The next morning, I left Pochi and Tama in Yumoto-san’s care as usual. He said he’d tried showing the snake tail to a few different people around the village, but no one had been sure about what it was—he would try taking it to the vet in S-Town tomorrow. I guess he means Kimoto-san. Is his clinic open on Saturdays? If I can remember, I’ll ask him when he comes to drop the chickens off.
I went back to my mountain and tended to the fields. It was raining lightly. I think Aikawa-san’s snakes probably won’t have any trouble getting around outside with rain this mild.
I harvested cucumbers and komatsuna. The cucumbers became a salad, and I boiled the komatsuna. The main dish was samgye-tang. For other side dishes, the Chinese recipes I’d learned from Machiko-san were probably enough. I also went to check the river with Yuma. The water level was still pretty high, and even if it didn’t rain during the day, we could always get heavy rain at night, so I couldn’t be too optimistic about catching any crayfish.
“Might as well have the snakes go down to the river and catch some themselves...” I murmured. That’s probably why they’re coming along. After that, I spent some time pulling weeds and such until Aikawa-san’s truck arrived.
“Hello, Sano-san. Shame about the weather.”
“Hello, Aikawa-san. Yeah, I hate the dampness.”
Rin-san and Ten-san getting out of the truck was quite the sight to behold. Ten-san was riding in the truck bed, of course.
“Is your truck all right?” I asked. “Both of them at once must be a pretty heavy load...”
“It’s a bit of a problem actually. Luckily, I don’t go out with Ten that much.”
“I can see why.”
Aikawa-san smiled at Yuma. “Yuma-san, was it? Do you mind if my snakes eat bugs and stuff?”
Yuma lowered her head slightly. I guess she’s saying it’s okay. Also, I’m impressed he can tell the chickens apart.
“Crayfiiish,” the snakes chanted in unison. It was surprisingly wholesome.
Aikawa-san sighed. “You guys... Sorry, is it okay if we go see the river?”
“Well, the water level is considerably higher than usual, so it might be dangerous...”
“No worries there. Rin, Ten, he said it’s okay.”
The two snakes went slithering off toward the river. Wait, two snakes? One snake and a lamia? One and a half snakes and half a person? Gah, this is confusing!
“I’ll go with you just to check. If there’s no problem, we can leave them there and come back,” I said.
We all went down to the river. Aikawa-san and I kept our distance, but the snakes seemed to enjoy bathing in the river. True—I think I’ve heard that snakes can actually swim. The river level was higher than usual, but even then, it was only about up to our torsos. And this wasn’t downstream, so even if the water level rose, the current wouldn’t be strong enough to sweep someone away. Rin-san and Ten-san dove into the river and caught crayfish in no time. Which means there really must be a ton of them around if they can be caught that easily. That’s pretty worrying.
“Rin, Ten, I’ll be at Sano-san’s house.”
“Okay,” Rin-san answered. Ten-san was too busy diving his head into the river to look for more prey. I wasn’t too sure how much they ate, but regardless, they were clearly capable of getting rid of the crayfish. Hopefully we’ll get more fish and such when the crayfish population goes down.
On our way back, I told Aikawa-san about how I’d been to the chicken farm yesterday and they’d given me a sample of their samgye-tang.
“Samgye-tang, huh? Very nice. Well...other than the lingering smell of herbal medicine around the house...”
“Ah, right, I hadn’t thought of that. I’d better have the ventilation running at full power.”
Back at home, I headed to the kitchen. My house’s kitchen was visible from the entrance and also from the living room if you left the sliding doors open. I don’t really mind. In fact, I like how open and spacious it feels.
I served Aikawa-san some cucumber salad and tea while he waited.
“Come to think of it, Sano-san, this is the first time I’m eating your cooking.”
“Please keep your expectations low. It’s just an average single man’s cooking.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“Come on! I even asked you to keep your expectations low.”
I prepared a pan with the samgye-tang and started making the Chinese stir-fry I’d been taught yesterday. Apparently, the recipe worked out better if you deep-fried everything, but it still worked as a regular stir-fry, so that’s what I went with. I’m aware that I’m a bit sloppy.
The ingredients were shishito peppers (which were originally supposed to be bell peppers), potatoes (since it was a stir-fry, I cut them into thin slices), and eggplant. I’d first fry each of them lightly before stir-frying it all together.
I fried ginger, garlic, and green onions until fragrant, then added oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, salt, and some starch dissolved in water, mixed it until it was consistent, and added the vegetables I’d fried earlier. I coated them well with the sauce, let it simmer for a bit, and that was it. You didn’t have to let it simmer if you’d just deep-fried it all, but I didn’t want to deal with all the oil. This dish was called disanxian.
“That smells really good. Hard to believe this is all vegetables,” Aikawa-san said.
There was also boiled komatsuna. We clasped our hands together and dug in. The samgye-tang was really a lifesaver.
“Korean food and Chinese food are, uh, quite the combination, smell-wise...”
The meal was excellent, but the pungent smell started getting to us after we were done eating. I had to open all the windows.
“Do they sell this samgye-tang at the chicken farm?” asked Aikawa-san.
“It’s still in the experimental phase. They said they were looking for feedback.”
“I hope they can turn it into a product... Disanxian is also a great dish. Very nutritious, and it goes great with rice.”
“Agreed.”
I was glad and very relieved that Aikawa-san seemed to have enjoyed the meal. This is a bit too much effort to do every time, though.
“You were at Katsuragi-san’s place yesterday, right?” he asked.
“That’s right.” I’d rather not talk about that too much. “She invites me over every now and then. Must be craving company.”
“I can understand that. Living alone has its own merits, but...it is pretty lonely on your own. I guess that’s why I ask you to hang out with me so much.”
“That’s probably what it’s like for Katsuragi-san too.”
“I can relate.” Aikawa-san laughed. “By the way, you were planning to tear down those abandoned houses, right?”
“Ah...” That’s a topic I’d rather not think about too much. “Yes, I guess... Maybe not, like, all of them, but I don’t want them to attract any weird animals. Even if I were to ask someone to do that for me, there’s still a lot I’d have to get sorted.”
If I wasn’t mistaken, hiring someone to do it would set me back a million yen or so, which explained why so many mountains had abandoned houses still standing. I would have ignored them too if I wasn’t actually living here, but seeing those empty buildings nearby kind of bothered me.
“Shall I reach out to my hunting buddies? If you give them a free pass to your mountain during hunting season, they’ll probably be happy to help you with that.”
“Hunting season is...late autumn through spring, right? I guess I’m fine with that—as long as they don’t shoot my chickens, of course.” That was my main concern.
“You could also let them have your other mountain and stay away from this one. It should probably be fine as long as you take care to stay away when there’re people hunting.”
He’s got a point. “That’s a good idea, yeah. What about you? What do you do during hunting season?”
“Since I’ve got my own mountain, I have more than enough space to hunt. There’re plenty of hunters who don’t own mountains though, and I let them hunt on my other one.”
“I thought all hunters had their own mountains.”
“There’re also quite a few people who live near mountains or who got hunting licenses because they’ve had trouble with pests ruining their crops.”
“Huh. So maybe I should go with your idea and let them hunt on my other mountain. Though it’s a bit of a pain to get there.” Actually, does it even have an entrance? I know there aren’t any roads.
“You can get there through my other mountain, so I think that should be fine. Mine does have a gravel road, at least.”
“I see.”
“They’re all locals. I bet they’ll be pretty happy about it.”
“I hope so... Well then, can you ask them about it? And also let them know about my chickens.”
“Sure, I’ll try asking.”
Of course, just letting them hunt on my mountain wasn’t nearly enough to pay for their labor, so I’d still need to think of something else. Regardless, it would be a huge help to me. As long as I could get the houses torn down, I’d just need to deal with cutting the remains down to appropriate sizes and taking them to the garbage disposal site. Or, if pieces were still too big for the disposal site, hire someone to dispose of them for me.