“—You’re in Ehime?”
I can hear Tamaki’s shock over the phone.
“Wait just a second now, Suzume!”
Behind her disbelieving voice, I can faintly hear other phones ringing and low voices talking. It’s almost nine at night, but Tamaki is still at the fishing cooperative office.
“But you told me you were staying at Aya’s house last night!”
“Um, well, I suddenly had the idea to go on a little trip…,” I say as cheerfully as I can, adding a laugh at the end.
“How can you laugh about this?!” she snaps. I can see her in my mind’s eye. She’s in that retro cooperative building I visited once on a school trip, sitting at her gray desk, holding the phone and frowning anxiously.
“You’ll come back tomorrow, won’t you? Where are you staying tonight?”
“Don’t worry—I have enough savings to pay for a room!”
“That’s not what I’m asking!”
In the background, I hear someone say, “Minoru, we’re going drinking.” “You go ahead. I’m going to invite Tamaki.” I imagine Minoru, too. The men from the fishing cooperative are watching Tamaki get mad and making stupid jokes about how I’m in my rebellious phase.
“The point is, I need you to tell me where you’re staying tonight. A hotel? An inn? You’re really alone, right? You’re not with someone I don’t know?”
Click. I reflexively hang up. Oh, I can just see it. She’s looking at the picture of me as a little girl that she keeps on her desk and sighing. I heave a dramatic sigh myself. If I leave things like this, worst case scenario, she might call the police. Why, oh why didn’t I come up with a better alibi yesterday? Who put things off and left me in this position? Past me, of course. Now, now, supporting the mental health of your caregiver is a child’s duty, I tell myself as I type out a message in LINE.
“Sorry for hanging up on you!” Send.
“I’m doing great!” Send.
“I’ll be home soon!” Send.
“Don’t worry about me!” Send.
Cute sticker of a cat bowing its head in apology. Send.
Bam, bam, bam. Five “message read” notifications appear. The speed of her response weighs on me. I heave another tired sigh.
Knock, knock! Without warning, someone bangs on the door right next to me.
“Yes?” I stand up straight and open the door.
“Dinner is served!” says Chika. She’s dressed in her inn uniform as she hands me my tray of food with a smile.
When I emerged from the blockaded road covered in mud and carrying the kiddie chair, Chika was kind enough not to ask too many questions. She did ask if I had a place to stay that night. When I answered honestly that I was looking for one, she smiled and said, “This is your lucky day! My family runs an inn. You must have been destined stay with us tonight!”
As she sped down the road, she scolded me to hold on tighter, not even caring if I got mud all over her school tracksuit. I clung tight and stared at the back of her neck, suddenly realizing how scared she must have been waiting alone on that dark road. I apologized about ten times.
She also granted my most ardent wish—to finally take a bath. I scrubbed off all the mud and sweat and whatever else was stuck to me in the inn’s roomy shared bathing area, then submerged myself in the deep, hot water. As predicted, several patches of skin were not happy. I was beyond the point of knowing whether they were sunburns or scrapes. I washed my uniform in a corner, put on the crisp, pale-pink yukata Chika was kind enough to lend me, and went to the room she had set up for me. Now she was bringing me my dinner on a tray.
“Oh, wow, thank you!” I say, my eyes growing hot behind the lids. At the same moment, I realize I’m so hungry it hurts.
“Do you mind if I eat here with you?” Chika asks.
“Oh, no, of course not!” I say, overjoyed. But… “Only, sorry, can you wait just one second?”
I shut the door, cross the little entryway with a sink in a single step, and open the noisy sliding door to the main room. Souta, who’s standing in the middle of the room, looks up at me.
“What should I do?” I ask him.
“You two eat together,” he says. I can hear the smile in his voice. “It seems I don’t get hungry in this body.”
He walks over to a corner of the large room and turns toward the wall.
“Don’t worry about me.”
Reassured by his cheerful tone, I tell Chika to come in.
Chika tells me that the huge fish practically falling off the sides of our plates is salt-grilled largehead hairtail. The skin makes an appetizing crackle when I break it open with my chopsticks, while steam rose from the fluffy white flesh. I take a big piece and set it on my rice bowl, then carry it to my mouth with some of the rice.
“This is so good…!” I say despite myself. It is really, truly delicious. As the light, sweet flavor of the fat spreads through my mouth, I can tell my whole body is rejoicing. Before I realize what’s happening, something hot is spilling from my eyes.
“Suzume, are you crying?!”
“It’s just so delicious…”
Chika laughs happily. We push our trays together and sit across from each other as we eat.
“You really must have been hungry,” Chika says, sounding impressed. “We had some unexpected guests tonight, so it took me longer than usual to bring up dinner. I’m sorry!”
“What?! No, please don’t apologize!” I say, suddenly polite in the face of her unbelievable hospitality. “I’m the one who should apologize. Not only am I taking up a room, you even let me use the bath, gave me a yukata, and fed me!”
“It’s nothing, honestly. This is what my family does for a living.”