Source
https://kakuyomu.jp/works/2912051600327232539
When drinking canned corn chowder, how do you rescue the last three kernels of corn?
That is an unsolved problem for humanity.
Should you shake it, tap it, or just give up and leave it to the laws of nature?
It was 2 a.m. in the park. Sitting on the only bench illuminated by a streetlight, next to a vending machine, I tapped the bottom of the can and mulled over this intractable problem.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, a woman around my age whom I didn’t recognize walked by.
Wearing a loose T-shirt and a short skirt, she plopped down at the edge of the bench—carefully maintaining her personal space from me—and hugged her knees.
Her eyes were red and swollen, and the tip of her nose was red too. And she was shaking her shoulders in a steady rhythm, sobbing softly.
What caught my eye was her beautiful hair, which seemed out of place with her tear-stained face. It was silky, straight hair.
I prioritized rescuing my corn over that tear-stained face. Those three kernels destined for my stomach were more important than some complete stranger’s troubles.
“…Why did I go and say ‘pi’?”
A few minutes later, the woman suddenly let out a voice that sounded like a complaint.
The word came so abruptly that I stopped tapping the bottom of the can.
Pi. She said she’d said it. As I wondered if there was even a situation where someone would say that, I suddenly became curious about who this person sitting next to me really was.
“Pi?”
“Hyaa!?”
The woman’s shoulders jerked, and she glared at me with teary eyes.
“W-why are you answering me? I was just talking to myself.”
“If you leave someone worrying about pi in a park late at night, there’s a risk they’ll eventually arrive at a mathematical truth and start building a pyramid. I was just intervening at an early stage.”
“I wouldn’t do that!? I wouldn’t build a pyramid!”
“Good. So? Did Archimedes pop into your head or something?”
“No… I had an audition today.”
Though she remained wary, perhaps because she wanted someone to listen, she began to speak in fits and starts.
“I passed the first round. But in the second round, they asked me to show off a special talent, and I don’t know what came over me—I recited pi to 100 decimal places…”
“That’s pretty impressive in itself…”
“The judges’ faces completely froze. I could literally hear the temperature drop.”
“That defies the laws of physics. You don’t hear a sound when the temperature drops.”
“I did! I definitely did!”
The woman leaned forward to protest.
“Anyway, it’s tough when they ask you to give a one-minute self-introduction, isn’t it?”
“One minute… That’s not even enough time to make a cup noodle.”
“Exactly! That’s right! In less time than it takes to make a cup noodle, what am I supposed to convey about my nineteen years of life? It’s impossible, isn’t it? So, I panicked and just recited a tongue twister I’m good at.”
“First pi, now a tongue twister. You’re really all over the place. What did you say?”
“‘The customer next to me is a customer who eats a lot of persimmons’—three times.”
“That’s pretty standard. So, what was the judge’s reaction?”
“‘…Your diction is good,’ they said. That’s it! How was I supposed to keep the conversation going from there!?”
“Why didn’t you just lie and say, ‘Oh, actually, my family runs a persimmon farm’? If you’d shown an abnormal obsession with persimmons, at least you’d have made an impression.”
“You can’t lie! Sincerity is everything for an idol!”
I see. So she’s aspiring to be an idol, I concluded to myself. An idol audition. That must be a very narrow gate indeed.
“Sincere people don’t vent their frustrations to a stranger at 2 a.m., though.”
“…Ugh.”
The woman was at a loss for words and buried her face in her knees again.
I gave up on the third kernel of corn, stood up, and tossed the empty can into the trash.
Instead, I took out a few coins and slipped them into the slot of the vending machine.
I pressed the button for the cocoa from some unknown brand in the “Warm~” section. There was a dull clunk, and a small can dropped down.
I returned to the bench and pressed the hot can against the woman’s cheek.
“Hyaa!? W-what!?”
“Sugar. You need to get some sweets in you before your brain glitches out and starts drawing blueprints for the Pyramids.”
“…It’s warm.”
“Of course it is. The vending machine uses electricity to heat it up.”
“That’s not what I meant…”
The woman cupped the can in both hands and popped the tab with a hiss. She took a sip and exhaled a puff of white breath.
“…This is way too sweet. It’s like drinking a lump of sugar.”
“It’s the most efficient legal substance you can buy from a vending machine for raising your blood sugar. Perfect for an audition loser.”
“Don’t call me a loser… It’s just that it wasn’t meant to be this time.”
“That’s what the world calls a loss.”
“…You’re so mean.”
The woman pouted, but she wasn’t crying anymore.
“Why does this cruel system called ‘auditions’ even exist in the world?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a remnant from the hunter-gatherer era? The fast ones hunt mammoths. The good-looking, charming ones get on TV.”
“…I can’t hunt mammoths, and I can’t get on TV.”
“But you do have the talent to drink super-sweet cocoa in the middle of the night.”
“Heh… What’s that supposed to mean? That doesn’t make me happy at all.”
A park at 2 a.m. A broken streetlight. A 100-yen cup of cocoa that’s way too sweet.
The words exchanged here have no meaning and no purpose. I’m just trading meaningless opinions with a stranger whose name I don’t even know.
But to rest my brain, which was frozen from just finishing my shift, this kind of casual chatter was just what I needed.
“Hey.”
“What is it?”
“Are you always here at this time?”
“I just finished the night shift at the convenience store and have nothing better to do. On days I’m scheduled, I’m usually here wrestling with a can of corn chowder.”
“Hmm.”
The woman shook the empty can, making it rattle.
“My name is Hoshino Shizuku.”
“Stage name? That’s a pretty name.”
“No, it’s my real name.”
Perhaps feeling shy, Shizuku blushed slightly as she said this.
“Hmm… I’m Amada Minato.”
“I see. Hey… Minato, weren’t there still some chunks left in your corn chowder?”
“Can you pretend you didn’t see that? Those guys have already chosen to live on as part of the can. They’ve become one with it, so they won’t come out.”
“…You’re weird.”
Shizuku chuckled softly and settled back into the bench.
Only the light from the vending machine cast a pale glow over their prime seats.
–
–
If you enjoy our content, feel free to donate, Thank you in advance !