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“All right!” Kumon claps his hands together, his elbows narrowly avoiding knocking into the huge bowl of ramen sitting on the table in front of him. Chikage has the urge to sneak his hand into the fray to protect the bowl, and suppresses it only because there are so many other objects on the table between them all that an attempt to intervene would probably just knock more things over. “First meeting of the Mankai Company Rookies, startiiiiiing now!”
The other three semi-newcomers to Mankai Company’s four troupes nod and, in a poor attempt at unison, mumble vocalizations of agreement. None of them are as exuberant as Kumon, on a daily basis or at this moment. Azami’s cheeks look a little flushed at the attempt at enthusiasm; on the other hand, it could also be the steaming hot bowl of soup sitting in front of him, heating up his face. Next to Chikage, Gai is picking up his chopsticks, so Chikage follows his lead and lifts the spoon the restaurant had supplied from his own ramen. As the spoon slides free, some of the mountain of toppings tumble down to take its place in the soup, mixing with the noodles and wafting a delicious smell upwards.
It also steams up his glasses, which Chikage doesn’t like. He isn’t able to keep an eye on their surroundings this way, and he also misses Kumon’s gaze fixing on his ramen until he’s able to wipe his glasses off, and Kumon opens his mouth.
“Chikage-san, your ramen is so spicy that your spoon is already stained red!”
Chikage looks down. His soup is spicy through and through, from the entirely red broth to the chili oil collecting in shimmery pockets on top to the ground peppers sprinkled over the heap of toppings, collecting on his spoon in a line marking the furthest point the broth has touched on it. The spoon, the first to voyage into the soup, messily sports all the spicy elements of the dish, and the color stands out starkly against the spoon’s white surface.
“I know you like spicy ramen,” Kumon continues, gesturing vaguely with his own chopsticks in hand, “especially since all your entries for the ramen map have been spicy, but... Isn’t it kind of a lot?”
“Oh, no. This looks pretty manageable, honestly.” Chikage looks up from his bowl, turning his attention to the others’. He was hoping to make a point, but Kumon, Azami, and Gai’s bowls all look much more... The word that comes to his mind is boring, followed by tasteless, neither of which are polite. A memory instantly bursts into his mind — “You’re all twisted and hot-tongued because all you eat is spicy food” — and he blinks, trying to mask it. “If you’re curious, you can try a bite.”
“I’ll pass,” Azami mutters. As he lifts his spoon out of his bowl, Chikage sees that the broth clinging to it is a pale color, and though it has the same glints of oil as Chikage’s, this oil is nearly clear instead.
“You know, I am curious...” Kumon eyes Chikage’s bowl a second longer, and then turns his attention back to his own ramen. His noodles are topped with several thick slices of pork belly, and he picks one up with his chopsticks and bites into it. Chikage decides to take that as a no on trying the spicy ramen.
In contrast, on Chikage’s left, Gai nods solemnly. “I am interested to try it. It may be too spicy for me to handle, but I have a full glass of water.”
“Sure.” Chikage slides his bowl over.
“You don’t want the first bite yourself, Utsuki?”
“Yeah, the first bite is important!” Kumon chimes in, somehow still intelligible with his mouth full.
“Once I start eating, I might forget to save a bite for you,” Chikage tells Gai. He gives the bowl a little nudge. Gai relents, taking a modest spoonful of broth. He brings it to his mouth, blows on it, and takes a careful sip. Chikage watches with quiet delight as Gai’s eyes widen.
“It is spicy,” Gai confirms. He swallows, and gently slides the bowl back to its place in front of Chikage. “I like it, but one bite is enough.”
It makes Chikage laugh, a feeling that seems to come more and more easily to him in recent months. “No problem.”
The other Mankai rookies dig into their bowls, but there’s still one task to complete before Chikage can start eating. It’s not curry, so maybe it will feel to some of his more curry-purist readers like blasphemy, but it’s still curryously spicy, so it feels like an acceptable diversion to him. Chikage lifts the spoon, filled with broth and noodles, and snaps a photo for the blog. With that, he’s finally able to start eating. He lifts the spoon to his mouth, blows on it carefully, and takes the legendary first bite that Kumon had talked up.
It’s good. The spices are hot and then numbing, spreading through his mouth in seconds as he chews. He swallows, and feels his throat burn as well. The second bite is just as delicious. For the third, he adds a bite of the boiled egg, and is pleased to find it perfectly soft-boiled, the orange yolk that spills out a nice complement to the red oil and broth. His fourth mouthful is the crunchiest so far thanks to some bean sprouts, whose fresh taste only distracts a little bit from the blast of spice.
On his fifth mouthful, Chikage remembers that he’s not here just to enjoy and later review a bowl of spicy ramen, but in fact primarily to socialize with his fellow rookies. He looks up from his ramen to find the others are also eating, but as he scans their faces, he meets Azami’s gaze. Azami drops his eyes immediately, but it’s clear that he too is feeling the weight of the group’s lack of dinner table talk.
“I think our silence is a compliment to the restaurant,” Chikage says aloud, partly to reassure Azami, partly to cover his own lack of participation.
Across the table, Kumon speed-chews and swallows his mouthful of food, eager to respond. “I asked Tenma-san about troupe leader meetings, actually! He said they’re usually really chatty!”
Chikage barely catches Azami rolling his eyes and setting down his spoon to speak. “Yeah, I bet my leader especially.”
“My leader isn’t particularly loud,” Chikage says. He looks over at Gai. “I don’t think yours either.”
Gai nods. “He is not a loud person. But if you get him going about one of his interests, he is very talkative. I think Sakuma is the same?”
“Yeah, they’re all theatre nerds.”
Gai, who had taken another mouthful of soup, nods in response. Neither of the kids add anything. Chikage has another bite of noodles and boiled egg, and then tries again, drawing on his salaryman job small talk expertise and his sense of duty that this outing accomplish some sort of group cohesion. “I’m glad we decided to try this place. My ramen really is delicious.”
“Mine too,” Kumon says quickly. Azami and Gai both nod with their mouths full.
Well, Chikage gave it two tries. He’s about to go back to focusing on his ramen when Kumon says, “Maybe talking about ramen is easier, right? When I’ve gone out with people in the company for the ramen map, even if we don’t know if we have anything in common, we’re at least both eating ramen! Soooo...” He points at Gai with his free hand. “Gai-san! You’re working on Winter Troupe’s fifth play right now, right?”
“Yes. Die By The Sword.”
“Yeah!” Kumon’s eyes shine. “It’s such a cool title! And you’re the co-lead, right? I think that’s so cool!” He stops, looking back down at his bowl of ramen, and seems to remember his own point. “What would your character’s favorite way to have ramen be? Or, like, their favorite food?”
The question seems to catch Gai off-guard. He swallows and sets his utensils down, giving Kumon’s question his full attention. “...I am not sure. I know that my role is based on the real samurai, Sasaki Kojiro. I was not very well informed about his history, so I did some research when I received the script. Kojiro lived during the Sengoku period, several centuries ago. I do not believe ramen existed at that time. Nor do I know what types of foods were commonly eaten.” He looks up at Chikage. “Actually, Chigasaki attempted to help me with my research by sharing that characters named Sasaki Kojiro appear in multiple games and anime he enjoys.” A chill so cold that not even the roaring heat of his spicy ramen could protect him courses through Chikage’s body. “However, I did not find these historically accurate.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Chikage mutters.
“That’s a lot of research, though!” Kumon pipes up. His eyes shine as he looks across the table at the two adults. “Does it help you get into character to know stuff like that?”
“For my troupe, yes,” Gai says. “I believe they get into character quite heavily, especially Takatoo and Tsukioka. And recently I came across Yukishiro, Mikage, and Arisugawa practicing their scenes together, and they included me in their practice after I expressed some worries.” A small smile crosses his face as he remembers. “They told me that I was ‘too serious’ and ‘more negative’ than they had thought.”
It’s the first time that everyone reacts simultaneously. Chikage makes a face he hopes is sympathetic, Azami frowns, and Kumon groans and covers his face. “Oh, man. I also got told stuff like that,” he sighs. “Muku and I both were super nervous about our play... We had to get a lot of encouragement from the rest of Summer.”
Chikage maintains his sympathetic expression. Across the table, Azami’s brow furrows. “I don’t really relate to that. But I think it’s because I was the one having to help Taichi-san after he was really nervous and overdoing it...”
“Oh, yeah, you two went and got ramen for my map!” Kumon interjects.
“Yeah. I got told by Sakyo that I needed to communicate better with him, so. I had to put in a lot of effort. But in the end, it was helpful... I guess.”
Everyone else has shared, so Chikage offers, “My co-lead experience was more like Azami’s. Gawain’s personality is pretty different from mine, but I didn’t have a hard time getting into character. I had more to do supporting our lead actor.”
“Die By The Sword has been like that,” Gai admits. “Takatoo requested that we pause rehearsals for a brief period. It led me to try to improve on my own, but in the end, I believe my greatest improvement in my role was alongside my troupemates.” He smiles, and Chikage gets the sense that Gai, too, smiles more easily these days than he used to. “It should not have been a surprise, as my first play with Mankai Company also involved them supporting me a great deal.”
“When I asked Tenma-san about the leader meetings and stuff, he said that sometimes they’ll get advice from each other, but often the troupes themselves have to figure things out together...” Kumon frowns as he twirls his chopsticks around in his ramen bowl. The noodles are growing depleted, and there are no more pieces of pork belly. “I didn’t think theatre would be like this. Not in a bad way, but... I used to play team sports, and it’s way more like that than I expected. It’s like...when new first years join the team at the start of the year. Summer Troupe was really welcoming to me, but it was clear they all knew each other pretty well...”
“I agree with that,” Gai says. “I was taken aback by how close the members of my troupe are, and how much they look out for each other. Particularly because when I first met them, they all seemed like very different people.”
Azami is nodding along with Gai. “Not just having to look out for other people,” he says. “But rely on them. Like, if something happens to me, it has an impact on the other guys. I didn’t really think about that before.”
Since everyone else shared something introspective that they’ve learned since joining Mankai, Chikage feels pressure to speak up himself. The specifics of his own first play aren’t something he particularly wants to rehash, especially with the only people in the company who weren’t actually present for it. Instead, he opts for something lighter. “During my first play, Sakuya told me about everything Spring went through before I joined. It surprised me that the cohesive Spring Troupe I joined took lots of work to develop. Though, like in Gai-san’s experience, they do all have pretty different personalities, so it’s not that much of a stretch that they had to learn to work with each other.”
“I think it’s really cool,” Kumon says. “It’s like a big extended family. Little things like how everyone remembers nii-chan loves sweets and always gets them treats when they go anywhere fun. And Omi makes people’s favorites for dinner every now and then. If you tell someone something important to you, they’ll remember it, and...” Kumon runs out of breath, and takes a big inhale. “And, I guess, it’s just really cool,” he finishes, laughing a little.
“Yeah,” Azami agrees. Gai and Chikage nod as well.
The table is quiet again. This time, it’s more comfortable. The pressure to make conversation - to make connections - is lessened, because now they have. By the time Chikage finishes drinking the soup, he feels completely full. Looking around the table as he wipes his mouth, the others seem to be reaching similar states of post-ramen haze. Kumon sets his chopsticks down with a clutter and sags back in his seat; in contrast, Azami hunches forward over his bowl, crunching on the last of his bean sprouts one at a time.
When they’ve all finished, Chikage pays the bill, and they all head back to his car. Gai looks lost in thought, almost hitting his head on a door. “I have ideas for the show,” he says in response to three concerned looks. “I want to get back and talk to Winter Troupe.”
Theatre nerd, Chikage thinks. But that’s kind of the point. After all, he wouldn’t be here, with this group of unlikely companions, if that instinct didn’t unite them.
As he gets into the car with the other rookies, there’s a warmth in him that he doesn't think is just from the spicy ramen. It lingers in his chest all the way home, and when he steps across the threshold into Mankai Company’s dorm building and Sakuya pops out of the kitchen to welcome everyone back, the warmth settles in his chest like it’s going to stay there.