“I thought about it all night until I figured it out this morning. That dressing had peanut butter in it,” he would say. He was a big man, which meant he had a big appetite and loved delicious food (his favorite being Eriko’s home cooking). With that being said, Eriko wasn’t especially good at cooking. Their taste buds and preferences simply started to match each other’s after living together for so long.
“I’m so glad I married you, Eriko! I finally know how fun life can be thanks to you.”
It wasn’t long before Hideo felt this way.
Eriko had a very busy job, so she would often come home late a few times every month. She had an established PR magazine now that was published bimonthly, but with success came more responsibility. She began taking the chair at small meetings, was left in charge of handling interviews and photography, and was given a seemingly endless supply of work. Eriko wasn’t full of ambition or anything like that, but she was secretly developing her talents to keep the position she was in.
Even though she wasn’t technically an editor, her work helped her learn the importance of connections and meeting new people. She had to meet many people and had to have them like her as well. Eriko was skinny and petite with a fair complexion. She had a dimple in her right cheek whenever she laughed and sparkling, white teeth that were perfectly straight. She kept her hair casual and short, along with her attire: jeans and a sweater, which made her always look like she had just gotten out of college. She was even told, “I’ve known you for quite a while now, but I still can’t tell how old you are. I mean, I’ve known you ever since the chairman was still alive,” by one of the big shots when she was at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
“I just turned thirty,” Eriko said, smiling. She had actually turned forty-two that year.
She enjoyed her life of picking up that leftover work that needed to be done in her little corner of Osaka. She felt fulfilled. For years, she watched the ginkgo leaves in Midosuji turn gold, then blue, then gold once more before they fell to the ground. Whenever a new big shot took over for the old one at a company, she would go straight to the new CEO for an interview, smile, and say she heard they were drinking buddies with a CEO from company XYZ while trying to create a bond. The old Eriko would never have been able to do this. It was far too frightening. In the past, when she finally got to meet the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, she immediately broke down in tears when he simply looked at her and asked, “What is it you want to know?”
While people always said they couldn’t tell how old Eriko was, they had an even harder time guessing whether she had a husband. There was no one outside of her work life who knew, but she had Hideo, so she felt excited to work. Whenever Eriko was late coming home from work, Hideo would always make something simple for dinner and wait for her.
“You didn’t have to wait for me to eat.”
“Eating without you would be so lonely. I enjoy dinner because I’m with you. Besides, food is tasteless without you. It’s like eating sand.”
Those words were enough to make Eriko stop caring about the monthly expenses she was suffering due to his second family.
I guess this isn’t all that expensive was how she felt when she thought about her life with Hideo, no matter how much it cost her. Of course, Eriko would never tell Hideo that, though. She would, however, show him her little dimple as she flashed her small, pearly white teeth. Eriko, as petite as she was, had both small hands and small feet, and she looked even smaller when she stood next to the massive man that Hideo was. Eriko was apparently the cutest little delicate doll in the entire world to Hideo.
Eriko had decided that she didn’t want kids. She went back and forth on the idea a little when they first got married, but she felt that they had already built a comfortable foundation for their lives and that there was no room for any children. She would rather be spoiled herself. That was what she thought, so that was probably why she got jealous when she heard Hideo’s children squealing with joy when they came over and were having a good time.
Nevertheless, Eriko enjoyed her quiet life with Hideo while his kids got older. But the more fun she was having, the more uneasy she started to feel. She didn’t know why, though. After Hideo went to work, Eriko would clean up before leaving the house herself. Since they were near the mountains, the temperature was slightly colder than the average flat city. Curtains would even freeze to the window during the winter if they weren’t careful. Eriko rode her bike to the station through the fresh, cold air. But when she got on the rocking train heading to the city, she realized why she was anxious—or discontent, to be exact.
While Hideo probably didn’t mean for it to be this way, it started to feel like his home in Tennoji was his real home and his home with her was his secondary residence. Eriko was legally his wife, and she had been married and living with him for the past ten years, but she didn’t know how Hideo viewed and mentally allocated his life. After all, his kids, ex-wife, and elderly adoptive mother were all in Tennoji, where he had a house and land in his name.
Even the son who was causing trouble at school, which in return was causing trouble for their family, had a strong presence in Eriko’s household. He used to take baths from time to time with his father and squeal with joy, but now he was throwing fists at school, which Eriko believed he may have been doing because he wanted Hideo’s attention. Hideo never once stayed overnight at the house in Tennoji, and that didn’t start when Kyoko moved back in. He had never stayed overnight there. Nevertheless, Eriko for some reason suddenly started wondering, Does he consider his home with me to be his second home?
Hideo was a large man, so Eriko could curl up and fit perfectly in his arms (just like how his daughter used to curl up and fit perfectly in his lap). On cold winter nights, she could still keep warm in his embrace, even if she wasn’t wearing anything, as his body wrapped around her like a blanket. It was like a vast, endless blanket that was warm and strong while not heavy. Hideo’s body was like a warm, comforting imaginary blanket that would sometimes suddenly swipe her up like a passionate flying squirrel and steal her away. Eriko never got tired of being scooped up off her feet, but that passion and change of pace was special because it didn’t happen every day, she felt.
Eriko felt fulfilled every moment she spent with Hideo. She was proud to be with him and happy as well, but there was something about the marriage that didn’t feel real deep down inside.
She even liked his cute basset hound-like eyes when he was in a bad mood. She wondered what it meant to still feel this way about her husband even after ten years of marriage. That was just how friendly Hideo was and a testament to how well they got along, but perhaps what was making him this way was what he was experiencing at the house in Tennoji. There was actually nothing about his life with Eriko that put him in a bad mood, and he would always return to their apartment with glee.
The only time he would be in a bad mood was when he had to go to Tennoji. It was like he felt he was held back by the shackles of convention every time he reluctantly went… It was one’s duty to take care of their home. Eriko worried about the whole second-house dilemma the entire day while she was at work. She finished up earlier than usual that night, but she took her time leaving the office, since Hideo wasn’t going to be there when she got home. That was when he suddenly gave her a call.