Mika suddenly turned around and pointed at Kousuke and Nagisa. “Kou and Nagi!”
“Yes, that’s right,” Kousuke said, patting her on the head. “But, Mika, you shouldn’t point at people.”
“Mm. Okay.” Then she turned around and looked at me. “Yuu!”
“Um, yeah,” I said. “Hi.”
“And, uh… A…Aya!”
“Huh?” Ayase looked confused. “Oh. Yes?”
Mika tilted her head as if to ask, “Was that wrong?” It was. Ayase was my sister’s surname, not her given name. But I figured it would only confuse Mika more if I tried to explain the two surnames at this point. And besides, Aya sounded like a first name anyway.
I knew it was a little underhanded of me, but if Mika started calling my sister Aya, I thought maybe it would make my calling her Ayase sound a little more natural.
“Hey, Yuu?” asked Mika.
“Hmm?”
“Is Aya your friend?”
“Ayase is my younger sister. We just became family.”
Mika looked puzzled.
“Mika, don’t you remember?” Takumi asked. “Mom said Uncle Taichi got married.”
“Does marriage come with a sister?”
I couldn’t help chuckling. How could I make her understand?
I thought about it but couldn’t come up with a good explanation, so I decided to change the subject instead. Come to think of it, Kousuke always used to play with me like this. Around the time I was Takumi’s age, in the upper grades of elementary school…my birth mother stopped paying attention to me. I was always so happy to spend time with Kousuke, even if it was only for two days at New Year’s.
“So, Takumi, Mika,” I said. “What do you guys want to do?”
““Play a game!”” they shouted in sync.
“A game, huh?”
They weren’t talking about the typical Japanese New Year’s activities, like board games or fukuwarai, where you pin pictures of noses and eyes and the like on a paper outline of a face. No, they meant video games. These kids were part of the digital generation.
“I’ll go get a game from Mom!” Takumi said before dashing out of the room.
Mika tried to follow and almost fell over, but I caught her and led her along by the hand.
Together, we all headed back to the living room.
Takumi went to his mother and asked for a game. Apparently, she’d brought a portable game console along on the trip—the kind you could use handheld or hook up to a TV. We took it and moved to another room to set it up.
I knew the two elementary schoolers would get bored if they had to hang out and chat with the adults. I’d been exactly the same way when I was their age. So, with Kousuke’s help, we set up the game. There were four controllers, so four of us could play at once.
“Yuuta,” said Kousuke. “Would you mind taking care of these two?”
I nodded, and he and Nagisa went back to join the other adults. Perhaps they wanted to discuss their wedding plans.
The couple left the room, quietly closing the sliding doors behind them and leaving Ayase and me with the children.
“Come on, Yuu!”
“Y-yeah, okay. Uh… What should we play?”
I turned on the game console and started looking through the selection. I was hoping to find something all four of us, including Ayase, could play together. Eventually, I found a promising title.
“This looks good… Are you guys okay with this?”
Takumi and Mika nodded vigorously.
I wasn’t much of a gamer, but I’d heard about this one from Maru, and I’d tried it once in the past.
“Okay. Come on, Ayase.”
“Huh?!” Ayase looked at me in surprise. “But I don’t know this one.”
“That’s okay—, it’s easy. It’s cooperative, not competitive.”
If the kids hadn’t brought along a console, I would probably have just lent them my tablet. But it was a lot more fun to play together on a big screen.
I launched the game, and four little cooks appeared on the screen. Each of us controlled one of the cooks, and we had to prepare food according to the customers’ orders.
It’s not easy, of course. There’s a time limit, and the layout of the kitchen changes. But the game is designed so the players can succeed as long as they cooperate. It’s an action game, but it’s also kind of like a puzzle.
We moved our cooks around the screen, cutting vegetables and frying meat. Orders were shouted, and food and plates clattered about. We could hear customers complaining that their orders were taking too long.
The two grade-schoolers were really adept at the game. It seemed they had a lot of experience, and they would call out instructions to each other. Ayase and I could barely keep up.
“Aya! Aya!” Mika called out. It seemed both the kids had adopted the new nickname for her.
“Wh-what?” she replied.
“The meat will burn!”
“Huh?!”
A flame flared up before Ayase’s cook could reach the frying pan.
“Aaahhh!”
If the flame got too high, the food would burn, and if you didn’t put it out, the whole kitchen could catch fire. It was a rare chance to see Ayase’s flustered expression, but there was no time. My usually calm, cool, and collected sister was totally panicked.
“Calm down, Ayase!”
“What am I supposed to doooo?!”
You could put out a fire using the game’s fire extinguisher, but you’d have to start cooking again from the beginning. Unfortunately, our time ran out and we weren’t able to clear the stage.
“Sorry,” Ayase said, dejected.
“Aya, are you bad at cooking?”
“Oh, no, Mika. Ayase is a great cook,” I explained. “This is just a game. It’s okay, Ayase. You’ll do better next time.”
“Hearing you cover for me so desperately just makes me feel worse,” said Ayase.
“What?!” That wasn’t what I’d meant at all. “But it’s true that you’re a good cook.”
“I burned the meat and set the whole kitchen on fire.”
“It’s just a game.”
“I won’t lose next time!”
“You’ll be way better than me once you get used to it. It’s only a matter of time.”
“I hate losing.”
I knew Ayase was competitive, but I’d never seen her so worked up before.
“Aya! Aya!” Mika was tugging on Ayase’s sleeve. “Mommy said brothers and sisters have to be nice to each other. Right?” she said, turning to Takumi.
Takumi nodded.
“Don’t you like Yuu?” she asked Ayase.
“O-of course I do!”
“Then you have to make up. Want me to show you how?”
“Um, sure. I guess?”
Why did Ayase sound so hesitant today? She could hold heated debates with associate professors, but it seemed elementary schoolers were another matter.
I’d been dealing with Takumi and Mika for years whenever I visited Dad’s hometown, and I remembered how others had treated me when I was little. As part of a family that got together on every possible occasion, I had a lot more experience.
And anyway, Takumi and Mika were two of the closest siblings I knew.
Mika grabbed her brother by the arm. “Takumi. Let’s make up.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry, Mika.”
“I forgwive you.”
“Okay, done.”