Little Bear and the Rice Ball [#ShirokumaLiteratureClub]

Light blue is the color of a dream seen after the rain. That is why it brings the wind with it.
A wind with well-defined grains. It is blooming softly. Please, have a rice ball on such an afternoon.
A rice ball. Giving shape to something that had none, and sealing it in tight. That is why we call it 'musubu'—to bind.
That must be it, thought Rudy the little bear.
He washes his hands thoroughly and begins right away.

Rudy first places plastic wrap on his fluffy palms.
On top of that, he scoops freshly cooked rice with a rice paddle.
Ouch.
It seems the freshly cooked rice was hot.
He blows on it to cool it down and spreads the rice out.
My favorite is salmon.
He places the salmon, which he had flaked beforehand, on top of the rice.
At that moment, Rudy remembered making rice balls with his mother.

The filling in his mother's rice balls was always salmon.
The pale orange of the salmon against the white rice.
The thing at the very back of his memories.
From there, his memories stretched out like a ribbon, connecting to the present.
But the ribbon had been on the verge of snapping over and over again.
I'm sorry, Mom.
I drifted away, went far off, and untied it myself.

Huh, that's strange. The rain should have stopped, but something is falling.
It drops onto the rice, one by one, and soaks in.
He can almost hear his mother's voice.
"Little bear. Where have you been all this time?"

Now, finally, I've come back, just like this.
He places more rice on top to cover the salmon.
Bathed in the autumn sun streaming through the window, each grain held a glimmer of light.

Now, all that's left is to wrap the plastic and shape it into a triangle.
So that it won't drift away again, so that it won't come undone,
Rudy bound it tight.