“You know what?” Ayase said.
“Hmm?”
“If we’d been in costume, maybe we wouldn’t have had to worry about someone seeing us.”
“I guess you’re right.”
Neither of us had been planning to go home holding hands in the first place. But once we started, we couldn’t let go until we’d almost reached home. We both craved each other’s warmth.
Today had been a strange, special day when nearly everyone was in costume. If we could have only gone along and dressed up ourselves, we could have held hands without a care in the world. But to Ayase, I felt sure a costume was different from putting on makeup, and that even if we’d planned to dress up, she would have been too embarrassed to go through with it.
“Someday…,” I began.
I wondered if someday we could walk hand in hand like an ordinary couple without having to think about anything else. But at the same time, I thought of the people who wanted us to stay brother and sister.
“Yeah?” she asked.
“No… It’s nothing.”
Our shadows stretched behind us, still overlapping and holding hands. They seemed to say, “I want to stay out here and play together forever.”
The lights were on in every apartment unit above, and each one of them was home to a family—including some who had only just started their lives together.
We continued to walk home in silence. I couldn’t bring myself to offer her my hand again after that.
We opened our door and turned on the lights.
“We’re home!” we cried out in unison, but there was no reply.
Oh?
I knew Akiko was at work, but Dad should have been home.
Ayase, who had gone into the living room a step ahead of me, croaked, “Huh?”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Look at this,” she said, fluttering a sticky note in her hand.
It was in Dad’s handwriting, and it read, I’m going to see Akiko.
I quickly pulled out my phone and checked it. Dad had texted me. He said that since it was Saturday and he had the following day off, he’d decided to have dinner at Akiko’s bar.
He must have realized I hadn’t seen his text and decided to leave a message for us.
“It looks like Dad’s planning to come home with Akiko,” I said.
“Yeah, it looks that way.” Ayase had a text from Akiko, as well. We hadn’t checked our phones, so neither of us had any idea.
If they returned after Akiko was done with work, it would be pretty late at night. We’d hurried home, figuring Dad would be hungry. Too bad. It would likely be several hours before either of them returned.
“Well, Dad’s been busy lately, so he deserves some time with Akiko…”
They were still newlyweds in their first year together. With their differing work schedules, he must have missed spending time alone with her. These days, I could completely understand how he felt. But that meant…
“So it’s just the two of us until they get home?” asked Ayase.
“I guess so.”
“Okay. Then what should we have for dinner? I was planning to do a hot pot again since I thought Mom and Dad would be eating at home, but…maybe something simpler would be better if it’s just us. Do you have any requests?”
I thought about it. It’s always tough to respond when you suddenly get asked what you’d like for dinner. That said, I knew I couldn’t just say “anything” in this situation.
“Let’s see…”
Hmm. What to have…?
“Sorry. It’s hard to come up with an answer out of the blue, huh?” said Ayase as she watched me think.
She clearly was at a loss, too, or she wouldn’t have asked. If she had an idea, she could’ve just said, “I want to eat this, so I’m making it.” Simple.
“Hey, you’re the one making the food. The least I can do is come up with a suggestion.”
That said, I didn’t often think about what to cook, so it was extra hard for me.
“Wait a sec,” I said. “There’s a trick to doing things like this.”
“A trick?”
“Well, they say that people have a harder time making choices when they’re allowed to choose anything.”
This was a technique used by streaming applications. It was considered a bad idea to provide a menu from which someone could select various services. Although it might seem user-friendly, few people open up a service already knowing what they want.
Imagine someone is hungry and knows they want to eat but isn’t sure yet what they’re craving.
So what should we do in a situation like that?
“First, we force ourselves to make a decision. If we’re talking about food, we can first decide what we don’t want to eat.”
“Huh? Why?”
“It’s easier that way. At least, that’s what I think. That’s the trick. Generally speaking, people get bored of eating the same thing over and over. So we can start by thinking of things we’ve eaten recently.”
“We had a Japanese breakfast this morning. And for lunch…we had instant noodles because it was quick and easy.”
“So let’s cross off those two. In that case, we should tell the other person we don’t want to have Japanese food because we had it for breakfast, and let’s eliminate Chinese food, too, since we had noodles for lunch.”
“I guess that leaves Western-style food.”
“It’s easier once we’ve narrowed down our options, right?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Feasibility is also important. Even if we want to make something, it’s pointless if we don’t have the ingredients. Unless we’re ordering out, that is. Again, we can decide in terms of the negative. Do we have any ingredients at home that need to be used as soon as possible?”
“Eggs, I guess.”
“Then it’s an egg dish, Western-style. Omelet rice, fried, or sunny-side up… Sorry, I can only come up with stuff we eat a lot.”
“Oh, hey, then how about French toast?”
“I didn’t think of that. Yeah, I’m starting to get in the mood already.”
Before, I’d only read about French toast in novels, but Ayase had started making it for me every once in a while, and now it was beginning to feel more familiar.
“It’s easy to make, and it’s not too heavy,” she said.
“And it’s kind of like cake, which might be good since it’s a special occasion.”
Once we decided on the main dish, the rest was easy. Since it would be Western-style, we decided on a matching soup instead of miso. Fortunately, we still had some corn soup stock left. We also had plenty of vegetables, so we could make a salad, too.
We divided up the tasks, finished the preparations, and set the food on the table.
We were done in under half an hour and sat facing each other at the dining table, eating our French toast with corn soup and a salad.