“I-I’m Himari’s older brother, Shoma. This is Kanba,” I managed, with some difficulty.
I hoped that I would finally get a break today, but at this rate, inevitably, the mission continued.
It was a strained, uncomfortable dinner. There was someone in our parlor who was not Uncle Ikebe, and the fact that it was Oginome Ringo made it difficult to breathe.
Presently, the girl in question was in the kitchen cooking with Himari, smiling and chatting.
“How the heck did this happen?” I asked Kanba in a low voice, widening my eyes.
“Don’t ask me,” he said, casually flipping down a picture frame atop the cupboard. It was a photo of our whole family.
I pretended that I hadn’t seen him do it.
“Sorry for the wait!” Himari entered the room with a grin upon her face, carrying a pot. “I bet you’re hungry. Today we’re having a specialty apple honey curry!”
There it was, the long-awaited curry. Himari must have been some kind of genius, to have such timing in choosing a curry for tonight’s menu. Both our stomachs growled on cue, and our faces went red.
Himari chuckled at us, and swiftly served up the curry with Oginome Ringo’s help.
“Oh, maybe I should’ve made a salad, too?” Himari said absently.
“This is plenty, Himari,” I warmly replied.
And so the Takakura Curry Evening began.
“Mm, the meat is so tender and tasty. You’re really good at cooking, Ringo-chan.” Himari seemed to be in high spirits.
“Not really, all I can make is curry. My mother taught me how, a long time ago,” Oginome Ringo replied solemnly.
“Hmm. It must be nice, having your mom teach you things,” Himari said with a smile, though her expression was clearly clouded.
“This curry really is good. Himari, how’d you know I’d been craving curry all day?” I asked, as brightly as I could muster.
“That’s because we’re family,” she said with a grin. “Right, Ringo-chan?” She tilted her head, her spirits renewed.
“Yeah.” Oginome Ringo’s voice was soft in reply. She gently placed her spoon down upon the table. “You live a happy life, Himari-chan.”
“Happy?”
“You get to eat curry with people you love. That’s what eating curry is all about.”
“Is that so?” Himari tilted her head further.
Oginome Ringo nodded once, a lonesome look upon her face.
“Ringo-chan… Y’know, Ringo-chan, I’m happy that I get to eat curry with you. You’re my special friend, after all,” Himari said bashfully.
I was moved at what a kind and gentle person our little sister was.
“It really has been a long time since we’ve had a guest over. Right, Sho-chan?” Her wide eyes peered straight at me.
“Ah, yeah, a really long time.”
“So, you’re always welcome. Any time you have to eat alone, just come over here, we’ll eat together!” said Himari, innocent as a little child.
“Yes, thank you,” Oginome Ringo replied, with a slightly bewildered smile.
Himari seemed thrilled. Having female friends probably was a necessity for a girl. I wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that this particular friend happened to be Oginome Ringo, but I supposed it was fine for now. Even Oginome Ringo probably didn’t do weird things all the time, and as long as she didn’t have a bad influence on Himari, this would probably be good for her.
“By the way, how did it go?” Kanba asked abruptly, having finished all his curry and now plucking off the grains of rice stuck to his mouth to eat.
I looked at him in shock. What was he doing? Oginome Ringo seemed to have no idea what we had been doing, and her finding out would be a problem. Plus, if we were discovered, Himari would lose a friend.
“You had some important errand today. You had a plan, didn’t you?”
For a moment, Oginome Ringo stared at my brother in silence.
My face twisted up nervously. Himari looked confused.
Was Kanba trying to feel her out? Even so, this was as good as asking her straight to her face, wasn’t it? He stepped out onto the stage.
Sometimes, I had no idea what Kanba was thinking, and not just when it came to dealing with girls. This was only natural, as we were not the same person, but sometimes he felt so different from me, it was like he was a completely different species. Not that this made it any easier to shrug off.
“It was fine,” Oginome Ringo replied straight away.
I was shocked. She answered him as though this was a completely normal question.
“Things went a little off course, but it’s fine for today. Everything is still going just as written.”
Just as written? What did she mean by that? I looked to Kanba, the interrogator, but he did not appear to have any idea, either.
Oginome Ringo nodded, self-assured, and continued, “Yes, that’s what’s most important. Bringing about the words engraved by fate is the reason I was born, and my most important mission. I am going to see this through.”
Oginome Ringo was fired up now, and Himari watched her, intrigued. To both Kanba and I, this girl—now fully confident, the opposite from before—was an even more inscrutable creature than the penguins. We looked to each other, finding that both of our mouths were hanging open dumbly.
Ringo swayed on the train, wearing her own clothes, now warm and dry, and a pair of too-big sneakers borrowed from Himari’s brother. As she dangled her feet, the shoes flopped around amusingly.
She slowly pulled her phone from her bag and drafted a text to her mother.
“Mama: I ate curry with a friend tonight. It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten curry with someone. But really, it’s family—” was as far as she got, before stopping, and erasing the word, “family.”
“But really, it’s at home that eating curry tastes best.”
She took out her diary and opened it carefully.
She stared at the line that read Tabuki-kun eats my homemade curry, and then muttered, “It’s destiny,” before generously reapplying her red-tinted lip balm. She hadn’t been able to let Tabuki see her lips tonight.
The train continued intently along its dark, lengthy road, toward the station where Ringo’s home was. Even this dark rail, seeming to stretch on for eternity, had to end somewhere. Perhaps that was its fate, decided sometime in the distant past. Or perhaps it was something that everyone had all unconsciously decided.
Yuri. Even that woman’s lips had been vibrant. They were soft-looking, and glittered in a pale and delicate way, in a way that tinted lip balm could not compete with. She smelled sweet.
Ringo let her head loll back onto the headrest and gently shut her eyes, while the darkness passed outside her window.