Episode 15

Despite all the layers I was wearing, the wind on my face was cold, and my body had started registering its complaints. I hunched my shoulders inward as if that might hold the shivering in.

Fujishiro, walking beside me, had gone expressionless without my noticing. Even she apparently found the cold hard going — she couldn’t manage a smile.

We reached the convenience store in a few minutes, and I let out a quiet breath of relief stepping into the warmth inside. My part-time pay was thin this month, so I needed to cut back on food. Which meant I’d genuinely just followed Fujishiro here without any intention of buying anything.

“What do you want to eat, Morishita?”
“I said I don’t need anything.”
“You do. It’s bad for you not to eat.”
“You don’t get to worry about me.”

Those cold words made Fujishiro go quiet.

Good — finally, I thought, the annoying one had settled down. Then an unexpected line came from her direction.

“Then I’ll cook for you.”
“Please don’t. I don’t have enough lives for that.”
“You’re mean.”
“Just go and buy your own dinner, Fujishiro.”

At that she seemed to give up, and started choosing something. Looking at all the good food in the store was becoming painful, so I decided to wait outside.

Fujishiro came back out in a few minutes, and we walked back to her apartment side by side.
When we got there she warmed up her bento normally enough — but then she started doing something I hadn’t anticipated.

“What are you doing?”
“Cooking practice.”

A low sound almost escaped me.
Her words genuinely startled me that much.

‘Even I can make tamagoyaki (omelette), can’t I?’
‘Tamagoyaki is way too advanced for Fujishiro to manage.’
‘Just shut up, Morishita. Let me do as I please.’

She had a point.
Being told that by Fujishiro was the first time I’d noticed how much I’d been talking at her.

Who am I to interfere with someone like this…

I’d let my guard down far too much. But that wasn’t a reason to keep interfering with her — I reminded myself inwardly to stop.

Fujishiro was knocking an egg awkwardly against the rim of a bowl, trying to crack it.

I’d just decided not to say anything — and yet what she was doing was not something I could let pass in silence.

The egg cracked and the shell fell straight into the bowl. That happened three times.
The yolk spread through the white with a soft, wet sound, and picking out all the shell hidden beneath it looked like it was going to be a real hassle.

Fujishiro was making a concentrated face as she fished out the pieces with clumsy fingers. Then, apparently satisfied, she gripped her chopsticks in her fist rather than holding them properly and began stirring the egg in the bowl with what sounded like it might produce a grinding noise.

The sight was so thoroughly incompetent that I’d passed beyond exasperation and irritation entirely.

A warmth was slowly seeping out from somewhere around my stomach.

“Hahaha! How clumsy can you actually be, Fujishiro.”

I didn’t know what it was that caught in me.

I simply couldn’t not laugh at someone this hopelessly clumsy trying with everything they had. It was rude, but — a person this unskilled putting in such genuine effort was just funny.

I reckon Fujishiro is not that different from me, she’s just as clumsy.
Just an ordinary schoolgirl.
No, actually, she’s even less than ordinary.

Good at studying, well-liked, pretty — but terrible at cooking, almost no practical life skills whatsoever.

I’d thought she lived in a different world from me. And yet this Fujishiro, no different from me, had made something that felt unexpectedly like closeness.

When my laughter faded, she was staring at me with wide eyes, frozen like a statue.

“So that’s how you laugh.”
“Is it weird?”
“No. I was just surprised.”
“Oh.”

I took the bowl and chopsticks from her. I relaxed my wrist and beat the egg gently, softly.

The yolk and white that had been separated slowly came together, harmonising into a pale yellow liquid. I glanced at Fujishiro beside me and she looked quite astonished.

“Did you see that?”
“Yes.”
“Try it the same way.”

I held the bowl out to her and she took it with wide eyes, copying my movements. She was copying, but still completely clumsy.

“Do you have milk?”
“I do, why?”
“Can I use some?”

I opened the fridge, took out the milk, and poured in a measured amount. “Beat it,” I said, and Fujishiro silently worked the egg the way I’d shown her, opening and closing her mouth repeatedly as if she was about to say something and then thinking better of it. It looked as though she was hesitating to ask me something.

“Is there something you want to say?”
“Um… can you actually cook, Morishita…?”
“I can’t.”
“Oh. It’s just you looked like you knew what you were doing…”

The Fujishiro who asked that so carefully was unlike the usual Fujishiro. But it was her version of consideration, I thought.

“I practised once.”
“Practised…?”
“I don’t want to do it anymore, though.”

When I said that, Fujishiro didn’t press any further.

I felt relieved she hadn’t pushed into it.

Once the egg was beaten, Fujishiro put the pan on to heat — and unfortunately she went straight for high heat.

I thought about telling her low heat was better when you weren’t used to it, but decided that was one more interference I didn’t need to make, and just watched from the side.

The moment she poured the egg into the pan it spattered and spread with a vigorous hiss.

Fujishiro stirred it with a composed expression.

I’d thought the same thing the last time she cooked — Fujishiro doesn’t panic, no matter how bad things get. That’s a good quality, but right now a little more urgency might have been appropriate.

What was being stirred at that leisurely pace was looking less like tamagoyaki and more like scrambled eggs.

“Doesn’t this look great?!”
“Just get it on the plate before it burns.”
“You’re right!”

Fujishiro hurriedly transferred the crumbling egg pieces onto a plate.

The Fujishiro facing that frying pan was so openly, simply having fun — nothing like the composed version I knew from school.

What had come out was unmistakably just scrambled eggs. But at least there was no burning, which was significant progress.

I’d said I wasn’t going to eat anything, but I was made to sit at the table anyway, and placed in front of me were dry scrambled eggs.

Fujishiro sat down across from me, smiling.

Looking at that face, something pricked faintly in my chest.

When I made food for my mother for the first time, was my face like that…?

‘There’s no way I can eat something this disgusting’!
‘I’m sorry…’.
‘Even if you try, Mei-chan, it doesn’t make anyone happy. You really are useless’.

I had tried so hard, and the thing I’d made with real care hadn’t pleased my mother at all.

The home economics teacher at school had told me what matters is that you put your heart into it, so I had — and it still wasn’t good enough.

That was one of the moments when I stopped being able to believe anything adults said.

Everyone lies…

“Morishita~?”

A girl’s voice, and I startled and looked up.

Fujishiro was watching me with a worried expression. In front of me the chaotic pile of egg was still sitting there unchanged.

Is this any way to serve someone dinner.
I wanted to say I wasn’t here to deal with the leftovers of Fujishiro’s failed cooking — but I kept my mouth shut.

What had I wanted my mother to say to me, back then?
What had I been looking for from her?

I moved chopsticks to my mouth, picking up the crumbling yellow pieces.

Not good. Obviously.
Thinking back now — Fujishiro hadn’t added any seasoning. So the taste was exactly what I’d expected.

And apparently I hadn’t found all the shell after all. In my mouth, grit crunched against my teeth.

Fujishiro was peering at me anxiously, her expression waiting for something.

“How is it…?”
“Not bad.”
“Right.”

She probably wanted a different answer. Something like it’s good or you did well — if I could say things like that naturally, it would be easier. But I’m not skilled enough to lie, and I don’t know what the right words are for a moment like this either.

I glanced at Fujishiro, and she was happily eating her own cooking. But the moment the egg entered her mouth, her brow creased.

“Ugh. I forgot to season it.”
“It tastes like plain egg, right?”
“Sorry, I’ll go get salt and pepper—”
“It’s fine as it is.”

I scooped the rest of the egg into my mouth.

Yellow crumbles that tasted only of egg filled my stomach.

“…Morishita, you’re so kind, aren’t you?”
“In what way?”
“In all kinds of ways. Thank you.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“You ate everything. It makes me want to try again.”
“Please don’t. You’ll actually give me a stomach ache one day.”
“You really have no tact at all!”

Angry — but the girl across from me was smiling with flushed cheeks.