“You can be awfully mean sometimes, Jin-san,” said Aoba with a grumpy look.
Jinya had been going out frequently to eat meals with Akemi. They went for soba one day and yakitori the next, and they even tried out a fancy-looking Western-style establishment. The one who told him about all these places was Jinya’s self-appointed guide, Aoba.
“I can’t believe it. I look away for one moment, and you go and find yourself a woman.”
“It’s nothing like that. Really,” Jinya insisted.
“Even so, think about how I feel as the one giving you guys ideas for your dates.” Aoba feigned tears. She probably wasn’t actually angry, but it was true that he hadn’t been making time for her lately. He made sure to make food for her before he left, but that was only the bare minimum he ought to do as a freeloader.
“You’re right. Why don’t we go somewhere together, then?” Jinya offered.
“How about you make that kitsune soba of yours again instead? It was pretty good last time.”
“You’re fine with just that?”
“Yeah. I thought the broth was a bit thin at first, but it’s grown on me.”
The difference in broth was a regional thing. Because he used to have a restaurant in Kyoto, Jinya mainly cooked with white shoyu and dashi soup stock. The taste was less pronounced than the darker udon and soba broth of the Kanto region, which Tokyo belonged to. Kitsune soba was a dish dear to Jinya’s heart, so he was honestly ecstatic to hear that Aoba liked it.
“All right. I’ll make it again sometime.”
“Thanks. While we’re at it, can I ask why you’re spending so much time with this woman? Have you fallen for her or something?”
He shook his head and grinned, amused by the idea. He had no romantic inclinations whatsoever toward Akemi. But if this place was truly made of lingering regrets, then, as something of a kindred spirit, he wanted to help her by giving her a little push. “No. I’m with her because I’m stuck in this place too.”
“What? So cryptic. Is that supposed to be a riddle?”
“Nothing that elaborate.”
He wanted to help mostly out of sentimentalism, but it wasn’t just Akemi he wanted to help. It was also the other residents like Aoba—and even Nanao as well. Everybody in the Dove District had something they couldn’t bring themselves to part with. Since he was no different, Jinya couldn’t ignore their troubles. That was all.
“I don’t really get it, but don’t do anything too reckless or whatever,” Aoba said offhandedly.
“I appreciate your lack of concern.”
“Heh heh.”
He was genuinely thankful she didn’t pry too far. He thought he should make it up to her with something extra sometime; she didn’t seem to mind much, but it was still true that he was meeting another woman while freeloading off her.
Making plans to do something as an apology, he left and headed for Sakuraba Milk Hall.
✦ ✦ ✦
At the soba restaurant they got tenzaru soba, at the yakitori place they tried different things, and at the Western-style restaurant they got omelet rice. Akemi ate with Jinya at many places, and they went to a new one today as well. She ordered the same thing as he did, and they chatted pleasantly over food. Before she knew it, their meal was over, and it was time for work. She returned to the milk hall to seek clients.
She enjoyed her new daily routine. That was probably why she’d become much more amicable lately and had been picked more often by clients.
“We’re going for Western food again?” she asked.
“Yeah. This place is a bit dingier than the one we went to last time, but apparently their fried foods are to die for.”
“Another place you heard about from someone else, huh?”
As reluctant as she was to admit it, she probably had Jinya to thank for her newfound success. She’d only seen men as sources of money ever since she arrived in the Dove District, but this unexpected, non-sexual bond she shared with him allowed her to let her guard down and relax some more—and she knew that directly tied into her work performance.
Life was smooth sailing, but occasionally her face would come to mind at random moments, and those moments had only become more frequent ever since she started eating with Jinya like this.
“I’ll have this,” Jinya said to the employee.
“…Oh, sorry. I’ll have the same thing as him.” Having been caught zoning out, Akemi got flustered and just ordered the same thing as Jinya. He didn’t seem to think anything of it, since she often matched orders with him. He sipped his water as they waited for their meals.
“There’s been a lot of these Western-style restaurants around lately,” he said.
“Yeah. I guess they’re popular now. Japanese people love their new trends, you know what I mean?”
Curry, hamburger steak, Napolitan spaghetti, omelet rice. None of these foods were completely Western, but they certainly weren’t Japanese either. Instead, they were a unique fusion of tastes. They appeared everywhere after the war and were things that the common man could splurge on every now and then. By this point in time, the Japanese were no strangers to these new foodstuffs.
“Actually, the history of Western food in Japan goes back surprisingly far,” Jinya said. “Curry was already a thing by the Meiji era.”
“No way? That far back? I totally thought it was a new thing.”
“It feels that way because you didn’t see it around much back then, and it’s hard to make your own curry at home too. It didn’t really take off until instant curry came about.”
“Interesting. You know a lot of really random stuff, huh?”
They continued to chat about unimportant things until their food arrived, carried over by an employee.
“Here’s your order: two mencoro meal sets.”
A fragrant smell came from the fried foods, whetting their appetites. The meal came with white rice, miso soup, and some pickled vegetables. The main dish was fried minced cutlet with shredded cabbage, as well as a plate of Akemi’s dreaded croquette.
“Huh…?”
“Let’s eat,” he said. “Oh, come to think of it, didn’t you mention you don’t like croquettes?”
He wasn’t even trying to hide his intentions. It was clear to her that this had been his goal with going to all these restaurants all along. But she didn’t address that, instead freezing up. Her expression contorted with memories she didn’t want to recall.
“Yeah… I hate croquettes.”
“How about changing them out for something?”
“No, that’s all right…”
She didn’t want to be too insistent when he was the one treating her, so she hesitantly reached her chopsticks out to a croquette, cut off a mouthful, and ate a bite.
“I couldn’t eat them at all before, but I’m not a kid anymore. I can at least put up with them even if I don’t like how they taste.” That was what she said, but she stopped after one bite and hung her head.
Jinya didn’t eat or say a word but waited patiently instead. Akemi more or less knew what he was waiting to hear.
“I’ve hated croquette ever since I was little, because my mother would always buy them.” As though trying to escape the awkward silence, she kept going, her voice no more than a faint murmur. “She never talked back to my grandmother, not even when she complained about her skills as a wife or about her being a commoner. She let my grandmother walk all over her and kept playing the part of a good, obedient wife and mother. I hated that about her. She could cook better than most people because of that, but she would still always buy these ready-made croquettes.”
Akemi still remembered those croquettes, bought at the local butcher and gone cold long before they were put on the table. Her father and grandmother ate them without a word of complaint, but Akemi hated them. She always thought it was strange that her grandmother never said anything about her mother buying ready-made croquettes, as strict on her as she was.
“Our local butcher fried them, but the coating was always too thick and they never tasted good. I’d tell my mother I wanted to eat something else, but she’d always just say ‘I’m sorry, honey’ and buy them with a smile. I hated that. It felt like she wasn’t listening to me.”
Akemi hated the croquettes and their overly thick coating, but she hated the smile her mother made when she bought them just as much. After she left home, croquettes became a sort of symbol that tied her back to her mother and the unpleasant memories of her youth. That was why she couldn’t enjoy eating them even at restaurants like this one.
“But even though I hate them so much, I started being able to eat them at some point.” She reached out for another bite of croquette. She didn’t like how it tasted, as she expected. She hated the crunchy fried coating. “I still don’t like them. I don’t, but…when I eat them now, even though they taste completely different, I feel…nostalgic.”