A certain writer from the north once wrote that temperature was the most important factor when serving food. On that point, the sekihan was perfect by the time Takina arrived at the café. She wouldn’t need to resort to crude techniques like warming it up in the microwave.
She washed her hands, got a rice paddle out, and transferred the sekihan from the plastic boxes into rice bowls.
Chisato was just getting up. Takina warmed up some of the soup she had prepared the previous night and was ready to serve a proper breakfast.
“Wow! You really got me sekihan from Kirakira Tachibana! It’s been so long since I last had it! Thanks, Takina!”
“You’re welcome. Let’s eat.”
They sat at a low table in the tatami area on the café floor, facing each other. They politely pressed their hands together, then began their meal.
Takina started with the soup. She made it by cooking sliced carrots and daikon radish in broth leftover from the udon soup. The veggies had been sitting in the soup all night, absorbing the flavors of the rich broth. A charming blend of flavors.
After some soup, Takina turned her attention to the sekihan. It was just the right temperature. She picked some up with her chopsticks. From how they felt in her hand, she could tell that the sekihan was denser than regular rice.
The dish was simply sticky rice, colored by the red beans it had been steamed with, yet it looked irresistibly appetizing. Having sekihan for breakfast seemed like a real treat.
Takina couldn’t wait to taste it. She brought a chunk of the sekihan to her mouth, full of anticipation, and took a bite. It was warm and sticky. The first things she tasted were the aromatic toasted black sesame and a bit of salt, followed by the mushy red beans. Chewing gradually released their slight sweetness and umami flavors. A sigh, which sounded a bit like a soft laugh, escaped Takina’s mouth. As soon as she swallowed that first bite, she instinctively wanted more.
“…It is good,” she said, downplaying her appreciation for the food.
About as delicious as she’d expected. Better than expected, even.
“Mmm!” Chisato moaned, clutching her chopsticks. “This is it! Absolutely fantastic!”
Chisato’s reaction made happiness well up inside Takina’s heart.
“Thanks for this, Takina! You went so far to get it!”
“I didn’t mind. It was quite a pleasant walk, actually. It helped me work up my appetite.”
The sekihan was very good—that was a fact—but food tasted even better when you were hungry, and Takina was pretty hungry after walking to the store and back on an empty stomach. It was likely that food tasted much better to her than to Chisato, a thought she found a bit amusing.
“By the way, I went the wrong way and came across a park with a gigantic slide.”
“Oh, I know that one! It’s opposite a fish market!”
“Ah, that’s right. There was a fish market next to it.”
“How did you like the slide? Pretty scary, right?”
“I didn’t get on it.”
“…What?”
They sipped their soup, ate the rice with red beans, and talked without a break. A pleasant morning.
Having lived in that part of Tokyo for a long time, Chisato had a lot to say about it. Once she got to talk about a cake store that used to be on the shopping street Takina visited that morning, she wouldn’t stop. It was apparently a fancy place with a French aesthetic, out of place on a local shopping street, and they sold the most amazing croissants…
As Takina told Chisato what she saw on her walk to the store, Chisato got even more excited about every little thing she didn’t know about.
Even though their conversation flowed nonstop, they were suddenly surprised to discover that all of their soup and rice had disappeared, as if by magic.
“Aw, we finished it all already? That was quick!”
“It was better than I expected.”
“Right?!”
“I was worried it might be too much, but it wasn’t.”
“Yeah.”
Chisato glanced over at the counter. Takina followed her gaze…to the second box of sekihan.
The girls exchanged looks and smiled awkwardly.
“We probably shouldn’t eat the rest, right…?”
“Definitely not, Chisato. Remember that you haven’t been well…”
“No more, then…”
“No more.”
They held each other’s gaze in silence. It was obvious that each of them was hoping the other would suggest they shared the second box of sekihan, too. The fact that she had this urge and that Chisato could see it made Takina somewhat embarrassed, so she abruptly changed the topic.
“Oh, tell me, Chisato, how’s your temperature?”
“Huh? Oh, I don’t know.”
“Why don’t we check? The thermometer’s still in the other room, I think?”
The girls pressed their palms together in gratitude for the meal, and then they went to the tatami room at the back.
The bed was messy, so Takina straightened out the cover and pillow, then asked Chisato to sit down. She found the thermometer on the floor next to the futon and passed it to Chisato, who pressed it into her armpit. Takina stood up.
“I’ll go wash the dishes. Call me when the thermometer beeps.”
“You went to the morning market for me, and you’re doing all the chores… I feel well looked-after!”
“I simply want you to get better as soon as possible. Everyone’s wishing you that.”
“I feel blessed! Hmm… Maybe I should just stay in bed today and enjoy getting spoiled!”
“Don’t be silly.”
Chisato, sitting on the futon with her legs crossed, smiled meekly.
“But it’s kinda nice to have people fussing over you, you know?” she said.
Maybe it was. Takina never really had people fussing over her, so she wouldn’t know. She thought that you had to have a special relationship with people to feel comfortable with letting them pamper you while you weren’t well… It was a privilege available only to special people. Takina, meanwhile, wasn’t special, like most people out there. She wouldn’t mention this to Chisato, though. An extraordinary person wouldn’t understand ordinary people’s feelings.
“Please just try to get better. You wanted to go with me to Spice Café, remember?”
“Oh yeah!”
“So focus on recovering,” Takina said and left the room. “Oh, actually…”
She had checked out Spice Café on the way to Kirakira Tachibana Shopping Street that morning. The café and the shopping street happened to be close to each other. Takina thought that if she and Chisato were going to visit the café someday, they might as well walk over to the shopping street afterward. It seemed like a good plan to her—if they were making the trip to that area, they might as well visit both attractions.
The walk was pleasant for Takina even when she went by herself, early in the morning. But a walk with Chisato would be even more enjoyable.
Takina turned on her heel and opened the door she’d just closed, eager to tell Chisato about her idea.
“Chisato, what do you think about—?”
“Hrrrngh!”
Chisato was frenetically rubbing the tip of the thermometer… What was she trying to do?
At first, Takina was simply confused.
“What are you doing with that, Chisato…?”
“Yikes!”
Chisato looked up, startled. The guilty look on her face told Takina everything.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Give her an inch, and she’ll take a mile,” Mizuki said with a jaded laugh, watching from a counter seat as Chisato ran around the café floor, serving customers. They were nearing the busiest time of the day.
Takina put her hands on her hips.
“Exactly,” she agreed, her voice betraying that she was really peeved.
She got Chisato to confess that she had actually been perfectly fine since having the udon soup after her nap the other day.
“Hey, guuuys! Can you do some work, too? I just recovered from a cold!” Chisato complained, but no one budged. Takina found her cries for help particularly unconvincing.
Chisato had admitted that once she felt fine, she waited for everyone to leave, and then she and Kurumi played video games until morning, eating kinako sticks. Knowing the true reason Chisato stubbornly rejected Takina’s offer to stay with her overnight was so she could play games made Takina rather upset.
But maybe she was overthinking it? After all, Chisato had told her she just didn’t want Takina to lose sleep on her account, as that’d be bad for her health. And Chisato would have felt guilty.
Takina could only guess at Chisato’s true motivations, but it was undisputably true that Chisato had deceived her. She had every right to be angry—at least that was what she believed. Chisato said she’d faked still being unwell to stay in bed after that all-nighter, but that was no excuse.
Chisato came over to the counter.
“I’m sowwy, mmmkay? I won’t do that again,” she said, puffing her cheeks angrily as if she was the victim there.
Again, everyone ignored her…with one exception.
Mika came out from the kitchen.
“Let’s not be so hard on her. Chisato apologized for what she did. Isn’t it time to forgive her?” he suggested with a strained smile.
“We need to be harder on her,” Takina objected. “We Lycoris are supposed to cultivate both mental and physical resilience, yet Chisato succumbed to a common cold, which proves that she’s been slacking off.”
“Takina has spoken!” Mizuki laughed.
Chisato pouted and mumbled under her breath, “Takina? More like Spartakina.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing!”
“Listen, you got unwell because you’re not taking care to maintain a healthy lifestyle. We can’t help staying up all night when we get assignments, but neglecting basic self-care and going to the movies right after a mission is the height of irresponsi— Cough!”
As one, Chisato, Mizuki, and Mika fixed their eyes on Takina.
“Huh…?”
Takina’s hand went to her throat. She had a funny feeling inside… And she thought she was feeling hot because she was angry, but maybe she did have a temperature…
“Er… Sorry, it’s just… Cough! Uh, excuse me…”
Mizuki let out a long sigh.
“Get your act together, both of you!”