“Mmm, this is nice and refreshing. How’s yours, Shino? Is the strength okay?”
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” he answered bluntly, took another sip, then put down his glass. He appeared to like it.
“But hey, this is an extravagant feast. You prepared everything, didn’t you? Thank you!”
Before digging in, Masamichi straightened his posture and bowed in gratitude, although Shino didn’t bat an eye.
“Yoriko made this much food on her own until the year before she died. For a specter like me, it’s a piece of cake.”
While the mysterious rivalry amused Masamichi, he tilted his head.
“But, Shino, you helped Yoriko with the cooking in her later years or did all the cooking yourself, right? Didn’t you help her at Christmas?”
“No. Yoriko cooked alone on the night she and Daizou decided would be my birthday, saying it would be a shame for a child to find out what the party food would be before his party. It was silly.”
“No, it wasn’t!” Masamichi said out loud.
Even the ever-composed Shino was surprised, and his sharp, almond eyes widened ever so slightly.
“What did you say?”
“It wasn’t silly at all! It proves that Yoriko considered you her son. She wanted to prepare feasts that would make you happy, which is wonderful. I think I’m going to cry for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to cry.”
“You don’t have to. People cry when they want!” That came out awfully strong, and Masamichi smiled with tears in his eyes as he looked at Shino, who appeared bored.
“You were busy frying something when I came home, and I suspected it—,” the young man began saying. The main part of the feast before them was a huge platter of fried chicken, far too much for two.
Then Shino replied, looking serious, “We always had store-bought fried chicken, fried potatoes to go with it, bread that was strangely soft and fluffy, and vegetables sliced into thin shreds.”
Fried chicken, french fries, biscuits, cole slaw…, Masamichi mentally translated, stifling his laughter. The menu lineup sounded typical.
“So the accompanying items wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have fried chicken.”
“I—I see.”
“Other than that, the only other home cooking I know is for birthdays. I had no choice but to re-create it.”
“Then this is party food for a birthday?”
“Is something here inappropriate?”
“Oh, no. No, there isn’t! It’s great! So this is the birthday feast that Yoriko always prepared for you.”
Now that Masamichi knew that, the mountain of fried chicken, which had been interesting a minute ago, stirred a different emotion inside him.
“Fried chicken, potato salad, macaroni casserole, bite-size steak…”
“It was probably what she made for their son, who died young.”
“…I see. That’s why these are dishes that a child would like.”
Touched, Masamichi glanced around at the food on the table as Shino said curtly, “Never mind that. Hurry up and eat.”
“It seems a shame, but okay, gladly. Oh, first, we’ll set a plate for Yoriko and Daizou as an offering.”
“I’ll do that.”
Shino took a plate and put a small amount of food on it.
“I made this feast this year so you wouldn’t keep nagging me,” he said to Masamichi. Meanwhile, he placed the plate next to the wineglass in front of the photo of Daizou and Yoriko smiling together.
“Did I ever nag you?” Masamichi asked, pouting a little. “Didn’t you do Christmas meals while you were living alone?”
“Christmas never even entered my mind. This year, I couldn’t forget it since you kept bugging me about it for more than a month,” Shino replied sullenly.
“Okay. Well, come to think of it, maybe I did mention it. I’m glad I did. Yoriko, Daizou, Shino, let’s dig in.”
Masamichi smiled and put his hands together briefly, then he immediately reached for the crispy, golden-brown fried chicken.
A few hours later, as the date was about to change, Masamichi was in Shino’s room, wearing his pajamas.
He had decided to talk with Shino—not just to have a casual conversation over dinner, but to tell him what he planned to do with his life.
Shino sat at his desk, reading an old book as usual. As Masamichi sat on the floor beside him and spoke, he listened without a word and then said, “Do what you want.”
“Thank you.”
Masamichi bowed in gratitude.
“If things work out, I’ll take it as my path opening up and give it everything I’ve got. If not, I’ll put an end to that chapter in my life and look for something else.”
“I have nothing to say if it’s a path that you choose.”
Shino’s blunt but unvarnished words resonated straight to Masamichi’s heart, and they were the best encouragement for him at this time.
“Yeah. I’ll decide for myself without blaming anyone else as an excuse. Um… Sorry to interrupt your reading. I’m going back to my room now.”
“Stay.”
“Huh?!”
That was unexpected, stunning Masamichi as he froze in place with one knee lifted partway.
Still looking down at his ancient document, Shino said quietly, “Perhaps because you’ve sorted things through in your mind, your chi is fresh and pure tonight. I want to bathe in it.”
“…Okay, got it! I’ll go brush my teeth!”
The unexpected invitation—or rather, Shino’s order—caused Masamichi’s cheeks to flush, and he quickly got ready for bed before he changed his mind.
And—
—they laid out Shino’s mattress as usual and lay down side by side with their pillows next to each other.
It had been a while since Masamichi last snuggled up to Shino in his adult body.
“It is a bit tight compared with when I was a five-year-old,” Masamichi said, laughing, as he lay as far at the edge as he could.
Since Shino was a specter, his body was strictly a vessel that had been created for him. No matter how finely it was made, it had no body temperature.
Masamichi’s body heat alone slowly warmed the bedding. Still, it felt good to gradually become comfortable in what had initially been as cold as ice.
He was acutely aware that their arms were touching.
He still couldn’t be sure if the feelings he had were romantic, since he had too little experience with relationships. But the thought that crossed his mind, along with the sense of security he got as he snuggled up to Shino, was that he was happy.
The fact that this feeling was special became clear as the warm chi that flowed out of his body shone in the darkness like the sun.
That chi enveloped his whole body and eventually flowed into Shino. It was as if he was covering Shino with a special, one-of-a-kind blanket.
Masamichi then worked up his courage and asked, “Hey, by the way, Shino, when is this birthday that Yoriko decided on for you?” He hadn’t wanted to ask at dinner and spoil Shino’s mood, but he couldn’t help being curious.
But Shino didn’t say anything. He rolled over and turned his back on Masamichi, which was within Masamichi’s expectations, and the young man went on without being particularly hurt. “I’m honestly curious, but that isn’t the only reason I’m asking.”
There was still no response, but Masamichi felt it was okay to interpret that he could keep talking as long as Shino didn’t stop him.
“You said before that there was no reason to give gifts to people close to you at Christmas and that Christ was the only person who could accept something to celebrate the occasion. I thought you had a point. That’s why I didn’t get you a present this year, but it means it’s okay to give you a present on your birthday, right? I want to get you something then.”
“…Why? Daizou and Yoriko said something similar, and I refused,” Shino responded briefly without moving a muscle. Because his words were without any unneeded embellishments, it was clear that he really didn’t understand these types of feelings that people had.
“I can’t speak for Daizou and Yoriko, but… Well, what I think is that you want to give gifts to someone because you like them and consider them important.”
“Are you saying that considering someone important makes you want to give them gifts?”
“You’re being brutally blunt, but… Yeah.”
Masamichi looked up at the ceiling, searching for the right words to express himself.
“I have a feeling that choosing a gift for someone—wondering if they’d like it, whether it would suit them, and if they’d use it—leaves your thoughts with that particular item. It’s not as substantial as an artifact spirit, but I think a special kind of something goes with a heartfelt gift. And it’s nice to imagine that particular something might give the person a type of energy… I never thought about things like that before, but that’s how I feel now. Of course, you shouldn’t give a person a gift if it might be a burden on them or a nuisance.”
Rather than asking what Shino thought about that, Masamichi fell silent.
He would back off if Shino rejected his words, and if he didn’t answer, he would let the subject drop.
But after a long silence, just when Masamichi was about to give up and go to sleep, Shino suddenly spoke.
“May fifth. The day I met that couple.”
It was Children’s Day, a national holiday in Japan. Masamichi widened his eyes in the dark room.
Maybe Daizou and Yoriko felt that the gods and Buddha had given them a son because they met him on that day. Thinking that warmed Masamichi’s heart.
“Thank you for telling me. I won’t ever forget it,” he whispered to his broad shoulders. Then he pressed his cheeks against the specter’s back, which had warmed up a bit from his own body heat, and closed his eyes, feeling content.