That evening.
Rei came home to the living room. It was unusually close to quitting time.
"I'm home... Huh. It feels kind of strange when nobody's here."
Tossing her bag onto the sofa, Rei looked around the room. Ordinarily, at this hour, Mahiru would be making a fuss announcing she was home, and Yume would have claimed the sofa, phone in hand. None of that tonight.
"It's Obon, after all. Lose just two of the lively ones, and..."
"Right? ...It's so quiet I can't settle down."
Rei gave a wry smile.
Standing in the kitchen, I was making Buddhist vegetarian cooking today. I wasn't devout enough to say it was because of Obon, but I didn't mind putting something of the season on the table.
Sesame tofu. Deep-fried freeze-dried tofu in broth. Eggplant and shishito peppers simmered and left to soak. Mushrooms simmered gently in seasoned broth. No meat, no fish. Even so, if you soak dried shiitake and kombu in water overnight, the dashi comes out surprisingly deep and clear.
I brought my nose close to the brown liquid I'd set up the night before. A nourishing smell of mushrooms and the sea drifted up.
No animal products, and still, this alone was enough to feel full.
The pot simmered softly. The eggplant soaked up the broth, its color deepening to a glossy sheen.
I boiled somen noodles, too. Let them swim, slick and smooth, in bowls with floating ice. Myoga, ginger, shiso leaves. I chopped plenty of garnish to go with them.
A table gentle on the stomach, for the end of summer.
"Smells good."
Rei came to peek into the kitchen.
"Buddhist vegetarian food? It's plain, but this kind of thing really hits the spot."
"You must be tired. I kept it light tonight."
Just then, as if by a miracle, Ms. Makabe came down from her room. Hair a mess, dark circles under her eyes. Still, her steps weren't quite those of someone on the verge of starving to death.
"...Smelled food."
"Perfect timing. Have a seat."
The three of us sat around the table. The big dinner table, usually lively with four or five, felt awfully wide with just three today.
"Let's eat."
We each slurped our somen. It slid smoothly down the throat. The scent of the garnish rose from the cold noodles.
For a while, nobody spoke. Only the sound of slurping noodles and melting ice filled the living room.
It wasn't an unpleasant silence.
"...Mr. Manager," Ms. Makabe said suddenly.
"You don't go home anywhere for Obon, do you."
I stopped my chopsticks.
"No. I don't have a home to go back to anymore."
"What about your family?"
"There isn't any. I've been on my own for a long time."
Rei glanced my way. I put a piece of simmered eggplant in my mouth as if it were nothing.
"Back then, you know, I never took Obon off. If anything, the times when the rest of the world was on holiday were when the work got busiest. It was the kind of work that's waiting at the other end, when everyone's going home or going on a trip."
Having said that much, I suddenly closed my mouth.
I'd said too much, I thought.
"...That work."
Ms. Makabe pounced on it at once. Given her line of work, she was someone who never missed a gap in what people said.
"What was it? Your old job, Mr. Manager."
"Nothing much."
I slurped my somen.
"It was just a job looking after people. Not that different from now."
"But you said Obon was busy. So like travel, or inns, or something like that."
"Hm, I wonder. It was a long time ago."
I wasn't trying to dodge the question. I just couldn't bring myself to want to talk about those days.
Notification sounds still scared me. Even now, just a short ping from someone's phone somewhere made my shoulders give a small jump. Those days, when impossible demands rained down by the second. Something deep in my chest went tight and cold.
That was why I didn't carry a phone. I'd made do with only a landline. That was why I was here.
I didn't know how I was supposed to explain that.
"...Well, whatever."
Ms. Makabe abruptly looked away. But I could tell that some indefinable snag remained on her face in profile.
After the two of them had gone back to their rooms.
While I was washing the dishes, Ms. Makabe came down one more time.
"Um. About earlier."
In front of the sink, she was searching for words, finding them hard to say.
"We eat your food every day, right? Like it's a given. But when I think about it, I realized I don't know anything about you."
I stopped what I was doing.
"Your name, that you're good at cooking, that you look after the dog, and that's about it. Other than that, really, nothing. Not where you came from, not why you're here."
She looked straight at me.
"Isn't that unfair? You know everything about us. That I'm half-dead on deadline, that Yume gets lonely—you see right through all of it. And yet you don't say anything about yourself."
There was no malice in the words. She just seemed genuinely puzzled, and a little lonely.
"...I'm sorry."
That was all I could say.
"Nobody would find my story interesting. Besides, I'd much rather listen to all of yours."
"That's exactly what I mean by unfair."
Ms. Makabe pouted, but even so, she didn't press any further.
"...Well, whatever. Someday, when you feel like it, tell me. Once my deadline's over."
With that, she went back upstairs.