How am I going to explain this? Would it be better not to go back at all? Or would that be even more selfish? My mind is going in circles as I check the time on my phone. It’s already two in the morning. I sigh, take a deep breath, and open the door of the karaoke bar. The doorbell rings cheerfully.
At the sound of the bell, she looks up from the glass she’s drying. “Well, if it isn’t our teen delinquent,” Miki says with a wry smile. The lights are turned down in the bar, and the customers are nowhere to be seen, although there’s a lingering scent of alcohol. Rumi slowly lifts her face from the counter where it was resting and turns toward me.
“…Suzume!”
She stands and runs over to me, while I reflexively hide the hand that’s holding Souta behind my back. Rumi’s exhausted expression stabs me through the heart.
“Where on earth did you go?!”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Do you know how worried I’ve been?! You disappeared in the middle of the night!”
“Now, now,” Miki intercedes from behind the bar as Rumi descends on me like a hawk. “She’s back safe and sound.”
“I know, but—”
“I ran away from home plenty of times myself.”
Just as I’m processing this new information about Miki, my stomach grumbles loudly.
“Sorry!” I say, pressing it with my palm. I’m blushing. Rumi sighs and shoots me a wry smile.
“…Anyway, how about something to eat?”
The three of us stand in the small kitchen and toss out ideas for what to eat. Ramen at this time of night isn’t exactly diet friendly, and yakisoba is just as bad. Ochazuke won’t make us guilty, but it won’t satisfy us, either. We should probably go with veggies. But wait, if we’re honest, aren’t carbs what we’re craving? Ultimately, we settle on fried udon noodles with plenty of vegetables thrown in.
“Well, that calls for a fried egg on top,” one of them says, and the other says she’ll take a mountain of pickled ginger. When they ask me how I want mine, I say we usually add potato salad at home. Silence. Then—
“You know, actually…”
“But what about the calories?”
“Like I said, isn’t that what we’re craving?”
This discussion leads us to an official menu of fried udon with potato salad and lots of vegetables, with fried eggs on top. Rumi warms up some sesame oil in a pan while I chop vegetables, and then she steams a few packages of plastic-wrapped udon in the microwave. While Rumi sautés the veggies, I sauté the udon. Miki takes out a bowl of potato salad the bar has on hand and plops a few big spoonfuls on top of the noodles. I mix them in with cooking chopsticks. We’re as efficient as the top team in home ec, talking and laughing the whole time.
“Thanks for the meal!”
We sit in a booth in the middle of the shop and eat our fried udon. Rumi and Miki both say it’s amazing, and I’m so proud, I could float off the cushions. Miki says it would taste even better with beer, so Rumi grabs some cans from the refrigerator and hands me a ginger ale. We clink our drinks together in a toast. The bubbly, cold liquid washes the heavy fried noodles down nicely. I feel like I could go on eating and drinking forever. After we demolish the noodles, we get out some of the spicy potato chips, shredded dried squid, and camembert cheese they serve at the bar. I feel like I’m at the wrap party for a school festival. Rumi’s a third-year, Miki’s a second-year, and I’m the newbie first-year. Their showy dresses look like festival costumes. The dim bar with its yellowish indirect lighting is like a decorated classroom after school.
I glance over and see the kiddie chair standing against the wall like an aloof, handsome older student lost in thought. I get up from the booth and lean close to him.
“Souta, come hang out with us!”
“Me?” he whispers. I pick him up before he can disagree. “Hey, what are you doing?” he protests. I ignore him and set him next to the table, then sit on him.
“!”
He gasps. The three-legged chair doesn’t so much as creak beneath my full weight. I can hear him muttering “Come on, now” behind my back.
“Oh, what’s that?”
“It’s cute! Is it a kiddie chair?”
“Why’d you get it out?”
“Um…to remember Kobe by,” I answer honestly.
Rumi and Miki giggle and say they have no idea what I mean. We take a picture together with the chair, and then I quickly wash the dishes using the clean-up skills I’ve perfected over the past two days. I can almost hear the others call out, See you tomorrow at school!
And just like that, the party’s over.
“I bet they think you’re a weird kid!” Souta says, laughing. I’m lying down in the booth where we ate the fried udon, and he’s sitting next to my pillow. Rumi let me take a shower and lent me a blanket, and now I’m about to fall asleep, dressed in a T-shirt.
“Because I sat on a kiddie chair?”
“Because you disappeared and then showed back up in the middle of the night.”
“You could be right.”
Rumi and Miki—and Chika, too—are so easygoing. They couldn’t care less about another person’s eccentricities. It’s like they understand completely that everyone lives in their own world. I’ve only been away from home for two days, but my life has already become so much more vibrant.
“Souta, do you always travel around like this?” I ask, thinking it sounds like a pretty nice way to live.
“Not always. I have an apartment in Tokyo.”
“You do?”
“I’m planning to become a teacher when I graduate from university.”
“Wow,” I say, looking over at him.
“What?” he says, looking back.
University? Really?
“No way!! You’re a university student?!”
“Yes, and?”
“And you’re going to get a job? But what about being a Closer?”
So he’s not a professional wanderer?! My mind is suddenly scrambling as the poker-faced chair starts talking like a normal human. I can hear the smile in his voice when he answers.
“Closing doors is something my family has been doing for generations, and we’ll keep doing it for generations more. But it doesn’t pay the bills.”
“Oh.”