Episode 4

A streetlight was flickering, casting an unsettling pulse over the road. And down that road, I was walking with a girl I’d only met the night before.

Any way you looked at it, this was strange.

On top of that, eating that bizarre rice ball had my stomach in a bad state ever since.

We stopped at a supermarket a short walk away.

Fujishiro was standing in front of the vegetable aisle with an air of great discernment, staring down the produce. She was saying things like I need to pick a good one — but I couldn’t see how any of them would make a difference.

“What are you making?”
“Haven’t decided. Actually, onigiri is the only thing I can make.”
“Are you joking?”

I genuinely thought I was being mocked.
Something of my real irritation must have got through, because Fujishiro gave me a breezy sorry, sorry and moved on.

“Is there anything you want to eat, Morishita?”
“Nothing. And I’m not eating.”
“I’m going to all this trouble practising — you have to eat.”
“If I eat anything else you make, I’ll die.”
“I’ll work really hard to make something proper this time, so……”
“Fine.”

It wasn’t something I should have cared about — and yet somehow, Fujishiro seemed to have less of her usual energy than before. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I felt as though I had. Shoulders dropping slightly, I walked the aisles beside her, keeping a distance that was neither close nor far.

The girl a few steps ahead carried the shopping basket quietly.

“Hey, um……”
“Yeah?”

Fujishiro began to speak, her voice heavier than usual — and despite the cheerful music filling the shop, a heaviness settled between us.

“Why did you eat the whole rice ball?”

The air around me grew heavier still.
I didn’t have an answer. I genuinely didn’t know myself.

“I was just hungry.”
“Right.”

She didn’t push it further.

I couldn’t tell what she’d wanted to know, or what she’d been hoping to get from the question. More than anything, what I still couldn’t figure out was why a girl who couldn’t cook had made a rice ball and been waiting at that park in the first place.

“Why did you make the rice ball?”
“I already said. I need you to build up your strength for me.”
“You’re an idiot.”

One thing I now understood clearly: Fujishiro was the kind of idiot you couldn’t have a proper conversation with. I gave up on that prospect and drifted through the aisles.

For some reason it was me scanning the shelves on both sides — and something caught my eye.

“Even Fujishiro could make this.”

It was one of those kits — stir-fry the vegetables, pour in the sauce at the end, done. Fujishiro scurried over to peer at the packet.

“Morishita, you’re actually useful.”
“Why are you talking down to me.”

Mildly irritated, I dropped the packet into her basket, gathered the few ingredients listed on the back, and we left the supermarket.

Only our footsteps on the empty road. The silence was so complete that the sound of them rang out like instruments.

We came into a residential area, and Fujishiro disappeared through the entrance of a building that stood out among its neighbours — visibly, unmistakably expensive. I straightened my back unconsciously and followed her inside, somewhere I’d never been before.

Her apartment was at the far end of the seventh floor.
She unlocked the door and beckoned me in. I swallowed, and stepped inside.

My first impression of the room was that it was almost too clean — the kind of place that made you wonder if anyone actually lived there.

It was late enough that a family could easily have been home. But there was no sense of anyone.

There was plenty I was curious about, but staring around someone else’s home seemed rude, so I kept my eyes on her as she moved.

Fujishiro set her things down by the sink and began getting ready. I approached with my school bag still on my back.

She turned to me with that strangely artificial expression on her face — the constructed one — and said, you can put your stuff over there.

I didn’t know exactly what it was that grated on me.

“I don’t like that face. Don’t smile like that.”

Fujishiro’s expression was the same one my mother put on for everyone who wasn’t me. That was what I couldn’t stand.

Whatever edge was in my words seemed to reach her, because her eyes began to wander.

“I wouldn’t have guessed someone so invisible at school could be this blunt. Morishita, you’ve actually got a cute face — you should be more careful with how you talk.”
“I don’t care what anyone thinks of me.”
“Must be nice. I really do want you to be the one to kill me, Morishita.”

Why did Fujishiro want that?
I couldn’t understand it. And I couldn’t keep up with the way her feelings seemed to shift and turn at every moment.

“Fujishiro — are you smart and also an idiot?”
“Maybe.”

A girl with a vaguely lonely look on her face.
But her hands kept moving even while she spoke, so perhaps she was more capable than she seemed.

“Come make it with me, Morishita.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to. You’re the one who wants to practise.”
“Those who do not work, neither shall they eat.”

She grumbled loudly at me, then smoothly relieved me of my bag and pulled me toward the kitchen by the hand.

Her hand was warm today.
Wrapped in that warmth, my own hand grew warm too.

— wait, why was I at Fujishiro’s place again?

Me, one of the least visible people in my class — here with someone famous across the whole year level.

A fairly absurd picture, come to think of it.
Not something I could tell Ran, let alone anyone else at school.

Fujishiro was locked in a staring contest with the instructions on the packet. I leaned over to look too. There was nothing remotely puzzling about the steps — I couldn’t fathom what she was struggling with.

“Have you ever used a kitchen knife, Fujishiro?”
“I’m good with knives.”

The girl who had no business holding a knife was gripping one with sharp confidence, in a way that already looked dangerous. She began cutting vegetables on the chopping board with a technique that was genuinely alarming.

I’d intended to simply watch — but the scene in front of me was so staggering that I had to question whether I was dreaming.

The knife was plunging straight down into the cabbage and getting stuck, over and over, without actually cutting through anything. The level of incompetence was so complete it seemed deliberate.

What on earth made her think she was good with knives? I shut my eyes, unable to watch.

I could already see the future — Fujishiro slicing off a finger in front of me.

Well. That was fine, I guess.
Not my problem.

I opened my eyes slowly.
Fujishiro was still battling the cabbage.

It was well past eleven at night. At this rate, midnight would come and go before anything was finished.

No matter how long it took, Fujishiro didn’t stop.
Thirty minutes. For cabbage and capsicum.

A genius, in her own way.

The butchered vegetables and meat were eventually loaded into a large frying pan.

At first it smelled genuinely good, and I thought, maybe there’s hope after all.

I was wrong.

“The heat’s too high——!”
“You’re not even helping and you’re already criticising——!”

Fujishiro was in a panic, lifting the pan, turning the flame up, turning it back down, doing things that made no sense.

While all of this was happening, the blackening cabbage and meat were screaming in the heat.

“Oh, forget it——”

Fujishiro flung the sauce packet into the pan with abandon. It hit the heat with a sharp hiss, the moisture evaporating instantly as if trying to escape.

She stirred it. Or rather, she rotated her chopsticks in a circle, which wasn’t quite the same thing. Then she scooped the contents of the pan onto a large floral plate.

A twice-cooked pork imitation. Complete.

“I’ve never seen black cabbage before.”
“I worked hard on that and you’re being rude.”
“……Fair enough.”

I stared at the blackened stir-fry in dismay. Fujishiro had apparently grasped that something had gone wrong, and was also staring at her creation in silence.

The dish was set out on the dining table — small and solitary in the vast living room.
Chopsticks, cups, small plates. Two of each.

“I said I wasn’t eating.”
“Just eat. I made it for you.”

That was unwanted of her.
Unwanted — and yet, said like that, it was hard to deal with.

I wasn’t a demon. I was merely a monster wearing human skin.

Something in my chest prickled sharply at the fact that Fujishiro had cooked for me at all.

This is inedible——!

Ah, be quiet……

I shoved the voice out of my head and found myself sitting down at the table without quite deciding to.

The black mass was placed in front of me.
There was really no calling this twice-cooked pork.

I’ll probably have a stomach ache and miss school tomorrow, I thought, half as a joke — and then I picked up my chopsticks and ate.

The bile that had been creeping up my throat blended with the charred vegetables and pressed through my chest, down my oesophagus, and into my stomach.

As I ate Fujishiro’s twice-cooked pork, she watched me with the eyes of someone witnessing something not quite human.

You’re the one who made something not quite edible.

“What?”
“N-nothing……”

She looked like she wanted to say something, but I ignored her and kept eating.

Because the sauce hadn’t mixed evenly, some bites were overwhelmingly salty and others had no flavour at all. The flavourless ones were the worst — you tasted nothing but char.

And yet even this food, apparently, was enough to fill the hollow, parched thing my stomach had become.

Despite all my complaints — I ate more than half of what Fujishiro had made.

But, well. That was fine.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it better……”
“I didn’t have any expectations of you to begin with.”

She’d made that devastating rice ball, so catastrophically bad stir-fry had been entirely easy to predict. If anything, this was edible — which practically made it a success.

It wasn’t good. But my stomach was full.
That was enough.

“Thank you for the meal.”

I pressed my hands together and bowed to the plate the twice-cooked pork had come on.

I couldn’t bring myself to say thank you outright — and the feeling that I should have prickled somewhere inside me.

“I’m heading back. It’s late.”
“Want me to walk you?”
“No.”

I picked my bag up from the floor and stepped out into the hall.

I didn’t look back at whatever expression Fujishiro was wearing.

She wasn’t someone I had feelings about.

This would be the end of it. We’d return to the lives we’d had before we met.

Right now, Fujishiro just happened to find me interesting — and that too would fade in time, I was sure. Someone like me was simply a novelty to her. That was all.

I plodded home with those thoughts for company.

The next day, I had a stomach ache, as expected.
But it was also, for the first time in a while, a day when the hunger inside me had been properly filled.