Kido Taiki scolds Sota

Kido’s physical outburst at Sota is a turning point in his understanding of himself: after losing his temper over his son’s refusal to get ready, he recognizes that he has crossed a boundary he had imagined could never apply to him. The morning’s argument follows tension over Kaori’s expectations for Sota and Kido’s own avoidance of deeper trouble in his marriage. When Kido comforts Sota afterward, the gesture brings sorrow rather than reassurance, because he can no longer treat violence and reconciliation as experiences belonging only to other families.

Identity and Background

Kido is a divorce lawyer accustomed to encountering cases of child abuse through his work. He has tried to understand both the children harmed and the parents whose conduct, in his view, may be shaped by disposition and environment. That professional understanding had rested on a firm personal distinction: he regarded himself as belonging to an entirely different category from abusive parents.

At home, however, Kido’s relationship with Sota has seemed to confirm a reassuring picture of himself. Sota had never been disobedient to him, and Kido had taken that history as evidence of a special bond of mutual trust. He also hopes that Sota will one day feel certain he was raised with love. The morning episode tests these beliefs against Kido’s actual conduct rather than his intentions.

The Morning’s Escalation

Kido had been caring for Sota since the previous day, while Kaori was away on a business trip to Osaka. Their evening together had passed routinely, but the next morning Kido found Sota watching a Doraemon film on DVD in the living room. Sota then dragged his feet over breakfast and washing his face, and refused to come to the table. Kido first wondered whether he was ill; Sota had no fever and said he did not feel sick.

The delay became harder for Kido to tolerate as he watched the clock before a 9:30 appointment. He was already irritable after having shouted at Sota about getting dressed. The immediate difficulty also occurred against a longer stretch of unease: two weeks earlier, Kaori had sharply scolded Sota for failing to do his Kumon mathematics homework. Kido had defended Sota, arguing that there was no need to press a young child so hard on arithmetic, and the disagreement with Kaori had escalated into an argument.

Kido recognized that disagreements about childrearing often deepen marital discord, a pattern familiar from his divorce work. Yet he found it troubling that he and Kaori could not calmly discuss what he considered a small matter. His attempt to suggest that she was tired from taking Sota to his many lessons only made the quarrel worse, and Sota received the brunt of Kaori’s anger. By the time she left town, their son was unsettled, and Kido’s confidence in his own role as the reliably patient parent was misplaced.

The Outburst and Its Immediate Aftermath

When Sota resisted putting on his socks, Kido’s anger turned physical. He threw the socks at him, put a hand on his head, and shouted, “Behave!” The narration immediately questions whether the gesture should be understood as merely placing a hand on the child: Kido realizes that he has slapped him. He leaves his hand gripping Sota’s head, in a half-conscious effort to hide from himself what he has done.

Sota stops crying, frightened, while Kido stares at his own hand. In that grip, Kido recognizes the force of the violence he rejects. The moment is not presented as a loss of control that can be excused by his frustration; it confronts him with the gap between his moral judgment of abuse and his own actions under pressure.

After Kido steps away, Sota puts on his socks while sobbing. Kido hugs him until he stops crying, then takes him to day care without speaking. As soon as Sota disappears inside, Kido is overcome by sorrow and regret. The tenderness of the hug follows the outburst, but it does not cancel it or restore the earlier certainty Kido had about their relationship.

Self-Recognition and Significance

Kido’s professional compassion had depended partly on believing that he could understand abusive parents without being like them. Now he seriously considers that, under different conditions in his life, he might have become a parent who beats a child. The possibility produces a profound loss of faith in himself: the categories he had maintained between his own character and the people in his cases no longer seem secure.

The episode also changes the meaning of his comfort to Sota. Kido sees that the sequence of aggression followed by consolation resembles the reconciliation phase in a textbook account of domestic violence. His embrace is emotionally real, but its sincerity cannot make the preceding slap disappear. The scene therefore resists the idea that a loving gesture alone proves a safe or loving relationship; Kido must reckon with the conduct that made the reassurance necessary.

The outburst is connected to, but does not settle, Kido’s marital difficulties. He knows that he contributes to Kaori’s growing discontent, and senses a more fundamental source of friction beneath her suspicion of infidelity. Rather than approach that understanding, he repeatedly retreats into his search for X. He is especially distressed by the effect of the couple’s conflict on Sota, whose frustrated resistance that morning gives their household tension a new outlet. Kido’s failure to anticipate it, and his anger when it appears, make the incident both an act he regrets and a revelation of how little his self-image had prepared him to see.