In the morning, she left the house at nine.
She left with Ichotei's white chef's coat slung over her shoulder. She did not put her arms through the sleeves yet. She would change at the venue.
"I'm off."
Go on, then.
"...Dad."
Mm.
"At the venue, I'll be on my own."
I know.
"Even so, it's fine."
It's fine. —Go on, then.
She closed the front door.
The blue light in the hallway stayed on the inside of the door.
The photo studio was on the fifth floor of the magazine publisher's building.
Beyond the glass door at the end of the corridor, the white light of the studio lamps spilled out strongly.
She changed into the chef's coat in the waiting room. The embroidered name of Ichotei on the chest had been put in half a year earlier at Nishimura's request, in the same green thread as on his own coat.
The commercial kitchen was white and wide. Two workstations stood symmetrically in the center. Through the glass on the far wall, she could see the semicircular judges' table. The glass was half-mirrored on one side only, and from here she could make out only outlines.
Kiryu was already there, in front of the far range. Not in a chef's coat but a black shirt and black trousers, the white Roti Smart logo on his chest. Beside him stood a silver robot arm suspended from the ceiling. On a thin monitor next to its body, a dozen or more graphs wavered in real time.
"Morning."
Kiryu looked over at her.
"Good morning."
"Sleep?"
"Somewhat."
"I slept well."
Kiryu laughed.
"Our robot finished its final tuning overnight. My job's done. Apparently all I do today is stand here."
"Is that so."
"That's so. —Today, I just stand here."
People from the editorial department, the camera crew, lighting, sound. About ten people surrounded the outside of the commercial kitchen.
The judges had already entered the space beyond the glass. Three of them. The editor-in-chief, an elderly food critic, and one ordinary reader chosen at random.
The rules were confirmed once more.
Time limit: twenty minutes.
Theme: the omelet.
Eggs, seasonings, and herbs are provided by the venue. Eggs from the same producer, the same lot.
Any other ingredients may be brought in by each contestant.
The finished dish is to be divided in equal portions onto three white plates.
The three judges vote anonymously.
"Have you brought any ingredients of your own?"
"I have," Mitsuki answered.
She set the silver cooler bag at her feet on top of the workstation.
She opened the lid.
Inside was a single block of fine Gruyère cheese, the kind they used every day at Ichotei, wrapped in a cloth. She had carried it here from home with ice packs.
The block was about the size of a fist.
Kiryu glanced at it sideways.
"Cheese, huh."
"Yes."
"None for us."
"Yes."
"We mix ground meat and onion into the eggs and finish with ketchup. —Optimize on the chew counts, time on site, and leftover amounts of a hundred thousand people, and that's where it landed."
"Is that so."
"That's so. —A chef tasting with his own tongue? That's subjective, a sample size of one. I decide flavor by the chew counts of a hundred thousand people."
Kiryu said nothing more.
There were still twenty minutes until the start.
The camera crew was making last adjustments to their equipment. Two more lights had been added. One directly above the frying pan of Kiryu's robot. One directly above Mitsuki's frying pan. The strong light erased the shadows around their hands.
Mitsuki arranged her workstation.
A bowl. Salt. Pepper. Fresh cream. Butter. The block of Gruyère. A grater. The frying pan was the venue's new commercial stainless-steel pan. A frying pan unlike the one at home, unlike the one at Ichotei.
Kiryu spoke to her.
"Sakura."
"Yes?"
"The pan's one you've never used."
"Yes."
"Our robot has already measured how this thing's surface heats up. Under identical conditions, the difference in peak temperature against the factory reference is zero point three degrees. Easy to correct for."
"Is that so."
"You can't correct for it, I'd say."
"..."
"No ill will. Just sharing information."
"Thank you."
Kiryu smiled thinly.
The way he smiled was different from the time in the conference room.
The clock hands moved forward.
A young editorial staffer acting as emcee took the microphone.
"Well then, it's time. Old Versus New: The Omelet of the 2030s. Thank you all for being here."
The air in the photo studio stood still.
Kiryu lightly pressed the button beside the robot arm.
"Start."
The robot arm began to move smoothly.
The arm reached out to the front of the refrigerator. Its gripper gently picked up four eggs. It came back to the workstation. It put a fine crack in each shell against the rim of the bowl, and the slender fingers of a second arm opened the shell in two along the crack. Only the contents fell; the empty shells were set aside on a tray. Four eggs, the same motion in a row.
Not one drop of white spilled outside the bowl.
Salt, 1.2 grams. Butter, ten grams. Milk, one tablespoon.
The figures appeared on the screen in real time.
Another arm dropped fifty grams of ground meat and thirty grams of minced onion into a small silver pot. The heat came on and the oil hissed. Just as the moisture cooked off completely, the arm lifted the pot and tipped it over the bowl of beaten egg. The grains of meat and onion scattered evenly through the egg.
Stirring speed, four turns per second. Stirring time, three seconds. Another arm had already put the frying pan on the flame. Surface temperature, one hundred seventy degrees Celsius.
No one in the room could take their eyes off the movements of Kiryu's robot.
Mitsuki turned back to her own workstation.
She stopped watching Kiryu's robot.
She took out the bowl.
From the refrigerator, she took out three eggs.
She cracked them. Three in a row into the bowl. Only with the last one did a little of the white run down her fingertip. She wiped it lightly with a cloth.
Salt. Pepper. Fresh cream. Butter.
She added each by the feel of her own hands. She did not use a scale. The scale was already in her head. The eleven nights at home, the half year at Ichotei, and the weight of Ken's voice had all come together in her hands.
The salt was the same amount Ken had said.
The cream, too, was the same amount Ken had said.
The butter, too, was the same amount Ken had said.
Then she set the block of Gruyère against the grater.
She grated it.
She let the grated cheese fall into the beaten egg.
She stopped at exactly the twenty grams Ken had said.
Today she did not grate as far as the place where her hand had stopped on its own, that night of the staff meal.
Her mother's home-kitchen cheese stopped where the aroma rose only faintly. She had decided that with Ken over the eleven nights.
The fragrance of Gruyère rose modestly above the beaten egg.
Today, too, she did not let the word "right" take shape inside her.
Kiryu's robot had already poured its egg into the frying pan.
The stirring arm moved smoothly from back to front. Four turns per second. Any wavering in the intervals was no longer visible to the naked eye.
One of the camera crew let out a breath.
"Whoa..."
Kiryu, hands clasped behind his back, watched the robot's frying pan.
Mitsuki put her own frying pan on the flame.
For the preheating time, she took the temperature Ken had said as her first guide.
She dropped in a pat of butter.
The speed at which it melted was slightly different from at home or at Ichotei. The venue's commercial pan conducted heat just a little faster than the one at home. The zero-point-three-degree gap Kiryu had mentioned was probably right.
Mitsuki lowered the flame, just a little.
How much to lower it was a judgment that could not come out of Ken's evaluation function. She recalled both the feel of one notch on the knob of the gas range at home and the feel of half a notch on Ichotei's commercial gas, and pressed somewhere in between.
She poured in the beaten egg.
She stirred from back to front. Four turns per second.
Nearly the same speed as the eleven nights at home.
She lowered the flame.
She tilted the frying pan.
The egg slowly gathered toward the far side.
One step before it gathered completely.
From here on was her own move.
Mitsuki left the far rim of the pan to the flame just a little longer.
Half a second, the same as the eleventh night in the kitchen at home.
The egg along the far rim touched the metal of the pan half a second longer than usual.
A brown line formed.
A line half a shade deeper, the same as on the eleventh night at home.
One of the camera crew held his breath.
The camera had already moved in on the far rim of Mitsuki's frying pan.
"...She scorched it, just now," the cameraman said under his breath.
Kiryu looked over at her.
A short look.
Then he returned his gaze to his robot's frying pan.
He returned it, but the way he returned it was slightly different from the first ten seconds.
She slid it onto the plate.
It was one of the venue's white commercial flat plates.
The omelet slipped smoothly onto the plate.
On the plate, the half-shade-deeper scorch on the far side showed clearly. White bits of Gruyère peeked faintly from a few places in the cross-section of the egg.
The time to completion was twelve minutes forty-three seconds.
A little over half the twenty-minute limit.
Plenty of time.
Kiryu's robot dropped its omelet onto its plate at almost the same moment.
On the robot's plate, the grains of meat and onion were lined up evenly inside flawless golden egg. A thin line of ketchup had been drawn across it from the tip of another arm. The gloss ran straight.
It was not a dish for a family breakfast table but one lined up on the counter of a chain restaurant in front of a train station.
She heard one of the camera crew speak quietly to another.
"Isn't that something?"
"Kiryu's?"
"No, both."
"Both?"
"Kiryu's is like the perfect version of a family-restaurant dish. Sakura's is like dinner at home."
"Dinner at home."
"I don't know, that's how it looks."
The editorial staffer acting as emcee took the microphone.
"Well then, would both contestants please divide their dishes onto three plates each and bring them to the judges' table. You have eight minutes."
The robot arm began to move at once.
Egg in perfect thirds was placed on three white plates. On each of the three plates, the gloss of ketchup ran straight at exactly the same length. Any difference among them was impossible to see with the eye.
Mitsuki, too, put a knife into her omelet.
She had brought the knife from home.
The three pieces she cut were not quite equal in size. The half-shade-deeper line of scorch was divided among them at different lengths. The amount of cheese peeking out differed slightly among the three as well.
Even so, her egg was set out on the three plates.
Once it was, she carried the plates.
The judges' table was on the other side of the glass.
Through the glass, the three plates were placed at each seat along the long table.
The three judges sat before the plates.
Each of them was a different age.
At the very end, in the far seat on the left, sat a thin old man with white hair. He looked to be just over eighty. He held his fork in long, thin fingers. —He was the elderly food critic.
Mitsuki's gaze stayed on that seat half a breath longer. The names, ages, and careers of the three judges, which the editorial department had sent in advance, had been read out to her by Ken over and over on the eleven nights in the kitchen at home, and they were already lined up in her head. One of the two whose backgrounds she knew. The man who had once written, in an essay in a past issue, that the home cooking his mother made was where it all began for him.
The air in the room stood still.
The emcee gave the signal over the microphone.
"Well then, everyone, please enjoy."
Three forks moved at once.
On three plates beyond the glass, three mouths received the egg at almost the same moment.
Kiryu, hands clasped behind his back, watched the other side of the glass.
Mitsuki, too, her hands together in front of her apron strings, watched the other side of the glass.
Beyond the glass, in the far seat on the very left, the thin white-haired old man's fork came to a stop.