To make it more dramatic, I drew the carriage shaking, and monster sounds coming from outside. Finally, it was time to have a gallant figure dash over and come to the rescue. It was Bear-san, of course.
Bear-san quickly disposed of all the monsters and saved the girl’s family form the impending doom.
「I’m so very glad Bear-san came.」
「Bear-san is so strong.」
The carriage was left damaged and couldn’t be used anymore, but Bear-san couldn’t carry three people all by itself. Therefore, Bear-san called its friends over.
I worked hard to draw Black Bear-san and White Bear-san cutely.
「These are Swaying Bear and Hugging Bear, right?」
「So cute!」
Fina and Shuri were delighted when new Bear-sans made their appearance.
「Shuri, who do you want to ride on?」
「Hugging Bear.」
Shuri answered immediately.
「Why Hugging Bear?」
「Hugging Bear is white and pretty.」
She was right, Hugging Bear white fur was indeed beautiful.
That didn’t mean Swaying Bear’s fur was ugly or anything, it was just a different kind of nice.
「Okay, then the little sister will ride on White Bear-san.」
I then had the girl ride on the main Bear-san while the mother rode on Black Bear-san.
As I moved on to drawing the three of them continuing their journey to the neighboring town, Shuri suddenly perked up with an interesting question.
「Are the people who ran away okay?」
「You don’t have to worry about people who just save themselves and leave behind women and children. Still, I didn’t draw any corpses, so I will just leave it up to the reader’s interpretation.」
A great thing about picture books was their ability to spark the readers’ imagination and let them interpret things in their own, subjective way.
In this case, I thought it would be best to let the parents who read the book to their children answer the question in case the children brought it up. For the sake of the way the parents raised their children, they should decide if they would explain it as people safely getting away or to have them be killed by the monsters. How they answered such a question could leave a lasting impression on their children, after all.
Well, at least, that was how I explained it to Shuri. Truthfully, I just didn’t want to draw corpses in a picture book. Also, if I left other people in this scene, they would kind of ruin the Bear-san’s gallant arrival. Sometimes, I just had to lie to people to hide my my real thoughts.
The family safely arrived to the neighbouring town, but as the Bears couldn’t enter the town, they had to part ways again. As they were about to say their farewells again, the little sister said that she didn’t want to do it.
「I wouldn’t say something like that.」
「I know, but this little sister in the picture book isn’t really you, so she can be a bit more selfish.」
「But…」
「If I don’t make her do that, then they will really have to part from the Bear-sans.」
It seemed like Shuri really didn’t want her image in the book to appear selfish, so I was forced to to use the parting-from-Bears card.
「Would you be okay if you had to live far, far away from Bear-san?」
「I… I would be okay.」
I knew straight away that was a complete lie.
Was she really that embarrassed to say something even slightly selfish?
「Really? And here I was, thinking of giving this to you as a present.」
I said and took out a Hugging Bear plushie from the Bear Box.
「Hugging Bear!」
Shuri let out a big smile after seeing the Hugging Bear plushie.
「You don’t want it?」
「I do!」
Shuri replied without hesitation.
「I know you do. You looked like you really wanted one when you saw the children at the orphanage playing with them. I also have one for you too, Fina. I’ll give you Swaying Bear.」
「Really?」
「We made them together, didn’t we? Of course you should be allowed to keep a pair.」
「Thank you very much.」
Fina said and embraced the Swaying Bear plushie with joy.
「Shuri, now what would you do if I told you that you don’t get your plushie? Would you just let me take it away?」
「I don’t want you to take it away…」
「Right? The girl in this picture book feels the same about her Hugging Bear.」
After I explained it like that, she was convinced.
With Shuri on board, I continued drawing. In order to get the Bears into the town without trouble, I transformed them into palm-sized Bears.
「They’re even smaller than Swaying Bear and Hugging Bear in their cub forms.」
「They’ll be able to stay together with the Bears from now on, right?」
Without any further interruptions, I managed to draw the family entering the town and meeting the man based on Genz-san. Once I drew the scene where the girl and the mother got jobs and the new family started their new life together, volume three of ‘Bear-san and the Girl’ was finally complete.
「Yuna-neechan, this was amazing.」
「Yes, it was great. Wait, won’t Noa-sama get mad at us?」
「Noa?」
Why did her name come up out of nowhere?
「The story is based on our trip to the capital, right?」
「Yes, loosely based. We changed many things.」
「So, what happens when Noa-sama finds out she doesn’t appear on her own trip?」
She did have a point…
「Eh, it should be fine. Fina, you were embarrassed and didn’t like that you were put in the story, right?」
「Yes, but…」
「I’m sure that Noa would be embarrassed, too. Also, I don’t think she knows that this story is based on us, and I’m pretty sure she won’t get to see this picture book, either.」
Noa shouldn’t know anything about the picture books, so she shouldn’t find out about this one, either.
At the capital, only a handful of people owned one, and in Crimonia, only the orphanage had the books. The chances for Noa to see these books was be very small.
「If she doesn’t see it, it would be fine, but…」
「Fina, you worry too much.」
I tried to reassure and laughed.
Author’s Notes:
Noa didn’t get her chance to appear in this volume. w
It’s a bit late now, but I never got to write volume 2 of the picture book, did I?