By the time I looked up again, the room around me had grown dark. The sun had already set. Soaking in the afterglow of my book, I exhaled.
That was really good.
I’d finished the book in no time. It was a hardcover—the first volume of a foreign science fiction work—and I’d read it in only a few hours. I felt like I was still drifting in space, grappling with some huge mission. I’d seen on the book flap that they were going to adapt this story into a Hollywood movie, and I now understood why.
As I closed the book, I heard Akiko’s and Ayase’s voices coming from the kitchen. It sounded like they were having fun.
I stepped out of my room and glanced into the kitchen.
Akiko noticed me and called out, “Yuuta! Would you please turn on the TV?”
“The TV?”
“It’d be nice to have some background noise. Find a movie that looks interesting and leave it on.”
“Oh, okay.”
I grabbed the remote and brought up a streaming service. If we were going to keep it running, I figured it would be better to choose a channel dedicated to movies.
“Do you want a Japanese movie? Or something foreign?”
“Foreign. I don’t mind if it’s subtitled, either.”
“…You really just want background noise, huh?”
That said, it’d probably be even better if she could enjoy the dialogue. I found one of the services we paid for and launched the app. Right away, I saw a list of recommendations for Christmas movies.
One of them was a comedy starring a child actor. I’d seen it several times. It’s the story of a kid whose parents leave him at home over the Christmas holiday, and he gets up to all sorts of adventures while they’re away. It must have been well received, because there were several sequels as well. Of course, as was typical of Hollywood films, the sequels were only tenuously related to the original. For example, a married couple might suddenly be divorced in one of the later movies. You couldn’t let your guard down, even with family films.
I started the movie, and the apartment was soon filled with happy voices.
“Thanks, Yuuta!” Akiko called out from the kitchen.
“Um… Can I help you with anything?”
“Work up an appetite.”
“…What?”
Should I exercise or something?
I glanced at Ayase. She was holding a frying pan, humming a cheerful tune. I figured it might be dangerous to distract her, so I left her alone.
“Just call for me if you need any help, okay?”
“Okaaay,” Akiko called out.
I cleaned the bathroom and drew a bath, then returned to the living room, where I sat on the sofa and watched the movie in a daze.
At some point, Ayase finished her share of the cooking and took a seat next to me. She left enough space between us for someone else to sit down, but the configuration reminded me of our time at the movie theater together.
At first, I thought she’d be watching the film, but she soon started flipping through her vocabulary notepad.
For a moment, a confused thought ran through my mind: Was it okay for us to be next to each other like this where Akiko could see?
No, wait. It’s totally normal for a brother and sister to watch TV together. Totally normal.
I was just overthinking it.
I glanced at Ayase and saw that she had her earbuds in. She was listening to something on her smartphone as she flipped through her notes.
We weren’t talking, and she wasn’t watching the movie; she was just there beside me, completely relaxed, as she studied.
“I’m home.”
Dad came home carrying a cardboard box with handles on top.
He’d promised to be home by seven, but it was already half past.
He held the box out to Akiko. “Sorry I’m a little late. I went to pick up the cake I ordered, and the place was absolutely packed.”
“No problem.”
It was a whole cake…maybe twelve—no, fifteen centimeters in diameter. I could tell because I’d considered getting a cake when Ayase and I went out to dinner. In the end, I’d judged that we couldn’t finish a twelve-centimeter cake after eating a whole meal and given up on the idea.
Even if we shared it among the four of us, a fifteen-centimeter cake seemed like a lot…but we were at home. We could save what was left and eat it later. It would probably last at least half a day or so.
“We’ll have this after dinner,” Akiko said with a smile as she opened the refrigerator. As the end of the year approached, our fridge had filled up, and it was now packed. “Yuuta, will you take these over to the table?”
“Okay.”
She handed me beer and nonalcoholic champagne, and I carried them into the dining room. We would also need glasses and a bottle opener.
Akiko pushed the items in the fridge around to make space for the cake, then set it on one of the shelves.
Meanwhile, Ayase begun heating up the food. I spooned rice into bowls and put them on the table.
By the time Dad changed and came back out of his room, dinner was ready to eat.
“Oh my, this looks delicious,” he said.
The highlight of our Christmas dinner was thigh meat roasted with herbs, placed on a platter right at the center of the table. It wasn’t chicken but turkey. Recently, this dish had been becoming more and more popular as a Christmas treat in Japan. I’d heard it was more of a Thanksgiving dish in America, however.
Turkey was less fatty than chicken, and I suspected its rise was part of a trend toward healthy eating. We didn’t have a whole bird, but since they were quite large, the meat piled on the platter was more than enough for four people. Dad had splurged and ordered it online to be precooked and delivered in time for Christmas.
Akiko looked over the table. “I wonder if it would have been more seasonal to make pasta instead of rice.”