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When all is said and done, there really isn’t much space in this one-bedroom apartment. As long as he and Mikoto are both at home, there is very little chance of not noticing each other’s voices. John has never hated this fact like he does right now. Being able to live in the same room as Mikoto without any walls between them is a wonderful thing. Being able to look at Mikoto at any time, to see his smiling face, is the greatest bliss to him. It’s not that his thoughts about this have suddenly changed. However—the current situation is just not the same.
He hears Mikoto’s call through the bathroom door—pretty much the only partition in the entire apartment—coming from a short distance away. John focuses on the sink, scrubbing his fingers under the faucet, trying to remove the oil stains on his skin. Before long, Mikoto’s shout comes through again, this time a bit closer to the bathroom.
“Jooohn?”
His voice when he calls for him is always gentle. His enunciation is soft, with a slight rise at the end of each sentence, carrying just the right amount of richness. John loves Mikoto’s voice. Even though they come from the same vocal cords, his tone differs from his own fierce and stiff manner of speaking. Thinking about it this way, isn’t it such a joy to hear Mikoto calling for him over and over again? Now, the reason he chooses not to respond is just because he wants to hear his voice a few more times.
“John!”
The bathroom door swings open.
Naturally, he’d left the door unlocked. John raises his head, meeting his other self’s gaze. Mikoto holds the doorknob as he stands in the doorway, looking at him with a complicated expression, both warm and exasperated.
“What is that?” he asks.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” John says.
“What. Is. That?” Mikoto repeats without any room for dispute.
John turns off the faucet.
“—Dinner,” he admits.
Mikoto’s shoulders drop as he lets out a long sigh.
He turns around and walks toward the coffee table, with John mindlessly following along at his heels. As they approach, the arrangement of items on the table gradually becomes clearer: a large plate of some brownish-yellow mushy thing emitting a burnt smell, a bowl of congee soaked in water, and a pile of oddly-shaped watermelon chunks stuffed into a noodle soup bowl.
Whether he meant for it to happen or not, the moment of judgment had finally arrived.
Mikoto lowers his body to open the plastic bag beside the table and takes a look inside, pulling out a cup of boba milk tea.
“Did you buy this?”
John nods. “The watermelon too. I’m the one who cut and plated it, though.”
“Then the rest…?” Mikoto asks hesitantly.
“I made them in the shared kitchen outside,” John says.
In the scenario that he’d imagined two hours ago, right now he’d be saying these words with a sense of pride, welcoming Mikoto’s pleasantly surprised smile. However, Mikoto’s expression right now could hardly be called “pleasant” or “surprised”, and it was certainly not a smile. John takes a glance at the burnt mess on the table, and decides to stay silent.
“It’s curry and white rice.” Then, he adds, “I think I put in too much water.”
Mikoto stares intently at it for a while.
“It looks like it’s fully cooked… It should be edible.”
Mikoto is a kind-hearted person. He didn’t straight-up reprimand John for acting on his own, nor did he deny John’s good intentions. John watches as he drags a cushion over to sit at the table, contemplatively gazing at the dinner that could hardly be called appealing. He doesn’t lift his chopsticks for a long time, leaving John standing silently beside him. He recalls the series of disasters he’d caused in the kitchen, and counts himself lucky that at least Mikoto didn’t have to witness that horrific scene himself, and now there was no Es who would extract and replay the cooking process that’s supposed to only exist in his own memory.
Naturally, to avoid causing more problems for Mikoto, he had already cleaned up the mess he made; but it’s not like the food would taste any better as a result. John starts to regret his initial decision. It was a good idea to try and lighten Mikoto’s burden after coming home from work, but there was obviously no way that flipping through a couple pages of a cookbook would turn someone who had never cooked before into a master chef—of course, Mikoto is both highly-accomplished and quick-witted, so if it were him, he might really be able to do it. John, though, is much clumsier than him.
Now, Mikoto has lost both his deserved rest and delicious dinner, and might even have to expend extra energy to pretend to look happy. Before this, he has never experienced John’s homemade cooking. In a sense, this kind of judgment is even more terrifying to John than Milgram’s verdict.
Eventually, he musters up the courage to speak. “If you don’t want it, you can just—”
“Hm… Where’s the camera?” Mikoto suddenly says.
John blinks. Mikoto turns his head to look at him—the expression on his face has softened again, and it even seems like he’s trying to hold back a smile. This isn’t what John expected at all, but as long as Mikoto is smiling, he considers this a good outcome. He walks over to the nearby shelf, takes down the camera from on top, and hands it to Mikoto.
“Here.”
Mikoto takes the camera, satisfied, and presses the power button as he says thanks. Before John has any time to react, his other self swiftly raises the camera lens and snaps a picture of him.
*Click*. The first photo. Mikoto stares at the screen for a while, nods, then turns back toward the disastrous dinner on the table. Under John’s shocked gaze, he takes a second photo, *click*.
“Do you… really need to take a photo of this?” John asks hesitantly.
Mikoto smiles.
“John, do you know what kind of face you’re making right now?”
“Of course not.”
“You look like a big dog that knows it’s done something wrong,” he says cheerfully as he sets the camera down.
He doesn’t seem to be angry anymore. Maybe he hadn’t been angry from the start. The verdict was forgiveness. John moves over to sit beside Mikoto.
“Do dogs make faces too…?”
“They do.” Mikoto carefully puts the camera aside. “Dogs are very adorable, human-like animals.”
He picks up the chopsticks that had been set aside and hands over the spoon that John had prepared for him back to the chef himself. John grips the stainless steel spoon, not knowing what he’s supposed to do. Seeing his face, Mikoto uses his chopsticks to hit the air above John, pretending to knock him on the head.
“This is your first time cooking, isn’t it? Of course we should take a photo to commemorate it.”
“But I did such a bad job,” John says honestly.
“Hm… I wouldn’t say it was done very well. But you tried your best! That’s already pretty good,” Mikoto says. “Keep it up next time.”
They turn toward the dinner once again. With Mikoto’s encouragement and approval, John starts to feel like this mess of a finished product isn’t as disastrous as he initially thought. Mikoto smiles, saying “I’m really happy.” As long as he’s happy, John is happy too.
There will be plenty of chances to practice in the future, he thinks. One day, he’ll cook a dinner that truly makes Mikoto pleasantly surprised—he’s already gotten Mikoto’s permission. Following Mikoto’s example, John claps his hands together.
“—Then, I’ll dig in.”
