それは恋

対象:一般向け ／ 時間:60〜70分

---

雪が消せない罪がある。

それでも、恋は消えない。

Snow can't erase certain sins.

Even so, love can't be erased.

【あらすじ】

寒い年の瀬。

稲荷社の前で村人たちが来年の豊作を祈る中、身なりは良いが憔悴しきった男・清六がふらりと現れる。

包丁を突きつけ金を迫るのは、泥棒を始めたばかりの育松。だが清六は「一銭もない」と言い、むしろ刺してくれと懇願する。清六は店の金二百両を使い込み、曽根崎の梅乃井で出会った女郎・お京を身請けしようとしたが、途中で金を奪われ、帰る場所も誇りも失っていた。育松は思い直し、清六に生き直せと諭して去る。

そこへ今度は、当の“お京”が追って来る。事情を知った彼女は足抜け同然に駆け、清六と共に責めを負う覚悟だ。追手として現れた役人・松次は清六の幼馴染。職務と情の狭間で二人に向き合う。

さらにお京の妹・お春も転がり込み、夜は深まり、雪は強まる——明日の朝、人はこの出来事を何と呼ぶのか。

清六が静かにこぼす言葉は、「それは恋」。

In the freezing final days of the year, villagers gather before an Inari shrine to pray for a good harvest. After they leave, Seiroku—a well-dressed man on the verge of collapse—stumbles into the snow. Ikuematsu, a desperate man attempting his first robbery, presses a knife to him and demands money. Seiroku says he has not even a single coin—and instead begs to be stabbed.

Seiroku confesses he has squandered two hundred ryō of his employer’s funds. After falling hopelessly for Okyō, a courtesan at Umenoi in Sonezaki, he kept stealing away to see her, burning through the shop’s money. When Okyō pleaded to escape her life, Seiroku asked what it would cost to buy her freedom: two hundred ryō. By cruel coincidence, that very morning he was entrusted with two hundred ryō to deliver—yet on the way, a pickpocket stole it all. With no way back, he drifted toward his hometown, unable to live and unable to die.

Moved by Seiroku’s ruin, Ikuematsu lowers his blade, urges him to keep living, and leaves. But Seiroku’s despair only deepens—until a woman appears in the snow: Okyō herself. Learning that Seiroku’s master has reported him and that officials are closing in, she cannot stay behind. She has fled her own world to stand with him, insisting they return together and confess. Yet with the money gone, their path forward vanishes.

An officer arrives—Matsujirō, Seiroku’s childhood friend. Torn between duty and mercy, he chooses to be the one to place the rope upon Seiroku, calling it the last kindness he can offer. Then Okyō’s younger sister, Ohāru, rushes in, frightened and with nowhere to go. Okyō pleads with Matsujirō to shelter her sister for just one night so she can send her safely away at dawn. Matsujirō agrees—and loosens Seiroku’s bonds.

Left alone beneath the falling snow, Seiroku and Okyō thank him for his compassion. They wonder what people will say when morning comes, when the world finds what remains of them.

Seiroku answers softly, with a faint smile: “That is love.”