.

She opened the lid in silence.

"Wow, that's luxurious!"
I couldn't help but exclaim.

However, Mochino-san looked at the bento and frowned.
"Ugh! I wish she'd stop. She put something I hate in here."
"I can't believe it. I'm going to throw this away. I'll go buy some lunch."
Saying that, she closed the bento and stood up from her seat.

The rest of us were left stunned, watching her back as she walked away.

I asked Mochino-san when she returned.

"Did you make that bento yourself?"
Then, Mochino-san answered with a bitter smile.

"My mom made it. She puts things in even though I told her I didn't want them. I really can't believe it."
......It felt like I had been struck in the head.


It wasn't anger.


It wasn't contempt either.
......It was just that,


a parent,

someone complaining about something someone else made for them.
Saying out loud in front of others that they don't want it.
And then, actually throwing it away without eating it.
This act itself


did not exist in the world I had lived in.
Since I was little, I had lived with the belief,



"You must not cause others trouble,"
"You must manage on your own."
That had been ingrained in me.
If it were me, no matter how much I disliked a bento, I would have exaggerated my joy and eaten it all.

And after eating, I would have expressed as much gratitude as possible,
and praised it.
Having someone do something for you, disparaging it in front of others,


throwing it away, and going to buy something new――.
Does such a world exist?
Rather than not understanding, it was the feeling of having seen a completely different world.

"I can't believe it."


"That's crazy, isn't it? It's impossible."
The other two besides me
were saying things like that.
That was probably an "I can't believe it" in the sense that it lacked common sense or was rude.

However,
my "I can't believe it"

was not of that kind.
A person who has lived more than twice as long as me.
Someone who works,


is never scolded by anyone,

and is accepted.
Such an adult on the "successful" side
is still living in this world


with that way of thinking.

Is it possible
to live like that?

Is she forgiven because it's her?
People who are forgiven are amazing.


I silently started eating my own bento again.
However, deep in my heart, a slight sense of discomfort remained.


Mixed with the feeling that she was a strange person,

without being able to put it into words well,

it sank somewhere.

──────────
🫧Me in this form

▶ To the next event (Mochino-san and Yamada-san)

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