Chiho had gone through two bowls of chicken and vegetable stew, left simmering for over a day to seal the flavor in, alongside some rice cooked up the day before and on the dry side as a result. She put both hands together, her face revealing her joy.
“Thank you so much!”
“You sure ate a lot.”
“I did.” She nodded, grinning wildly. “Honestly, if I’m gonna try to make it in Ente Isla, this is the biggest hurdle.”
“Oh?”
“There’s lots of good food over there, and by their standards I’m enjoying some pretty haute cuisine every day…but it gets so boring.”
“Oh, does it?”
“When I was in London, they had this place called the Japan Store off Piccadilly Circus, where they sold snacks and instant noodles from Japan.”
When her host family told her about this store, located on a side street off one of London’s busiest neighborhoods, Chiho didn’t see it as anything important at first. Her college friends and advisors told her a million times that once she spent a week overseas, she’d be aching for white rice and miso soup—but her three weeks in London were so busy and exciting, she didn’t have enough time to miss Japanese food.
Everyone also told her that British food was awful, but given this was the other side of the Northern Hemisphere, she assumed it wouldn’t agree with her at first, and either way, it wasn’t as bad as they all said. A lot of the soups and stews were better than in Japan, and most of the sushi places had actual Japanese soy sauce, as opposed to the “sushi” joints run by outfits from every Asian nation except Japan you often saw overseas. As long as the soy sauce was good, she knew, any sushi would be great, no matter how crazy it was—although either way, food was never a concern of hers.
But:
“Old Lidem, you know… I think she must’ve heard from Albert, but she tried to make some more Japanese-style food for me. She even opened up a restaurant serving Japanese-ish stuff. But…like, it’s all kind of off…”
“People like her don’t take half-measures, do they? And why are you being so fancy?”
Hearing about Lidem opening a restaurant must’ve shocked Riho.
Chiho’s Ente Isla study began right after her time in London ended, during her school’s summer break. She spent it on the Northern Island, in the “Goat Pasture” city of Phiyenci, the area she came to grow fondest of. Her mission: Do an internship.
“So what did you do in Ente Isla?”
“Well, I dunno… To sum up, I guess I mostly just did miscellaneous stuff for Lidem…but to put it another way, I was a politician’s secretary, a cabinet secretary… That kind of thing. I met a lot of Northern Island people, collected their demands and petitions, built a schedule for Lidem, and sometimes I’d step in and create resolutions for Lidem’s or the Wurs clan’s decisions…”
“Oh…?”
“Well, you said Lidem would be best because she goes around to a lot of Ente Isla, so that’s what I did, is all.”
Chiho, realizing her mother was sounding a little put off, hastily tacked on that addendum. It didn’t have much effect.
“So in the final week, I had Emeralda and Rumack guide me around Saint Aile. The imperial palace was so pretty. I took a lot of photos, so I’ll show them to you later.”
She made it sound so casual, but this wasn’t like checking out Japan’s Imperial Palace, or the changing of the guard over at Buckingham Palace in London. She was going inside a palace ruled by a real, living absolute monarch, and the fact she saw that as normal was nothing short of ominous.
“And you know, Lidem told me to bring my parents next time. You could check it out, too, Mom.”
“Well… Well, certainly, someday. But after this, Chiho…”
“…Oh, right! I gotta go out again after this.”
“What? But you just got here…!”
“Yeah, but it was just a forty-minute trip. I’m not all jet-lagged like after the UK, so once I change clothes, I gotta go. Thanks for the stew!”
“…Sure, sure. Just tell me if you need dinner or not later, all right?”
“Okay!”
Flinging some new clothes on (along with some quick makeup), she flew out the front door. Riho watched her go, then sank back into the living room sofa.
“If she’s like this before she even finds a job,” she muttered, “I hate to think what’ll happen once she’s married. I’ll need a new hobby to pass the time, I suppose. Siiiigh…”
✦ ✦ ✦
Chiho hurried toward Sasazuka Station, feeling just a little bad for her dejected-looking mother and promising herself that she’d make up for it later. Today, at least, she had something even more important than her mother to handle.
“She should arrive in the afternoon… When was it again…?”
Chiho checked her messages then the train schedule on her phone.
“Great. I’ll be on time. Ten minutes early to Tokyo Station!”
Running through the cityscape—both familiar and fresh after three months away from it—Chiho jogged through the 100 Trees Shopping Arcade, crossed the Koshu-Kaido road, and arrived at Sasazuka Station.
There, right in front of the turnstile:
“Oh!”
“Ah!”
She ran right into Maou, who was traveling to Tokyo Station at the same time.
“Hey. Welcome back. We’ll be on time, right?”
“Thanks. We’ll be ten minutes early if all goes well.”
Maou and Chiho both waved and greeted each other. Then they went through the turnstile—Maou pressing his wallet against the card reader, Chiho using her phone.
“Y’know, everyone at work knew you were coming home from ‘study abroad’ today. They slammed me for not meeting you at the airport. I think that bastard Libicocco told them.”
“Ahh… Did he? Sorry. I’ll explain things to everyone later…”
“Nah, it’s fine… I think that’d hurt my rep even worse. But how was it? Did you get a lot to think about?”
“There’s still a lot troubling me, but I think it gave me a lot of material to work out my future with.”
“Yeah?”
“For now, I intend to find a job in Japan. But when choosing the firms to apply to, I have one condition I’m not gonna waver on.”
“What’s that?”
“A workplace where I don’t have to be in Japan during summer!”
“Yeah, that doesn’t even sound like a joke any longer. This is definitely the worst summer I’ve seen since coming to Japan. I’ve even started willingly buying sunblock.”
“Sunblock? …Hmmm?”
As they waited at the platform for the next train to Shinjuku, Chiho took a closer look at Maou’s face.
“Are you applying it all the way down your neck?”
“…No.”
“Well, your neck’s got weird tan lines on it. Like, your shirt collar, and probably your helmet visor, too.”
“…Oh. Well, you know, I don’t wanna waste it…”
Watching Maou awkwardly grope at his neck, Chiho let out a hearty laugh. The sight of him finding a chin hair he’d missed and wincing with the same awkwardness was even funnier to her.
“Seriously…”
The next train to Shinjuku slid into the station just then, blocking Chiho’s muttered observation.
“That part of you hasn’t changed at all.”