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CHAPTER THREE

The Kannon of Asakusa

The Asakusa Kannon temple is home, so to speak, to all those who inhabit downtown Tokyo. An Asakusa native need only step onto the temple grounds to feel he is treading his native soil. When he returns after years away—when he comes up the stone-paved Nakamise Avenue, goes in through the Niō Gate, and catches his first sight of that great roof—tears spring to his eyes. The denizens of downtown Tokyo are all deeply religious. Their faiths vary, but whatever else they may believe, every single one reveres the Kannon of Asakusa.

Formally, the temple’s name is Kinryūzan Sensōji. In its branch of Tendai Buddhism it comes under Kan’eiji, the “Eastern Mount Hiei” at Ueno. Being a Tendai temple, it belongs to the wrong sect for many of those who make the pilgrimage to it, but none of them cares. No one would think of quibbling over a divine presence that extends its protection to all of Asakusa. (In recent years the temple has wisely relieved its pilgrims of the last shred of doubt by dropping its Tendai affiliation and establishing its own Kannon sect.)

Although country-born in the old province of Kazusa, Oriku had been making the Asakusa pilgrimage ever since she first went there with the Silver Flower’s proprietor, after she was sold to the Yoshiwara and settled into Hashiba as his mistress. Over time Kannon had become the object of her personal prayers, and she visited the temple often. Whenever the press of business kept her away for too long she felt apologetic, and she would then hurry there as soon as she could. No neglect of hers ever made Kannon angry. Oriku always felt as though the deity greeted her with a smile. Although not especially devout, she never passed a shrine or temple without bowing toward it. Most such places are a bit gloomy, being set among thick groves or deep forests, and so solemn a mood pervades their grounds that you can hardly stand before them without straightening your collar, but that kind of formality is unknown at the Asakusa Kannon temple. The main hall stands alone and unadorned in its corner of the flat, parklike grounds. No forest stands behind it, nor does any other contrivance serve to enhance its dignity. It has a Niō Gate and a Five-Story Pagoda, but for the people of Asakusa these too are friends. No one scolds the children who amuse themselves by swinging from the enormous straw sandals—the ones belonging to the great Niō guardians—hung on either side of the gate. Behind the hall a famous ginkgo tree towers skyward, the only real tree to be seen. The broad, open space that contains the Enma, Jizō, and Nenbutsu halls attracts street performers of all kinds, while, behind it, a clamor of women’s voices from a row of tea stalls invites passersby in for a cup. Popular pleasures constitute the temple’s only ornaments. Far from being solemn, it is wide open to the sky and as unpretentious as it could possibly be.

Oriku liked that. The sight of naughty little boys sliding down the main hall’s stairway balustrades always gave her the sense that Kannon, who loves children, must be smiling at their antics. The hall, one hundred eight feet square, has on each side a flight of steps that you are welcome to climb without taking off your shoes, and no one objects either if you run all the way around the hall on the veranda that surrounds it. Inside, it is light and airy, and pilgrims feel almost as if they were off on a picnic. Many come as much for pleasure as for prayer. A few more serious adherents may have made the traditional vow not to leave the temple grounds before coming to pray before Kannon a hundred times in a row, but most are simply people dressed in their finery, and, of these many—for such is the character of Asakusa itself—are from the entertainment world. All the visitors to the temple together make a very colorful picture, and so do the rows of votive lanterns, each inscribed with an evocative name, that hang from the ceiling of the hall.

The inhabitants of the Yoshiwara were all, without exception, Kannon devotees. When an employee there returned a little late from an errand, saying that he had gone to pray to Kannon before starting back was enough to avert a scolding.

“I’ll go by the temple on my way home, if I’m done before dark.” That was what Oriku always said when she went out. Every route she might take back to Mukōjima led through the Kaminari Gate. This remained true whether she crossed Azuma Bridge by rickshaw, walked through Shōtenchō and took the ferry from Imado Bridge, or boarded the steamboat from Azuma Bridge to Kototoi. As a result she was in a position to visit the temple as often as she liked. And yet her visits were surprisingly infrequent.

“I can’t believe it! I haven’t been for three months!” Whenever a thought like this struck her she would rush off, sometimes arriving after sunset, when they closed the great doors of the main hall. Packed though it always was as long as the doors remained open, the hall grew quiet once they were shut and twilight had set in. The women who sell pigeon food packed up their things and left, the daytime noise and bustle abruptly ceased, and dusk came on. The building itself was lacquered in brilliant red-orange, but the doors were black, and the area before the hall grew suddenly dark once they were closed.

“Oh no, I’m too late! The doors are shut!” Oriku more than once clicked her tongue in disappointment as she came through the Niō Gate, but, closed or not, she did not turn back. Instead she ran up the steps and saluted Kannon anyway. Even after sundown people went on tossing ringing coins into the great big offering box. Oriku had nothing in particular to ask for, so she just prayed in a general way for the soul of the Silver Flower’s late proprietor, the success of her Shigure Teahouse, and the prosperity of the Silver Flower. Her usual offering was a five-sen coin. In those days most people offered just five rin. Few tossed in a silvery coin like that, but Oriku was one of them.

That night—not late, but around seven, just after sunset—Oriku was on her way home from the Ichimura Theater. It was late March, and the cherry buds had just begun to open. The area was dark enough to make her nervous, thieves not being unknown in the vicinity, and she was therefore making sure her wooden geta clattered loudly on the stone pavement. Beggars lay on the foundation stones under the main hall, and youths sat hunched up, their arms around their knees, beside the great offering box. They pretended to be asleep, but really they were waiting for a coin to bounce off the bars across the top of the box and fall to the ground.

“Mistress Oriku!” Oriku was about to leave again, after praying a moment to Kannon, when a young man’s voice hailed her from the far side of the offering box. “Can’t you spare some change?” She could only see his outline.

“Who are you?” Oriku asked, glancing back. She had just started down the steps.

“I know it’s you, Mistress Oriku. I saw you throw in that shiner.”

He had not missed it. Copper coins were called “clinkers,” and silvery nickel-copper coins worth five sen and up were “shiners.” He would hardly come running after her once she reached the bottom of the steps, what with all the other pilgrims to distract him, and if she said nothing to him now, that would be that. However, it worried her that this street urchin knew her name.

“How do you know who I am?” She peered at him in the dim light, but he stuck close to the offering box and refused to show his face.

“How do you know my name?” she repeated. “Just tell me, and you’ll have an offering too.”

“We all know you, Mistress Oriku.”

“Now, now, don’t try to put me off! It makes no sense, your recognizing me this way.”

She took out two silver ten-sen coins.

“Well, anyway, you do, so you’ve got me.” She placed the coins on the edge of the offering box.

The boy stretched out both hands toward them, but apparently he could not actually reach that far, because when he bent forward he lost his balance and began to fall.

“Goodness, look out!” Oriku said, rushing to him to catch him as he fell. “What’s the matter?” she asked, helping him up. His whole body was shaking. “There’s something the matter with you, isn’t there?”

He looked as though he would fall over again, right there on the steps, if she let go.

“Hold on, now!” She carried him down one or two steps.

“Is anyone out there?” she called. “Could you help me, please? This boy is sick!”

Shadowy forms came running up the steps toward her—apparently other street urchins like him, from underneath the hall.

“Sorry!” With this apology, one of them put his arms around the boy to get him to his feet.

“Now look at you! We told you, didn’t we?”

“We told you you shouldn’t come tonight, but you just wouldn’t listen!”

They were going to half-carry him away. His eyes were closed. Oriku had a feeling she had seen that innocent, grubby face before.

“Wait a minute! Isn’t he Bandō’s son?” She came down the steps after them. “I’m sure you’re Bandō’s son, aren’t you.”

“Yes, I’m Shūsaku.” The boy opened his eyes and answered her himself. Apparently these ragamuffins did not know one another’s first names.

“Look, I’m sorry, but I know him, so I want you to leave him to me.”

“Fine, fine. He’s all yours. Take him anywhere you like.”

“But he’s ill!”

“You’ve got that right! We told him to stay in bed, but no, he ignored us, and now look what’s happened to him!”

“Will you take him for me to the Niō Gate and put him in a rickshaw?”

“Carry him, you mean, like porters?”

There were four of them. They picked up the limp Shūsaku and got him to the gate, where the four together managed to get him up into a rickshaw. Oriku gave them a silver fifty-sen coin, and they watched the two rickshaws leave. She took the easy way, around by Azuma Bridge. Her arrival home with a grubby boy had the whole place in an uproar. Everyone violently disapproved of her picking up some beggar boy from Asakusa, but Oriku gave no one, not even Ofune, a word of explanation. Instead she carried Shūsaku straight to the bath, washed him off everywhere, dressed him in a yukata and a padded jacket, put him to bed in her own Paulownia room, and called the doctor. The doctor said it wasn’t serious; the boy just had a bad cold. She fed him rice gruel and medicine, and kept him there for the night.

“Where on earth did you find him?” Ofune asked, frowning. “Everything he had on stank. All we could do was throw it away.”

“Fine.”

“But where’s he from?”

“He’s Mitsunojō’s son.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Bandō Mitsunojō, in Kanda. This boy’s his son.”

“You mean, the boy they say ran away from home?”

“That’s right, Shūsaku. He’s Shūsaku.”

“Well, this is a surprise!”

“For me too. I was just starting home after going by the temple when someone called me by name from beside the offering box. At first I didn’t know who it was, but then I recognized him. He called ‘Mistress Oriku!’ and collapsed right at my feet. I couldn’t get over it.”

“He certainly knew who you were, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he probably remembered me from when he was here.”

“Mitsunojō must be terribly worried about him. Shall I call Kanda right away?”

“Just a minute. Things are a bit complicated over there, and we can’t afford to make a wrong move.”

“Complicated or not, he’s Mitsugorō’s heir. Mitsugorō’s bound to be concerned.”

“Well, there’s no great hurry. After Shūsaku’s mother died, a mistress moved in, and they say things aren’t going well—the household is in turmoil.”

“I see. They say she has a son too.”

“Yes. I suppose that’s why Shūsaku left home.”

“Poor thing!”

“Yes, just look at that face—he’s a child. Isn’t he sweet?”

The hastily washed face was innocently asleep. His father, Bandō Mitsunojō, was a dance teacher of the Bandō school. His forebears had held the hereditary title of Dancing Master and received a stipend from the Tokugawa government for teaching dance to the women of the shogun’s palace. Then the Tokugawa regime had crumbled, and they had set themselves up as dance teachers for the people of the town. The present Mitsunojō had a practice stage near the Kanda Myōjin Shrine, and he was very good indeed; his hand and arm movements had a special refinement. He had little following in the entertainment world itself, since he did so many pieces derived from Noh, but he had many students from the best families. The Bandō line of kabuki dancers remained in principle a single house, and since Bandō Mitsugorō III had taught Mitsunojō I back in the early 1800s, the present Mitsunojō continued to acknowledge the present Mitsugorō as his master. Shūsaku, Mitsunojō’s eldest son, was said to show promise, but family difficulties had driven him to leave home and join the street urchins on the grounds of the Asakusa Kannon temple.

“Master Bandō is on the line.” Ofune had rung Mitsunojō the next morning.

“Shūsaku’s at your place, you say?” Mitsunojō’s voice resounded imperiously.

“Yes. I was so surprised! He seemed unwell, so I brought him home with me.”

“What made you do that?” The voice sounded displeased.

“Well, I just didn’t like the idea of him wandering around forever in a place like that.”

“You should’ve left him there.”

“But he was ill!”

“That’s his problem. He’s the one who decided to bolt, and now he’s making himself a burden on other people. I won’t have it! Just get rid of him, any way you like.” The tone was cold and peremptory.

“Get rid of him—you mean, you don’t care what happens to him?” Oriku was offended.

“If he wants to do as he pleases, it’s up to him. One of these days he’ll see the light and come back to say he’s sorry. Until then, you’re to ignore him. I can only apologize for the trouble he’s caused you.”

Mitsunojō said no more. With heartless cruelty, he hung up. Oriku was furious. What kind of father would not care what happened to a sweet boy like that? Perhaps his mistress had him bewitched, or perhaps he had always been like that, but at any rate, the kindhearted Oriku could hardly believe it. Ever since opening her place she had thought him a polite, considerate guest, a fine-looking man, and an admirable teacher. How wrong she had been!

“Master Bandō must have been surprised,” Ofune remarked from behind her.

“No, he wasn’t, not at all. He told me to get rid of his son.”

“Is that what he said? After you’ve been so kind to him?”

“Well, I don’t know what else to do. He’s the boy’s father, after all.”

“He has no love for him, does he.”

“So it seems. If he really has no use for him, I’ll take him on and bring him up myself.”

Oriku’s anger refused to abate, but Shūsaku was soon up and about again. He was still a child, and he got over such things quickly.

“I’m very sorry to have caused you all this worry,” he said apologetically.

“What can have happened? You have such a fine home—what in the world made you do it?” Oriku’s reply sounded severe.

“A fine home? You have no idea what you’re talking about, Auntie.” He pursed his lips.

“Your father’s mistress moved in after your mother died—I’m sure it must be difficult for you.”

“It certainly is. I can’t even begin to tell you.”

“Very well, but what are you going to do now? You can’t just go on this way. You’ll end up a tramp on the streets.”

“I know that.”

“Well then, stop. I gather you have promise, and now of all times is the time to learn. Right? Tell your father you’re sorry and go home.”

“Go home? I’d rather drown myself in the river.” The tone of his voice changed. Home was obviously a subject he preferred not to discuss.

“Auntie?” He was looking Oriku straight in the eye. “Will you listen if I tell you what I really want?”

“As much as you like.”

“Then please do. I want to learn to be a dancer.”

“But not from your father?”

“No, of course not. My father isn’t the only teacher around. There are lots of others, and I can learn anywhere, as long as I really want to. That’s what I think, anyway.” He looked resolute. Judging from Mitsunojō’s voice on the phone, and Shūsaku’s obvious resolve, there was no longer any affection between father and son.

“So what do you have in mind?” Oriku sat up straighter. “You mean you want to learn some other school of dancing, not Bandō?”

“That’s right.”

“And you absolutely refuse to go back to Kanda.”

Shūsaku nodded in silence. “It wouldn’t be any use, your telling me to go home. You don’t know this Omura woman. She’s really something.”

“I hear she’s quite a lady.”

“Quite a horrible lady, yes. She moved right in with her son, and she practically told me to get out.”

No doubt he was prejudiced, but he really hated his father and stepmother.

“I wish you’d talk about me to someone you know, Auntie. Could you possibly do that?”

“I suppose I could, but I wouldn’t want to embarrass your father.”

“He won’t care! He doesn’t want me around—it’ll be a relief for him,” he said, giving her a pleading look.

“I’ll do anything!” he went on. “I’ll polish the floors, or whatever else anyone wants me to do. Just the thought of going back to Kanda makes me capable of anything. Please think about it. You understand—this other woman is now sitting on the cushion that used to be my mother’s.” His speech had dropped to a whisper. The faintness of his voice spoke volumes: the more deeply he loved his mother, the more he detested his father. Oriku could see why.

“All right, stay a few days. You can help with the garden, and meanwhile I’ll think it over.”

With that, she kept him at Mukōjima. Once properly bathed and dressed in the clothing Oriku happened to have on hand, he made a very fine young fellow. Sleeping under the temple’s main hall had accustomed him to a frugal life, and he never just sat around indoors. Sweeping and tidying the garden, helping the maids with the heavy chores—it was a big place, and there was always plenty of work. The maids were glad to have him. “Shū-chan,” they called him, and they looked after him very nicely.

“If Mr. Bandō doesn’t want him, Mistress Oriku, why don’t you adopt him?” This was Ofune’s suggestion.

“He wants to be a better dancer than his father, so I’m thinking about who might take him on.” A teacher for Shūsaku: that was the one thing on her mind.

“I found you at Kannon’s temple, so you should probably have an Asakusa teacher.”

“I’ll leave it up to you,” Shūsaku replied. He seemed in no particular hurry. Instead he went around looking quite relaxed. Everybody liked him. There were no other men at the Shigure Teahouse, so he was everyone’s darling, and he never acted as if any task was beneath him.

The place suddenly became very busy, as it did every year when the cherries started coming into bloom and an avalanche of blossom-viewers filled every room. With the women working at a frantic pace, Shūsaku was caught up in the same whirlwind. No dance study for him! He became the restaurant’s general servant. He never complained, though.

“We can’t ask Shū-chan to do that!” Oriku would say about some task or other that he then did gladly anyway. “I’m here to help till the blossom-viewing season is over,” he would say.

“I’ve never known such a nice boy!” Ofune could hardly get over it. “What can Mr. Bandō possibly have against him? He’s wonderful!”

“It’s because this Omura, his mistress, has a son of her own. Shūchan has a stubborn streak, and it seems he refuses to call her ‘Mother.’”

“Why should he? He can hardly start calling her ‘Mother’ at his age.”

“You’re quite partial to him, aren’t you? You didn’t like him much at first, though.”

“When he first came he wasn’t well, and you couldn’t tell just what he was like, but now it’s Shū-chan this and Shū-chan that—everyone thinks the world of him. Just yesterday the ceramic drainage pipe was blocked. He dug three feet down to it, got himself covered in mud, and fixed it.”

“You really mustn’t have him do things like that! He’s not a common laborer, you know.”

“That’s why everybody is so happy to let him have his bath and bring him fresh clothes.”

“It’s just not right, though, when he’s the natural successor to the position of head of the Bandō house. You really mustn’t do it anymore.”

Oriku spoke severely, but all this meant nothing to Shūsaku himself. Easygoing by nature, and rendered confident by an excellent upbringing, he had what it takes to remain cheerful through adversity. Oriku knew she should not go on putting him to work this way, but she had no idea whom to approach. His being Mitsunojō’s son made it unlikely that any of her countless acquaintances would take him on, and the old title of Dancing Master that had honored his fore-bears now worked against him. As a result, no school of Japanese dance bore him any goodwill.

When the cherry blossoms had fallen and the crowds were gone, Oriku made an early morning pilgrimage to the Kannon of Asakusa. She had no idea what to do about finding a teacher for Shūsaku. She felt things might work out if she brought the matter to Kannon in person, since it was at the temple’s main hall that she had first found him. And so, late in April she climbed the temple steps. It was still too early for there to be many visitors, and the air inside the hall felt cool and fresh. There was a desk to solicit contributions for redoing the roof. Oriku made her contribution and then went to stand before Kannon’s main altar. The great chest containing Kannon’s image was imposing, and many candles were burning before it.

Oriku clapped her hands, as always, and prayed, “Please bless Bandō Shūsaku with a good teacher.” That was her only prayer. She felt certain Kannon would help the boy, since he had slept for some time in the darkness of Kannon’s main hall, and she repeated her petition over and over, till she at last felt she had done all she could. Then she pressed her palms together in salutation, made a low bow, and left. Of course, a suitable teacher was hardly likely to fall into her lap just because she had prayed to Kannon, but nonetheless she felt a bit better as she started back down the steps.

Just then someone called out to her. “Mistress Oriku!” It was a man’s voice. She did not even have to stop; he descended the steps beside her.

“You seemed quite absorbed,” he said. “Was there some special urgency to your prayer?” His dignified voice sounded kind.

“Goodness, it’s you!” Oriku cried out in astonishment. “You were here too?”

She halted right there. The man on the steps with her was the kabuki actor Ichikawa Danshirō, whom she had known since her Yoshiwara days. She owed him a debt of gratitude for having brought a large number of guests with him to the opening of her Shigure Teahouse. At present he was living in Senzokuchō, Asakusa.

“What a surprise to run into you this way! You’re quite right. I was asking Kannon for something.”

“I thought so.You looked ever so serious. Is some lover of yours ill?”

“No, no, nothing like that. I’ve ended up looking after a boy, and I’m worried about him.”

She paused on the flagstones below the steps. She had had a sudden idea. Danshirō was especially famous among kabuki actors for his dancing. No, he was not the head of a school, but in pieces like Kisen, Utsubozaru, or Tsurionna he displayed a lightness and grace quite out of keeping with his clumsy build. It was just a fleeting inspiration, but if she asked Danshirō to take on Shūsaku, would he really say no? Surely Kannon had brought her to Danshirō for just this. Such were the thoughts flitting through her head.

“Actually, I was just thinking about calling on you with a request,” she said. “Are you off to work now?”

“No, I’m just back from Osaka. The show at Dōtonbori is over, and I took the night train back to Tokyo. I’ve just arrived, and I came to greet Kannon before going home.”

“I see. You didn’t go straight home, but came by the temple instead?”

“Well, you know, I just don’t feel right if I don’t make a little pilgrimage here whenever I get back to town.”

He was still smiling. Typical Asakusa man that he was, visits to Kannon were just a normal part of his life.

“Then I’m sure you have a lot to do today. I’ll call on you another time.”

“Rubbish! It’s no problem at all. I’m off next month, you know. By all means come, if you have something to talk about. I’ve brought plenty of good things from Osaka—let’s eat them together.”

Danshirō, too, had been formed by the Yoshiwara, and they understood each other so well that he eagerly urged her to come home with him. His wife, however, who had the respect of everyone in the acting profession, would not stand for any nonsense, and Oriku could only wonder what trouble she might get herself into if she nonchalantly turned up with him when he returned from Osaka.

“All right, but I have somewhere else to go first. I’ll just get my little errand done, and I’ll be over after that.”

“I see. Don’t disappoint me, though! I’ll be expecting you. We’ll have lunch together. I’m sure Okoto will be glad to see you, too.”

On that light, friendly note Danshirō set off down the path behind Kannon’s main hall, surrounded by his manager and disciples.

Okoto, Danshirō’s wife, was a Yoshiwara brothel owner’s daughter. She declared when she married him, “When an actor’s short of money he goes downhill. I’ll go into business just to make sure you can take time off whenever you feel like it.” So this sage wife, more than a match for any man, borrowed money from her parents, set up a brothel, and gave Danshirō the freedom to master his art fully.

Danshirō might be endlessly good-natured, but his eagle-eyed wife was a different matter. Oriku first returned to Mukōjima and had Shūsaku get things ready. Then she set out again, carrying a gift of shigure clams.

“Where are you going?” Shūsaku asked suspiciously.

“I’m off to have a talk with Ichikawa Danshirō.” Oriku was frank about it. “Whatever happens to you, your father is the head of a school. Rather than attach yourself to some half-baked teacher somewhere, I think you’d be far better off as the disciple of a real master like Danshirō. It could get quite tricky if you were to approach either Fujima or Hanayanagi.”

“That’s true enough, but would Danshirō teach me?”

“We’ll just have to see. If he won’t, I’ll have to think about it some more.”

“I wouldn’t mind becoming an actor, if he wanted me to.”

Oriku shook her head. “No, I’m afraid you’re too old for that.” Childhood training was essential for actors, and by the time he was sixteen or seventeen an untrained boy was seen as having no possible future.

“I want you to walk to Senzokuchō, Shūsaku. I’ll take a rickshaw. Try to reach the door of the house about the time Danshirō and I have finished talking it over. You know the place, don’t you?”

“Yes—it’s right there at the corner of Ennosuke Lane.”

Ennosuke, Danshirō’s former professional name, had come to identify the lane on which he lived. Even today a memorial stone stands there to mark the spot.

Danshirō and Okoto were both expecting Oriku when she arrived.

“Why didn’t you come straight here with my husband?” Okoto asked. “Lunch is ready. We’ve been waiting for you.”

In the best of moods, she had lunch served in the room next to the kitchen, just as though Oriku had been one of the family. Hers was the warmth of an old denizen of the Yoshiwara.

“Before we eat,” Oriku said, sitting up very straight, “I have a request.”

“My husband is a great fan of yours, Oriku, and I’m sure he’ll happily do whatever you ask.” Okoto was all smiles.

Having no intention in any case of keeping anything from her, Oriku touched on the situation in Mitsunojō’s family and went straight to her request that Danshirō teach dancing to the now-homeless Shūsaku.

“But I’m an actor, not a dance teacher,” Danshirō replied gravely.

“So there would be nothing wrong with your accepting him as a student of acting. He would of course run errands for you, and I hope you would take him with you and teach him when you perform.”

“If he’s to be an actor I don’t mind, but if he’s going to be a dance teacher, then it’s out of the question.”

“Isn’t that up to him, though? As long as he keeps his mind on learning, it will be far better for him if he stays with you, instead of going off to some half-baked dance teacher.”

“She’s right, you know,” Okoto put in. “There are hardly any teachers left who really teach. You could at least meet him. Mistress Oriku does so much to keep us going, you could for once do as she asks.”

“All right, I’ll have a look at him. Bring him around sometime.” Danshirō still looked bothered.

“I’ve asked him to wait at the gate. I’ll have him come in right away.”

“Dear me, you leave nothing to chance, do you?” He smiled wryly.

Oriku brought Shūsaku in. Sitting there in his most formal posture, he looked very sweet.

“What a nice boy!” Okoto exclaimed.