Shino sprinkled more flour over the ingredients, heated them carefully so they wouldn’t burn, and then turned off the gas. Then he poured the cold milk into it at once.
“Whoa! Is it okay to pour all that in there? I’m surprised,” Masamichi blurted honestly. “My mom used to add a little bit of milk at a time, stirring desperately so lumps wouldn’t form.”
Without moving a brow, Shino said in a flat tone, “Turn off the heat, add the milk, mix well, then turn the heat back on again, and it will be fine…”
“Yoriko taught you that?”
“Yeah.”
Shino turned the heat on again and began scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spatula. The thin milk gradually became a smooth, creamy sauce.
“…Wow, you’re right! I’ll tell Mom the next time I call her.”
Ignoring Masamichi’s excitement, Shino went on to sprinkle cheese over the batter and made the sauce thick and creamy.
He remained cool and calm as he worked, but Masamichi wondered how he had been when he first made the dish.
Had he at least been a little confused as he worked the wooden spatula like Yoriko taught him? Maybe he hadn’t gotten excited, but perhaps he’d been a bit pleased or proud of his accomplishment.
Just imagining the scene made Masamichi relax.
“All right, um, next…I’ll get a dish… A big dish should do, huh? I’ll go grab one.”
If he kept smiling at this rate, Shino would start getting irritable from embarrassment. Masamichi quickly turned away and crouched in front of the cupboard to hide the goofy smile on his face.
“Mmm! Delicious!”
Those were the first words that came out of Masamichi’s mouth when he took a bite of his sandwich.
It was a kind of basic reaction, but people tended to forget vocabulary when they thought something was genuinely delicious.
When Shino said they were having sandwiches, Masamichi had imagined thick stewed chicken sandwiched between two slices of bread. But Shino had pulled a shelf out from under the sink and unearthed an old hot-sandwich maker.
The sandwich on the plate before Masamichi was golden brown on both sides and looked lovely.
“I had chicken pot pie at a fried-chicken place some time ago, but this tastes more extravagant. I never knew mushrooms could be so juicy. Yoriko knew how to make some pretty fancy dishes, didn’t she?”
Seated across from him, Shino held his sandwich in both hands, took a big bite, and gave him a slight nod.
“Daizou called this a classy sandwich.”
“I know what he meant. It really is classy.”
Masamichi opened his mouth wide as his master had done and chomped down on his sandwich.
It was a cream of stewed chicken in bread that’d been toasted to a golden brown.
The mustard that’d been spread generously on the inside of the bread was a refreshing complement to the rich flavor.
There were also some small glass bowls of grated carrot salad that served as a palate cleanser and went very well with the sandwich.
“It looks like something you’d find on a lunch menu at a trendy café.”
Shino finally lifted his right eyebrow by about five millimeters.
“This classy sandwich and carrot rapu? I don’t think you’re likely to see these names at a fancy café.”
“Never mind the names, but… Hmm? Carrot rapu?”
“That’s what Yoriko called it. Isn’t that the name of this dish?”
“Well.”
Masamichi thought about it for a moment.
It was carrot râpée. Perhaps Yoriko made it sound more Japanese than French and, with a bit of an accent, settled for carrot rapu.
It seemed a shame to overwrite that cute background with the correct pronunciation, so Masamichi just smiled.
“If that’s what Yoriko said, then I think that’s the name of the dish. Almonds and raisins are often added to chopped carrots that have been seasoned to be sweet and sour, but it was probably her original idea to sprinkle ground sesame seeds on top of the carrots.”
“Yeah? Well, this is the only recipe I know.”
“It tastes fabulous.”
As usual, Shino didn’t respond, and silence fell over the dinner table.
Although Masamichi was used to it, continuing to eat in silence still felt somewhat uncomfortable, so he reached for the remote control and turned on the TV.
The channel was set to a show they sometimes watched, which mixed news and information on daily living. He adjusted the volume and placed the remote control on the tatami mat.
On the screen, an announcer and commentators were engaging in a heated debate over the new tax system.
It was a bleak topic that didn’t match the festive studio, which radiated Christmas spirit, but he supposed all the shows aired at this hour would be similar.
“December has only just begun, but the mood already seems to be set for Christmas,” he said, intentionally avoiding touching on the topic being discussed.
Shino was eating his sandwich with gusto, distorting the muscles of his beautiful face in the process. He munched away and just responded with a slight arch of his brow.
So Christmas doesn’t interest him.
Unable to understand his reaction, Masamichi decided to pick at his carrot rapu and wait for Shino to speak.
After eating his sandwich, Shino remarked bluntly, “Christmas, huh? The time when people in Japan eat massive amounts of chicken and large cakes.”
His reaction was again unexpected, and Masamichi ended up spitting out the food he was eating in shock.
“Chicken and cake? So you, Daizou, and Yoriko celebrated Christmas and had feasts.”
Shino looked unusually puzzled.
“I don’t know if you’d call those meals a feast, but on the night before Christmas, we always had… What was it called, that chicken you mentioned earlier from the store?”
“Do you mean fried chicken?”
“Yes. We had a huge paper bucket stuffed with fried chicken placed at the center of the table. Beside it, there would be a whole cake that was clearly too big for the three of us…”
“Heh-heh-heh!”
Masamichi imagined the old couple and Shino sitting around the table having a Christmas feast where they were now eating, and it made him feel warm and fuzzy inside. It was sweet and funny with a touch of sadness, thinking of what had been.
Oh, how the old couple had loved Shino. Masamichi got a sense of their deep affection from what the specter told him, and it made him happy.
He was aware that even as a specter, Shino understood the elderly couple’s affection for him. With that in mind, he continued to wonder why they had eaten fried chicken and a giant cake at Christmas.
Noticing Masamichi smiling, Shino scowled.