The next day, Jinya visited Sakuraba Milk Hall again and found the manager at the counter cleaning glasses as usual.
“Nice to see you.” The manager gave Jinya his usual friendly greeting.
Hotaru could be seen around. Jinya asked her, “Excuse me, is Akemi in?”
Even though he went out for meals with Akemi almost every day, Hotaru replied with confusion. “Pardon?”
The confusion on her face spoke a thousand words: No such woman worked there. Hotaru had no recollection of Akemi.
Jinya had somewhat expected this. With her lingering regrets gone, Akemi couldn’t stay in the Dove District. The small push he had given her had been enough.
“If you’re looking for Akemi-chan, she’s already left,” the manager said. Jinya was surprised at first, but he figured it made sense. This was his shop, after all. If anyone would remember who worked there, it was him.
“I see. You remember.”
“Of course. I promised I’d do right by both my customers and my girls until the end.” With a small shrug, the manager sadly added, “I can’t recall her face anymore, though.”
The Dove District was a place that shouldn’t have existed. No matter what happened there, it would all end up being no more than a dream. Like the manager, Jinya still remembered Akemi as well. But when it came time for this place to meet its end, his memory of this dream was sure to fade with it.
“I wonder where she went,” the manager mused.
“To her family, I assume.”
“Her family?”
Jinya nodded. He couldn’t know for sure, but he wanted it to be true. He thought of the young woman he had encountered by chance here in the Dove District that couldn’t exist. Even if it would all end up no more than a dream, he wanted to pray for her happiness.
“Why don’t we share a drink?” Jinya offered. “I’m in some high spirits for once.”
“My, I quite like that idea. Let’s have ourselves a toast, shall we?”
In both their hands was a glass of amber whiskey. It needn’t be said who the toast was for. Saying it outright would spoil half the fun and be embarrassing too. But they definitely had the same person in mind as they clinked their glasses together.
“Cheers.”
He wondered if he would ever happen across her again. If he did, and if he still remembered her, he wanted to be a little playful and ask her a slightly mean-spirited question: “What’s your favorite food?” It’d be nice if she answered croquette.
With those thoughts in mind, he took a sip from his glass. The whiskey tasted even better than usual that day.
✦ ✦ ✦
August 2009.
“Um, it’s something called ketchup yakisoba.” The thing Miyaka recalled as they talked about favorite foods was the ketchup yakisoba she ate in junior high school. Jinya made a face that showed he didn’t understand, so she continued, “It was back when I was in junior high school. I think it was a Sunday. Kaoru and I were studying for a test together. Noon rolled around, but we were too lazy to go anywhere, so we took some bagged noodles from the fridge and grilled them to make yakisoba.”
They’d added cabbage, fish paste, pork, and egg. That much was normal enough, but when it came time to add some flavoring, they realized they were out of sauce. They scoured the kitchen as hard as they could but came up empty-handed.
“That was when we got the idea to use ketchup. We figured that ketchup spaghetti was a thing, so ketchup yakisoba couldn’t be that much worse.”
“Interesting. How was it?”
“It was incredible. We called one another geniuses and ate our plates clean.” She still recalled the excitement she’d felt then. It was nothing more than an ordinary lunch, but the memory of it was still vivid in her mind. “It’s still the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten. I try to make it again every now and again, but I just can’t make it taste as good as it did then.”
Realizing that she was being wordier than usual, she blushed. She smiled wryly and tried to play things off, probably because her classmates had called her ketchup yakisoba weird before. She looked at him, afraid of the way he might respond. “Ah ha ha, sorry. It’s a bit weird, isn’t it?”
“Weird? Not at all.”
“Really? I mean, people usually say it sounds gross and stuff.” Though it was something she liked, she didn’t think most people would.
Jinya smiled and looked off into the distance. “Both my birth father and my foster father would grill isobe mochi from time to time.”
“Huh?”
“I still remember being around the grill, waiting eagerly together with the whole family. But food didn’t keep as well as it does now, and the mochi we grilled was stiff and hard. To be honest, it wasn’t that great a thing to eat.” He sighed softly, speaking with tenderness. “But it tasted amazing. I still remember that day we three kids ate mochi together, all smiles. But, you know, the isobe mochi that Chitose made me probably tasted better.”
Miyaka couldn’t see what Jinya recalled at that moment, but she understood the emotions he felt.
“It must be something like that. Even if it isn’t really that amazing, we remember the flavors that reach our hearts.”
And for Miyaka, it was the ketchup yakisoba she ate that day.
She felt a smile come onto her face. She was happy he understood how that trivial meal that came about for silly reasons was something dear to her.
“I see… Um, thank you,” she said.
“Not at all. I’d say we’ve rested enough now. Shall we finish cleaning?”
“Right. Wanna get something to eat when we’re done?”
Having finished their soda-flavored popsicles, the two stood up. There was still some more trash to clean, and their meal was sure to taste all the better after they were done and had worked up a sweat.
“Sounds good.”
“It’s settled, then. You can pick what we eat this time.”
“Really? In that case…” Jinya thought for a bit and quickly came up with something, the corners of his mouth rising slightly.
Time stopped for no one. Though he had gained much, he had also lost much in the process. Such was the sad truth he was helpless before.
“I’m in the mood for croquettes today.”
But he would probably never forget the flavors that reached his heart for as long as he lived.