“Sora, wanna have the somen that Mr. and Mrs. Kashiwagi gave us?” Fuuka asked as Sora came into the living room after a bath, drying his hair with a towel.
“Yeah, let’s do that. It’s a nice gift.”
Both the living room next to the kitchen and the bedroom next to the bathroom were Japanese-style rooms of around 140 square feet. There were also two more rooms upstairs—not that Sora and Fuuka had any particular need for them.
Sora had bought this house when he realized that his little brother was no longer a child and had somehow grown into a rather big adult—and a rather big dog. They just couldn’t make do with an apartment or a rental property anymore.
“Shimabara, huh,” Sora murmured, sitting crossed-legged in a T-shirt and sweatpants in the living room.
“Are you remembering something sad? Should we have Morioka reimen noodles from Iwate instead? There’s boiled eggs.”
Fuuka, who heard Sora’s voice darken, came over from the kitchen. Instead of the white silk attire he’d been wearing just after his return to human form, Fuuka had put on the black T-shirt and jeans that Sora had left for him in the bathroom. Fuuka flung his arms around Sora from behind.
“Wonder how those noodles came into the country,” said Sora. “It’s completely different from the reimen in Korean restaurants.”
The name Oushuu—which Sora had taken for his law firm as well as his current last name—originally stood for the entire land in the north, not just the city of Oushuu in present-day Iwate Prefecture.
“If you looked into it, I bet you’d find out why in a second,” said Fuuka.
Sora had chosen to settle in Shizukuishi because it was close to Shakujii Park, where he could take walks with Fuuka in dog form, and it was only a short train ride away from central Tokyo. But he’d been taken by the name of the town, too, which had ties to the north. That was why he’d bought this house despite the high price.
“I haven’t looked into what it’s like in the north nowadays,” Sora replied. “We can never go back, in any case.”
“You don’t want reimen? Then somen it is.”
“Wait. Um, Fuuka.”
Even though the house was far away from the train station, and rather old at that, it had still proved to be too expensive. Sora finally blurted out the secret he’d been keeping from his brother.
“Someone’s coming.”
“Now? Who? If we have a visitor, I’ll turn into a dog again. But can’t we have some somen first?” Fuuka’s face fell; he was sorry to miss the Shimabara noodles that he’d been looking forward to.
“The somen…? Well, that’s true—you can’t eat them if you’re a dog. But no, there’s someone coming to stay. A lodger.”
“Huh? What do you mean?” Fuuka peered into Sora’s face with wide eyes.
“We’re going to rent out the rooms upstairs, since we’re not using them.”
“Nooo!”
Sora had known Fuuka wouldn’t like it, of course, so he hadn’t been able to bring himself to break the news until now.
“It’s okay. I made sure the credit company looked for someone who met all our requirements, and there’s nothing personal in the transaction. The lodger will just live upstairs and go to work every day during office hours. I asked for someone who wouldn’t spend weekends inside, too.”
The credit company was to act as the point of contact between the lodger and Sora, including collecting the rent. Sora had presented an astonishing number of conditions for the tenant, including a penchant for outdoor hobbies.
“But why? Do we have to?!”
“Living here turned out to be more expensive than I expected. We’ve somehow pulled through for two years, but the maintenance costs are high, and I admit the new job hasn’t been taking off.”
Sora had left the Public Prosecutors’ Office after only two years and opened his own firm as a certified fraud examiner. He got a certification for it because he thought he’d be more suited for a job that didn’t involve criminal prosecution.
“My current project is nearly done, but I don’t have anything else lined up. I’m in a pickle.”
“But didn’t you like your old job?”
Fuuka still had no clue why Sora had quit in the first place.
“Well…”
Sora didn’t know quite how to reply.
As a public prosecutor, he’d had to deal with all kinds of criminal cases. When he was prosecuting cases that involved discrimination, violence, and murder, Sora’s own desires hadn’t sat well with the scope of the law, and he’d noticed his desire to act outside its limits.
“If it was a matter of liking or disliking it, then yes, maybe I liked it. The only problem was it wasn’t for me.”
Sora chose his current profession because he wouldn’t be anywhere near the death penalty. He was still conducting hearings, just as he had done in his previous work, but no one would die at the end of a corporate embezzlement case. For Sora, in his current state, that made a very substantial difference.
“I prefer the work I’m doing now, but there’s not much demand.”
He’d noticed too late that business corporations in Japan weren’t so eager to hire a certified fraud examiner, which was a profession that originated in the US. Japanese companies were completely averse to bringing a third party into their affairs.
“Then let’s move somewhere else. It’s pricey here, right? We’ve moved houses a hundred times before—why should we live with a stranger just to stay in this one?”
Fuuka bit his lip and shook his head like a little child, despite his mature features.
“I see your point, but…”
Fuuka was right. Before they’d settled here two years ago, the brothers had moved from one place to another countless times. Once, they even packed up and left after just a week in a new town, when small children in the neighborhood started gossiping excitedly about the big white dog transforming into a human being at night. Though Fuuka shouldn’t have been able to change into a human in front of other people, children seemed to be an exception. They could see time in a way that grown-ups couldn’t.
“Would you rather move out than live with a lodger, Fuuka?”
On the low dining table in the living room, the packs of Shimabara somen from the Kashiwagis sat in a row. It wasn’t the first time the old couple had given them something to eat. It was clear they cared a good deal about the young man living by himself with his big white dog.
“…I dunno.”
Fuuka noticed Sora gazing at the somen, and he flumped back on the floor with his arms and legs spread out.
“So you don’t wanna move, Sora? That’s something new, isn’t it?”
They had moved so many times in the past that their spacious house was almost empty, with only the bare minimum of clothes and food, alongside Sora’s books and tools of the trade in his office.
“Well, we did buy this house.”
Even the real estate company had thought Sora was a dubious customer. He looked younger than thirty, and the house seemed to be a purchase beyond his means. But he had paid for it all up front. Though he’d never settled in one place, he had gradually accumulated his savings in his frugal lifestyle. He’d invested all of it and made enough profit on the market to prepare the sum. His years of experience working part-time in Kabuto-cho—the Wall Street of Japan, where the Tokyo Stock Exchange and many security companies were located—paid off.
“I mean, I do like this house, too. It’s cozy and peaceful,” said Fuuka.
The house was a traditional Japanese-style home, built fifty years ago. Spacious but old, it was practically worth just the price of the land. That was another reason Sora could afford it. But they’d had to renovate the kitchen, bathroom, and more, so he ended up having to spend more than expected. It wasn’t easy for him to keep up their life.
“Do you remember Mother and Father, Fuuka?” Sora asked suddenly, bracing himself.
“Nope, not at all.” Fuuka’s light tone surprised him.
“Me neither.” Sora smiled wistfully. For some reason, relief washed over him, tinged with a slight loneliness.
Mr. and Mrs. Kashiwagi lived in the same neighborhood, two blocks away to the east, and they often asked Sora if he was eating enough. Perhaps Sora’s words when he moved in had left an impression on them—he’d meant to be modest when he mentioned that the house went over his budget—and ever since, they’d been concerned about whether he had enough to eat.
Sora wondered whether this was what having parents was like.
“I like them, too, the Kashiwagis,” Fuuka said, smiling. They rarely thought about their parents, so he guessed the couple was on his brother’s mind. “But I just can’t live with a total stranger.”
Fuuka had a point. Although Sora had asked the credit company to find “a trustworthy working adult who only comes back home to sleep,” there was a limit to how much a contract could restrict the lodger’s lifestyle. There were bound to be some occasions when the tenant and Fuuka would have to be home by themselves. For Fuuka, that would be a new experience.
“I’m always the only one in your life, Fuuka.” Deep down, Sora wanted Fuuka to have something different.
“I don’t need anything else,” Fuuka said casually.
Sora thought that was fine, but he also felt something had to change. Without thinking, he buried his face in Fuuka’s chest again and listened to his heartbeat. It was less something he did automatically and more like a compulsion.