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"Dad. Could you... teach me how to cook?"
The instant that Takamatsu Tomori got home from band practice, she shut the front door behind her, walked in a brisk straight line from the apartment entryway, past a doorway and into the kitchen, and posed her father a question unadorned with any greetings or pleasantries.
"...Welcome home, Tomori."
Said father, full name Takamatsu Yoshiji, stood over the sink, washing a small load of dishes. His old, timeworn apron was stained dark with splashes of soapy water, and he seemed not one bit surprised nor concerned by his daughter's behavior. He greeted her with a knowing smile.
She kept silent and simply stood there, looking at him with the fire of unsullied resolve burning in her eyes. His daughter evidently wasn't in the mood for social rituals. He was plenty used to her working herself up like this by now, though it had become a little rarer since she'd turned twelve or thirteen. She wasn't going to stand down until she received an answer; he knew that much - so he gave it to her.
"Yes, yes, of course I'll teach you."
At this, the fire in her eyes became sparkles of delight, and she beamed. She let out an unconscious, idiosyncratic little mouth-sound of joy and relief while squeezing her hands into fists. This was one of Tomori’s many little tics, and Yoshiji had gotten to know plenty of them before she'd even spoken her first word, but still - this one never got old.
"What's got you so interested, though? You've never been the type," he mused, smiling. Though he loved his child no matter how difficult she was to raise, he was forced to grudgingly admit—he was relieved there was at least one life skill he didn't have to somehow coerce her into learning. He continued. "You know, until you were ten you didn't even want to come into the kitchen while I was cooking because it scared you so much."
"Ah..."
The stars in Tomori's eyes clouded over, and the strength in her fists faded away. She seemed all at once to become lost in thought, as if a battle was raging in her mind; a subtle groan of hesitation escaped her, then another. But soon enough her resolve returned, and she spoke with renewed determination.
"Um, so—"
Actually, if Tomori was being honest… it still scared her.
Her father's recollection had drawn her eyes toward the cast-iron pan hanging on the wall behind the counter. The sunlight from the window painted a stark stripe across its unknowable, pitch-black surface, emphasizing the rough and irregular patterns of the metal.
She remembered the sound it made when it was hot and covered in oil, the violent, squirming, liquid white noise that seared her eardrums and made her want to run and hide in her bed – and soon after that followed the smell, the waxy, slippery odor of grease that always managed to worm its way into her gut, weighing it down with nausea.
It all still scared her just as much as it did five years ago. She'd just learned to put up with it, because being a burden had at some point started to scare her more than anything.
Of course, the thought of standing in front of the stove inches away from that noise and that smell made her stomach turn and turn and turn.
But things were different now. She had a mission.
And though she would never put it this way herself, anyone who knew Tomori knew that when she had a mission, she would let absolutely nothing get in her way.
Cup ramen.
Instant curry.
Tuna mayo onigiri and Morinaga jelly.
As Tomori recalled, she had walked into the RiNG studio that afternoon to find Taki and Anon (that is, Taki-chan and Ano-chan) chatting away and, not wanting to bother them, shrunk into a corner and listened. She found herself almost wishing she hadn't.
The things she heard Taki-chan say as she elucidated her eating habits had torn a hole in her gentle, fragile heart. Taki-chan said that she "doesn't care what she eats as long as it's filling." That on most nights she “just makes cup ramen or instant curry, or sometimes she picks something up from a convenience store on the way home…” and that when she's really busy she might subsist purely on pouches of Morinaga energy jelly as she burns the midnight oil.
Of course there was nothing wrong with cup ramen and instant curry. Tomori liked them just fine, and though sometimes she wished they would be a little gentler (because the way the salt and the MSG and the other seasonings flooded her tastebuds was way too much to handle if she wasn't in the right mood), she couldn't deny their convenience. And she liked convenience store food too, especially when they carried limited-run themed items - though to her dismay, she had been banned on sanitary grounds from collecting them outright. It was all fine, in other words. There was nothing wrong with any one part of it.
But.
But.
Putting it all together, the picture it painted made Tomori so, so... unbelievably... sad.
Scared of the stove and the roaring, sizzling pan as Tomori was, she did respect them. She felt grateful to them for helping Dad show her his love, for letting the two of them – the three of them, if she was lucky and Mom's shifts were light – share those little moments around the kitchen table. Even when they felt a little awkward, or when the food didn't agree with her palate (which was rare these days, as Yoshiji had over the years turned Tomori-cooking into a veritable art form), she treasured them all the same. There was just something... special about it all.
She couldn't put it into words. Maybe she could express it through song, if she tried.
Back in reality, once her two bandmates noticed her, they cut their conversation short, greeted her, and started getting their instruments ready. Tomori didn't remember the rest of the practice session very well - only that she definitely wasn't at her best.
Later, as Taki accompanied her home, she thought and thought about how to broach the subject. She mulled it over during the walk to the station, and on the tram, and even as they climbed the stairs up the Chitose footbridge.
"—Taki-chan." She stopped as reached the center of the bridge, directly over the highway.
"...Hm? What's up, Tomori?"
"When... when was the last time you... ate a home-cooked meal?"
Taki took a second to gather her thoughts. She seemed taken aback by the directness of the question. Still, she answered.
"...Ah. Honestly, I don't remember. It's been a while, I guess. How come?"
Tomori looked down at her feet, trying to hide the forlorn look those words had stamped onto her face. She doesn’t even remember. She doesn’t even remember the last time.
"...I-It's nothing. Don't worry about it. Um, see you on Thursday!"
Rushing through her words, she bolted away towards her home, leaving Taki standing on the bridge, completely bemused.
"...And, so, that's why." Tomori finished explaining and stopped to catch her breath. At some point she had set her bookbag down on the kitchen table.
"So you want to cook for her, huh? That's sweet."
"Y-yeah. I really do."
"Well, I was just planning on making some fried rice for dinner. I bet you could handle that with a little help."
Tomori beamed again, visibly brimming with excitement.
"But first… Tomori."
"W-what's up, Dad?"
He pointed downwards. "You walked in here with your shoes on, you know."
She looked down at her feet. Just as he had said, her school moccasins were dirtying the kitchen tiles. She jumped, stammered out something like "a-ah! Sorry sorry sorry!", and sprinted back towards the entryway.
Yoshiji smiled after her, a strange kind of pride welling up in his chest. He thought to himself—ah, Hikari, we've raised such an interesting girl.
They began by setting the mise-en-place. Tomori wielded the kitchen knife with a shaky, anxious grip, and let her father guide her through the motions of dicing a yellow onion, cutting it first into halves, then into concentric slices, then into little cubes. She shuddered at the crunch of its cell walls breaking open, releasing their enzymes and their pungent smell, making her nose and eyes crawl with a tingling itch; but she kept going as she was told and shown, and she slowly settled into a comfortable rhythm.
Left to work on her own, she chopped a red bell pepper and two large carrots. Their grassy vegetal scents intermixing calmed her anxiety, reminding her of the sweet, gentle flavor they took on once cooked. She had long struggled with the bad habit of eating them all first, then moping and playing with her food as she tried heroically to finish the rest of the meal without them.
The dish called for four scrambled eggs, so Yoshiji tried to show her how to crack the shell just so, so that it would break open and yield its white and yolk without leaving any shards of itself behind. Tomori shuddered and averted her eyes as the calcium-protein walls shattered against the marble with a pathetic thud, and the fragile barrier gave way to life itself, a golden sun shining in a sea of clear water. She tried to bear it. She wanted to watch and learn, she really did - but in the end, she excused herself while her father finished preparing the eggs by himself.
Once they were mixed together, denatured by the heat of the pan into a solid, yellow mass, she could bear to be in the kitchen again. She decided at that moment that she would not be serving Taki eggs of any sort.
Tomori wore a strained, pensive look on her face. She was visibly gripping the bookbag on her lap and staring down at the worn-down floor of the tram, painted amber by the setting sun. She didn't seem to notice the occasional, furtive glances her companion sent in her direction.
Taki was, of course, very, very curious about what was on her mind. She always was; she relished every time she spoke to her, gave her a glimpse into her world. But she knew that it was best, in moments like these, to let Tomori be; to let her sit alone with her thoughts, until—no, unless she decided that she wanted to share them. It's not like it was any of her business, anyway. There was no need to bother her. It was better that way.
The tram rattled and slowed as it approached the Kishibojin-mae stop, and Taki shook her head to clear her thoughts. "Tomori, we're here," she whispered, hoping to coax her as gently as possible out of her own mind. She stood up from her seat.
Or… she tried to.
She felt a sudden pressure on her right thigh. Then, an instant later, the unmistakable warmth of a human hand.
The strength drained all at once from her legs, and she looked down, slowly, cautiously following the hand pressing into her leg, then climbing up the gray sleeve of the modestly-cut girls’ uniform blazer, until her eyes met Tomori's.
Taki let out a little whimper, and immediately covered her mouth.
"T-Tomori? Wh-wha… what's… what's up?" she stammered, her gaze suddenly darting across every corner and seat in the tram car, as she tried her best not to let her attention linger in any one place. She could feel heat searing across her face, and prayed to any God that would listen that it wasn't showing.
"Taki-chan."
Tomori's face was painted with an intense, unreadable expression. And her voice rang sharp yet smooth, clean through Taki's heart.
"Y-yes?" Her head was starting to feel funny.
"Let me go to your house." She spoke without a hint of her usual hesitation.
"...O-okay. Haha, yeah. Why not? Sure." Her mouth shifted fully into autopilot as every neuron in her brain fired on all cylinders trying in vain to process this extremely novel situation.
Tomori responded with a silent nod.
At some point, her hand had apparently left Taki’s thigh, and they had ridden two stops down to Omokagebashi station. Taki did not remember a single second of it.
"Is... Is there a grocery store around here?" Tomori asked, scanning the neighborhood as they stepped out of the tram.
"Huh? Oh," Taki snapped out of her stupor, though she was still looking away and rubbing her hand over the memory of Tomori’s warmth. "Yeah, it's... there's one just down that street, over there." She pointed down the street, away from the station, to the south.
At this Tomori turned and immediately started walking in said direction, towards the street, and Taki stood and watched, increasingly dumbfounded. But as the distance between them grew, a sense of worry overpowered her confusion, and she set off, if only to make sure Tomori didn't run into any trouble.
"I'm home." Taki mouthed a formality to no one in particular as she unlocked the front door and stepped into the still darkness of her family home. She took off her shoes, let Tomori in and closed the door behind her.
Tomori looked around, at the furniture and the decorations, with a twinge of fascination in her eyes.
"...It's dark." She spoke in a nearly inaudible whisper.
"Ah, um, I don't normally have the lights on." Almost never, anyway; Taki liked it better that way. It had been so long since she had someone over, she hadn't even considered how it might come off. "Is it too dark for you, Tomori? I can turn them on if you'd like..."
"No, it's... fine. It's kind of... peaceful." Her eyes lingered on the moonlit shapes dotting the living room.
"...Yeah. Okay." Taki felt a faint weight lift off her shoulders. She walked over and set the two bags of groceries down on the coffee table. She looked over at Tomori, and chose her words carefully.
"So, um... what are you planning on doing with these?"
"I'm making you dinner, Taki-chan."
"H-ha?!" Though in hindsight there weren't many other reasonable answers to that question, she hadn't even considered this one. It caught her completely off guard.
Tomori seemed to wilt at Taki's reaction, a cloud of dejection visibly settling over her face. "Do you not... want me to…?"
"No, no, no, it's not that I don't," Taki panicked, then averted her eyes. A muddy, excruciating mass of guilt had begun to knot up in her stomach. "It’s just... you really don't... need to go out of your way for me like that, y'know..."
And then Tomori ran up to her. The sound of her shoes hitting the hardwood floor made Taki freeze up, and before she realized what was happening, her hand was clasped between Tomori's palms.
"But I'm not. I want to."
The fire in her eyes set Taki's thoughts alight. She started frantically working backwards through her memory, trying to figure out if she was dreaming, or perhaps hallucinating. Maybe she'd gotten hit by one of those little white kei trucks while walking home and this was nothing but the sensory artifice of the final few electrical impulses firing through her dying synapses.
Tomori let go of her hand, and her expression softened. "Um... Could you… show me to the kitchen?"
Taki stood wordlessly for entirely too long before finally processing her words as a question. "Huhwha? ...Oh! Yeah, of course!"
She'd made up her mind. This had to be a dream. And if it was, then maybe it was okay for her to enjoy it. Just a little.
"T-Taki-chan."
Tomori's voice had softened. It seemed like whatever had taken her over on the tram had finally loosened its grip on her. She sounded like normal again - her gentle whispered timbre, the cute little gasps, stutters and considered pauses dotting her every sentence. The familiarity put Taki's mind at ease. She had seen Tomori act with similar intensity before, of course, but never had it been leveled directly at her. She didn't know how to handle it.
From afar–from a safe distance–Tomori always shone so brightly. But up close, she burned.
"...What's up, Tomori?" Taki swallowed her thoughts and responded, surprised at her own voice’s soft tenderness.
"...D-do your parents both work late? I... sort of... expected them to be around. Or, or your, um, sister..."
"...Ah." Of course. It's natural that this would come up. A high school girl spending this much time home alone would catch anyone's attention. Taki turned away as she answered.
"They're... They're away. Onee-chan, too. She's been living in a dorm for a bit." She tried to stay composed, but couldn’t stop a tinge of vinegar from finding its way into her tone. However, when she looked back, Tomori was smiling. A beautiful, gentle smile. It captivated her so completely that she almost forgot to be confused by it.
"...Taki-chan, you call her 'Onee-chan'... That's... That's cute..."
A hot flash swept through Taki's head.
"H-hah? Really? Y-you think so? Isn't it normal? It's pretty normal to call your sister that, I think?" Her eyes danced restlessly around the room, and she scratched the back of her head.
"Um... yeah, I guess so... It's... just not what I imagined, that's all..." Tomori fidgeted, and her smile faltered slightly.
"Aha, really? Well, um, uh, thanks." Taki completely failed to fight off the ridiculous-looking grin creeping around the corners of her mouth. She hoped Tomori wouldn't notice.
"...Um, I'll be... heading to the kitchen now. Can I... turn the light on in there?"
"Huh? Oh! Y-Yeah, of course. I'll just... be in my room… working on a song. Tell me if you need anything, okay, Tomori?"
Tomori smiled again, nodded, turned and gingerly made her way into the kitchen. Taki watched her, rubbing her cheek all the while. It felt warm.
The moment Taki’s bedroom door closed, she dove into her bed and shoved her face into her pillow and made a series of strange, inhuman sounds. She kicked her feet up and down, playing the memory back in her head, over and over.
Cute. Tomori called her cute. Seriously.
She squeezed the pillow hard, then let out a long sigh, letting her muscles relax. She suddenly felt very tired.
The heat welling up in her head slowly, cruelly gave way to bitter cold. A mysterious feeling tied welled up in her stomach. For a moment, she simply lay there, her vision still eclipsed by the darkness of her satin pillow case, trying to process her thoughts.
Surely, she should be happy to be called 'cute' by Tomori. Overjoyed, even. And part of her was. It really was.
But another couldn't help but feel like she'd somehow... disappointed her. Like she'd failed to live up to the Taki in her mind.
Like she had been childish. Like she'd let her guard down. Let too much of herself out.
She let out another sigh, this one low, weak and creaky with despondence. Her thoughts began to pile on, and before long, they buried her in a suffocating slumber.
A voice.
"...T-Taki...-chan?"
It cut through the haze, whispery and hesitant.
"Mmrgh..."
A hand prodded her shoulder gently, timidly.
"T-Taki-chan... Um..."
"Mmmgh..."
Taki rolled over, struggling against the weight of her own eyelids. She rubbed them with one hand, trying to brush away the weight of sleep.
Tomori was standing over her, a look of innocent worry on her face. The sight of her woke Taki up like a ristretto shot.
"...Tomori."
"I-I'm sorry for waking you up, but.. dinner's... ready."
Taki sat up and held her head in her hands. "...Oh. Jeez, how long was I out for…?"
"Um, I think it's been... an hour...?"
"You didn't run into any trouble?," she asked.
Tomori shook her head. "Not at all... I-I think it turned out really well, actually...! Your kitchen's really tidy, Taki-chan."
"Ah. Thanks."
Well, of course it was. It didn't see much use, after all.
The two girls sat across from each other at the dining table. The plates in front of them held a colorful stir-fry of chicken and still lightly-steaming vegetables. Tomori's gaze was fixed on Taki, and her arms were clasped together on her lap, eagerly awaiting her judgment. Her voice quivered with anticipation as she spoke.
"G-go ahead. Dig in, Taki-chan."
"...Y-yeah. Um, thanks for the food." Taki clasped her hands together as she looked over her plate.
It was a stir fry, certainly. But there was something unusual about it, just the same. It lacked a certain balance Taki might have expected from her mother's cooking - namely, the ratio of red bell peppers was completely off. They were definitely taking up a full two thirds of the meal, drowning the rest of the ingredients in a sea of fibery crimson. And the dish gave off an unusual smell - not bad, but uncharacteristically… sweet.
Taki couldn’t help but smile as she looked over the lopsided meal. So that's how she likes it, she thought. A quiet, contented sigh left her mouth as she picked up her chopsticks.
"A-ah, wait!" Tomori suddenly piped up.
"Eh...?"
"Actually, t-there's something I've always... wanted to try..."
She fished out a piece of chicken from her own plate and held it out towards Taki.
"Taki-chan. S-say aah."
"..."
This left Taki completely and utterly paralyzed. In that frozen single moment, she became certain that she must be the victim of some cosmic joke.
"...Taki-chan?" Tomori's expression turned to worry.
"............"
"S-sorry, sorry!" She began to panic. "Is, is this weird? Ano-chan... does it with me all the time, so—"
Before Tomori could finish explaining herself, Taki wordlessly lurched forward and took the food into her mouth, her eyes still clinging onto the middle distance.
"O-oh..." Tomori sighed in a mix of relief and confusion.
The flavor of pan-fried chicken breast washed over Taki's mouth, dimmed and tempered by the skewed, too-sweet flavor of the seasoning blend. As the aroma traveled along her tongue and alit on her taste buds, it painted a faint picture in her mind.
A picture of home. A home she didn't have.
One that she'd forgotten she wanted.
It all rushed back into view, all from one bite of this somehow overseasoned yet undersalted piece of chicken.
Taki closed her eyes. They had started to tickle.
"...Taki-chan? Ah... I-is it... that bad?" Tomori's voice found its way past her thoughts.
"E...eh? N-no, no...!" Taki opened her eyes and found her vision blurry. She rubbed them with one hand on instinct.
"But," Tomori said, leaning in, her brow furrowed with concern, "you're... crying..."
"N-no, I’m not, it's... it's nothing." She took her chopsticks, and started stuffing food into her mouth, alternating between pieces of chicken and strips of pepper in an attempt to both assuage Tomori and to drown out the roiling wave of emotion welling up inside her.
But it only fueled the fire. The pungent sweetness of the pepper seemed to send her tear ducts into overdrive. She kept chewing through it - chewed so hard her jaw started to hurt - but to no avail. A sob escaped her, then another, and another.
"Taki-chan..." Tomori had not touched her food.
"I..." Taki finally and with considerable difficulty, swallowed. "I'm... fffine..." Her voice tapered out into a pathetic little creak. She kept wiping her tears, but they wouldn't stop. Her vision blurred, Taki heard the floorboards creak and footsteps pass her by. Ah, she thought, she's finally had enough of me. Of course she has. Just look at me.
She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the tears run down her cheeks, and sat there wishing for oblivion.
Then something enveloped her. Something gentle and soft.
She recognized its texture as it dragged over her shoulders: it was her blanket, which she curled inside every night. And from deep in its confines, she felt a warmth radiating towards her.
She opened her eyes and wiped away her tears.
"T-T-T-T-Tomori?!?!?!"
"Taki-chan. It's okay." Tomori was bundled up inside the blanket with her, and oh god, her face was unbearably close, so close that Taki could feel her breath brushing against her skin.
"H-ha?!?!" She was beet red, and she knew it.
"It's okay. The food... scared you, right?"
"W-what...?"
"I used to get really scared when I tried new foods. A-and… when that happened, Mom would wrap me up in a blanket with her. Like this." She tugged on the cloth, pulling Taki even closer somehow. "I-It always calmed me down right away."
In this moment, Taki was feeling the exact opposite of calm. But she certainly didn't hate it.
"Take a deep breath, Taki-chan. In... and, out."
Taki responded with a labored inhale whose sound befit only a dying dog.
"T-there you go,” Tomori said. “Good... good girl." Taki immediately responded to this with another yet more tortured breath, sucked in and then forced out through her teeth, sounding more and more like the screams of the damned.
"...I...I liked the food, though, you know..." Taki muttered.
"Really?" Tomori’s face lit up, and then she furrowed her brow. "But... t-then, why were you crying?"
"...I just..." Taki sunk into the blanket, averting her eyes from Tomori's. "I just don't... know why you'd go out of your way for... someone like me..."
She felt Tomori's hands clasping around hers again. Their body heat had mingled together and built up inside the blanket, and it was a little uncomfortable. Tomori was squeezing quite hard, and it kind of hurt. But her breath was tickling Taki’s neck, and she decided that she didn’t mind at all.
"But, Taki-chan... You're... really special."
"N-no way..." Taki turned away in shame.
"You're always... working so hard, and worrying about the band, a-and looking after everyone, so... this is... it's... only fair..." Tomori’s voice quivered, just the same way it did when she stood on stage.
Overcome by the warmth of her words, the warmth of her body, the weight of her self-doubt, and the lingering sweetness of mirin, Taki struggled to find her words. "It's... it's noth–"
"–so… you liked it?" Tomori interrupted her meager defense.
"...Yeah. It was really good, Tomori." And it had been. It might not have been up to… modern culinary standards, but it was just so, so much like… her.
"Then... then I'll make more. I-I'll come back next week, okay? Every week.” Tomori paused. “Um, if... if you want."
The final trace of strength left in Shiina Taki's body evaporated, and she slumped backwards into the soft fabric of the blanket. Her will to resist had been well and truly worn away.
And who was she to say no to her, anyway?
"...Sure. I'll be counting on you, Tomori."