Duty and Ideals -義務と理想 English ver-

Three years into his work as a caregiver, Jun Takase had become known as one of the kindest helpers in the facility.

He had chosen this work.

At least, that was what he believed.

He wanted to face those in need of support with sincerity.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

But reality had long since begun to betray that ideal.

Gaps in the system.

Records taking priority over people.

Care compressed by time.

Day after day, he found himself thinking,

This isn’t what I wanted to do.

Then one day, he was assigned to work alongside Mari Miura.

A single mother.

Sharp-tongued.

Emotionally distant.

And far too composed to fit the image of someone who was supposed to be on the side of care.

She looked at him once and asked,

“Who is your kindness really for?”

That question began to shake something that had long been hidden inside him.

What does it truly mean to support someone?

Who is care really for?

Perhaps what lay behind his ideals was nothing more than self-satisfaction.

Perhaps if everything were reduced to duty, the heart would no longer be necessary.

Between unspoken emotions and a growing sense of unease toward society itself, Jun would be forced, for the first time, to question what it meant to be a helper.

Chapter 1: An Inheritance Called Ideals

“Good afternoon, Ms. Miura. I’m Takase. Starting today, I’ll be alternating the afternoon shift for Resident A with you.”

He had greeted her properly.

He had chosen his words carefully.

And yet the woman standing before him—Mari Miura—let the words pass with nothing more than the slightest nod.

Neither approval nor rejection.

Only the minimum response required for the moment to continue.

Jun found himself slightly thrown off by it.

When he had first entered this field, he might have found this kind of atmosphere intimidating.

But now, three years in, what he felt was something different.

Closer to discomfort.

A quiet unease that lingered beneath the surface.

Perhaps because he understood something about it.

He knew she was a single mother.

He knew she moved from early-morning shifts to late-night work simply to keep life running.

At times, the sight of her walking ahead of him overlapped strangely with the image of his mother.

There are so many things you just have to separate from yourself when you’re a mother, his mother used to say.

But his mother had smiled when she said it.

Mari never smiled.

She simply moved through the work.

As if emotion itself had been cut away.

To Jun, that felt farther from the word care than anything else.

“I heard Resident A ate lunch well today. Maybe they’re feeling a little better?”

Jun tried to open the conversation.

Mari did not even look up.

She simply wrote numbers into the care record sheet.

“Whether they’re doing well or not doesn’t change what we have to do.”

Her voice was dry.

The words caught somewhere in Jun’s throat.

Then what are we caring for?

The question rose instinctively, but he swallowed it before it could become sound.

He already knew that saying something like that would only irritate her.

And yet—

he wanted to say it.

He had always believed that support meant believing in another person.

Every time he stood beside someone like Resident A, someone who struggled to communicate their will through words, he had believed his work was to tell them, in whatever way possible,

I still see you.

That belief had been inherited from his mother.

Almost a faith.

And yet Mari seemed to work as if cutting through all of that.

For her, this work was clearly duty.

Something entirely separate from the ideals Jun had carried into the profession.

She should have reminded him of his mother.

So why did she feel so far away?

Quietly, he turned the page of the care record.

“Please take care of me,” he said softly.

Mari gave no response.

On his way home that evening, Jun found his mother’s voice returning to him.

I chose this work because I wanted to.

But wanting alone is never enough to survive.

Perhaps she, too, had once stood somewhere between reality and ideals.

Jun still could not clearly see where that line was drawn.

Chapter 2: The Reality That Killed a Dream

When she was younger, people used to praise her just for smiling.

There had been a time when scouts approached her.

A few photographs had even appeared in small magazines.

Thinking back on the girl who once said, That’s just how the entertainment world works, Mari almost wanted to laugh.

Her life now was made of something much dirtier.

Much heavier.

Resident B was silent again today.

When she picked up the dishes, the sound was louder than necessary.

Deliberate, perhaps.

A wordless protest.

Mari had long since grown used to anger that never became language.

Unspoken resentment was ordinary in this line of work.

I was supposed to have a different life.

The thought crossed her mind.

But what would be the point of saying it out loud?

As she changed B’s clothes, their eyes met for a moment.

There was hatred there.

Resignation.

Emptiness.

Something close to humiliation.

As if a voice had whispered,

I never wanted someone like you to see me like this.

Mari kept her face unchanged.

“Would you prefer the water a little warmer next time?”

No response.

There rarely was.

On her way back through the corridor, she crossed paths with that younger helper.

Jun Takase.

Too straight-backed.

Too earnest.

The type people liked at first.

The type who got hurt the fastest when their kindness failed to reach someone.

“Did anything happen with Resident A today?”

His question was casual.

But something about it irritated her.

“Nothing in particular. Their condition is the same as usual.”

She slipped the report file into her bag.

She could feel him searching for the right words behind her.

“…Thank you. That helps.”

That politeness.

That sincerity.

It never sat right with her.

Once, perhaps, she had been like that too.

In the beginning, she had desperately tried to make everything meaningful.

She had explained every decision.

Every care method.

Every limitation.

She had wanted to be understood.

Because being understood made it feel as if her existence had value.

There had been days when a single thank you was enough to save her.

It made her believe, if only for a moment, that her life still meant something.

But when years pass without hearing those words—

something inside a person begins to break.

No matter how carefully she worked, supervisors rarely noticed.

No matter how warmly she smiled, residents sometimes shouted at her.

Even when her child had a fever, she was told,

Please maintain your shift.

Meaning was never something effort alone could secure.

At some point, separating emotion from action had become survival.

Do the work.

Keep it moving.

Protect the minimum.

Anything else, and she would collapse.

That was why Jun unsettled her.

The way he still looked at the work with belief in his eyes stirred something restless deep inside her.

One day, this place will break you too.

The thought crossed her mind.

But she said nothing.

Chapter 3: Where Wounds and Distance Intersect

“You didn’t have to say it like that.”

The words slipped out before Jun could stop them.

The air in the conference room tightened.

Mari did not even pause the movement of her hand as she turned the pages of the report.

A bottle of water placed neatly on the table trembled ever so slightly.

“I didn’t say anything wrong.”

Her voice was flat.

“Anyone looking at Resident A’s expression can tell that kind of intervention is causing stress.”

Jun clenched his jaw.

“But the point was to help them recover the feeling of choosing for themselves—”

“That kind of thinking doesn’t move the floor.”

She cut him off.

No hesitation.

No softness.

The words struck him harder than he expected.

A sharp heat gathered somewhere behind his throat.

Jun’s stare was almost painful.

Mari could feel it.

And what irritated her most was how familiar it looked.

Once, perhaps, she had looked at the world in exactly that way.

Straightforward.

Believing.

Certain that care could still be beautiful.

She no longer remembered why she had wanted to become a caregiver in the first place.

The years had worn too much away.

“Let me be clear,” Mari said quietly.

“It’s not like I enjoy sounding cold.”

Jun looked at her.

“Then why do you have to be like this?”

He stopped halfway through the sentence.

As if even he could hear something unresolved inside his own words.

Mari let out a slow breath.

“My child had a fever, and there was no one to look after them.”

Her eyes remained on the file.

“I had to miss work over and over. I was nearly cut from the schedule.”

Her voice did not rise.

If anything, it became quieter.

“And even then, people kept telling me to keep my heart in the work.”

She finally looked at him.

“Tell me something, Jun.”

“Who exactly has the right to speak about ideals?”

For a moment, Jun had no answer.

This was the first time he had heard anything of her background directly.

Somewhere inside, he had known.

But hearing it aloud made it real.

His own mother had struggled too.

But in his memory, she remained strong.

Gentle.

Almost beautiful in the way she carried care.

Mari was different.

“…Even so,” Jun said, his voice trembling slightly,

“isn’t trying to stay close to someone still important?”

For the first time, Mari did not answer immediately.

She simply looked at him.

Then she said, quietly,

“Sometimes what you call closeness looks like self-satisfaction.”

The room fell silent.

Then she added,

“If they never say thank you, would you still be able to keep doing this?”

Jun’s expression stiffened.

And seeing that, Mari thought—

So that’s what this really is.

Perhaps he still needed to be acknowledged.

Still needed someone to confirm that his kindness meant something.

And yet, painfully, she also saw something of her younger self reflected in him.

There was still no understanding between them.

But something had undeniably crossed.

Only a pain without language remained in the room.

Chapter 4: The Thank You That Was Never Spoken

“Well then… I’ll be leaving for today.”

It was the same farewell he always used.

Routine.

Gentle.

Professional.

And yet Resident A did not move.

Not even slightly.

The strength in their arms had been fading little by little.

Their eyes remained fixed on a stain in the ceiling.

Jun stopped with one hand on his shoe.

If he left now, it felt as though nothing of today would remain.

“…How was today?”

He asked quietly.

No answer.

Resident A rarely responded in words.

Sometimes meaning could be found elsewhere.

A slight turn of the face.

The rhythm of blinking.

The smallest movement of a hand.

But today, there was none of that.

The postcard still sat in his pocket.

For days, it had weighed on him.

Last week, when he had shown Resident A a photograph of a landscape similar to a place they once used to visit, he thought—just for a moment—that he had seen the corner of their mouth lift.

So he had bought a postcard online.

A similar view.

He had been waiting for the right moment to give it to them.

Today, once again, he could not.

At the doorway, Jun stopped.

One hand rested against the wall.

“…I really am trying to see you.”

His voice was barely above a whisper.

“I really am trying to stay close.”

Then he paused.

“But maybe… maybe I’m not.”

There was no reply.

Of course there wasn’t.

He was no longer speaking to Resident A.

He was speaking to himself.

A realization tightened somewhere deep inside his chest.

He had wanted to hear thank you.

The moment he became aware of it, something inside him recoiled.

Support was never supposed to be about receiving something in return.

He had always believed that.

He was not doing this for gratitude.

Not for acknowledgment.

And yet, beneath all of that, there had always been a quieter wish.

He wanted to know that it had reached them.

That what he had done had meant something.

And somewhere inside him, he had wanted that certainty to take the shape of one word.

Thank you.

When nothing came back, he realized he had been disappointed.

The realization felt shameful.

Small.

Almost ugly.

As he walked down the corridor, Mari’s words returned to him.

If they never say thank you, would you still be able to keep doing this?

At the time, he had rejected the question.

Now, for the first time, he thought he understood it.

Outside the bus window, the evening sky was burning orange.

The city continued as always.

No one knew him.

No one knew what had remained unresolved inside the room he had just left.

You support.

You speak.

You write the report.

And still, sometimes nothing remains.

Perhaps that was what support had always been.

Could there still be care even without gratitude?

The question echoed again and again somewhere deep inside him.

Jun still had no answer.

Chapter 5: The Days I Could Never Choose Myself

Sometimes, Mari still dreams.

Flashbulbs.

A white backdrop.

High heels striking a polished floor.

People watching.

People looking.

People deciding that she had value.

In those dreams, she is smiling.

Beautiful.

Visible.

Wanted.

Then she wakes.

And the reality is always the same.

The warmth of the futon.

The small sound of her child breathing nearby.

Before the alarm even rings, she is already awake.

Just a little longer, she sometimes wants to whisper.

But life never waits.

Breakfast.

Uniform.

Laundry.

The rush of early morning.

Then work.

Today’s assignment is Resident B.

B is in a bad mood again.

Though, if she is honest, there are rarely days that are not.

“This outfit is wrong.”

“It’s cold. Can’t you tell?”

Mari keeps her voice level.

“Then next time, I’ll prepare something warmer.”

She no longer argues.

She no longer explains.

There was a time when she used to.

In the beginning, she had tried so hard to make everything understandable.

Why certain care methods were necessary.

Why some things simply could not be done.

Why limits existed.

She had desperately wanted to be understood.

Because if someone understood, then perhaps her existence still had meaning.

There were days when a single thank you had been enough to keep her going.

It had made her believe that perhaps her life still held purpose.

But purpose does not survive on gratitude alone.

Years passed.

Supervisors failed to notice careful work.

Residents shouted anyway.

At home, even when her child had a fever, the message was always the same.

Please maintain your shift.

Eventually, emotion became something she had to separate from movement.

Do the work.

Keep the schedule moving.

Protect the minimum.

Anything beyond that, and everything would collapse.

On the way home, she caught sight of herself reflected in the convenience store window.

For a moment, she almost did not recognize the face staring back.

Worn down.

Edges softened by exhaustion.

In her high school yearbook, she had written:

My dream is to become a model.

Back then, being seen by others had felt like proof of who she was.

Now no one really saw her.

No one expected anything beyond performance.

In some ways, that made life easier.

In others, it made breathing feel difficult.

She found herself thinking of Jun.

That straightness in his eyes.

The way he still believed.

People who can still say for someone else—

perhaps they are people who once had the chance to choose themselves.

Mari never had that.

She did not choose the dream she wanted.

She did not choose the work she ended up with.

She never even truly chose to live for herself.

And yet, she is still here.

Her child is here.

The work continues.

She stands in the care field day after day.

Not because she wants to.

Because she cannot afford to fall.

When she gets home, the laundry is still hanging damp in the room.

Her child is already asleep.

Dinner dishes have been put away.

The apartment is silent.

And yet something keeps ringing in the back of her mind.

Not another person’s voice.

Her own.

A question she buried years ago.

Was this really the life I wanted?

She does not answer.

She cannot.

Instead, she looks at tomorrow’s schedule.

Memorizes the times.

And waits for morning to come again.

Chapter 6: What Lies Beyond Duty

When Jun handed in his resignation letter, his supervisor did not seem particularly surprised.

“I’ll arrange the next caregiver.”

That was all they said.

Flat.

Administrative.

As if one person leaving was nothing more than a small adjustment to the schedule.

Jun sat outside Resident A’s room, finishing what would become his final care record.

The postcard was still in his pocket.

In the end, he had never given it.

And yet the feeling that he had wanted to communicate something still remained somewhere inside him.

“…Who was thank you really for?”

He murmured the words to no one.

For a moment, Resident A’s gaze seemed to shift ever so slightly.

Neither agreement nor denial.

Only the quiet presence of the question itself.

Later that afternoon, word of Jun’s resignation had already spread through the facility.

“Well… I suppose it was only a matter of time.”

One of the staff members said it casually.

Mari said nothing.

On his way out, Jun was standing near the elevator.

When he saw her, he straightened slightly.

“Ms. Miura… if you don’t mind, there’s just one thing I wanted to say.”

Mari crossed her arms and looked at him.

“I don’t think support is really about saving someone.”

His voice was calm now.

Different from before.

“I think maybe it’s about remaining inside the same question as someone else.”

For the first time, Mari narrowed her eyes slightly.

“…So you’ve started thinking like that.”

Jun gave a small, almost embarrassed smile.

“I still don’t have an answer.”

“Not even close.”

The elevator doors began to close.

And then, just before they did, Mari spoke.

“…I hated you, you know.”

Jun blinked.

Then, to her surprise, he nodded.

“…I know.”

He paused.

“But I respected you.”

The doors closed.

Silence remained.

Standing alone in the corridor, Mari felt something strange.

As if a small hollow space had quietly opened somewhere inside her.

Outside, the evening sky was still holding onto the last light of sunset.

Jun had no idea what he would do next.

He had not even decided whether he would remain in welfare work at all.

But for the first time, he wanted to try living not for correctness, not for recognition, but for the sake of his own question.

Not support for approval.

Not service for gratitude.

Just the beginning of a small choice.

Something that had finally become visible beyond duty.

Nothing had truly been resolved.

No one had been saved.

No answer had been found.

And yet something remained.

Mari’s silence.

Jun’s question.

And the ambiguous solidarity hidden inside the word care.

Perhaps that was the quietest and most certain point at which two people who never fully understood one another had still managed to intersect.