Kapitel 111: All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 106 [3.4k Words]
If anybody ever asked you what the most iconic part of the cooking manga genre is, what would you answer? Would it be the creative twists on otherwise commonplace recipes? The struggle to keep a plot going that somehow revolves around cooking? The way it deals with a story that heavily relies on precisely the one sense that a visual medium is incapable of properly conveying?
Of course not: it would be the hallucinations.
Which, come to think of it, have a lot to do with all of the above points.
Things started out more or less subtle, with the characters talking about the extravagant imagery that a particular dish would call to mind so as to evoke an all-encompassing sensory experience, and then it got progressively wilder, with full-on shounen battle auras displayed by the passionate cooks, only to veer into something else being displayed by the equally passionate bakers—I'm talking, of course, about the time-traveling bread. Get your mind out of the gutter.
Or don't.
Because that's where things ended up: with what would basically have been a hentai at any other point in the history of animation, with clothes-bursting dishes and female characters whose designs launched a thousand doujins, turning the heavy emphasis on sensuality of the genre into something… different.
And yes, I've already talked about this subject previously, but, really, can you blame me for revisiting it when my currently most pressing concern is…
How utterly wrong it would be for Haruno to give my mother a full fanservice hallucination?
"This cheese is… weird," Komachi says from my left, trying to start a conversation that will break the heavy, hopefully not-hallucination-inducing, silence hanging over Shizu's kitchen.
"Camembert tends to be quite strong, particularly the good brands. Would you like me to prepare something else?" Haruno says, in front of me, kinder than any criticism would usually warrant from her.
"No! No, sorry, I didn't mean 'weird' as in 'bad,' it's just… it's creamy, but strong, and… uh, gosh, I don't know how to say this; I wish I had read more cooking manga right now—"
"No, you don't," I say with a cutting remark the likes of which would've split the grey kitchen island in front of me were this one of the wilder representatives of the genre.
I think. I mean, do I count Toriko as a shounen, a cooking manga, a bizarre hybrid, what Jojo could've been—
"Don't get weird," Shizu says after a brief sigh that tells me she knows of my inner struggles.
"I didn't bring up cooking manga in polite company," I say, defending myself from unfair accusations, as well as from the impossible demand she just asked of me.
"… I feel like I should more closely monitor your reading materials," Mom says from Komachi's left, for no reason whatsoever.
"That would be a first," I counter.
And immediately shut up.
Damn it all.
Shizu winces, Haruno keeps her placid smile going, Iroha tries to look like she isn't anxious while going completely still, Komachi bites her lip, Dad stares down at his breakfast, and Mom…
Mom closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and leans forward to look past Komachi and at me.
"You got mad when I told you what I thought of your manga," she says, tone almost level.
"That was years ago," I say in pretty much the same way she just spoke.
"I've bought you books. As presents."
"And… And I've read them. Some of them."
She doesn't add anything else, just looking at me like she expects to find something that I don't know is there. If it ever was there.
I think I'm looking at her in the same way.
"Gifting books is always a delicate choice," Haruno idly comments, either coming to my rescue or angling for an attack I can't predict.
"Oh?" Mom answers, maybe not looking for a fight but definitely looking like it.
"It causes an obligation, doesn't it? The expectation that the other person will devote hours of their time to something you've chosen for them," my girlfriend says, her tone as demure and distantly polite as the tightly-wrapped kimono that softens her curves would call to mind were she to feature in the painting I can't help but see her as in this very moment.
Only to then arch an eyebrow at me, wink provocatively with her left eye, the one hidden from everyone else sitting around the counter except for me, and slowly bite into one of the horns of the croissant.
Because Haruno.
"I'm afraid I don't often second-guess my choice in presents to that level," Mom says, thankfully interrupting Brain-chan's brewing tirade about the dangers that a change in their usual attire usually brings down upon me when it comes to any of my three girlfriends.
… In Iroha's case, that was basically engagement via cosplay. Shizu's exercise apparel heralded both my first time giving oral sex and my first time having phone sex with a voyeuristic Haruno.
I both dread and anticipate what a formal kimono will mean.
'You do realize that you've seen both Yukino and Yui in kimonos before, don't you?'
Shut up. I've got three girls sitting on the other side of this counter; me, Komachi, and Mom on this side, and Dad at the head of it. There's no more room for other cosplayers in here.
'You could get rid of Mom and Dad. That would free up two stools.'
… I'm afraid to note that you didn't mention Komachi.
'Oh? And why do you think that is?'
Because she's the only one here not stressing me out of my mind?
'Sure. Let's go with that.'
"I could answer a lot of things to that remark," Haruno says, yet again either coming to my rescue (yet from another, more insidious foe), or…
"I am sure that you could. You have made it abundantly clear how little you care to keep your tongue in check," Mom says, definitely leaning on that 'or.'
"I was under the impression that you came here to get to know your son's romantic entanglements. Presenting a false façade would run counter to that purpose, wouldn't it?"
"We came here to make sure he's—" Mom starts.
And abruptly stops.
And Shizu sighs.
"Can we stop for just a second? Have breakfast, enjoy Haruno's extravagant taste in expensive bakeries?" she says, pinching the bridge of her nose in a way that comes across as… as frustrated as she ever got with a malcontent teenager prone to creative interpretations of assignments, yet with a more severe note underlying it all. Her shoulders straight rather than slumped.
… I have it bad, don't I?
'I am sure this is a shocking revelation.'
Yeah. It definitely shook things up.
"The croissant is good," Komachi mumbles past the crumbling flakes of the remaining horn.
"Komachi…" Mom mumbles before taking her napkin and dabbing it around the corners of my little sister's mouth.
"So you can be doting," Haruno says, abruptly interrupting the scene and making Komachi's expression go from mildly flustered frustration to rigid blankness.
"I am a mother," Mom states, her tone cold enough to turn her into an honorary Yukinoshita.
"You don't have the slightest idea of how little that means," Haruno snipes, faster than before, voice like a cracking whip.
Mom doesn't reply, not immediately. She, instead, goes back to wiping Komachi's mouth with the paper napkin, calm and methodical, and only when she's finished does she turn back toward Haruno.
"I do know how little it can mean," she says.
Shizu is grabbing Haruno's hand over the counter. And I think that's the only reason it doesn't tremble.
So I reach across for her other hand.
Her skin is… soft. Soft as it's ever been, more delicate than all those well-practiced joint locks and the toned muscle of slender arms would seem to imply.
It's also cold.
I slide my thumb past the meeting of hers with her hand, the pad of mine reaching her palm to massage brief circles on the center of it, over tendons and past the grooves between them, until she looks up at me and her cutting gaze softens as her fist loosens between my fingers.
"Don't hurt yourself because of me," I tell her.
"You, of all people, have no right to tell me that," she says, the smile on her lips as mocking as it is fond and fragile.
"I love you. What other right do I need?" I say, throwing her earlier words back in her face like the healthily spiteful boyfriend that I aspire to be for her.
And maybe I catch her by surprise. Maybe it's just the right amount of corny to break past whatever it is that she was clinging to. Maybe she's trying to put up a front.
But, hearing the burst of surprised, melodious giggling, I can't believe that it's the last one.
"Gross," Komachi mumbles under her breath.
"You get used to it," Iroha says in the kind of stage whisper that, after meeting her mother, I'm pretty sure she learned from an actual professional.
"Really?" a skeptical little sister asks.
"No. You never really do," my foxiest girlfriend replies with a wistful, warm, heart-melting tone.
And, for a brief, blissful moment, I'm allowed to ignore Mom's intent stare and Dad's silence.
***
Not for the first time since I came home from walking with Iroha after our dinner with my family to find Mom waiting for me with a beer in hand, I find myself sympathizing with the woman who, to charitably simplify things, raised me.
Mostly, because of the way she's staring at Sofa-chan.
Don't worry, Sofa-chan. If past trends hold, this confrontational first meeting is only the prelude to a torrid affair that will have you ending up in some kind of polygon involving my parents—gross, gross, gross—
'Why?! Why would you do that to us?!'
I don't know! Why isn't your boyfriend back already?!
'Self-Preservation-kun and I are not like that!'
Not with that attitude!
"Stop staring at my sofa like that; you just dried the damn cushion…" Shizu sulkily says from where she's seated, on the corner closest to her balcony.
"And you were courteous enough to leave the clean spot for our guests," Haruno cheerfully adds.
"All the spots are clean," Shizu lied as naturally as she breathed—which, given the amount of tobacco ash presumably embedded into this particular piece of furniture, is quite an achievement. I guess all that cardio works for her.
"So I suppose that a good vacuum cleaner would be the best present for—" Mom starts before abruptly cutting herself off.
I blink. Find my eyebrow already arched.
And decide to sit down by Iroha's side without saying a single damn word that may acknowledge that my mother basically just spoiled her wedding present.
…
Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!
"You're looking… kinda green," Komachi says as she drops by my right, as attentive and flattering as ever.
"It must be because I'm not sitting on the clean cushion," I say, reflexively throwing Sofa-chan under the bus like the good friends we are after our brief yet intense acquaintance.
"Don't make me go over there, brat," Shizu says, looking like she wants to crack her knuckles for emphasis but is restraining herself, thus just having her straight fingers twitch in an intriguingly endearing way.
"Don't you get exhausted from keeping up the act?" Mom says before sinking down in the recently dried cushion and then scooting over toward the inner angle of the L to make more room for Dad by her side.
"We would if it was an act," Iroha says, leaning forward to stare past me with an intensity that uncomfortably reminds me of her walking into her kitchen to find me shirtless and pinching her mother's chin.
…
'If you're going to ask me how are you still unstabbed, that's not something I'm ready to answer. Particularly seeing as Self-Preservation-kun is still sadly missing.'
Right. He's not your boyfriend; you just keep bringing him up for no reason whatsoever.
'I despise you.'
Praise me more.
"I wish the breakfast truce had lasted longer," Komachi mumbles.
"A traditional Japanese breakfast would have lasted longer," Mom says with what may be a quipping tone, a barb at Haruno, both, or neither.
"I am deeply sorry for my lacking training in the domestic arts, honored Mother," someone who doesn't sound sorry at all says.
"You cooked me a bouillabaisse," I say. Without thinking about it.
And now Mom and Dad look at me.
"Bouillabaisse?" Dad asks.
"It's a French soup—"
"Don't be patronizing," he says, sharper than he usually is.
"Oh, excuse me for not immediately assuming that you're intimately aware of the intricacies of foreign cuisine."
"It's not an obscure dish by any means. And how often do you think I've had to entertain foreign clients?"
"I haven't got the slightest clue."
He looks like he's going to reply to that, but then his mouth closes, and he looks at Mom, Mom looks back at him, and…
And…
Something clenches in my chest.
Because I have… lived this. This kind of silent exchange. The wordless communication, drawing strength from somebody who knows you well enough that…
That something of mine, a belief Shizu unearthed and helped me realize, comes through: that words are not enough.
That words are imperfect. That they surround and dance around meaning without ever touching it. That to convey something, that to… to reach another person, words can't ever be enough. That there needs to be something else underneath it all, something that breathes life into those words or brushes them aside.
Iroha's hand finds mine over my lap. A brief squeeze.
'I am here. For you. With you. Like I'll always be,' she doesn't say.
Komachi's jaw clenches, her eyes briefly closing before she looks back at me and tries to soften her lips into a smile that isn't as worried and anxious as she keeps trying not to feel.
'I know. I have always known. But I still wish it would be different. I still hope it will be,' she doesn't tell me.
And I can feel the silences coming from Shizu and Haruno on the other side of Iroha. I can feel the shape of their presence and the meaning behind it as they remain here for me, going through something that can't be anything but a slow torture for Haruno and a baffling tragedy for Shizu.
And they still do it. For me.
'We love you,' they don't need to add.
But I don't know. I don't know what Mom and Dad share in their look at one another and what conversation they hold until Mom's eyes soften with a bitter smile and Dad's shoulders drop.
"The bouillabaisse is… quite an expensive dish," Dad finally says, resuming something I don't understand.
"Money was never the issue," Haruno softly comments.
"No, money is the issue," Dad presses on, his eyes darting to Haruno before going back to mine. "Because it's not just that the ingredients are expensive, but that they are hard to get over here, and that it takes a long time to prepare it, and… Damn it, I—I don't…"
Mom takes his hand and squeezes it, and Dad takes a deep breath before looking back at me.
"I am scared," he says. "You are… I don't know how to help you with this. I don't know enough to help you with this—"
"I don't need—"
"I know. That only makes it worse."
"Then… what are you…"
"I am… I am trying to say that…" His eyes close, and Mom waits, just staring at him in a way I've never seen before. "I am… not happy. I wish I could be happy. For you. I'm too scared to be, but… but I can see reasons to be. I just… I hope…"
I grind my teeth and ignore the shuddering breath making my chest tremble.
"You hope you can be happy for me? What am I supposed to say to that, Dad? What do you even expect me to… how can I answer this without—"
"Don't," Komachi says.
I look at her, straight into eyes that are clearer than they should be, without a hint of either a supportive smile or anguished wavering.
And I keep looking.
Until the corner of her mouth twitches, and she flicks my nose.
I muffle my cry of betrayed sibling dignity, and she, in turn, leans toward me, our shoulders bumping before she briefly rests her head on my chest, offering me warmth and support instead of recrimination or enigmatic looks that don't convey anything other than the absence of what should have been there since years ago.
"I will be happy for him. In your stead," Komachi says, looking at the two people occupying the short end of this L-shaped, suspiciously gray sofa.
"Komachi?" Mom asks with an uncertain tone.
"You can't trust them, can you?" my little sister, my not-as-dumb as she pretends to be, as she claims to be, little sister, says.
A brief pause, another silent exchange between two people I should understand without words looking at one another on their end of the sofa.
"I…" Mom hesitates, looking at me almost apologetically before looking back at Komachi. "I think they aren't lying that they… care. For one another."
My heart hammers in my chest.
"But you're still afraid," Komachi says.
Mom nods.
And Dad… Dad lets go of her hand, causing a sudden, brief moment of terror to pass through my mother's face before he immediately hugs her shoulders and drags her toward his chest, the terror melting into a relief so intense that it hurts to witness after this brief insight into something I never expected to see.
"We are afraid," Dad confirms. "It's… there are too many things that can go wrong, things that have gone wrong."
"I know," Komachi says.
Dad looks like he's about to reply to that, but then he looks back at the short-haired woman who hasn't moved away from his embrace. Who doesn't say anything. Who barely even breathes.
And he looks at me.
"Your mother and I… we talked a lot, last night," he tells me.
I don't answer.
He has the decency not to sigh.
"I have heard about everything you told her. And… I know you have… fought. For them. I know you have…" he drifts off, looking once again at Mom.
Then at Shizu. Haruno. Iroha.
Even Komachi.
And then straight at me.
"I have no right," he says. "No right at all. But I'm still proud of you, son."
***
The rushing water is cold on my hands, cold enough to hurt.
I splash it on my face.
My eyes still sting.
I refuse it. I refuse myself the…
Again. I splash my face again, angrily rubbing away any traces of what was never there. What I refuse to be there.
I pump Shizu's soap dispenser twice and just… wash my face, harder than I should, my skin hurting from cold and roughness until more cold water takes it all away.
I push the faucet's lever down, and silence only broken by slowly dripping water surrounds me.
My hands are pressing down on the cool marble surrounding the sink, my back's arched down, and I could just let my head hang, but I still force myself to look up.
To stare at the Hachiman in the mirror.
Skin rubbed red. Eyes bloodshot. Hair dripping wet, sticking to my forehead.
Angry.
So angry.
I remember cornering Sagami on the school's rooftop, playing the villain, scorning her, hurting her as much as I could with every vitriolic word I could come up with until Hayama had to step in to play the white knight rescuing the damsel from the hurtful monster.
I remember being alone, at the end of the Culture Festival that I should've spent surrounded by my friends, enjoying the lie that is youth.
Instead of sitting on a gravel floor.
Crying.
And laughing.
I feel the bitter thing from back then bubble up on the back of my throat.
The Hachiman in the mirror smirks something ugly and twisted.
And I answer with a scowl.
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