Source
https://kakuyomu.jp/works/16818093076684326416/episodes/16818093076716926373
It was around nine o’clock in the evening, and Chisato san and I were walking shoulder to shoulder along the street, illuminated by the street lamps.
The two of us had a great time playing games, and we continued to play until the sun had set, and Chisato san ended up eating dinner with us, just like the other day.
“Sorry, you treated me dinner again…..”
Chisato said with an apologetic expression as she looked sideways at Takeru.
“Haha, you said it would be over after you won once, but you didn’t win very often, did you?”
Chisato’s expression turned sour at Takeru’s words.
[I guess it can’t be helped since I haven’t played games until now. I’ll be able to fight better next time.] Chisato said angrily, then glared at Takeru. [I mean, Takeru, you’re too strong…even Mayu chan wasn’t at your level.]
“Ahaha, Mayu just likes the game, but she’s not that good at it. Chisato san was also good the second time around, and I think you will beat Mayu eventually.”
Mayu is basically a force pusher in any game. Chisato, on the other hand, seemed to be thinking about the reasons for her loss and trying to take countermeasures, little by little. She’s the type that gets better with practice.
Takeru laughed lightly and then smiled at Chisato.
“Well, don’t worry about it. Mayu and my dad both like to be lively, so they’re rather happy about it. I had a good time too.”
Chisato then shook her body in surprise, and while twirling her hair around her index finger and fiddling with it, she said, averting her face, [If that’s the case, then it’s fine….].
She said this with a shy, mousy look on her face, and it was absurdly cute.
As I gazed at her smilingly, Chisato san must have noticed this, because she suddenly started to walk faster and I could only see her rear view.
When they arrived at Chisato’s apartment, Takeru marveled at the tower apartment, which still had a strong presence. He once again realizes that the world he lives in is different from Chisato.
“Why did Chisato san come to eat at our place?”
Takeru’s question came out of his mouth unintentionally, and Chisato raised her eyebrows as if he did not understand what he was asking. Takeru hurriedly added to his question.
“Oh, no, I’m sorry, it’s nothing. It’s just that our restaurant is not the kind of place where rich people like Chisato san would come to eat.”
Chisato answers Takeru’s question by saying, [What’s that about?] Chisato replied, [My family hasn’t always had a lot of money either. When I was in elementary school, we lived in a small, old apartment, and I even worried about what we would eat tomorrow.]
“Eh !?”
Takeru couldn’t help but be surprised out loud.
He couldn’t believe that Chisato, who was dressed in brand-name clothes and seemed to be lavish in every way, had been poor in the past.
Seeing Takeru’s astonished face, Chisato smiled and continued her story.
“But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad memory. My parents were home more often, and we were much…happier…? Well, it’s hard to put into words…but we were a very warm family.”
Chisato said this as if reminiscing about the old days. It was too dark to see her expression, but I could tell from her tone of voice that she must have had a gentle expression on her face.
“What I meant is, the ginger set meals at Shiota Diner saved my life. I used to save up my allowance and go there often to eat.”
“Ah, I remember it was the cheapest meal in our restaurant. I think it was about three hundred yen?”
“Two hundred and eighty yen, including tax.”
The prices back then, and if you listen to them now, the price inflation is huge. I’m sure it was a time when you could eat a bowl of beef bowl for around 230 yen. Grandma must have had a hard time competing on price.
“It’s an amazing time when you think about it. Nowadays, it costs nearly 5,000 yen just to buy a lunch box.”
“No, it hasn’t gone up that much ! What kind of high-class restaurant’s lunch box is that?”
I can’t sympathize with her at all because we live in such different worlds.
“Well, I fell in love with Shiota Diner’s cheap and delicious ginger set meals, so when my parents asked me what I wanted to eat on my birthday, I said Shiota Diner ! And they both took me there.”
“……Heh.”
“Fufu, at that time, the owner…Takeru’s grandmother treated me like a regular customer, and I remember bragging to my parents that I was a regular customer there. So I recommended the ginger set meal, but in the end, my mother had the mapo tofu and my father had the fried chicken set meal…neither of them listened to my recommendations. Isn’t it terrible? So I asked Takeru’s grandma to bring me a small bowl of ginger-set meal as well…”
It must have been a very pleasant memory. Chisato happily talked about her memories with her parents.
As Takeru listened to the story while giving appropriate comments, he felt a warm feeling in the depths of his chest.
Since he was a child, Takeru has watched his grandmother work hard at Shiota Diner. Even though he was an elementary school student at the time, he watched his grandmother sweating as she shook the pot, and looked at the sales figures with his head in his hands, wondering why she worked so hard.
There were customers who, like Chisato, had created irreplaceable memories at the restaurant that his grandmother had worked so hard to build.
Perhaps this is what his grandmother was working so hard for.
As I was thinking about this and listening to Chisato san’s story, suddenly I heard a voice from behind me
“Chisato !?”
It was the voice of a strangely aged woman.
When I turned around, I saw a woman wearing glasses and a business suit standing there. Her face was beautiful, much like Chisato’s, but her eyes were even sharper than Chisato’s, giving her the appearance of a career woman.
“M….Mom…”
I had expected it from her face, but she seemed to be Chisato san’s mother after all.
The joyful look Chisato had earlier disappeared, and she turned her head down and shrunk back, her shoulders narrowed.
“It’s quite late. Do you usually get home at this time?”
“…..I’m already a college student. Sometimes I’m late because I’m hanging out with my friends.”
“Friends?”
Chisato’s mother’s eyes turned to Takeru for the first time.
At that moment, a chill ran down my spine. The piercing look was clearly not a friendly one, and she looked at Takeru from head to toe as if she was trying to judge him.
Normally he should have said his name, but Takeru was so overwhelmed by the force that his mind went blank.
Chisato, perhaps noticing Takeru’s state of mind, intervenes between him and his mother and introduces him instead.
“Yes, we are at the same university, and his name is Takeru. I mean, you’re early today. You usually comes over on a different day.”
To Chisato’s slightly sarcastic remark, Chisato’s mother sighs and retorts in shock.
“Chisato, I’m working for you, you know.”
“……”
“But you’re so carefree, playing with the opposite sex this late at night.”
Chisato turned her head down, her mouth tight, and didn’t answer anything.
Chisato’s mother was a strict person and probably did not like the fact that she was staying late with a man. Thinking this, Takeru gathered his courage and interrupted her.
“I’m sorry, it’s my fault that she stayed up this late. She was helping me with an assignment, but it was already this late…..”
Just let it come out of your mouth. I thought that if she had been late because of school work, it would’ve been easier, but Chisato san’s mother’s sharp gaze remained undiminished and remained focused on me.
“What do your parents do?”
It’s those eyes again. A look that makes you feel like you’re being judged. Takeru answered while sweating unpleasantly on his back.
“J-just a regular office worker….”
Chisato’s mother’s eyebrows twitched at Takeru’s words. Then she nods her head as if she is convinced, and squints her eyes as if she is underestimating Takeru’s appearance.
Then Chisato opens her mouth in a disgusted tone.
“Mom ! I told you not to do that !”
“Chisato, you know, you have to choose the friends you hang out with……”
Chisato interrupts her mother’s words by taking her by the arm and pulling her gently in the direction of the apartment building.
“I’m sorry, Takeru. I’ll see you on campus.”
[Wait…..Chisato !] forcibly pulled her mother, who was resisting, inside the apartment.
Takeru bowed his head and watched them go.
The next day at lunch, I met Chisato san and she bowed to me immediately.
“I’m sorry ! My mother was rude yesterday…!”
Takeru replied with a wave of his hand.
“No, it’s okay, it’s okay, I really don’t mind] and then continued speaking while handing Chisato her lunch box. [I’m sorry…… I wasn’t seen in a very good light by Chisato san’s mother, was I?]
If I had been like Yasaka senpai, I would never have received such a look from Chisato san’s mother. It’s crazy to think that way.
Chisato shakes her head at Takeru’s words and apologizes again.
“No, it was all my fault. I’m really sorry…..my mother has a way of judging people based on their looks….or even their physical appearance…..”
I guess I wasn’t imagining the judgy look she was giving me. Takeru must have looked bad in his cheap clothes.
Takeru replied, recalling the image of Chisato’s mother.
“No, really, don’t worry about it. It’s just that I was surprised that she was so different from the image that Chisato san had mentioned.”
Before being approached by Chisato’s mother, the birthday party Chisato had happily told him about had given him the impression that the image of her parents was of a more mild-mannered family.
Chisato wrinkled her brow at Takeru’s words and turned her head down.
“My mother wasn’t like that in the past. Around the time I was in junior high school, my father and mother started their own business, and as they started to have more money, they had less and less time to talk with each other. The meal at Shiota Diner that I talked about yesterday……ended up being the last meal we had together as a family. Now I don’t even know what my mother is thinking……”
Chisato murmured sadly.
Chisato vividly remembered her birthday party at Shiota Diner, down to what her parents had ordered. Usually, memories become fuzzy every time the same thing happens over and over again. In fact, Takeru could not remember what his father and sister had ordered at a family dinner out when he was in elementary school.
But for Chisato, since it was the last memory he had of her parents, she kept that one memory very dearly in the back of her mind, so that it remained strong in her memory without being overwritten.
“….I see, that’s why you wanted to eat our ginger set meal again.”
Chisato was surely hoping to have another taste of ginger set meal, a taste that remained with her happy memories.
Takeru closed his eyes and remembered what his grandmother used to say.
The most luxurious thing in the world is when a family eats out of the same pot. It’s the same now as it was then.
When I was a child, I thought it was just a troublesome rule that everyone had to be present to eat.
But recently, when I heard about Akari not coming to breakfast and Chisati san’s story, I realized how important those words are.
Family meals are a place of communication.
You don’t have to be as careful as when you talk to your seniors or superiors, you don’t have to worry about the end of the conversation as when you talk to your friends, and you don’t have to worry that someone will talk about it. You can feel relieved by talking to your family members, who are your absolute allies, about your complaints and other unpleasant things, and you can get to know each other’s situation by sharing the day’s trivial stories.
Sometimes they will bounce ideas off each other as in a fight, but that is also necessary in order to know each other’s thoughts. If family meal time were to disappear, there would be no communication, and even though they are the closest, they would not know what each other is thinking.
What Chisato needs now is that kind of family time.
“Okay ! !”
Takeru had a flash of inspiration in his mind and stood up, shouting loudly.
Then he asked a question to Chisato, who was looking at him with rounded eyes as he suddenly shouted out loud.
“Hey, when is Chisato san’s birthday?”
“Eh? It’s December 3rd…”
“Eh !? That close !?”
Takeru checks the calendar on his phone. Today is November 30, which means Chisato’s birthday is this Sunday.
Takeru was suddenly thrown off the scent, and he was in a quandary. A few days is not enough time for Takeru to prepare his plan.
Worst case, it doesn’t have to be her birthday……as I was thinking, Chisato continued speaking as if she didn’t care.
“Now that I think about it, my birthday is always the same every weekday, so I had completely forgotten about it.”
Takeru had almost given up on the idea of carrying out a birthday plan, but Chisato’s words made him determined to do so.
Takeru smiled at Chisato.
“Chisato san, I’m sorry to rush you, but I was wondering if you and your parents could come to our house for your birthday. We will open Shiota Diner for one day only !”
His desire to help Chisato outweighed his anxiety about the short preparation time to open the restaurant.
He wanted to help Chisato once again make unforgettable memories at Shiota Diner. Takeru made up his mind to do so.
–
–
If you enjoy our content, feel free to donate, Thank you in advance !