“Oh yeah. That soup flavored with your soy sauce and that char siu pork—man, they were out of this world!” Tamuramaro, also guilt-ridden, sounded like he was trying too hard to please.
From time to time, Sora and Tamura sneaked into Ichirou and Tarou to enjoy some ramen—not the homemade “authentic-style” ramen, but the real deal. In fact, for lunch that very day, they had found themselves slipping into Ichirou to have some soy sauce ramen after meeting at Natsuki’s office to do the final check on Odajima’s article.
“You sound weird, Tamuramaro.” Fuuka sniffed at him even though he was in his human form, sensing the smell of something tasty.
“Nah, I’m okay. By the way, aren’t you getting cold in that outfit? Want me to look for a winter version?” Tamuramaro attempted a smooth segue into another subject. As he spoke, he glanced down at an app on the tablet in his hand, which he’d been constantly keeping an eye on these days.
“Is it cold? If you say so, maybe I am?” Sora tilted his head and looked down at his blue clothes. “Time to make hot pot again. Now that I’ve learned how to make chicken stock, it’s fun to make the soup. Ms. Tatsuko said she uses scallions and ginger, but I don’t put them in ’cause I feel like the meat my brother buys for us these days doesn’t smell.”
“Now that you say it, I think so, too.” Tamuramaro nodded. He’d been cooking for himself sometimes, so he knew what Fuuka was talking about.
“You’re right,” Sora joined in. “When we started living by ourselves forty years ago, we didn’t have any money, so we got whatever we could get our hands on—the kind of food you couldn’t eat if you didn’t prepare it properly. I don’t really see things like that in the stores these days.”
Now all the products in the shopping street and supermarkets looked clean and decent with meticulous expiration dates. Perhaps that was thanks to the development of the distribution system and technology.
“After we left your place, you know, we didn’t have any money, but we couldn’t help getting hungry,” Sora added to Tamuramaro, who was listening quietly to their conversation.
“When you think about it, our current state really is a curse.”
“Tell me about it. In the beginning, I managed to find some work each day, and I’d cook for both of us, although I was pretty clumsy. After a while, Fuuka started cooking for us while I was out, and he’d be waiting for me with dinner. He said he had plenty of time on his hands.”
“Wow, Fuuka.”
“I messed up a lot at first, though, burning things and making it too salty and stuff,” Fuuka said.
With hands that had only just started to grow, he had chopped vegetables into pieces that were too chunky, and his flavoring was trial and error. Even so, he kept trying for forty years, teaching himself to manage everything in the kitchen.
“It made me so happy when Sora liked my food.”
Fuuka looked back at that time forty years ago when the two of them had begun their new life on their own. Of all his 1,200 years of memories, that one felt the most distant.
“I wouldn’t have minded if those days went on forever.”
These days, there was something lonely and sad about Fuuka’s expression. Sora wondered when it had begun and what had triggered it, but nothing came to him. He couldn’t be sure what was on Fuuka’s mind. But he liked Fuuka even more now, more than he had when they were an inseparable pair. He wanted to stay with him more than ever before. He wanted to know what Fuuka was thinking. It’s because we’re starting to live our separate lives, Sora told himself with conviction.
“We never used to talk about the past when we were by ourselves, Fuuka.” Sora suddenly realized that his brother had been talking about many more things lately.
“Fuuka’s reading a lot of books during the day now,” Tamuramaro remarked, thinking about how important that really was. “Maybe he’s learning how to articulate his feelings because of all the words and stories that he’s taking in.”
“What does that mean, ‘ar-tic-u-late’?”
“Ah, sorry, Fuuka, hang on a second.” Tamuramaro looked at his tablet and stood up. “I better get the car.”
Sora sensed what was happening and rushed toward the door with him.
“Woof?” Fuuka transformed into a white dog, even though there was no one else in the house.
“Sora!”
They heard Natsuki shout from behind the front door. She had apparently pushed through the small gate by force.
Sora and Tamuramaro exchanged a glance. Tamuramaro was already at the door, with Sora close behind. As soon as they opened the door, still shoving on their shoes, they saw Natsuki standing there in a sweatsuit.
“Mr. Odajima’s gone missing! He’s not picking up at all!!” she cried. “Oh! Mr. Tamura! What are you doing here?!”
Her eyebrows rose as she took in Tamuramaro in his jacket, standing in the doorway next to Fuuka the dog. Neither Sora nor Tamuramaro had told her about his lodging situation, since it was obviously inconvenient for the case.
“Just stopping by for dinner after we looked at the article together. Anyway, what was that about Chairman Odajima?” Tamuramaro said quickly, looking at the tablet in his hand.
“You could’ve called me…” Sora checked the history on his phone, which he’d had close to him the whole time. “I guess you panicked, Ms. Natsuki.”
“We live so close anyway, and I’m really worried. I know it’s not like him to run away!”
“As his consulting lawyer, I had the same understanding. So, of course, I hid a GPS tracker device on him.”
That was what he’d been checking on his tablet: Odajima’s current location.