Episode 51: Fifty Yen’s Worth of Happiness
Walking through the falling rain, sheltered under Yuno’s umbrella, we walked side by side.
“We’re here. This is it.”
Where Yuno pointed was a weathered, wooden apartment building.
Close to the alley. The mortar on the outer walls had flaked away in patches, the whole surface gone dark and grimy.
The iron railing had rusted to a reddish brown.
How many years had it stood. Built sometime in the Showa era, surely.
Climbing the stairs, the corridor’s floorboards groaned, sinking faintly with each step.
The creaking echoed through the dim hallway with every footfall.
Stepping into the second-floor room, a damp heaviness hung in the air — partly the rain, no doubt.
Yuno flicked the light switch, and the white fluorescent tube flickered, faint and crackling, before settling, dim, into a glow.
“Wait here a sec.”
She said it and pattered off toward the back, returning quickly with a towel.
Without ceremony, she started rubbing my head, brisk and thorough. Each pass of the towel carried a gentle scent of soap past my nose.
I looked up, and Yuno was peering down at me, watching closely. Behind those long lashes, her eyes narrowed, soft, and she gave a small laugh.
That nostalgic smile. My chest pulled tight. Unable to bear the closeness, I looked away, on reflex.
“…I’ll— dry it myself.”
I didn’t want her seeing my face, swollen from crying.
I took the towel from her, almost snatching it, and wiped the rain from my hair at the entrance.
“Take a shower?”
“Right, sitting around soaked isn’t great.”
“Yeah, you’ll catch cold. C’mon, this way.”
Yuno’s slender hand caught mine. Soft. Her fingertips were cool to the touch.
“Want to go in together?”
The moment she opened the bathroom door, Yuno tilted her head and asked, light as anything.
“No… I’ll go alone.”
Yuno just laughed, “okay, off you go then.”
I wasn’t nearly composed enough to bare myself completely after a reunion this sudden. And honestly, I wasn’t sure what would become of my own restraint if I saw Yuno undressed.
The shower took a while to warm, and I slowly thawed my rain-chilled body under it.
Next, Yuno said “my turn” and headed for the bathroom.
After a while, the door clicked open.
Eh……
Skin so pale it looked translucent, the soft round of her shoulder, the gentle swell of her chest, the smooth line curving from her waist.
Yuno stepped out, completely bare.
Maybe because she’d grown up some.
Far more sensuous than before.
If I kept looking, the image would burn itself into my eyes — I turned my face away, hurried.
Head down, I said, flustered:
“Wai— Yuno. Why would you just come out like that.”
“I’m always like this when it’s just me, habit. Ahah, sorry, sorry.”
She stuck her tongue out lightly, laughing, and rattled open the drawer of a well-worn paulownia wardrobe, pulling out underwear and clothes.
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“Ah, right, wait a sec.”
Yuno went to the kitchen and pulled something out of the fridge with practiced ease.
She set a frying pan on the burner, and after a few clicks of the igniter, a sizzling sound and the savoury scent of soy sauce drifted softly through the room.
Not sure where to sit, I settled myself, kneeling properly, in front of the small low table.
The room, only about six tatami mats, was old throughout — the walls, the tatami, all of it the kind of thing you’d only see in a Showa-era drama.
And yet it was kept carefully neat, with a kind of lived-in warmth to it.
“Here.”
Clink.
What she set on the table was tofu steak.
“I was about to eat too, so I made enough for both. Have some, if you’d like?”
Yuno lifted the corner of her mouth, soft.
I pressed my hands together, murmured “thank you for the meal,” small, and picked up my chopsticks.
The cotton tofu, browned just right, gave way softly under the chopsticks. Bringing it to my mouth, a firm texture wrapped in a gentle flavor spread over my tongue.
“…Delicious.”
Before I knew it, I’d said it aloud.
Something nostalgic, something that settled warm in the chest. A feeling that spread slowly outward from somewhere deep inside. An indescribable happiness filled my whole body, slowly.
My eyes stung, hot.
“Right? Fifty yen’s worth. I’ve gotten really into perfecting budget recipes lately.”
Yuno, looking pleased, took a bite herself, chewing happily, and added, as if in afterthought, “well, it’s also all I can afford,” with a bright laugh.
Honestly, it was more delicious than anything I’d ever eaten before.
More than the high-end steak dinners with clients. More than the Ginza restaurant dinners I’d had alone.
When was the last time I’d eaten a meal feeling this full, this satisfied.
“…Feels like it’s been a while, eating facing each other like this.”
“…Yeah.”
I thought back to all those days in the spacious apartment, sitting across the table from each other.
That we could be reunited like this again. Yuno, right there in front of me — I still couldn’t quite believe it.
More than anything — I was just glad she was alive.
She looked thinner than before, her color not quite right.
Life here surely hasn’t been easy.
It was me who forced this life on her.
I was the one who drove her out.
Thinking that, my chest clenched, tight.
Her small gestures, the way her drooping eyes narrowed, the tone of that sweet voice — all of it so dear, so achingly familiar, that something deep in my chest throbbed, painfully.
The feelings I’d tried to forget, tried to call settled and over, sealed away this whole time — surfaced again, effortlessly, all at once.
Ah. After all, I really do like Yuno.
I want to stay with her, always.
By the time I noticed, that feeling had already filled my whole chest.
Eating the tofu steak, all kinds of feelings churned together, indescribable.
My chest ached, and I fought desperately to hold back tears.