Eating is one of the great pleasures of life.
That being said, the only ingredients I had were water and canned food, so I hadn’t eaten fresh meat or fish in quite some time. I often saw plants growing, but I couldn’t tell which were edible. All in all, I had a pretty unbalanced diet.
Darkness had fallen over the area. There were no streetlights, but the moon in the sky above cast a soft light over everything. My lantern was dimming, so I spun the handle on it. The rotation generated electricity, allowing me to also charge my phone a tiny bit.
I lined up my cans and looked over the labels by the lantern light. Of course, I couldn’t read the writing from this world, so I didn’t know what the labels said, but experience opening up various cans and looking inside meant that I could tell their general contents from the label’s size and design.
The can I’d picked for tonight held a dark-red sauce and lumps of meat. Its spiciness prickled at my nose, yet it also smelled slightly sweet. I picked up a lump of the meat with my chopsticks and put it in my mouth. It was sweet and sour, and also...
“Agh, hot!”
It stabbed at my tongue. Spiciness could taste nice, but this was just excessive. The meat—something like chicken—was pretty common in the cans here. This was the first time I’d tasted this sauce though; it reminded me of a chili sauce. It was spicy at least, and far hotter than I could enjoy.
As I pondered how to cook it, I lit the Svea, sending flickering red light up the wall of the station. I put a small pot atop the burner and emptied the chili chicken into it. Then I scooped up some water and used it to wash the remaining sauce from the can into the pot. It cleaned the can and also diluted the spice: two birds with one stone.
Two more familiar cans came out from my stockpile. One contained boiled beans, and the other some sort of pickled cabbage. Both of them went into the mix. I used a spoon to mix it all up and let it simmer. Once it was hot enough that the mixture was bubbling around the edges, I took a spoonful and tasted it.
I paused before uttering a nonplussed, “Well, yeah.”
About what I expected. That was the only phrase I had for it. It was just one of those tastes.
I took a small case out from the box and opened up the metal fasteners on it. An assortment of bottles and cylinders lay inside. This was my spice case of seasonings from this world.
I took out the sugar and added some to the pot along with some powdered stock, hoping that would bring out the flavor. Then I tossed in some chopped herbs and a pinch of salt, all of it by eye. This wasn’t a restaurant, and I was the only one who’d be eating it. I always cooked by instinct, and it usually turned out pretty well. The mixture simmered away, and I made sure it didn’t burn.
Eventually it thickened up, and when I fished out some cabbage with a spoon, it had softened. I blew on it and pulled it off the spoon. It was painfully hot on my tongue. I sucked in air to cool it and could then actually taste it.
It had a thick sweetness to it, and the sourness had abated. The flavor now had some depth, like you would get from dashi stock, probably because of the powdered stuff I’d used. It was far less spicy and much more pleasant on the tongue. My mouth still stung slightly after I’d swallowed, but it was a pleasant heat.
“I might just be a cooking genius,” I said with a serious expression.
Obviously I was just speaking to myself, and there was no one in this world to offer a retort. My dreams of a comedy double-act were dead on arrival.
I extinguished the stove and took out a cylindrical can. Inside was an evil, hard, plain-tasting bread that stuck to the inside of my mouth and sucked up all the saliva inside. This was the main base of my diet.
It was then that I heard splashing from outside my field of vision. I stiffened. People were naturally more on edge at nighttime; I could feel a chill run down my back as I grew warier. I tightened my grip on the can and looked out into the darkness. Shadows moved in the pale moonlight.
A sigh of relief passed my lips as I realized the figure in the lantern light was the artist girl. Her boots were dangling from the fingers of one hand as she climbed the stairs with a deadly serious expression on her face.
“Excuse me,” she said sharply. “That smell is bothering me.”
“Th-The smell? Sorry, does it stink?”
She shook her head and frowned angrily. A moment passed before she spoke.
“The tasty smell is bothering me. I can’t settle down.”
I’m sure I looked stupefied.
Then I burst into laughter. I tried squeezing the bread can to resist it, but that didn’t work too well. I wonder how long it’s been since I’ve laughed like this. I wiped the tears from my eyes and found her still looking unhappily at me, her expression almost childishly upset.
When I beckoned her over, she stepped out of the darkness cautiously, like a stray cat. Even then, she stopped where she was still out of my reach, positioned so she could run away immediately.
“Have you eaten yet?” I asked.
She took a can out from the pocket of the jacket she was wearing over her dress and showed it to me.
“Is that it?”
“Food is...precious,” she said after a hesitant pause.
I nodded in agreement. That was even more true in this station on the water.
The lantern light made her hair look ashen in a different way than the setting sun had. The way her hair seemed to change color with the lighting drew my eye.
“Want to eat together? I’m pretty sick of eating alone.”
At first, she said nothing.
Then, shaking her head, she answered, “No.”
She was gazing steadily at the pot even as she voiced that refusal. Then her stomach growled, and she immediately hunched over and held it.
“You didn’t hear that,” she told me.
“Nope, heard it loud and clear.”
“It was a bird,” she insisted after a sullen pause.
“Oh right, that’s fine then,” I agreed with her.
She just kept glaring at me.
“How about we trade then?” I suggested. “You give me that can, and I’ll share this chili chicken and vegetable stew. How ’bout it?”
“Ugh,” she groaned.
She looked for all the world like she was facing down a tough math problem. Her gaze wasn’t on me though—it was on the steaming pot. I exaggeratedly stirred the contents with my spoon and heard her sniff. After that, she was silent for a moment.
“I’ll agree to your terms,” she finally proclaimed.
It must have been a tough decision. I laughed again.
“Come over here then.”
I ferreted around in the box for a metal bowl and spoon. I usually just ate straight from whatever I’d cooked my food in, so it had been just as long since I last used the tableware as it had been since I last ate with someone.
I dished up some stew and she approached, still moving warily. She’d probably leap up and dart off if I startled her.
“I’m Keisuke. Who’re you?” I asked, passing her the bowl and spoon.
She looked at the offered food before glancing toward my face.
“Nito,” she answered eventually, putting her can on the floor and pushing it toward me before taking the bowl.
Her unwavering stubbornness was honestly adorable. She stared down into the bowl, and I stared at her. When she suddenly looked up and our eyes met, I turned to face the pot again.
I took the bread out of its can and sliced it up. It held the cylindrical shape of the can, making round slices. I took the pot off the burner before using the flame to toast the bread.
A quiet cry of surprise broke the silence. When I looked up, Nito was holding the hand grasping her spoon across her mouth, like she was surprised at herself.